CHAPTER VII: MORTALS

i

Keith did not answer. That was the one certainty she had; and her heart sank. He did not answer. That meant that really she was nothing to him, that he neither wanted nor trusted her. And yet she had thought a moment before—only a moment before—that he was as moved as herself. They had seemed to be upon the brink of confidences; and now he had drawn back. Each instant deepened her sense of failure. When Jenny stealthily looked sideways, Keith sat staring before him, his expression unchanged. She had failed.

“You don’t trust me,” she said, with her voice trembling. There was another silence. Then:

“Don’t I?” Keith asked, indifferently. He reached his hand out and patted hers, even holding it lightly for an instant. “I think I do. You don’t think so?”

“No.” She merely framed the word, sighing.

“You’re wrong, Jenny.” Keith’s voice changed. He deliberately looked round the table at the little dishes that still lay there untouched. “Have some of these sweets, will you.... No?” Jenny could only draw her breath sharply, shaking her head. “Almonds, then?” She moved impatiently, her face distorted with wretched exasperation. As if he could see that, and as if fear of the outcome hampered his resolution, Keith hurried on. “Well, look here: we’ll clear the table together, if you like. Take the things through the other cabin—that one—to the galley; root up the table by its old legs—I’ll show you how its’ done;—and then we can have a talk. I’ll ... I’ll tell you as much as I can about everything you want to know. That do?”

“I can’t stay long. I’ve left Pa in bed.” She could not keep the note of roughness from her pleading voice, although shame at being petulant was struggling with her deeper feeling.

“Well, he won’t want to get up again yet, will he?” Keith answered composedly. Oh, he had nerves of steel! thought Jenny. “I mean, this is his bedtime, I suppose?” There was no answer. Jenny looked at the tablecloth, numbed by her sensations. “Do you have to look after him all the time? That’s a bit rough...”

“No,” was forced from Jenny. “No, I don’t ... not generally. But to-night—but that’s a long story, too. With rows in it.” Which made Keith laugh. He laughed not quite naturally, forcing the last several jerks of his laughter, so that she shuddered at the thought of his possible contempt. It was as if everything she said was lost before ever it reached his heart—as if the words were like weak blows against an overwhelming strength. Discouragement followed and deepened after every blow—every useless and baffled word. There was again silence, while Jenny set her teeth, forcing back her bitterness and her chagrin, trying to behave as usual, and to check the throbbing within her breast. He was trying to charm her, teasingly to wheedle her back into kindness, altogether misunderstanding her mood. He was guarded and considerate when she wanted only passionate and abject abandonment of disguise.

“We’ll toss up who shall begin first,” Keith said in a jocular way. “How’s that for an idea?”

Jenny felt her lips tremble. Frantically she shook her head, compressing the unruly lips. Only by keeping in the same position, by making herself remain still, could she keep back the tears. Her thought went on, that Keith was cruelly playing with her, mercilessly watching the effect of his own coldness upon her too sensitive heart. Eh, but it was a lesson to her! What brutes men could be, at this game! And that thought gave her, presently, an unnatural composure. If he were cruel, she would never show her wounds. She would sooner die. But her eyes, invisible to him, were dark with reproach, and her face drawn with agony.

“Well, we’d better do something,” she said, in a sharp voice; and rose to her feet. “Where is it the things go?” Keith also rose, and Jenny felt suddenly sick and faint at the relaxation of her self-control.

ii

“Hullo, hullo!” Keith cried, and was at once by her side. “Here; have a drink of water.” Jenny, steadying herself by the table, sipped a little of the water.

“Is it the wine that’s made me stupid?” she asked. “I feel as if my teeth were swollen, and my skin was too tight for my bones. Beastly!”

“How horrid!” Keith said lightly, taking from her hand the glass of water. “If it’s the wine you won’t feel the effects long. Go on deck if you like. You’ll feel all right in the air. I’ll clear away.” Jenny would not leave him. She shook her head decidedly. “Wait a minute, then. I’ll come too!”

They moved quickly about, leaving the fruit and little sweets and almonds upon the sidetable, but carrying everything else through a sleeping-cabin into the galley. It was this other cabin that still further deepened Jenny’s sense of pain—of inferiority. That was the feeling now most painful. She had just realised it. She was a common girl; and Keith—ah, Keith was secure enough, she thought.

In that moment Jenny deliberately gave him up. She felt it was impossible that he should love her. When she looked around it was with a sorrowfulness as of farewell. These things were the things that Keith knew and had known—that she would never again see but in the bitter memories of this night. The night would pass, but her sadness would remain. She would think of him here. She gave him up, quite humble in her perception of the disparity between them. And yet her own love would stay, and she must store her memory full of all that she would want to know when she thought of his every moment. Jenny ceased to desire him. She somehow—it may have been by mere exhausted cessation of feeling—wished only to understand his life and then never to see him again. It was a kind of numbness that seized her. Then she awoke once again, stirred by the bright light and by the luxury of her surroundings.

“This where you sleep?” With passionate interest in everything that concerned him, Jenny looked eagerly about the cabin. She now indicated a broad bunk, with a beautifully white counterpane and such an eiderdown quilt as she might optimistically have dreamed about. The tiny cabin was so compact, and so marvellously furnished with beautiful things that it seemed to Jenny a kind of suite in tabloid form. She did not understand how she had done without all these luxurious necessities for five-and-twenty years.

“Sometimes,” Keith answered, having followed her marvelling eye from beauty to beauty. “When there’s company I sleep forward with the others.” He had been hurrying by with a cruet and the bread dish when her exclamation checked him.

“Is this lord a friend of yours, then?” Jenny asked.

“Sometimes,” Keith dryly answered. “Understand?” Jenny frowned again at his tone.

“No,” she said. Keith passed on.

Jenny stood surveying the sleeping-cabin. A whole nest of drawers attracted her eye, deep drawers that would hold innumerable things. Then she saw a hand-basin with taps for hot and cold water. Impulsively she tried the hot-water tap, and was both relieved and disappointed when it gasped and offered her cold water. There were monogramed toilet appointments beautiful to see; a leather-cased carriage clock, a shelf full of books that looked fascinating; towels; tiny rugs; a light above the hand-basin, and another to switch on above the bunk.... It was wonderful! And there was a looking-glass before her in which she could see her own reflection as clear as day—too clearly for her pleasure!

The face she irresistibly saw in this genuine mirror looked pale and tired, although upon each white cheek there was a hard scarlet flush. Her eyes were liquid, the pupils dilated; her whole appearance was one of suppressed excitement. She had chagrin, not only because she felt that her appearance was unattractive, but because it seemed to her that her face kept no secrets. Had she seen it as that of another, Jenny would unerringly have read its painful message.

“Eh, dear,” she said aloud. “You give yourself away, old sport! Don’t you, now!” The mirrored head shook in disparaging admission of its own shortcoming. Jenny bent nearer, meeting the eyes with a clear stare. There were wretched lines about her mouth. For the first time in her life she had a horrified fear of growing older. It was as though, when she shut her eyes, she saw herself as an old woman. She felt a curious stab at her heart.

Keith, returning, found Jenny still before the mirror, engaged in this unsparing scrutiny; and, laughing gently, he caught her elbow with his fingers. In the mirror their glances met. At his touch Jenny thrilled, and unconsciously leaned towards him. From the mirrored glance she turned questioningly, to meet upon his face a beaming expression of tranquil enjoyment that stimulated her to candid remark. Somehow it restored some of her lost ease to be able to speak so.

“I look funny, don’t I?” She appealed to his judgment. Keith bent nearer, as for more detailed examination, retaining hold upon her elbow. His face was tantalisingly close to hers, and Jenny involuntarily turned her head away, not coquettishly, but through embarrassment at a mingling of desire and timidity.

“Is that the word?” he asked. “You look all right, my dear.”

My dear! She knew that the words meant more to her than they did to him, so carelessly were they uttered; but they sent a shock through her. How Jenny wished that she might indeed be dear to Keith! He released her, and she followed him, laden, backwards and forwards until the table was cleared. Then he unscrewed the table legs, and the whole thing came gently away in his hands. There appeared four small brass sockets imbedded in the carpet’s deep pile; and the centre of the room was clear. By the same dexterous use of his acquaintance with the cabin’s mechanism, Keith unfastened one of the settees, and wheeled it forward so that it stood under the light, and in great comfort for the time when they should sit to hear his story.

“Now!” he said. “We’ll have a breather on deck to clear your old head.”

iii

By this time the moon was silvering the river, riding high above the earth, serenely a thing of eternal mystery to her beholders. With the passing of clouds and the deepening of the night, those stars not eclipsed by the moon shone like swarmed throbbing points of silver. They seemed more remote, as though the clearer air had driven them farther off. Jenny, her own face and throat illumined, stared up at the moon, marvelling; and then she turned, without speaking, to the black shadows and the gliding, silent water. Upon every hand was the chequer of contrast, beautiful to the eye, and haunting to the spirit. A soft wind stirred her hair and made her bare her teeth in pleasure at the sweet contact.

Keith led her to the wide wooden seat which ran by the side of the deck, and they sat together there. The noise of the city was dimmer; the lamps were yellowed in the moon’s whiter light; there were occasional movements upon the face of the river. A long way away they heard a sharp panting as a motor boat rushed through the water, sending out a great surging wave that made all other craft rise and fall and sway as the river’s agitation subsided. The boat came nearer, a coloured light showing; and presently it hastened past, a moving thing with a muffled figure at its helm; and the Minerva rocked gently almost until the sound of the motor boat’s tuff-tuff had been lost in the general noise of London. Nearer at hand, above them, Jenny could hear the clanging of tram-gongs and the clatter and slow boom of motor omnibuses; but these sounds were mellowed by the evening, and although they were near enough to be comforting they were too far away to interrupt this pleasant solitude with Keith. The two of them sat in the shadow, and Jenny craned to hear the chuckle of the water against the yacht’s sides. It was a beautiful moment in her life.... She gave a little moan, and swayed against Keith, her delight succeeded by deadly languor.

iv

So for a moment they sat, Keith’s arm around her shoulders; and then Jenny moved so as to free herself. She was restless and unhappy again, her nerves on edge. The moon and the water, which had soothed her, were now an irritation. Keith heard her breath come and go, quickly, heavily.

“Sorry, Jenny,” he said, in a tone of puzzled apology. She caught his fallen hand, pressing it eagerly.

“It’s nothing. Only that minute. Like somebody walking on my grave.”

“You’re cold. We’ll go down to the cabin again.” He was again cool and unembarrassed. Together they stood upon the deck in the moonlight, while the water flowed rapidly beneath them and the night’s mystery emphasised their remoteness from the rest of the world. They had no part, at this moment, in the general life; but were solitary, living only to themselves....

Keith’s arm was about her as they descended; but he let it drop as they stood once more in the golden-brown cabin. “Sit here!” He plumped a cushion for her, and Jenny sank into an enveloping softness that rose about her as water might have done, so that she might have been alarmed if Keith had not been there looking down with such an expression of concern.

“I’m really all right,” she told him, reassuringly. “Miserable for a tick—that’s all!”

“Sure?” He seemed genuinely alarmed, scanning her face. She had again turned sick and faint, so that her knees were without strength. Was he sincere? If only she could have been sure of him. It meant everything in the world to her. If only Keith would say he loved her: if only he would kiss her! He had never done that. The few short days of their earlier comradeship had been full of delight; he had taken her arm, he had even had her in his arms during a wild bluster of wind; but always the inevitable kiss had been delayed, had been averted; and only her eager afterthoughts had made romance of their meagre acquaintance. Yet now, when they were alone, together, when every nerve in her body seemed tense with desire for him, he was somehow aloof—not constrained (for then she would have been happy, at the profoundly affecting knowledge that she had carried the day), but unsympathetically and unlovingly at ease. She could not read his face: in his manner she read only a barren kindness that took all and gave nothing. If he didn’t love her she need not have come. It would have been better to go on as she had been doing, dreaming of him until—until what? Jenny sighed at the grey vision. Only hunger had driven her to his side on this evening—the imperative hunger of her nature upon which Keith had counted. He had been sure she would come—that was unforgivable. He had welcomed her as he might have welcomed a man; but as he might also have welcomed any man or woman who would have relieved his loneliness upon the yacht. Not a loved friend. Jenny, with her brain restored by the gentle breeze to its normal quickness of action, seemed dartingly to seek in every direction for reassurance! and she found in everything no single tone or touch to feed her insatiable greed for tokens of his love. Oh, but she was miserable indeed—disappointed in her dearest and most secret aspirations. He was perhaps afraid that she wanted to attach herself to him? If that were so, why couldn’t he be honest, and tell her so? That was all she wanted from him. She wanted only the truth. She felt she could bear anything but this kindness, this charming detached thought for her. He was giving her courtesy when all she needed was that his passion should approach her own. And when she should have been strong, mistress of herself, she was weak as water. Her strength was turned, her self-confidence mocked by his bearing. She trembled with the recurring vehemence of her love, that had been fed upon solitude, upon the dreariness in which she spent her mere calendared days. Her eyes were sombrely glowing, dark with pain; and Keith was leaning towards her as he might have leant towards any girl who was half fainting. She could have cried, but that she was too proud to cry. She was not Emmy, who cried. She was Jenny Blanchard, who had come upon this fool’s trip because a force stronger than her pride had bidden her to forsake all but the impulse of her love. And Keith, secure and confident, was coolly, as it were, disentangling himself from the claim she had upon him by virtue of her love. It seemed to Jenny that he was holding her at a distance. Nothing could have hurt her more. It shamed her to think that Keith might suspect her honesty and her unselfishness. When she had thought of nothing but her love and the possibility of his own.

She read now, in this moment of descent into misery, a dreadful blunder made by her own overweening eagerness. She saw Keith, alone, thinking that he would be at a loss to fill his time, suddenly remembering her, thinking in a rather contemptuous way of their days together, and supposing that she would do as well as another for an hour’s talk to keep him from a stagnant evening. If that were so, good-bye to her dreams. If she were no more to him than that there was no hope left in her life. For Keith might ply from port to port, seeing in her only one girl for his amusement; but he had spoilt her for another man. No other man could escape the withering comparison with Keith. To Jenny he was a king among men, incomparable; and if he did not love her, then the proud Jenny Blanchard, who unhesitatingly saw life and character with an immovable reserve, was the merest trivial legend of Kennington Park. She was like every other girl, secure in her complacent belief that she could win love—until the years crept by, and no love came, and she must eagerly seek to accept whatever travesty of love sidled within the radius of her attractiveness.

Suddenly Jenny looked at Keith.

“Better now,” she said harshly. “You’ll have to buck up with your tale—won’t you! If you’re going to get it out before I have to toddle home again.”

“Oh,” said Keith, in a confident tone. “You’re here now. You’ll stay until I’ve quite finished.”

“What do you mean?” asked Jenny sharply. “Don’t talk rubbish!”

Keith held up a warning forefinger. He stretched his legs and drew from his pocket a stout pipe.

“I mean what I say.” He looked sideways at her. “Don’t be a fool, Jenny.”

Her heart was chilled at the menace of his words no less than by the hardness of his voice.

v

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Keith; but you’ll take me back to the steps when I say,” she said. Keith filled his pipe. “I suppose you think it’s funny to talk like that.” Jenny looked straight in front of her, and her heart was fluttering. It was not her first tremor; but she was deeply agitated. Keith, with a look that was almost a smile, finished loading the pipe and struck a match. He then settled himself comfortably at her side.

“Don’t be a juggins, Jenny,” he remarked, in a dispassionate way that made her feel helpless.

“Sorry,” she said quickly. “I’ve got the jumps. I’ve had awful rows to-night ... before coming out.”

“Tell me about them,” Keith urged. “Get ‘em off your chest.” She shook her head. Oh no, she wanted something from him very different from such kindly sympathy.

“Only make it worse,” she claimed. “Drives it in more. Besides, I don’t want to. I want to hear about you.”

“Oh, me!” he made a laughing noise. “There’s nothing to tell.”

“You said you would.” Jenny was alarmed at his perverseness; but they were not estranged now.

Keith was smiling rather bitterly at his own thoughts, it seemed.

“I wonder why it is women want to know such a lot,” he said, drowsily.

“All of them?” she sharply countered. “I suppose you ought to know.”

“You look seedy still.... Are you really feeling better?” Jenny took no notice. “Well, yes: I suppose all of them. They all want to take possession of you. They’re never satisfied with what they’ve got.”

“Perhaps they haven’t got anything,” Jenny said. And after a painful pause: “Oh, well: I shall have to be going home.” She wearily moved, in absolute despair, perhaps even with the notion of rising, though her mind was in turmoil.

“Jenny!” He held her wrist, preventing any further movement. He was looking at her with an urgent gaze. Then, violently, with a rapid motion, he came nearer, and forced his arm behind Jenny’s waist, drawing her close against his breast, her face averted until their cheeks touched, when the life seemed to go out of Jenny’s body and she moved her head quickly in resting it on his shoulder, Keith’s face against her hair, and their two hearts beating quickly. It was done in a second, and they sat so, closely embraced, without speech. Still Jenny’s hands were free, as if they had been lifeless. Time seemed to stand still, and every noise to stop, during that long moment. And in her heart Jenny was saying over and over, utterly hopeless, “It’s no good; it’s no good; it’s no good....” Wretchedly she attempted to press herself free, her elbow against Keith’s breast. She could not get away; but each flying instant deepened her sense of bitter failure.

“It’s no use,” she said at last, in a dreadful murmur. “You don’t want me a bit. Far better let me go.”

Keith loosed his hold, and she sat away from him with a little sigh that was almost a shudder. Her hands went as if by instinct to her hair, smoothing it. Another instinct, perhaps, made her turn to him with the ghost of a reassuring smile.

“Silly, we’ve been,” she said, huskily. “I’ve been thinking about you all this time; and this is the end of it. Well, I was a fool to come....” She sat up straight, away from the back of the settee; but she did not look at Keith. She was looking at nothing. Only in her mind was going on the tumult of merciless self-judgment. Suddenly her composure gave way and she was again in his arms, not crying, but straining him to her. And Keith was kissing her, blessed kisses upon her soft lips, as if he truly loved her as she had all this time hoped. She clung to him in a stupor.