§ 3
Half-way down the Ridgeway she met George Trant. They were both walking excessively fast and in opposite directions: they almost cannoned into each other.
“Just looking for you,” he said, stopping her. He wore evening dress beneath an overcoat. It was peculiar that her eyes should glue themselves upon an ivory solitaire that he wore. She was half dazed.
“Looking for me?” she echoed, vaguely.
“Yes. Thought you’d gone back to your digs. I was coming to fetch you. What I want to say is——” (That was one of his mannerisms of speech. In his letters he had constantly written, “What I want to say is——”) “we’re having a little supper at the Forest Hotel after the concert’s over. Just ourselves—the performers, I mean. Of course you’ll join us.... I didn’t think you’d be running off so early, or I should have mentioned it before....”
She was still staring monotonously at that ivory solitaire of his.
“Well—er—you see ... er....”
“Of course if you’re engaged for somewhere else——”
“No, I’m not engaged for anywhere else.” She paused, as if weighing things in the balance. Then a change came over her. It was as if she were suddenly electrified. Her eyes lifted and were found shining with peculiar brilliance. Her body, too, which had been tiredly swaying, jerked all at once into challenging rigidity. “All right,” she said, and even in her voice there was a new note, “I’ll come.”
“Good.” He looked a little queerly at this transformation of her. “Then we’ll go now.”
“But it’s not half-past nine yet. The concert won’t be over till after ten.”
“That doesn’t matter. I’ve got to go to the hotel to fix up arrangements. You’d better come with me.”
“Right.” The promptitude of her reply had something in it of riotous abandon.
“We’ll go by bus to High Wood and walk the rest. It’s sooner....”
Again she acquiesced, this time by a nod that seemed to indicate an eagerness too great to be put into words.
At the corner of the Bockley High Street they took a bus. They occupied the front seat on the top. The night was moonless, but stars were shining over the whole sky. In front and behind stretched the high road with arc lights gleaming like a chain of pearls. She thought of that other evening when she had ridden with Helen along this very road on the top of a crowded tram-car. She remembered how in the passing glare of the arc-lamps she had read the note which George Trant had enclosed for her. She remembered it all as clearly as if it had happened yesterday, though in point of time it seemed to belong to another age. She remembered the purr of the quickly-moving car, the hiss of the trolley-wheel along the overhead wires, the buzz of talk all round her, and the sharp, sickly sensation of reading a few words in spasms and fitting them into their context when the pale light merged into the darkness.
But even while she thought of these things she became greatly joyous. She took off her hat and stuffed it into her pocket (it was of the kind that yields to such treatment). Her hair blew in soft spray about her head and shoulders, and her eyes were wet with the tears that the cool wind brought. She remembered that once he had said “My God! ... your hair! ...” He might not say it again, but perhaps he would think it.
“I liked your playing,” he said.
“You did?”
“Rather.... I’m not much of a judge, but I can always tell a real musician from a false one. The real musician throws his whole soul into his music....”
“Did I?”
“Yes. I know you did. You played almost unconsciously. I believe you forgot all about your audience. You were just playing for the sheer love of playing....”
“Are you sure?”
“Quite sure.”
“Well, you’re wrong, anyway,” She laughed defiantly. “I didn’t forget about my audience a bit: I kept on remembering them the whole time. I kept on thinking: !Did they notice that little bit? ... I polished off that arpeggio rather nicely; I wonder if anybody noticed it....’ And as for throwing my whole soul into my music, I’m not so sure—whether—even—whether——”
“Yes?”
She tossed back her head so that her hair danced like flame. The bus jerked to a standstill.
“Whether I’ve got a soul,” she said very quickly. “Come on, we’re at High Wood.”
They clambered down the steps.
“I’m sure you have,” he said, as he helped her off the conductor’s platform.
“Oh, you don’t know anything about me,” she snapped, as they entered the footpath through the Forest.
“I believe I know a very great deal about you,” he said quietly.
“Of course you believe so. Well, I don’t mind you telling me.”
He stroked his chin reflectively.
“Well, to begin with,” he said, “you’re passionate.”
She burst into sudden, uncontrollable, crackling laughter. In the empty spaces of the Forest it sounded like musketry.
“I knew you’d say that.... I knew you would. And for the life of me I don’t know whether you’re right or wrong. Every woman likes to think she’s passionate. And nobody knows whether she’s any more passionate than anybody else.... Pass on to the next point. You may be right or you may be wrong about the last.”
“You’re impulsive—but good-natured.”
“Oh, rather. A kind heart beneath a rough exterior, eh?”
“I’m quite serious.”
“Are you? I’m not.”
She frisked along in front of him, revelling in the rustle of last autumn’s leaves.
“Do you know what I should do if I were serious?” she asked suddenly, when he had caught up to her.
“No.”
She walked a little way in silence, kicking up the dried leaves with her toes.
“What would you do?” he said.
Her voice became fierce. “I should——” she began, and stopped. She walked a few steps as if pondering, then she laughed airily and tossed her head. “I really don’t know what I should do. Only I’m certain of one thing: I shouldn’t be with you here.”
She could almost feel the extent to which her conversation was mystifying him.
Then she became quiet and submissive, nestling like a stray kitten at his side. She took his arm.
“I’m going to lean on you,” she said; “I nearly fell over a tree root just there.”
He looked gratified. For three or four minutes they walked on in silence. He had plenty he wished to say, but as a matter of fact he thought this particular silence, coming when it did, rather impressive, and he was unwilling to curtail it by a remark unworthy of its profundity. He was engaged in thinking of that remark, a remark that should not so much break the silence as guide it into still more profound depths. He had almost decided on what he should say when quickly and without any warning she snatched her arm from his and scampered a few paces ahead.
“Oh, George,” she cried, with an extraordinary mingling of passion and irritation, “do say something! For God’s sake keep up the conversation! We’ve been a quarter of an hour without a word. Say something, anything you like—only I can’t stand this mooning about under the trees saying nothing!”
“You’re in a very extraordinary mood to-night,” he said deliberately. He was genuinely disappointed.
“I am, or I shouldn’t have come with you,” she replied bluntly.
“Do you dislike me, then?” he asked, with a kind of injured dignity.
“Oh no—oh, don’t let’s talk seriously. I tell you I don’t feel serious to-night.”
“Well, you won’t need to be. We’re going to have a very jolly evening.”
“I hope so. That’s why I came. I feel like having a jolly evening.”
The Forest Hotel occupied a fine position on the crest of a thickly-wooded hill overlooking one of the prettiest spots in Epping Forest. A large balcony opened on to the dining-room, which was on the first floor, and Chinese lanterns swung loosely from the ornamental pilasters. As Catherine caught sight of the table, a vista of white and silver and gleaming glass, she clapped her hands ecstatically. She was as a little child in her enthusiasm.
“Oh, fine—fine!” she cried, clutching George once more by the arm.
The table was on the balcony, and inside the dining-room the floor had been cleared, presumably for dancing. A sleek grand piano sprawled across one corner. Catherine rushed up to it and immediately plunged into some rapid, noisy piece. It was a splendid instrument, and the dim light (only the swaying lanterns on the balcony were lit) threw her into rapture. George came to her side, watching in admiration. Watching rather than listening, because, as he had himself admitted, he was no judge of music. And also because the red glow from the swinging lanterns kindled her hair like a puff of wind on smouldering charcoal.
“There!” she cried, triumphant, as she executed something difficult with her left hand. She swung into a dirge-like melody, tired of it seemingly, and broke into energetic ragtime. George felt it was in some way inappropriate to play ragtime at such a moment.
“Let’s come out on to the balcony,” he suggested, “we’ve only got a quarter of an hour or so before the others come.”
“Well, we’ve nothing particular to do, have we?”
“It’s cooler.... Come on....”
They walked through the French windows and sat on the parapet overlooking the gravel courtyard and the blurred panorama of the Forest.
“It ought to be moonlight,” he exclaimed rapturously.
“No, it oughtn’t,” she contradicted. “I’m glad it isn’t. Starlight is much better.”
It was not an encouraging beginning for him.
“Do you mind if I talk to you seriously?” he asked.
She laughed a little unsympathetically.
“Not at all, only I don’t suppose I shall talk to you seriously.”
“Then it’s not much good, is it?” he remarked, crest-fallen.
“No. Much better to talk nonsense. Let’s talk nonsense. Does one eat oysters with a spoon or a fork?”
“I can’t——”
“But I want to know. I noticed we begin with oysters, and I’m not sure what tools to use. Surely you don’t want me to make a fool of myself. Come, tell me, how does one masticate oysters?”
“A fork is customary, I believe.”
“Thank you. That is what I wanted to know.”
There was a pause, during which the distant sound of voices reached them from the dim Forest background.
“They’re just coming,” she said. “They must have come by bus, like we did.”
He ground his heel into the carpet-matting.
“What I want to say——” he started suddenly. “It’s like this. I believe there was a—a sort of—er—misunderstanding between us at one time. Now I’m not prepared to say that I was altogether right. In fact——”
“I don’t remember any misunderstanding. I think I at any rate understood you perfectly. I really don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Well, to put it bluntly, what happened was——”
“Excuse me. I must let them hear the piano as they come out of the Forest. Sorry to cut short our argument, but I don’t feel metaphysical.... What shall I play? Something appropriate.... Suggest something!”
He sat rather gracelessly on the parapet watching her as she skipped over to the piano. The expression on his face was one of bafflement.
“I really don’t——” he called ineffectually.
For answer she began the pianoforte accompaniment of Landon Ronald’s “Down in the Forest.”
A moment later over the fringe of Forest still untraversed came the voice of the soprano singer, clear and tremulous, but not particularly musical. “Down in the Forest something stirred,” she sang, and Catherine laughed as she caught the sound....