May did not wear her damaged heart upon her sleeve. What tears she shed were shed in the shelter of Delight's strong young arms when they were safe in bed. It was a comfort to her to be in their embrace and pour into sympathetic ears all her recollections of her short married life with Albert in England. She told her, too, of her meetings with him in the little dark street behind The Duke of York, for he dared not refuse to meet her. She had him in her power. Among the other servants her glib cockney tongue, her quick wit, and her brisk ways made her a favourite. She mended old Davy's socks for him, and watered the sickly geraniums he kept on the window-sill in his bedroom. She went with Mrs. Bye to buy clothes for Queenie, and taught the child to do a clog dance, and stamp and snap her fingers. She persuaded Annie and Pearl to cut their hair in fringes and curl them. She soon knew all the gossip about Bill Bastien and the housekeeper, and even learned the ins and outs of things in the rival house next door.
Delight was not such a favourite. Her tongue was slow, she took little interest in the things which did not directly concern herself, and she was always ready to neglect her work to lean over a window-sill in the spring sunshine or squat before the pack of a pedlar, or listen to Charley's sagas of his rabbits and cauliflowers in the Old Land.
Also her great beauty separated her definitely from the other girls. When she stood by the serving table waiting for an order she was remote as a sculptured goddess. When she laughed and talked with them, they forgot what she was saying, for gazing in fascinated envy into her deep, mirthful eyes.
On a morning a fortnight after the arrival of the two girls in Brancepeth, a gypsy pedlar had pushed her way into the scullery and opened out her wares on the floor. The women clustered about her; Queenie, home from school with a cold, peeping from behind her mother's skirts.
"Nicey, nicey—" said the gypsy, holding up a pink silk scarf embroidered in silver. "Ah, dis look nice, young lady, on you." She threw it about Pearl's plump shoulders.
"Aw, it's too swell for me," objected Pearl. "Isn't it, Mrs. Bye?"
Mrs. Bye eyed her judicially. "Well, I don't know as you'd get much good out of it. It's a flimsy thing. But it 'ud be lovely for you to wear at the Firemen's Ball. It's not a bit too swell for that."
"How much?" asked Pearl of the gypsy.
"Ah, nicey, nicey. Two dollars. Cheap."
"Oh, say, I can't afford two dollars."
The pedlar's swarthy hands lifted the scarf deftly from Pearl's shoulders and' threw it about Delight's. "Ah!" she exclaimed. "Dis tall girl buy. Ah, see, how booti-ful!" Her dark face lighted, she clasped her hands passionately to her breast.
"Here, don't be so swift," said Pearl. "I didn't say I wouldn't buy it. What do you think, Annie? Would it become me?"
"Beat her down to one-fifty," whispered Annie. "They always expect you to haggle."
"I'll give you one-fifty," repeated Pearl stolidly, "not a cent more." She half turned away.
The gypsy's questioning eyes sought Delight's.
"You, lovely lady, you?" she asked in a cooing tone.
Delight shook her head. "Not my colour."
"Take, then, Miss," said the gypsy, thrusting the scarf upon Pearl. "Nicey, nicey, for you."
One by one they succumbed to the pedlar's wiles. Annie bought a scarf like Pearl's, but blue to match her eyes. Mrs. Bye took a string of beads for Queenie. May, a bangle bracelet for her own thick little wrist. Even Mrs. Jessop, though she called the bright wares trash, could not resist a necklet of imitation jet. It was not fair to herself, she had reflected, never to buy a new ornament. It was not fair to Bastien who admired her. . . . One by one they left the kitchen to get the money for their purchases.
Delight and the pedlar were left alone. They looked into each other's eyes. "What have you got for me?" asked the girl in a low voice.
The two understood each other perfectly. The gypsy took a small velvet box from a corner of her pack and put it in Delight's hand. "Dese for you," she said.
Queenie came marching out from the kitchen in time to hear the whispered words.
"Dee po woo!" she repeated, marching around them. "Po woo—po woo—po woo." She was transported by the gaiety of the occasion.
Delight opened the box and peeped inside. "Oh," she gasped. "How terrible lovely!"
On the satin lining, a pair of long earrings lay, slender crescent moons. From the tip of each hung suspended a twinkling green star.
"For you," repeated the gypsy. "I not show dose odders. Dey are de earth, you de star, de moon, booti-ful. You buy?"
"How much?"
"Seex dollar. I gif you for five."
"Oh, but I haven't five. I'm newly come over from England, and I haven't earned my first month's wage yet."
The gypsy laughed and shrugged her shawled shoulders.
"Ah, you get de money. Dat easy. All de men love you in dese, and de women, dey jealous. See—green, de colour of jealous." She touched the winking green stars. The tip of her tongue showed between her teeth.
Delight's heart danced out to the earrings. They made her feel as her Granny's apple-green tea-set made her feel—good, pure, almost religious. It was funny but it was so. She couldn't account for it. . . . But the five dollars! She had only a dollar and fifteen cents in her little red purse upstairs. She stood perplexed, filled with longing. "There's no use, I can't," she said, at last, and put them from her towards the gypsy. She only smiled and shook her head.
"You keep dose for tonight," she said. "I stop here in town. I call tomorrow for money. You get it. Easy get—for you."
The others were returning to the scullery with their money. Mrs. Jessop was looking annoyed at the waste of time. Like one powerless in a dream, Delight pushed the box into the front of her blouse.
"Ain't you going to buy anything, Delight?" asked Pearl.
Delight shook her head.
"I've no money."
May whispered, good-naturedly: "I'll lend you a dollar if you'd fancy a bracelet like mine. It seems a pity for you not ter 'ave a bit of new joolery for the ball."
"I don't want anything," said Delight, turning away. "I've got to make haste and dress for dinner."
She ran upstairs. In the bedroom she took the earrings out of their box and laid them on her palm. The two crescent moons shone palely, the green stones—emeralds she guessed they were—winked up at her like seductive green eyes. She smiled at them, then impulsively pressed them to her lips. Again she felt that delicious sense of goodness, of being good to the very inmost inside of her. And then, a deep delight in being good.
Oh, for five dollars! She could not ask May for it. May would think she was crazy. She might force her to return the earrings to the pedlar, she was that strong-minded. No, she could not ask May who had offered to lend her a dollar. She thought of Bill Bastien, but her instinct warned her not to ask him to lend her money. No, there was something fierce and cruel about him. What about Kirke—Fine Nicht? The thought made her laugh. That canny Scot would never part with five dollars to a stranger, without proper security. No, she must think of someone else.
That feeling of deep and enfolding goodness remained with her all day. Every time she thought of the earrings, and especially of the little trembling, green stars, the feeling grew stronger, till she seemed shut off from the others in a cloistral retreat, sweet and safe from the clatter of dishes and tongues. She ceased to worry about the money. Something, she felt sure, would happen before the next day. The gypsy might even die in the night. She had heard of people going off like that in a hurry from some secret sickness.
When she was dressing to wait at the supper table she went to her Granny's apple-green tea-pot where she had hidden the earrings and took them out. She held one beneath each ear and went to the looking-glass to enjoy the effect. For a second her eyes danced with delight; then a terrible discovery made her suddenly feel quite faint. Her ears had never been pierced!
She sat down on the side of the bed. Her hands dropped to her lap, and the earrings rolled from her relaxed fingers. When she had bought them and all the long day she had never once thought of that. Now the discovery chilled her like a plunge into cold water. And the Firemen's Ball was in less than a week! Something must be done. She must have her ears pierced. She would do it herself. . . . She sprang to the chest of drawers and took a pin from the pin tray. She pressed it determinedly against the lobe of her ear. A little scream of pain escaped her. She dropped the pin and pressed her hand to her ear. In the glass she saw a ruddy drop hanging there. She turned pale realizing that, though she could bear pain, she could not inflict it upon herself.
What should she do? Perhaps there was an easier way—less stabbing and cruel. She suddenly remembered that Queenie's little ears were pierced. She would ask Mrs. Bye. When supper was over she followed the cook into the pantry.
"Cook," she said, "how was it you came to have Queenie's ears pierced?"
"I wonder if I dare try this raisin pie on them tomorrow," mused Mrs. Bye. "The boarders'll have to eat it anyway, it must not be wasted."
"Oh, it looks purfickly good," replied Delight. "I'll see that they take it." She picked out a plump raisin from the pie and thoughtfully sucked it.
"How was it you came to pierce young Queenie's ears?" she repeated, when she had swallowed the raisin.
Mrs. Bye replied—"To cure her eyes. She had sore eyes."
"Poh eye," repeated Queenie, and she began to march up and down, singing—
"I 'ad a poh eye,
I 'ad a poh eye."
"However did you do it?"
"Oh, I didn't do it. A neighbour—a Mrs. Bliss—did it. Her 'usband was the butcher—" Delight shuddered—"and she did it beautiful. You just pinches the lobe up a bit to stop the circulation, and then you holds a cork behind for to steady the ear against, then you sticks the needle threaded with a silk thread right through and ties the thread firmly. You have to turn the thread around in the wound every day to keep it from healing. Poor little Queenie did a bit of yelling then, but her eyes have been better ever since."
"Did it hurt very much, Queenie?" Delight asked of the child, as she drew up beside her mother's skirt.
"Ay," whined Queenie, "ih hurh."
Again Delight shuddered, but she was desperate. Her ears must be pierced that day so that they might have time to heal before the ball. She searched through the little plaid silk "housewife" in the shape of a bellows that her Granny had made for her on her twelfth birthday and chose a long sharp needle. She threaded it with silk from a reel belonging to May. She had already procured a cork from the kitchen. The hour was eight. Supper was over and the other girls had agreed to do her share of the clearing-up, for she had said she was suffering from a very queer stomach. Her stomach did indeed feel queer and her cheeks were pale.
She locked herself in the bedroom and took the implements of torture from the top drawer. Mechanically she began to pinch the lobe of her left ear. Even pinching hurt. Then suddenly she snatched up the cork, pressed it behind the lobe, and jabbed the needle against the tender flesh. In spite of herself a cry escaped her. She clapped her hands to her mouth and bent double in pain for a moment. Then she straightened herself with a feeling of triumph. She had pierced one, at any rate. It was not so bad, after all. Now she must draw the thread through and tie it. She bent towards the looking-glass expecting to see the needle sticking through the plump punctured lobe, but the needle was not there, and only a tiny drop of blood showed where she had pricked it.
She was almost in despair. She picked up the needle and the cork from the floor where they had fallen, her lips thrust forward like an angry, hurt child's. She sat down on the side of the bed, trying to think of someone who might help her.
Suddenly the ruddy, square face of Jimmy Sykes rose before her, smiling, eager to help. She had walked out with him on two different evenings and he had bought her oranges and a bag of sweets. Why had she not thought of him before? She was to have met him this evening, so he would probably be in his room now waiting till she had finished her work. She wasted no more time, but went to seek young Sykes. The passages were deserted, the doors shut. It was a cold night and a fire burned in the Quebec heater on the third-floor hallway.
She knocked softly on Sykes' door. There was the rustle of a newspaper inside, a step, then the door opened. Jimmy Sykes' cheeks flamed. He came out to her shyly.
"Why, Delight, is it you?"
She pushed past him into the room and closed the door behind her. "Yes, it's me. I want you to do something for me."
He timidly touched her hand. "There's nothing I wouldn't do for you."
She went very close to him. Her deep, dark eyes were on a level with his, and he felt her breath, sweet and warm, on his face.
"I'll tell you what it is," she breathed, "you've got to put a hole through my ears. I won't ask any of the other girls to do it. I want them to think I've always had earrings. Oh, don't say you won't do it! It 'ud break my heart if I couldn't wear 'em to the Firemen's Ball. Look here, I've tried myself and that is all I could do, and it hurt me cruel, too." She dragged back her hair and showed the wounded ear lobe.
Jimmy was dazed by this unexpected demand on his skill, his courage, and his manhood. The sudden leap into intimacy with this glorious creature filled him with exultation and yet fear. He was afraid he could not do what she wanted him to do. In fact, he hardly understood what it was she wanted. He took the needle and the cork dumbly from her while she poured forth the tale of the gypsy, the secret purchase, and the directions for piercing her ears.
"Now," she said finally, sitting down in a chair and holding her head very erect while she fixed him with her glowing gaze, "you must press my ear firmly against the cork, then jab the needle right through and no mistake, and then tie the thread in a knot." She tilted her head, presenting the sacrificial ear. An adorable ear, Jimmy thought, pink and curving like a shell.
"I wish you'd not given me the ear with the little drop of blood oozing," he said. "It seems so awful cruel to stick it again."
"Do as I tell you," she ordered, clenching her hands and setting her teeth.
Jimmy took the ear tenderly between his finger and thumb. A tremor of fear shook his sturdy frame.
"Pinch it," she commanded. He pinched it, getting very red about his own ears.
"Now stick the needle through, where the drop o' blood is."
Gingerly he pressed the point of the needle against the wound.
"Ouch!" she cried, throwing him a glance of anguish. "Get it through, quick!"
With a groan he jabbed the needle through the delicate flesh and drew the thread after it. She was white, she looked faint. The dark red drops trickled into his palm.
"Is it done?" she asked shakily.
"Yes," he muttered. He tied the thread and went and sat down on the window-sill.
"What ails you?" she asked.
"I'm not feeling well."
"You don't mean to say that wee drop of blood upset you?"
"It was your blood, Delight."
A smile trembled on her lips, her eyes filled with tears. "Jimmy!" she said gently. "I do like you, I do." But she took the needle and placed it in his hand. "Now, do the other," she commanded.
He sprang to his feet, his face set and white. "If I do the other, I'll be sick, do you hear? You'll have to get someone else to do the other."
"You do it this minute," she persisted.
"By thunder, I won't!" He folded his arms across his chest.
"Then you don't like me." Her lashes were sticking together with tears. "You've turned against me, Jimmy."
"Like you! Like you! That's the trouble. I like you so well I'd do anything reasonable for you. But this ain't reasonable. It's unnatural, and it's making me sick. P-please don't ask me, Delight." He made a pillow of his bent arm and laid his face against it. He, too, was crying.
Kirke and Lovering had come up to their room together after supper. Lovering was writing his weekly letter home to his wife. His broad figure bent over the shaky little table, his fist grasping the pen so firmly that the nib sputtered ink at each period, he threw himself into his task. His lips moved as he wrote as though he were indeed holding converse with his wife, and when he frowned and nodded, it seemed to Kirke that he was arguing with her, or explaining why he was not sending more money.
Kirke was tilted in a chair, his feet resting on another, his pipe in his mouth. He was supposedly reading a daily paper he had taken from the reading-room, but his gaze wandered from Lovering to the window from which he could see the flagged side entrance and pump of the house, the yard and poultry runs, and, just up the street, a broadside view of The British American House, the rival hotel. There was not a bedroom in The Duke of York which Kirke would have liked so well, for there was none with quite the same view, the same intimate angle on the affairs of the two hotels. His insatiable curiosity towards life, his satirical pleasure in the rôle of onlooker at the follies of those about him, found endless scope here.
A dray was being unloaded of casks of ale in the entrance below. Bill Bastien was talking with the driver, counting the casks. Kirke counted them too. Charley Bye and Davy were putting them into the cellar. Kirke wondered how much of that ale would be sold by Bastien dishonestly and the money appropriated for himself. He was a thief, and Mrs. Jessop no better, lining their pockets with the absent owner's profits.
"How d'you spell voluptuous?" inquired Lovering.
"Man," said Kirke, grinning, "that's an awful word to use in a letter to your wife. You'll have her over here before you can say scat."
"You be damned!" replied Lovering. "Tell me how to spell the word."
"I really think you mak' a mistake," went on his friend, "in using such words to a simple wifely body. You'll instill bad ideas into her head."
"She's not a simple body. She's a fier-ry piece—is my wife."
"All the more reason, then," said Kirke, "not to excite her. But—perhaps you were describing Miss Mainprize to her."
"Tha'rt gone on that bitch thyself, Duncan," said Lovering.
"Nonsense," replied Kirke calmly. "Now for veeluptuous—v-o-l-u-p-t-u-o-u-s. It's a fine mouthful of a word to fling at your fiery wife across the sea."
Lovering did not answer. He was busy getting down the word. Kirke turned once more to the window. The lorry had disappeared. Pearl and Edwin Silk, the remittance man, were standing together by the pump. His thin neck was bent as he looked into her face. Was he beginning to pay Pearl attention? Kirke focused his eyes on them with a boring expression, like two gimlets. Pearl evidently said she was thirsty, for Silk pumped a glass of water for her. She would not drink from the common vessel but poured a little into her pink palm and drank daintily from it. When she had finished Silk snatched up her hand and put it to his mouth, drinking the last drops greedily from it. Kirke's thin lips stretched in a grin; he bent closer to the pane.
But now a sound other than the scratching of Lovering's nib shot through his sensitive nerves. It was the sound of a sob. A woman's sob. The transom above his door was open and, turning his head sideways towards it like a shrewd, aquiline bird, he made out that the second sob came from the room across the passage. Silently he rose and went to the door, frowning down at Lovering as he stood with his hand on the knob. No, he would not tell Lovering. Let him go on with his stupid letter. He would only spoil things. He stole out into the passage and closed the door behind him.
"Wait for me, Duncan," called Lovering. "I'll be done in a minute."
Kirke's fingers twitched. Gladly would he have throttled his friend. He looked back into the room, smiling. "All richt," he said. "I'll just go down as far as the reading-room and leave this paper in."
He closed the door again and fixed his attention on the door opposite. It was Jimmy Sykes' door. The transom was closed but the sound of another sob came appealingly. He tiptoed to the door and put his eye to the keyhole. Against the red glow of the western window opposite he saw the form of Delight Mainprize, seated droopingly in a chair. Beside her stood the stocky figure of Sykes, his head pillowed on his arm. They were both crying.
"Weel," said Kirke, stepping inside, "it's a fine nicht."
Delight gave a stifled scream, and Jimmy uncovered his miserable face and looked at Kirke, quite unabashed. "It's her ear," he said. "She wants me to pierce it and I can't."
"Say that again," said Kirke. "I'm not taking it in. What about her ear?"
"She's bought new earrings. They're to wear at the Firemen's Ball. She wants her ears pierced. I've done one b-but I can't do the other. I'll be sick."
"Weel, you are a flaming coward," said Kirke. "Let's see the job you've done." He bent over the gently sobbing girl and examined her ear.
"Give me the needle," he ordered Sykes.
Delight said in a smothered voice, not uncovering her face: "See that it's threaded."
Kirke threaded the needle skilfully, he was used to doing his own mending. "Now," he bit off, "tairn your head over."
With a little moan, and keeping her eyes tightly shut, Delight rolled her head over, presenting the other ear. Kirke grasped it firmly between his finger and thumb.
"Here's the cork," gulped Jimmy. "You do something with the cork."
"Cork be damned!" said Kirke.
With pitiless precision he pierced the ear, tied the thread in a neat knot, and patted Delight's shoulder. "Good geerl," he said. "If you had as many ears as a field of corn I'd pierce them for you."
"Oh, thank you," Delight said, looking up at him with wet eyes. "I can wear my earrings now, and you won't tell a soul, will you?"
"Now, do I look like a man that would go about telling secrets? Sykes is the one to watch, though considering the booby's pairt he played, I expect he'll hold his tongue."
"It was just that he was so tender."
"Well, a tender man's no good to you. How are you going to hide those ears, now?"
"My hair's so thick I can just pull it a bit farther over them."
"I hear Lovering going down. I must get after him. You're not going to stop here all nicht, are you?"
"Don't you be insultin' to me, Mr. Kirke."
"No, you'd better not," said Jimmy. "I may be chicken-hearted where a girl's concerned, but I've yet to see the man I'm afraid of."
Kirke broke into hoots of metallic laughter and hurried down the passage after Lovering.
"Isn't he a beast?" said Delight. "Never mind, I like you far the best of anyone here. I like you even more because you didn't want to hurt me."
Jimmy put his arm tenderly about her. "I'd do anything for you, Delight. Only give me a chance. Can't you think of anything I could do for you? Isn't there anything? How much is it?"
Delight hung her head. "There's one thing," she whispered, "that's troubling me sorely, and that's the money for the earrings. They're not paid for yet, and I've been wondering all day who I can find to borrow the money from."
"Oh, let me!" cried Jimmy. "I'd rather do it than anything. How much is it?"
"I'm afraid to tell you."
"Delight!"
"Well, it's five dollars. I know I'm terrible extravagant."
Jimmy tore a little canvas bag from his pocket. It was untidily crammed with bills of small denominations. Delight watched him like a greedy child as he drew out a two and three ones.
"There you are," he said, beaming, "and if ever you speak of returning it to me I'll turn cruel, too, and stick a needle into you." He went on to talk of Kirke to cover her embarrassment, which was not so great as he thought. "If you'd only seen his face when he was piercing your ears. It was as cruel as the mischief. I bet he just liked doing it. He looked as though he'd like to be able to hurt you every day."
Delight shivered and smiled at Jimmy. "I want to kiss you," she said, "for being so good."
A soft thunder rumbled through the house, mingling, at first, almost inaudibly with the men's loud voices in the hall and bar, but gradually increasing to a metallic clamour that beat insistently above all else.
Delight stood in the open door of the dining-room. In her left hand the copper Japanese gong hung by a red silk cord, in her right she grasped a short stick with a padded ball at the end, with which she beat it. Her lips were parted in earnestness showing the even rim of her teeth, her bright hair covered all but the tips of her ears which were now healed.
It was the night of the Firemen's Ball.
Kirke was standing in his favourite position by the newel post, ready, at the last stroke of the gong, to enter the dining-room. He was invariably the first at meals, yet he always came in with his angular, nonchalant swagger, as though he felt nothing but contempt for the food and the girls that served it. Delight now lowered the gong and, as its vibrations ceased, the surge of men's voices once more possessed the hall. As Kirke came abreast of her, he peered closely at the ear nearest him.
"How's the ear?" he asked, and gave the lobe a little pinch.
Delight drew back her head. "Don't be so free with your hands." Her eyes flashed.
"You didn't object to me handling your ear when you wanted it pierced," he observed, following her in and taking his seat.
"That was different."
"You mean you wanted to mak' use of me then?"
Once he was in his chair he became to Delight, as did all the other boarders, her little child, to be cajoled and fed. "Beefsteak?" she asked, leaning over him and admiring the parting in his hair.
"Is that all?" he asked sharply. "Last nicht it was like leather."
"There's sausages," she said softly.
"Bring me some. You were trying to hold me off them," he added bitterly.
"Well, be nice then," she whispered and floated from the room.
Kirke sat scowling at his knife and fork till his plate was set before him. On it lay a piece of underdone steak, such as he liked and two sausages.
"Delight," he bit off, "you're a terrible woman. I believe you're going to be the curse of this hotel. The whole town has its eye on you already."
"Why, what have I done, Mr. Kirke, but just be myself?"
"Ay, that's the trouble," answered Kirke, "you're just yourself. And so was Jezebel, and so was Jael, and so was Delilah and Deborah."
"My goodness," said Delight, open-eyed, "you do know your Bible, don't you?"
The four girls were dressing for the ball. As ill-fortune would have it, there was a fruit-growers' convention in Brancepeth next day, the dining-room had been crowded, and the girls were later than usual in leaving the kitchen. Their faces were burning, their breath came in gasps. May's and Pearl's hands were red and swollen from hot dish-water. Mrs. Bye, with Queenie at her heels, rushed from room to room helping them to dress. Before each looking-glass blazed two coal oil lamps, the basins on the washing-stands swam with soapy water; there was a smell of burning hair and cheap toilet powder. It was stifling hot. The freshly laundered petticoats of the four girls rustled as they flew here and there.
"My word," cried Mrs. Bye. "I can't lay my hands on a single hairpin! May, you've got your hair frizzed so that I'll never get this ribbon bound in it."
"The frizz'll come out soon enough when I've done a few dances. Oh, Lord, there's my garter broke!"
"Somebody pull my corset lace," implored Pearl. "I must have gained ten pounds since the last dance."
"Oh, oh," moaned Annie, "I've been on my feet so much today that they're all swelled up. I can hardly get these slippers on."
Queenie burst into hymn:
"Poo fo a hoh, buhher,
Poo fo a hoh—"
Delight alone was silent. The window-pane against the night gave her back a dark but clear reflection of herself. Standing there no one could accuse her of monopolizing a looking-glass. She was already dressed, having curling hair that needed no coaxing, and taking little care with the details of her costume. Now she gazed in a rapt, impersonal delight at the sombre beauty of the reflection. She was wearing a dress that had been her mother's, a deep, old-gold satin, with black lace about the low-cut neck and short sleeves. The satin was cotton-backed, the lace cheap, but the effect with the girl's bewitching dark eyes and golden hair was barbarously beautiful. Annie and Pearl were sorry for her in that old-fashioned dress. They felt superior in their white dresses with the pink and blue scarves they had bought from the gypsy about their shoulders. Yet those earrings—where had she got those earrings? She was a deep one, not a bit like May who hid nothing. Still, they liked Delight. Her admiration of their dresses and beads and scarves was so childlike and open that they couldn't help liking her.
"I declare it makes me wish I was a girl again," said Mrs. Bye when they were ready. "Many's the gay dance I've been to, and not with Charley neither!"
On a sudden impulse they all kissed her good-bye as though they were going away for a long time, pressing their fresh lips to her thin cheek in turn. The unusual ceremony touched some deep well-spring of pity in Queenie. She lifted her voice and wailed loudly in great compassion for them and for herself.
Tonight they did not go out by the back door as usual but with conscious dignity through the front entrance. Jimmy Sykes and Edwin Silk were waiting in the hall for them. Jimmy wore a navy-blue serge suit and white tie. Silk appeared in wrinkled evening clothes, a flat opera hat shadowing his haggard face. Pearl broke into embarrassed giggles as he moved to her side through the crowd. Men stopped talking and drinking to look at the girls and to offer bantering advice to them and their escorts. Bill Bastien came out of the bar and said in a low tone to Annie—
"I'll be over after closing time, so don't fill your card."
Annie beamed up at him, her whole face breaking into ripples of pleasure like a little lake over which hot, bright sunlight has suddenly burst.
Outside, on the porch, Kirke and Lovering were standing. "Are tha coomin' aht to the ball, Duncan?" asked Lovering.
"I micht."
"Well, luk 'ere, we'd better just walk along with the girls. They're in the hall." He could see through the narrow windows on either side of the front door.
"I've never taken servant geerls out yet," rejoined Kirke, lighting his pipe. The tiny blaze illumined his bright light eyes and pink cheek bones.
"My wife was a servant lass," said Lovering simply.
"Ah, but she was a veeluptuous one," sneered Kirke.
"Blast thy eyes!" growled Lovering. "I daresay you've got a servant girl wife of your own in the Old Land."
"I was never churched with any woman," said the Scot, with composure. "A mon's but a mon."
"Well, I'm going with them, anyhow." He stepped up to May and Annie and asked with little trace of his Yorkshire accent, which he reserved for his friend Kirke, whether he might accompany them to the hall.
The group of seven hurried through the clear, frosty evening of late March, a great full moon sailing above them, and a handful of twinkling stars clustered about the chimneys of the Town Hall. Every window was alight; the vigorous music of a brass band made the girls forget the weariness of their legs, and set their blood to dancing in anticipation.
It was nearly eleven when they had hung their wraps in the cloak room and appeared on the dancing floor. Jimmy and Delight took their places among the other dancers, also Pearl with Edwin Silk, Annie with Lovering, and May with a boarder named Slee. May, in the midst of the whirling crowd, was continually on the watch for Albert. He had promised he would be there. He dared not refuse her. And he was to bring Ada, too, that May might look on the face of her rival. . . . Like hopping marionettes, they suddenly appeared before her. Albert red-faced, with wilted collar; Ada, taller than he by half a head, her red hair in elaborate puffs, her thick curling lips and beady eyes expressing an abandon of physical exuberance. Before this moment, May's hatred of her had been hatred for an unknown barrier between herself and Albert; now, when she saw her solidly in the flesh, the fierceness of her jealousy, her abhorrence for this coarse interloper, numbed her legs and took away her breath.
"I can't"—she gasped—"can't dance."
Slee halted and looked down into her face.
"Swoony?" he asked. "Have a glass of something?"
Her eyes had pierced into Albert's consciousness. His jaws dropped. Then, somewhat recovering himself, he steered Ada towards May. "Hullo, cousin," he got out.
"She's a bit swoony," explained Slee, ostentatiously supporting her.
Angry looks were thrown at them by the other dancers. They were jostled. The two men led the girls to a corner. They sat down on four chairs, under draperies of red and white bunting. Slee tilted his chair against the wall, leaning back and gazing at the ceiling to show that there would be no intrusion from him on a family party.
"So this is Albert's cousin, at last," exclaimed Ada, grasping May's small icy hand in her large hot one. "I've been coming to see you I don't know how many evenings but I couldn't get Albert out. He's getting to be a reg'lar old stogie, and, of course, I knowed you'd be busy all day. Say, do y' know Albert never let on to me he had a cousin till you landed here. I tell him it's a shame, the way he's cut himself off from his relations, and it's mean to me, too, because I like to be friendly. My! you don't look a bit like Albert, do you?"
"Shut up, can't you, and give someone else a chance," interrupted Albert. "Feelin' any better now, M'y?"
"Yes. It were just the crowd." Ada leaned across Albert to look into May's face. "You look awful," she said. "Get her a lemonade, Albert? I guess you're not used to much society. I was in the jam factory and we was always gettin' up impromtoo dances."
"I'm better now," said May stiffly. "That's another dance strikin' up. I'd like to dance it with Albert for old time's sake. Let me interduce you to my friend Mr. Slee."
Mr. Slee brought the front legs of his chair to the floor, bowed to Ada, and asked her if he might have the honour of a dance.
"Thanks," said Ada. "I'd like to. It isn't good style to dance with your own husband all evening." She slapped Albert playfully on the shoulder. "Be good to your cousin, now, Albert! You let me know if he ain't good to you, Cousin May."
The two couples were whirled apart. The devil himself seemed to put new life into May. "I'll 'cousin' her! I'll 'cousin' her!" she muttered, grinding her teeth, and dancing like one possessed.
Ada had towered above Albert. Her big solid frame had been difficult to guide among the swaying throng, but May was tiny, agile, like a bit of dancing quicksilver. He clutched her to him, and a grin overspread his moist, flushed face.
May's face was upturned. Her eyes were shining into his. Every now and again she gave little stamps as though she were dancing on Ada's prostrate body.
A change had come over the room. Under the glaring lights, under the red and white bunting, a strange blight seemed to have fallen on the dancers. May suddenly perceived that, except for one other couple, she and Albert were the only ones dancing. The rest stood about the walls, silent; their faces, under the white lights, had become round, meaningless disks like the faces of daisies in a flower border. The other dancers were Jimmy Sykes and Delight.
"They don't seem used to girls wot can dance, 'ere," said May. "They're all standin' up to watch Delight and me." She turned her head, laughing, kicking up her heels, so that more and more of her petticoat and twisted pink cotton stockings were visible. At last a man in a red fireman's coat growled at them, as they passed:
"Get off the earth, can't you? Nobody wants to look at you."
Albert and May were struck motionless. Hurriedly they escaped into the crowd of onlookers and their faces, too, became round, watching daisy faces.
Jimmy and Delight danced on. He was a well-proportioned, agile young fellow, and he danced with grace and vigour, inspired by the knowledge that he held the loveliest girl in Brancepeth (in the world, he believed) in his arms. Delight's long eyes were half-closed in the ecstasy of the dance, in the somnolent, heavy throbbing of the band, in the admiring light of all these rows and rows of eyes that watched her every motion. She was conscious of every part of herself, as one might think a star would be conscious of its every glittering point. She was conscious of her curls dancing on her head, of her long lashes, as they swept towards her cheek, of her firm breasts that seemed to hold the rhythm of the dance, of her strong thighs that never tired, of her gay, tripping feet. She was conscious, too, of Jimmy's body beside her, guiding her caressingly. But she was only dimly conscious of that.
"Who is she? Who is she?" gasped Ada in Albert's ear. Everyone was asking the same question.
"My goodness, what a show she's making of herself!" went on Ada angrily. "This Firemen's Ball is gettin' a little too common for me. For two cents I'd go home."
"You'd go alone, then," returned Albert, "for I'm goin' to daunce as long as there's a ruddy 'op in me."
The music had stopped. The crowd surged into a kaleidoscopic pattern. Bastien and Kirke had strolled in together, just before the dance had ceased. The effect of the spectacle on the two men was strikingly different. Bastien's dark-blue eyes bulged in astonishment; he showed every tooth in a delighted grin, but a sombre satisfaction gleamed from the Scot's shrewd face.
"Well, me next, I guess," said Bastien lightly. "I bought tickets for the four girls, and it's up to me to dance with each of 'em in turn."
He went briskly to Delight's side. "Look here," he said, "you'll need a bodyguard to take you home. The other women'll mob you as sure as your name is Delight."
He put his arm around her as the band struck up. He had not expected that the dance was to be a duet, and he flashed a look, half-pleading, half-bold, about the room when he found they were to have the floor to themselves. He was known to them all, admired, feared; he did what he liked, and Brancepeth might be damned.
Bastien was straight as a rod. His clothes were made by a city tailor. His was a very different figure from that of poor Jimmy in his Old Country workingman's clothes. Jimmy's flush of triumph paled into mordant despair as he saw Delight floating in bold submission against Bastien's breast.
The bandsmen leant forward over their music to see the dancers. The eyes of the horn-blowers bulged almost out of their sockets. Job Watson, the drummer, accented the waltz with a ferocity that was almost obscene. In the white glare the two waltzers seemed the only animated two on earth, with rows of staring ghosts to watch them. . . .
The band ceased. Bastien and Delight were surrounded. Bill introduced his protégée, Miss Mainprize. There was time for only one more dance before supper. For not much longer could the onsweeping tide of women be withheld. But Kirke was fiercely determined to be Delight's partner in another triumph. He went to her and took her hand.
"If you're ready, I'm ready," he bit off.
She said nothing. She seemed incapable of speech but only of glorious movement. The simple, lovely creature stood facing the throng about her with the majesty of a Greek goddess. She scarcely saw them, though her inner consciousness absorbed the admiring looks of the men as the sun absorbs dew; somewhere, too, there was a tingling sense of the jealousy of the women. The little green stars, the colour of jealousy, seemed to burn against her ears. Her fingers returned the pressure of Kirke's hard hand. She was ready.
He had already spoken to old Donald McKay, the piper. He knew he could not hope to vie with Bastien in waltzing to the accompaniment of the band. He felt that he was a very special sort of man, not at all like the other chaps. He had good blood in him, good Highland blood, and he needed Scottish music to stir it. Delight was a special sort of girl, too. Not an ordinary servant. One could tell that by her graceful movements, her pretty feet and ankles.
"Can ye dance a Scotch reel?" he asked, a sudden doubt making him hesitate as he led her to the centre of the floor.
"Oh, I can dance anything," she said. "I've got the dance in me, you see. I'll just follow you."
Old Donald, a little thin man in kilts who looked scarcely large enough to cope with the great lusty pipes he carried but who could draw from them a piercing volume of sound, began to stride the length of the hall, playing as he strode. The crowd pressed back, leaving Kirke and Delight isolated in an expanse of polished floor. He stood facing her, an expression of ferocious energy lighting his eyes that stared compellingly into hers.
Suddenly he was galvanized into motion, flinging himself with a kind of angular grace into the reel, his red tie working up over his collar at the back, under his chin at the front, a stiff crest of blond hair standing upright on his crown. As a pool reflects the image of an eagle, so Delight reflected the darting vigour of Kirke's dance, now one hand on her hip, the other above her head; now twirling interlaced with him. A noisy clapping of hands came from the men in the rear.
To have every eye focused on him, to have this girl imitating his every movement, to know that he was preventing others who had paid their money to dance from dancing was bliss to Kirke. It was better than standing draped against the newel post in the hall at night in everyone's way. He was gloriously happy.
Not till Delight's steps flagged and her breath came in open-mouthed gasps would he signal old Donald to lower his pipes. The bandsmen had left their seats, using the opportunity to get something to drink. Supper was ready in the basement. The smell of coffee and hot meat pasties rose to them up the flag-draped stairway. With a loud burst of talk and laughter the crowd now moved towards the supper-room. Kirke and Delight were engulfed, swept along down the stairs. Girls below threw back envious and inquisitive glances at her.
"Are ye tired?" inquired Kirke.
"A little," she breathed, clinging to him. "Not really tired; just out o' breath."
"You'd soon do it fine. I must give you some lessons. It's ten years since I had a dance like that mysel'."
At the foot of the stairs Jimmy Sykes was standing, anxious and boyish.
"Here's your partner!" said Kirke, abruptly handing her over to him. "You'll find she's a grand appetite for supper. You can wait on her for a change. If he gets a timid spell, Delight, and is afraid to sairve you, just let me know and I'll come to your rescue." With his hard, staccato laugh he moved away. He was eager to mingle with the other men and hear what they had to say about the dance. Besides, he did not want to take her in to supper. It was one thing to dance with a servant—a lord of the manor might do that—but to take her in to supper was quite another thing. Instead, he took in the daughter of Mr. Wickham, the jeweller, and they sat with a select few at one of the small tables in a corner.
It was after five on a windy March morning when Jimmy and Delight left the hall. Spring had come in the night. While they had been dancing in the hot, crowded hall, spring had danced across the shining floor of the inland sea, borne in the arms of a south-west wind, to the music of booming, singing, sighing waves. When they had passed through the streets last night they had shivered in the dark, cold air, now their hot, flushed faces were swept by a wind pregnant with the sweet fire of life and growth. Above, the sky was a tremulous melting grey-blue; the drowsy moon shone faintly; a silver band confined the east.
Jimmy grasped Delight's arm and began to hurry her down a side street.
"Why, Jimmy," she said, "this isn't the way we came. See, the others have gone along the main street."
"I know," he said mysteriously, "but I want to get away from the others. I want to show you something. You've hardly seen anything of this old town yet. I want to show you something pretty."
"But what?"
"You wait and see. I bet you'll think it's pretty when you see it. Don't say you won't. It's only a little bit of a way. I've got things I want to say to you. I can't tell you how I feel with all those fools about us shouting to each other."
Still urging her he turned his face towards hers and looked into her eyes as into darkly dangerous pools. "Don't refuse me this," he pleaded. "If I thought you doted on me, I couldn't refuse you anything. Not that I would anyway, even if you hated me, but, you know—when a fellow—oh, Delight, come along, it's only a little way."
"O—o, I'm so sleepy," she yawned, opening her mouth widely like a child, and, like a child, suffering herself to be led along. "I'm so sleepy that I'd like to go straight to bed. . . . Jimmy, did you see young Mr. Crosby dancing with me?"
"Yes, I did, curse him!" Jimmy growled.
"Oh, no. He's nice. He admired my earrings."
"Just your earrings, eh? Not you!"
Delight's head drooped.
Jimmy was suddenly angry. "Oh, I know what girls are like! Just because his father's a colonel, you'd let him say anything."
"But he didn't, Jimmy. He didn't say half the things you do."
"Well, he'd better not," returned Jimmy stoutly. "I know his kind. And how I hated to see you dancing with Bastien! Gosh, he's a bad 'un. And that beast Kirke and his old reel—"
"'Fine Nicht' I call him. You know the funny way he talks. Scotch. Are we nearly there, Jimmy? I think you're awful, truly I do."
Jimmy passionately pressed her arm against his ribs. "One minute more and you'll see. I bet you don't know where we are, do you?"
Confidingly she shook her head.
"Well, I'll tell you. We're not far from the old Duke that you're so anxious to get to, but we're behind it, west of it, near the race course and the lagoon. It's that I want you to see. It'll be pretty in the sunrise. I bet you'll get the surprise of your life."
"I must go back soon and change into my day clothes. O-o, Jimmy, wasn't the dance lovely? Wouldn't you like to dance on and on like that forever?"
"If I was dancing with you but not to see you swinging round in other chaps' arms."
"I meant with you, of course."
"Oh, you dear girl, Delight!" He slipped his arm about her waist and gave it a little squeeze. His manhood seemed to melt within him at her nearness and dearness.
"Here we are," he said, in a choky voice.
They had come, at the end of a narrow, dim street, to a high, closely boarded fence. A large gateway was barred against the road, but at the end of the wooden sidewalk, a narrow gate hung ajar, showing a glimpse of a smooth open space beyond. They went through the gate and Jimmy latched it after them.
Before them stretched a level expanse of turf, moist and palely green, on it lying, like a vast ring, the half-mile race track. At one end of the enclosure rose the covered grand stand. On the far side, low stables and sheds, and, beyond, the wet roofs of houses, showing here and there, a window, gleaming red in the first beams of the sun.
Towards the sunrise the end of the enclosure merged into a dense growth of shrubs, willows, and underbrush, now leafless and discovering the glint of water beyond. The wind struck their faces, fresh and moist from the lagoon. Among the bushes a little bird broke into a song, fragile as crystal, unpremeditated as the song of the wind.
For an instant Delight's heart stood still while every nerve responded to the sudden rush of open space and freedom. Then a shiver of sensuous pleasure rippled over her relaxed body. She closed her eyes and snuffed the air like a young animal.
"Ain't you glad you came?" whispered Jimmy. "Isn't it as pretty as I said?"
She did not answer but began to run from him, not in a straight line, not as the crow flies, but in sudden darts, here and there, looking back at him once over her shoulder in a terrified way. He was half frightened for a moment. Whatever was the girl up to? Why, she looked as though she had gone fey! Perhaps—Jimmy's face went crimson as this thought came—perhaps she was afraid of him, thought he had brought her here—
"Delight! Delight!" he shouted, filled with anger and shame. "Come back here, darn you!"
Still she ran on, but now, as if she were tracing some strange linear design, she ran back towards him, her hat fallen off, her yellow hair flying, her satin skirt plastered between her legs. He could see her face now. She wasn't frightened. She was laughing. She was playing, full of play as a young lamb gambolling on the first morning of spring, or a butterfly darting its zigzag course. Jimmy, like another butterfly, felt the warm fire on his wings. His eyes glowed. He began to chase her.
Here and there they ran, at first in the open, till she realized that she would soon be captured there, then among the shrubs and willows, where brambles tore at her skirt, and the lush grass wet her ankles. At last on the brink of the lagoon he caught her in his arms and they clung together, panting.
"My, but you're a wild one," he breathed. "You gave me a chase."
He could feel her heart thudding against his side. His arms closed tightly about her. She half-turned her face towards his.
"Delight!" he cried, low, "let me kiss you. My darling girl."
He kissed her again and again, clutching her to his breast. Deep sobs shook his shoulders.
She said, surprised: "Jimmy, you're crying."
"I know," he sobbed. "It's because I'm 'fraid I'll lose you—all those others—I want to marry you. I'm just about crazy over you."
The lagoon lay, red as the petal of a rose, before them; the red sun glared like a staring wild bird at them; little rills of water sought their way, whispering, among the reeds and sedges.
"Will you let me buy you a little ring?" he whispered. "Just a pretty little ring to hold you fast by like a pigeon? Eh, Delight, will you?" His lips were against her cheek.
"Oo, Jimmy, I don't want to be tied up! I want to be my very own, I do."
"Why, look here," he blazed, "you'll be your very own, and you'll have me, too. That'll be the only difference. You'll have two 'stead of one. That's all. Come along, now, say you will. Oh, if I only knew the sort of words swell fellows say! I'd just pour them out of me, and you'd have to say yes."
She shook her head. "I'd like the nice little ring but I don't want to be married."
"Well, you needn't be for a long time. But just to wear it so's I'd know you'd be mine some day."
"There you go! You said mine. That shows. Men are all alike. They say yours. But they mean mine."
"This man don't," he said fiercely. "Anyway, it's from other men I want to protect you. You're too beautiful—"
"Jimmy, you can give me something that folk won't know what it means like a ring. Something pretty, and different like."
"You do love me, don't you?" he asked, stroking her hair.
She gave a comforting little grunt, something like a cat purring in acquiescent gratification of the senses. "M-m," she purred.
"A watch and chain!" cried Jimmy, inspired. "Will you have a watch and chain?"
She considered. "Yes, I'd like a watch and chain, 'cause then I'd know the time to get up, without old Charley Bye calling me."
He wanted to say—"Some morning the watch will tell you it's time to get married," but he was afraid of making her withdraw from him. He must not urge her, this spirited creature; he must give her time to realize the tenderness of his devotion to her, time to get used to the idea of marriage.
Now he could only hope to hold her by being a pleasant-like companion to her so that she wouldn't be chafing against a fancied curb. He would tell her about the crows that lived in the wood beyond the lagoon. Many a morning he had risen an hour earlier that he might spend the time watching them, so wild, so free, slaves to no factory whistle.
Across the lagoon stood the dark pine wood, remnant of the ancient forest not yet destroyed. The tapering tree-tops rose like delicate minarets against the morning sky. From among the branches a sudden clamour rose, and a black battalion of crows flew upward from its fastness. Densely the cloud ascended, then broke into flying fragments. In all directions the dark birds sped, cleaving the air with vigorous strokes. The sweet morning air was rent by the tumult of their cries.
"Look! Look!" cried Jimmy, with a dramatic flourish of the hand skyward. "That's one of the sights I brought you to see. Nobody gives any heed to them here except to fetch a gun and shoot them, but I love them." He went to the water's edge and raised his face to them, circling and cawing above. "I call them my crows. . . . They're savage wild things and yet I love them because I seem to know what they're up to. They've got a plan of action, mind you, like an army. They've captains, and sentries, and they're all told off in the direction they're to go. Listen, now, and hear them."
She came and leant against his shoulder, her face raised, too; her lips parted in a wide, wondering smile. Jimmy went on—
"Listen to them! They're like sailors setting off for new lands! 'Bill—Bill—Bill—where's Bill? Hurry up, Bill! Jake—Jake—where's Jake? Up, lads—up, lads—heave ho! ho! ho! Call the gals! Where are the gals? Down below—below. Get 'em up! Rouse 'em up! Maggie! Kate! Kate! Kate!'"
In a cloud the birds sped overhead, leaning on the breeze, shouting, dipping, stretching their wings, sailing, sweeping, screaming. The shadow of their mass swept with pomp across the red lagoon.
Jimmy was enraptured. He had to shout to make himself heard above the din. "Hear that chap calling—'Kate—Kate—Kate?"
She nodded and he gripped her waist.
"They're married, you know. They've got their women. But they're rough with 'em. They don't know how to treat 'em, 'cause they're rough fellows—just roughs. They don't know any better. But they love them, you bet, and you should see them teaching the young ones to fly in the summer. And the hubbub they make if one of 'em gets lost in the fall. Lord, you'd think they'd crack the sky with their calling to him."
Delight touched his hot cheek with her fingers. "My word, you're a rum one, Jimmy."
He sputtered into sudden, embarrassed laughter. "Oh, I know I am. . . . Any other girl'd think I was crazy, but you understand, don't you, Delight?"
"I think you've comical ways. That's all. But I love you for them! I reely do."