A Mummer's Wife Part 26

Montgomery smiled nervously, and he proposed that they should go over to the hotel to have a drink.

'Oh, I don't like to go up there,' she said, after examining for some moments this hillside bar-room. 'There're too many men.'

'What does it matter? We'll have a table to ourselves. Besides, you'd better have something to eat, for now we're out we may as well stay out.

There's no use going back yet awhile;' and he talked so rapidly of his waltz--of whether he should call it the 'Wave,' the 'Seash.o.r.e,' or the 'Cliff,' that he didn't give her time to collect her thoughts.

'I can't go in there,' she said; 'why, it's only a public-house.'

'Everybody comes up here to have a drink. It's quite the fashion.'

The men round the doorway stared at her, and seeing some of the chorus-girls coming from where the donkeys were stationed, in the company of young men with high collars and tight trousers, she almost ran into the bar-room.

'Now you see what a sc.r.a.pe you've led me into, I wouldn't have met those people for anything.'

'What does it matter? If it were wrong do you think I'd bring you in here?

You ask d.i.c.k when you get home.'

A doubt of the possibility of d.i.c.k thinking anything wrong clouded Kate's mind, and Montgomery ordered sandwiches and two brandies-and-sodas. The sandwiches were excellent, and Kate, who had scarcely tasted anything but beer in her life, thought the brandy-and-soda very refreshing. The question then came of how to get out of the place, and after much hesitation and conjecturing, they slipped out the back way through the poultry-yard and stables.

In front of them was a very steep path that led to the sea strand. Large ma.s.ses of earth had given way, and these had formed ledges which, in turn, had somehow become linked together, and it was possible to climb down these.

'Do you think you could manage?' he said, holding out his hand.

'I don't know; do you think it dangerous?'

'No, not if you take care; but the cliff is pretty high; it would not do to fall over. Perhaps you'd better come back across the common by the road.'

'And meet all those girls?'

'I don't see why you should be afraid of meeting them,' said Montgomery, who was secretly anxious to show the chorus that if he were not the possessor, he was at least on intimate terms of friendship with this pretty woman.

'No, I'd sooner not meet them, and coming out of a public-house; I don't see why we shouldn't come down this way. I'm sure I can manage it if you'll give me your hand and go first.'

The descent then began. Kate's high-heeled boots were hard to walk in, and every now and then her feet would fail her, and she would utter little cries of fear, and lean against the cliff's side. It was delightful to rea.s.sure her, and Montgomery profited by those occasions to lay his hands upon her shoulders and hold her arms in his hands. No human creature was in hearing or in sight, and solitude seemed to unite them, and the mimic danger of the descent to endear them to each other. The quiet and enchantment of earth and air melted into her thoughts until she enjoyed a perfect bliss of unreasoned emotion. He, too, was conscious of the day, and his happiness, touched with a diffused sense of desire, was intense, even to a savour of bitterness. Like all young men, he longed to complete his youth by some great pa.s.sion, but out of horror of the gross sensualities with which he was always surrounded, his delicate artistic nature took refuge in a half-platonic affection for his friend's mistress. It was an infinite pleasure, and could it have lasted for ever he would not have thought of changing it. To take her by the hand and help her to cross the weedy stones; to watch her pretty stare of wonderment when he explained that the flux and the reflux of the tides were governed by the moon; to hear her speak of love, and to dream what that love might be, was enough.

Along the coast there were miles and miles of reaches, and to gain the sea they were obliged to make many detours. Sometimes they came upon long stretches of sand separated by what seemed to them to be a river, and Montgomery often proposed that he should carry Kate across the streamlet.

But she would not hear of it, although on one occasion she did not refuse until he had placed his arms around her waist. Escaping from him, she ran along the edge, saying she would find a crossing. Montgomery pursued her, amused by the fluttering of her petticoats; but after a race of twenty or thirty yards, they found that their discovered river was only a long pool that owned no outlet to the sea, and they both stopped like disappointed children.

'Well, never mind,' said Kate; 'did you ever see such beautiful clear water? I must have a drink.'

'You've no cup,' he said, turning away so that she should not see him laughing. 'You might manage to get up a little in your hands.'

'So I might. Oh, what fun! Tell me how I'm to do it.'

He told her how to hollow her hands, and waited to enjoy the result, and, forgetful that the sea was salt she lifted the brine to her lips; but when she spat out the horrible mouthful and turned on him a questioning face, he only answered that if she didn't take care she would be the death of him.

'And didn't ums know the sea was salt, and did ums think it very nasty, and not half as nice as a brandy-and-soda?'

Kate watched him for a moment, and then her face clouded, and pouting her pretty lips, she said:

'Of course I don't pretend to be as clever as you, but if you'd never seen the sea until a week ago you might forget.'

'Yes, yes, for-for-get that it--it wasn't as nice as brandy-and-soda,'

cried Montgomery, holding his sides.

'I wasn't going to say that, and it was very rude of you to interrupt me in that way.'

'Now come, don't get cross. You should understand a joke better than that,'

he replied, for seeing the tears in her eyes he began to fear that he had spoilt the delight of their day.

'I think it is unkind of you to laugh at me and play tricks on me like that,' said Kate, trying to master her emotion; and as they walked under the sunset, Montgomery broke long and irritating silences by apologizing for his indiscretion, but Kate did not answer him until they arrived at a place where a little boy and girl were fishing for shrimps. Here there was quite a little lake, and amid the rocks and weedy stones the clear water flowed as it might in an aquarium, the liquid surface reflecting as perfectly as any mirror the sky's blue, with clouds going by and many delicate opal tints, and the forms of the children's plump limbs.

'Oh, how nice they look! What little dears!' exclaimed Kate, but as she pressed forward to watch the children her foot dislodged a young lobster from the corner of rock in which he had been hiding.

'That's a lobster,' cried Montgomery.

'Is it?' cried Kate, and she pursued the ungainly thing, which sought vainly for a crevice.

After an animated chase, with the aid of her parasol she caught it, and was about to take it up with her fingers when Montgomery stopped her.

'You'd better take care; it will pretty well nip the fingers off you.'

'You aren't joking?' she asked innocently.

'No, indeed I'm not; but I hope you don't mind my telling you.'

At that moment their eyes met, and Kate, seeing how foolish she had been, burst into fits of laughter.

'No, no, no, I--I don't mind your telling me that--that a lobster bites, but--'

'But when it comes to saying sea-water is not as nice as brandy-and-soda,'

he replied, bursting into a roar of merriment, 'we cut up rough, don't we?'

The children climbed up on the rocks to look at them, and it was some time before Kate could find words to ask them to show what they had caught.

The little boy was especially clever at his work, and regardless of wetting himself, he plunged into the deepest pools, intercepting with his net at every turn the shrimps that vainly sought to escape him. His little sister, too, was not lacking in dexterity, and between them they had filled a fairly-sized basket. Kate examined everything with an almost feverish interest. She tore long gluey ma.s.ses of seaweed from the rocks and insisted on carrying them home; the mussels she found on the rocks interested her; she questioned the little shrimp fishers for several minutes about a dead starfish, and they stared in open-eyed amazement, thinking it very strange that a grown-up woman should ask such questions. At last the little boy showed her what she was to do with the lobster. He wedged the claws with two bits of wood, and attached a string whereby she might carry it in her hand, and in silences that were only interrupted by occasional words they picked their way along the strand.

Kate thought of d.i.c.k--of what he was doing, of what he was saying. She saw him surrounded by men; there were gla.s.ses on the table. She looked into his large, melancholy blue eyes, and dreamed of the time she would again sit on his knees and explain to him for the hundredth time that love was all-sufficing, and that he who possessed it could possess nothing more.

Montgomery was also thinking of d.i.c.k, and for the conquest of so pretty a woman the dreamy-minded musician viewed his manager with admiration. The morality of the question did not appeal to him, and his only fear was that Kate would one day be deserted. 'If so, I shall have to support her.' He thought of the music he would have to compose--songs, all of which would be dedicated to her.

'Have you known d.i.c.k,' she asked suddenly, 'a long time?'

'Two or three years or so,' replied Montgomery, a little abashed at a question which sounded at that moment like a distant echo of his own thoughts. 'Why do you ask?'

'For no particular reason, only you seem such great friends.'

'Yes, I like him very much; he's a dear good fellow, he'd divide his last bob with a pal.'

The conversation then came to a pause. Both suddenly remembered how they had set out on their walk determined to seek information of each other on certain subjects.