Chapter IV: Part I: I (4)

"Is that you, Master Robert? You'd better run up quick. Your aunt is going to give you a jacketing, I can tell you."

"Aunt" was the term with which Mrs. Withers covered up what she considered privately to be an ambiguous relationship.

Robert slunk past her. He crawled upstairs with an aggressive deliberation. He would show how much he cared. He was not afraid of Christine. He had seen her unhappy too often. In a way he knew that he was stronger than she was. For she was old and had no one to love but himself.

All the same he was afraid. With every step he took he seemed to climb farther and farther into the midst of fear. It was all around him--in the close, airless dark and in the deathly quiet light that came from the open doorway overhead. What was waiting for him there? His father, risen unimaginably loathsome from the grave? For he could never be in the dark without thinking of his father. Or something else? At least he knew that the never-really-believed-in time of peace was over and that the monster which had lain hidden and quiescent so long was crouched somewhere close to him, ready to leap out.

Christine sat by the table under the light. There was a drawer beside her which she had evidently torn out of its place in panic-stricken haste, for the floor about her was littered with its contents--gloves and handkerchiefs and ribbons. She held a shabby, empty purse in her limp hand, and it was as though she had sat down because she had no longer the strength to stand. He had not known before how grey her hair was. Her face was grey, too, and withered like a dead leaf.

He stood hesitating in the doorway and they looked at one another. There was no question of punishment or reproof between them. It was the old days over again when they had clung together in the face of a common peril--helpless and horribly afraid. She tried to smile and push the empty purse out of sight as though it were of no account at all. And all at once he was ashamed and miserable with pity.

"I was beginning to get quite worried about you." He could hardly hear her. "Where have you been, Robert?"

He answered heavily, not moving from the doorway where he hung like a sullen shadow.

"At the Circus."

"Is there a Circus? Why didn't Mrs. Withers tell me? If I had known that I shouldn't have worried. I expect you were there yesterday too--and the day before, weren't you, dear?"

He nodded, and she began to bundle everything back into the drawer, as though at last a tiresome question had been satisfactorily settled.

"I knew it was all right. Mr. Ricardo was here this afternoon. He thought I was ill--he thought you had told him you couldn't come because I was ill. I said I had had to stay at home--it was easier--I knew there had been a mistake."

The old life again. They were confederates and she had lied to shield him even from herself. She was looking past him as though she saw someone standing behind him in the dark passage. He was so sure of it that he wanted to turn round. But he did not dare.

"I wish I'd known. We--we might have gone together. I used to be very fond of a good circus. Did they have elephants? Robert--Robert, dear, why didn't you tell me about it?"

He shook his head. He knew now that he could never have told her or made her understand. She would have thought him silly--or disloyal. She would never see that this new love had nothing to do with the Robert who would die if Christine left him. It had to do with another boy who longed for bands and processions and worshipped happy, splendid people who did not have to tell lies and who were so strong and fearless that even fierce animals had to obey them. They were different. They did not live in the same life. You could love them without pain or pity.

It was a secret thing, inside himself. If he tried to drag it out and show it her, no one could tell what would happen to it.

She sighed deeply.

"It's this being away all day. If I had been at home you would have asked me for the money, wouldn't you? And then you forgot to tell me. But I've been a little worried. You didn't take it all, did you, dear?"

"Yes, I did. I spent it at the Circus. And then I gave some to Cosgrave."

He saw the blood rush up wildly into her white face. The next minute she had laughed--a gay, unfamiliar laugh--and he winced and shivered as though she had struck him.

"Why, that's so like your father--that's just what your father would have done. He loved doing kind, generous things--giving money away."

And now he knew for certain who it was who stood behind him in the dark passage. He could not bear it. He slammed the door to, closing his eyes tight so that he should not see. He ran to her, pressing himself against her, stammering passionately.

"I'm not like my father--I'm not--I'm not. I won't be."

She petted him tenderly. She was grave now and sure of herself.

"You mustn't say that, Robert. Your father was a wonderful man, in many ways. People didn't understand him--only your mother and I. If your mother had lived it would all have been quite different. He was unfortunate and often very unhappy. The world thinks so much of money. But he despised it. It was nothing to him. You're like that too. You didn't realize, did you? It didn't seem a great deal. It was just a beginning. But I have had to do without food. I've been hungry sometimes--I think I ought to tell you this, so that you may understand--I've looked into shop-windows at lunch-time. You see, it was to pay for the time when you are preparing to be a doctor. It means hundreds of pounds, Robert. But I calculated that if I saved a little every week--I'd manage it--if I didn't die or lose my work."

"Don't, Christine--please don't! Oh, Christine!"

"If I lost my work--Mr. Percy is very kind. He is an old friend and knows the position. But he has his business to consider. I'm not quick--my eyes aren't strong. There are younger, cleverer people. We've got to look things in the face, Robert. If I lost my work there would be nothing between us and the workhouse--nothing--nothing--nothing."

He was shivering as if with bitter cold. His teeth chattered in his head. He caught a ghost-like glimpse of a boy in the glass opposite--a strange, unfamiliar figure with a white, tear-stained face and haggard eyes and fair hair all on end.

"Oh, Christine--I'm frightened!"

"You think money must come from somewhere. Something will turn up. That was what your father used to say. He was so hopeful. It wasn't possible that it shouldn't turn up. But I was younger and stronger then--I can't begin again.--I can't--I can't. If you're not good, Robert, I can't go on."

"I will be good. I won't tell lies. I won't spend money ever again. I won't love anyone but you. I won't be a doctor; I'll be something cheap--now."

He had forgotten the photographs. He still held them in one tight-clenched hand. But she had seen them. And all at once she braced herself although to meet an implacable enemy. She was not tender any more. She was the Christine who had faced bailiffs and his father's strange, gay friends--ice-cold and bitter and relentless. She took the pictures from him. With a terrible ironic calm she sorted them from his pockets, and spread them out on the table like a pack of cards. He dared not look at her. He was afraid to see what she was seeing. She had torn open the door of his secret chamber, and there in that blasting light was his treasure, naked, defenceless. He could have cried out in his dread, "Only don't say anything--don't say anything!"

"So that's what you liked so much, Robert--that's what you spent the money on. It's the old story--beginning again--only worse." She added, almost to herself:

"A vulgar, common woman."

She put her face between her hands. He could hear her quiet crying. It was awful. His love for her was a torture. Because she was not wonderful at all but human and pitiful like himself, he felt her grief like a knife turning and turning in his own heart. But he could not comfort her. He could only stare aghast at that row of faces--grinning, smirking, arrogant, insolent faces.

It was true. The jolly lights had been turned out. The band had stopped playing.

A vulgar, common woman!

* * * * *

He stood with his back to the Circus entrance where he could smell the sawdust and hear the hum of the audience crowding into their seats. The invisible band gave funny noises like a man clearing his throat. There was still a number of people coming in--some strolling idly, others pulled along by their excited charges. It was queer, Robert thought, that they should be excited. The smell of the sawdust made him feel rather sick.

He gave out his last handbill. Nobody noticed him. They took the slip of paper which he thrust into their hands without looking at him. He went and stood at the box-office where the big man in riding boots was counting out his money. It was a high box-office, so that Robert had to stand on tip-toe to be seen.

"I've finished," he said.

The man glanced at him and then remembered.

"Oh, yes, you're the young feller. Given 'em all out, eh? Not thrown 'em on the rubbish heap? Well, what is it?"

"I want my sixpence."

"Oh, sixpence I promised you, did I? Well, here's a shilling seat. That'll do better, eh, what? You can go in now."

"I want my sixpence."

"You don't want--don't want to go to the Circus?"

"I don't like Circuses."

The big man stared down at the white set face gazing stolidly back at him over the wooded ledge. He tossed the coin indignantly across.

"Well, of all the unnatural, ungrateful young jackanapes----"

But he was so astonished that he had to lean out of his box and watch the blasphemer--a quaint figure, bowed as though under a heavy burden, its hands thrust hard into its trousers pockets--stalk away from the great tent and without so much as a backward glance lose itself among the crowd.