The Complete Five Towns Collections. Bennett Arnold
"Well—"
"I love to see plenty of people about. And you would, too, if you'd been fixed like me. I've never seen a real crowd. There are crushes when you go into theatres, sometimes, aren't there?"
"Yes. Women faint."
"But I shouldn't. I would have given anything not long ago to be in one of those crushes. Now, of course, I can just please myself. When we are back in London, do you think I could persuade you to take me?"
"You might," he said, "if you asked nicely. But young ladies who wear clothes like yours don't usually patronise the pit, where the crushes are. Stalls or dress circle would be more in your style. I propose we take the dress circle. You wouldn't enjoy your crush going in, but at the Lyceum and some other theatres, there is quite a superior crush coming out of the stalls and dress circle."
"Yes, that is better. And I shall buy more clothes. Oh! I will be shockingly wasteful. If poor old uncle knew how his money was to be spent—"
A little child, chased by one still less, fell down flat in front of them, and began to cry. Adeline picked it up, losing her sunshade, and kissed both children. Then she took a paper of chocolates from her pocket and gave several to each child, and they ran away without saying thank you.
"Have one?" She offered the bag to Richard. "That's another luxury I shall indulge in—chocolates. Do have just one, to keep me company," she appealed. "By the way, about dinner. I ordered dinner for both of us at my rooms, but we can improve on that. I have discovered a lovely little village a few miles away, Angmering, all old cottages and no drains. Let us drive there in a victoria, and picnic at a cottage. I know the exact place for us. There will be no people there to annoy you."
"But you like 'people,' so that won't do at all."
"I will do without 'people' for this day."
"And what shall we have for dinner?"
"Oh! Eggs and bread and butter and tea."
"Tea for dinner! Not very solid, is it?"
"Greedy! If you have such a large appetite, eat a few more chocolates; they will take it away."
She rose, pointing to a victoria in the distance.
He looked at her without getting up, and their eyes met with smiles. Then he, too, rose. He thought he had never felt so happy. An intoxicating vision of future felicities momentarily suggested itself, only to fade before the actuality of the present.
The victoria stopped at Adeline's rooms. She called through the open window to Lottie, who came out and received orders to dine alone, or with the landlady if she preferred.
"Lottie and Mrs. Bishop are great friends," Adeline said. "The silly girl would sooner stay in to help Mrs. Bishop with housework than go out on the beach with me."
"She must indeed be silly. I know which I should choose!" It seemed a remark of unutterable clumsiness—after he had said it, but Adeline's faint smile showed no dissatisfaction. He reflected that he would have been better pleased had she totally ignored it.
The carriage ran smoothly along the dusty roads, now passing under trees, and now skirting poppy-clad fields whose vivid scarlet almost encroached on the highway itself. Richard lay back, as he had seen men do in the Park, his shoulder lightly touching Adeline's. She talked incessantly, though slowly, in that low voice of hers, and her tones mingled with the measured trot of the enfeebled horse, and lulled Richard to a sensuous quiescence. He slightly turned his face towards hers, and with dreamy deliberateness examined her features,—the dimple in her cheek which he had never noticed before, the curves of her ear, her teeth, her smooth black hair, the play of light in her eye; then his gaze moved to her large felt hat, set bewitchingly aslant on the small head, and then for a space he would look at the yellowish-green back of the imperturbable driver, who drove on and on, little witting that enchantment was behind him.
They consumed the eggs and bread and butter and tea which Adeline had promised; and they filled their pockets with fruit. That was Adeline's idea. She gave herself up to enjoyment like a child. When the sun was less strenuous they walked about the village, sitting down frequently to admire its continual picturesqueness. Time sped with astonishing rapidity; Richard's train went at twenty-five minutes past seven, and already, as they stood by the margin of the tiny tributary of the Arun, some grandfather's clock in a neighbouring cottage clattered five. He was tempted to say nothing about the train, quietly allow himself to miss it, and go up by the first ordinary on Monday morning. But soon Adeline inquired about his return, and they set off to walk back to Littlehampton; the carriage had been dismissed. He invented pretexts for loitering, made her sit on walls to eat apples, tried to get lost in by-paths, protested that he could not keep the pace she set; but to no purpose. They arrived at the station at exactly a quarter past seven. The platform was busy, and they strolled to the far end of it and stood by the engine.
"I wish to heaven the train didn't leave so early," he said. "I'm sure the sea air would do me a lot of good, if I could get enough of it. What a beautiful day it has been!" He sighed sentimentally.
"I never, never enjoyed myself so perfectly," she said emphatically. "Suppose we beseech the engine-driver to lie still for a couple of hours?" Richard's smile was inattentive.
"You are sure you haven't done too much," he said with sudden solicitude, looking at her half anxiously.
"I! not a bit. I am absolutely well again." Her eyes found his and held them, and it seemed to him that mystic messages passed to and fro.
"How long do you think of staying?"
"Not long. It gets rather boring, being alone. I expect I shall return on Saturday."
"I was thinking I would run down again on Saturday for the week-end,—take a week-end ticket," he said; "but of course, if—"
"In that case I should stay a few days longer. I couldn't allow myself to deprive you of the sea air which is doing you so much good. By next Saturday I may have discovered more nice places to visit, perhaps even prettier than Angmering.... But you must get in."
He would have given a great deal just then to be able to say firmly: "I have changed my mind about going. I will stay at a hotel to-night and take the first train to-morrow." But it required more decision than he possessed, and in a few moments he was waving good-bye to her from the carriage window.
There were several other people in the compartment,—a shy shop-girl and her middle-aged lover, evidently employés of the same establishment, and an artisan with his wife and a young child. Richard observed them intently, and found a curious, new pleasure in all their unstudied gestures and in everything they said. But chiefly he kept a watch on the shop-girl's lover, who made it no secret that he was dwelling in the seventh heaven. Richard sympathised with that man. His glance fell on him softly, benignantly. As the train passed station after station, he wondered what Adeline was doing, now, and now, and now.
* * * * *
On the following Saturday he took tea with Adeline at her lodgings. The train had been late, and by the time they were ready for the evening walk without which no visitor to the seaside calls the day complete, it was close upon nine o'clock. The beach was like a fair or a north-country wake. Conjurers, fire-eaters, and minstrels each drew an audience; but the principal attraction was a man and woman who wore masks and were commonly supposed to be distinguished persons to whom fate had been unkind. They had a piano in a donkey-cart, and the woman sang to the man's accompaniment. Just as Richard and Adeline came up, "The River of Years" was announced for performance.
"Let us listen to this," said Adeline.
They stood at the rim of the crowd. The woman had a rich contralto voice and sang with feeling, and her listeners were generous of both applause and coppers.
"I wonder who she is," Adeline murmured, with a touch of melancholy,—"I wonder who she is. I love that song."
"Oh, probably some broken-down concert-singer," Richard said curtly, "with a drunken husband."
"But she sang beautifully. She