Nocturne by Frank Swinnerton

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"Oh, to-night!" she assured him recklessly.

"Because you don't love me. You throw all the blame on me; but it's your
own pride that's the real trouble, Jenny. You want to come round
gradually; and time's too short for it. Remember, I'm away again
to-morrow. Did you forget that?"

Jenny shivered. She had forgotten everything but her grievance.

"How long will you be away?" she asked.

"Three months at least. Does it matter?" She reproached his bitterness
by a glance. "Jenny, dear," he went on; "when time's so short, is it
worth while to quarrel? You see what it is: if you don't try and love me
you'll go home unhappy, and we shall both be unhappy. I told you I'm not
a free man. I'm not. I want to be free. I want to be free all the time;
and I'm tied ..."

"You're still talking about yourself," said Jenny, scornfully, on the
verge of tears.

vi

Well, they had both made their unwilling attempts at reconciliation; and
they were still further estranged. They were not loving one another;
they were just quarrelsome and unhappy at being able to find no safe
road of compromise. Jenny had received a bitter shock; Keith, with the
sense that she was judging him harshly, was sullen with his deeply
wounded heart. They both felt bruised and wretched, and deeply ashamed
and offended. And then they looked at each other, and Jenny gave a
smothered sob. It was all that was needed; for Keith was beside her in
an instant, holding her unyielding body, but murmuring gentle coaxing
words into her ear. In an instant more Jenny was crying in real earnest,
buried against him; and her tears were tears of relief as much as of
pain.

CHAPTER IX: WHAT FOLLOWED

i

The _Minerva_ slowly and gently rocked with the motion of the current.
The stars grew brighter. The sounds diminished. Upon the face of the
river lights continued to twinkle, catching and mottling the wavelets.
The cold air played with the water, and flickered upon the _Minerva's_
deck; strong enough only to appear mischievous, too soft and wayward to
make its presence known to those within. And in the _Minerva's_ cabin,
set as it were in that softly rayed room of old gold and golden brown,
Jenny was clinging to Keith, snatching once again at precarious
happiness. Far off, in her aspirations, love was desired as synonymous
with peace and contentment; but in her heart Jenny had no such pretence.
She knew that it was otherwise. She knew that passive domestic enjoyment
would not bring her nature peace, and that such was not the love she
needed. Keith alone could give her true love. And she was in Keith's
arms, puzzled and lethargic with something that was only not despair
because she could not fathom her own feelings.

"Keith," she said, presently. "I'm sorry to be a fool."

"You're _not_ a fool, old dear," he assured her. "But I'm a beast."

"Yes, I think you are," Jenny acknowledged. There was a long pause. She
tried to wipe her eyes, and at last permitted Keith to do that for her,
flinching at contact with the handkerchief, but aware all the time of
some secret joy. When she could speak more calmly, she went on: "Suppose
we don't talk any more about being...what we are...and forgiving, and
all that. We don't mean it. We only say it..."

"Well, I mean it--about being a beast," Keith said humbly. "That's
because I made you cry."

"Well," said Jenny, agreeingly, "you can be a beast--I mean, think you
are one. And if I'm miserable I shall think I've been a fool. But we'll
cut out about forgiving. Because I shall never really forgive you. I
couldn't. It'll always be there, till I'm an old woman--"

"Only till you're happy, dear," Keith told her. "That's all that means."

"I can't think like that. I feel it's in my bones. But you're going
away. Where are you going? D'you know? Is it far?"

"We're going back to the South. Otherwise it's too cold for yachting.
And Templecombe wants to keep out of England at the moment. He's safe on
the yacht. He can't be got at. There's some wretched predatory woman of
title pursuing him...."

"Here ... here!" cried Jenny. "I can't understand if you talk
pidgin-English, Keith."

"Well ... you know what ravenous means? Hungry. And a woman of
title--you know what a lord is.... Well, and she's chasing about,
dropping little scented notes at every street corner for him."

"Oh they are _awful_!" cried Jenny. "Countesses! Always in the divorce
court, or something. Somebody ought to stop them. They don't have
countesses in America, do they? Why don't we have a republic, and get
rid of them all? If they'd got the floor to scrub they wouldn't have
time to do anything wrong."

"True," said Keith. "True. D'you like scrubbing floors?"

"No. But I do it. And keep my hands nice, too." The hands were inspected
and approved.

"But then you're more free than most people," Keith presently remarked,
in a tone of envy.

"Free!" exclaimed Jenny. "Me! In the millinery! When I've got to be
there every morning at nine sharp or get the sack, and often, busy
times, stick at it till eight or later, for a few bob a week. And never
have any time to myself except when I'm tired out! Who gets the fun?
Why, it's _all_ work, for people like me; all work for somebody else.
What d'you call being free? Aren't they free?"

"Not one. They're all tied up. Templecombe's hawk couldn't come on this
yacht without a troop of friends. They can't go anywhere they like
unless it's 'the thing' to be done. They do everything because it's the
right thing--because if they do something else people will think it's
odd--think they're odd. And they can't stand that!"

"Well, but Keith! Who is it that's free?"

"Nobody," he said.

"I thought perhaps it was only poor people ... just _because_ they were
poor."

"Well, Jenny.... That's so. But when people needn't do what they're told
they invent a system that turns them into slaves. They have a religion,
or they run like the Gadarine swine into a fine old lather and pretend
that everybody's got to do the same for some reason or other. They call
it the herd instinct, and all sorts of names. But there's nobody who's
really free. Most of them don't want to be. If they were free they
wouldn't know what to do. If their chains were off they'd fall down and
die. They wouldn't be happy if there wasn't a system grinding them as
much like each other as it can."

"But why not? What's the good of being alive at all if you've got to do
everything whether you want to do it or not? It's not sense!"

"It's fact, though. From the king to the miner--all a part of a big
complicated machine that's grinding us slowly to bits, making us all
more and more wretched."

"But who makes it like that, Keith?" cried Jenny. "Who says it's to be
so?"

Keith laughed grimly.

"Don't let's talk about it," he urged. "No good talking about it. The
only thing to do is to fight it--get out of the machine ..."

"But there's nowhere to go, is there?" asked Jenny. "I was thinking
about it this evening. 'They've' got every bit of the earth. Wherever
you go 'they're' there ... with laws and police and things all ready for
you. You've _got_ to give in."

"I'm not going to," said Keith. "I'll tell you that, Jenny."

"But Keith! Who is it that makes it so? There _must_ be somebody to
start it. Is it God?"

Keith laughed again, still more drily and grimly.

ii

Jenny was not yet satisfied. She still continued to revolve the matter
in her mind.

"You said nobody was free, Keith. But then you said you were free--when
you got married."

_"Till_ I got married. Then I wasn't. I fell into the machine and got
badly chawed then."

"Don't you want to get married?" Jenny asked. "Ever again?"

"Not that way." Keith's jaw was set. "I've been there; and to me that's
what hell is."

How Jenny wished she could understand! She did not want to get married
herself--that way. But she wanted to serve. She wanted Keith to be her
husband; she wanted to make him happy, and to make his home comfortable.
She felt that to work for the man she loved was the way to be truly
happy. Did he not think that he could be happy in working for her? She
_couldn't_ understand. It was all so hard that she sometimes felt that
her brain was clamped with iron bolts and chains.

"What way d'you want to get married?" Jenny asked.

"I want to marry _you_. Any old way. And I want to take you to the other
end of the world--where there aren't any laws and neighbours and rates
and duties and politicians and imitations of life.... And I want to set
you down on virgin soil and make a real life for you. In Labrador or
Alaska ..." He glowed with enthusiasm. Jenny glowed too, infected by his
enthusiasm.

"Sounds fine!" she said. Keith exclaimed eagerly. He was alive with joy
at her welcome.

"Would you come?" he cried. "Really?"

"To the end of the world?" Jenny said. "Rather!"

They kissed passionately, carried away by their excitement, brimming
with joy at their agreement in feeling and desire. The cabin seemed to
expand into the virgin forest and the open plain. A new vision of life
was opened to Jenny. Exultingly she pictured the future, bright, active,
occupied--away from all the old cramping things. It was the life she had
dreamed, away from men, away from stuffy rooms and endless millinery,
away from regular hours and tedious meals, away from all that now made
up her daily dullness. It was splendid! Her quick mind was at work,
seeing, arranging, imagining as warm as life the changed days that would
come in such a terrestrial Paradise. And then Keith, watching with
triumph the mounting joy in her expression, saw the joy subside, the
brilliance fade, the eagerness give place to doubt and then to dismay.

"What is it?" he begged. "Jenny, dear!"

"It's Pa!" Jenny said. "I couldn't leave him ... not for anything!"

"Is that all? We'll take him with us!" cried Keith. Jenny sorrowfully
shook her head.

"No. He's paralysed," she explained, and sighed deeply at the faded
vision.

iii

"Well, I'm not going to give up the idea for that," Keith resumed, after
a moment. Jenny shook her head, and a wry smile stole into her face,
making it appear thinner than before.

"I didn't expect you would," she said quietly. "It's me that has to give
it up."

"Jenny!" He was astonished by her tone. "D'you think I meant that?
Never! We'll manage something. Something can be done. When I come
back ..."

"Ah, you're going away!" Jenny cried in agony. "I shan't see you. I
shall have every day to think of ... day after day. And you won't write.
And I shan't see you...." She held him to her, her breast against his,
desperate with the dread of being separated from him. "It's easy for
you, at sea, with the wind and the sun; and something fresh to see, and
something happening all the time. But me--in a dark room, poring over
bits of straw and velvet to make hats for soppy women, and then going
home to old Em and stew for dinner. There's not much fun in it,
Keith.... No, I didn't mean to worry you by grizzling. It's too bad of
me! But seeing you, and hearing that plan, it's made me remember how
beastly I felt before your letter came this evening. I was nearly mad
with it. I'd been mad before; but never as bad as this was. And then
your letter came--and I wanted to come to you; and I came, and we've
wasted such a lot of time not understanding each other. Even now, I
can't be sure you love me--not _sure!_ I think you do; but you only say
so. How's anyone ever to be sure, unless they know it in their bones?
And I've been thinking about you every minute since we met. Because I
never met anybody like you, or loved anybody before..."

She broke off, her voice trembling, her face against his, breathless and
exhausted.

iv

"Now listen, Jenny," said Keith. "This is this. I love you, and you love
me. That's right, isn't it? Well. I don't care about marriage--I mean, a
ceremony; but you do. So we'll be married when I come back in three
months. That's all right, isn't it? And when we're married, we'll either
take your father with us, whatever his health's like; or we'll do
something with him that'll do as well. I should be ready to put him in
somebody's care; but you wouldn't like that..."

"I love him," Jenny said. "I couldn't leave him to somebody else for
ever."

"Yes. Well, you see there's nothing to be miserable about. It's all
straightforward now. Nothing--except that we're going to be apart for
three months. Now, Jen: don't let's waste any more time being miserable;
but let's sit down and be happy for a bit...How's that?"

Jenny smiled, and allowed him to bring her once again to the settee and
to begin once more to describe their future life.

"It's cold there, Jenny. Not warm at all. Snow and ice. And you won't
see anybody for weeks and months--anybody but just me. And we shall have
to do everything for ourselves--clothes, house-building, food catching
and killing... Trim your own hats... Like the Swiss Family Robinson;
only you won't have everything growing outside as they did. And we'll go
out in canoes if we go on the water at all; and see Indians--'Heap big
man bacca' sort of business--and perhaps hear wolves (I'm not quite sure
of that); and go about on sledges... with dogs to draw them. But with
all that we shall be free. There won't be any bureaucrats to tyrannise
over us; no fashions, no regulations, no homemade laws to make dull boys
of us. Just fancy, Jenny: nobody to _make_ us do anything. Nothing but
our own needs and wishes..."

"I expect we shall tyrannise--as you call it--over each other," Jenny
said shrewdly. "It seems to me that's what people do."

"Little wretch!" cried Keith. "To interrupt with such a thing. When I
was just getting busy and eloquent. I tell you: there'll be
inconveniences. You'll find you'll want somebody besides me to talk to
and look after. But then perhaps you'll have somebody!"

"Who?" asked Jenny, unsuspiciously. "Not Pa, I'm sure."

Keith held her away from him, and looked into her eyes. Then he crushed
her against him, laughing. It took Jenny quite a minute to understand
what he meant.

"Very dull, aren't you!" cried Keith. "Can't see beyond the end of your
nose."

"I shouldn't think it was hardly the sort of place for babies," Jenny
sighed. "From what you say."

v

Keith roared with laughter, so that the _Minerva_ seemed to shake in
sympathy with his mirth.

"You're priceless!" he said. "My bonny Jenny. I shouldn't think there
was ever anybody like you in the world!"

"Lots of girls," Jenny reluctantly suggested, shaking a dolorous head at
the ghost of a faded vanity. "I'm afraid." She revived even as she
spoke; and encouragingly added: "Perhaps not exactly like."

"I don't believe it! You're unique. The one and only Jenny Redington!"

"Red--!" Jenny's colour flamed. "Sounds nice," she said; and was then
silent.

"When we're married," went on Keith, watching her; "where shall we go
for our honeymoon? I say!... how would you like it if I borrowed the
yacht from Templecombe and ran you off somewhere in it? I expect he'd
let me have the old _Minerva._ Not a bad idea, eh what!"

"_When_ we're married," Jenny said breathlessly, very pale.

"What d'you mean?" Keith's eyes were so close to her own that she was
forced to lower her lids. "When I come back from this trip. Templecombe
says three months. It may be less."

"It may be more." Jenny had hardly the will to murmur her warning--her
distrust.

"Very unlikely; unless the weather's bad. I'm reckoning on a mild
winter. If it's cold and stormy then of course yachting's out of the
question. But we'll be back before the winter, any way. And
then--darling Jenny--we'll be married as soon as I can get the licence.
There's something for you to look forward to, my sweet. Will you like to
look forward to it?"

Jenny could feel his breath upon her face; but she could not move or
speak. Her breast was rising to quickened breathing; her eyes were
burning; her mouth was dry. When she moistened her lips she seemed to
hear a cracking in her mouth. It was as though fever were upon her, so
moved was she by the expression in Keith's eyes. She was neither happy
nor unhappy; but she was watching his face as if fascinated. She could
feel his arm so gently about her shoulder, and his breast against hers;
and she loved him with all her heart. She had at this time no thought of
home; only the thought that they loved each other and that Keith would
be away for three months; facing dangers indeed, but all the time loving
her. She thought of the future, of that time when they both would be
free, when they should no longer be checked and bounded by the fear of
not having enough food. That was the thing, Jenny felt, that kept poor
people in dread of the consequences of their own acts. And Jenny felt
that if they might live apart from the busy world, enduring together
whatever ills might come to them from their unsophisticated mode of
life, they would be able to be happy. She thought that Keith would have
no temptations that she did not share; no other men drawing him by
imitativeness this way and that, out of the true order of his own
character; no employer exacting in return for the weekly wage a
servitude that was far from the blessed ideal of service. Jenny thought
these things very simply--impulsively--and not in a form to be
intelligible if set down as they occurred to her; but the notions swam
in her head along with her love for Keith and her joy in the love which
he returned. She saw his dear face so close to her own, and heard her
own heart thumping vehemently, quicker and quicker, so that it sounded
thunderously in her ears. She could see Keith's eyes, so easily to be
read, showing out the impulses that crossed and possessed his mind. Love
for her she was sure she read, love and kindness for her, and
mystification, and curiosity, and the hot slumbering desire for her that
made his breathing short and heavy. In a dream she thought of these
things, and in a dream she felt her own love for Keith rising and
stifling her, so that she could not speak, but could only rest there in
his arms, watching that beloved face and storing her memory with its
precious betrayals.

Keith gently kissed her, and Jenny trembled. A thousand temptations were
whirling in her mind--thoughts of his absence, their marriage, memory,
her love... With an effort she raised her lips again to his, kissing him
in passion, so that when he as passionately responded it seemed as
though she fainted in his arms and lost all consciousness but that of
her love and confidence in him and the eager desire of her nature to
yield itself where love was given.

CHAPTER X: CINDERELLA

i

Through the darkness, and into the brightness of the moon's light, the
rolling notes of Big Ben were echoing and re-echoing, as each stroke
followed and drove away the lingering waves of its predecessor and was
in turn dispersed by the one that came after. The sounds made the street
noises sharper, a mere rattle against the richness of the striking
clock. It was an hour that struck; and the quarters were followed by
twelve single notes. Midnight. And Jenny Blanchard was still upon the
_Minerva;_ and Emmy and Alf had left the theatre; and Pa Blanchard was
alone in the little house in Kennington Park.

The silvered blackness of the _Minerva_ was disturbed. A long streak of
yellow light showed from the door leading into the cabin while yet the
sounds of the clock hung above the river. It became ghostly against the
moonlight that bleached the deck, a long grey-yellow finger pointing the
way to the yacht's side.

Jenny and Keith made their way up the steps and to the deck, and Jenny
shivered a little in the strong light. Her face was in shadow. She
hurried, restored to sanity by the sounds and the thought of her
father. Horror and self-blame were active in her mind--not from the fear
of discovery; but from shame at having for so long deserted him.

"Oh, hurry!" Jenny whispered, as Keith slipped over the side of the
yacht into the waiting dinghy. There was a silence, and presently the
heavy cludder of oars against the boat's side.

"Jenny! Come along!" called Keith from the water.

Not now did Jenny shrink from the running tide. Her one thought was to
get home; and she had no inclination to think of what lay between her
and Kennington Park. She hardly understood what Keith said as he rowed
to the steps. She saw the bridge looming, its black shadow cutting the
water that sparkled so dully in the moonlight; and then she saw the
steps leading from the bridge to the river's edge. They were alongside;
she was ashore; and Keith was pressing her hand in parting. Still she
could not look at him until she was at the top of the steps, when she
turned and raised her hand in farewell.

ii

She knew she had to walk for a little way down the road in the direction
of her home, and then up a side street, where she had been told that
she would find the motor car awaiting her. And for some seconds she
could not bear the idea of speaking to the chauffeur, from the sense
that he must know exactly how long she had been on board the yacht. The
hesitation caused her to linger, as the cold air had caused her to
think. It was as though she feared that when he was found the man would
be impudent to her, and leer, behaving familiarly as he might have done
to a common woman. Because she was alone and unprotected. It was
terrible. Her secret filled her with the sense of irremediable guilt.
Already she was staled with the evening's excitement. She stopped and
wavered, her shadow, so black and small, hesitating as she did. Could
she walk home? She looked at the black houses, and listened to the
terrifying sinister roar that continued faintly to fill the air. Could
she go by tram? If she did--whatever she did--the man might wait for her
all night, and Keith would know how cowardly she had been. It might even
come to the ears of Lord Templecombe, and disgrace Keith before him. To
go or to stay was equally to bring acute distress upon herself, the
breathless shame of being thought disgraced for ever. Already it seemed
to her that the shadows were peopled with observers ready to spy upon
her, to seize her, to bear her away into hidden places...

At last, her mind resolved by her fears, which crowded upon her in a
tumult, Jenny stepped fearfully forward. The car was there, dimly
outlined, a single light visible to her eye. It was drawn upon at the
side of the street; and the chauffeur was fast asleep, his head upon his
arms, and his arms spread upon the steering-wheel.

"I say!" cried Jenny in a panic, her glance quickly over her shoulder at
unseen dangers. "Wake up! Wake up!"

She stepped into the car, and it began to quiver with life as the engine
was started. Then, as if drowned in the now familiar scent of the
hanging bouquet, Jenny lay back once more in the soft cushions; bound
for home, for Emmy and Alf and Pa; her evening's excursion at an end,
and only its sequel to endure.

PART THREE

MORNING

CHAPTER XI: AFTER THE THEATRE

i

After leaving the house Emmy and Alf pressed along in the darkness,
Alf's arm still surrounding and supporting Emmy, Emmy still half
jubilantly and half sorrowfully continuing to recognise her happiness
and the smothered chagrin of her emotions. She was not able to feel
either happy or miserable; but happiness was uppermost. Dislike of Jenny
had its place, also; for she could account for every weakness of Alf's
by reference to Jenny's baseness. But indeed Emmy could not think, and
could only passively and excitedly endure the conflicting emotions of
the moment. And Alf did not speak, but hurried her along as fast as his
strong arm could secure her compliance with his own pace; and they
walked through the night-ridden streets and full into the blaze of the
theatre entrance without any words at all. Then, when the staring
vehemence of the electric lights whitened and shadowed her face, Emmy
drew away, casting down her eyes, alarmed at the disclosures which the
brilliance might devastatingly make. She slipped from his arm, and stood
rather forlornly while Alf fished in his pockets for the tickets. With
docility she followed him, thrilled when he stepped aside in passing the
commissionaire and took her arm. Together they went up the stairs, the
heavy carpets with their drugget covers silencing every step, the gilded
mirrors throwing their reflections backwards and forwards until the
stairs seemed peopled with hosts of Emmys and Alfs. As they drew near
the closed doors of the circle the hush filling the staircases and
vestibules of the theatre was intensified. An aproned attendant seemed
to Emmy's sensitiveness to look them up and down and superciliously to
disapprove them. She moved with indignation. A dull murmur, as of single
voices, disturbed the air somewhere behind the rustling attendant: and
when the doors were quickly opened Emmy saw beyond the darkness and the
intrusive flash of light caused by the opening doors a square of
brilliance and a dashing figure upon the stage talking staccato. Those
of the audience who were sitting near the doors turned angrily and with
curiosity to view the new-comers; and the voice that Emmy had
distinguished went more stridently on, with a strong American accent. In
a flurry she found and crept into her seat, trying to understand the
play, to touch Alf, to remove her hat, to discipline her excitements.
And the staccato voice went on and on, detailing a plan of some sort
which she could not understand because they had missed the first five
minutes of the play. Emmy could not tell that the actor was only
pretending to be an American; she could not understand why, having
spoken twenty words, he must take six paces farther from the footlights
until he had spoken thirteen more; but she could and did feel most
overwhelmingly exuberant at being as it were alone in that half-silent
multitude, sitting beside Alf, their arms touching, her head whirling,
her heart beating, and a wholly exquisite warmth flushing her cheeks.

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