Part 20 (1/2)
The taxi stopped. She opened the door, and in her sombre mantle and bright trailing frock and glinting, pale shoes she got in, and the military Father Christmas with much difficulty and jingling and clinking insinuated himself after her into the vehicle, and banged to the door. And at the same moment one of the soldiers from the Hostel ran up:
”Here, mate!... What do you want to take his money from him for, you d.a.m.ned w----?”
But the taxi drove off. Christine had not understood. And had she understood, she would not have cared. She had a divine mission; she was in bliss.
”You did not seem surprised to meet me,” she said, taking Edgar's rough hand.
”No.”
”Had you called out my name--'Christine'?”
”No.”
”You are sure?”
”Yes.”
”Perhaps you were thinking of me? I was thinking of you.”
”Perhaps. I don't know. But I'm never surprised.”
”You must be very tired?”
”Yes.”
”But why are you like that? All these things? You are not an officer now.”
”No. I had to resign my commission--just after I saw you.” He paused, and added drily: ”Whisky.” His deep rich voice filled the taxi with the resigned philosophy of fatalism.
”And then?”
”Of course I joined up again at once,” he said casually. ”I soon got out to the Front. Now I'm on leave. That's mere luck.”
She burst into tears. She was so touched by his curt story, and by the grotesquerie of his appearance in the faint light from the exterior lamp which lit the dial of the taximeter, that she lost control of herself. And the man gave a sob, or possibly it was only a gulp to hide a sob. And she leaned against him in her thin garments. And he clinked and jingled, and his breath smelt of beer.
Chapter 25
THE RING
The flat was in darkness, except for the little lamp by the bedside.
The soldier lay asleep in his flannel s.h.i.+rt in the wide bed, and Christine lay awake next him. His clothes were heaped on a chair.
His eighty pounds' weight of kit were deposited in a corner of the drawing-room. On the table in the drawing-room were the remains of a meal. Christine was thinking, carelessly and without apprehension, of what she should say to G.J. She would tell him that she had suddenly felt unwell. No! That would be silly. She would tell him that he really had not the right to ask her to meet such women as Aida and Alice. Had he no respect for her? Or she would tell him that Aida had obviously meant to attack her, and that the dance with Lieutenant Molder was simply a device to enable her to get away quietly and avoid all scandal in a resort where scandal was intensely deprecated. She could tell him fifty things, and he would have to accept whatever she chose to tell him. She was mystically happy in the incomparable marvel of the miracle, and in her care of the dull, unresponding man. Her heart yearned thankfully, devotedly, pa.s.sionately to the Virgin of the VII Dolours.
In the profound nocturnal silence broken only by the man's slow, regular breathing, she heard a sudden ring. It was the front-door bell ringing in the kitchen. The bell rang again and again obstinately.
G.J.'s party was over, then, and he had arrived to make inquiries. She smiled, and did not move. After a few moments she could hear Marthe stirring. She sprang up, and then, cunningly considerate, slipped from under the bed-clothes as noiselessly and as smoothly as a snake, so that the man should not be disturbed. The two women met in the little hall, Christine in the immodesty of a lacy and diaphanous garment, and Marthe in a coa.r.s.e cotton nightgown covered with a shawl. The bell rang once more, loudly, close to their ears.