3
The centre and object of the curious crowd which moved slowly down the drive was a landau and pair. The horses were decorated as if for a May-day fête, grotesquely, foolishly decorated with roses, syringa and buttercups made into shapeless bunches and tied to the harness. Three or four women walked at the horses’ heads, leading them with absurdly beflowered ropes.
Round the landau a dozen girls and young women were dancing, chattering, singing, laughing; constantly turning to the occupant of the carriage, for whose benefit the whole performance was being conducted. Some of them had their necks and breasts bare, and all appeared to be frankly shameless. They twisted and danced with clumsy eagerness, threw themselves about, screamed and shrieked, unaware of any observer but the one whose notice they were seeking to attract. They were graceless, civilized savages; Bacchantes who had never known the beauty of unconscious abandonment. There was the ugliness of conscious purpose in their every attitude, and no trace of the freedom that comes from careless rapture.
In the carriage a man and a woman were sitting side by side. The man was young, with strong claims to physical beauty—tall, broad-shouldered, swarthy, with boldly modelled features and heavily lidded eyes. But his skin was coarse; the bulk of his body was too gross for clean, muscular strength; his curly, well-oiled hair was thinning at the temples; his loose mouth leered and gaped. He was dressed in a suit of broadly-patterned tweed, his great red fingers were covered with rings, he wore a heavy gold bangle on each thick, round wrist, and a sweet, frail rose was thrust into his black and greasy hair.
The woman beside him was the typical courtesan of the ages, low-browed and full-lipped. Her eyes were eloquent with the subtleties of love, with invitation, retreat, fear and desire. Had she been dressed becomingly she would have been beautiful; but she was English and modern, and her great meaningless hat and senseless garments were of the fashion that had been in vogue just before the plague. This reigning sultana and her lover were more incongruous in that setting than the two dishevelled, travel-worn girls, who retreated timidly to let the landau pass out between the great iron gates.
The Bacchantes eyed the Goslings with obvious disfavour, but the beauty in the landau seemed unaware of their presence until her lord’s attention was attracted by the sight of Millie’s hair—it was all down again, rippling and spreading to her waist.
The young butcher had been lolling back in a corner of his carriage, magnificently indolent, sure of worship; but his satiety was pierced by the sight of that flaming mane. He sat up and looked at Millie with the experienced eyes which had served him so well in his judgment of cattle.
“’Ere, ’alf a jiff,” he commanded the nymphs at his horses’ bridles, and the carriage was stopped.
Millie, covered with shame, shrank back, and cowered behind Blanche, who threw up her chin and met the butcher’s eyes with all the contempt of which she was capable—little enough, perhaps, for she, too, was weak with unreasoning terror. Behind their backs the Jewess grimaced her scorn of them.
“You needn’t be afraid of me—I ain’t goin’ to ’urt yer——” began the butcher, but his lady interrupted him.
Her fine eyes grew bright with anger. “If you stop here, I shall get out,” she said, and her inflexion was not that of the people.
The butcher visibly hesitated. It may be that this chain had held him too long and was beginning to gall him, but he looked at her and wavered.
“No ’arm in stoppin’,” he muttered. “Pass the news an’ that.”
“Are you going on?” demanded the beauty fiercely.
“All right, all right,” he returned sullenly. “You needen’ get so blasted ’uffy about it, old gal. Oh, gow on, you!” he added to the nymphs. “Wot the ’ell are yer starin’ at?”
As the landau moved on, he looked back once at Millie.