Grey Mask

CHAPTER XII

At a quarter to seven that same evening Charles Moray rang the bell of Miss Langton’s tiny flat. Margaret opened the door and stood facing him across the threshold.

“Charles!” Her voice betrayed no pleasure.

She had left the sitting-room door open behind her. At the first glance the effect was one of colour-dark red curtains; bright coloured cushions; Margaret a silhouette, in her black dress with the light behind her. She kept her hand on the door and did not move to let him in.

“Well?” said Charles. “Now that you’re quite sure it’s me, couldn’t we come in?”

Margaret dropped her hand, turned, and walked past the table to the hearth. A handful of sticks just lighted crackled there. She bent and put a lump of coal on them.

Charles came in behind her and shut the door. He was in a fever of impatience to look at her, to see her face. And then she rose suddenly from the fire and swung round; the light shone on her. She was pale-clear, and pale, and fine; the only colour was in her eyes-brown sombre colour with a dark fire behind the brown. She had changed; sorrow had gone over her and changed her. But under the change there was still Margaret, a Margaret who was so familiar that his heart jumped.

She spoke quickly:

“I’m afraid I can’t ask you to stop. I’ve only just got in, and I have to get my supper.”

“The soul of hospitality!” said Charles. “As a matter of fact I came to propose that we should dine somewhere and dance or do a show-whichever you like best.”

She had changed-he supposed that he himself had changed; but Margaret ought not to have changed so much as this. The strong lines of cheek and jaw showed too plainly. Her eyes were too large; they looked darker. That was because she was so pale, and because of her black dress. Something welled up through his anger.

“Freddy told me you were here. Margaret, I want to say I’m so sorry about-her. Archie told me. I hadn’t heard.”

Margaret moved quickly.

“Yes-I can’t talk about it. Where did you see Freddy?”

“He was dining with some people at The Luxe. I haven’t gone down to Thornhill Square yet. The Luxe is-more sociable. I thought we might dine there tonight.”

“No,” said Margaret.

“Now look here! Just be a reasonable creature for once in a way. The change will do you good. I propose that we strew a little decent dust over the hatchet just for to-night. We needn’t really bury it, you know-quite without prejudice, as the lawyers say. After all, one must dine.”

Margaret looked at him out of those big dark eyes. He thought they mocked him.

“My dear Charles, I don’t dine-I sup. When I’m very affluent I have an egg or a sardine. When I’m not-”

“Revolting!” said Charles. “Come and dine-real dinner.”

“No,” said Margaret. Her tone was a little fainter. Last night’s bitter weeping had left her weary and cold. Now her mood began to change; there came over her an impatience of all this dreary round into which her life had fallen. Charles standing there brought back the old days; his voice, his teasing, smiling eyes, his air of cheerful vigour, all brought with them a longing for the old life, the old natural enjoyment in a hundred things which had slipped away from her.

“Come along,” said Charles. He let his voice soften and his eyes look into hers.

She stopped resisting the turn of her mood. Why shouldn’t she go back for an hour like a ghost, eat, drink and be merry, dance through an evening, and leave to-morrow to take care of itself?

“Well?” said Charles. “You’ve just time to dress.”

He looked over her shoulder at the clock on the mantelpiece, a pretty trifle of bright green china with wreaths of gold and painted flowers. He and Margaret had bought it together in an old shop in Chelsea; he had given it to her on her nineteenth birthday, a month before they became engaged. The hands pointed to a quarter to seven.

He said, “Well? You’re coming?” and saw the colour come into her face.

She laughed unexpectedly and picked up the clock. He watched with surprise and amusement. What was she going to do?

What she did was to open the clock and turn the hands. They went round with a little whirr; she was turning them backwards-once-twice-three-four-five times; and as they turned, she became the glowing, young, live Margaret of that nineteenth birthday.

“What are you doing?” asked Charles smiling.

“I’m putting back the clock five years,” said Margaret. There was a shade of defiance in her tone. Five years took them back to the days before what Charles had called the “episode”; it took them back to the time when they were just neighbours and friends, seeing one another every day, full of common interest, engagements, diversions, quarrels.

Charles lifted his eyebrows.

“Five years?”

She nodded.

“Yes, five. Is it a bargain?”

“Go and dress,” he said.

Charles made himself very agreeable over dinner. Incidentally he began to learn something of Margaret’s life during the past four years. To his surprise he found that she had been working during the whole of the time, though she had gone on living in George Street until her mother’s death.

“Freddy was very anxious I shouldn’t think you had quarrelled with him.” He laughed. “How would one set about quarrelling with Freddy? Has anyone ever done it?”

“I shouldn’t think so.”

“You didn’t?”

“My dear Charles!”

“No-but did you?”

“Would it be your business if I had?”

Charles considered.

“You’re not playing the game. This is five years ago and I am thinking of asking you to marry me. Yes, I think it’s my business, because you see, if a girl has quarrelled with her step-father and left home, one might want to know why before one took the fatal plunge.”

Margaret put down her left hand and clenched it on the sharp edges of the chair on which she sat. Just for a moment all the lights in the long room seemed to swing, and the room itself was full of a grey mist. She looked steadily into the mist until it lifted and showed her Charles leaning towards her across the table with his charming malicious smile.

“Are you playing the game? You can’t have it both ways, you know. If it’s now, it’s not your business; and if it’s five years ago”-her voice broke in a sudden laugh-“why, if it’s five years ago, I haven’t left home at all.”

“Your trick!” said Charles. But he had seen her colour go, and just for one horrid moment he had thought that she might be going faint.

After dinner they danced in the famous Gold Room. Margaret was a beautiful dancer, and for a time they did not talk at all. Perhaps they were both remembering the last time they had danced together, a week before the wedding day which had never come.

Charles broke the silence. Memories are too dangerous sometimes.

“All the old tunes are as dead as door-nails. I don’t know the name of anything. Do you?”

“The last one,” said Margaret, “is called I don’t mind being all alone when I’m all alone with you.”

“And this one?”

They were close to the orchestra, and a young man with a piercing tenor uplifted his voice and sang through his nose: “Oh, baby! Don’t we get along?”

“Ripping!” said Charles. “I like the way these fellows burst into song.”

“I’m happy! You’re happy!” sang the young man in the band.

“In fact,” said Charles, “the libretto has been specially written for us. I must thank the management. You wouldn’t like to come with me, I suppose?”

Margaret laughed.

“No, I wouldn’t. And you needn’t think you can get a rise out of me by saying things like that, because you can’t.”

“Sure?”

“Quite sure.”

“Then let’s talk about swimming the channel, or flying to Tierra del Fuego, or something nice and safe like that.”

Margaret laughed again; and when she laughed, the dark fire sparkled in her eyes.

“My charwoman-I have her once a week when I feel rich enough-doesn’t think flying at all nice-not for a lady ‘as calls herself a lady.’ She said to me this morning that days and nights alone with a ‘pirate’ was what she didn’t call respectable. She’s a priceless treasure, and if I could afford to have her every day, it would cheer me up quite a lot.”

“Do you need cheering? And if you do, must it be a charwoman?”

Another dance had begun. They glided into it. Margaret did not perhaps think that Charles’s last remark called for an answer. The young man in the band broke forth once more: “Can’t we be sweethearts now?”

“This song and dance business is very amusing,” said Charles. “Not a dull moment anywhere. What’s that step the fellow over there’s doing? It looks tricky. Do you know it? You do? Then we’ll practise it together.”

He saw her home, and it was on the dark doorstep that he said,

“The clock’s turned back again, and I want to ask you a question?”

“It’s too late-I must go in.”

“Yes, it’s too late; but I want to ask you all the same. You wouldn’t give me the chance four years ago, you know. Why did you do it, Margaret?”

He heard her take her breath; felt, rather than saw, that she stepped back.

“I can’t tell you.”

“Why can’t you?”

“I can’t. It’s all over and done with, and dead and buried.” Her rather deep voice sank deeper. “It’s all over.”

“I wonder,” said Charles.

Margaret pushed her latch-key into the lock with a fierce thrust.

“It’s over,” she said.

The door shut between them heavily.