Chapter TWELVE: § 1

They ate their meal at the Cimerosa Café, a big place attached to the leading picture-house and satisfying local ideals of smartness. Otherwise there were few elegant resorts in Newhaven--the shore-walking sailormen off the Geordies and other coasting craft sought homeliness rather than elegance, and were catered for by a multitude of small taverns and shops. The London and Paris Hotel provided for the more sophisticated tastes of the passing population of the boat trains. For the ’busman’s holiday and the shopgirl’s night out there was the Cimerosa Café, with its inlaid tables and mirrored walls to provide a glitter of luxury and a certain approximation to those homes of splendour whose doors would be thrown open on the screen of the picture-house beyond.

Both Belle and Daniel were much impressed as they sat together at their little table, an island in the midst of the vastness. All round them was the glitter of glass and steel, polished tiles and polished wood, flowers made at once cheaper and more impressive by masses of gypsophila and asparagus fern, while the tinkle and wail of a piano and two fiddles came threading a plaintive way through the clatter of knives and voices.

Dan was at first struck dumb by the elegance of the waitress and the profusion of the menu. But between them he and Belle managed at last to stumble upon the materials of a meal. They had soup, fried cutlets with French beans, and finally a fruit salad. Belle, as once mistress of the Crown, knew more about food than Daniel, and also chose the sauterne that her lover was drinking for the first time.

Though more at their ease when they had begun eating they scarcely talked during their dinner. They belonged to that order of society which is too polite to talk when music is being provided for its entertainment. They listened respectfully to each item as if they had been at a concert, and applauded respectfully at the end. Belle ate slowly and sat dreamily, hardly seeming to notice her surroundings. Dan, on the other hand, stared about the room, watching the other diners and the waitresses moving among them, interested in their manners and their food, as it was his custom to be interested in other people’s concerns.

There was another smaller hall beyond the first, and from where he sat he could see a part of it reflected in the mirror opposite him. In the mirror he saw a man and woman come in together and sit down at a table under a palm. The elegance of the woman’s black dress and hat made him look at her twice, and with a start he recognized her as Pearl Jenner. The man was unknown.

At first surprise and interest made him miss the significance of this encounter, but in a minute or two he realized what it meant. Belle had come to him because she believed her husband to be with another woman, and here was this other woman without him but with another man. She was certainly guiltless on this occasion, though, Dan told himself angrily, it did not follow that she had been guiltless on any other.

After all, Belle had made sure of her perfidy by effective if low expedients.

He wondered if Belle could see her, but Belle sat with her back to the mirror and outside the angle of direct vision. She could not see nor be seen. Then he suddenly asked himself what she would do if she realized that to-night at least her suspicions were confounded, and Ernley was innocently eating his dinner in Hastings, the blameless guest of Rotarians.

The question rushed at him out of the void, bringing with it the answer not of itself, but of another question which he had not yet dared to ask. “She is here not because of her love of me, but because of her love of Ernley.” His hand shook as he quickly raised his glass, and the glitter of the room with its lights and glass and silver and flowers seemed to heel over as in a nightmare. By an act of violence he pushed the question which had no answer and the answer which had no question out of his mind together. At the same time he stood up. He must do something--he must settle something--find out something about Pearl Jenner and why she was there. Then perhaps he would not trouble about Belle and why she was there.

“Where are you going?” asked Belle, waking out of her dream.

“I’m going to ask if they have any programmes. I’ll be back in a minute.”

He had seen some posters of the cinema entertainment displayed in the inner room, and first of all he went and scanned these and took a couple of leaflets. On his way back he stopped at Pearl Jenner’s table.

“Good evening,” he said.

Miss Jenner lifted her large, rather prominent eyes from her plate and surveyed him carefully without a word. In that glance Dan saw a grease mark on his waistcoat exposed, his collar and tie dismissed as impossible.

“I believe we’ve met before,” he said nervously.

Miss Jenner obviously did not remember the occasion, and her escort now joined her in her stare. Dan was nearly overwhelmed, but managed to stand his ground.

“It was at Bullockdean--the George Inn. You came with Mr. Ernley Munk to meet my--to meet his--leastways....”

Luckily she remembered now.

“Oh, yes. But that was a long time ago.”

“More’n three years.”

“Fancy your remembering.”

She had lost the deficiencies of his collar and tie in the dark, broad comeliness of his face, with the tan of the summer roads upon the cheeks, and the brightness of love and excitement in the eyes.

“I ain’t likely to forget.”

He thought a touch of gallantry would not come amiss. Then suddenly his gaze fell to her hand and saw that she wore a wedding ring.

“Are you married now?” The words broke straight out of his surprise.

She bridled suitably.

“Yes--I’m married. This is my husband, Mr. Percy Johnson. We’re going to Paris--travelling for his firm.”

“Oh.”

“He’s got a job over there, and we thought we’d tack it on to our honeymoon. We had meant to cross to-night, but there’s too much swell on for me, so I said we’d stop at the London and Paris Hotel.”

He seemed properly impressed.

“Sit down and have a drink of something with us,” said Mr. Percy Johnson.

“No--no--much obliged, I’m sure. I’ve got a friend waiting. Good-bye.”

“So pleased to have met you,” said the lady graciously.

Daniel fled.

He walked quickly back into the next room and sat down opposite Belle.

“It begins at half-past eight. We’d better be going.”

“Well, I’m ready. What a time you were.”

“I met a chap I knew.”

His heart was sick because he knew that he had not the courage to tell her about Pearl Jenner who was now Pearl Johnson.

§ 2

He told himself it did not really matter. The thing that mattered was Belle’s jealous suspicion of Ernley, not the question of whether it was or was not justified. After all, it probably was justified, though Miss Jenner had seen the wisdom of escaping from a difficult situation by the most convenient road. Ernley had certainly deceived his wife, plotted and schemed and lied. He had made Belle’s life a torture by uncertainty, as she had made his a boredom by certainty. Their marriage was smashed--trodden in pieces--by themselves. What did anything else matter?--Pearl Jenner or Pearl Johnson? Daniel stuck a cigarette in the corner of his mouth, and having paid his bill, led the way out of the Cimerosa Café into the Cimerosa Palace.

“We’ll have a box,” he said to Belle as she followed.

“But----”

“I don’t care. We must have a good time to-night.”

The desire to strip the future was even more fiercely upon him.

* * * * *

So Belle and Daniel went into the house of Life together.

Life moved before them, flickering on a screen in a procession, as the procession of life moves before the immortal gods. Those ’busmen and shopgirls in the darkness were as the immortal gods, seeing as in a mirror for their sport, life and love and death and hate and jealousy and wealth and despair and laughter and tenderness and vice and beauty and age and youth and piety and folly.... Scenes of splendour, a great country house full of servants, rooms that were halls, halls that were the naves of cathedrals, meals that were banquets--vicarious luxury for the immortal gods, making them forget the stained tablecloths and bed-sitting-rooms of their experience--scenes of squalor, drink and violence, nothing to eat ... pity bringing comfort to the immortal gods, who see the depths beneath them and are content.... Far lands, palms, temple bells, spreading pagodas rising tier on tier above the ageless dragon-shaped trees, an echo of gongs and terror--and the immortal gods forget the limits of the Southern Railway and have seen the world and yet are thankful that they sit at home.... A royal garden-party--greatness condescending at a factory--a fashionable cricket match ... elegance for the immortal gods, the wand passed over their jap silks and serge reach-me-downs ... a drama of High Life--Vice and Virtue matched as through the million ages--vice purple-mouthed, virtue starry-eyed--vice drinking champagne and dancing on a restaurant table--virtue weeping and putting the babies to bed--vice flaunting--virtue shrinking--vice trapped in a burning theatre and destroyed sensationally--virtue welcoming erring weakness home with close-up of forgiveness--the Moral Sense of the immortal gods is satisfied.... The loveliest most aloof of animal souls takes on human weakness, and shows the immortal gods their own silly vices, shifts and philanderings through a diminishing glass. Felix keeps on walking and the gods laugh ... they laugh again as a greater than Grimaldi comes before them, futile, pathetic, exalted--here are the shifts of humanity, laughable, piteous, and yet dignified. He fools, falls, blunders and is cursed and blessed, and when he has gone there is more laughter, and among it the first real tears the immortal gods have shed. For the greater than Grimaldi has shown them human nature as immortal gods should see it--as a thing of futility and dignity, tears and laughter.... Now “Next week’s features” and “God save the King,” and the immortal gods have descended from their velvet thrones and are ’busmen and shopgirls once more in the street, clasping each other as the crowd disperses on the pavements and the great arclamps of the entrance die.

* * * * *

Dan’s arm was clasping Belle as he led her homewards. His body was drugged by her sweetness, and his mind was drugged by Life. They did not speak, for their thoughts were passing in a procession as on a screen. Belle walked with her head bent, one arm hanging limply, one hand holding Dan’s hand against her waist. Dan walked with his head high, and saw the lamplight in her yellow hair and breaking into the shadows flung by her hat. They came together to Greville Row, and stood together in the narrow hallway, with the door shutting out the street lamp and the moon.

Behind them the steep, narrow stairs soared into a still deeper darkness. Dan’s arms came out and took Belle, drawing her big shoulder down on his, holding her flushed face and rough hair down against his cheek.

“Oh, Belle,” he murmured thickly in her hair. “Oh, Belle--I must love you.”

And all the House of Life danced before the darkness of his closed eyes that were closed against hers. She shuddered in his arms, moved herself suddenly, and broke from him in tears.