Sorrell and Son (Alfred A. Knopf, printing 9)/Chapter 27

by George Warwick Deeping

XXVII

1

THE night porter knocked at Christopher's door.

"Hallo!"

"Case, sir."

Kit yawned, and sat up. He had been called out once before during the night, and his body resented the second disturbance. He felt full of an abominable and delightful desire to sleep.

"Gates."

"Sir?"

"Is it far?"

"Great Plumpton Street, sir, or just off it."

"Foreign or English?"

"English, sir. I'm keeping the messenger."

"Good."

Kit arose, switched on the light and dressed. He collected the black midwifery bag and descended the stairs to the dim vestibule where the night-porter and a vague feminine figure waited. Gates, holding an illustrated magazine, and keeping the place marked with a fat finger tucked between the pages, opened the street door. Kit marched out, with the vague feminine shape following. The closing door shut out the band of light, and Sorrell and the messenger were alone in the darkness of the silent street, and in the midst of London's most strange silence.

Kit walked briskly. He knew his direction, and he seemed hardly aware of the figure at his side, for it was no more than a shadow, one of London's shadows. The woman walked beside him consentingly, glancing occasionally at his silent and preoccupied profile. They reached Oxford Street without having exchanged a word.

Halfway across the empty street the girl paused under an electric standard.

"Queer, isn't it?"

Kit, coming out of his three o'clock in the morning torpor, became conscious of her as something more than a shadow, a young woman, slim, pale, with dark hair and a wavy and expressive mouth. Her voice had sounded strange and musical in the hush of the great silence. She was looking along the street in the direction of Oxford Circus.

"You don't often see it like this."

"No," said Kit.

"Just as though the whole world was dead, except us two."

She smiled a sudden upward smile at him before walking on,—but she had ceased to be a shadow, and in the dimness of one of the many streets running southwards into Soho, the very dimness of her emphasized her coming to life. Her voice had sounded gentle and sensitive, and his glimpse of her face, pale under the shadowy hair, had left him very much awake. Tom Roland had written a song upon "The pale flowers of London drifting on the flowing streets," and the girl's face was flower-like and pale.

"Off Plumpton Street, isn't it?" said Kit, just for something to say.

"Orange Court."

"I know it. Those workmen's flats?"

"Yes. We share one."

"O," said Kit, and was wonderingly silent.

The girl took a look at him as they passed under a lamp.

"Rather young—aren't you!"

He smiled, unprovoked by a challenge that is annoying to most young men.

"Old enough. Don't worry."

"Oh,—I'm not worrying. What's the use of worrying? Though it is her first."

Her eyes grew curious, vaguely intimate.

"Rather bad—sometimes—the first, isn't it?"

"Not always."

"She's frightened, Don't catch me having children, not in these days."

Kit stared straight ahead.

"Your sister—is it?"

"No. We live together; makes it easier, sharing one of those pigeon-holes."

"Of course," said Kit in a voice that committed him to nothing.

They turned into Orange Court, a mere tube of blackness, and the girl seemed to vanish suddenly into a cleft in the wall.

"Third floor. I'll go first. Not much money wasted on light."

Kit groped his way up the stairs after her, and in the darkness ahead of him she was no more than a movement. He heard a key slipped into a door, and saw a finger of light, and with it came a sudden moaning.

"All right, Gwen; here's the doctor."

Christopher stood in the middle of a minute parlour kitchen. A white china teapot and a couple of unwashed cups stood on the table, and a tin kettle purred on a gas-ring. Two rooms opened from the kitchen. One door was closed. Through the other doorway Kit had a glimpse of a bed and a girl's fair head, and the tumbled curves of a light blue woollen jacket.

He put the bag on the table.

"I'll take your hat."

She was standing close to him, looking up, her two hands extended, and Kit was conscious of the sudden shock of her appeal. She had very liquid brown eyes, such very innocent eyes they seemed to him. Her long mouth was half plaintive and half humorous. She had a little dark mole just under the right lower eyelid, and very white teeth.

"Thanks."

He picked up the bag and entered the bedroom.

2

Kit's voice called for hot water, and the brown-eyed girl brought it. She moved very quietly, and with a suggestion of conscious shyness.

"Thanks."

She poured water from the kettle into the basin, and tried its temperature with the tip of a slim finger.

Kit appeared grave and absorbed. The brown-eyed girl left the room. He was aware of her standing in the little kitchen, with a hand laid along one cheek. Then, he forgot her for the moment in the business that had brought him there, and his hands and his natural kindness were at the mother's service.

"That's all right. Nothing to worry about."

He washed his hands again, and put on his coat, and stood for a moment by the bed.

"Some time yet, you know."

He was going, and the fair-haired girl, with a frightened whimper, turned in the bed.

"O, please,—stay."

Kit looked at her kindly.

"It may be three or four hours yet, and this is my second to-night."

"O, please don't go. I'm so frightened. Mary, tell him not to go."

Kit found himself in the doorway looking into the eyes of the messenger.

"Do stay. If you want to sleep—there's the sofa. I'll keep very quiet. And if you would like some tea——"

Kit hesitated, his glance moving from her eyes to her mouth, and from her mouth to the little brown mole under her right eyelid.

"All right. I oughtn't to.—There might be another case."

"They can send for you. And aren't there other doctors?"

"Yes."

Her brown eyes seemed to swim with a light that puzzled him.

"Besides, if you went, they might send another doctor, and we'd rather have you."

3

There was a quietness in the bedroom, one of those pauses when nature rests from her labour; the mother-to-be had fallen asleep.

Kit sat on the sofa, Mary in an old armchair. A cup of tea stood on the table within reach of his hand.

"Why don't you go and lie down?"

She gave a little twist of the shoulders.

"Don't want to. Let's talk. We can talk softly."

Kit sipped his tea. This little flat in Orange Court and its two occupants intrigued him, for he had adventured into all sorts of holes and corners during the last three weeks, basements, attics, grimy rooms in old Georgian houses that had once known patched and powdered gentlewomen.

He had seen woman in her squalor and her anguish, pathetic, horrible, clean and unclean. He had been shocked, and he had been touched. He had carried food into one or two dens, and brought pity and disgust away with him.

As for this workman's flat it was both unusual and yet sufficiently usual. These two girls! They did not belong to the particular profession, of that he was sure. He understood that the mother was not married.

"Like to smoke?" asked the soft voice from beside the gas range.

"No,—thanks."

He observed the interior of his tea-cup.

"Aren't you tired?"

"Oh,—a bit. I'm going to see this through. Expect I shall be a little sleepy over the programmes and the teas to-morrow."

Kit glanced across at her.

"Your job?"

"Yes,—at the 'Pelargonium.'"

"There! Why that's Roland's place."

"You mean—the—Roland."

"Yes,—I know him."

"Do you," said she, with an intent look, "and Miss Gent perhaps?"

"Yes. Cherry."

"Wish I was her. Lovely voice she has. I sell programmes, and do half the stalls. Gwen's in a shop; quite a good job. Rather bad luck for her, this."

Kit had a feeling that they were slipping into a swift and extraordinary intimacy. He both fought it, and did not fight it.

"I suppose it is," he said.

"Yes, he can't marry her, if he wanted to. Men don't, do they,—when this happens?"

"I don't know."

"She doesn't want it either, not really. Being married! No thanks. Not good enough."

She sat with folded arms, and seemed to reflect upon life, her pretty head drooping slightly under the curve of her white neck. Kit replaced his cup on the table, and seized the chance of a steady look at her, and while he was looking her eyes swept swiftly to his. She smiled. He answered her smile.

"Go to the theatre often?"

"No, not very often. Can't afford the time or the money."

"Oh, you are one of the keen ones," she said wisely, as though she already knew a great deal about him, and meant to know more; "one sees a lot of life at the theatre, on the stage—I mean. Makes you think. And then—when you begin thinking——"

Her intelligent smile gave a lustre to her sensuous, flower-like face.

"You get out of your depth," said Kit.

She considered his assertion.

"That depends. Seems to me—when we get to the bottom of things—we all do what we want to do if we can. And where's the harm? And especially—if you don't wallow. It's the people who wallow, and those who are all tied up. Seems—we are more natural since the war. We—are."

"Whom do you mean by we?"

"We younger ones. We are ready to question things, to go on our own,—women especially. Some of you men are such dear old sentimentalists."

She laughed.

"That's that.—Where do you live—in digs?"

"Yes."

"Bit lonely—sometimes?"

He avoided her eyes,—but presently he had to look at her.

"O, yes, damnably so. But I work hard. And then—the glitter gets you, and you want to go mad. Silly, isn't it?"

"Not a bit."

Her glance was soft.

"Why shouldn't you? It's natural. It's the old stuffy people who were always crying stale fish!—I say,—what's your name?"

"Sorrell."

"That's pretty. But the other one."

"Christopher—or Kit."

"Mine's Mary,—you know,—Mary Jewett. Mary,—Mary, quite contrary. O,—there's Gwen!"

A little moaning came from the bedroom, and Mary went quickly and softly into the other woman, a tenderness in her eyes, leaving Kit looking very grave. He heard the two girls' voices, the one soothing, the other the voice of a woman in pain. He glanced over his shoulder. A hand closed the door, and more than a minute passed before it was reopened. The moanings grew louder.

"I think she wants you, Dr. Sorrell."

"Coming," said Kit.

4

The baby was born about eight o'clock, a boy. It lay whimpering and kicking on an old jacket at the foot of the bed, and when Kit had a moment to spare he carried the child to the bedroom door.

"Mary."

She was there, looking very tired and sleepy, with shadows under her eyes.

"What do I do with it?"

"Wash it. I suppose you have some clothes."

"O,—yes."

"And I want a big jug of hot water."

She took the baby and Kit's brusqueness into her arms, seeming to understand the man if she failed in her instincts towards the child. Sorrell was tired. There had been more in the experience of the night than the bringing of a child into the world, and he wanted fresh air, a bath, and his breakfast. He had been close up against life, contending with it in himself as well as in the woman.

"Try to get some sleep. Yes, everything is quite all right."

"You've been so kind, doctor."

He carried the bag and his coat into the kitchen where Mary was sitting by the stove with the baby on her knees. She had washed and dressed it, and was looking at its red and ugly face with an air of puzzlement and of hostility.

Kit put on his coat.

"I suppose you will be here."

"I've a matinée this afternoon. There is a woman downstairs who will come in."

She looked up at him with eyes of weariness.

"And you?"

"I'll come round later in the day."

"I may be out."

She stood up, holding the baby.

"And to-morrow——? Where's my hat?"

She found him his hat.

"I shall be in most of to-morrow."

He was aware of the fact that her steady gaze had a meaning for him, and that her brown eyes were softly blurred. She was very tired.

"Right. Get someone in and go to bed. You want sleep."

"I do."

He turned for a moment at the top of the stairs to see her standing in the open doorway, vaguely smiling, her head surrounded by a haze of light, and ten seconds later he was in Orange Court, gripping the handle of the bag very hard, and walking fast. The liveness of London astonished him. He was thinking of the emptiness and the silence, and of Mary standing in the middle of Oxford Street with that flower-like floating face of hers.

A hot bath was welcome. He splashed about in it,—and emerging, towelled himself vigorously.

"Suppose she lives on buns and tea."

Well,—what was it to do with him?

At breakfast, in the college dining-room he was absorbed and surly, eating fiercely, and in no mood for small talk. Potter, a confrère, was devouring buttered toast and marmalade on the other side of the table.

"Been out all night?"

"Pretty well."

"Thought you looked a bit cheap."

It occurred to Kit that he might ask Potter to take over the case, but the idea roused in him a fierce surge of hostility. He did not like Potter; Potter was considered to be a very debonair and dangerous lad, a fellow who smirked and looked at himself in shop windows. Was he going to send Potter to Mary Jewett?

"No,—I'm damned if I will!"

5

Christopher went to his room and slept till one o'clock. He had other cases to visit during the afternoon, and it was four o'clock when he entered Orange Court and climbed the stairs to the little flat occupied by Gwen and Mary. A strange woman with a red face let him in.

"Yes, she's doin' lovely, doctor, 'ad a nice sleep."

The door of Mary's bedroom was open, and he had a glimpse of a rose-coloured woollen coat hanging from a hook on the door. The coat and its colour were Mary. It sent an instinctive thrill through him, a pang of desire, and even when he was standing by the bed and talking to Mary's friend, his consciousness was busy with Mary, and Mary's bedroom and her clothes, and her mouth, and the way she smiled. The baby was asleep beside its mother, and Kit remembered the awkward way in which Mary Jewett had held the baby, as though she disliked it. Her dislike had surprised him. He had imagined that all women were sentimental about babies,—mother love, and all that sort of thing, and for some reason—which he could not explain, he preferred Mary's hostility. Kit had no illusions about babies. He had seen so many of them of late; red, raw, wrinkled, absurd creatures, he had found them rather repulsive.

But his senses were more alert. He noticed that the pillow was white, and that the bed had a pretty coverlet; the kitchen was clean, the brass taps of the range polished, the table covered with a blue and white cloth. There was self-respect here, the self-respect of women who worked.

"You will be coming to-morrow, doctor?"

"Yes,—to-morrow morning."

Before going to bed that night Christopher took half an hour's walk, and he was surprised to find that the quality of his restlessness had changed. It was happy and pleasant, and he felt a peculiar good will towards all the other strollers, as though he had drunk good wine, and the streets were the paths of a pleasure garden. He found himself outside the Pelargonium, where boards announced that the house was full. He looked through the glass door into the foyer.

"She's in there," he thought; "doing her job. We are workers, both of us."

Kit was not called out of bed that night, and he went with a feeling of freshness and of adventure into Orange Court; and up the dark stairs. Mary opened the door to him, a different Mary and yet the same; she looked prettier; she had more colour, natural colour. She stood there, looking at him and smiling, and yet there was much more behind her smile. It made him feel that he belonged.

"Well,—how's the patient?"

He was shy, and a little formal, but his eyes belied his formality.

"Doing so well. She's asleep."

"I'm afraid I shall have to wake her."

She brushed close to him as he entered, a nearness that was quite unstudied and instinctive. There was a vase full of flowers on the table, rose-red and white asters. The door of Mary's bedroom was open, and her red rose coat was hanging there.

She had observed that quick glance of his.

"I love that colour."

"It ought to suit you—rather well," he said.

6

During the last week of his month's clerkship Christopher saw Mary Jewett seven times, four times at Orange Court, once outside the Pelargonium, and on the two other occasions he took her out to tea at a little place in the Charing Cross Road. On the last evening they had wandered,—it was a Sunday—and they had stood by the parapet in Trafalgar Square, and watched the lights. Thence they had idled down to the river, saying little, but feeling the fierce dear pressure of the young life behind their words. Sometimes their arms touched as they walked.

Kit learnt that she was three years older than he was.

"That means a lot,—Mr. Christopher."

"Does it?"

"Makes me feel motherly. You're such a boy."

"I'm more of a man than you think," he said.

He remembered the time and his duties.

"It is my last night on to-night. I ought to be back at the hospital."

"Glad it's over?"

"Very. The most beastly month——. But to-morrow——"

"Free. So am I. It is my free evening."

"I say,—I'd like to——. But would you,—come to a theatre or something?"

"I get enough theatre."

"Of course. Well,—a little dinner somewhere?"

"I'd love to."

Once before Kit had visited that little French restaurant in Soho where both the perfumes and the waitresses were foreign, and some of the chairs were none too steady on the legs. Christopher became the occupant of such a chair. The lovers laughed over it, leaning their elbows upon the table and looking into each other's eyes over a vase of fading flowers. Mary's hat threw a faint shadow, so that her forehead and eyes seemed more dim and elusive than her mouth.

"Monsieur?"

Kit ordered dinner, while the painted lady at his elbow jotted down his choice.

"I want some wine."

"Louis. Le carte des vins."

A swarthy little wine-waiter tried to persuade Kit to buy bad champagne, but being the son of an hotel-keeper he had some knowledge of wine.

"Red or white?"

He looked at Mary, and her eyes seemed half closed.

"Red."

"A bottle of Chateau Ducru."

"Bien, monsieur."

They clinked glasses, and Kit's fingers touched the girl's. No words were spoken. It was the sacramental wine of lovers.

Afterwards, they wandered as though London was a dream city, brilliant and strange. They went arm in arm, drifting, pausing inconsequently to look in a lighted window—and so to look at each other. Their eyes were full of the varying lights of the night. In the dim and shadowy places a little intimate sense of being nearer to each other thrilled in each body. Once, in a dark entry between two houses, they stood and kissed, a long kiss, clinging, Mary's hands upon Kit's shoulders. He felt and heard the sigh of the deep breath she drew at the end of that embrace.

"Dear boy——."

"Mary."

They wandered, Kit's arm tucked under hers, and his hand holding her fingers. For whole minutes they did not speak. The houses seemed to grow higher, the streets narrower and more dark. They passed the flaring window of a shop at a corner, and Kit—like a man at sea—picked up the lights of that shop. He knew it. They were within a hundred yards of Orange Court.

"Dear boy,—why are you trembling?"

He was inarticulate. He felt her cheek pressing against his shoulder.

"I know. I'm like that too."