5
Later in the evening they went to the theatre together. As they walked up the steps into the entrance hall, Henry saw Lady Cecily standing in a small group of men and women who were talking and laughing very heartily.
"There she is!" he whispered to Gilbert.
"Who is?"
"Lady Cecily!"
"Oh, so she is. Let's find our seats!"
"Perhaps you could catch her eye, Gilbert...."
"Catch my grandmother!" said Gilbert. "Come on!"
But if Gilbert were not willing to catch Lady Cecily's eye, Lady Cecily was very willing to catch his. She saw him walking towards the stalls, and she left her group of friends and went over to him and touched his arm. "Hilloa, Gilbert!" she said, holding her hand out to him. "I thought I should see you here to-night!"
She spoke in louder tones than most women speak, and her voice sounded as if it were full of laughter. There was something in her attitude which stirred Henry, something which vaguely reminded him of a proud animal, stretching its limbs after sleep. Her thick, golden hair, cunningly bound about her head, glistened in the softened light, and he could almost see golden, downy gleams on her cheeks. She held her skirts about her, as she stood in front of Gilbert, and Henry could see her curving breasts rising and falling very gently beneath her silken dress. The odour of some disturbing perfume floated from her.... He moved a step nearer to her, wondering why Gilbert did not smile at her nor show any signs of pleasure at meeting her. It seemed to him to be impossible for any one but the most curmudgeonly of men to behave so ungraciously to so beautiful a woman, or to resist her radiant smiles. She turned to him as he moved towards her, and he saw that her eyes were grey. He heard Gilbert mumbling the introduction.
"So glad!" she said, shaking hands with him. He had expected her to bow to him, and had not been prepared for the offer of her hand. He inwardly cursed his clumsiness as he changed his gesture. "I saw you in the Park with Gilbert this afternoon, didn't I?" she added.
"Yes," he answered, and could say no more. Shyness had fallen on him, and he stood before her, grinning fatuously, and twisting a button on his waistcoat, but unable to speak. "Yes," he said, after a while, "I was with Gilbert in the Park this afternoon!"
"Speak up, you fool!" he was saying to himself. "Here's the loveliest woman you've ever met waiting for you to speak to her, and all you can do is to repeat her phrases as if you were a newly-breeched brat aping its parent. Speak up, you fool!..."
He felt his face turning red and hot. Almost before he knew what he was saying his tongue began to wag, and he heard himself saying, in a stiff, stilted voice, "It was very nice in the Park this afternoon!..." Oh, banal fool, he thought, she will despise you now, as if you were a great, gawky lout....
She turned away from him, and spoke to Gilbert. "I've been at Dulbury," she said, "for six weeks. That's where I got all this brown!..." She laughed and pointed to her cheeks. "I'm so glad to get back. The country bores me stiff. Nothing to see but the scenery. Oh dear!" She almost yawned at her remembrance of the country. "And things are always biting me or stinging me. I'm miserable all the time I'm there!"
"Then why do you go?" said Gilbert.
"Jimphy wanted to go. Jimphy thinks it's his duty to show himself to the tenants now and again. It's the only return he can make, poor dear, for all that rent they pay!"
Gilbert said "Hm!" and then turned to go to the stalls. "It's Jimphy's birthday to-day," she said, and he turned to her again. "That's why we're here to-night. Together, I mean. He's treating me to a box. Come round and talk to us, Gilbert, after the first act ... and you, too, Mr.... Mr!..."
She fumbled over his name. Gilbert, as is the custom in England when introducing people, had spoken the name so indistinctly that she had not heard it.
"Quinn!" he said.
"Of course," she replied. "Mr. Quinn. I'm awfully stupid about names. You'll come, too?"
"I should like to!"
"Do. Gilbert, don't forget. Jimphy's very morose this evening. He's thirty-one to-day, and he thinks that old age is creeping over him!"
"All right," said Gilbert gloomily, and then he and Henry went to their seats.
"Who is Jimphy?" said Henry, as they walked down the stairs into the auditorium.
"Her husband. Didn't you notice something hanging around in the vestibule while we were talking to her?"
"No. There were so many people about!"
"Well, if you had noticed something hanging around, that would have been Jimphy. His real name is Jasper, but Cecily never calls any one by his real name ... except me. She can't think of a name for me!"
They entered the auditorium and stood for a moment looking about the theatre. People were passing quickly into their seats now, and the theatre was full of an eager air, of massed pleasure, and a loud buzz of conversation spread over the stalls from the pit where rows of young women whispered to each other excitedly as this well-known person and that well-known person entered.
"That's 'er, that's 'er!" one girl said in a frenzied whisper to her companion.
"Viola Tree?" the other girl, gazing vacantly into the stalls, replied.
"No, silly! Ellen Terry! Clap, can't you?"
And they clapped their hands as the actress went to her seat.
There was more clapping when Sir Charles Wyndham came in and took his seat.
"Is it Viola Tree?" the girl repeated.
"No, silly. It's Wyndham. Bray-vo! Seventy, if 'e's a day, an' don't look it. My word, I am enjoyin' myself, I can tell you! Everybody's 'ere to-night. Of course, it's St. James's, of course!..."
Popular criminal lawyers came in and sat next to racing marquises; and lords and ladies mingled with actresses who very ostentatiously accompanied their mothers. A few men of letters and a crowd of dramatic critics, depressed, unenthusiastic men, leavened the mass of the semi-great. The rest were the children of Israel.
"Jews to the right of us, Jews to the left of us!..." Gilbert said.
"Anti-Semite!" Henry replied.
"Only in practice, Quinny, not in theory. I'll see you at the interval!"
"If you nip out of your seat as the curtain goes down," said Henry, "we can both get up to her box before the rush!..."
"There won't be any rush."
"Well, anyhow, we can get up to the box pretty quickly!"
Gilbert walked away without replying, and Henry sat back in his seat and watched the boxes so that he might see Lady Cecily the moment she entered. His stall was in the last row, against the first row of the pit, and the girls who had applauded Miss Terry and Sir Charles Wyndham were still identifying the fashionable people.
"I tell you it is 'im," said the more assertive of the two.
"I sawr 'is picture in the Daily Reflexion the time that feller ... wot's 'is name ... the one that 'anged all 'is wives in the coal-cellar ... you know!..."
"I know," the other girl replied. "'Orrible case, I call it!"
"Well, 'e defended 'im. I sawr 'is picture in the Daily Reflexion myself. Very 'andsome man, eh? They do say!..."
Lady Cecily came into her box, followed by her husband, and Henry looked steadily up at her in the hope that she would see him, but she did not glance in his direction. He could see that she had found Gilbert in the audience, but Gilbert was not looking at her. An odd sensation of jealousy ran through him. He suddenly resented her familiarity with Gilbert. He remembered that she had called him by his Christian name, that she distinguished between him and other men by calling him by his proper name, and not by some fanciful perversion of it. If only she would call him by his Christian name!...
She was leaning on the edge of the box, and looking about the auditorium.
"That's Lydy Cecily Jyne!" he heard the assertive girl behind him saying.
"'Oo?'"
"Lydy Cecily Jyne. You know!"
Her husband leant back in his seat, stifling a yawn as he did so, and Henry saw that he was a faded, insignificant-looking man whose head sloped so sharply that it seemed to be galloping away from his forehead; but he did not pay much attention to him. His eyes were fixed on Lady Cecily.
"A bit 'ot, she is," the girl behind him was saying. "Well, I mean to say!..."
But what she meant to say, Henry neither knew nor cared. The lights in the theatre were lowered, leaving only the bright, warm glow of the footlights on the heavy curtain. He could see Lady Cecily's face still golden and glowing even in the darkness.
"My dear," said the girl behind him, "the things I've 'eard ... well, they'd fill a book!"
Then the curtain went up and the play began.
He saw her leaning forward eagerly to watch the stage, and presently he heard her laughing at some piece of wit in the play: a clear, joyful laugh; and as she laughed, she turned for a few moments and gazed into the darkened theatre. Her beautiful eyes seemed to him to be shining stars, and he imagined that she was looking straight at him. He smiled at her, and then jeered at himself. "Of course, she can't see me," he said.
He tried to interest himself in the traffic of the stage, but his thoughts continually wandered to the woman in the box above him.
"She's the loveliest woman I've ever seen," he said to himself.
THE FIFTH CHAPTER
1
She turned to greet them as they entered the box. "Come and sit beside me, Gilbert!" she said. "Mr. Quinn ... oh, you don't know Jimphy, do you?" She introduced Henry to her husband who mumbled "How do!" in a sulky voice, and stood against the wall of the box twisting his moustache. The shyness which had enveloped Henry in the vestibule of the theatre still clung about him, and he felt awkward and tongue-tied. Lord Jasper Jayne did not help Henry to get rid of his shyness. There was a "Who-the-devil-are-you?" look about him that made easy conversation impossible and any conversation difficult. Lady Cecily was chatting to Gilbert as if she had been saving up all her conversation for a month past exclusively for his ears; and Henry could hear a recurrent phrase.... "But, Gilbert, it's ages since you've been to see me, and you know I like you to come!..." that jangled his temper and made him feel savage towards his friend....
He made an effort to be chatty with Lord Jasper. "How do you like the play?" he said, as pleasantly as he could, for it was not easy to be chatty with Lord Jasper, whose coarse, flat features roused a sensation of repulsion in Henry.
"I don't like it," he replied. "Rotten twaddle!"
"Oh!" Henry exclaimed.
There did not appear to be anything more to say, nor did Lord Jasper seem anxious to continue the conversation; but just when it appeared that the effort to be pleasantly chatty was likely to be abortive, Lord Jasper suddenly walked towards the door of the box. "Come and have a drink!" he said.
Henry did not wish to go and have a drink, and he paused irresolutely until Lady Cecily suddenly leant forward and said with a laugh, "Yes, do go with Jimphy, Mr. Quinn. Gilbert and I have such a lot to say to each other, and Jimphy's not in a good temper. Are you, Jimphy, dear? You see," she went on, "he wanted to go to the Empire, but I made him bring me here!... Do cheer up, Jimphy, dear! Smile for the company!..."
Lord Jasper opened the door of the box and went out, and Henry, raging inwardly, followed him. Before he had quite shut the door again, Lady Cecily had turned to Gilbert. Her hand was on his sleeve, and she was saying, "But Gilbert, darling!..." He shut the door quickly and almost ran after Lord Jasper. She was in love with Gilbert, and Gilbert was in love with her. A woman would not put her hand so affectionately on a man's arm and call him "Gilbert, darling!" if she were not in love with him. She had wished to be alone with Gilbert ... had practically turned him out of the box so that she might be alone with Gilbert ... had not waited for him to close the door before she began to fondle him ... and Gilbert had spoken so bitterly of her!...
He followed on the heels of Lord Jasper, passing through a throng of men in the passages and on the stairs, until he reached the bar. "Whisky and soda?" said Lord Jasper, and Henry nodded his head.
"I hate theatres," Lord Jasper said.
"Oh!" Henry replied.
That seemed to be the only adequate retort to make to anything that Jimphy said.
"Yes, I can't stand 'em. Cecily let me in to-night ... on a chap's birthday, too. She might have chosen the Empire!"
"They're all right. Better than theatres anyhow. I like to see girls dancing and ... and ... all that kind of thing!"
A bell rang, warning them that the second act was about to begin.
"I suppose we ought to go back," said Henry, putting his glass down. He had barely touched the whisky and soda.
"No hurry," Lord Jasper replied. "No hurry. And you haven't drunk your whisky? Cecily's quite happy with that chap, Farlow.... I don't like him myself ... oh, I say, he's a pal of yours, isn't he? Well, it doesn't matter now. I don't like him, and he doesn't like me. I know he doesn't. I can always tell a chap doesn't like me because I generally don't like him. Have another, will you?"
Henry shook his head.
"I think we ought to be getting back," he said, "I hate disturbing people after the curtain's gone up!"
"You don't want to see that rotten play, do you? Look here ... I've forgotten your name! Sorry!..."
"Quinn. Henry Quinn!"
"Oh, Quinn! You're not English, are you?"
"I'm Irish."
"Are you? That's damn funny! Well, anyhow, what I was going to say was this. You don't want to see this rotten play, do you?"
"I do rather!..."
"No, you don't, Quinn. No, you don't. And I don't want to see it, either. Very well, then, what's to prevent you and me going to the Empire together, eh? We can come back for Cecily!..."
Henry stared at Lord Jasper. "But we can't do that," he protested.
"Oh, yes we can. Cecily won't mind. She'll be glad. We'll go and tell her ... and look here, Quinn, I'll introduce you to a girl I know ... very nice girl ... perfect lady ... lives with her mother as a matter of fact ... Eh?"
"I'd much rather see the play!"
"Oh, all right," Lord Jasper said sulkily. "All right!"
Henry moved towards the door of the bar, but Lord Jasper made no attempt to follow him. "Aren't you coming?" he said, pausing at the door.
"No," Lord Jasper replied. "I don't want to see the damn play. I shall have another drink, and then I shall go to the Empire by myself. You better go back to Cecily and ... and that chap Farlow. She won't notice I'm not there!"
"You'd better come and tell her yourself, hadn't you?" Henry said.
Lord Jasper deliberated with himself for a few moments.
"All right," he said. "I will. I'll come presently. You tell her, will you, that I'll come presently. P'raps you'll change your mind, Quinn, and come with me to the Empire after you've had another dose of this damn play. A chap doesn't want to see a play on a chap's birthday!..."
It occurred to Henry that Lord Jasper Jayne was slightly drunk. He had swallowed the second whisky and soda rather more expeditiously than he had swallowed the first, and no doubt he had dined well. There was a bleary look in his eyes that signified a heated brain....
"My God," Henry said to himself, "that beautiful woman married to this ... this swine!"
"I'm thirty-one to-day, ole f'la," Lord Jasper continued, coming over to Henry and taking hold of his arm. "Thirty-one. I'm getting on in years, ole f'la, that's what I'm doing ... sere and yellow, so to speak ... and a chap my age doesn't want to be bothered with a damn play. He wants something ... something substansl!..." He fumbled over the word "substantial" and then fell on it. "Something substansl," he repeated. "Now, if you come with me!..."
"I say, you mustn't talk so loudly," Henry warned him. "The curtain's gone up, and you'll disturb people...."
"All right, ole f'la, all right. I won't say another word!"
They stumbled along the passages to the door of the box, and entered as quietly as they could.
"We thought you'd got lost," said Lady Cecily, smiling at Henry.
"No ... no," he replied, "we didn't get lost!"