________________________________________________
_ During the fortnight that Alexander was
in London he drove himself hard. He got
through a great deal of personal business
and saw a great many men who were doing
interesting things in his own profession.
He disliked to think of his visits to London
as holidays, and when he was there he worked
even harder than he did at home.
The day before his departure for Liverpool
was a singularly fine one. The thick air
had cleared overnight in a strong wind which
brought in a golden dawn and then fell off to
a fresh breeze. When Bartley looked out of
his windows from the Savoy, the river was
flashing silver and the gray stone along the
Embankment was bathed in bright, clear sunshine.
London had wakened to life after three weeks
of cold and sodden rain. Bartley breakfasted
hurriedly and went over his mail while the
hotel valet packed his trunks. Then he
paid his account and walked rapidly down the
Strand past Charing Cross Station. His spirits
rose with every step, and when he reached
Trafalgar Square, blazing in the sun, with its
fountains playing and its column reaching up
into the bright air, he signaled to a hansom,
and, before he knew what he was about, told
the driver to go to Bedford Square by way of
the British Museum.
When he reached Hilda's apartment she
met him, fresh as the morning itself.
Her rooms were flooded with sunshine and full
of the flowers he had been sending her.
She would never let him give her anything else.
"Are you busy this morning, Hilda?" he asked
as he sat down, his hat and gloves in his hand.
"Very. I've been up and about three hours,
working at my part. We open in February, you know."
"Well, then you've worked enough. And so
have I. I've seen all my men, my packing is done,
and I go up to Liverpool this evening.
But this morning we are going to have
a holiday. What do you say to a drive out to
Kew and Richmond? You may not get another
day like this all winter. It's like a fine
April day at home. May I use your telephone?
I want to order the carriage."
"Oh, how jolly! There, sit down at the desk.
And while you are telephoning I'll change my dress.
I shan't be long. All the morning papers are on the table."
Hilda was back in a few moments wearing a
long gray squirrel coat and a broad fur hat.
Bartley rose and inspected her. "Why don't
you wear some of those pink roses?" he asked.
"But they came only this morning,
and they have not even begun to open.
I was saving them. I am so unconsciously thrifty!"
She laughed as she looked about the room.
"You've been sending me far too many flowers,
Bartley. New ones every day. That's too often;
though I do love to open the boxes, and I take good care of them."
"Why won't you let me send you any of those jade
or ivory things you are so fond of? Or pictures?
I know a good deal about pictures."
Hilda shook her large hat as she drew
the roses out of the tall glass. "No, there are
some things you can't do. There's the carriage.
Will you button my gloves for me?"
Bartley took her wrist and began to
button the long gray suede glove.
"How gay your eyes are this morning, Hilda."
"That's because I've been studying.
It always stirs me up a little."
He pushed the top of the glove up slowly.
"When did you learn to take hold of your
parts like that?"
"When I had nothing else to think of.
Come, the carriage is waiting.
What a shocking while you take."
"I'm in no hurry. We've plenty of time."
They found all London abroad. Piccadilly
was a stream of rapidly moving carriages,
from which flashed furs and flowers and
bright winter costumes. The metal trappings
of the harnesses shone dazzlingly, and the
wheels were revolving disks that threw off
rays of light. The parks were full of children
and nursemaids and joyful dogs that leaped
and yelped and scratched up the brown earth
with their paws.
"I'm not going until to-morrow, you know,"
Bartley announced suddenly. "I'll cut
off a day in Liverpool. I haven't felt
so jolly this long while."
Hilda looked up with a smile which she
tried not to make too glad. "I think people
were meant to be happy, a little," she said.
They had lunch at Richmond and then walked
to Twickenham, where they had sent the carriage.
They drove back, with a glorious sunset behind them,
toward the distant gold-washed city.
It was one of those rare afternoons
when all the thickness and shadow of London
are changed to a kind of shining, pulsing,
special atmosphere; when the smoky vapors
become fluttering golden clouds, nacreous
veils of pink and amber; when all that
bleakness of gray stone and dullness of dirty
brick trembles in aureate light, and all the
roofs and spires, and one great dome, are
floated in golden haze. On such rare
afternoons the ugliest of cities becomes
the most poetic, and months of sodden days
are offset by a moment of miracle.
"It's like that with us Londoners, too,"
Hilda was saying. "Everything is awfully
grim and cheerless, our weather and our
houses and our ways of amusing ourselves.
But we can be happier than anybody.
We can go mad with joy, as the people do out
in the fields on a fine Whitsunday.
We make the most of our moment."
She thrust her little chin out defiantly
over her gray fur collar, and Bartley looked
down at her and laughed.
"You are a plucky one, you." He patted her glove
with his hand. "Yes, you are a plucky one."
Hilda sighed. "No, I'm not. Not about
some things, at any rate. It doesn't take pluck
to fight for one's moment, but it takes pluck
to go without--a lot. More than I have.
I can't help it," she added fiercely.
After miles of outlying streets and little
gloomy houses, they reached London itself,
red and roaring and murky, with a thick
dampness coming up from the river, that
betokened fog again to-morrow. The streets
were full of people who had worked indoors
all through the priceless day and had now
come hungrily out to drink the muddy lees of
it. They stood in long black lines, waiting
before the pit entrances of the theatres--
short-coated boys, and girls in sailor hats,
all shivering and chatting gayly. There was
a blurred rhythm in all the dull city noises--
in the clatter of the cab horses and the rumbling
of the busses, in the street calls, and in the
undulating tramp, tramp of the crowd. It was
like the deep vibration of some vast underground
machinery, and like the muffled pulsations
of millions of human hearts.
[See "The Barrel Organ by Alfred Noyes. Ed.]
[I have placed it at the end for your convenience]
"Seems good to get back, doesn't it?"
Bartley whispered, as they drove from
Bayswater Road into Oxford Street.
"London always makes me want to live more
than any other city in the world. You remember
our priestess mummy over in the mummy-room,
and how we used to long to go and bring her out
on nights like this? Three thousand years! Ugh!"
"All the same, I believe she used to feel it
when we stood there and watched her and wished
her well. I believe she used to remember,"
Hilda said thoughtfully.
"I hope so. Now let's go to some awfully
jolly place for dinner before we go home.
I could eat all the dinners there are in
London to-night. Where shall I tell the driver?
The Piccadilly Restaurant? The music's good there."
"There are too many people there whom
one knows. Why not that little French place
in Soho, where we went so often when you
were here in the summer? I love it,
and I've never been there with any one but you.
Sometimes I go by myself, when I am particularly lonely."
"Very well, the sole's good there.
How many street pianos there are about to-night!
The fine weather must have thawed them out.
We've had five miles of `Il Trovatore' now.
They always make me feel jaunty.
Are you comfy, and not too tired?"
I'm not tired at all. I was just wondering
how people can ever die. Why did you
remind me of the mummy? Life seems the
strongest and most indestructible thing in the
world. Do you really believe that all those
people rushing about down there, going to
good dinners and clubs and theatres, will be
dead some day, and not care about anything?
I don't believe it, and I know I shan't die,
ever! You see, I feel too--too powerful!"
The carriage stopped. Bartley sprang out
and swung her quickly to the pavement.
As he lifted her in his two hands he whispered:
"You are--powerful!" _
Read next: CHAPTER VIII
Read previous: CHAPTER VI
Table of content of Alexander's Bridge
GO TO TOP OF SCREEN
Post your review
Your review will be placed after the table of content of this book
