It was all rather dreadful about Charles….
She thought for a long while about him, and then she decided it would be better not to think about him any more….
And then, before she knew she was doing any such thing, this slightly unscrupulous (but still very harmless) girl, went to sleep.
CHAPTER XI
DOUBTLESS BUYING A NEW HAT
I
THE time was twenty to eleven and the full company of “The Underdog” was on the stage of the Cumberland Theatre. Faint traces of a slightly unnatural elevation were discernible in the general countenance of the company (as it stood, conferring softly, in groups), and a casual observer might have had difficulty in detecting the cause of this elevation. One in possession of the facts, however, would have put it down to the undoubtedly bracing influences of Trouble Ahead.
The rehearsal should have commenced ten minutes ago.
Mr. Claye, in the infinitude of his patience, stood apart with his stage-manager. His hands were in his pockets, and he was gazing, very benignly, at the floor. The stage-manager murmured something to Mr. Claye.
“Oh,” said Mr. Claye, so that all the company could, and did, hear what Mr. Claye was saying. “Doubtless buying a new hat.”
It must be understood that Mr. Claye said this with the utmost detachment, affability, and tolerance. Anything more natural or proper than his leading juvenile (during these rather curious moments) buying a new hat, could not be conceived. Mr. Claye had probably observed, only yesterday, that she wanted one…. Very good. Let her get on with it.
He could wait.
The minutes passed.
A vague vision of hat after hat, fastidiously rejected and strewing the drawers, floor, and shelves of a neighbouring milliner’s, filled the mind of the company present….
The stage-manager again murmured something to Mr. Claye.
“Oh, no,” said Mr. Claye. “Patience does it. Patience does it.”
Mr. Claye then made an indistinct speech to his stage-manager, preluded by the words “Of Course,” and including the words “last straw” and “finished.” But Mr. Claye’s patience did not desert him. Mr. Claye had perfect mastery of the situation. He was (to be quite truthful) enjoying himself immensely.
At this moment the stage-door keeper appeared and handed a telegram to Mr. Claye.
Mr. Claye, humming lightly, opened this telegram.
“I am tired of all this acting,” read this telegram, “so will not come up to-day.” It was from Jackie.
*
Mr. Claye gazed at this telegram for some time. His hand trembled slightly. “Ah,” said Mr. Claye. He was fighting for time….
“Er — here — you,” said Mr. Claye, recalling the vanishing stage-doorkeeper. “Has this — er — Come — er ——?” He got no further.
Now although Mr. Claye deserves commiseration in his fight for time at this crisis, the silly man should have kept silent, and not asked whether this telegram had Come. For anybody could see that the thing had Come (how could it have been given him otherwise?) and the rather baffled doorkeeper told him as much.
“Yessir,” said the doorkeeper, gazing at him queerly. “Juscumsir.”
“Oh,” returned Mr. Claye, heavily, and as though worlds of things had hung upon the man’s reply. “Oh.”
He folded it up. “Well, we ’d better commence upon the second act,” he said.
The stage-manager bustled about, and the actors and actresses got themselves ready.
“This chair’s still to be right down-stage, then, Mr. Claye?” asked the stage-manager.
Mr. Claye leapt from dreams.
“What? Oh. Ye-e-e-es,” drawled Mr. Claye. “Ye-e-e-es. Right down-stage. That’s right.”
The rehearsal commenced.
CHAPTER XII
THE TAXI
THAT afternoon Jackie met Charles, at the Waldorf Hotel, for tea.
There was an elusive humour and alteration in their relationship even before she had told him. “Anything the matter?” asked Charles. “No,— nothing the matter,” said Jackie….
She had more difficulty in telling him that she would have believed possible. “Of course, you’ll think me quite mad,” she said…. But as soon as it was out, and as soon as he had gazed at her in a baffled way, and as soon as he had told her how very wise indeed he thought she was, and as soon as she had observed how truly happy it seemed to have made him — an indescribable elation began to steal, like a film, over Jackie’s soul — a happiness which could not but expand as the time wore on and they spoke ever more intimately to each other.
And they did truly awake to a new intimacy. They did not speak of her future, for “That can wait — for the present, anyway,” said Charles. Instead they discussed a thousand little things in the past, as though it had all been a rather dreadful ordeal from which they had both just emerged….
And they paused to smile at each other, over the table, in the wide, hushed, spoon-clinking place, and were glowingly delighted with each other.
Until at last, just as they were getting up from tea, and the music in the restaurant behind had just begun its appealing strains, a height of calm happiness was reached by Jackie, such as she had seldom experienced before.
“I say, Jackie,” he said. “Let’s go somewhere for dinner to-night.”
“But, Charles dear,” said Jackie, and it was at this moment that that calm triumphant height was reached, “you’ve got to go back to Brighton.”
“No, I haven’t. I can ’phone up, and I’ll sleep at the club. There’s no difficulty.”
“And I’d have to go back to change, wouldn’t I?”
“Well, that’s all right. I’ll see you off now. You see, I feel we really must do something about it to-night. Everything’s so different now — is n’t it, Jackie?”
“Yes — I suppose it is, Charles,” she said, smiling; and she was on a height at that moment, too.
He led the way out, and when they had reached the street he said that she must have a taxi all the way back to West Kensington. She cried out upon this, but he called one before she was ready, and she got into it, and sat alone.
Then Charles had a small conference with the driver, inaudible amid the noise around, and coming back, to see that the door was fixed, said, “This is paid for, Jackie. See you at seven,” and smiled. And as she was swept away, they smiled and lifted their hands….
It comforted her extraordinarily to know that this taxi was paid for, though she could not quite analyse the feeling…. She felt a great pride in taking this from Charles — and yet she felt that she had a right to do so….
The taxi sped at a great pace through London, and it was one of those chill November twilights (with a little red still in the sky, but the lights already twinkling emerald, all the way along, in a mist) which she knew so well…. Rather like those red, cool skies to which she used to return, after those days in the country, with Richard….
Jackie did not lie back in her taxi to-night. She sat up, and observed her London. She really felt that she could afford to do so. Her prolonged and ancient grudge against this city that had so stolidly, insidiously, and inactively defeated her, was miraculously lifted to-night. Indeed, whizzing through the grave (though sparkling and busy) streets, she had an enormous sensation of forgiveness and friendliness — a friendliness which was, she fancied, in some blind way, returned. And there might have been several ways of accounting for this new amity, but principally, she thought, it was because this was, after all, a farewell.
For she knew now, with a calm and sweet assurance that replaced and was more glad than reason, that the end had come to her sojourn here, and that very soon she would be taken away.
Taken away, thought Jackie, taken away. And she lay back.
And then she began to think of Charles….
And the night fell, and the taxi jolted on, and she observed the driver’s jerking and unknowing black shoulder as he worked the machine. How many of thos
e shoulders had she seen, at work for her, and what a furious and foolish round of locomotion it had all been!
She liked watching that shoulder. Its surly owner had so little interest in her, and yet he called to mind so much. London…. In her great new gladness she felt a great pity arising for the poor Cockney in front of her.
*
THE END
Copyright
This ebook edition first published in 2011
by Faber and Faber Ltd
Bloomsbury House
74–77 Great Russell Street
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All rights reserved
© Patrick Hamilton, 1928
The right of Patrick Hamilton to be identified as author of this work has been asserted in accordance with Section 77 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
This ebook is copyright material and must not be copied, reproduced, transferred, distributed, leased, licensed or publicly performed or used in any way except as specifically permitted in writing by the publishers, as allowed under the terms and conditions under which it was purchased or as strictly permitted by applicable copyright law. Any unauthorised distribution or use of this text may be a direct infringement of the author’s and publisher’s rights, and those responsible may be liable in law accordingly
ISBN 978–0–571–28017–9
Twopence Coloured Page 35
