Twopence Coloured (6 page)

They walked on for some time in foggy silence after this, and soon he told her (they were entering Pall Mall) that they were n’t far now. And at this news Jackie, who was becoming extremely breathless (for he walked very fast), became also extremely nervous, and wondered what she could say to him before he departed. For that he would immediately depart,
and mercilessly at that, on reaching the point he had fixed upon, she already knew enough of his character to appreciate. She, of course, was all for observations on the Smallnesses of the World, after all; and coincidences, and funninesses, and who-would-have-thoughts. But there was something steady in his grey eye, and purposeful, if not vindictive, in his walk, which forbade the slightest indulgence in sentiment of this kind before it was uttered. She therefore said nothing, and tremblingly trusted that he himself would open the
subject
of their next meeting. This he did.

“Well, when do I see you again?” he asked. Not a scrap of “may” about it. Pure “when.” And yet Jackie took this all in the course of things, and was content — delighted. At any other time Jackie would have very possibly resented such treatment — she did indeed resent it when thinking it over in bed that night — but he overbore her at the moment.
Moreover
, in the space of a few minutes, he was about to drop her in the middle of a vast, thronged, unknown, hooting,
electriclit
, dark-rumbling metropolis, and leave her to shift for
herself
; and this fact naturally blunted the finer points of her pride. It is revealing of her state of mind that until this moment she had been utterly unaware and forgetful of her surroundings, and ‘her business in them. It was with a sudden shock that she remembered where she was — London — and the mystery of her presence there. And fear of this mystery, and also his ever more hurrying stride, emboldened her reply.

“Well, as a matter of fact,” she said, “I’ve a sort of idea.”

“Yes?”

“You’re coming to Hammersmith next week, are n’t you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you staying anywhere? You said you’d have to get rooms.”

“Yes. I know a place in Brook Green.”

“Well, why don’t you come and stay where I am? She lets rooms, you see; because somebody’s being sort of turned out because of me. And I know it’d be all right.”

He did not stop in his stride, for he was now reaching a kind of crescendo of hurrying, but he seemed to be very
pleased by the idea, and in a hundred yards’ time he had her address and the whole thing was arranged. Unless she wrote to him, he would arrive on Monday at three o’clock, and she might be in, or she might not be in, to welcome him.

“And when I see you again,” said Jackie, smiling, “I’ll talk to you about That.”

He smiled back but made no rejoinder. They now plunged into a crowded arcade, which she recognized as Piccadilly Underground Station, and he was making for the booking office.

“After all,” said Jackie, “if you say that acting’s such a beastly business, why do you do it yourself?”

“West Kensington, please…. Oh, well; I don’t know…. Now, listen.” He led her towards the lifts. “You go in one of these lifts, you see.”

“Yes.”

“And you go Down, naturally.”

“Yes.”

“Well, when Down, you see a thing saying To the Trains. And you walk; along a thing like the inside of a toothpaste tube, and then you see a thing pointing to Westbound or Eastbound. You take Westbound.”

“Yes.”

“Well, you get in a train which takes you to
Earl’s
Court.
And when you’re at
Earl’s
Court,
you get out and follow the others into a
lift,
which takes you Up. When Up, you look about for other things, but probably ask a Porter, or Man, for West Kensington, please.”

“Yes.”

“Well, he’ll tell you to go down some stairs for an
Ealing
or
Richmond
train. And it’s the very next station.”

“Thanks ever so much,” said Jackie.

“Well, good-bye,” he said, and smiling faintly, he offered his hand. “You’ve got it clear?”

“Yes. Good-bye,” said Jackie. “And thanks so much.”

She turned, and commenced to walk away.

Now whether at this moment this more than hard-hearted individual caught something of the unthinking obedience and
pathetic trembling optimism of the figure departing into an unknown city, is not known. But something must have stolen over his conscience momentarily, for he called her back.

“I say.”

“Yes.”

“You won’t be lost or anything, will you?”

“No. I’m all right,” said Jackie, smiling. “Good-bye.”

“Good-bye.”

And when she reached the lift, he was standing there to be waved to. 

I
T was twilight at four o’clock on Monday afternoon — a grey, lowering, windy afternoon, big with the
threatening
and grandiose mischief of the running elements above — and Jackie was standing at the window of her quite pleasant front room in Talgarth Road, West Kensington, and waiting, with an expectancy momentarily more
perturbed
, and a trust swiftly vanishing, for the arrival of Mr. Gissing.

The grey, drab, naked, flat, scythe-like sweep of the road before her eyes was all but entirely deserted — as though people had read the signs of the god-like frolics about to commence overhead, and had dashed to shelter to wait in suspense. And apart from the milkman on his round, who, like some demented walker in a city awaiting destruction, emitted bedlamite yodelling sounds: and apart from his truck, which crashed crazily and spasmodically on its way, there was no person or thing to break the sighing uniformity of the wind-swept street. Mr. Gissing was now three-quarters of an hour late.

The room grew darker and darker every tingling minute, and the fire within, with one large flame, flapping like a
wind-tugged
flag, leapt up to illuminate the room. If Mr. Gissing did not come at all (and when it was quite dark she would resign herself) she had her course of action more or less consciously resolved upon. She would go up to her dark bedroom, lie down upon her bed, cry until she was exhausted and satisfied, spend two more weeks in London going to every theatre, every day, that she cared to go to; and then return to Lady Perrin and be married as soon as it could possibly be
negotiated
. For if Mr. Gissing proved false to her (Jackie was
now reduced to confessing to herself) she had come to the end of her spiritual resources.

For it had been raining continuously since the night of her arrival, three days ago; and apart from one ineffectual little morning trip to the West End (when it simply pelted and she very nearly lost herself), West Kensington — that treeless and drab asylum for the driven and cast-off genteel — had been all that a desolate Jackie, cast upon herself, had seen of her London so far: and some cause for her dark and tearful frame of mind, as she stood at this window, may be discerned.

Some cause, also, for her bounding sense of deliverance from nameless despairs, of her lightning transition to glad expectancy, may be imagined, as a taxi came wheeling round and snarling up from the station end of the road, and she herself rushed out to open the door and welcome him in.

And when, a few minutes later, he was sitting in the
flapping
firelight with his overcoat on, and his hat in his hand, and very much at his ease altogether as he smiled up at her, she was an emancipated creature — emancipated from all West Kensingtons, and demented milkmen, and desires to cry — and simply a young girl resident in a twilight city of
adventure
at the outset of her career.

Everything was perfect from the first moment. There was first of all the introduction to Mrs. Lover, in which Mrs. Lover was, as usual, very shy, and in which even he showed an amiable kind of diffidence — (not knowing in quite what spirit one was to take Old Nurses). And then he was shown his room, which was a rather nervous moment for Jackie, as she listened to their bumpings and conversation overhead, and wondered what he was Thinking of it. And then it was decided to tackle his trunk at once; and he, on his part, took what he described as the Worst End, and Mrs. Lover, on her part, took what was by deduction the Best End, of the thing — the enormous size of which he apologized breathlessly for, to Mrs. Lover, and the obtruding wooden banisters defeating
the advancement of which Mrs. Lover apologized
breathlessly
for, to him: and then they came down into the hall again (where Jackie was standing) for his suitcase, and here Mrs. Lover mentioned Tea.

Whereat there was much silence, and “Well”-ing, and glances each to each, during which a ghostly vision of a
deliciously
intimate, not to say dual Tea, hovered in the air, waiting for an earthly medium to express it vocally, and champion its translation into fact. And Mr. Gissing said that he rather favoured, if the thing was negotiable at such short notice, a High one, as he had to play to-night and had had no lunch to speak of. At which Mrs. Lover made several
tentative
efforts to gauge the precise gastronomic dizzinesses
conceived
by her new lodger, and was at last humbly assured that he aspired no further than buttered (if possible) toast, and maybe poached (if he did not exceed the limits of audacity) eggs. Which Mrs. Lover amicably and virtually “Pooh-poohed” as a High Tea, as one having awaited a demand for Woolworth Buildings and received an order for Peacehaven Bungalows. And then she asked, About what time? “Well, I should say about an hour,” said Mr. Gissing, and then Jackie cut courageously in. “Would you like to have it with me?” she asked, and “Rather,” said Mr. Gissing, and it was settled.

“Are you going anywhere particular to-night?” he asked, stopping on his way up the stairs to his room.

“No,” said Jackie, knowing perfectly where this question was leading to, but hiding that knowledge from her elevated self, as well as from him. “Why?”

“I wondered if you’d like to come to the King’s?”

“Oh, I should love to,” said Jackie. “It’d be ripping.”

“Then you’ll come round with me?”

“Yes. Rather,” said Jackie. “Will
you
be acting, then?”

“Well,” confessed Mr. Gissing, “I will….”

“In a manner of speaking,” he qualified, and looked at her not without the remotest traces of that faint sarcasm he had employed with her before now.

“Good Lord,” said Jackie, softly, but why she said this it is
impossible to say. Mr. Gissing went on upstairs, and Jackie went back to her sitting-room.

Here Mrs. Lover had already lit the gas and drawn down the blinds jealously against the benighted world outside. And here the fire was poked, and Jackie sat down in front of it for a quarter of an hour’s knee-clasping Nirvana, lulled by the eager flames, which might have been so many ecstatic
prospects
of the evening in front of her. But this was a mere preliminary, a scented bath of bliss prior to active
participation
, and soon enough she jumped up, and ran upstairs to change and prepare herself.

And there had never been quite such a changing and
preparing
of herself in all her life. A violently cupboard-opening, a contemptuously clothes-flinging, a fiercely shoe-polishing, an inconsequently mind-changing, a giddily in-front-of-the mirror-whirling, a hurried, detailed, insane and chaotic
changing
it was, and if ever she stopped to listen, there came a leisurely and friendly bump from the light of her existence unpacking in the next room, as much as to say, “All right. Remember we have the whole evening in front of us.” And thirty-five minutes did this changing take, inclusive of
finishing
touches, which consumed ten (for however much one Liked him, one naturally had an instinct to Show him, as it were); and then she ran downstairs.

And here the air was ripe with agreeable sounds of cooking — a much Higher tea than ever was bargained for being
obviously
in preparation — and here she was soon joined by Mrs. Lover, who came to lay the table. And Mrs. Lover did not at first speak, feeling that it was up to Jackie to fire the first shot of appraisement: and Jackie at last, after much light
humming
, and a great deal of detached stocking-ladder-examining, asked straight out what she thought of him. And Mrs. Lover, it may at once be said (though she herself took some time in coming to the point), described him as Decidedly Handsome. And, “You
do
think him handsome?” asked Jackie, as though that would not have been the exact epithet she herself would have selected. And Nice, also, did Mrs. Lover vote him; and, “Yes, he is
nice
,”
said a fair-minded Jackie, as though that
quality in him atoned for certain obscure charges that obtained in the back of her mind against him. Older than one had imagined, too, thought Mrs. Lover; and, “Yes, he
is
Older,” admitted Jackie, and added that that, really, was what made him so Nice, somehow, if Mrs. Lover knew what she meant. And Mrs. Lover was very quick in picking up the subtleties of this proposition, and said, in fact, that that was the very thing
she
had thought herself. They then both agreed that it was Strange, that they should both have struck upon the same idea, and they were both rather more emotional and glad-eyed about this circumstance than the thing actually warranted.

The High tea went with a bang from the commencement, and although it would be an overstatement to say that the point of actual flirtatiousness was at any moment touched, there was certainly an altogether different and more human flavour in their discourse than had ever obtained before. This was nothing very strong, of course: but there was,
nevertheless
, an amount of free-and-easy puttings in of lumps of sugar, a quantity of most cheeky Finger-excusing with respect to the cake, and a whole lot of brilliantly casual Askings-for-more and grudging admissions of Enough, which all testified in their way to a new and unconstrainedly
humorous
intimacy which you could have hardly believed possible half an hour ago. Indeed, by the time they had finished their high tea, and had rushed upstairs for their hats and coats, and had helped each other on with them in the narrow
hallway
: and by the time they were walking briskly down the star-lit, frosty streets to the theatre, Jackie had awakened not only to the exhilarating consciousness that the world was at her feet again, but also to the calm pride of fore-knowledge that her friend might be relied upon to make love to her at any moment in the near future…. For many had loved Jackie, and she had learnt to read the signs. She was too familiar with these sudden leaping intimacies, these infectious, inexplicable ebulliences of spirit between two strangers, not to know their eventual outcome.

Jackie never forgot that walk to the theatre; and the
evening
went on from thrill to thrill. And when, as they approached the theatre, they saw a little queue of early-door enthusiasts dismally sheltering themselves from the wind; and when, as they entered the rosy, lit, and yet hushed and unpopulated foyer, he went to the box office and employed his magic professional influence on her behalf; and when, as they emerged again, she stopped before a poster of the play (which was “The Devil’s Disciple,” by George Bernard Shaw) and observed that his name, Richard Gissing, led all the rest — it was as though the portals of fame were swinging back before her. Or, better still, it was as though she were being let into fame by some intimate side-entrance; and the little wistful queue, standing mutely by, formed the first chain of captives under the yoke of her aspiration.

They then walked down to the stage-door, and there she left him (having arranged to call for him there afterwards), and decided to go for a little walk before going in.

But there was too great a restlessness upon her, too full a symphony of glee beating somewhere in the deeps of her spirit, for mere walking, or the thick sights and roarings of Hammersmith to relieve; and she soon came back to the theatre, where she was with the first dozen or so who took their seats in the stalls.

It was a strange and enchanted half-hour which she then spent before the rising of the curtain; and she sat there
peacefully
reading her programme from cover to cover and back again.

Until at last the house was full, and the conductor bobbed up, like the apex and unifying spirit of the will of the house, and the overture commenced.

And the footlights blazed forth, like opening flowers of light; and there ensued a few minutes of elevated pulsating expectancy, of delicious irretrievability, in which every one tried to cough their last coughs, and make their final adjustments.

Then the house-lights succumbed: a murmurous darkness descended: the overture died down: a quaint, prolonged pause intervened, as though some hitch had taken place: and then the curtain rumbled, slowly and with a sort of unsteady steadiness, upwards. Not a soul spoke; and the tense old gods of make-believe sat vigilant in the breathless house.

As for Jackie, she sat there alone, with an odd foretaste of stage-fright on behalf of her friend, and watching every movement on the stage as though her existence hung upon it. Even after the first few minutes she was responding with her whole spirit and intelligence to the Satanic melodrama; but when at last Dick Dudgeon appeared, the devil’s advocate himself, the deliverer, the champion of the oppressed, the mocker of debased godliness, the hero and protagonist of courage and righteousness — and when Dick Dudgeon was observed, for all his make-up, to be none other than Richard Gissing; and when this individual did, with his loose,
swashbuckling
carriage, his emancipating wit and genial causticity, his depth and control of voice, which could break where it willed, yearn without querulousness, and hit every inflexion with an inevitability and surety of aim which left the soul released and happy — when, from the first moment, her own rescuer was to be witnessed evoking roars of laughing applause, and giggles of suspended delight, like a great wind over the rustling dark wheat of his audience; or caressing them into uncanny silences, like the threat of rain, which was the threat of tears, Jackie really did not know where she was or what she was doing at all. And when, at the end of the first act of this play, Dick Dudgeon drove forth his enemies and took their crying child-victim Essie under his wing; and when Essie began to cry, and he took her to himself and told her softly that she might cry that way if she liked, poor Jackie, as the curtain came down on that consummate moment, was in a fearful state of not knowing whether to let one’s tears roll one after another down one’s face, or to betray oneself equally by trying to smear them away. For she had by that time given up all her ambition of Going upon the Stage, all ambition of anything indeed, and had no object or fancy in
life but as some eternal Essie to some eternal Dick Dudgeon in an eternal atmosphere of crying consolations.