An Engagement of Convenience Part 21

"The thought often strikes me as I watch people in the streets or in omnibuses," said Wyndham. "No matter how dull or repulsive a human face at first sight, I believe it can always be painted so as to be interesting, and that without departing from truth."

The waitress reappeared with their lunch which had been simply chosen so as to admit of no possible failure, and in their present mood they were charmed with it. Lady Betty was enraptured by the experience, and chatted in an undertone, every now and then breaking into a spontaneous "I am so happy to-day," and flashing him a glance of light and radiance.

They wound up with black coffee, and then the little waitress made out the account, which, after leaving her demurely astonished with her big silver tip, Wyndham paid to the nice old man in the box at the top of the stairs.

"The sun is still shining--look!" she exclaimed.

Wyndham stepped after her into the air gratefully. "It is fresh and almost summery. Heaven smiles at us. Shall we stroll down this winding lane? I fancy it must lead to the water-side."

"Hurrah for the winding lane!" she said, and stepped out merrily. At the bottom they entered a street full of black brick warehouses with cranes at work, and huge carts with ponderous horses. "An antediluvian breed!"

whispered Lady Betty. They strolled along, peering into dim doorways at vast interiors where a strange universe of life flourished in the glooms amid prodigious collections of barrels and boxes.

"We are almost on Tower Hill," he said suddenly.

"An unexpected fantasy!" she exclaimed, as the Tower of London itself came into view at the end of the narrow street, the grey far-stretching ramparts looming up ghost-like and romantic. "A mediaeval mirage amid all this grimy commerce. I wonder if it will vanish presently! But let us try the opposite direction now--are we not vowed to-day to the unfamiliar and unknown?"

They retraced their steps, and, ere long, lighted on an iron gate that led visibly to the water-side.

"The gate is inviting," she said. "I hope it isn't forbidden."

"Ah, here is a notice. I see we shall not be trespa.s.sers."

They entered, and, pa.s.sing through the preliminary alley, found themselves on a broad, open gravelled s.p.a.ce beyond which flowed the water. Save for a couple of pigeons wandering about, they had the place all to themselves.

"This is a discovery," declared Lady Betty. "It is as interesting here in its way as the Rialto at Venice."

And indeed they had reason to admire. To the right lay the Bridge of Bridges, whose endlessly rolling traffic was at this distance softened to an artistic suggestion that by no means disturbed their sense of solitude. At the adjoining wharf on the left a Dutch boat was being unladen, actively, yet with a strange sense of stillness and calm. And over all the river and shipping hung a faint grey-blue mist, m.u.f.fling and enveloping all things out of proportion to its density, and absorbing the sunlight into a haze that already seemed to foretell the chills of the coming twilight of the winter's day. They saw the sun, a large red ball, hanging extraordinarily low in the sky over a long squat warehouse with symmetrical rows of windows. And across the river, under the shadow of the opposite structures, lay strange families of craft and barges, moored in the water, or high on the mud; rusty and silent, some half-broken up, some swinging lazily, touched with the mellow decay of the centuries.

Lady Betty thought it would be ideal to stay here awhile, so they settled down on one of the garden-seats, and sat in quiet happiness, unheeding of the sharp touch of the afternoon air. More pigeons flew down from neighbouring roofs and walked tamely around them. And from all the mighty activity of surrounding London, that beat strenuous, feverish, far-reaching, there flowed to them only a serenity, an almost phantasmal calm: they were alone, supremely alone--far from their world of everyday existence.

The time slipped by deliciously. Their enjoyment was as spontaneous as of two children at play. And children they were in the perfect simplicity of their happiness. They watched the afternoon deepen, the haze of sunshine weaken and yield to greyer moods; they rose, too, and moved along the edge of the waters, and examined the shipping and barges. They spoke to the pigeons, gave them names, endowed them with romances; they spoke to each other endearingly, yet still as the two children who had played together always, who had wandered into this strange world, and were as enchanted with it as with each other.

At last they realised the light was already fading; the mist on all things was ghostlier, and damp in the throat and nostrils. Now and again a spasmodic wind caught up dry leaves and swirled them around playfully.

Lady Betty gave a little shiver.

"Night will soon be on us," she said. "A million points of light will be springing up as by magic. It would be enchanting to stay and watch the darkness deepen and the river-fog steal down; to sit here through the mysterious hours, and study the shadows and silhouettes, and listen to all the strange sounds of the night, and watch all those lights glimmer on and on, till at last they show yellow in the pale dawn, and life again is swarming over the bridges. Must we go back, dear?--we have left our world ever so far away--and years ago, was it not, dear?"

A sadness had descended on them both. With the approach of evening, they could not but feel the precious time was fleeting; they could no longer immerse themselves with such wholeheartedness in the simple appreciation of the moment. The terror of the parting to come rose in the hearts of both. Yet they made a brave resistance.

"Come, darling," she said at last; "the hours still belong to us. We have indulged our day-mood. Let us search for something fresh now; our good star shall watch over us and send us happy adventures."

So they pa.s.sed again into the street, and, absorbed in their talk, were scarcely aware whither they were turning. They knew they were in a network of by-ways, flanked by warehouses and offices, and sometimes they stumbled on terraces of decrepit old dwelling-houses. They were vaguely conscious that they were leaving the river far behind, and that they must have crossed Eastcheap again at some narrower part without recognising it. After some leisurely wandering they came into a more important thoroughfare with pretentious edifices, yet with archaic touches here and there, the relics of another epoch, worn and decaying, yet more suggestive of coming stone buildings to supplant them than of the glory of their own century.

At a street-corner, under the light of a lamp that was still pale in the gathering dusk, a shivering flower-seller with a red shawl over her shoulders stood with a basket of deliciously fresh violets, and Wyndham stopped to get a big bunch of them put together for his companion. Lady Betty was immensely gratified; she breathed in the odour of the violets with rapture, then fastened them in her bosom. She was herself again now, overflowing with good fellowship, and amused at every trifle. He caught her exhilaration. "We shall fill our evening with a whirl of gaiety!" he cried. "Rockets and fireworks; I wonder if the good star you spoke of will be kind enough to set down in our path some unheard-of theatre."

She suggested they should study the h.o.a.rdings as they went along, and both undertook to keep a look-out. But they were absorbed again in each other, having only a vague pleasurable sense of the crowded roads into which their steps now took them. Eventually they were in a main thoroughfare, with bustling shops brilliantly alight, and endless lines of stalls a-blazing; the roadway full of traffic and tram-cars and amazingly gigantic hay-carts, the pavements thick with a working population pressing forward and forward in mult.i.tudes. It was night now, absolutely; but it had stolen on them so gradually, they were astonished it was so definitely manifest. The hours of light were fresh and vivid in their minds, they could almost hear and feel the unending clatter of the omnibus that had carried them across the town, and the riverside picture was still before them. The change that had come over the world, this transition to absolute darkness illumined by street-lamps and flaring naphtha, seemed mystic and amazing. And a subtle warmth from all this illumination and from all this press and bustle, from all these close-packed moving vans and cars and hay-carts, pervaded the wintry air; a sense of exhilaration, too; a sense of life in all its unrefined, joyous reality, intense and vigorous, accepting itself unquestioningly, too sure of the worth of the gift ever to doubt it--even as the hungry ploughboy does not speculate metaphysically about the fat pork on his plate, but simply falls thereon and devours it.

"Book-stalls!" cried Lady Betty, "and piled up ever and ever so high.

And look, rusty Wellington boots on the one hand, and rusty tools and bits of iron on the other."

They stayed a few minutes, and turned over some of the books, as interesting and varied as those in any more pretentious bookman's paradise. They both grew selfishly absorbed, each striking out an individual path, though remembering the other's existence at moments of extraordinary interest. In the end each became the possessor of a volume. Wyndham's was a facsimile of the first edition of the "Pilgrim's Progress," a fattish octavo with the loveliest of wide margins, and the exact reproduction of the original engravings. Lady Betty's treasure was an old copy of the Dramatic Poems of Browning. Each paid the same one-and-sixpence, and as they bore away their prizes they discovered that each had been inspired by the same motive--of giving the other a memento of this wonderful day. Laughingly they exchanged their volumes, and the presentations thus formally carried out, Wyndham took possession of the Bunyan again in the mere capacity of carrier.

At last a h.o.a.rding with a great glare of light on it.

Wyndham let his eye roam over the posters. "The very thing," he cried.

"A fine old-fashioned melodrama!"

"Splendid!" echoed Lady Betty, gazing at the many-coloured scenes that promised a generous measure of thrills and emotions.

"We shall have a box to ourselves," said Wyndham. "As you see, it is not so very extravagant. Only there is the problem of dining."

"What healthy little children we are!" she laughed.

"Oh, we must dine," he protested.

"I have faith," she declared. "Our good star has served us till now, it is not going to desert us. We shall light upon some quaint place presently."

The confident prediction justified itself, for, later on, they stopped before a Jewish restaurant that proudly announced itself as "kosher."

And it proved immediately irresistible to the wanderers, who entered straightway, and found themselves in a simple sort of room with freshly papered walls, full of neatly laid tables, the very ant.i.thesis of the familiar formal restaurant of ornate intention. The place was empty of diners as yet--no doubt it was early for the usual clients; but the proprietor, a grave bearded personage in spotless broad-cloth and with the air of an amba.s.sador, come forward bowing profoundly, and escorted them to a choice corner. Through a half-open door at the back they had a glimpse of a neat, comely Jewish woman busy amid pots and pans, whilst a boy and a girl, who both looked good and intelligent, were industriously doing their lessons at a side-table. The host waited on the adventurers in person, taking the dishes from a younger and shyer a.s.sistant who brought them from behind the scenes.

Despite the magnificent gravity of his presence, their host turned out to be an unaffected human being, whom they encouraged to talk of his own affairs, and who was pleased at their manifest interest in his homely establishment and in his little family. His wife and he worked together, and it was her cooking on which they were now being regaled. Their favourable verdict gave him an almost nave gratification; a radiance and an illumination broke brilliantly across his features. He told them the Jewish names of the various dishes, but though they repeated them sedulously, the strange, charming words would not remain in their heads a moment. Meanwhile the kitchen was being stimulated to a display of delicate skill and finesse; the fish was as good, declared Lady Betty, as anything she had tasted at the Maison d'Or. A few other clients began to appear--a long-bearded Russian, carefully dressed, accompanied by a simple, buxom daughter of rosy complexion and deep, serious, aspiring eyes; then a middle-aged man, with a leonine mane that was dashed with grey and suggested the poor composer of genius; and finally a spectacled German in a threadbare cut-away coat, carefully brushed, who suggested unrequited scholarship. But all these, after the first distinguished bow and salutation on the part of the host, were left to the attentions of the a.s.sistant; the host himself being magnetised by the unaccustomed guests with whom he was deep in conversation. But, though he waited on them perfectly, there was yet conveyed in his bearing such a touch of distinction and courteous affability that they were sensible as of an honour that was being bestowed upon them. And that he was no mere small-souled tradesman was abundantly evident when he brought them a bottle of claret with the romantic recommendation that it had been grown on Palestine soil, and that, in its pa.s.sage from the wine-press to their table here, it had never left the hands of his compatriots. He handled the bottle with pride and certainly emotion, and begged them to accept of it, and to allow him to fill their gla.s.ses. They were touched by the invitation, though they were naturally unwilling to accept such a gift from a poor man, but he understood their doubts and laughingly explained that, as he did not possess a wine licence, he could not possibly accept payment; a piece of reasoning which drew them into the laugh and disposed of their hesitations.

They made him join them, however, and they drank to the prosperity of the Palestine colonies, irrelevantly but charmingly coupling the toast with that of their host and hostess, the children and the restaurant.

The other visitors smiled quietly, and, with conspicuous good breeding, scarcely turned their eyes towards this convivial table, the Russian conversing in an undertone with his daughter, and the musician with the scholar.

And at the end the host did not give himself any false airs, but made out their modest reckoning and handed Wyndham the change, all with the same courtesy and with a distinction of manner which seemed to lift trade to a higher plane than it occupies in Occidental prejudice. And as the wife appeared hovering with a shy smile in the kitchen doorway, she was invited to join the group, and warmly complimented on her culinary skill. Then Lady Betty asked for the children, and presently their bright faces were illumining the room with a warmer and sweeter light.

Wyndham and Lady Betty spoke to them a little, then Lady Betty slipped a fragile ring with a single small fine pearl off her finger, and put it on the girl's. The little thing blushed and hung down her head. But the jewel became the tiny hand immensely. Meanwhile the boy's eyes were glued on the books.

"I can see you like books, little man," said Wyndham.

"Yes, sir," said the child, "better than anything else."

"His ambition is to become a scholar," put in his father proudly.

"He is to have the Browning as a memento," said Lady Betty. She handed it to the child. "Keep this volume carefully. When you are older, I am sure you will love and treasure it." Then she unfastened her big bunch of violets and pressed the flowers on his mother, who took them shyly but coloured with pleasure.

When they were in the street again they walked on silently for a while.

Wyndham saw that Lady Betty had been deeply touched; that something wonderful had been revealed to her of which, perhaps, she had never caught a glimpse in her whole existence. Presently she turned to Wyndham with a quiet smile that was the natural reflection of her thought.

"You do forgive me, dear," she asked, "for my arbitrary disposal of your Browning, my own present to you!"

"You sacrificed my gift of violets, so we are quits."

"After this we shall scarcely need any memento of the day--who could ever forget?" Then with a little thrill of joy: "But I've my Pilgrim all the same." She touched the book lovingly as he held it, and he was aware of her movement as of a caress. It was his gift to her, and what a world of affection in this implication of the value she set on it!