by H. G. Wells
CHAPTER XV.
LOVE IN THE STREETS.
Lewisham was not quite clear what course he meant to take in the highenterprise of foiling Lagune, and indeed he was anything but clearabout the entire situation. His logical processes, his emotions andhis imagination seemed playing some sort of snatching game with hiswill. Enormous things hung imminent, but it worked out to this,that he walked home with Ethel night after night for--to beexact--seven-and-sixty nights. Every week night through November andDecember, save once, when he had to go into the far East to buyhimself an overcoat, he was waiting to walk with her home. A curious,inconclusive affair, that walk, to which he came nightly full of vaguelongings, and which ended invariably under an odd shadow ofdisappointment. It began outside Lagune's most punctually at five, andended--mysteriously--at the corner of a side road in Clapham, a roadof little yellow houses with sunk basements and tawdry decorations ofstone. Up that road she vanished night after night, into a grey mistand the shadow beyond a feeble yellow gas-lamp, and he would watch hervanish, and then sigh and turn back towards his lodgings.
They talked of this and that, their little superficial ideas aboutthemselves, and of their circumstances and tastes, and always therewas something, something that was with them unspoken, unacknowledged,which made all these things unreal and insincere.
Yet out of their talk he began to form vague ideas of the home fromwhich she came. There was, of course, no servant, and the mother wassomething meandering, furtive, tearful in the face of troubles.Sometimes of an afternoon or evening she grew garrulous. "Mother doestalk so--sometimes." She rarely went out of doors. Chaffery alwaysrose late, and would sometimes go away for days together. He was mean;he allowed only a weekly twenty-five shillings for housekeeping, andsometimes things grew unsatisfactory at the week-end. There seemed tobe little sympathy between mother and daughter; the widow had beenflighty in a dingy fashion, and her marriage with her chief lodgerChaffery had led to unforgettable sayings. It was to facilitate thismarriage that Ethel had been sent to Whortley, so that was counted amitigated evil. But these were far-off things, remote and unreal downthe long, ill-lit vista of the suburban street which swallowed upEthel nightly. The walk, her warmth and light and motion close to him,her clear little voice, and the touch of her hand; that was reality.
The shadow of Chaffery and his deceptions lay indeed across all thesethings, sometimes faint, sometimes dark and present. Then Lewishambecame insistent, his sentimental memories ceased, and he askedquestions that verged on gulfs of doubt. Had she ever "helped"? Shehad not, she declared. Then she added that twice at home she had "satdown" to complete the circle. She would never help again. That shepromised--if it needed promising. There had already been dreadfultrouble at home about the exposure at Lagune's. Her mother had sidedwith her stepfather and joined in blaming her. But was she to blame?
"Of _course_ you were not to blame," said Lewisham. Lagune, helearnt, had been unhappy and restless for the three days after the_seance_--indulging in wearisome monologue--with Ethel as sole auditor(at twenty-one shillings a week). Then he had decided to give Chafferya sound lecture on his disastrous dishonesty. But it was Chafferygave the lecture. Smithers, had he only known it, had been overthrownby a better brain than Lagune's, albeit it spoke through Lagune'streble.
Ethel did not like talking of Chaffery and these other things. "If youknew how sweet it was to forget it all," she would say; "to be just ustwo together for a little while." And, "What good _does_ it do to keepon?" when Lewisham was pressing. Lewisham wanted very much to keep onat times, but the good of it was a little hard to demonstrate. So hisknowledge of the situation remained imperfect and the weeks driftedby.
Wonderfully varied were those seven-and-sixty nights, as he came toremember in after life. There were nights of damp and drizzle, andthen thick fogs, beautiful, isolating, grey-white veils, turning everyyard of pavement into a private room. Grand indeed were these fogs,things to rejoice at mightily, since then it was no longer a thing forpublic scorn when two young people hurried along arm in arm, and onecould do a thousand impudent, significant things with varying pressureand the fondling of a little hand (a hand in a greatly mended glove ofcheap kid). Then indeed one seemed to be nearer that elusive somethingthat threaded it all together. And the dangers of the street corners,the horses looming up suddenly out of the dark, the carters withlanterns at their horses' heads, the street lamps, blurred, smokyorange at one's nearest, and vanishing at twenty yards into dim haze,seemed to accentuate the infinite need of protection on the part of adelicate young lady who had already traversed three winters of fogs,thornily alone. Moreover, one could come right down the quiet streetwhere she lived, halfway to the steps of her house, with a delightfulsense of enterprise.
The fogs passed all too soon into a hard frost, into nights ofstarlight and presently moonlight, when the lamps looked hard,flashing like rows of yellow gems, and their reflections and the glareof the shop windows were sharp and frosty, and even the stars hard andbright, snapping noiselessly (if one may say so) instead oftwinkling. A jacket trimmed with imitation Astrachan replaced Ethel'slighter coat, and a round cap of Astrachan her hat, and her eyes shonehard and bright, and her forehead was broad and white beneath it. Itwas exhilarating, but one got home too soon, and so the way fromChelsea to Clapham was lengthened, first into a loop of side streets,and then when the first pulverulent snows told that Christmas was athand, into a new loop down King's Road, and once even through theBrompton Road and Sloane Street, where the shops were full ofdecorations and entertaining things.
And, under circumstances of infinite gravity, Mr. Lewisham secretlyspent three-and-twenty shillings out of the vestiges of that hundredpounds, and bought Ethel a little gold ring set with pearls. With thatthere must needs be a ceremonial, and on the verge of the snowy, foggyCommon she took off her glove and the ring was placed on herfinger. Whereupon he was moved to kiss her--on the frost-pink knucklenext to an inky nail.
"It's silly of us," she said. "What can we do?--ever?"
"You wait," he said, and his tone was full of vague promises.
Afterwards he thought over those promises, and another evening wentinto the matter more fully, telling her of all the brilliant thingsthat he held it was possible for a South Kensington student to do andbe--of headmasterships, northern science schools, inspectorships,demonstratorships, yea, even professorships. And then, and then--Toall of which she lent a willing and incredulous ear, finding in thatdreaming a quality of fear as well as delight.
The putting on of the pearl-set ring was mere ceremonial, of course;she could not wear it either at Lagune's or at home, so instead shethreaded it on a little white satin ribbon and wore it round herneck--"next her heart." He thought of it there warm "next her heart."
When he had bought the ring he had meant to save it for Christmasbefore he gave it to her. But the desire to see her pleasure had beentoo strong for him.
Christmas Eve, I know not by what deceit on her part, these youngpeople spent together all day. Lagune was down with a touch ofbronchitis and had given his typewriter a holiday. Perhaps she forgotto mention it at home. The Royal College was in vacation and Lewishamwas free. He declined the plumber's invitation; "work" kept him inLondon, he said, though it meant a pound or more of addedexpenditure. These absurd young people walked sixteen miles thatChristmas Eve, and parted warm and glowing. There had been a hardfrost and a little snow, the sky was a colourless grey, icicles hungfrom the arms of the street lamps, and the pavements were patternedout with frond-like forms that were trodden into slides as the daygrew older. The Thames they knew was a wonderful sight, but that theykept until last. They went first along the Brompton Road....
And it is well that you should have the picture of them right:Lewisham in the ready-made overcoat, blue cloth and velvet collar,dirty tan gloves, red tie, and bowler hat; and Ethel in a two-year-oldjacket and hat of curly Astrachan; both pink-cheeked from the keenair, shyly arm in arm occasionally, and very alert to miss no possible
spectacle. The shops were varied and interesting along the BromptonRoad, but nothing to compare with Piccadilly. There were windows inPiccadilly so full of costly little things, it took fifteen minutes toget them done, card shops, drapers' shops full of foolish,entertaining attractions. Lewisham, in spite of his old animosities,forgot to be severe on the Shopping Class, Ethel was so vastlyentertained by all these pretty follies.
Then up Regent Street by the place where the sham diamonds are, andthe place where the girls display their long hair, and the place wherethe little chickens run about in the window, and so into OxfordStreet, Holborn, Ludgate Hill, St. Paul's Churchyard, to Leadenhall,and the markets where turkeys, geese, ducklings, and chickens--turkeyspredominant, however--hang in rows of a thousand at a time.
"I _must_ buy you something," said Lewisham, resuming a topic.
"No, no," said Ethel, with her eye down a vista of innumerable birds.
"But I _must_," said Lewisham. "You had better choose it, or I shallget something wrong." His mind ran on brooches and clasps.
"You mustn't waste your money, and besides, I have that ring."
But Lewisham insisted.
"Then--if you must--I am starving. Buy me something to eat."
An immense and memorable joke. Lewisham plungedrecklessly--orientally--into an awe-inspiring place with mitrednapkins. They lunched on cutlets--stripped the cutlets to thebone--and little crisp brown potatoes, and they drank between them awhole half bottle of--some white wine or other, Lewisham selected inan off-hand way from the list. Neither of them had ever taken wine ata meal before. One-and-ninepence it cost him, Sir, and the name of itwas Capri! It was really very passable Capri--a manufactured product,no doubt, but warming and aromatic. Ethel was aghast at hismagnificence and drank a glass and a half.
Then, very warm and comfortable, they went down by the Tower, and theTower Bridge with its crest of snow, huge pendant icicles, and the iceblocks choked in its side arches, was seasonable seeing. And as theyhad had enough of shops and crowds they set off resolutely along thedesolate Embankment homeward.
But indeed the Thames was a wonderful sight that year! ice-fringedalong either shore, and with drift-ice in the middle reflecting aluminous scarlet from the broad red setting sun, and moving steadily,incessantly seaward. A swarm of mewing gulls went to and fro, and withthem mingled pigeons and crows. The buildings on the Surrey side weredim and grey and very mysterious, the moored, ice-blocked bargessilent and deserted, and here and there a lit window shone warm. Thesun sank right out of sight into a bank of blue, and the Surrey sidedissolved in mist save for a few insoluble, spots of yellow light,that presently became many. And after our lovers had come underCharing Cross Bridge the Houses of Parliament rose before them at theend of a great crescent of golden lamps, blue and faint, halfwaybetween the earth and sky. And the clock on the Tower was like aNovember sun.
It was a day without a flaw, or at most but the slightest speck. Andthat only came at the very end.
"Good-bye, dear," she said. "I have been very happy to-day."
His face came very close to hers. "Good-bye," he said, pressing herhand and looking into her eyes.
She glanced round, she drew nearer to him. "_Dearest_ one," shewhispered very softly, and then, "Good-bye."
Suddenly he became unaccountably petulant, he dropped her hand. "It'salways like this. We are happy. _I_ am happy. And then--then you aretaken away...."
There was a silence of mute interrogations.
"Dear," she whispered, "we must wait."
A moment's pause. "_Wait_!" he said, and broke off. Hehesitated. "Good-bye," he said as though he was snapping a thread thatheld them together.
