Twopence Coloured (39 page)

T
HAT afternoon Jackie met Charles, at the Waldorf Hotel, for tea.

There was an elusive humour and alteration in their
relationship
even before she had told him. “Anything the matter?” asked Charles. “No,— nothing the matter,” said Jackie….

She had more difficulty in telling him that she would have believed possible. “Of course, you’ll think me
quite
mad,” she said…. But as soon as it was out, and as soon as he had gazed at her in a baffled way, and as soon as he had told her how very wise indeed he thought she was, and as soon as she had observed how truly happy it seemed to have made him — an indescribable elation began to steal, like a film, over Jackie’s soul — a happiness which could not but expand as the time wore on and they spoke ever more intimately to each other.

And they did truly awake to a new intimacy. They did not speak of her future, for “That can wait — for the present, anyway,” said Charles. Instead they discussed a thousand little things in the past, as though it had all been a rather dreadful ordeal from which they had both just emerged….

And they paused to smile at each other, over the table, in the wide, hushed, spoon-clinking place, and were glowingly delighted with each other.

Until at last, just as they were getting up from tea, and the music in the restaurant behind had just begun its
appealing
strains, a height of calm happiness was reached by Jackie, such as she had seldom experienced before.

“I say, Jackie,” he said. “Let’s go somewhere for dinner to-night.”

“But, Charles dear,” said Jackie, and it was at this moment
that that calm triumphant height was reached, “you’ve got to go back to Brighton.”

“No, I haven’t. I can ’phone up, and I’ll sleep at the club. There’s no difficulty.”

“And I’d have to go back to change, wouldn’t I?”

“Well, that’s all right. I’ll see you off now. You see, I feel we really must do something about it to-night.
Everything’s
so different now — is n’t it, Jackie?”

“Yes — I suppose it is, Charles,” she said, smiling; and she was on a height at that moment, too.

He led the way out, and when they had reached the street he said that she must have a taxi all the way back to West Kensington. She cried out upon this, but he called one before she was ready, and she got into it, and sat alone.

Then Charles had a small conference with the driver, inaudible amid the noise around, and coming back, to see that the door was fixed, said, “This
is
paid for, Jackie. See you at seven,” and smiled. And as she was swept away, they smiled and lifted their hands….

It comforted her extraordinarily to know that this taxi was paid for, though she could not quite analyse the feeling…. She felt a great pride in taking this from Charles — and yet she felt that she had a right to do so….

The taxi sped at a great pace through London, and it was one of those chill November twilights (with a little red still in the sky, but the lights already twinkling emerald, all the way along, in a mist) which she knew so well…. Rather like those red, cool skies to which she used to return, after those days in the country, with Richard….

Jackie did not lie back in her taxi to-night. She sat up, and observed her London. She really felt that she could afford to do so. Her prolonged and ancient grudge against this city that had so stolidly, insidiously, and inactively defeated her, was miraculously lifted to-night. Indeed, whizzing through the grave (though sparkling and busy) streets, she had an enormous sensation of forgiveness and friendliness — a friendliness which was, she fancied, in some blind way, returned. And there might have been several ways of
accounting
for this new amity, but principally, she thought, it was because this was, after all, a farewell.

For she knew now, with a calm and sweet assurance that replaced and was more glad than reason, that the end had come to her sojourn here, and that very soon she would be taken away.

Taken away, thought Jackie, taken away. And she lay back.

And then she began to think of Charles….

And the night fell, and the taxi jolted on, and she observed the driver’s jerking and unknowing black shoulder as he worked the machine. How many of those shoulders had she seen, at work for her, and what a furious and foolish round of locomotion it had all been!

She liked watching that shoulder. Its surly owner had so little interest in her, and yet he called to mind so much. London…. In her great new gladness she felt a great pity arising for the poor Cockney in front of her.

*

THE END