The Card by Arnold Bennett (ebook reader online free txt) 📕

unhonoured and unsung. Even Denry, though he had visited them in their lodgings to say good-bye, had not seen them off at the station; but Ruth Capron-Smith had seen them off at the station. She had interrupted a sojourn to Southport in order to come to Bursley, and despatch them therefrom with due friendliness. Certain matters had to be attended to after their departure, and Ruth had promised to attend to them.

Now immediately after seeing them off Ruth had met Denry in the street.

"Do you know," she said brusquely, "those people are actually going steerage? I'd no idea of it. Mr and Mrs Cotterill kept it from me, and I should not have heard of it only from something Nellie said. That's why they've gone to-day. The boat doesn't sail till to-morrow afternoon."

"Steerage?" and Denry whistled.

"Yes," said Ruth. "Nothing but pride, of course. Old Cotterill wanted to have every penny he could scrape, so as to be able to make the least tiny bit of a show when he gets to Toronto, and so—steerage! Just think of Mrs Cotterill and Nellie in the steerage. If I'd known of it I should have altered that, I can tell you, and pretty quickly too; and now it's too late."

"No, it isn't," Denry contradicted her flatly.

"But they've gone."

"I could telegraph to Liverpool for saloon berths—there's bound to be plenty at this time of year—and I could run over to Liverpool to-morrow and catch 'em on the boat, and make 'em change."

She asked him whether he really thought he could, and he assured her.

"Second-cabin berths would be better," said she.

"Why?"

"Well, because of dressing for dinner, and so on. They haven't got the clothes, you know."

"Of course," said Denry.

"Listen," she said, with an enchanting smile. "Let's halve the cost, you and I. And let's go to Liverpool together, and—er—make the little gift, and arrange things. I'm leaving for Southport to-morrow, and Liverpool's on my way."

Denry was delighted by the suggestion, and telegraphed to Liverpool with success.

Thus they found themselves on that morning in the Liverpool express together. The work of benevolence in which they were engaged had a powerful influence on their mood, which grew both intimate and tender. Ruth made no concealment of her regard for Denry; and as he gazed across the compartment at her, exquisitely mature (she was slightly older than himself), dressed to a marvel, perfect in every detail of manner, knowing all that was to be known about life, and secure in a handsome fortune—as he gazed, Denry reflected, joyously, victoriously:

"I've got the dibs, of course. But she's got 'em too—perhaps more. Therefore she must like me for myself alone. This brilliant creature has been everywhere and seen everything, and she comes back to the Five Towns and comes back to me."

It was his proudest moment. And in it he saw his future far more glorious than he had dreamt.

"When shall you be out of mourning?" he inquired.

"In two months," said she.

This was not a proposal and acceptance, but it was very nearly one. They were silent, and happy.

Then she said:

"Do you ever have business at Southport?"

And he said, in a unique manner:

"I shall have."

Another silence. This time he felt he would marry her.

V

The White Star liner, Titubic, stuck out of the water like a row of houses against the landing-stage. There was a large crowd on her promenade-deck, and a still larger crowd on the landing-stage. Above the promenade-deck officers paced on the navigating deck, and above that was the airy bridge, and above that the funnels, smoking, and somewhere still higher a flag or two fluttering in the icy breeze. And behind the crowd on the landing-stage stretched a row of four-wheeled cabs and rickety horses. The landing-stage swayed ever so slightly on the tide. Only the ship was apparently solid, apparently cemented in foundations of concrete.

On the starboard side of the promenade-deck, among a hundred other small groups, was a group consisting of Mr and Mrs Cotterill and Ruth and Denry. Nellie stood a few feet apart, Mrs Cotterill was crying. People naturally thought she was crying because of the adieux; but she was not. She wept because Denry and Ruth, by sheer force of will, had compelled them to come out of the steerage and occupy beautiful and commodious berths in the second cabin, where the manner of the stewards was quite different. She wept because they had been caught in the steerage. She wept because she was ashamed, and because people were too kind. She was at once delighted and desolated. She wanted to outpour psalms of gratitude, and also she wanted to curse.

Mr Cotterill said stiffly that he should repay—and that soon.

An immense bell sounded impatiently.

"We'd better be shunting," said Denry. "That's the second."

In exciting crises he sometimes employed such peculiar language as this. And he was very excited. He had done a great deal of rushing about. The upraising of the Cotterill family from the social Hades of the steerage to the respectability of the second cabin had demanded all his energy, and a lot of Ruth's.

Ruth kissed Mrs Cotterill and then Nellie. And Mrs Cotterill and Nellie acquired rank and importance for the whole voyage by reason of being kissed in public by a woman so elegant and aristocratic as Ruth Capron-Smith.

And Denry shook hands. He looked brightly at the parents, but he could not look at Nellie; nor could she look at him; their handshaking was perfunctory. For months their playful intimacy had been in abeyance.

"Good-bye."

"Good luck."

"Thanks. Good-bye."

"Good-bye."

The horrible bell continued to insist.

"All non-passengers ashore! All ashore!"

The numerous gangways were thronged with people obeying the call, and handkerchiefs began to wave. And there was a regular vibrating tremor through the ship.

Mr and Mrs Cotterill turned away.

Ruth and Denry approached the nearest gangway, and Denry stood aside, and made a place for her to pass. And, as always, a number of women pushed into the gangways immediately after her, and Denry had to wait, being a perfect gentleman.

His eye caught Nellie's. She had not moved.

He felt then as he had never felt in his life. No, absolutely never. Her sad, her tragic glance rendered him so uncomfortable, and yet so deliciously uncomfortable, that the symptoms startled him. He wondered what would happen to his legs. He was not sure that he had legs.

However, he demonstrated the existence of his legs by running up to Nellie. Ruth was by this time swallowed in the crowd on the landing-stage. He looked at Nellie. Nellie looked at him. Her lips twitched.

"What am I doing here?" he asked of his soul.

She was not at all well dressed. She was indeed shabby—in a steerage style. Her hat was awry; her gloves miserable. No girlish pride in her distraught face. No determination to overcome Fate. No consciousness of ability to meet a bad situation. Just those sad eyes and those twitching lips.

"Look here," Denry whispered, "you must come ashore for a second. I've something I want to give you, and I've left it in the cab."

"But there's no time. The bell's..."

"Bosh!" he exclaimed gruffly, extinguishing her timid, childish voice. "You won't go for at least a quarter of an hour. All that's only a dodge to get people off in plenty of time. Come on, I tell you."

And in a sort of hysteria he seized her thin, long hand and dragged her along the deck to another gangway, down whose steep slope they stumbled together. The crowd of sightseers and handkerchief-wavers jostled them. They could see nothing but heads and shoulders, and the great side of the ship rising above. Denry turned her back on the ship.

"This way." He still held her hand.

He struggled to the cab-rank.

"Which one is it?" she asked.

"Any one. Never mind which. Jump in." And to the first driver whose eye met his, he said: "Lime Street Station."

The gangways were being drawn away. A hoarse boom filled the air, and then a cheer.

"But I shall miss the boat," the dazed girl protested.

"Jump in."

He pushed her in.

"But I shall miss the..."

"I know you will," he replied, as if angrily. "Do you suppose I was going to let you go by that steamer? Not much."

"But mother and father..."

"I'll telegraph. They'll get it on landing."

"And where's Ruth?"

"Be hanged to Ruth!" he shouted furiously.

As the cab rattled over the cobbles the Titubic slipped away from the landing-stage. The irretrievable had happened.

Nellie burst into tears.

"Look here," Denry said savagely. "If you don't dry up, I shall have to cry myself."

"What are you going to do with me?" she whimpered.

"Well, what do you think? I'm going to marry you, of course."

His aggrieved tone might have been supposed to imply that people had tried to thwart him, but that he had no intention of being thwarted, nor of asking permissions, nor of conducting himself as anything but a fierce tyrant.

As for Nellie, she seemed to surrender.

Then he kissed her—also angrily. He kissed her several times—yes, even in Lord Street itself—less and less angrily.

"Where are you taking me to?" she inquired humbly, as a captive.

"I shall take you to my mother's," he said.

"Will she like it?"

"She'll either like it or lump it," said Denry. "It'll take a fortnight."

"What?"

"The notice, and things."

In the train, in the midst of a great submissive silence, she murmured:

"It'll be simply awful for father and mother."

"That can't be helped," said he. "And they'll be far too sea-sick to bother their heads about you."

"You can't think how you've staggered me," said she.

"You can't think how I've staggered myself," said he.

"When did you decide to..."

"When I was standing at the gangway, and you looked at me," he answered.

"But..."

"It's no use butting," he said. "I'm like that.... That's me, that is."

It was the bare truth that he had staggered himself. But he had staggered himself into a miraculous, ecstatic happiness. She had no money, no clothes, no style, no experience, no particular gifts. But she was she. And when he looked at her, calmed, he knew that he had done well for himself. He knew that if he had not yielded to that terrific impulse he would have done badly for himself. Mrs Machin had what she called a ticklish night of it.

VI

The next day he received a note from Ruth, dated Southport, inquiring how he came to lose her on the landing-stage, and expressing concern. It took him three days to reply, and even then the reply was a bad one. He had behaved infamously to Ruth; so much could not be denied. Within three hours of practically proposing to her, he had run off with a simple girl, who was not fit to hold a candle to her. And he did not care. That was the worst of it; he did not care.

Of course the facts reached her. The facts reached everybody; for the singular reappearance of Nellie in the streets of Bursley immediately after her departure for Canada had to be explained. Moreover, the infamous Denry was rather proud of the facts. And the town inevitably said: "Machin all over, that! Snatching the girl off the blooming lugger. Machin all over." And Denry agreed privately that it was Machin all over.

"What other chap," he demanded of the air, "would have thought of it? Or had the pluck?..."

It was mere malice on the part of destiny that caused Denry to run across Mrs Capron-Smith at Euston some weeks later. Happily they both had immense nerve.

"Dear me," said she. "What are you doing here?"

"Only honeymooning," he said.