Chapter Fifty-One

But our brief hour was drawing to an end. We were now pa.s.sing little groups of country people and children in the quiet evening. We ourselves talked no more. The old pony plodded up yet another hill; we went clattering down its deep descent; and there, in the green bowl of a meadow sloping down from its woody fringes above, lay scattered the bellying booths, the gaudy wagons and cages of the circus. All but hidden in the trees above them, a crooked, tarnished weather-c.o.c.k glinted in the sunset afterglow. Lights twinkled against the dying daylight. The bright-painted merry-go-round with its staring, motionless, galloping horses was bathed in the shine of its flares, a thin plume of steam softly ascending from its bra.s.s-rimmed funnel.

A knot of country boys, gabbling at one another like starlings, shrilled a cheer as we came rattling over a stone bridge beneath which a stream shallowly washed its bank of osiers. I laughed at them, waved my hand.

At this they yelled, danced in the road, threw dust into the air. Not, perhaps, a very friendly return; but how happy I was, all anxiety and responsibility gone now.

The faint, rank smell of the wild beasts mingling with the evening air, was instilling its intoxication in my brain. I longed for darkness, the din and glare; longed for my tent and the gaping faces, for the smoky wind to fan my cheek as I bobbed cantering round the ring. It must have been a ridiculously childish face that ever and again scrutinized my companion's. Nothing for me in _that_ looking-gla.s.s! How slow a face his was; he was refusing to look at me. It dismayed and fretted me to find him so sombre and dour.

His glance shifted to and fro under a frown that expressed a restless anxiety. His silence seemed to reproach me. Oh, well, when the day was over, and Mademoiselle's finery packed up in its bundle again, and the paint washed off, and the last echo of applause from the crowded benches had died away, and my pay was safe in my pocket, then he would know that the stake I had played for had been my freedom, my very self.

Then surely his heart would lighten, and he would praise me, and we could go in peace. Would he not realize, too, that even my small body had its value, and was admired in a dismal world that cared not a jot for the spirit that inhabited it?

The showman stood by the tent, a gaudy silk scarf knotted round his neck. My lean-breasted gipsy woman spangled there beside him, with her black hair looped round her narrow bony head, and her loose, dusty, puckered boots showing beneath her skirts. There was a clear l.u.s.tre in the lamp-starred air; and the spectacle of man and woman, of resting wheel and cropping horse, meadow and hill, poured a livelong blessing into my heart. Even the cowed, enfeebled lion with the mange of age and captivity in his skin, seemed to drowse content, and the satin-skinned leopards--almost within pat of paw of the flaxen-haired girl in the white stockings who leaned idly against the wheel--paced their den as if in pride. It was the same old story: my heart could not contain it all.

Yet to whom tell its secrets?

A roomier tent had been prepared for me. We were ushered into it by the showman with a mock obeisance that swelled the veins on his forehead almost to bursting. The gipsy's birdlike eyes pierced and darted from one to the other of us, her skinny hand concealing her mouth. I felt as light as a feather, and thankful that my mud-caked shoes and petticoats were hardly discernible as none too elegantly I scrambled down from the cart.

The showman watched me with that sly, covetous grin about his mouth that I knew so well, though the stare with which he had greeted Mr Anon had been more insolent than friendly. I had cut the time rather close, he told me, but better late than never! As for that long-nosed rat with the cage, he hadn't been much smitten with the looks of him; and he was not the man to ask questions of a lady, not he. Here I was, and he hoped I had come for good. A rough life but a merry. Up with the lark until down under the daisies; and every man jack of them ready to kiss the ground I walked on. And the Fat Woman--just pining good money away she was, with longing to mother the little stranger!

I nodded my head at him with a smile as worldly-wise as I could make it. "It's the last taste that counts, Mr Showman," I said politely.

"Every one has been exceedingly kind to me; and my love, please, to the Fat Woman. This is my friend, Mr Anon. He has come to take care of me.

We shall go back--go on together."

The showman broke into a laugh, but his face hardened again, as, grinding one jaw slowly on the other, he turned to Mr Anon. Maybe "the young gentleman" was anxious to enjoy a taste of the life on his own account, he asked me. Could he ride? A bit of steeplechasing? There was plenty of horseflesh--a double turn: Beauty and the Beast, now? Or perhaps another Spotted Boy? Love or money; just name the figure. Treat him fair and square, and he wouldn't refuse a genuine offer; though, naturally, every inch made a difference, and a foot twelve times as much. And looks were looks.

There was little enough to enjoy in the sound of all this. Apparently the mere sight of Mr Anon had soured the showman. Many of his words were Greek to me, and to judge from the woman's yelps of laughter their meaning was none of the daintiest. I shrugged my shoulders, smiled, spread out my hands, and with a word or two fenced him off, pretending to be flattered. He looked at the woman as if to say, There's manners for you! She made a sudden, ferocious grimace. We were a singular four in the tent.

But it would be false to profess that I hadn't a sneaking admiration for the man; and I kept glancing uneasily at the "young gentleman" who was so blackly ignoring his advances. To say the least of it, it was a little unintelligent of Mr Anon not to take things as they came, if only for my sake.

"But you must please try and help me a little," I pleaded, when the showman and the gipsy had left us to ourselves for a moment. "It's only his fun. He's really not a bad sort of man underneath. You can't say there's a Spirit of Evil in that great hulking creature, now can you? I am not the least bit afraid of him."

He glanced at me without turning his head. Involuntarily I sighed.

Things never were so easy as one supposed or hoped they would be.

Already my fingers were busy at the knots of my bundle, and for a while, simply because what Mr Anon was saying was so monstrous and incredible, I continued to fumble at them without attempting to answer him. He was forbidding me to keep my word; forbidding me to show myself; just ordering me to come away. No, no; he must be crazy; I had never understood him. There must be some old worm in his mind. He was telling me in so many words that to lie a prey to the mob's curiosity had been a disgrace--soiling me for ever.

The cruel stupidity of it! With head bent low and burning cheek I heard his harsh voice knell on and on--not persuading or conciliating, or pleading with me--I could have forgiven him that easily enough; but flatly commanding me to listen and obey.

"For mercy's sake," I broke in hurriedly at last, "that's enough of that. If just sitting here and talking to one's fellow-creatures has smeared me over, as you say it has, why, I must wait till Jordan to be clean. You should have seen that great wallowing sow this evening. _She_ wasn't ashamed of herself. Can't you understand that I simply had to get free? You'd see it was for your sake, too, perhaps, if you had had the patience to listen. But there; never mind. I understand. You can't endure my company any longer. That's what it means. Well, then, if that is so, there's no help for it. You must just go. And I must be alone again."

But no: there was a difference, he stubbornly maintained. What was done, was done. He was not speaking of the past. I knew nothing about the world. It was my very innocence that had kept me safe; "and--well, the courage." My innocence! and the "courage" thrown in! But couldn't I, wouldn't I _see_? he argued. The need was over now; he was with me; there was nothing to be afraid of; he would protect me. "Surely--oh, you know in your heart you couldn't have enjoyed all that!"

"Oh," said I poisonously, "so you don't think that to cheat the blackguard, as you call him, at the last moment--and please don't suppose I have forgotten what you have called other friends of mine--you don't think that to break every promise I have made wouldn't be wallowing worse than---- Oh, thank you for the _wallowing_, I shall remember that."

"But, my dear, my dear," he began, "I never--"

"I say I am _not_ your dear," I broke in furiously. "One moment you dictate to me as if I were a child, and the next---- As if I hadn't been used to that pretence, that wheedling all my life long. As if I had ever been treated like an ordinary human being--coddled up, smuggled about, whispered at! Why, a scullery maid's is Paradise compared with the life _I've_ led. And as for the vile mob and the rest of it, I tell you I've enjoyed every minute of them. I _make_ them clap their great ugly hands: I _make_ them ashamed of themselves; they can't help themselves; they just---- And I've comforted some of them too. What's more, I tell you I love them. They are my own people; and I'd die for them if they would only forget what's between us and--and share it all.

You be careful; maybe I shall stay here for good. _They_ don't wince at my company; _they_ don't come creeping and crawling. Why! aren't we all on show? Who set the world spinning? I tell you I hate that--that hypocrisy. What does it amount to, pray, but that you'd like the pretty, simpering doll all to yourself?"

A hooting screech broke the quiet that followed. The merry-go-round had set to its evening's labours. Faster and faster jangled the pipes and chiming:--

"I dreampt that I dwe-elt in mar-ar-ble halls, With va.s.sals and serfs by my si-i-ide...."

And at the sound, anger and pride died down in me. I lifted my face from the ground.

"I'm sorry," I muttered. "But you don't know what I have gone through these last weeks. And even if I were a hundred times as ashamed of myself as you think I ought to be, I couldn't--I can't go back. I have promised. It's written down. Only once more--this one night, and I swear it shall be the last." My mouth crooked itself into a smile. "You shall pray for me on the hill," I said, "then lead me off to a Nunnery yourself."

And still I could not whisper--Money. The word stuck in my throat.

He seemed not to have heard the miserable things I had been saying.

Without a syllable of retaliation, he came a little nearer, and stood over me. We were all but in darkness now, though lights were beating on the canvas of our tent. It was quite, quite simple, he said. The showman was no fool. He couldn't compel me to exhibit myself against my will. A contract was a contract, of course, but what if both parties to it agreed to break it? And supposing the showman refused to agree--what then? There was a far better plan, if only I would listen. As soon as he had been made to realize that nothing on earth could persuade me to show myself again, he would accept any alternative: "I'll take your place," smiled Mr Anon.

Take my place!

So this was the plan he had been brooding over on our journey. No wonder he had been absent-minded. Cold with dread I gazed at him in the obscurity of the tent. A glimpse of Adam's rabbit face as he had stood brazening out his fears of the showman on that first night of adventure had darted through my mind. And this man--dwarfed, shrunken, emaciated.

A terrifying compa.s.sion gushed up into my heart, breaking down barriers that I never knew were there. It was the instant in my life, I think, when I came nearest to being a mother.

"S-sh," I implored him. "You don't understand. You can have no notion of what you are saying. I am a woman. They daren't harm me. But you!

They--and besides," the craftier argument floated into my mind, "besides, Mrs Monnerie...."

But the sentence remained unfinished. The flap of the tent had lifted.

The figure of the showman loomed up in the entry against the lights and the darkening sky. He was in excellent humour. He rattled the money in his pocket and breathed the smell of whisky into the tent, peering into it as if he were uncertain whether it was occupied or not.

"That's right, then," he began huskily, "that's as it should be. Ten minutes, your ladyship! And maybe the young gentleman would give a hand with the drum outside, while you get through with the t.i.tivating."

His shape was only vaguely discernible as he stood gently rocking there.

It was Mr Anon who answered him. For a little while the showman seemed to be too much astounded to reply. Then he lost control of himself. A torrent of imprecations spouted out of his mouth. He threatened to call in the police, the mob. He shook his bra.s.s-ringed whip in our faces. I had never seen a man of his kind really angry before. He looked like a beast, like the Apollyon straddling the path in my _Pilgrim's Progress_.

His roaring all but stunned me, swept over me, as if I were nothing--a leaf in the wind. I think I could have listened to him all but in mere curiosity--as to an equinoctial gale when one is safe in bed--if he had not been so near, and the tent so small and gloomy, and if Mr Anon had not been standing in silence within reach of his hands. But his fury spent itself at last. Slowly his head turned on his heavy shoulders. He seemed suddenly to have forgotten his rage and became coaxing and conciliatory. He had a sounding, calf-like voice, and it rose up and down. An eavesdropper outside the tent would have supposed he was on the verge of tears.

He was sure the young lady had no intention of cheating him, of "doing the dirty." Why he'd as lief send off there and then to the great house for the flunkey and the cage. What had I to complain of? Wasn't it private enough? Should he make it a level bob-a-n.o.b, and no thruppenies?

There was nothing to be afraid of. "G.o.d bless you, sir, she wouldn't cheat an honest man, not she."

People were swarming into the Fair from miles around, and real gentry in their carriages amongst them, like as had never been seen before. Did we want to ruin him? What should we think now, if we had paid down good money to come and see the neatest little piece of female shape as ever G.o.d Almighty smuggled out of heaven; and in we went, and stuck up there was a gent.--"a nice-spoken, respectable gent," he agreed, with a contemptuous heave of his ma.s.sive shoulders, "but a gent no less, and him gowked up on the table, there, why, half as big again, and mouthing, mouthing like a...?" The hideous words poured on.

His great body gently rocked above me; his thumbs hooked-in under his armpits, his whip dangling. Till that moment I had scarcely realized that the scene in which I sat was real, I had been so hara.s.sed and stupefied by his noise. But now he had begun to think of what he was saying. In those last words an unnameable insult lurked. He was looking at us, _seeing_ us, approaching us as if in a dream.

A horror of the spirit came over me, and, as if rapt away from myself, I stared sheer up at him.

"Beware, my friend," I cried up at him. "Have a care. I see a rope around your neck."

It was the truth. In the gloom, actually with my own eyes, I saw a noose loosely dangling there over his round, heavy shoulders.