Pretty Lady — Chapters 29 & 30
THE STREETS
After dinner G. J.
walked a little eastwards from the club, and, entering Leicester Square from the south, crossed it, and then turned westwards again on the left side of the road leading to Piccadilly Circus.
It was about the time when Christine usually went from her flat to her Promenade.
Without admitting a definite resolve to see Christine that evening he had said to himself that he would rather like to see her, or that he wouldn't mind seeing her, and that he might, if the mood took him, call at Cork Street and catch her before she left.
Having advanced thus far in the sketch of his intentions, he had decided that it would be a pity not to take precautions to encounter her in the street, assuming that she had already started but had not reached the theatre.
The chance of meeting her on her way was exceedingly small; nevertheless he would not miss it.
Hence his roundabout route; and hence his selection of the chaste as against the unchaste pavement of Coventry Street.
He knew very little of Christine's professional arrangements, but he did know, from occasional remarks of hers, that owing to the need for economy and the difficulty of finding taxis she now always walked to the Promenade on dry nights, and that from a motive of self-respect she always took the south side of Piccadilly and the south side of Coventry Street in order to avoid the risk of ever being mistaken for something which she was not.
It was a dry night, but very cloudy.
Points of faint illumination, mysteriously travelling across the heavens and revealing the otherwise invisible cushioned surface of the clouds, alone showed that searchlights were at their work of watching over the heedless town.
Entertainments had drawn in the people from the streets; motor-buses were half empty; implacable parcels-vans, with thin, exhausted boys scarcely descried on their rear perches, forced the more fragile traffic to yield place to them.
Footfarers were few, except on the north side of Coventry Street, where officers, soldiers, civilians, police and courtesans marched eternally to and fro, peering at one another in the thick gloom that, except in the immediate region of a lamp, put all girls, the young and the ageing, the pretty and the ugly, the good-natured and the grasping, on a sinister enticing equality.
And they were all, men and women and vehicles, phantoms flitting and murmuring and hooting in the darkness.
And the violet glow-worms that hung in front of theatres and cinemas seemed to mark the entrances to unimaginable fastnesses, and the side streets seemed to lead to the precipitous edges of the universe where nothing was.
G.
J.
recognised Christine just beyond the knot of loiterers at the Piccadilly Tube.
The improbable had happened.
She was walking at what was for her a rather quick pace, purposeful and preoccupied.
For an instant the recognition was not mutual; he liked the uninviting stare that she gave him as he stopped.
"It is thou?"
she exclaimed, and her dimly-seen face softened suddenly into a delighted, adoring smile.
He was moved by the passion which she still had for him.
He felt vaguely and yet acutely an undischarged obligation in regard to her.
It was the first time he had met her in such circumstances.
A
constraint fell between them.
In five minutes she would have been in her Promenade engaged upon her highly technical business, displaying her attractions while appearing to protect herself within a virginal timidity (for this was her natural method).
In any case, even had he not set forth on purpose to find her, he could scarcely have accompanied her to the doors of the theatre and there left her to the night's routine.
They both hesitated, and then, without a word, he turned aside and she followed close, acquiescent by training and by instinct.
Knowing his sure instinct for what was proper, she knew at once that hazard had saved her from the night's routine, and she was full of quiet triumph.
He, of course, though absolutely loyal to her, had for dignity's sake to practise the duplicity of pretending to make up his mind what he should do.
They went through the Tube station and were soon in one of the withdrawn streets between Coventry Street and Pall Mall East.
The episode had somehow the air of an adventure.
He looked at her; the hat was possibly rather large, but, in truth, she was the image of refinement, delicacy, virtue, virtuous surrender.
He thought it was marvellous that there should exist such a woman as she.
And he thought how marvellous was the protective vastness of the town, beneath whose shield he was free--free to live different lives simultaneously, to make his own laws, to maintain indefinitely exciting and delicious secrecies.
Not half a mile off were Concepcion and Queen, and his amour was as safe from them as if he had hidden it in the depths of some hareemed Asiatic city.
Christine said politely: "But I detain thee?"
"As for that," he replied, "what does that matter, after all?"
"Thou knowest," she said in a new tone, "I am all that is most worried.
In this London they are never willing to leave you in peace."
"What is it, my poor child?"
he asked benevolently.
"They talk of closing the Promenade," she answered.
"Never!"
he murmured easily, reassuringly.
He remembered the night years earlier when, as a protest against some restrictive action of a County Council, the theatre of varieties whose Promenade rivalled throughout the whole world even the Promenade of the Folies-Bergère, shut its doors and darkened its blazing facade, and the entire West End seemed to go into a kind of shocked mourning.
But the next night the theatre had reopened as usual and the Promenade had been packed.
Close the Promenades!
Absurd!
Not the full bench of archbishops and bishops could close the Promenades!
The thing was inconceivable, especially in war-time, when human nature was so human.
"But it is quite serious!"
she cried.
"Everyone speaks of it....
What idiots!
What frightful lack of imagination!
And how unjust!
What do they suppose we are going to do, we other women?
Do they intend to put respectable women like me on to the pavement?
It is a fantastic idea!
Fantastic!...
And the night-clubs closing too!"
"There is always the other place."
"The Ottoman?
Do not speak to me of the Ottoman.
Moreover, that also will be suppressed.
They are all mad."
She gave a great sigh.
"Oh!
What a fool I was to leave Paris!
After all, in Paris, they know what it is, life!
However, I weary thee.
Let us say no more about it."
She controlled her agitation.
The subject was excessively delicate, and that she should have expressed herself so violently on it showed the powerful reality of the emotion it had aroused in her.
Unquestionably the decency of her livelihood was at stake.
She had convinced him of the peril.
But what could he say?
He could not say, "Do not despair.
You are indispensable; therefore you will not be dispensed with.
These crises have often arisen before, and they always end in the same manner.
And are there not the big hotels, the chic cinemas, certain restaurants?
Not to mention the clientèle which you must have made for yourself?"
Such remarks were impossible.
But not more impossible than the very basis of his relations with her.
He was aware again of the weight of an undischarged obligation to her.
His behaviour towards her had always been perfection, and yet was she not his creditor?
He had a conscience, and it was illogical and extremely inconvenient.
At that moment a young man flew along the silent, shadowed street, and as he passed them shouted somewhat hysterically the one word: "Zepps!"
Christine clutched his arm.
They stood still.
"Do not be frightened," said G. J.
with perfect tranquillity.
"But I hear guns," she protested.
He, too, heard the distant sounds of guns, and it occurred to him that the sounds had begun earlier, while they were talking.
"I expect it's only anti-aircraft practice," he replied.
"I seem to remember seeing a warning in the paper about there being practice one of these nights."
Christine, increasing the pressure on his arm and apparently trying to drag him away, complained: "They ought to give warning of raids.
That is elementary.
This country is so bizarre."
"Oh!"
said G. J.
, full of wisdom and standing his ground.
"That would never do.
Warnings would make panics, and they wouldn't help in the least.
We are just as safe here as anywhere.
Even supposing there is an air-raid, the chance of any particular spot being hit must be several million to one against.
And I don't think for a moment there is an air-raid."
"Why?"
"Well, I don't," G. J.
answered with calm superiority.
The fact was that he did not know why he thought there was not an air-raid.
To assume that there was not an air-raid, in the absence of proof positive of the existence of an air-raid, was with him constitutional: a state of mind precisely as illogical, biased and credulous as the alarmist mood which he disdained in others.
Also he was lacking in candour, for after a few seconds the suspicion crept into his mind that there might indeed be an air-raid--and he would not utter it.
"In any case," said Christine, "they always give warning in Paris."
He thought: "I'd better get this woman home," and said aloud: "Come along."
"But is it safe?"
she asked anxiously.
He saw that she was the primeval woman, exactly like Concepcion and Queen.
First she wanted to run, and then when he was ready to run she asked: "Is it safe?"
And he felt very indulgent and comfortably masculine.
He admitted that it would be absurd to expect the conduct of a frightened Christine to be governed by the operations of reason.
He was not annoyed, because personally he simply did not care a whit whether they moved or not.
While they were hesitating a group of people came round the corner.
These people were talking loudly, and as they approached G. J.
discerned that one of them was pointing to the sky.
"There she is!
There she is!"
shouted an eager voice.
Seeing more human society in G. J.
and Christine, the group stopped near them.
G.
J.
gazed in the indicated direction, and lo!
there was a point of light in the sky.
And then guns suddenly began to sound much nearer.
"What did I tell you?"
said another voice.
"I told you they'd cleared the corner at the bottom of St. James's Street for a gun.
Now they've got her going.
Good for us they're shooting southwards."
Christine was shaking on G. J.'
s arm.
"It's all right!
It's all right!"
he murmured compassionately, and she tightened her clutch on him in thanks.
He looked hard at the point of light, which might have been anything.
The changing forms of thin clouds continually baffled the vision.
"By god!"
shouted the first voice.
"She's hit.
See her stagger?
She's hit.
She'll blaze up in a moment.
One down last week.
Another this.
Look at her now.
She's afire."
The group gave a weak cheer.
Then the clouds cleared for an instant and revealed a crescent.
G.
J.
said: "That's the moon, you idiots.
It's not a Zeppelin."
Even as he spoke he wondered, and regretted, that he should be calling them idiots.
They were complete strangers to him.
The group vanished, crestfallen, round another corner.
G.
J.
laughed to Christine.
Then the noise of guns was multiplied.
That he was with Christine in the midst of an authentic air-raid could no longer be doubted.
He was conscious of the wine he had drunk at the club.
He had the sensation of human beings, men like himself, who ate and drank and laced their boots, being actually at that moment up there in the sky with intent to kill him and Christine.
It was a marvellous sensation, terrible but exquisite.
And he had the sensation of other human beings beyond the sea, giving deliberate orders in German for murder, murdering for their lives; and they, too, were like himself, and ate and drank and either laced their boots or had them laced daily.
And the staggering apprehension of the miraculous lunacy of war swept through his soul.
Chapter 30 THE CHILD'S ARM
"You see," he said to Christine, "it was not a Zeppelin....
We shall be quite safe here."
But in that last phrase he had now confessed to her the existence of an air-raid.
He knew that he was not behaving with the maximum of sagacity.
There were, for example, hotels with subterranean grill-rooms close by, and there were similar refuges where danger would be less than in the street, though the street was narrow and might be compared to a trench.
And yet he had said, "We shall be quite safe here."
In others he would have condemned such an attitude.
Now, however, he realised that he was very like others.
An inactive fatalism had seized him.
He was too proud, too idle, too negligent, too curious, to do the wise thing.
He and Christine were in the air-raid, and in it they should remain.
He had just the senseless, monkeyish curiosity of the staring crowd so lyrically praised by the London Press.
He was afraid, but his curiosity and inertia were stronger than his fear.
Then came a most tremendous explosion--the loudest sound, the most formidable physical phenomenon that G. J.
had ever experienced in his life.
The earth under their feet trembled.
Christine gave a squeal and seemed to subside to the ground, but he pulled her up again, not in calm self-possession, but by the sheer automatism of instinct.
A spasm of horrible fright shot through him.
He thought, in awe and stupefaction: "A bomb!"
He thought about death and maiming and blood.
The relations between him and those everyday males aloft in the sky seemed to be appallingly close.
After the explosion perfect silence--no screams, no noise of crumbling--perfect silence, and yet the explosion seemed still to dominate the air!
Ears ached and sang.
Something must be done.
All theories of safety had been smashed to atoms in the explosion.
G.
J.
dragged Christine along the street, he knew not why.
The street was unharmed.
Not the slightest trace in it, so far as G. J.
could tell in the gloom, of destruction!
But where the explosion had been, whether east, west, south or north, he could not guess.
Except for the disturbance in his ears the explosion might have been a hallucination.
Suddenly he saw at the end of the street a wide thoroughfare, and he could not be sure what thoroughfare it was.
Two motor-buses passed the end of the street at mad speed; then two taxis; then a number of people, men and women, running hard.
Useless and silly to risk the perils of that wide thoroughfare!
He turned back with Christine.
He got her to run.
In the thick gloom he looked for an open door or a porch, but there was none.
The houses were like the houses of the dead.
He made more than one right angle turn.
Christine gave a sign that she could go no farther.
He ceased trying to drag her.
He was recovering himself.
Once more he heard the guns--childishly feeble after the explosion of the bomb.
After all, one spot was as safe as another.
The outline of a building seemed familiar.
It was an abandoned chapel;
he knew he was in St. Martin's Street.
He was about to pull Christine into the shelter of the front of the chapel, when something happened for which he could not find a name.
True, it was an explosion.
But the previous event had been an explosion, and this one was a thousandfold more intimidating.
The earth swayed up and down.
The sound alone of the immeasurable cataclysm annihilated the universe.
The sound and the concussion transcended what had been conceivable.
Both the sound and the concussion seemed to last for a long time.
Then, like an afterthought, succeeded the awful noise of falling masses and the innumerable crystal tinkling of shattered glass.
This noise ceased and began again....
G.
J.
was now in a strange condition of mild wonder.
There was silence in the dark solitude of St. Martin's Street.
Then the sound of guns supervened once more, but they were distant guns.
G.
J.
discovered that he was not holding Christine, and also that, instead of being in the middle of the street, he was leaning against the door of a house.
He called faintly, "Christine!"
No reply.
"In a moment," he said to himself, "I must go out and look for her.
But I am not quite ready yet."
He had a slight pain in his side; it was naught; it was naught, especially in comparison with the strange conviction of weakness and confusion.
He thought: "We've not won this war yet," and he had qualms.
One poor lamp burned in the street.
He started to walk slowly and uncertainly towards it.
Near by he saw a hat on the ground.
It was his own.
He put it on.
Suddenly the street lamp went out.
He walked on, and stepped ankle-deep into broken glass.
Then the road was clear again.
He halted.
Not a sign of Christine!
He decided that she must have run away, and that she would run blindly and, finding herself either in Leicester Square or Lower Regent Street, would by instinct run home.
At any rate, she could not be blown to atoms, for they were together at the instant of the explosion.
She must exist, and she must have had the power of motion.
He remembered that he had had a stick;
he had it no longer.
He turned back and, taking from his pocket the electric torch which had lately come into fashion, he examined the road for his stick.
The sole object of interest which the torch revealed was a child's severed arm, with a fragment of brown frock on it and a tinsel ring on one of the fingers of the dirty little hand.
The blood from the other end had stained the ground.
G.
J.
abruptly switched off the torch.
Nausea overcame him, and then a feeling of the most intense pity and anger overcame the nausea.
(A month elapsed before he could mention his discovery of the child's arm to anyone at all.
) The arm lay there as if it had been thrown there.
Whence had it come?
No doubt it had come from over the housetops....
He smelt gas, and then he felt cold water in his boots.
Water was advancing in a flood along the street.
"Broken mains, of course," he said to himself, and was rather pleased with the promptness of his explanation.
At the elbow of St. Martin's Street, where a new dim vista opened up, he saw policemen, then firemen; then he heard the beat of a fire-engine, upon whose brass glinted the reflection of flames that were flickering in a gap between two buildings.
A huge pile of debris encumbered the middle of the road.
The vista was closed by a barricade, beyond which was a pressing crowd.
"Stand clear there!"
said a policeman to him roughly.
"There's a wall going to fall there any minute."
He walked off, hurrying with relief from the half-lit scene of busy, dim silhouettes.
He could scarcely understand it; and he was incapable of replying to the policeman.
He wanted to be alone and to ponder himself back into perfect composure.
At the elbow again he halted afresh.
And as he stood figures in couples, bearing stretchers, strode past him.
The stretchers were covered with cloths that hung down.
Not the faintest sound came from beneath the cloths.
After a time he went on.
The other exit of St. Martin's Street was being barricaded as he reached it.
A large crowd had assembled, and there was a sound of talking like steady rain.
He pushed grimly through the crowd.
He was set apart from the idle crowd.
