The Complete Five Towns Collections. Bennett ArnoldЧитать онлайн книгу.
sing with much expression, but to Richard's ear her weak contralto floated out above the accompaniment with a rich, passionate quality full of intimate meanings. When his own part of the performance was not too exacting, he watched from the corner of his eye the rise and fall of her breast, and thought of Keats's sonnet; and then he suddenly quaked in fear that all this happiness might crumble at the touch of some adverse fate.
"I suppose you call that a poor song," she said when it was finished.
"I liked it very much."
"You did? I am so fond of it, and I'm glad you like it. Shall we try another?" She offered the suggestion with a gentle diffidence which made Richard desire to abase himself before her, to ask what in the name of heaven she meant by looking to him as an authority, a person whose will was to be consulted and whose humours were law.
Again she put her hands behind her back, cleared her throat, and began to sing.... He had glimpses of mystic, emotional deeps in her spirit hitherto unsuspected.
* * * * *
Lottie came in with a lamp.
"You would like supper?" Adeline said. "Lottie, let us have supper at once."
Richard remembered that when Mr. Aked was alive, Adeline had been accustomed to go into the kitchen and attend to the meals herself; but evidently this arrangement was now altered. She extinguished the candles on the piano, and took the easy-chair with a question about Schubert. Supper was to be served without the aid of the mistress of the house. She had been training Lottie,—that was clear. He looked round. The furniture was unchanged, but everything had an unwonted air of comfort and neatness, and Adeline's beautiful dress scarcely seemed out of keeping with the general aspect of the room. He gathered that she had social aspirations. He had social aspirations himself. His fancy delighted to busy itself with fine clothes, fine furniture, fine food, and fine manners. That his own manners had remained inelegant was due to the fact that the tireless effort and vigilance which any amelioration of their original crudity would have necessitated, were beyond his tenacity of purpose.
The supper was trimly laid on a very white tablecloth, and chairs were drawn up. Lottie stood in the background for a few moments; Adeline called her for some trifling service, and then dismissed her.
"Won't you have some whisky? I know men always like whisky at night."
She touched a bell on the table.
"The whisky, Lottie—you forgot it."
Richard was almost awed by her demeanour. Where could she have learnt it? He felt not unlike a bumpkin, and secretly determined to live up to the standard of deportment which she had set.
"You may smoke," she said, when Lottie had cleared the table after supper; "I like it. Here are some cigarettes—'Three Castles'—will they do?" Laughing, she produced a box from the sideboard, and handed it to him. He went to the sofa, and she stood with one elbow resting on the mantelpiece.
"About going to the theatre—" she began.
"May I take you? Let us go to the Comedy."
"And you will book seats, the dress circle?"
"Yes. What night?"
"Let us say Friday.... And now you may read me those documents."
When that business was transacted, Richard felt somehow that he must depart, and began to take his leave. Adeline stood erect, facing him in front of the mantelpiece.
"Next time you come, you will bring those Schubert songs, will you not?"
Then she rang the bell, shook hands, and sat down. He went out; Lottie was waiting in the passage with his hat and stick.
Chapter XXII
Seven or eight weeks passed.
During that time Richard spent many evenings with Adeline, at the theatre, at concerts, and at Carteret Street. When they were going up to town, he called for her in a hansom. She usually kept him waiting a few minutes. He sat in the sitting-room, listening to the rattle of harness and the occasional stamp of a hoof outside. At length he heard her light step on the stairs, and she entered the room, smiling proudly. She was wonderfully well dressed, with modish simplicity and exact finish, and she gave him her fan to hold while she buttoned her long gloves. Where she ordered her gowns he never had the least notion. They followed one another in rapid succession, and each seemed more beautiful than the last. All were sober in tint; the bodices were V-shaped, and cut rather low.
Lottie carefully placed a white wrap over her mistress's head, and then they were off. In the hansom there was but little conversation, and that of a trivial character. In vain he endeavoured to entice her into discussions. He mentioned books which he had read; she showed only a perfunctory interest. He explained why, in his opinion, a particular play was good and another bad; generally she preferred the wrong one, or at least maintained that she liked all plays, and therefore would not draw comparisons. Sometimes she would argue briefly about the conduct of certain characters in a piece, but he seldom found himself genuinely in agreement with her, though as a rule he verbally concurred. In music she was a little less unsympathetic towards his ideals. They had tried over several of his favourite classical songs, and he had seen in her face, as she listened, or hummed the air, a glow answering to his own enthusiasm. She had said that she would learn one of them, but the promise had not been kept, though he had reminded her of it several times.
These chagrins, however, were but infinitesimal ripples upon the smooth surface of his happiness. All of them together were as nothing compared to the sensations which he experienced in helping her out of the cab, in the full glare of a theatre façade. Invariably he overpaid the driver, handing him the silver with an inattentive gesture, while Adeline waited on the steps,—dainty food for the eyes of loiterers and passers-by. He offered his arm, and they passed down the vestibule and into the auditorium. With what artless enjoyment she settled herself in her seat, breathing the atmosphere of luxury and display as if it had been ozone, smiling radiantly at Richard, and then eagerly examining the occupants of the boxes through a small, silver-mounted glass! She was never moved by the events on the stage, and whether it happened to be tragedy or burlesque at which they were assisting, she turned to Richard at the end of every act with the same happy, contented smile, and usually began to make remarks upon the men and women around her. It was the play-house and not the play of which she was really fond.
After the fall of the curtain, they lingered till most of the audience had gone. Sometimes they supped at a restaurant. "It is my turn," she would say now and then, when the obsequious waiter presented the bill, and would give Richard her purse. At first, for form's sake, he insisted on his right to pay, but she would not listen. He wondered where she had caught the pretty trick of handing over her purse instead of putting down the coins, and he traced it to a play which they had seen at the Vaudeville theatre. Yet she did it with such naturalness that it did not seem to have been copied. The purse was small, and always contained several pounds in gold, with a little silver. The bill paid, he gave it back to her with a bow.
Then came the long, rapid drive home, through interminable lamp-lined streets, peopled now only by hansoms and private carriages, past all the insolent and garish splendours of Piccadilly clubs, into whose unveiled windows Adeline eagerly gazed; past the mysterious, night-ridden Park; past the dim, solemn squares and crescents of Kensington and Chelsea, and so into the meaner vicinage of Fulham. It was during these midnight journeys, more than at any other time, that Richard felt himself to be a veritable inhabitant of the City of Pleasure. Adeline, flushed with the evening's enjoyment, talked of many things, in her low, even voice, which was never raised. Richard answered briefly; an occasional reply was all she seemed to expect.
Immediately, on getting out of the cab, she said good-night, and entered the house alone, while Richard directed the driver back to Raphael Street. Returning thus, solitary, he endeavoured to define what she was to him, and he to her. Often, when actually in her presence, he ventured to ask himself,