The Christian Part 59

"Why does he look so sorrowful?" she thought, and telling herself that this came to people who were much alone, she rattled on more recklessly than before.

She talked of the life of the music hall, the life at "the back,"

glorifying it by a tone of apology. It was all hurry-scurry, slap, dash, and drive; no time to consider effects; a succession of last acts and first nights; so it was really harder to be a music-hall woman than a regular actress. And the music-hall woman was no worse than other women--considering. Had he seen their ballet? It was fetching. Such pages! Simply darlings! _They_ were the proud young birds of paradise whom toffs like those Guards came to see, and it was fun to see them pluming and preening themselves at the back, each for the eyes of her own particular lord in the stalls. Thus she flung out unfamiliar notes, hardly knowing their purport, but to John they were as slimy creatures out of the social mire she had struggled through. O London! London! Its shadow was over them even there, and go where they would, they could never escape from it.

His former thought began to hang about him again, and he asked her to tell him what had happened to her during his absence.

"Shall I?" she said. "Well, I brought three golden sovereigns out of the hospital to distribute among the people of London, but, bless you, they went nowhere."

"And what then?"

"Then--then Hope was a good breakfast but a bad supper, you know. But shall I tell you all? Yes, yes, I will."

She told him of Mrs. Jupe, and of the deception she had practised upon her people, and he turned his head that he might not see her tears. She told him of the "Three Graces," and of the stage manager--she called him the "stage damager"--and then _she_ turned her head that she might hide her shame. She told him of Josephs, the bogus agent, and his face grew hard and his brown eyes looked black.

"And where did you say his place was?" he asked in a voice that vibrated and broke.

"I didn't say," she answered with a laugh and a tear.

She told him of Aggie, and of the foreign clubs, and of Koenig, and of the dinner party at the Home Secretary's, and then she skipped a step and cried:

"Ding, dong, dended, My tale's ended."

"And was it there you met Mr. Drake again?"

She replied with a nod.

"Never having seen him in the meantime?"

She pursed her lips and shook her head. "That's all over now, and what matter? I likes to be jolly and I allwis is!"

"But is it all over?" he said, and he looked at her again with the deep look that had cut into her heart.

"He's going to say something," she thought, and she began to laugh, but with a faint tremor, and giving the dog her parasol to carry in his mouth, she took off her hat, swung it in her hand by the brim, and set off to run.

There was the light s.h.i.+mmer of a pool at a level below, where the water had drained to a bottom and was inclosed by beeches. The trees seemed to hang over it with outstretched wings, like birds about to alight, and round its banks there were plots of violets which filled the air with their fragrance. It was a G.o.d-blest bit of ground, and when he came up with her she was standing at the edge of the marshy mere panting and on the point of tears, and saying, in a whisper, "Oh, how beautiful!"

"But however am I to get across?" she cried, looking with mock terror on the two inches of water that barely covered the gra.s.s, and at the pretty red shoes that peeped from under her dress.

Then something extraordinary occurred. She hardly knew what was happening until it was over. Without a word, without a smile, he lifted her up in his arms and carried her to the other side. She felt helpless like a child, as if suddenly she belonged to herself no longer. Her head had fallen on his shoulder and her heart was beating against his breast.

Or was it _his_ heart that was beating? When he put her down she was afraid she was going to cry, so she began to laugh and to say they mustn't lose that 7.30 to London or the "rag" would be rolling up without her and the "stage damager" would be using "cuss words."

They had to pa.s.s the old church of Stoke Pogis on the way back to the town, and after looking at its timber belfry and steeple John suggested that they should see the inside. The s.e.xton was found working in the garden at the side of the house, and he went indoors for the keys. "Here they be, sir, and you being a pa'son I'll bide in the orchet. You and your young missus can look at the church without me. 'A b'lieve 'a hev seed it afore," he said with a twinkle.

The church was dark and cool. There was a window representing an angel ascending to heaven against a deep blue sky, and a squire's pew furnished like a box at the theatre, with a carpet and even a stove. The chairs in the front bore family crests, and behind them were inferior chairs, without crests, for the servants. John had opened the little modern organ and begun to play. After a while he began to sing. He sang Nazareth, and his voice filled the empty church and went up into the gloom of the roof, and echoed and returned, and it was almost as if another voice were singing there.

Glory stood by his side and listened; a wonderful peace had come down on her. Then the emotion that vibrated in his deep voice made something surge up to her throat. "Life for evermore! Life for evermore!" All at once she began to weep, to sob, and to laugh in a breath, and he stopped.

"How ridiculous I am to-day! You'll think me a maniac," she said. But he only took her hand as if she had been a child and led her out of the church.

Insensibly the day had pa.s.sed into evening, and the horizontal rays of the sun were dazzling their eyes as they returned to the hotel for tea.

In giving orders for this meal they had left the ill.u.s.trated weekly behind, and it was now clear from the easy smiles that greeted them that the paper had been looked at and Glory identified. The room was ready, with the table laid, the window closed, and a fire of wood in the dog grate, for the chill of the evening was beginning to be felt. And to make him forget what had happened at the church she put on a look of forced gaiety and talked rapidly, frivolously, and at random. The fresh air had given her such a colour that they would 'fairly eat her to-night.' How tired she was, though! But a cup of tea would exhilarate her "like a Johnnie's first whisky and soda in bed."

He looked at her with his grave face; every word was cutting him like a knife. "So you didn't tell the old folks at Glenfaba about the hospital until later?"

"No. Have a cup of the 'girl'? They call champagne 'the boy' at 'the back,' so I call tea 'the girl,' you know."

"And when did you tell them about the music hall?"

"Yesterday. 'm.u.f.fins?'" and as she held out the plate she waggled the wrist of her other hand, and mimicked the cry of the m.u.f.fin man.

"Not until yesterday?"

She began to excuse herself. What was the use of taking people by surprise? And then good people were sometimes so easily shocked!

Education and upbringing, and prejudices and even blood----

"Glory," he said, "if you are ashamed of this life, believe me it is not a right one."

"Ashamed? Why should I be ashamed? Everybody is saying how proud I should be."

She spoke feverishly, and by a sudden impulse she plucked up the paper, but as suddenly let it drop again, for, looking at his grave face, her little fame seemed to shrivel up. "But give a dog a bad name you know----You were there on Monday night. Did you see anything, now--anything in the performance----"

"I saw the audience, Glory; that was enough for me. It is impossible for a girl to live long in an atmosphere like that and be a good woman. Yes, my child, impossible' G.o.d forbid that I should sit in judgment on any man, still less on any woman!--but the women of the music hall, do they remain good women? Poor souls, they are placed in a position so false that it would require extraordinary virtue not to become false along with it! And the whiter the soul that is dragged through that--that mire, the more the defilement. The audiences at such places don't want the white soul, they don't want the good woman, they want the woman who has tasted of the tree of good and evil. You can see it in their faces, and hear it in their laughter, and measure it in their applause. Oh, I'm only a priest, but I've seen these places all the world over, and I know what I'm saying, and I know it's true and you know it's true, Glory----"

Glory leaped up from the table and her eyes seemed to emit fire. "I know it's hard and cruel and pitiless, and, since you were there on Monday and saw how kind the audience was to _me_, it's personal and untrue as well."

But her voice broke and she sat down again and said in another tone: "But, John, it's nearly a year, you know, since we saw each other last, and isn't it a pity? Tell me, where are you living now? Have you made your plans for the future? Oh, who do you think was with me just before you called yesterday? Polly--Polly Love, you remember! She's grown stout and plainer, poor thing, and I was so sorry----Her brother was in your Brotherhood, wasn't he? Is he as strangely fond of her as ever? Is he?

Eh? Don't you understand? Polly's brother, I mean?"

"He's dead, Glory. Yes, dead. He died a month ago. Poor boy, he died broken-hearted! He had come to hear of his sister's trouble at the hospital. I was to blame for that. He never looked up again."

There was silence; both were gazing into the fire, and Glory's mouth was quivering. All at once she said: "John--John Storm, why can't you understand that it's not the same with me as with other women? There seem to be two women in me always. After I left the hospital I went through a good deal. n.o.body will ever know how much I went through. But even at the worst, somehow I seemed to enjoy and rejoice in everything.

Things happened that made me cry, but there was another me that was laughing. And that's how it is with the life I am living now. It is not I myself that go through this--this mire, as you call it, it's only my other self, my lower self, if you like, but I am not touched by it at all. Don't you see that? Don't you, now?"

"There are professions which are a source of temptation, and talents that are a snare, Glory----"

"I see, I see what you mean. There are not many ways a woman can succeed in--that's the cruelty of things. But there are a few, and I've chosen the one I'm fit for. And now, now that I've escaped from all that misery, that meanness, and have brought the eyes of London upon me, and the world is full of smiles for me, and suns.h.i.+ne, and I am happy, you come at last, you that I couldn't find when I wanted you so much--oh, so much!--because you had forgotten me; you come to me out of a darkness like the grave and tell me to give it all up. Yes, yes, yes, that's what you mean--give it all up! Oh, it's cruel!"

She covered her face with her hands and sobbed. He bent over her with a sorrowful face and said, "My child, if I have come out of a darkness as of the grave it is because I had _not_ forgotten you there, but was thinking of you every day and hour."

Her sobbing ceased, but the tears still flowed through her fingers.

"Before that poor lad abandoned hope he came out into the world too-stole out-thinking to find his lost one. I told him to look for you first, and he went to the hospital."

"I saw him."

"You!"

"It was on New Year's Eve. He pa.s.sed me in the street."