Читать книгу The Roll-Call (Unabridged) - Arnold Bennett - Страница 14

They walked down Regent Street almost in silence, enjoying simultaneously the silence and solitude of the curving thoroughfare and the memory of the bright, crowded, triumphant scene which they had left. At Piccadilly Circus George inquired for the new open motor-buses which had just begun to run between the Circus and Putney, passing the Redcliffe Arms. Already, within a year, the time was historically distant when a policeman had refused to allow the automobile of a Member of Parliament to enter Palace Yard, on the ground that there was no precedent for such a desecration. The new motor-buses, however, did not run at night. Human daring had limits, and it was reported that at least one motor-driver, succumbing to the awful nervous strain of guiding these fast expresses through the traffic of the West End, had been taken to the lunatic asylum. George called a hansom, of which there were dozens idling about. Marguerite seemed tacitly to object to this act as the germ of extravagance; but it was the only classic thing to do, and he did it.

The hansom rolled rapidly and smoothly along upon that well-established novelty, india-rubber tyres. Bits of the jingling harness oscillated regularly from side to side. At intervals the whip-thong dragged gently across the horse's back, and the horse lifted and shook its head. The shallow and narrow interior of the hansom was constructed with exactitude to hold two. Neither occupant could move in any direction, and neither desired to move. The splendidly lighted avenues, of which every detail could be discerned as by day, flowed evenly past the vehicle.

"I've never been in a hansom before," said Marguerite timidly—because the situation was so dismaying in its enchantment.

He, from the height of two years of hansom-using, was touched, delighted, even impressed. The staggering fact increased her virginal charm and its protectiveness. He thought upon the simplicity of her existence. Of course she had never been in a hansom! Hansoms were obviously outside her scheme. He said nothing, but he sought for and found her hand beneath the apron. She did not resist. He reflected "Can she resist? She cannot." Her hand was in a living swoon. Her hand was his; it was admittedly his. She could never deny it, now. He touched the button of the glove, and undid it. Then, moving her passive hand, he brought both his to it, and with infinitely delicate and considerate gestures he slowly drew off the glove, and he held her hand ungloved. She did not stir nor speak. Nothing so marvellous as her exquisite and confiding stillness had ever happened.... The hansom turned into Alexandra Grove, and when it stopped he pushed the glove into her hand, which closed on it. As they descended the cabman, accustomed to peer down on loves pure and impure, gave them a beneficent look.

"He's not come in," said Marguerite, glancing through the flap of the front door. She was exceedingly self-conscious, but beneath her self-consciousness could be noticed an indig nant accusation against old Haim. She had rung the bell and knocked.

"Are you sure? Can you see the hat-stand?"

"I can see it enough for that."

"Look here," George suggested, with false lightness, "I expect I could get in through my window." His room was on the ground floor, and not much agility was needed to clamber up to its ledge from the level of the area. He might have searched his pockets again and discovered his latchkey, but he would not. Sooner than admit a deception he would have remained at the door with her all night.

"Think you could?"

"Yes. I could slide the window-catch."

He jumped down the steps and showed her how he could climb. In two minutes he was opening the front door to her from the inside. She moved towards him in the gloom.

"Oh! My portfolio!" She stopped, and bent down to the mat.

Then she busily lighted the little hall-lamp with his matches, and hurried down, taking the matches, to the kitchen. After a few moments George followed her; he was obliged to follow her. She had removed her coat; it lay on the sole chair. The hat and blouse which she wore seemed very vivid in the kitchen—vestiges of past glorious episodes in concert-halls and hansoms. She had lighted the kitchen-lamp and was standing apparently idle. The alarum-clock on the black mantelpiece ticked noisily. The cat sat indifferently on the corner of the clean, bare table. George hesitated in the doorway. He was extremely excited, because the tremendous fact of what he had done and what she had permitted, with all the implications, had to be explicitly acknowledged between them. Of course it had to be acknowledged! They were both fully aware of the thing, she as well as he, but spoken words must authenticate its existence as only spoken words could.

She said, beginning sternly and finishing with a peculiar smile:

"I do think this business of father and Mrs. Lobley is going rather far."

And George had a sudden new sense of the purely feminine adroitness of women. In those words she had clearly conceded that their relations were utterly changed. Never before had she made even the slightest, most distant reference to the monstrous household actuality, unadmitted and yet patent, of the wooing of Mrs. Lobley the charwoman by her father, the widower of her mother. If Mr. Haim stayed away from home of an evening, Mrs. Lobley was the siren who deflected him from the straight domestic path. She knew it; George surmised it; the whole street had its suspicions. But hitherto Marguerite had given no sign. She now created George the confidant of her resentment. And her smile was not an earnest of some indulgence for her father—her smile was for George alone.

He went boldly up to her, put his arms round her, and kissed her. She did not kiss. But she allowed herself to be kissed, and she let her body loose in his embrace. She looked at him with her eyes nearly upon his, and her eyes glittered with a mysterious burning; he knew that she was content. That she should be content, that it should please her to let him have the unimaginable experience of holding that thrilled and thrilling body close to his, seemed to him to be a marvellous piece of sheer luck and overwhelming good fortune. She was so sensuous and yet so serious. Her gaze stimulated not only love but conscience. In him ambition was superlatively vigorous. Nevertheless he felt then as though he had never really known ambition till that moment. He thought of the new century and of a new life. He perceived the childishness and folly of his favourite idea that an artist ought to pass through a phase of Don Juanism. He knew that the task of satisfying the lofty and exacting and unique girl would be immense, and that he could fulfil it, but on the one condition that it monopolized his powers. Thus he was both modest and proud, anxious and divinely elated. His mind was the scene of innumerable impulses and sensations over which floated the banner of the male who has won an impassioned allegiance.

"Don't let's tell anyone yet," she murmured.

"No."

"I mean for a long time," she insisted.

"No, we won't," he agreed, and added scornfully: "They'd only say we're too young."

The notion of secrecy was an enchanting notion.

She cut magic cake and poured out magic milk. And they ate and drank together, for they were hungry. And at this point the cat began to show an interest in their doings.

And after they were both in their beds, but not after they were asleep, Mr. Haim, by the clicking of a latchkey in a lock, reminded them of something which they had practically forgotten—his disordered existence.