Chapter IX: Book THREE: Consequences (1)

i

The Merricks--Sally and Bertram--went for their honeymoon to Penterby, a little South of England town near the sea but not actually upon the coast. The honeymoon was to be a short one, the barest weekend, and so they could not go far from London; and for some reason Gaga could not stand the sea itself. Strong air made him ill, and even sight of rolling waves made him feel sick. Sally, still elated and not as yet very confident or assertive, immediately agreed when he suggested this country town; but she had no real notion of what was in store for her. She was all half-amused trepidation. The scuffled marriage-ceremony, after which the registrar's clerk hurried to call for her for the first time by her new name, was fun to her. It meant nothing: "I, Sarah, Margaret Minto, call on these present...." It was all a part of a game, a rather exciting game; and Gaga was no more to her after the ceremony than he had been before it. He was a tall agitated grey creature, very tremulous and muffled in his speech, and nothing like a husband. What _was_ a husband? How did one feel towards a husband? All Sally knew was that her husband was a stranger. He was one man out of millions of men, no more and no less than the others. The thought that she was binding herself to him for life did not trouble her. It did not enter her head.

Nevertheless, she felt triumph at her wedding ring, and clutched Gaga's arm as they came out of the register office with their two casually-acquired witnesses. They were instantly alone, and walking along the street together in the autumn sunshine, married and excited, but merely two strangers on their way to lunch. And yet that was not quite all, because when they were seated at lunch Sally felt the slightest sensation of flurry at Gaga's possessive stare. She returned it boldly, quite unembarrassed; but across her mind flitted a knowledge which came there of its own accord. He was a weak man, weak in his possessiveness as he had been weak in his stammering; and the possessiveness (which in a strong man might have excited her) gave Sally an uncomfortable sense that Gaga might bother her. She had never realised this. She saw in this instant that he would be jealous, exacting, amorous. She did not love him, and the amorousness of the unloved is a bore. Sally knew she could always deal with Gaga; but she did not want a profusion of excited caresses from him. It was this realisation that gave her a jerk of dismay. It was not that she shrank from him. It was that with her cold little brain she imagined him in a fever about her, fretful, tantalised by her coolness, rebuffed, sulky, ineffably tedious.... As she knew all this her eyes darkened. It was all very well to play with Gaga; but he was now her husband, and that meant an association so constant that in future, so far from tempting him, she would forever be engaged in battles with his exasperating, petty claims to her person and her attention. He would not ever be able to understand her wish to be alone, or to be self-engrossed. Febrile himself, he would be dumfounded at her reserve, which he would take for hostility.

The knowledge came to Sally so unexpectedly that she did not respond to Gaga's unspoken appeals. The frown in her eyes deepened. All round her were the gilded mirrors of the Rezzonico, and the general noise and movement of a busy restaurant. Opposite was Gaga, smiling with a sort of joy which made his long face appear to shine. She could tell that he was almost beside himself with excitement. And she was cool. There was no current of understanding between them. They had neither physical nor spiritual _rapport_. Slowly Sally's gaze took in all that was revealed in Gaga's face and his nervously extended hands. Slowly a little cruel smile played round her small mouth. She had married him. She was sure of him. But there was a price. He would be a nuisance, a futile nuisance to her. He would demand kisses, he would pry, would watch her, would fuss. He would be a lover with all the empty ardour of the neurotic man. Sally's heart sank. She did not want a restrained lover, because she was young and high-spirited; but this singular trembling possessiveness would soon be intolerable. He would be a nuisance. Again and again the threat pressed itself upon Sally's consciousness.

Men! That was what Sally thought. She had no deliberate mental process. All her intuitions were summarised in the one word. Men! Toby.... Gaga! Gravely, she looked round the restaurant. There were fat men and thin men, dark and fair, ugly and good-looking and negligible. And as she looked at them in turn, puzzled, Sally shrugged her shoulders. She came back to Gaga. She gave him a false, alluring smile, secure in her power to excite him still further; but her gravity was constant. She had glimpsed for the first time a thing which she could not have known before marriage. It was that one married for different reasons, but that one had to endure the disadvantages accompanying any choice. She was not afraid, but she was ruffled. She was ruffled by that exulting possessiveness which shone from Gaga. Had she loved him, her joy might have been comparable with his. If she had loved him and he had seemed not to desire her, Sally's happiness would have been undermined. But in her present coolness, the sense that Gaga was personally inescapable was enough to depress her. He would be a nuisance.

She found it so when they were in the taxicab on their way to Victoria. Her smallness made her unable to stem the torrent of his excited caresses. For a time she submitted to them, still entirely serious. Then a kind of petulant composure enabled her to chill him. Gaga laughed in a sort of giggle, holding Sally's hands, and looking adoringly into her eyes, and trying to kiss her. Instead of giving him kisses, instead of wishing him to kiss her, Sally found herself aware already of a slight repugnance. As she looked forward to spending days and nights with him her heart sank. She was not shocked. She was not afraid. She knew that there would come a time when, after boring her, Gaga's kisses would become troublesome. And it was too late now to withdraw. She was too deeply into her new scheme of life. But this feverish, insatiably amorous, weak Gaga would get on her nerves. So this was what marriage might be. Sally's jaw stiffened. Yes, if she allowed it to be so. But Sally was Sally. Kisses should presently be favours. Gaga should learn his place. A hardness showed. She pushed aside the clinging arms, and sat erect.

"No," cried Sally, sharply, at his convulsive motion of return. "Not now. We're.... People looking at us...."

She did not want to be hard. She did not want to grow hard and bitter. She had seen women who were both, and she disliked them. But with Gaga she would have to be hard. Otherwise he would bore her to desperation. So there was at this moment no longer any softness in Sally's heart towards Gaga. She resented him. As they pushed through the crowd at Victoria, Sally had a sudden impulse to run away. A shudder fled through her. A girl with less resolute will, or perhaps of greater delicacy, would have made some movement. But Sally merely stood with her head lowered, and considered the position. It was not his love that she minded; it was his hysterical possessiveness, the sense that he would always be there and claiming convulsively those small incessant intimacies which accompany marriage. Sally could not put her perception into coherent terms; but she was assured of the fact. Gaga would want too much, and that not in an adorably masterful way, but with exacting and pertinacious excitement bred from his weakness and neurotic avidity. The domination of the weak man would be a tyranny, as it always is. Sally thought: "He'll be a nuisance. I shall want to do him in by the time we get back. Oh, Lor! You done for yourself, Sally, my gel! You come a mucker! Look at your husband! Look at him!" She could see Gaga in the distance, moving agitatedly about a porter and the guard, and tripping over luggage, and interrupting other eager passengers, and stretching his long arm over their shoulders in order to touch the guard. "That's your _husband_, that is! Man who's lost his head. Man they all love. Fancy living with it for fifty years! Oh, Lor! A whole lifetime. Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days in the year, too. All day, every day! Makes you start thinking!" And she watched Gaga speeding exultantly towards her.

"All right. We've got a first," he panted, quite out of breath. "To ourselves. I've tipped the guard. It's ... it's all right. Come along. This way. Come along!"

"Oo!" cried Sally, with archness. "To ourselves! What a surprise! Strange!" And to herself, returning to her own sober thoughts: "If you did too much thinking you'd lose the use of your legs. And if girls thought a bit before they got marrying, they'd.... Funny! I wonder what they _would_ do!"

ii

What she would herself have done Sally had no time to consider; for they were hurried to their compartment and were locked in by the obliging and amused guard. They then sat demurely upon opposite sides of the carriage until the train began to move. Every time anybody peered in at the window Sally, who had recovered her good spirits, began to laugh; and Gaga was full of consternation. But at last even that anxiety was removed, and in the afternoon sunlight the country began to glow under their eyes and race round in a sweeping circle with an intoxicating effect not to be appreciated by those who are staled for railway travelling. Sally allowed Gaga to embrace her; but she kept her face resolutely turned from him for a long time while she relished her new joy in rushing thus through the increasingly-beautiful districts which bordered the track. It was only when Gaga became expostulatory that she abandoned this pleasure and yielded to his tumultuous affection, with a listlessness and a sense of criticism which was new to her. Silly fool; why couldn't he sit still and be quiet! She belonged to herself, not to him. Almost, she thrust him away from her.

They reached Penterby by four o'clock in the afternoon, and were turned out upon the platform with their two light bags, like the stranded wanderers they were. And then they walked out into the roughly paved road leading through the town to higher land behind, and onward, along a road to which they turned their backs, and which wavered, past the railroad station, up an incline in the direction of the distant sea. Gaga carried both bags, and led the way, and Sally saw for the first time a wide street, and shops and houses quaintly built, and a church spire with houses below it, arranged in terraces, all warm in the dying sun. It was still summer here, she thought, and the atmosphere was pleasant. The houses were not at all crowded, but stood up at the first glance as if they were proud of great age and their height above the road from the station.

"We going up there?" demanded Sally, pointing to the hill, and the houses erect upon it.

"No, darling.... See ... that ... that ... lamp."

Sally looked up at Gaga's face. Oh, if it had only been Toby! The blood suddenly rushed to her cheeks. Toby! She wanted Toby! As quickly, she was chilled by fear. What would Toby do? What would he try to do? Yes, well Toby didn't know yet that she was married. And she was married to Gaga, and she had done this thing with her eyes open. There was no going back. Marriage was a thing you could not repudiate. It was final. The blood flowed away from Sally's face. She was cool again in an instant. Her eyes were fixed upon the lamp which Gaga had indicated, and upon the ivy behind it. Upon a suspended board she read in gold the letters "RIVER HOTEL", and as she appreciated the meaning of this name Sally observed that the street went onward past the hotel over an unmistakable bridge.

"Is that the river?" she asked. "Is the hotel _on_ the river? Where we stay?"

"Yes. You'll see.... You'll like it." Gaga was entreating, now rather frightened by Sally's lack of response to his feverish endearments, already inclined to suspicion and sidelong glances of doubt.

"Sure I shall!" cried Sally, perfectly composed once more. "It's nice. Does the river go just there?"

Gaga became suddenly very enthusiastic. He motioned with the hand in which both small bags were carried. He began to walk at a quicker pace.

"You see the front of the hotel--all ... all ivy. Well at the end the wall goes ... goes right down into the water. And there's a balcony ... all ... all covered with glass, on the first floor. Our room opens on this balcony. You can look right down into the river.

"Is it a nice river?"

He was rather hesitating in face of her sharp tone of inquiry.

"Well, er.... Nice? It's ... it's a tidal river. It flows up and down. In ... in the summer things get carried.... I mean, it's not ... not very clean. It's mud."

"Oo." Sally's little nose wrinkled. "Does it smell? I mean, is it healthy?" But at this new question Gaga looked very perplexed and rather unhappy, so that she quickly abandoned her curiosity about the river, knowing that she would presently be able to satisfy it more effectively by personal observation. Without further speech they came abreast of the hotel, and turned in under the arched entrance. To the left of them was a door with the legend "COFFEE ROOM"; to the right another door above which hung a little sign "HOTEL." It was by this right-hand door that they entered, and it was here, by a glass enclosed bar, that they waited. Upon an extended shelf there was lying a newspaper which had come through the post for some departed visitor. Beyond the bar Sally noticed decanters and bottles and upturned glasses. Before her was another door, open, which revealed a table upon which glasses had left little circular stains. She was all curiosity. This must be the saloon. She gave a sharp mischievous hunching of the shoulders, and hugged Gaga's arm. Then, as a stout woman came out of another room, she grew sedate, and stood free from her husband in case they should be supposed to be upon their honeymoon.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Merrick."

She knew him, then. He was no stranger here.

"Mrs. Tennant.... How ... how d'you do? This.... I've brought my wife with me this time," stammered Gaga proudly. "Sally, this is Mrs. Tennant."

"Pleased to meet you," announced the stout woman. Sally scrutinised her. She had been pretty, but had grown fat. She had puffs round her eyes, and swollen lips, and a cat-like expression of geniality. Behind her agreeable smile there was suspicion of all mankind, suspicion and wariness, due to her constant need of self-control in the difficult business of managing noisy or cantankerous guests. Sally did not like her. "Tabby!" she thought at once. But immediately afterwards she knew that it would be worth while to make a friend of Mrs. Tennant. She gave her little friendly grin, and saw its effect. "That's that," reflected Sally. And it was so. Mrs. Tennant cordially led the way up to the first floor, talking of the weather, and of the number of visitors who were at present staying at the River Hotel.

"Does Mrs. Merrick play?" she asked. "Do you? We've got a very good piano in the drawing-room.... I'm passionately fond of music myself. It's the sorrow of my life I can't play."

Sally grimaced. The drawing-room was glimpsed--a room with settees and big chairs and a strident carpet and antimacassars and small palms in pots. Large windows made it beautifully light. And as she took in these details Sally hurried on, and found herself in a narrow dun-coloured passage, where brown doors with numbers upon them indicated the bedrooms. It was into the second of these rooms that she was led, and in spite of the frowst she looked with eagerness at a further door and windows that opened upon the balcony of which Gaga had spoken. The windows were lace-curtained, but she could see through the curtains to what seemed like a conservatory.

"You see the door opens on to the balcony," explained Mrs. Tennant, while Gaga put down the bags and wiped his hands with his handkerchief. "Looks right across the river. I'm afraid the tide's out now; but when it's up you see all sorts of things floating up and down."

"What sort of things?" demanded Sally, going to the glass sides of the building and peering down at the mud.

"Oh, _all_ sorts...." Mrs. Tennant was a little confused, but conversational. "That old building you see across there is ... well, it used to be a granary; but nobody's used it for a long time. There's a dinghy in the mud over there. It's Mr. Scuffle's...."

Dinghy! Instantly Sally's mind jerked back to a day she had spent with Toby, when he had teased her about her ignorance of boats. Toby! So that was a dinghy! Just like any other boat.

The balcony was empty; but trays still lay upon two of the light iron tables, and a newspaper had been tossed upon the matted floor. All the chairs were of wicker, and in them lay little hard cushions covered with dirtied cretonne. Through the long glass side one could see the slowly-flowing river (for the tide was about to turn), and the already dimming sky, and the houses upon the rising ground that lay beyond the farther bank, and the bridge upon which people were walking. Sally looked up and down the momentarily sinister river. She was afraid of water, afraid of its secrecy and its current; and she turned away from her contemplation with a sense of chill.

"I'm cold," she said, brightly. "Bertram.... Could we have some tea, Mrs. Tennant?"

"Certainly. You'd like a wash? I'll get the tea at once...."

Back in the room, Sally was immediately again embraced. She did not now trouble about Gaga; she was glad of his arms around her, and his breast upon which she could lay her head. Married ... river ... married ... river ... ran her thoughts. And she turned away from Gaga to the washstand, and poured cold water from the ewer into the basin.

"Let me alone...." she laughingly said. "Be ... get away.... I'm going to wash."

And when the water touched her face Sally was alert once more, cleansed and freshened. With tea before her she could face even marriage and that drearily-flowing river and the hideous mud, so thick and so oozily sinister.

iii

On the following day Sally, dogged everywhere by Gaga, was perfectly aware of her contempt for him. Twenty-four hours had been enough to show her the exacting and irritating characteristics of her new husband. Did she stir, he looked up; his hand was ever ready for her hand; those chocolate eyes were eternally suffused with a love that moved Sally to impatience. He did not even amuse her by his calf-like pursuit. All that was ruthless in her rose up and sneered at his weakness and his timid assurance, which had the same effect as one of those horrible streamers of cobweb that catch the face as one walks unwarily along a dusky lane. Only her native resoluteness enabled her to show Gaga a false patience. Only her insensitiveness made his constant caress endurable. Sally blinked sometimes at his grabbing sentimentality; but she already began to slip neatly aside and avoid his carefully-planned contacts. She was not yet hard or perverse.

And while Gaga lay down in the afternoon, as she found he was in the habit of doing, in order that his physical strength might last through the day, Sally found the empty drawing-room and with often-strained ears began the difficult task which she had set herself. Below her was the thick, powerful current of the now sinking river, laden with refuse which flowed backwards and forwards past the hotel; and upon the windows and casual brightnesses of the tall houses on the hill across the river she could see the crystal sparkling of reflected sunshine. She had a feeling that all about Penterby was open green country, sometimes flat, but always in the distance crowned and adorned with hills; and she knew the brown of the river and the mud, and the green slime which decorated the wall opposite. It was unforgettable. She would always think of it. And her task was the writing of a letter to Toby. She had planned to write to him upon this day--the first free day of her married life; and she was bent upon keeping to her plan. He must be told at once, and yet as she held the pen above a sheet of plain paper she was stunned by the extraordinary difficulty of the composition. Only then, for the first time, did she grasp the definiteness of the step she had taken. She would never see Toby again. Never? Never--never--never. Sally's eyes filled with tears. A thick, painful sob forced its way through her. Never.

She began to write. She put no address, but only, in her plain handwriting, still that of a schoolgirl, the words "My dear." It was at this point that Sally began to discard all the phrases which she had earlier composed in her head. She considered that if she were never to see Toby again it did not matter what he thought of her. The bald announcement would do very well. It was best, and easiest, and safest. And then she knew again that she was afraid of Toby, and of what he might do. She was a true woman in being unable to face a conclusion. She could not imagine that she would never see him again. It was incredible. So incapable was she of realising the fact of a complete break that she thought herself possessed by an instinct that they must meet and continue as before. Sally was much more afraid that he would kill her. It was the reason why she was putting no address at the head of the letter. He must not find her with Gaga. She wrote at last.

"My dear. I have been a bad wicked girl and married another man.
Do not try to find me. I shall be all right. Find some other girl,
and be happy with her. I shall never be happy without you. My
husband is very kind and good. Don't forget me."

At the end of this letter she put no signature, but a single cross to indicate a kiss. Then she addressed an envelope, stamped it, slipped down the stairs and along to the post office. By the time Toby got the letter she and Gaga would no longer be there; and he would not be able to find her afterwards. London was so big. She was afraid of him, and yet she longed to see him again. Five minutes later she was back in the drawing-room, seated at the piano, and singing softly in her clear voice the song that had first so greatly charmed Gaga.

"'Your heart mine, and mine in your keeping,
List while I sing to you love's tender song.'"

As she sang, Sally looked up and at the doorway. There, adoringly, stood Gaga, all his love making a radiance in his face which she had not previously seen so distinctly. He came slowly towards her, and as she continued her song he kissed the back of her neck where the hair was brushed up in the first soft incalculable wave. Sally for the first time shrank a little; but she pursued her song unhesitatingly, so schooled was she in her determination that the price she was paying was to be borne.

"'When you and I go down the love path together,
Stars shall be shining and the night so fair.'"

"We'll go ... go walking in the moonlight to-night ... shall we?" whispered Gaga. Sally nodded, making her voice quaver by the motion. Gaga could not see her face; but Sally knew that even if he had done so he would have been quite unable to read her thoughts, which were dry and inflexible. He remained by her side until she had finished the song, and then fiercely pressed her head back until he was able by stooping to kiss her lips from above. His hand was under her chin. He kissed her many times, oppressively--little ravenous pecks that were febrile rather than loving; and assertive of his new proprietorship. His kisses left Sally unmoved and slightly frowning. She was surprised at Gaga's simplicity in imagining that any girl valued or could possibly value such ceaseless demonstrative action, such ugly hard little parrot-like caresses.

"Only a soppy kid would," she thought. "She'd like it, I suppose. Think quantity meant love. It doesn't. Like a beak. Silly fool!" And aloud she said quite firmly: "There, that's enough. Shan't have any face left, at this rate. I shall come out in spots. What's the time?"

To soften her words she held and pressed his hand; but only for an instant. Then she rose abruptly from the piano and walked over to the window. With his arm immediately at her waist Gaga followed, like a long, abject greyhound.

"The tide's out," he said, indicating the sun illumined mud by the opposite wall.

"Ugh!" shuddered Sally. "Fancy getting your feet in that stuff! You'd never get out.... Gives me the horrors, it does!" She leaned back into his arms.

iv

They left Penterby by a very early train on the Monday morning, and while Gaga took the two bags to an hotel where the Merricks were to stay for the present Sally went direct to Madame Gala's. She had obtained special permission to be an hour late in the morning, and so she entered the workroom without confusion. It was the same as it had always been--the long benches, and the girls, and Miss Summers sitting apart, as plump and feline as ever. There was, of course, curiosity about Sally. Few of the girls supposed that she had been away with a girl friend, which had been the story; and all looked at her with a knowing suspicion. Only Miss Summers was completely trusting. Sally had slipped off her wedding-ring, and it lay in her purse. She took in the whole scene as she entered, and measured the assumptions of the girls with cool indifference. But she would have done that in any case; for Sally had nothing to learn about workgirls and their thoughts and interpretations, and she had also none of the false self-consciousness which makes wrong-doers imagine that their actions have been providentially revealed to all observers. Had she and Gaga arrived together the case would have been different; but nothing had occurred to make the girls suppose that there was any relation between them, and Sally was perfectly safe from that most dangerous of all recognitions. She was still, to the girls, Sally Minto; and to some of them still the white-faced cocket of Rose Anstey's jealous outburst. Sally looked boldly at Rose as she sat industriously working. Then, with greater stealth, at Miss Summers. That plump face had a solemnly preoccupied expression that gave Sally a faint start of doubt. Immediately, however, she knew that Miss Summers must be worried, not upon Sally's account, but on account of some message respecting Madam which had been received earlier in the morning. This made her seize an excuse to approach Miss Summers.

"How's Madam?" she whispered, surreptitiously.

Miss Summers shook her head with foreboding.

"Still the same. No better; no worse. Sally, I'm _afraid_."

Sally looked down at Miss Summers. How strangely their relation had been altered by this weekend's doings! Wherever Sally glanced she knew that what she saw was now potentially her own. By the simple act of marrying Gaga she had become, as it were, mistress of the place. And she knew it. She knew it plainly and without swollen conceitedness. Not yet was her power unquestionable; but it was none the less genuine. Even Miss Summers....

"I hope she gets better," said Sally.

Miss Summers shot a quick glance upwards. She started, and a faint redness came into her plump cheeks. The tip of her nose was irritated, and she rubbed it with her knuckle.

"Oh, I do _hope_ so," breathed Miss Summers. "It would be awful--awful for all of us--if she didn't. You see...."

"She'll have to die some time," remarked Sally.

"But now!" The head was shaken afresh. Miss Summers gave a heavy sigh. She had no such youthful confidence as Sally's. She was a born follower, a born sheep; and with Madam removed she could see nothing ahead but disaster to the business. Sally had a little difficulty in keeping back her smile. She thought of this poor old pussycat in fear of her life, and her lip slightly curled at the knowledge that she alone had superior knowledge of the situation. Already Sally was casting round for channels in which her new power might be used. She wanted opportunity. It was both a chagrin and a secret relief to her that Madam could not yet be told of the marriage. If she knew it, and disapproved, as Sally knew that she must do, Madam could at any moment annul Sally's hopes of taking a leading part in the business. She could alter her will. Therefore, if she lived, she must be kept ignorant. It would be a trouble. And yet in spite of her assurance Sally was still suspicious of her own ability to master every detail in time to carry on the whole establishment without a great lapse into momentary failure. She planned as a middle-aged woman. At eighteen her plans were profound. But instinctively, and in spite of colossal conceit, she understood that eighteen was not an age at which control can successfully be taken of a large business. Therefore she was fighting against unacknowledged fear.

During that day she hardly saw Gaga at all. He was at home with his mother, and did not come to business until the afternoon. Only in the evening did she creep into his room and submit to his endearments. She then left, and went to the hotel at which for the present they were to stay; and here, in the little sitting-room attached to their bedroom, she was for the first time able to be alone for half-an-hour with her post-nuptial reflections. They were not all pleasant, and they called for the exercise of her natural resoluteness. She had comfort, and the knowledge that she need never again trouble about food and clothing. But she also knew that a husband is a different sort of person from a lover. He seemed to her to be a sort of omnipresent nuisance. Her trouble was that thoughts and ambitions were in conflict with Gaga's amorousness. He could never understand her. He could understand her no better than Toby, and as she had no use for him otherwise than as the instrument of her ambition, she was already, within two days of marriage, bored with him. Sally awaited Gaga's arrival with calm unwillingness. She did not realise how rapid would be her instinctive progress to repugnance; but she had no illusions about her marriage.

At last Gaga arrived, his own eagerness unabated, but he was still shaken by the fact that his mother was seriously ill. With Sally in his arms he whispered or murmured alternately professions of love and anxiety. She was all the time secretly astonished at his devotion to Madam, because it corresponded to nothing in her own nature; but she comforted Gaga because it was her impulse to do so. She did not dislike him in this mood. She felt pity for him. It was only for his tremulous persistency in caress that Sally felt contempt. Gradually she began to be able to divert his mind to other matters--to their own future, and the flat they were to take and to furnish; and to the plans they must make for a slow change of her position in the business. Already Sally was obtaining a grasp of the details, but she could go little further until her access to the books and accounts was free. She could do nothing until some scheme had been made. So the two sat together after dinner and discussed what they were to do, and where they were to live, and how the rooms of the flat were to be furnished. It was all, upon Sally's side, practical and clear; and for Gaga a wonderful revelation of Sally's wisdom. He became more and more infatuated, as Sally became more and more cool. And they talked the whole evening through, without realising that with each moment Sally's dominion was more firmly established.

It was only towards the end of the evening that Gaga, unhinged by excitement, became desperately pale, and confessed to a headache. He found his customary drugs, and took them. But to Sally this headache was a new and emphatic indication of Gaga's troublesome temperament. Ugliness and squalor she knew; but sickliness was new to her. In face of a groaning and prostrate man, she turned away. Her heart sank a little. Then, with a shrug, she turned to the advertisements of flats to let in London which she found in various newspapers; and made notes of the addresses of house agents. This occupation she continued until Gaga called almost fretfully from the next room, when she turned off the electric light and joined him. An hour later, while Gaga still lay staring into the darkness, Sally was fast asleep. She had no dreams. For the present she was occupied with facts alone; and she did not suspect that she was unhappy, because she had been absorbing too many details to be able to reflect upon the sinking of her heart and its meaning.

v

The next evening Sally went to see her mother. Her first object was to get Mrs. Minto away from the room in which they had lived; because it was essential that if Toby came back, as she believed he could not do for some days, he should be unable to trace Sally or her mother. It was for fear of Toby that the removal was to be made. Once get Mrs. Minto away, to some other part of North London, and Toby might seek news of Sally in vain. Only if he came and waited outside Madam's would he be able to find her; and in that case she could still baulk him, as she was going to stay late every evening for the future in order to work with Gaga. But first of all, Sally must arrange to get her mother out of the old house. She would not want to go. She must go. She would pretend that she could keep herself. She would show the stubborn pride of many old people of the working class, who will work until they kill themselves rather than accept charitable doles. Very well, Sally knew that Mrs. Minto could not keep herself; and she knew also that these same old people have no similar delicacy in taking from their children's earnings. She was going to explain that she was still working, and that what Mrs. Minto would receive came from Sally herself, and not from Sally's husband. And she would herself find a room for her mother in Stoke Newington, a suburb which is farther from Holloway than many more distant places for the reason that no dweller in Holloway has any curiosity about Stoke Newington or any impulse to go there as an adventure.

Sally found Mrs. Minto in a familiar attitude, stooping over a very small fire; but as she ran up the stairs very softly, with a nervous dread of Toby, she had no conception of the welcome which awaited her. She opened the door and went into the dingy room, and stood smiling; and to her great surprise she saw her mother rise almost wildly and come towards her. Two thin arms pressed and fondled her, and a thin old cheek was pressed hard against her own. To herself Mrs. Minto was ejaculating in a shivering way: "My baby, my baby!" Only then did Sally understand how much the separation had meant to her mother. She herself had never once thought of that lonely figure at home.

"Poor old thing!" Sally found herself saying. "Was she lonely then?" She patted her mother's bony shoulders, and hugged her, affected by this involuntary betrayal of love. Mrs. Minto had never been demonstrative. "I wish I'd brought you something, now. A present. I never thought of it."

"Is it all right? Are you happy, my dearie?" demanded Mrs. Minto, with a searching glance.

"I knew what I was doing, ma," proclaimed Sally. "There's not much I don't know."

It was an evasion; a confession of something quite other than the happiness about which she had been asked.

"Ah, that's what I was afraid of...." breathed her mother. "That's what young people always think. You don't know nothing at all, Sally."

"I know more'n you do!" It was a defiance.

"You think you do. Why, you're only a baby...." Mrs. Minto shook her head several times, with lugubrious effect. But her last words had been full of a smothered affection, more truly precious than a hundred of Gaga's kisses or a dozen of Toby's animal hugs.

"In your days I should have been." Sally withdrew herself, and led her mother back to her chair. "Not know! Why, the girls know a lot more now than they used to when _you_ was a girl. No more timid little creatures."

"They only _think_ they know more," declared Mrs. Minto, trembling. "And it takes 'em longer to find out they don't know nothing at all. It takes a lot of time to get to know. You're in too much of a hurry, my gel. You don't know nothing. Nothing whatever, for all your talk of it. I been thinking about it all these days--frantic, I've been."

"All these _years_!" jeered Sally. "Look here, ma.... Here's my marriage license!" And as she spoke she waved the folded paper before her mother's eyes in such a way that it fell open and showed the official entries. Even as she did this so lightly, Sally was able to catch the sharply hidden expression of relief which crossed Mrs. Minto's face at the reassurance. She made no pretence of misunderstanding. "Say I don't know anything?" she demanded. "Think I don't know enough for that? Silly old fool? What did I tell you? There's about twenty million things I know that you don't know. And never _will_ know, what's more. Wake up! I tell you one thing, ma. The people who _don't_ know think a lot worse than the people who do. They fancy more. See? It's a little way they got. All goes on inside their heads, and shakes about. People like me haven't got time to think a lot of muck. We _do_ things ... and do them thorough."

Mrs. Minto, reproved, sank into contemplation.

"Well, I don't know, Sally," she went on, after a pause. "You talk a lot. I'd rather think than talk. You say he's rich. Sometimes girls get left."

"Not me, though," Sally assured her. "Soppy ones do. I'm not soppy. And I'll tell you what. I'm going to get you out of this place."

"I ain't going to live with you and him!" declared Mrs. Minto in alarm. "I wouldn't!"

"No. You're going to live somewhere else. I want you to get away from here. You're going to have two decent rooms ... in Stoke Newington. Real paper on the walls, and a carpet, and new mattress that isn't like two horse troughs."

"I won't take nothing from him."

"No. From me. Out of my wages."

"You ain't going to have.... Don't be silly. I'm well off where I am."

"I'm going to keep on at Madam's. I'm going to have plenty money. And you're going to move. Got it? I'll see about it to-morrow night, get you in Thursday or Friday. Won't take an hour to settle you in. Then you'll be comfortable."

"I'm very well as I am," said Mrs. Minto, obstinately. "I can keep myself. I'm not going to sponge on you. Not likely."

"You'll move Thursday or Friday, I tell you."

It was final. The poor thin little old woman had no fight in her. She looked up at Sally, and her face was the anxious face of a monkey, or of a sick beast that is being tended. Now that she had been comforted about Sally she had nothing left to say. She made a last feeble effort.

"I don't want to move. Mrs. Roberson...."

"Fiddlesticks!"

"My 'ead!"

"Your head'll get better if you keep quiet and have real coal and a bath or two." Sally was imperious, and enjoyingly so. Her spirits had risen. She was a general. She looked down protectingly at her mother, and a ghost of ancient love rose breathing in her heart. "Silly old thing!" she murmured, with a touch of softness; and knelt suddenly. "Got to look after you a bit," she added. "It's you who's the baby now. What a lot of kids people are! Makes me feel a hundred--and over--when I see what fools they are. I'm sorry for you, and that's the truth. You and Miss Summers and Gaga."

"Who's Gaga?"

"He's Mr. Sally Minto," said Sally with mystic insolence. "That's who Gaga is. He calls himself my husband, but he's no more my husband than you are, ma. And never will be. But oh, Lor! He's going to be the worry of my life! Ma, did Pa chase you all over the place when you was married? I mean, chase you all about trying to kiss you and fuss you?"

"No, dear," said Mrs. Minto. "He was drunk. He didn't know what he was doing."

"Hn," Sally grunted. Then she stood up again. "I'm going now," she announced. "I'm going back to Gaga. He's ill. I expect he's being sick."

And before her mother could make startled enquiries, Sally had kissed her and gone to the door. She ran in high spirits down the stairs and out of the front door not laughing, but in a curious way moved by this conversation and the strange turn which it had taken. She slammed the door after her, and met with a sudden squall of wind. And as she went away from the house she was conscious of a feeling of relief. She had escaped from it, and her heart was beating rather fast. All the time, under her speech and her thoughts, she had unconsciously been listening for Toby's step upon the stair. Even now, she knew that her shoulders were contracted with apprehensiveness.

She hurried along in the direction of Holloway Road, still flinching, with her nerves uncommonly strained. It was such an odd feeling that she had in thus revisiting her ugly old home. She had noticed it all afresh--the tired linoleum, and the oil stove and the tiny fire made from coal blocks, and the stupid old bed and the browned wallpaper--and she felt that it all belonged to a time when she had been a different girl altogether. She had never before been away from home, without her mother, for so long. She had never once been away from this room for a night, until her marriage. And to come thus into the dark street, in a wind, with the door slamming behind her, took Sally's memories uncontrollably back to the days which followed their first arrival, the days when she had met Toby and talked to him and walked with him about the streets. She recalled her visit to Mrs. Perce, and the sight of that grim figure relentlessly waiting for her outside the Stores; and the struggle with Toby, and her resultant happiness; and the night when he had first come to the room while her mother lay in the hospital. Heigho! She had been young in those days; now she felt an old woman, with all the sense of ageless age which the young feel after a transition from one kind of life to another. She was in a sense disillusioned. She had taken her step, and cut the link that bound her to this neighbourhood and the starveling room. She had cut the link that bound her to Toby. And he was now swiftly back in her consciousness, in her heart; so that she knew she would never forget him because he was the first man she had loved, and thus forever her idea of a lover. So strong was her emotion that she felt a strange little dryness in her throat and her burning eyes, and fancied she heard his voice. It was as though two years had been taken away, as though she once again--as she done two years ago--longed and feared to meet Toby.

As Sally, with her head bent and her thoughts active, pressed onward, she heard the clanging bell of a passing tramcar, and saw its brilliant lights rush by along the Holloway Road. A cart rattled on the rough stones of the road, and the wind blew the leaves of the bushes in the gardens she passed. And as she shivered a little at the wind's onset she again imagined that she heard Toby's voice, and inevitably turned in the direction from which the sound had appeared to reach her. Everything was quite dark; but there was a blackness just behind her that was like the figure of a man. It took shape; it came nearer and nearer. Sally's heart stopped beating, and she shrank back against the railing of one of the houses. She felt a deadly sickness upon her, a dreadful horror.

"Sally!"

It _was_ Toby. He was abreast, inescapable. He loomed over her like a figure of vengeance. Her heart was like water. She was hysterically afraid.

vi

"Hallo, Sally!" Toby was by her side, and his arms round her, and his kisses on her cheek. "Why, aren't you going to kiss me?"

Sally's eyes opened wide at his tone of innocent surprise. She suffered him to kiss her lips. Toby had not received her letter! He was on leave, and.... She gasped. An indescribable relief caused her to rest limply and unprotestingly in his arms. Once again they were engulfed in merciful darkness, hidden from each other and from anybody who might happen to pass. She could not think at all; but she was thankful at this reprieve. Not yet would he kill her. And as they stood embraced she was suddenly happy, with a passion that astonished her. Toby-- Toby, her love; and she herself in his arms again, as she had never thought to be. A strange laugh, low and tender, came from her lips. Her cheek was gently rubbed against his, and her body quite relaxed. Every one of Sally's difficulties suffered an oblivion; they were all dispersed in the extraordinary mist of sensation which enwrapped her.

"I _was_ surprised," she murmured, kissing him with all her heart. "Didn't expect to see you. Funny to see you ... _so funny_ ... and when I was thinking of you. I must have known you were coming."

"I just got in," Toby said. "I say, where you going, Sal?"

Sally flinched again. Immediately she was conscious of terror.

"Stoke Newington," she cried; in a flash. What was she to do? What _was_ she to do? She was desperate. Fear was strong; but love was stronger. It was not only now that she did not dare to tell him the truth in case he killed her; much more than that was her understanding of the fact that she could not bear to lose him. Such gust of thankfulness had shaken Sally when she knew that Toby had not received her letter that she was brimming now with joy. It was impossible to lose her rapture at the moment of its full glory. She _could_ not tell him.

"Stoke Newington? Whatever for? Here, wait till I've had some grub.... No, I'll come with you now. Get some grub later. Have you got to go there now?"

"You musn't come, Toby."

"Why not?" He was instantly suspicious. His grip tightened, and he forced her to look at him.

"Didn't you get my letter?"

"When? Now? I've had no letter. What you going to Stoke Newington for? No, I want to know. You going to meet another chap? I believe you are, you little devil! By Christ! If you.... I _will_ come!" Toby was now fiercely suspicious. She could tell from his ferocious grip, and the urgency of his tone. "If you're playing that game, I'll kill you. By Christ, I will!"

"I'm not. I'm not," cried Sally. "You're hurting me, Toby!"

"You swear it?" He relaxed his hold, which was strangling her. In the darkness he again strove to see her expression and judge for himself of her honesty.

"I'm not going to see anybody. I swear I'm not."

"Why did you ask if I'd had your letter? What you bin writing to me?"

"Oo, a lot of lies...." breathed Sally. "Silly talk and rubbish. That's all it was."

"What about?" He was still intense. Sally could hardly breathe, and her courage was fading. They were so much in the darkness that they could not be seen, and she was entirely dominated by Toby's physical strength. Within his grasp she was helpless, and not all her dartingly-imagined expedients would be enough to secure her escape. Hastily she improvised a story.

"Well, I'm not living with ma any longer. I gone out to live in," she lied.

"Stoke Newington?"

"No."

"Lost your job?"

"No."

He was baffled! but he knew that something was amiss. Sally could feel him drawing deep breaths. In the shadow she could imagine that his jaw was firmly set. It was strange to feel so happy in his arms, so afraid of death, so frustrated in the composition of any tale by which she could free herself and thus gain time to make some fresh plan. Sally had never been in a comparable quandary.

"Where you living?" he next demanded.

"Don't be rough. You're hurting. Well, I'm living. I forget the address. Only went there last night. I'm with a friend."

"What sort of a friend? A girl? What's her name?"

"Miss Summers."

Toby considered. He had heard that name, Sally knew, and must remember it. She felt that at last she had stumbled upon something which would seem to him probable enough to allay immediate suspicion.

"She's your forewoman or something, isn't she?" he demanded.

"Yes. She's very kind. She's ever so nice." Sally prayed that he might believe her. There was a long pause of doubt, during which hysteria, rising, nearly provoked a frantic struggle for freedom and flight. But she remembered a former occasion, and her knees were weak at the foreknowledge of failure. He would not be merciful. She feared him and adored him.

"Well," Toby said at last, in a grumble; "when do I see you? Eh?" Thank God, his voice had changed. He had spoken slowly and in acceptance of the tale. Sally conquered a sob that would have betrayed her. Toby had been tricked. There was still a chance that she might be able to manage him for the present.

Sally thought for a moment, but in a distracted blur. All her plans, made upon the assumption that he would be at sea for at least a week longer, had miscarried. There was now no sense in moving her mother hurriedly and secretly. Toby, in the room above, would be aware of everything. She must arrange this differently. It would need a careful scheme. When would Toby receive his letter? Probably it would not be forwarded at all, but would be kept at the offices of the shipping company. That was what had happened once or twice before. He would be at home a week. She had a week. How tired she was! She must get away now, and have a chance to think; but she must see Toby again. She _must_.

"To-morrow," Sally gasped. "To-morrow night. Eight o'clock. Marble Arch. Eight o'clock, or a bit after. I might be kept a little late."

To her inexpressable thankfulness, Toby rather grumblingly agreed.

"We'll go to the pictures," he said. "There's a picture house there."

"Wherever you like. Toby, I _must_ go."