Twopence Coloured

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Twopence Coloured Page 15

by Patrick Hamilton


  And she desolately imagined him arriving somewhere, in some far, remote, sunset distance. Somewhere a train was carrying him away — after all the warmth and eagerness and inexpressible consolation of these three weeks — carrying him unrelentingly away. And the subdued roar of the traffic, all around, was like the roar of the unappeasable world which had taken him.

  And as the dusk fell deeper, and as she looked down at the street below, where the lamps were already glowing emerald upon the dead fruity litter of the vending and beautiless humanity that thronged this quarter, Jackie felt that she could not bear another parting like this.

  CHAPTER XI

  CRICKET

  I

  JACKIE had learnt a good deal about Richard, and Richard’s past life, in those three weeks. But it was not his habit to speak much about himself, unless urged to do so, and concerning one subject particularly, that of his brother — a subject in which she was very greatly interested, since she could not conceive, and rather trembled at the conception of, anything in the same stamp as himself — she still remained very much in the dark. She had heard, indeed, that he was an elder brother, that he lived quietly on his own estate in Sussex, and that he was on terms of perfect accordance with Richard: but this was all. The three facts combined had awakened in her a certain trepidation, together with a certain grudge and antagonism, which engendered in its turn a very strong desire to meet this individual and win him over to her side. She doubted whether this would be easy, but reminded herself that she was lucky in having but one relation (and that a male) to contend with.

  So little, however, had she learnt from Richard concerning him, that it was Miss Cherry Lambert from whom she first got the news, one Saturday about a month later, firstly that Charles Gissing was an amateur cricketer in the Sussex eleven, secondly that he was at this time playing at Lord’s. Miss Lambert claimed to have met him, and described him as charming. This was a great blow to Miss Biddy Maxwell, who disputed every inch of Gissing-ground with her friend; but she retorted quickly, if a trifle inapplicably, with Tate, whose autograph she claimed to have, and offered to produce. She also said that she thought it very Snobbish having Gentlemen and Players like that, as the players were just as much gentlemen as the gentlemen, and it ought to be altered, and it was very Snobbish. Which was also a One (in a subsidiary way) in Miss Lambert’s Eye. There followed a discussion on Oxford and Cambridge, both of which were deprecated.

  Jackie, however, had decided to go to Lord’s.

  II

  On Monday morning, therefore, she found herself at eleven o’clock on a hazed blue summer’s day, queueing up, with a rather agreeable sensation of excitement and espionage, outside the ground. The unusualness of this procedure, together with an unalterable conviction that she was doing something slightly underhand, provided her with a thrill from the beginning, though she had no idea how thrilled she was actually to be.

  This was not, of course, her first experience of this summer game. At Hove, indeed, and when her father was alive, Jackie had had free entrance to the member’s pavilion of the County Ground, where she had spent many of her happiest though most languid days — from her earliest youth, when, for mysterious purposes of her own, it was her habit, for absorbed hours on end, to keep the score; down to the latest period before the war, when she attended for more social and less interested reasons. She was thus far from deficient in knowledge of the game, and as she now strolled over the lazy arena, after all these years, she felt stealing over her a melancholy and pleasurable reminiscence of the unhurrying life that had once been hers. The theatre seemed very distant on this sunny, green, quiet, hot day.

  Hearing in the distance the quick pock-pock, pock-pock of the practising in the nets — a sound infinitely more excited and eager than anything the rest of the day or the actual game would provide — she strolled over there in the vague hope of seeing and being able to recognize the one she had come expressly to observe. But here, although she made several attempts, she was unable to select anyone, and shortly afterwards she bought a card, upon which his name was printed as number five, and found a high seat on a sunny terrace, and prepared to watch.

  It was almost like a call, this — a sunny call to the life she had left…. She remembered it all so well. The rolling of the pitch, the clanging of the bells, the slow dispersing of the crowd from the field, the emergence of the umpires — the whole semi-official but leisured and warm-hearted routine. And Middlesex still batting, with three wickets to fall. And Hendren still in, with his score at eighty-seven. And the emergence of the players, to mechanical applause, and the placing of the field, and the digging in, and the looking round, and the first maiden over, and the slow settling down to one of those mornings-after-the-night-before of cricket, which Jackie knew so well, but which she now found inexpressibly delightful. Indeed, by the time Hendren had reached his century, and the three figures on the black and white board whirled giddily and exultingly up amid a swelling storm of applause, Jackie was quite overcome with pleasure.

  Hendren was bowled at a hundred and five, and ten minutes later the innings ended.

  She had thought that perhaps she would not see this brother before the lunch-interval, but in the slow hour that followed three Sussex wickets fell, and he was fifth upon the card. The ground, meanwhile, had been growing very full for this always most popular London match, and the sun on the terraces had been growing very much more hot; and an air of seething expectancy was over all. And then the fourth wicket went down.

  The last player vanished — there was a pause — a portentous silence from the crowded members’ pavilion — and then a flash of white against and amid those stolid rows, and he was out on the green — raising his cap to that more emphasized applause commonly accorded to a new amateur, and walking at an easy pace to the wicket….

  She could n’t see … but much browner … and possibly larger … and kindly … shoulders built for kindliness alone … and brown … extraordinarily brown … and smiling brownly at Hendren … and Hendren smiling back, as only that enchanting professional was able to smile … and taking his stand … and looking around … and cutting his first ball off Durston for a single, and running up the pitch to a soft swelling burst of applause….

  He made twenty-four before lunch.

  Jackie’s lunch-hour, by which time the sky had become grey, and for which she had been provided with very luscious egg-sandwiches by Mrs. Lover, was like a curious dream…. That this individual was not out — that the whole game, that the whole crowd, clustering and pacing in a released manner over the field, was thus suspended and as it were dependent upon him; that this was Richard’s brother; that Richard loved her; that she loved Richard; that she might never have Richard; that she might have Richard for ever; that no one in this schoolboyish, plebeian or supercilious crowd was remotely aware of these tragic but exquisite complications … it was all so quaint. But there was also a pure detached thrill about it which she could not resist. And she sat there munching her sandwiches, and spilling the crumbs, and brushing them off, and saying No this seat was not engaged (so far as she knew) and going on munching — surely the most singular and singularly involved figure that ever watched a day’s cricket in the history of Lord’s.

  The sky was even greyer still by the time the game recommenced, and he came out looking stronger, and browner, and cooler than ever. And he had another little humorous passage with Hendren (for whom Jackie had by now conceived an adoration) and he settled down with his partner to a very slow game indeed. But he scraped his way up to fifty at last, and the huge pea-in-box roar of applause that arose was, for some reason, very sweet in Jackie’s ears….

  He then settled down again, with the slow intent of one aiming at his century: and at sixty-four, with a suddenness so great as momentarily almost to divert the mind from the catastrophe, his stumps were in a mess and he was walking away….

  But even then the day was not quite over. For the Sussex wickets fell very quickly afte
r this, and an hour after the tea interval Middlesex were batting again. And the last hour of the day was as happy as any to Jackie, with the plunging and deepening-yellow sun shining blindingly in her face, and the glowing green grass and white glowing figures in front….

  And for a long period, when he was in the long-field, the most astonishing proximity…. Practically invisible, because of the sun, but not more than twenty yards away…. His back turned, his eyes shaded with his hand, and the creak of his cricket boots, and the aura of his energy as he paced up and down or ran….

  *

  And then, all at once, a vast thundercloud looming up, darkening the field and daubing the sky with sharply defined and outlandish rays. And a chill wind rising … and shiverings … and the slow-rising streams of the first departures…. And enchantment gone, and a coldness at heart….

  And then a few rain-drops, and an umbrella raised hysterically in the distance, and a general stir and disturbance…. And only five minutes to go in any case…. And a sudden snatching of stumps and a rushing in….

  But not raining properly yet, and Jackie, very cold, and very desolate, in the thick, dusty crowd on her way to the gates…. Very cold and desolate, and the scrunch, scrunch, scrunch of feet on the ashen-white gravel….

  But a glorious day, for all that — an unforgettable day. A sunny and quite unforgettable day….

  And Richard at the main gate — as though waiting for her.

  III

  “Hullo, Jackie,” he said. He spoke sadly and quietly, and looked down at her without apparent surprise.

  He had a newspaper, screwed up like a baton, in his hand, and his collar was a little disordered, and his face and hands a little grubby from a day obviously spent at Lord’s. And Jackie observed all these things and observed none of them. And she had a terrible sense of having been caught — trapped irrevocably — and she read his sadness and quietude as his scorn. And she heard herself saying, in a frightened mist, “Hullo, what on earth are you doing up here?”

  And at this moment a roll of thunder — like the piano-shifting of some evil-minded tenant in the gaunt grey above — broke upon their ears. And they looked into each other’s eyes, in a fascinated way, and ignored it. Consciously and deliberately, and until it had expended itself, they ignored it, saying nothing.

  “I’ve been here all day, Jackie,” he said.

  There was a pause.

  “You know, I did n’t mean you to see me,” said Jackie, attempting a smile, which he returned.

  “I did see you though, Jackie. I saw you having lunch.”

  “No. Not my sandwiches?” pleaded Jackie.

  “Yes. Sandwiches and all. And I was so hideously fascinated I simply couldn’t spoil it. Otherwise I might have given you a decent one.”

  “Jolly glad you didn’t…” said Jackie, vaguely, and there was a pause.

  “I’ve sent you a wire to-day.”

  “Have you? What about?”

  “Well, what are you doing now?” Here a departing gentleman collided with Mr. Gissing.

  “I beg your pardon, sir,” said the departing gentleman.

  “All right.”

  “Well,” said Jackie. “I was just going over to the theatre, really.”

  Large spattering drops of rain commenced to fall. Deliberately and consciously they ignored these drops of rain.

  “Theatre. Yes. Well, I’ve got to be somewhere at eight. What shall we do?”

  A flash of pink lightning — a snarl exploding in a crash — a darkening and a panic, and a straight-falling torrent of rain. Every one was rushing for shelter.

  “Damn!” He took her arm.

  And she was no longer afraid of his scorn, or ashamed of herself. She was forgiven (if there was any forgiving), and all was as before. She was in a thunderstorm at Lord’s Cricket Ground with the man she loved. And she relied upon him. And it was very strange, and very uncomfortable, and entirely beautiful.

  “Taxi,” he murmured, and led her into the middle of the road. Here he stopped a machine, and opened the door. She got in.

  “Where to, Jackie?” he cried.

  “Where to? I don’t know. Where?”

  “Swiss Cottage,” he shouted to the driver. “What? … Oh, the station … and back again!”

  He was in beside her and sitting opposite her. The taxi was moving away.

  His clothes were dabbed with wet, and his newspaper baton was limp. She had never before seen him so grubby and untidy, and found him more than usually attractive in this state. Also it was the first time she had ever seen him truly nervous and ill at ease. He was like a small boy impatient under pain. He kept on jabbing his knee with his paper, and looking meaninglessly out of the window as he spoke.

  “Look here, Jackie. I’ve got on to a job for you. That’s what the wire was about. You’ll find it at the theatre. You know ‘Little Girl’’s coming off in three weeks?”

  “No!”

  “Yes. Well, this thing I’ve got is a chance for stock. Just the thing you want, really. You won’t get paid much, and there’s a certain amount of work, but you’ll get all the experience you want. Walter Carters — the man who owns the Old Strand. He’s taking a show round the London halls, and then he’s going down to the King’s, at Brighton, to do some repertory — a month or two. Awful trash, but just the thing you’re wanting. And I want you to go along and see him, to-morrow.”

  “I say — how ripping,” said Jackie, who had no idea what she was saying. “Do you think I’ll get it?”

  “Bound to. You see, when they get to Brighton I’m going to play the leads.”

  “You!”

  “Yes — you see — and we can be in it together.”

  The skies crashed above: the rain threshed the roof and spat at the window: and in the garish dusk of this strange chamber he looked over at her, in a strained way, and jabbed his knee with his paper. And the taxi was speeding up by the long wall of Lord’s on its way to Swiss Cottage.

  And the other side of that wall, she suddenly and inconsequently reflected, was the brother of this distressed and lovable being. Probably changing now, in that receding but still visible pavilion…. And it was a very wet day, and this was a curious connection she had developed with the cricketing world….

  IV

  “I say, where are we going?” she said.

  “God knows. He’ll take us round, I suppose.” He looked at his watch. “We’ll go in this to the theatre, and I’ll leave you there. It’ll be all right.” He was calmer now. “Well, Jackie, what have you been doing all this time?” He leant forward.

  “Oh — nothing much.” She lay back, as though weary, and smiled. “Just the same.”

  He looked out of the window.

  “It’s all so sudden,” said Jackie. “I’d no idea ‘Little Girl’ was coming off. It’s wonderful of you to have got me this, though.”

  “Oh, while we’re at it,” he said, and he gave her instructions as to what she was to do, and where she was to go to-morrow. And how she was to give notice to her management at the end of the week. There was then a very long silence. For quite three minutes they had nothing to say. He leant out of the window, shouted orders to the man, and sat down again. He left the window open.

  Through the muddy London streets the taxi jolted on, and still they said nothing. It rained unceasingly and the streets were practically deserted. They came to Baker Street station, and whirred down Baker Street.

  “Are you up here just for the day, then?” asked Jackie.

  “Yes. I came up to see my brother.”

  She was looking at him, but he would not look at her.

  “He was wonderful, wasn’t he? I was terribly disappointed when he did n’t get his century.”

  “Yes. So was I.”

  “He’s not like you, is he?” said Jackie.

  “No.”

  He was still peering out of the window, and now she raised herself to do the same. The draught was coming in full upon her, and she
was trembling and cold.

  “Is this Selfridge’s?” said Jackie.

  “Yes. Selfridge’s.”

  “Not far now.”

  “No.”

  “You’ll write to me, I suppose?”

  “Be up to see you, I expect. Damn this weather.”

  “Yes. Isn’t it awful?”

  She was clenching her teeth to keep them from chattering. She was freezed to the bone, and she wished she was dead. It might have been raining since the beginning of the world.

  He brought the window up with a bang.

  “Oh, Jackie,” he said. “What are we going to do?”

  She saw him looking at her, in an agonized way, and she looked away. She looked in front of her and could not speak. She could not trust herself to speak. She was like a little ashamed child, about to be ill.

  “Well, Jackie?”

  “I don’t know,” said Jackie….

  But now he had his hand upon hers, and she watched this.

  She observed its warmth and its brownness, and the way it was fondling hers. And this fondling was a curious, timeless, and inexplicable event — something which might be watched in a detached way — something which might never have begun, and which might never end….

  “God,” he said. “Here we are.”

  He withdrew his hand. The taxi stopped, and she looked up at him. He was opening the door, and stepping out into the rain. She followed him, and he took her hand.

  “Well, good-bye, Jackie. If I don’t come up, I’ll write.”

  “Right you are,” said Jackie, and went inside.

  CHAPTER XII

  THE UNDERWORLD

  I

 

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