That year spring had no lovely adolescence. From the morning when she had taken her first timid steps across the fields till she had sprung into fierce maturity was little more than a month. It was almost sad to see her cast her playthings of frail flowers and downy leaf buds so soon aside, and desire nothing more in play, but all in passion.
Land and lake and sky leaped into hot activity in her embrace. The blue sky arched, bluer and more blue, to the zenith. Fruit trees spilled their petals and showed the sour young fruit buds which, in a few weeks, took the distinctive curves of apple, peach, or plum. Strawberries glowed like a myriad of little hearts among the scorching vines. Waggons loaded with crates of them journeyed at sunrise from the surrounding fruit farms to the wharf to be loaded on the early boat. Basket factories were working on long hours in all the fruit district. Groups of dusky Indian pickers appeared on the streets of Brancepeth. They carried bundles and babies, lived their own mysterious lives, and, when the season was over, disappeared with the fruit.
It was a time of steady immigration from Britain and there was hope in every heart and work for all.
Business was good at The Duke of York. There was no doubt that Kirke's scheme of placing Delight more prominently in the dining-room had been a good one. She was a never-failing attraction. As Kirke had said, her fame had spread like a blight, not only through the town but through the surrounding farmlands. Farmers who had formerly patronized The British American, now came, half-sheepishly, to take their dinner at The Duke, that they might have a glimpse of the strange beauty. And, once they had been, the thought of her gave them no peace, and they must make excuses to return to the town for the pleasure of having her deferentially, even caressingly, place their food before them. Sailors and stokers and train hands who had always haunted the little old rough-cast hotel near the wharf began to appear; and, though they were set at the table with the factory boarders for Annie to wait on, they could watch Delight moving to and fro with heavy trays, from which the flowing lines of her arms merged exquisitely into her breast and waist. Her velvet brown eyes might even rest on them for a moment and her lips part as she thought:
"He hasn't got his face half clean after his stoking." Or: "what a comical stare this one has!"
No one knew whether she were a loose girl or not. Strange stories floated about concerning her, but nothing could be proved. It was certain that she would accept presents from anyone. Many men testified to this, but they had to lie about the return she made them. Legends sprang up about her origin. Subtle, intimate imaginings concerning her moved in and out of the bar, crept through the streets, filtered into the houses and offices of the well-to-do, and, at last, sank to the wharves and mingled with the sighing of the lake.
As the feverish heat of the summer grew and business had to be carried on at a temperature of ninety-five degrees, The Duke of York became the heart of an intricate organism separate from the ordinary life of the town yet fatally bound up in it. The situation in the hotel was strange. Almost everyone in it was watching someone else, was spied on by someone else.
Annie concealed her chagrin at the loss of her position as head waitress. She concealed the fact that Bastien was giving her more wages. She watched him, she watched Mrs. Jessop, and, most of all, she watched Delight. Pearl's mind was given to observing Silk as her heart was given to loving him. He drank more and more, talked less of returning to England, but she greatly feared he would slip away and leave her in the lurch. He had bought a skiff, and, when he was sober enough, he would take her out in it to float about the lagoon. Neither his arms nor heart were strong enough to face the vagaries of the lake. But in the calm lagoon he would collapse in the bottom of the boat, the moonlight shining down on his pallid face, and recite poems of Byron and Tennyson to the poor yearning girl who knew deep down in her soul that he was a slippery customer to be in love with.
"Twilight and evening bell
And after that the dark—"
his melodious voice would repeat, weaving an hypnotic spell about her.
A nascent enmity had arisen between Bastien and Kirke. Scarcely acknowledged yet, it did not raise its head, but it was gaining strength and there was rich food for its development.
Bastien wished to forget that it was Kirke who had proposed elevating Delight to the position she now held. He wanted to regard her as his own creation and he resented the gimlet gaze of the Scotsman that seemed forever fixed on him. He felt as the ring-master in a circus putting a beautiful filly through her paces, snapping the whip at the right moment, bowing for her to the plaudits of the crowd.
But, if Bastien were comparable to the ring-master of a circus, Kirke was as a high priest at the altar of a goddess, a priest rather contemptuous towards the poor young goddess herself, but demanding the worship of others with fierce austerity.
When Delight beat the Chinese gong before the door of the dining-room with calculated fervour, ascending from a low, muffled tapping to a thunder that filled the house, his angular body would invariably be draped against the newel post while his hungry light eyes devoured her unconscious beauty. When she lowered the gong, her lips parted in a pleased smile, he always gave his short barking laugh, and looked about him with a kind of snarl to see whether homage were forthcoming.
He said nothing except perhaps to mutter to his friend, Lovering: "A fine geerl." His mind was made up that she should come to no harm through Bastien.
Kirke was annoyed by Edwin Silk's sudden affluence. It angered him to see Silk sought after where he had once been jeered at, and though he was willing to let Silk pay for his drinks, he never hung about him. He despised Silk for taking a kitchen girl rowing on the lagoon. With his education he might have picked up a lass worth while, if he could only have kept sober.
However, luck was to come his own way before the summer was over. His mother died in Dundee and left him a comfortable sum, not so much as Silk had got by a good deal, but still enough to put him on a very different footing in Brancepeth. He looked decently subdued for a few days after the news came. He bought himself a black tie and retired early to his room, but he could not mourn inwardly. He had not seen his mother for twelve years and he had never been fond of her. He remembered with a grimace how she had made his back and legs tingle with a switch, when he was a big growing lad. It was a good thing, he reflected, that his half-sister had died two years before, so that the money did not have to be divided.
He had always wanted to be in a business of his own. He made up his mind to start a small dairy. He gave up his position in the tannery, and did nothing for a fortnight but look about him for suitable premises and interview farmers about the purchase of milk. He bought a horse, a fine tall gelding, and a yellow-wheeled trap. As he drove at full speed along the main street or dashed into the stable-yard of The Duke, he felt that every eye in Brancepeth was on him. He was ambitious. The mayor of the town had a plain-faced daughter of thirty. Kirke met her in her father's office when he was seeing about a licence for his dairy business. They met several times after that and at last he asked her to have a drive behind the gelding.
Every shopkeeper in Brancepeth seemed to have his nose against his window as Kirke and Miss Earle drove past. Slow was the pace as they drove out, that every eye might see, but they came back like a whirlwind, the gelding stamping his hoofs in graceful fury, Miss Earle's long green scarf streaming far behind.
Kirke could not conceal his elation that night. When he and Lovering went to bed they lay awake talking of his plans, of milch cows, of marketing butter and cream, and lastly of his taking the mayor's daughter for a drive. Lovering became sleepy but Kirke would not let him be. He even flung his arm about his neck and, hugging him, exclaimed:
"Who knows! I may be Mayor of Brancepeth yet, mysel'." His accent broadened with his emotion.
"Get off me, Duncan," growled Lovering, trying to free his burly neck. "Tha'rt choking me. What's all this fuss about? As for Miss Earle, she has no more life in her than a sheep, and no more beauty. And if tha'rt going to be mayor, I'll get out and that's flat."
Like a red lily blooming on a dung heap, Delight lived tranquilly in the midst of all the sordid gossip and sluggish passions surrounding her. She worked till she was tired, she ate little because of the great heat, and slept lightly in the stifling little back room.
The sun had ceased to be a beneficent friend to the fruit-growers on the Peninsula. Instead he had become a sinister tyrant whose rising was watched with dread, who walked with brazen feet over the vines, scorching, shrivelling, drying the life-blood of the fruit.
The bar of The Duke of York was the coolest place in the town. The kitchen was certainly the hottest. Once more Mrs. Bye flew about the panting range; the girls flew at her command, and Mrs. Jessop retired to her storeroom and linen closet.
It was Sunday evening and Delight and Jimmy were sitting on the sofa in the third-floor hall. The window was open beside them, and a sultry breeze had sprung up, stirring the boy's hair on his flushed forehead and kissing the girl's bare throat as her head tilted back on his shoulder. . . . There was thunder in the air.
Delight's feet were swollen from being constantly on them the day before. She did not feel like taking a walk and he was content to sit with her here. There was no peace of mind for him in walking out with her, because of the peering of the men they passed, and the feeling that someone was always following them. The thought of being followed may have been only Jimmy's imagination, for things had got sadly on his nerves of late. He dreamed at nights as he had never been wont to do—strange dreams of terrible things befalling Delight. He was getting nervous in his work, too. He would think: "What if I fell into one of those vats now and was suffocated! There'd be no one left to look after my girl." His square face, with its short nose and stubborn mouth, had taken on a troubled look, and he carried his compact strong body with an air of nervous aggression.
"Oh, marry me, Delight, and let's have done with all this," he implored, patting her shoulder. "Whatever makes you so mulish-like, my darling? You'd not have to work half so hard, just doing for us two, and all these chaps 'ud quit harrying you."
"Mr. Mayberry, the tailor, proposed to me today," she said gently.
"Mayberry, the tailor!" he exclaimed loudly and angrily.
"Don't shout, Jimmy." She laid her finger against his lips.
"Yes, but that old dud! He's bow-legged from sitting cross-legged. How did he get near you in the daytime? What's Mrs. Bye thinking about to let him into the kitchen? Has she no sense?"
"He didn't see me. He wrote a nice little letter to me, on pink paper—"
"I'll pink paper him," groaned Jimmy. "Oh, I like his cheek, I do."
Delight sighed. "He's got a nice shop. He makes clothes for the best people in Brancepeth."
"And his poor crippled wife just dead three months! He ought to be horse-whipped."
"Three months is quite a long time, Jimmy. Then, too, he's bought her a beautiful tall monument. He says so in the letter."
"On pink paper! Talking about a monument on pink paper! Where's this here letter? Give it over to me. I'll answer it, by thunder!"
Instinctively her hand went to her bosom. Her attitude became defensive. She could not hand over the poor little tailor's tender missive to another man.
"No, Jimmy. I can't do that. 'Twouldn't be fair."
"Is it fair to me to go carrying another man's letter next your heart?"
"It isn't doing no one any harm."
"Are you engaged to me or aren't you?" She smiled roguishly at him, and a sudden flash of lightning illuminating her face, twisted her smile into a malicious grin, gave her face a sinister, unknown quality like that of some tormenting stranger. He suddenly felt terrified of her.
The breeze that came in the window was hot and dry with fine dust. The coarse lace window-curtain was whipped up and blown against his face. His nostrils were filled with a musty odour.
"Give me that letter," he snarled, tearing the curtain from his head, "or it'll be the worse for you."
Laughing, Delight put her arm around him and pressed her head against his shoulder, but instead of pacifying him, she only enraged him the more. His arm closed around her like a vise, his chin pressed her head against his breast. With his free hand he thrust sharply into the opening of her blouse. They set their teeth. They struggled. The decrepit sofa creaked. Her blouse was torn. Then, with cheeks crimson with anger and shame, he drew out the pink paper. With a blazing look for it and another for her, he tore envelope and letter into fragments and threw them on the floor.
"There—" he said, "there's your beastly proposal. You can have your old tailor."
A long roll of thunder shook the dark sky, rumbling far down the lake, till it became but a distant mutter. Then, in the menacing silence that followed, he repeated:
"You can have your darned old tailor."
"Oh, Jimmy, how could you use me so rough? And I've always treated you the very best I know how! You've hurt me cruel."
He did not answer.
"Oh, Jimmy, do you mean it's all over between us?"
Still he made no reply, enjoying with a boy's brutality the distress of one weaker than himself.
She put her arm across her eyes and rose, stumbling across the hall in the darkness. The rain now began to pelt on the roof and the sign outside sorrowfully to creak in the rising gale.
"I'm going," she sobbed, finding the banister. "I'm going, Jimmy."
He wanted to call her but something savage in him held him back. He remembered all she made him suffer in jealousy and longing, and he could not call her back, though already his arms ached to hold her and his heart cried out for her. But he sat with stocky body erect and arms folded while she felt her way down the stairs.
Kirke in his bedroom was sitting by a small table, bending over some neatly ruled sheets of paper. He kept an accurate account of all expenditures in his new venture. He did not notice the thunderstorm.
Lovering flung open the door but without noise and stepped inside.
"What's up with you?" demanded Kirke, regarding him coldly.
Lovering came close, his eyes rolling, his mouth pursed.
"Godamoighty, Duncan," he answered, in a hoarse whisper, "there's summat goin' on downstairs. It's that young rip, Delight. She's in Bastien's room, cryin'. I was just mountin' the stair, and stopped stock-still as a flash of lightning lit the hall when I spied her comin' down. She was sobbing with her hand to her bosom, and Bastien opened his door and came out and spoke to her and led her into his room and made the door fast, and I slipped up to let tha know the soort o' thing that's goin' on. Ah, what a lass to cuddle and kiss. And Bastien, Duncan, Bastien!"
Kirke's nerves were excited by the news. His senses were gratified by the disclosure of an intrigue beneath the roof. He suddenly became aware of the storm. He felt the air electric with inarticulate feeling, vibrant with passion.
"Stop here, Jack," he said to his friend, unwinding his angular legs from the legs of the chair as he rose. A bright spot burned on either cheek bone.
"What art goin' to do?" sputtered Lovering, always suspicious yet envious of Kirke.
"Wait here and see. There'll be some fun."
He slunk down the stairs like a shadow. Outside Bastien's door he listened for a second, hearing low voices, and a sob with a little laugh behind it. The young trollop, he thought, going from one man's room to another's with her laughing and her crying. She didn't know how to take care of herself. He'd teach her. Give her a lesson she wouldn't forget. Give that cursed Bastien a lesson. Bastien most of all. He'd make him suffer. . . .
He went through the narrow back passage and tapped at Mrs. Jessop's door. Her peaceful snores continued without a break. He tapped again sharply and this time she was out of bed in an instant and at the door.
"Who's that?" she whispered.
His eyebrows went up at her sudden alertness. Used to callers, the sly old vixen.
"Step out here, a bit," he said. "Put a wrapper on. I want to show you something. . . . It's Duncan Kirke speaking."
"I hope there's no nonsense going on, Mr. Kirke. My gracious, what a storm!"
"Come along, Mrs. Jessop. You'll regret it if you don't."
"What time is it?"
"Time all of us were in our own beds. Are you dressing?"
She came out, dressed in a plaid wrapper, her grey hair in crimping pins, her large grey eyes aggressively staring.
"I hope this is worth getting up for," she said sharply.
Kirke gave a low bark.
"Weel, that depends."
"Where's the trouble?"
"Just follow me, Mrs. Jessop."
Outside Bastien's door he stopped. With his long index finger he noiselessly tapped the panel.
"Delight Mainprize is in there with Bill," he breathed.
A peal of thunder drowned Mrs. Jessop's sharp exclamation but a lightning flash showed her face distorted with rage. Kirke was standing rigidly, his high shoulders hunched.
The housekeeper grasped the door-knob and wrenched open the door. Kirke backed into the shadow.
In the unshaded electric light Bastien and Delight turned and faced Mrs. Jessop. The three stared at each other, spellbound. Lightning blinked against the window glass, frustrated by the glare of the bulb beside the dressing-table. One roll of thunder followed steadily upon another.
Bastien's brow was black. He stood sullenly facing the housekeeper. She darted into the room and grasped the girl's wrist, her fingers digging into the flesh like claws.
"I'll have something to say to you, my girl," she said in a thick voice. "Now go to your room."
"Don't get worked up over nothing," said Bastien. "We weren't into any harm here."
"Shut up!" shouted Mrs. Jessop; then steadying herself, she added, brokenly—"Oh, Bill, you'd ought to be ashamed. Look—her dress is torn! Oh, you're a nice one, you are, Delight Mainprize! Get to your room and don't let me see your brazen face again."
"He didn't tear it, Mrs. Jessop," sobbed Delight, clutching the torn blouse on her shoulder.
"Don't lie to me. And get out of my sight or, by God, I'll tear your clothes for you! I'll tear them clean off your body and throw you into the street!"
A burst of thunder, like an explosion, engulfed them in its volume. Rain descended in a deluge. The electric power of the town ceased to function and the house was in darkness, except for the ceaseless blue glimmer of lightning through the rain.
Bastien stumbled toward Delight. He would have liked in that blackness to disentangle her from the older woman and bear her to safety some place—some place—a desert island—a cave—wild tales from his boyhood surged through his brain. His hands groped towards her. A flash showed him her wild, frightful eyes. Then Mrs. Jessop's woolly wrapper came between them. He knew she'd never let him hear the last of this. . . . Interfering, spiteful woman that she was! Why had he ever got thick with her?
Delight was safe in her bedroom, trembling but safe from the housekeeper's hands, the door locked, the washstand dragged over against it, the oil lamp lighted, her own dishevelled figure reflected in the glass, for company.
Oh, if May were only here! Darling, plucky, strong little May. She'd protect her from Mrs. Jessop. It was a queer situation that May couldn't face.
She was hot as fire but she was afraid to open the window because of the storm. She sat on the side of the bed fanning herself with a bit of newspaper. Beads of perspiration stood on her forehead and across her nose. There were purple marks on her wrist where Mrs. Jessop had wrenched it. Cruel old woman. There had been nothing done or said to deserve those purple marks. Bill had only been kind to her, patted her shoulder, and he had just been going to show her some trinkets he had brought from South Africa when the door had been thrown open and all that row began.
Listen! There was someone at the door now. Through the drumming of the rain she could hear the door-knob rattling. She sprang up and threw her weight against the barricading washstand.
"Who's there?" she cried.
"Mrs. Jessop," came in muffled tones.
"I won't let you in. Go away."
"You won't, eh? What are you afraid of? If I was a man you'd let me in fast enough."
"No, I shouldn't. You're a wicked woman to say so."
"Very well, then. If you won't let me in, come close to the door. Put your ear to the crack so's you can hear what I say. Can you hear?"
"Y—yes."
"Now listen. You're nothing but a trollop, and I won't have you in this house another day. There's a train goes through here to the city at five in the morning. You'll go on that, d'you hear? You'll get up quietly and dress without letting on to the other girls. I'll give you your breakfast and a month's wages, and you'll go on that train, see? You'll leave us in peace as we were before you came. Get your trunk packed ready to go. I'll have Davy take it to the station on the wheelbarrow. Don't you dare to leave your room before I call you at half-past three. I'm going to watch your door from my room and if you come out of it and I lay my hands on you, God's my witness, I'll spoil your looks for you. I've got a temper when it's roused and I've stood about all I can from you!"
Delight wrung her hands in the dark.
"Oh, please, mayn't I see Jimmy before I go? Him and me have quarrelled and I'd like to make it up."
Mrs. Jessop struck the panel a blow with her clenched hand.
"Just you dare to try seeing anyone! If you do, I'll blazon you over the whole house. I'll get the gong and sound it in the hall, and tell everyone in the town how you've gone from one man's room to another. You've shamed the house, and you're lucky to get off as easy as you're doing, d'yer hear?"
The storm which had rolled down the lake now swept back as though for nothing else than to beat down Mrs. Jessop's voice. She could not hear it herself so she knew that the girl behind the door at which she glared could not hear. She returned to her own room and dragged her rocking-chair to the doorway. Seated in it she did not take her eyes from Delight's door for the rest of the night. Like an owl's her round, unblinking gaze was rivetted on the one spot, and strange, wild thoughts from an almost forgotten youth rose again within her, oddly familiar after all these years, making her feel young and fierce again.