CHAPTER IV
WRECKING OF A LIFE
I
In the Five Towns, and perhaps elsewhere, there exists a custom invirtue of which a couple who have become engaged in the early summerfind themselves by a most curious coincidence at the same seasideresort, and often in the same street thereof, during August. Thus ithappened to Denry and to Ruth Earp. There had been difficulties--therealways are. A business man who lives by collecting weekly rentsobviously cannot go away for an indefinite period. And a young woman wholives alone in the world is bound to respect public opinion. However,Ruth arranged that her girlish friend, Nellie Cotterill, who hadgenerous parents, should accompany her. And the North StaffordshireRailway's philanthropic scheme of issuing four-shilling tourist returntickets to the seaside enabled Denry to persuade himself that he was notabsolutely mad in contemplating a fortnight on the shores of England.
Ruth chose Llandudno, Llandudno being more stylish than either Rhyl orBlackpool, and not dearer. Ruth and Nellie had a double room in aboarding-house, No. 26 St Asaph's Road (off the Marine Parade), andDenry had a small single room in another boarding-house, No. 28 StAsaph's Road. The ideal could scarcely have been approached more nearly.
Denry had never seen the sea before. As, in his gayest clothes, hestrolled along the esplanade or on the pier between those two girls intheir gayest clothes, and mingled with the immense crowd ofpleasure-seekers and money-spenders, he was undoubtedly much impressedby the beauty and grandeur of the sea. But what impressed him far morethan the beauty and grandeur of the sea was the field for profitablecommercial enterprise which a place like Llandudno presented. He had notonly his first vision of the sea, but his first genuine vision of thepossibilities of amassing wealth by honest ingenuity. On the morningafter his arrival he went out for a walk and lost himself near the GreatOrme, and had to return hurriedly along the whole length of the Paradeabout nine o'clock. And through every ground-floor window of every househe saw a long table full of people eating and drinking the same kinds offood. In Llandudno fifty thousand souls desired always to perform thesame act at the same time; they wanted to be distracted and they woulddo anything for the sake of distraction, and would pay for theprivilege. And they would all pay at once.
This great thought was more majestic to him than the sea, or the GreatOrme, or the Little Orme.
It stuck in his head because he had suddenly grown into a very seriousperson. He had now something to live for, something on which to lavishhis energy. He was happy in being affianced, and more proud than happy,and more startled than proud. The manner and method of his courtship hadsharply differed from his previous conception of what such an affairwould be. He had not passed through the sensations which he would haveexpected to pass through. And then this question was continuallypresenting itself: _What could she see in him?_ She must have got anotion that he was far more wonderful than he really was. Could it betrue that she, his superior in experience and in splendour of person,had kissed him? _Him!_ He felt that it would be his duty to live upto this exaggerated notion which she had of him. But how?
II
They had not yet discussed finance at all, though Denry would have likedto discuss it. Evidently she regarded him as a man of means. This becameclear during the progress of the journey to Llandudno. Denry wasflattered, but the next day he had slight misgivings, and on thefollowing day he was alarmed; and on the day after that his stateresembled terror. It is truer to say that she regarded him less as a manof means than as a magic and inexhaustible siphon of money.
He simply could not stir out of the house without spending money, andoften in ways quite unforeseen. Pier, minstrels, Punch and Judy,bathing, buns, ices, canes, fruit, chairs, row-boats, concerts, toffee,photographs, char-a-bancs: any of these expenditures was likely tohappen whenever they went forth for a simple stroll. One might thinkthat strolls were gratis, that the air was free! Error! If he had hadthe courage he would have left his purse in the house as Ruth invariablydid. But men are moral cowards.
He had calculated thus:--Return fare, four shillings a week. Agreedterms at boarding-house, twenty-five shillings a week. Total expensesper week, twenty-nine shillings,--say thirty!
On the first day he spent fourteen shillings on nothing whatever--whichwas at the rate of five pounds a week of supplementary estimates! On thesecond day he spent nineteen shillings on nothing whatever, and Ruthinsisted on his having tea with herself and Nellie at theirboarding-house; for which of course he had to pay, while his own tea waswasting next door. So the figures ran on, jumping up each day.Mercifully, when Sunday dawned the open wound in his pocket wastemporarily stanched. Ruth wished him to come in for tea again. Herefused--at any rate he did not come--and the exquisite placidity of thestream of their love was slightly disturbed.
Nobody could have guessed that she was in monetary difficulties on herown account. Denry, as a chivalrous lover, had assisted her out of thefearful quagmire of her rent; but she owed much beyond rent. Yet, whensome of her quarterly fees had come in, her thoughts had instantly runto Llandudno, joy, and frocks. She did not know what money was, and shenever would. This was, perhaps, part of her superior splendour. Thegentle, timid, silent Nellie occasionally let Denry see that she, too,was scandalised by her bosom friend's recklessness. Often Nellie wouldmodestly beg for permission to pay her share of the cost of anamusement. And it seemed just to Denry that she should pay her share,and he violently wished to accept her money, but he could not. He wouldeven get quite curt with her when she insisted. From this it will beseen how absurdly and irrationally different he was from the rest of us.
Nellie was continually with them, except just before they separated forthe night. So that Denry paid consistently for three. But he likedNellie Cotterill. She blushed so easily, and she so obviously worshippedRuth and admired himself, and there was a marked vein of common-sense inher ingenuous composition.
On the Monday morning he was up early and off to Bursley to collectrents and manage estates. He had spent nearly five pounds beyond hisexpectation. Indeed, if by chance he had not gone to Llandudno with aportion of the previous week's rents in his pockets, he would have beenin what the Five Towns call a fix.
While in Bursley he thought a good deal. Bursley in August encouragesnothing but thought. His mother was working as usual. His recitals toher of the existence led by betrothed lovers at Llandudno were vague.
On the Tuesday evening he returned to Llandudno, and, despite thegeneral trend of his thoughts, it once more occurred that his pocketswere loaded with a portion of the week's rents. He did not knowprecisely what was going to happen, but he knew that something was goingto happen; for the sufficient reason that his career could not continueunless something did happen. Without either a quarrel, an understanding,or a miracle, three months of affianced bliss with Ruth Earp wouldexhaust his resources and ruin his reputation as one who was ever equalto a crisis.
III
What immediately happened was a storm at sea. He heard it mentioned atRhyl, and he saw, in the deep night, the foam of breakers at Prestatyn.And when the train reached Llandudno, those two girls in ulsters andcaps greeted him with wondrous tales of the storm at sea, and of wrecks,and of lifeboats. And they were so jolly, and so welcoming, so plainlyglad to see their cavalier again, that Denry instantly discoveredhimself to be in the highest spirits. He put away the dark and broodingthoughts which had disfigured his journey, and became the gay Denry ofhis own dreams. The very wind intoxicated him. There was no rain.
It was half-past nine, and half Llandudno was afoot on the Parade anddiscussing the storm--a storm unparalleled, it seemed, in the month ofAugust. At any rate, people who had visited Llandudno yearly fortwenty-five years declared that never had they witnessed such a storm.The new lifeboat had gone forth, amid cheers, about six o'clock to aschooner in distress near Rhos, and at eight o'clock a second lifeboat(an old one which the new one had replaced and which had been bought fora floating warehouse by an aged fisherman) had departed to the rescue ofa No
rwegian barque, the _Hjalmar_, round the bend of the LittleOrme.
"Let's go on the pier," said Denry. "It will be splendid."
He was not an hour in the town, and yet was already hanging expense!
"They've closed the pier," the girls told him.
But when in the course of their meanderings among the excited crowdunder the gas-lamps they arrived at the pier-gates, Denry perceivedfigures on the pier.
"They're sailors and things, and the Mayor," the girls explained.
"Pooh!" said Denry, fired.
He approached the turnstile and handed a card to the official. It wasthe card of an advertisement agent of the _Staffordshire Signal_,who had called at Brougham Street in Denry's absence about the renewalof Denry's advertisement.
"Press," said Denry to the guardian at the turnstile, and went throughwith the ease of a bird on the wing.
"Come along," he cried to the girls.
The guardian seemed to hesitate.
"These ladies are with me," he said.
The guardian yielded.
It was a triumph for Denry. He could read his triumph in the eyes of hiscompanions. When she looked at him like that, Ruth was assuredlymarvellous among women, and any ideas derogatory to her marvellousnesswhich he might have had at Bursley and in the train were false ideas.
At the head of the pier beyond the pavilion, there were gatheredtogether some fifty people, and the tale ran that the second lifeboathad successfully accomplished its mission and was approaching the pier.
"I shall write an account of this for the _Signal_," said Denry,whose thoughts were excusably on the Press.
"Oh, do!" exclaimed Nellie.
"They have the _Signal_ at all the newspaper shops here," saidRuth.
Then they seemed to be merged in the storm. The pier shook and trembledunder the shock of the waves, and occasionally, though the tide was verylow, a sprinkle of water flew up and caught their faces. The eyes couldsee nothing save the passing glitter of the foam on the crest of abreaker. It was the most thrilling situation that any of them had everbeen in.
And at last came word from the mouths of men who could apparently see aswell in the dark as in daylight, that the second lifeboat was close tothe pier. And then everybody momentarily saw it--a ghostly thing thatheaved up pale out of the murk for an instant, and was lost again. Andthe little crowd cheered.
The next moment a Bengal light illuminated the pier, and the lifeboatwas silhouetted with strange effectiveness against the storm. And someone flung a rope, and then another rope arrived out of the sea, and fellon Denry's shoulder.
"Haul on there!" yelled a hoarse voice. The Bengal light expired.
Denry hauled with a will. The occasion was unique. And those few secondswere worth to him the whole of Denry's precious life--yes, not excludingthe seconds in which he had kissed Ruth and the minutes in which he haddanced with the Countess of Chell. Then two men with beards took therope from his hands. The air was now alive with shoutings. Finally therewas a rush of men down the iron stairway to the lower part of the pier,ten feet nearer the water.
"You stay here, you two!" Denry ordered.
"But, Denry--"
"Stay here, I tell you!" All the male in him was aroused. He was off,after the rush of men. "Half a jiffy," he said, coming back. "Just takecharge of this, will you?" And he poured into their hands about twelveshillings' worth of copper, small change of rents, from his hip-pocket."If anything happened, that might sink me," he said, and vanished.
It was very characteristic of him, that effusion of calm sagacity in asupreme emergency.
IV
Beyond getting his feet wet Denry accomplished but little in the darkbasement of the pier. In spite of his success in hauling in the thrownrope, he seemed to be classed at once down there by the expertsassembled as an eager and useless person who had no right to the spacewhich he occupied. However, he witnessed the heaving arrival of thelifeboat and the disembarking of the rescued crew of the Norwegianbarque, and he was more than ever decided to compose a descriptivearticle for the _Staffordshire Signal._ The rescued and therescuing crews disappeared in single file to the upper floor of thepier, with the exception of the coxswain, a man with a spreading redbeard, who stayed behind to inspect the lifeboat, of which indeed he wasthe absolute owner. As a journalist Denry did the correct thing andengaged him in conversation. Meanwhile, cheering could be heard above.The coxswain, who stated that his name was Cregeen, and that he was aManxman, seemed to regret the entire expedition. He seemed to be unawarethat it was his duty now to play the part of the modest hero to Denry'sinterviewing. At every loose end of the chat he would say gloomily:
"And look at her now, I'm telling ye!" Meaning the battered craft, whichrose and fell on the black waves.
Denry ran upstairs again, in search of more amenable material. Sometwenty men in various sou'-westers and other headgear were eating thickslices of bread and butter and drinking hot coffee, which with foresighthad been prepared for them in the pier buffet. A few had preferredwhisky. The whole crowd was now under the lee of the pavilion, and itconstituted a spectacle which Denry said to himself he should refer toin his article as "Rembrandtesque." For a few moments he could notdescry Ruth and Nellie in the gloom. Then he saw the indubitable form ofhis betrothed at a penny-in-the-slot machine, and the indubitable formof Nellie at another penny-in-the-slot machine. And then he could hearthe click-click-click of the machines, working rapidly. And his thoughtstook a new direction.
Presently Ruth ran with blithe gracefulness from her machine andcommenced a generous distribution of packets to the members of thecrews. There was neither calculation nor exact justice in hergenerosity. She dropped packets on to heroic knees with a splendidgesture of largesse. Some packets even fell on the floor. But she didnot mind.
Denry could hear her saying:
"You must eat it. Chocolate is so sustaining. There's nothing like it."
She ran back to the machines, and snatched more packets from Nellie, whounder her orders had been industrious; and then began a seconddistribution.
A calm and disinterested observer would probably have been touched bythis spectacle of impulsive womanly charity. He might even have decidedthat it was one of the most beautifully human things that he had everseen. And the fact that the hardy heroes and Norsemen appeared scarcelyto know what to do with the silver-wrapped bonbons would not haveimpaired his admiration for these two girlish figures of benevolence.Denry, too, was touched by the spectacle, but in another way. It was therents of his clients that were being thus dissipated in a very luxury ofneedless benevolence. He muttered:
"Well, that's a bit thick, that is!" But of course he could do nothing.
As the process continued, the clicking of the machine exacerbated hisears.
"Idiotic!" he muttered.
The final annoyance to him was that everybody except himself seemed toconsider that Ruth was displaying singular ingenuity, originality,enterprise, and goodness of heart.
In that moment he saw clearly for the first time that the marriagebetween himself and Ruth had not been arranged in Heaven. He admittedprivately then that the saving of a young woman from violent death in apantechnicon need not inevitably involve espousing her. She was withoutdoubt a marvellous creature, but it was as wise to dream of keeping acarriage and pair as to dream of keeping Ruth. He grew suddenly cynical.His age leaped to fifty or so, and the curve of his lips changed.
Ruth, spying around, saw him and ran to him with a glad cry.
"Here!" she said, "take these. They're no good." She held out her hands.
"What are they?" he asked.
"They're the halfpennies."
"So sorry!" he said, with an accent whose significance escaped her, andtook the useless coins.
"We've exhausted all the chocolate," said she. "But there's butterscotchleft--it's nearly as good--and gold-tipped cigarettes. I daresay some ofthem would enjoy a smoke. Have you got any more pennies?"
"No!" he replied. "
But I've got ten or a dozen half-crowns. They'll workthe machine just as well, won't they?"
This time she did notice a certain unusualness in the flavour of hisaccent. And she hesitated.
"Don't be silly!" she said.
"I'll try not to be," said Denry. So far as he could remember, he hadnever used such a tone before. Ruth swerved away to rejoin Nellie.
Denry surreptitiously counted the halfpennies. There were eighteen. Shehad fed those machines, then, with over a hundred and thirty pence.
He murmured, "Thick, thick!"
Considering that he had returned to Llandudno in the full intention ofputting his foot down, of clearly conveying to Ruth that his conceptionof finance differed from hers, the second sojourn had commenced badly.Still, he had promised to marry her, and he must marry her. Better alifetime of misery and insolvency than a failure to behave as agentleman should. Of course, if she chose to break it off.... But hemust be minutely careful to do nothing which might lead to a breach.Such was Denry's code. The walk home at midnight, amid thereverberations of the falling tempest, was marked by a slightpettishness on the part of Ruth, and by Denry's polite taciturnity.
V
Yet the next morning, as the three companions sat together under thestriped awning of the buffet on the pier, nobody could have divined, bylooking at them, that one of them at any rate was the most uncomfortableyoung man in all Llandudno. The sun was hotly shining on their brightattire and on the still turbulent waves. Ruth, thirsty after a breakfastof herrings and bacon, was sucking iced lemonade up a straw. Nellie waseating chocolate, undistributed remains of the night's benevolence. Denrywas yawning, not in the least because the proceedings failed to excitehis keen interest, but because he had been a journalist till three a.m.and had risen at six in order to despatch a communication to the editorof the _Staffordshire Signal_ by train. The girls were veryplayful. Nellie dropped a piece of chocolate into Ruth's glass, and Ruthfished it out, and bit at it.
"What a jolly taste!" she exclaimed.
And then Nellie bit at it.
"Oh, it's just lovely!" said Nellie, softly.
"Here, dear!" said Ruth, "try it."
And Denry had to try it, and to pronounce it a delicious novelty (whichindeed it was) and generally to brighten himself up. And all the time hewas murmuring in his heart, "This can't go on."
Nevertheless, he was obliged to admit that it was he who had invitedRuth to pass the rest of her earthly life with him, and not _viceversa_.
"Well, shall we go on somewhere else?" Ruth suggested.
And he paid yet again. He paid and smiled, he who had meant to be themasterful male, he who deemed himself always equal to a crisis. But inthis crisis he was helpless.
They set off down the pier, brilliant in the brilliant crowd. Everybodywas talking of wrecks and lifeboats. The new lifeboat had done nothing,having been forestalled by the Prestatyn boat; but Llandudno wasapparently very proud of its brave old worn-out lifeboat which hadbrought ashore the entire crew of the _Hjalmar,_ without casualty,in a terrific hurricane.
"Run along, child," said Ruth to Nellie, "while uncle and auntie talk toeach other for a minute."
Nellie stared, blushed, and walked forward in confusion. She wasstartled. And Denry was equally startled. Never before had Ruth sobrazenly hinted that lovers must be left alone at intervals. In justiceto her, it must be said that she was a mirror for all the proprieties.Denry had even reproached her, in his heart, for not sufficientlyshowing her desire for his exclusive society. He wondered, now, what wasto be the next revelation of her surprising character.
"I had our bill this morning," said Ruth.
She leaned gracefully on the handle of her sunshade, and they bothstared at the sea. She was very elegant, with an aristocratic air. Thebill, as she mentioned it, seemed a very negligible trifle.Nevertheless, Denry's heart quaked.
"Oh!" he said. "Did you pay it?"
"Yes," said she. "The landlady wanted the money, she told me. So Nelliegave me her share, and I paid it at once."
"Oh!" said Denry.
There was a silence. Denry felt as though he were defending a castle, oras though he were in a dark room and somebody was calling him, callinghim, and he was pretending not to be there and holding his breath.
"But I've hardly enough money left," said Ruth. "The fact is, Nellie andI spent such a lot yesterday and the day before.... You've no idea howmoney goes!"
"Haven't I?" said Denry. But not to her--only to his own heart.
To her he said nothing.
"I suppose we shall have to go back home," she ventured lightly. "Onecan't run into debt here. They'd claim your luggage."
"What a pity!" said Denry, sadly.
Just those few words--and the interesting part of the interview wasover! All that followed counted not in the least. She had meant toinduce him to offer to defray the whole of her expenses in Llandudno--nodoubt in the form of a loan; and she had failed. She had intended him torepair the disaster caused by her chronic extravagance. And he had onlysaid: "What a pity!"
"Yes, it is!" she agreed bravely, and with a finer disdain than ever ofpetty financial troubles. "Still, it can't be helped."
"No, I suppose not," said Denry.
There was undoubtedly something fine about Ruth. In that moment she hadit in her to kill Denry with a bodkin. But she merely smiled. Thesituation was terribly strained, past all Denry's previous conceptionsof a strained situation; but she deviated with superlative_sang-froid_ into frothy small talk. A proud and an unconquerablewoman! After all, what were men for, if not to pay?
"I think I shall go home to-night," she said, after the excursion intoprattle.
"I'm sorry," said Denry.
He was not coming out of his castle.
At that moment a hand touched his shoulder. It was the hand of Cregeen,the owner of the old lifeboat.
"Mister," said Cregeen, too absorbed in his own welfare to notice Ruth."It's now or never! Five-and-twenty'll buy the _Fleetwing_, iften's paid down this mornun."
And Denry replied boldly:
"You shall have it in an hour. Where shall you be?"
"I'll be in John's cabin, under the pier," said Cregeen, "where ye foundme this mornun."
"Right," said Denry.
If Ruth had not been caracoling on her absurdly high horse, she wouldhave had the truth out of Denry in a moment concerning these earlymorning interviews and mysterious transactions in shipping. But fromthat height she could not deign to be curious. And so she said naught.Denry had passed the whole morning since breakfast and had uttered noword of pre-prandial encounters with mariners, though he had talked alot about his article for the _Signal_ and of how he had risenbetimes in order to despatch it by the first train.
And as Ruth showed no curiosity Denry behaved on the assumption that shefelt none. And the situation grew even more strained.
As they walked down the pier towards the beach, at the dinner-hour, Ruthbowed to a dandiacal man who obsequiously saluted her.
"Who's that?" asked Denry, instinctively.
"It's a gentleman that I was once engaged to," answered Ruth, with cold,brief politeness.
Denry did not like this.
The situation almost creaked under the complicated stresses to which itwas subject. The wonder was that it did not fly to pieces long beforeevening.
VI
The pride of the principal actors being now engaged, each person wascompelled to carry out the intentions which he had expressed either inwords or tacitly. Denry's silence had announced more efficiently thanany words that he would under no inducement emerge from his castle. Ruthhad stated plainly that there was nothing for it but to go home at once,that very night. Hence she arranged to go home, and hence Denryrefrained from interfering with her arrangements. Ruth was lugubriousunder a mask of gaiety; Nellie was lugubrious under no mask whatever.Nellie was merely the puppet of these betrothed players, her elders. Sheadmired Ruth and she admired Denry, and between them they were spoilingth
e little thing's holiday for their own adult purposes. Nellie knewthat dreadful occurrences were in the air--occurrences compared to whichthe storm at sea was a storm in a tea-cup. She knew partly because Ruthhad been so queenly polite, and partly because they had come separatelyto St Asaph's Road and had not spent the entire afternoon together.
So quickly do great events loom up and happen that at six o'clock theyhad had tea and were on their way afoot to the station. The odd man ofNo. 26 St Asaph's Road had preceded them with the luggage. All the restof Llandudno was joyously strolling home to its half-past six high tea--grand people to whom weekly bills were as dust and who were in aposition to stop in Llandudno for ever and ever, if they chose! And Ruthand Nellie were conscious of the shame which always afflicts those whomnecessity forces to the railway station of a pleasure resort in themiddle of the season. They saw omnibuses loaded with luggage and jollysouls were actually _coming_, whose holiday had not yet properlycommenced. And this spectacle added to their humiliation and theirdisgust. They genuinely felt that they belonged to the lower orders.
Ruth, for the sake of effect, joked on the most solemn subjects. Sheeven referred with giggling laughter to the fact that she had borrowedfrom Nellie in order to discharge her liabilities for the finaltwenty-four hours at the boarding-house. Giggling laughter beingcontagious, as they were walking side by side close together, they alllaughed. And each one secretly thought how ridiculous was suchbehaviour, and how it failed to reach the standard of true worldliness.
Then, nearer the station, some sprightly caprice prompted Denry to raisehis hat to two young women who were crossing the road in front of them.Neither of the two young women responded to the homage.
"Who are they?" asked Ruth, and the words were out of her mouth beforeshe could remind herself that curiosity was beneath her.
"It's a young lady I was once engaged to," said Denry.
"Which one?" asked the ninny, Nellie, astounded.
"I forget," said Denry.
He considered this to be one of his greatest retorts--not to Nellie, butto Ruth. Nellie naturally did not appreciate its loveliness. But Ruthdid. There was no facet of that retort that escaped Ruth's criticalnotice.
At length they arrived at the station, quite a quarter of an hour beforethe train was due, and half-an-hour before it came in.
Denry tipped the odd man for the transport of the luggage.
"Sure it's all there?" he asked the girls, embracing both of them in hisgaze.
"Yes," said Ruth, "but where's yours?"
"Oh!" he said. "I'm not going to-night. I've got some business to attendto here. I thought you understood. I expect you'll be all right, you twotogether."
After a moment, Ruth said brightly: "Oh yes! I was quite forgettingabout your business." Which was completely untrue, since she knewnothing of his business, and he had assuredly not informed her that hewould not return with them.
But Ruth was being very brave, haughty, and queenlike, and for this theprecise truth must sometimes be abandoned. The most precious thing inthe world to Ruth was her dignity--and who can blame her? She meant tokeep it at no matter what costs.
In a few minutes the bookstall on the platform attracted them asinevitably as a prone horse attracts a crowd. Other people were near thebookstall, and as these people were obviously leaving Llandudno, Ruthand Nellie felt a certain solace. The social outlook seemed brighter forthem. Denry bought one or two penny papers, and then the newsboy beganto paste up the contents poster of the _Staffordshire Signal_,which had just arrived. And on this poster, very prominent, were thewords:--"The Great Storm in North Wales. Special Descriptive Report."Denry snatched up one of the green papers and opened it, and on thefirst column of the news-page saw his wondrous description, includingthe word "Rembrandtesque." "Graphic Account by a Bursley Gentleman ofthe Scene at Llandudno," said the sub-title. And the article wasintroduced by the phrase: "We are indebted to Mr E.H. Machin, aprominent figure in Bursley," etc.
It was like a miracle. Do what he would, Denry could not stop his facefrom glowing.
With false calm he gave the paper, to Ruth. Her calmness in receiving itupset him.
"We'll read it in the train," she said primly, and started to talk aboutsomething else. And she became most agreeable and companionable.
Mixed up with papers and sixpenny novels on the bookstall were a numberof souvenirs of Llandudno--paper-knives, pens, paper-weights,watch-cases, pen-cases, all in light wood or glass, and ornamented withcoloured views of Llandudno, and also the word "Llandudno" in largeGerman capitals, so that mistakes might not arise. Ruth remembered thatshe had even intended to buy a crystal paper-weight with a view of theGreat Orme at the bottom. The bookstall clerk had several crystalpaper-weights with views of the pier, the Hotel Majestic, the Esplanade,the Happy Valley, but none with a view of the Great Orme. He had alsopaper-knives and watch-cases with a view of the Great Orme. But Ruthwanted a combination of paper-weight and Great Orme, and nothing elsewould satisfy her. She was like that. The clerk admitted that such acombination existed, but he was sold "out of it."
"Couldn't you get one and send it to me?" said Ruth.
And Denry saw anew that she was incurable.
"Oh yes, miss," said the clerk. "Certainly, miss. To-morrow at latest."And he pulled out a book. "What name?"
Ruth looked at Denry, as women do look on such occasions.
"Rothschild," said Denry.
It may seem perhaps strange that that single word ended theirengagement. But it did. She could not tolerate a rebuke. She walkedaway, flushing. The bookstall clerk received no order. Several personsin the vicinity dimly perceived that a domestic scene had occurred, in aflash, under their noses, on a platform of a railway station. Nellie wasspeedily aware that something very serious had happened, for the traintook them off without Ruth speaking a syllable to Denry, though Denryraised his hat and was almost effusive.
The next afternoon Denry received by post a ring in a box. "I will notsubmit to insult," ran the brief letter.
"I only said 'Rothschild'!" Denry murmured to himself. "Can't a fellowsay 'Rothschild'?"
But secretly he was proud of himself.
The Card, a Story of Adventure in the Five Towns Page 4
