A Servant of the Public

CHAPTER XIV

AS MR. FLINT SAID

Irene Kilnorton looked, as she had been bidden, out of the window in Queen's Gate and perceived a four-wheeled cab laden with three large boxes; from that sight she turned her eyes again to Ora Pinsent, who sat in a straight-backed chair with an expression of unusual resolution on her face. It was eleven o'clock on Monday morning.

"I lay awake all night, trembling," said Ora. "Imagine if he'd come to the house!"

"But, good gracious, you told him to come, Ora! You must see him now."

"I won't. I thought you'd be kind and come with me; but I'm going anyhow."

"Where is he?"

"I don't know. I suppose Ashley has done something with him; only I wonder I haven't had a letter."

"Ashley!" Lady Kilnorton's tone fully explained her brief remark, but Ora only nodded her head and repeated, "Yes, Ashley."

"And where do you propose to go?"

"Devonshire."

"And what about your theatre?"

"Oh, I've sent a wire. The understudy must do it. I couldn't possibly."

"And are you going alone to Devonshire?"

"Yes. At least I suppose Ashley couldn't go with me, could he?"

"He would if you asked him, I should think," said Irene most impatiently.

"He can run down and see me, though," observed Ora in a slightly more cheerful tone. "I shall wire my address and ask him to let me know what – what happened. Only – only I'm rather afraid to know. I should like just to leave it all to Ashley."

"I think you're quite mad."

"I was nearly, at the thought of meeting him. I wonder what Ashley did with him." A faint and timid smile appeared on her lips as she looked at her friend. "Their meeting must have been rather funny," she added, with obvious fear, but yet unable to resist confiding her amusement.

"Did anybody ever beat you, Ora?" demanded Lady Kilnorton.

"Yes, dear," confessed Ora plaintively.

"Then they didn't do it enough, that's all."

Ora sat silent for a moment still, smiling a little.

"It's no good being unkind to me," she remarked then. "I don't see how I could have done anything else. I did my very best to – to let him come; but I couldn't."

"It's not very likely you could, when you'd been spending every hour of the day with Ashley Mead! Actually took him to meet your husband!"

"I suppose it was that, partly; but I couldn't have got even as far as I did without Ashley. Why won't you come to Devonshire?"

"Among other things, I'm going to be married."

"Oh! Soon?"

"In a month."

"Really? How splendid! I should think Lord Bowdon's a lovely lover. I'm sure he would be." Ora was now smiling very happily.

Irene seemed to consider something seriously for a moment or two; then she gave it utterance.

"I'm afraid you're disreputable, after all," she said.

"No, I'm not," protested Ora. "Oh, but, my dear, how I should like to be! It would simplify everything so. But then Ashley – " She broke off and frowned pensively.

"Oh, I don't mean exactly what you've done, but what you are." She came suddenly across the room, bent down, and kissed Ora's cheek. Then, as she straightened herself again, she said, "I don't think we can be friends."

At first Ora laughed, but, seeing Irene very grave, she looked at her with scared eyes. Irene met her gaze fully and directly.

"You didn't tell me all Alice Muddock said to you," said Irene.

"No, not quite," Ora murmured; "it was horrid."

"She's told me since. Well, she only said what you've made us all think of you."

"You?" asked Ora, her eyes still set on her friend.

"Yes," said Irene Kilnorton, and, turning away, she sat down by the window. A silence followed, broken only by a stamp of the hoof from the cab-horse at the door. Then Irene spoke again. "Don't you see that you can't go on as you've been going on, that it's impossible, that it ruins everybody's life who has anything to do with you? Don't you see how you're treating your husband? Don't you see what you're doing to Ashley Mead?"

Ora had turned rather white, as she had when Alice Muddock told her that not for the sake of fame would she pay Ora's price. They were both against her.

"How hard people are!" she cried, rising and walking about the room. "Women, I mean," she added a moment later.

"Oh, I know you make men think what you like," said Irene scornfully. "We women see what's true. I'm sure I don't want to distress you, Ora."

Ora was looking at her in despair tempered by curiosity. Bitterly as she had felt Alice's onslaught, she had ended in explaining it to herself by saying that Alice was an exceptionally cold and severe person, and also rather jealous concerning Ashley Mead. Irene Kilnorton was neither cold nor severe, and Ora had no reason to think her jealous. The agreement of the two seemed a token and an expression of a hostile world in arms against her, finding all sins in her, hopelessly blind to her excuses and deaf to the cries of her heart which to her own ears were so convincing. Irene thought that she ought to have been beaten more; if she told of Mr. Fenning's isolated act of violence, Irene would probably disapprove of nothing in it except its isolation.

"I thought you'd sympathise with me," she said at last.

"Then you must have thought me a goose," retorted Irene crossly. Her real feelings would have led her to substitute "very wicked" for "a goose," but she had an idea that an ultra-moral attitude was bourgeois. "Goose" gave her all she wanted and preserved the intellectual point of view.

But to Ora the moral and the intellectual were the Scylla and Charybdis between which her frail bark of emotions steered a perilous, bumping, grazing way, lucky if it escaped entire destruction on one or the other, or (pace the metaphor) on both at once. She felt that the world was harsh and most ill-adapted to any reasonable being; for Ora also seemed to herself very reasonable; reason follows the habit of the chameleon and takes colour from the tree of emotions on which it lies. From her meditations there emerged a sudden terrible dread that swallowed up every other feeling, every other anxiety. All the world (must not the world be judged by these two ladies?) was against her. Her action was to it beyond understanding, her temperament beyond excuse. Would Ashley feel the same? "Have I tired him out?" she cried to herself. All else she could surrender, though the surrender were with tears; but not his love, his sympathy, her hold over him. He must see, he must understand, he must approve. She could not have him also rebelling against her in weariness or puzzled disgust. Then indeed there would be nothing to live for; even the refuge in Devonshire must become an arid tormenting desert. For the times when he could run down and see her had gone near to obliterating all the other times in her imaginary picture of the refuge in Devonshire: just as her occasional appearances had filled the whole of that picture of Ashley's married life drawn in the days of the renunciation.

She rose and bade Irene good-bye with marked abruptness; it passed as the sign of natural offence, and kindness mingled with reproach in Irene's parting kiss. But Irene asked no more questions and invited no more confidences. Ora ran downstairs and jumped into her cab. A new fear and a new excitement possessed her; she thought no more of Irene's censure; she asked no more what had become of Jack Fenning.

"What station, miss?" asked the driver, taking a look at her. He had seen her from the gallery and was haunted by a recollection.

"Oh, I'm not going to the station!" exclaimed Ora impatiently; why did people draw unwarranted inferences from the mere presence of three boxes on the roof of a cab? She gave him Ashley's address with the coolest and most matter-of-fact air she could muster. But for the terror she was in, it would have been pleasant to her to be going for the first time to those rooms of his to which she had sent so many letters, so many telegrams, so many boy-messengers, so many commissionaires, but which in actual palpable reality she had never seen yet. Reflecting that she had never seen them yet, she declared that the reproaches levelled at her were absurdly wide of the mark and horribly uncharitable. They didn't give her credit for her real self-control. But what was Ashley feeling? Again she cried, "Have I tired him out?" Now she pictured no longer from her own but from his standpoint the scene at the station, and saw how she had left him to do the thing which it had been hers to do. For the first time that day a dim half-recollected vision of the renunciation and reformation took shape in her brain; she dubbed it at once an impossible and grotesque fantasy. Ashley must have known it for that all the time; who but Ashley would have been so generous and so tactful as never to let her see his opinion of it? Who but Ashley would have respected the shelter that she made for herself out of its tattered folds? And now had she lost Ashley, even Ashley? By this time Jack Fenning, his doings, and his whereabouts, had vanished from her mind. Ashley was everything.

The laden cab reached the door; Ora was out in a moment. "Wait," she cried, as she darted in; the driver shifted the three boxes, so as to make room for additional luggage; he understood the situation now; his fare had come to pick up somebody; they would go to the station next.

Mr. A. Mead dwelt on the first floor; on the second floor lived Mr. J. Metcalfe Brown. Having gleaned this knowledge from names in white letters on a black board, Ora mounted the stairs. The servant-girl caught a glimpse of her and admired without criticising; charity reigned here; a lady's gown was scrutinised, not her motives. Ora reached the first floor; here again the door was labelled with Ashley's name. The sight of it brought a rebound to hopefulness; the spirit of the adventure caught on her, her self-confidence revived, her fears seemed exaggerated. At any rate she would atone now by facing the problem of her husband in a business-like way; she would talk the matter over reasonably and come to some practical conclusion. She pulled her hat straight, laughed timidly, and knocked at the door. How surprised he'd be! And if he were disposed to be unkind – well, would he be unkind long? He had never been unkind long. Why, he didn't answer! Again she knocked, and again. He must be out. This check in the plan of campaign almost brought tears to Ora's eyes.

She must enquire. She was about to go downstairs again and ring the bell when she heard a door opened on the landing above, and a man's step. She paused; this man might give her news of Ashley; that he might be surprised to see her did not occur to her. A moment later a voice she knew well exclaimed in soliloquy, "Good heavens, what a creature!" and round the bend of the stairs came Ashley himself, in a flannel jacket, smoking a pipe, with his hair much disordered.

Ora wore a plain travelling frock suitable for a dusty journey to Devonshire; her jacket was fawn colour, her hat was black; yet even by these sober hues the landing seemed illuminated to Ashley Mead. "Well!" he cried, taking his pipe from his mouth and standing still.

"Open this door," Ora commanded, in a little tumult of gladness; in an instant his eyes told her that she had not tired him out. "And who's a creature?"

"A creature?" he asked, coming down.

"Yes. You said somebody was. Oh, I know! The man above? Mr. J. Metcalfe Brown?"

"Exactly," said Ashley. "Metcalfe Brown." He took a key out of his pocket, unlocked the door, and held it open for her. He was laughing.

"So this is your den!" she cried. "What are those papers?" The desk was strewn with white sheets.

"Our Commission. I've been having a morning at it."

"Between it and Metcalfe Brown?"

"Well, yes, he does need some of my attention."

"What a noise he makes!" said Ora, for a dragging tread sounded on the ceiling of the room. "He must be rather a bore?"

"Yes, he is," said Ashley, with a short laugh and a quick amused glance at her.

"Where's my picture?" Ora demanded, looking round.

"Strictly concealed," Ashley assured her.

"I wonder I've never come here before," she reflected, sitting down in his arm-chair.

"Well, on the whole, so do I," said Ashley, laughing still.

She was taking a careful and interested view of the room. The steps overhead went on.

"I think it would be very nice," she said at last, "except for Metcalfe Brown."

"There's always something one could do without," observed Ashley Mead.

"I like you in that coat. Oh, well, I like you in any coat. But I never saw you ready for work before. Ashley, who is Metcalfe Brown? And how I wish he'd sit still!"

"He's a clerk," said Ashley; his smile persisted, but his brows were knit in a humorous puzzle.

A pause followed. Ora looked at him, smiled, looked away, looked at him again. Ashley said nothing.

"You might ask me something," she murmured reproachfully. He shook his head. She rose and came behind him; laying a hand on his shoulder she looked round in his face; mirth and appeal mingled as of old in the depths of her eyes. "Am I very dreadful?" she whispered. "Are you quite tired of me, Ashley?"

There was a sound from above as though a man had thrown himself heavily on a sofa or a bed.

"Bother Metcalfe Brown," whispered Ora. "Ashley, I couldn't help it. I was afraid."

"You needn't have been afraid with me," he said in a low voice.

"But – but you wouldn't have stayed. I was so frightened. You know what I told you; I remembered it all. He'd had too much to drink; he wasn't generally cruel, but that made him. Ashley dear, say you forgive me?"

The dim sound of a quavering voice reached them through the ceiling. For an instant Ora raised her head, then she bent down again to Ashley.

"Because I'm going away, to Devonshire," she went on. "And I mayn't see you for ever so long, unless you'll come and see me; and Irene Kilnorton says you oughtn't to. But you must. But still it will be days! Oh, how shall I pass days without you? So do forgive me before I go."

"Forgive you!" said he with a little laugh.

"Ah, you do," she sighed. "How good you are, Ashley." She pressed his shoulder with her hand. "I couldn't go on living if it wasn't for you," she said. "Everybody else is so hard to me. I ran away last night because I couldn't bear to lose you!" She paused and moved her face nearer his, as she whispered, "Could you bear to lose me?"

Mr. Metcalfe Brown tumbled off the bed and seemed to stagger across the room towards the mantel-piece.

"No," said Ashley Mead.

"But I'm going away; my boxes are on the cab outside. I daren't stop now he's come; I might meet him; he might – no, I daren't stay." Her voice fell yet lower as she asked, "What did he say? Where is he? What have you done with him?"

Ashley gently raised her hand from his arm, rose, and walked to the fireplace. He looked at her as she bent forward towards him in the tremulous eagerness of her questioning, with fear and love fighting in her eyes, as though she looked to him alone both for safety and for joy. And, as it chanced, Mr. Metcalfe Brown made no sound in the room above; it was possible altogether to forget him.

Ora took the chair that Ashley had left and sat looking at him. For a moment or two he said nothing; it was the pause before the plunge, the last hasty reckoning of possibilities and resources before a great stake. Then he set all on the hazard.

"You needn't have run away," he said in a cool, almost bantering tone. "Fenning didn't turn up at all."

Mr. Metcalfe Brown walked across the room and threw himself into a chair; at least the sounds from above indicated some such actions on his part.

"I don't know why, but he didn't," said Ashley with a momentary glance at the ceiling – rather as though he feared it would fall on him.

"Not come?" she whispered. "Oh, Ashley!" She seemed for a moment to hold herself in the chair by the grasp of her hands on its arms. Then she rose and moved slowly towards him. "He didn't come?"

"Not a sign of him."

"And – and he won't, will he?"

"I don't expect so," said Ashley, smiling.

Ora seemed to accept his answer as final. She stood still, for a moment grave, then breaking into a gurgle of amused delighted laughter. Ashley glanced again at the ceiling; surely a man who had ever heard that laugh must remember it! But had the man upstairs? Was not that laugh made and kept for him himself from the beginning of the world? So his madness persuaded him.

"Rather funny, wasn't it? So I came back alone by the slow train – a very slow train it was, without you."

Ora's mood was plain enough. She was delighted, and she was hardly surprised. No instability of purpose and no change of intention were out of harmony with her idea of her husband. There was no telling why he had not come, but there was nothing wonderful in his not coming. She spread her arms out with a gesture of candid self-approval.

"Well, I've done my duty," said she.

"Yes," said Ashley, smiling. He was relieved to find his word taken so readily. "But do you think you're doing it by staying here?"

"How rude you are! Why shouldn't I?"

"It's irregular. And somebody might come." He paused and added, "Suppose Metcalfe Brown dropped in?"

"What would he think?" cried Ora with sparkling eyes. "Is he a very steady young man?"

"I don't know; he's got a picture signed 'Yours ever, Daisy,' on his mantel-piece."

Ora's eyes shewed no recognition of "Daisy."

"The girl he's engaged to, I suppose," she said rather scornfully; high and unhappy passion is a little contemptuous of a humdrum engagement.

"Perhaps," said Ashley cautiously.

"Oh, he's moving about again; and he's singing! I wish we could hear better!" For the sound of the voice was very muffled. "I know that tune though. Where have I heard it before?"

"Everybody used to torture one with it a few years ago; somebody sang it at the Alhambra."

"Oh, yes, I went with – I went once and heard it."

The voice died down in a gentle grumble. The little puzzled frown with which Ora had listened also passed away.

"Going to Devonshire?" asked Ashley Mead.

"To Devonshire? No," said Ora decisively. "Why should I go away now?"

"You must go away from here."

"Must I, Ashley?"

"Yes, you must. Consider if Metcalfe Brown – "

"Oh, bother your Metcalfe Brown! There's always somebody like that!"

"Yes, generally. Come, I'll take you to your cab – "

"But you'll come and see me to-morrow?"

"Yes, I'll come to-morrow."

"Oh, isn't everything perfect? What's that? He must be throwing the fire irons about!"

"Never mind him. Come along."

"I don't mind him. I don't mind anybody now. How could I ever have thought of bringing – of doing what I did? Why did you let me, Ashley? But it's all right now, isn't it?"

"Come down quietly; Metcalfe Brown'll hear us."

"I don't care."

"Oh, but you must. Consider my reputation!"

"Very well, I'll be quiet," said Ora with another low and joyous laugh.

They stole downstairs together. Metcalfe Brown was quiet; he did not open his door, look out, glance down the well of the stairs and see who was Ashley Mead's companion; he sat with his pipe in his mouth and his glass by his side, while Ora escaped in safety from the house.

The cabman had employed his leisure first in recollecting how his fare's face came to be familiar to him, secondly (since he had thus become interested in her), in examining the luggage labels on the three large boxes. There was a friendliness, and also a confidence, in his manner as he leant down from his box and said,

"Paddington, Miss Pinsent?"

"Paddington! No," said Ora. Ashley began to laugh. Ora laughed too, as she gave her address in Chelsea.

"Where I took you up, miss?" asked the cabman.

"Yes," said Ora, bright with amusement. "It really must seem rather funny to him," she said in an aside to Ashley, as she got in. The cabman himself was calling the affair "a rum start," as he whipped up his horse. To Ashley Mead it seemed very much the same.

There were, however, two people who were not very seriously surprised, Janet the respectable servant and Mr. Sidney Hazlewood the accomplished comedian. They received Ora, at the house in Chelsea and at the theatre respectively, with a very similar wrinkling of the forehead and a very similar sarcastic curving of the lips; to both of them the ways of genius were well known. "Mr. Fenning hasn't come after all," said Ora to Janet, while to Mr. Hazlewood she observed "I felt so much better that I've come after all." Janet said, "Indeed, ma'am." Mr. Hazlewood said, "All right," and sent word to the understudy that she was not wanted. On the whole her sudden change of plan seemed to Ora to cause less than its appropriate sensation – except to the cabman, whose demeanour had been quite satisfactory.

As Mr. Hazlewood was dressing for his part, it chanced that Babba Flint came in, intent on carrying through an arrangement rich, as were all Babba's, in prospective thousands. When the scheme had been discussed, Hazlewood mentioned Ora's wire of the morning and Ora's appearance in the evening. Babba nodded comprehendingly.

"Something to do with the husband perhaps," Hazlewood hazarded. "Not that it needs any particular explanation," he added, hiding his wrinkle with some paint.

"Husband, husband?" said Babba in a puzzle. "Oh, yes! By Jove, he was to come yesterday! Hasn't turned up, of course?"