Mummery Part 35

'And my note?'

'Yes.'

'Will you stay?'

'No.'

Her hand went to her heart as she saw Rodd. How came he here in this oppressive company? She was sorry and hated his being there.

She received her congratulations listlessly and accepted, without the smallest intention of acting upon her acceptance, all her invitations.

Rodd was there. That was all she knew, he was there among those empty, voracious people.

He moved towards her and caught her as she was pa.s.sed from one group to another.

'Forgive me,' he said. 'I had to come and see you. I thought it was for the last time.... I know all your story, even down to to-night.

He is going away.'

'Charles?'

'Yes.'

'I can't stay here. I can't stand it.... You are not going to stay.'

'How do you know?'

'I was with you all through to-night....'

Their eyes met. Again there was nothing but they two. All pretence, all mummery had vanished. Life had become pure and strong, more rich and wonderful even than the play in which, baffled by the chances of life, she had striven to live.

'To-morrow,' she said, 'I am going to the bookshop at half-past twelve.'

He bowed and left her, and meeting Mr Clott or c.u.mberland on the stairs of his house he had the satisfaction of shaking him until his teeth rattled, and of telling him that Mr Charles Mann had gone abroad for an indefinite period.

XVIII

LOVE

The late September sun shone sweetly down upon Charing Cross Road, and its beams stole into the bookshop where the bookseller, in his s.h.i.+rt sleeves, sat wrestling with the accounts which he struggled to keep accurately. He hated them. Of all books the most detestable are account books. What has a man who trades in mind to do with money?

Far better is it to have good books stolen than to keep them lying dusty on the shelf.

The bookseller chuckled to himself. The newspapers were full of praises of his 'young leddy,' though she could never be so wonderful and like a good fairy in the play-acting as she was when she walked into his shop bringing sweetness and light.... She had not been in for some time, and he had been a little worried about her. He was glad to know that it was only work that had kept her away. He had been half afraid that there might be 'something up' between her and that d.a.m.ned, silent Rodd, who had nothing in the world but a few bees in his bonnet.

The bookseller, being a simple soul, wanted her to marry the Lord, to end the tale as all good heroines should, and he had even gone so far as to address imaginary parcels of books to her Ladys.h.i.+p.

Charing Cross Road was at its oddest and friendliest on this day when all London rang with Clara's fame, and the only place in which it found no echo was her own heart.

She had decided in her dressing-room half-way through the performance that she could never go near the Imperium again. That was finished.

She had done what she had set out to do in the first instance. In her subsequent greater purpose she had failed, and she knew now why she had failed, because she was a woman and in love, and being a woman, she must work through a man's imagination before she could become a person fit to dwell on the earth with her fellows.... Without a pang she surrendered her ambitions, bowed to the inevitable, and for the first time for many a long week slept the easy, sweet sleep of youth. Her meeting with Rodd in the supper-room had relieved her of all her crus.h.i.+ng responsibilities. She pa.s.sed them on to him and from her he had won the strength to carry all things.

She was punctual to the minute, but he was late.

'They're falling over themselves about you in the papers, young leddy,'

said the bookseller.

'Are they?'

'Haven't you seen them?'

He had cut out all the notices, and to please him she made a pretence of reading them, but they gave her a kind of nausea. The critics wrote like lackeys fawning upon Sir Henry's success.... In Paris with her grandfather she had once seen the _Mariage de Figaro_ acted. Sir Henry reminded her of the Duc d'Almaviva, and she thought wittily that the type had taken refuge in the theatre, there perhaps to die. Sir Henry surely was the last of this line. Not even with the support of the newspapers would the world, bamboozled and cheated as always, consent any longer to support them.

It was a good transition this from the Imperium to the book-shop.

Books were on the whole dependable. If they deceived you it was your own fault. There was not with them the pressure of the crowd to aid deception.

This wholesome little man living among books, upon them, and for them, was exactly the right person for her to see first upon this day when she was to discard her mimic for her real triumph. This day was like a flower that had grown up out of all her days. In its honey was distilled all the love she had inspired in others, and all the love that others had inspired in her.

This was the real London, here in Charing Cross Road, shabby, careless, unambitious, unmethodical. It was here in the real London that she wished to begin her real life. From the time of her first meeting with him in the book-shop, her deepest imagination had never left Rodd, and she knew all that he had been through. She had most profoundly been aware of his struggle to break free from his captivity, exactly as she had slowly and obstinately found her own way out. All that had been had vanished. Only the good was left. Evil had been burned away and for her now there was no stain upon the earth, no mist to obscure the sun. Her soul was as clear as this September day, and she knew that Rodd was as clear.... Of all that she had left she did not even think, so worthless was it. A career, money, power, influence? With love, the smile of a happy child, a sunbeam dancing into a dark room, a bunch of hedge-row flowers are treasures of more worth than all these, joys that give moments of perfection wherein all is revealed and nothing remains hidden.

Was there ever a more perfect moment than when Clara and Rodd met in the bookshop, each for the other having renounced all that had seemed of worth. Death might have come at that moment and both would have been satisfied, for richer, deeper, and simpler music there could not be.... She was amazed at the new mastery in him. The pained sensitiveness that had cramped him was all gone. He came direct to her, took possession of her without waiting for an impulse from her will. They met now in complete freedom and were frankly lovers.

The little bookseller in dismay looked from one to the other, but held his peace. Clara reminded him that he had once remarked how life consisted in men and women pulling each other through.

'That's so,' he said. 'Most of 'em trample on the rest.'

'Well,' said Clara. 'We've done it. We have pulled each other through.'

'Out of the burning,' said Rodd, with a laugh.

'Indeed! Are you going to join her in the play-acting?'

'Not at all,' said Clara. 'I'm going to join him in the play-writing.

I have been a star for one night only.... If we starve, I shall make you take me on as your a.s.sistant. You could pay me a salary now.'

'I cannot see a man wi' a jowl like that letting his young leddy starve,' chuckled the bookseller.

They bought each other as presents the following books: _The Dramatic Works of J. M. Synge, The Love Letters of Abelard and Helose, The Marriage of Figaro, Tom Jones_, and six volumes of _The Works of Henrik Ibsen_, which were going cheap. These they ordered to be sent to her rooms, and with the bookseller's blessing--so hearty that it was well worth having--on their happiness they set out to reproduce in every detail the day of their first excursion.

They went by Tube to Highgate, and walked to Hampstead across the Heath, but when they came to the inn with the swing-boats and roundabouts they found them deserted, and were annoyed. They wanted the story told over and over again in exact replica, not varying by a simple detail. As that was impossible they had tea at the inn, and he told her the full and true story how he met her in the bookshop in the Charing Cross Road. She listened like a happy child, and she asked,--

'Did he love her?'

'As the earth the sun.'

But as they left the inn, history did repeat itself, for a girl turned and watched Clara enviously and said to her friend,--

'My! I wisht I had legs like that _and_ silk stockings.'