An Engagement of Convenience Part 22

XXIII

They found the theatre easily, and, from their snug box, enjoyed a most lurid melodrama, which amply redeemed the promise of the h.o.a.rding, and was played by a vigorous company who seemed in no wise dismayed by yawning s.p.a.ces and a thin scattering of audience. Nay, the thrills were even more than the adventurers had reckoned on, for pistol shots suddenly rang out in the third act, and Lady Betty clutched hard at the curtain of the box. She presently realised, however, that the iniquitous foreign n.o.bleman with the fur overcoat and large moustachios, whose veiled hand had directed the remorseless persecution of the good and righteous, had at last paid for his misdeeds, and with this pa.s.sing of the villain Lady Betty found that her sense of poetic justice was abundantly satisfied; though the luckless heroine, appearing on the scene just then, and incautiously picking up the fallen pistol, was at once arrested as the manifest murderess. Then the curtain went down, and Lady Betty rose.

"We must not stay to the end. Our day is over, and I want to give you the promised souvenir of our brief friendship."

There was a catch in her voice, and he understood that the sob had been suppressed with difficulty. He felt it was for him now to be strong; to set the note of stoic resignation, even as she had led off their adventures with a mood that had made this day the most wonderful of all his life.

"Ah, your strange, strange souvenir!" he laughed. "You must admit I have waited patiently."

"It was very wicked of me," she admitted. "But I shall keep you tortured with curiosity till the moment I give it to you. I have it at home. We had better drive back all the way, if we can find a vehicle."

They slipped out of the box and along the corridor and into the open road. It was a keen night, but very clear. The perspective of street lamps stretched endlessly on either hand. There was a plentiful sprinkling of people about, and the tram-cars were still pa.s.sing. At the kerb were a few cabs, waiting for possible clients, so they selected the smartest of the vehicles; and the driver, who had been standing flinging his arms about for warmth, climbed into his seat, stolidly indifferent that "fares" from the theatre should wish to go so far afield into the regions of the elect.

No doubt the horse was glad to be off, for they started at an astonishingly brisk pace. Outside lay the endless road and all the shuttered world of streets and houses, over which still hung the romance of their splendid day. Quietly they had their last glimpses, as if fearing to speak, and yet thrillingly conscious of their proximity to each other. Lady Betty was sunk in sadness; as if she recognised now that any affectation of cheerfulness was utterly vain. And Wyndham was thinking of the definite moment of parting. He had resigned himself to saying "goodbye" at the door of her home; not daring to suggest now that she should visit his studio, even for the first time and last--since the chance had not naturally arisen in the course of the day's wanderings, and she had not even expressed the desire for it. Indeed, in all these weeks she had thrown out no hint of such a wish, and he had felt that she considered the ground as within Alice's absolute sphere, and would not intrude on it. No doubt many mingled shades of feeling went to create this att.i.tude of hers. Still, Wyndham, having dreamed of her coming there on this last day, was to that extent unsatisfied. Time and again the suggestion mounted to his lips even at this eleventh hour, but he had not the confidence to let the words fall.

Perhaps they had both fallen into reverie, for Wyndham found himself saying suddenly, "Why, here is the Bank of England!" And Lady Betty started, too, astonished at the stillness and the solitude here in the heart of the City.

"The night seems darker now, and how ghostly and silent the lights are!"

she said. "The sky has clouded. Goodbye, dreamland," she added in meditation. "I shall never dare revisit the ground we have covered. I don't want to see it again; I couldn't bear it. But I shall always think and dream of it."

He dared not answer. The least false note, and she would be unnerved.

Since the parting had to be, let them grip hands silently for the last time, almost without realising it; let them go off as if they were to meet again on the morrow--as in so many partings that life itself brings about.

And as they were borne westwards, signs of life began to appear again; as they approached the Strand they came full upon the torrents of population pouring out from their amus.e.m.e.nts. At Trafalgar Square the town was alive with ma.s.ses of hansoms in motion that broke into jets and streams flashing and darting into all the avenues. They seemed to have returned into this familiar, dazzling London of the night as from a long journey. They were giddy with the impression of it all, and winced as if they had long grown disaccustomed to it. But, definitely, they were at home again; soon the houses of Grosvenor Place would loom up before them, though somehow their everyday universe had taken on some subtle quality of unreality since the morning.

And yet how small the distance they had gone afield, how soon annihilated! Up St. James's Street went the cab, alongside the Green Park, and in a few minutes it had pulled up in Grosvenor Place. Wyndham sprang out with a forced alertness, and helped his companion to descend.

The house was quite dark. Lady Betty led the way to the door-step and produced a latch key from her purse. Wyndham stood by, strained and nervous.

"You must come in to receive your souvenir," she said. "You have well deserved it," she added with a brave smile.

He followed her in as she pushed the door open; then she switched on the light. "You had best wait in the dining-room, I shall join you again presently."

Wyndham stood alone in the s.p.a.cious room, with a sense of chill and desolation. The thought of his marriage and life to come flashed on him with a stroke of terror. Suddenly he shivered. Ah, it was bleak here in this deadly, all-pervading stillness. The very lights seemed to flood the room mournfully. How tired he was! Everything seemed to swim before him.

And then he was aware she was in the room again, smiling at him and exhibiting a package. Her presence seemed to revive him.

"At last I am to be enlightened," he murmured.

"I am afraid you are doomed to be disappointed," she said, as she came and stood by his side at the table. "I have made such a mystery of it, whereas, no doubt, you will find it trivial."

"You said it was a weird idea. I am sure it is a charming one. Whatever it is, you know what it will be to me."

"I know, darling," she said, suddenly grave again.

She bade him cut the string and open the package. At last, as he was removing the many wrappings, "It is an old door-knocker," she said; "the figure of a lovely grotesque old wizard, wrought in bronze. I came across it on the door of a fifteenth-century house in Delft a year or two ago, and it so fascinated me that I bargained for it with the owner.

It has ever since remained one of my pet possessions, and I at once thought of it for you. Tell me truly what you think of it!"

Wyndham held up the strange bronze man, slim and long, with fantastic bearded head, and grasping in one hand a rod that merged into a huge serpent that lay coiled round the body. The two legs were welded at the bottom into one big foot, the heel of which formed the hammer. It was a piece of grotesqueness worthy of the East, finely and subtly modelled, and quaint rather than grim in its suggestiveness.

"A masterpiece!" he said at last. "I have never seen anything of the kind to match it."

"I should say it is by an artist of at any rate the early renaissance,"

she ventured, her face agleam, for she had awaited his verdict with anxiety. "The modelling is so careful and scientific."

"Those were the days when artists still thought only of their work, and so much forgot their own existence that they took no pains to proclaim themselves to the world. The work of the so-called dark ages remains, the artists lie unknown and unheard of, if indeed they were known to the world at any time."

"You will set up my wizard on the door of your house. Every time you hear it you will think of me as floating there like a spirit. Isn't that weird? I have the idea that if an enemy should touch it, you would somehow know at once, and be on your guard. Oh, yes, I was convinced it was a magic knocker the moment I saw it."

He was still staring at it gravely, as if he, too, felt some eerie quality in it. She looked at him, then broke into laughter. "Aren't we a charming pair of children, taking our own make-believe so seriously?"

He laughed, too, though uneasily. "It is good to be children again."

"Like all good things, it is cut short so soon," she responded meditatively.

He replaced the old wizard in its wrappings. "It is true," he murmured, pale and haggard. "Time is flying."

"Ah, well," she said with a catch in her breath.

They were looking at each other brokenly. The air echoed and echoed with the "goodbye" that was not spoken.

He took her hand in his. "Princess," he whispered huskily, "I had dreamed of your seeing my studio ere we said goodbye. It would be for the first time and last, remember. Won't you come with me now, dear?--the merest glimpse--if only to see where your magic knocker is to hang--You understand, dear?"

Her eyes glistened. "Yes, I understand, dear. I will come with you."

"This is one of the kindest things that even your life will hold!" he exclaimed.

So again they were in the street, and the door swung to behind them.

Wyndham was carrying his package, unexpectedly heavy, all concentrated weight, like a dumb-bell. The point caught her attention, and in a flash she changed again, was once more the amused laughing comrade, even though the sky was clouded now and tiny specks of rain flew in their faces.

"A midnight expedition!" she cried. "Let it be a hansom this time."

At the corner of Knightsbridge they found one, and they were off again at a trot; a fact so astonishing that they could hardly grasp it. And then, instead of feeling broken with fatigue at the end of a long day, they found themselves fresh and spirited, as at the beginning of a new adventure.

Soon they were cutting down Sloane Street, and then Wyndham suggested they should go the more interesting way round, so as to take in the Embankment, and drive into the t.i.te Street at the river end. It would leave a pleasanter impression with her, he argued, and Lady Betty readily a.s.sented. He gave the man the word, but straightway again the pair were deep in conversation, and lost all sense of the outer world.

Some minutes pa.s.sed. Suddenly their driver gave a shout, the hansom jerked violently, and Lady Betty, clutching at Wyndham's hand, saw a woman just step back in time from under the horse's head. The driver cracked his whip and shouted something angrily, and then the hansom moved on again. Wyndham stared out into the night. He saw the line of lights gleaming along the parapet of the river, and recognised they were within a short distance of t.i.te Street. But the woman was already lost in the gloom.

XXIV

At the table that evening, Alice Robinson announced that she was going to meet Wyndham immediately after dinner. Had her parents not been accustomed to her departure at such summary notice, they might have observed the touch of embarra.s.sment that accompanied it. For, although the expedition had been planned and considered for twenty-four hours on end, Alice found the initial falsehood singularly agitating. Painfully conscious of this lack of sangfroid, and fearful of betraying herself, she felt she must escape from the house as soon as was plausible. So, a little later, she rose in feverish haste from the dinner-table, and went to her room to put on her wrappings. No one was to wait up for her, in case she might be late, she said; she was taking a latch-key as usual.

Then she slipped out of the house, and went down the street rapidly.

Some little time had elapsed before she had control of her wits and began to reflect. She had been impelled to start far earlier than she had calculated, and thus she undoubtedly ran the danger of finding Wyndham there, if she went straight to the studio. It was half-past eight; by taking various omnibuses she could fill out the time and be there by half-past nine. But even that seemed too early--he might be only just on the point of going out to his club engagement. No, to be absolutely safe, she would not venture actually to intrude till ten o'clock.