A Bed of Roses Part 33

'No,' growled Cairns, 'you know what I want.'

'Patience and shuffle the cards,' said Victoria, 'and be thankful I'm here at all. But I musn't rot you Tommy dear, after a present like that.'

She slipped her fingers under the diamond cross. Cairns watched the picture made by the rosy manicured finger nails, the sparkling stones, the white skin.

'A pity it doesn't match my rings,' she remarked.

Cairns looked at her hand.

'Oh, no more it does. I thought you had a half hoop. Never mind, dear.

Give me that sapphire ring.'

'What do you want it for?' asked Victoria with a conscious smile.

'That's my business.'

She slipped it off. He took it, pressing her fingers.

'I think you ought to have a half hoop,' he said conclusively.

Victoria leant back in her chair. Her smile was triumphant. Truly, men are hard masters but docile slaves.

'You'll spoil me, Tom,' she said weakly. 'I don't want you to think that I'm fis.h.i.+ng for things. I'm quite happy, you know. I'd rather you didn't give me another ring.'

'Nonsense,' said Cairns, 'I wouldn't give it you if I didn't like to see it on your hand.'

'I don't believe you,' she said smoothly, but the phrase rang true.

Some minutes later, as they pa.s.sed down the stairs into the palm room, she was conscious of the eyes that followed her. Those of the men were mostly a little dilated; the women seemed more cynically interested, as suits those who appraise not bodies but garments. Major Cairns, walking a step behind her, was still looking well, with his close cut hair and moustache, stiff white linen and erect bearing. Victoria realised herself as a queen in a worthy kingdom. But the kingdom was not the one she wished to hold with all the force of her beauty. That beauty was transitory, or at least its subtler quality was. As Victoria lay in the brougham with Cairns's arm holding her close to him, she still remembered that the fading of her beauty might synchronise with the growth of her wealth. A memory from some book on political economy flashed through her mind: beauty was a wasting a.s.set.

Cairns kissed her on the lips. An atmosphere of champagne, coffee, tobacco, enveloped her as her breath mixed with his. She coiled one arm round his neck and returned his kisses.

'Vic, Vic,' he murmured, 'can't you love me a little?'

She put her hand behind his neck and once more kissed his lips. He must be lulled, but not into security.

Victoria had never realised her strength and her freedom so well as that night, as she leant back in her box. Her face and breast, the Major's s.h.i.+rt front, were the only spots of light which emerged from the darkness of the box as if pictured by a German impressionist; down below, under the mist, the d.a.m.ned souls revelled in the cheap seats; they swayed, a black ma.s.s speckled with hundreds of white collars, dotted with points of fire in the bowls of pipes. By the side of the men, girls in white blouses or crude colours, shrouded in the mist of tobacco smoke. Now and then a ring coiled up from a cigar in the stalls, swirled in the air for a moment and then broke.

Just behind the footlights blazing over the blackness, a little fat man, with preposterous breeches, a coat of many colours, a yellow wisp of hair clas.h.i.+ng with his vinous nose, sang of the Bank and his manifold accounts. A faint salvo of applause ushered him out, then swelled into a tempest as the next number went up.

'Tommy Bung, you're in luck,' said the Major, taking off Victoria's wrap.

She craned forward to see. A woman with ma.s.ses of fair hair, bowered in blue velvet, took a long look at her from the stage box through an opera gla.s.s.

The curtain went up. There was a roar of applause. Tommy Bung was ready for the audience and had already fallen into a tub of whitewash. The sorry object extricated itself. His red nose shone, star like. He rolled ferocious eyes at a girl. The crowd rocked with joy. Without a word the great Tommy Bang began to dance. At once the hall followed the splendid metre. Up and down, up and down, twisting, curvetting, Tommy Bung held his audience spellbound with rhythm. They swayed sharply with the alternations.

Victoria watched the Major. His hands were beating time. Tommy Bung brought his effort to a conclusion by beating the floor, the soles of his feet, the scenery, and punctuated the final thwack with a well timed leap on the prompter's box.

Victoria was losing touch with things. Waves of heat seemed to overwhelm her; little figures of jugglers, gymnasts, performing dogs, pa.s.sed before her eyes like arabesques. Then again raucous voices. The crowd was applauding hysterically. It was Number Fourteen, whose great name she was fated never to know. Unsteadily poised on legs wide apart, Number Fourteen sang. Uncontrollable glee radiated from him--

Now kids is orl right When yer ain't got none; Yer can sit at 'ome An' eat 'cher dam bun.

I've just 'ad some twins; Nurse says don't be coy, For they're just the picture Of the lodger's boy.

Tinka, Tinka, Tinka; Tinka, Tinka, Tink 'It 'im in the eye and made the lodger blink.

Tinga, Tinga, Tinga; Tinga, Tinga, Teg Never larfed so much since farver broke 'is leg.

A roar of applause encouraged him. Victoria saw Cairns carried away, clapping, laughing. In the bar below she could hear continuously the thud of the levers belching beer. Number Fourteen was still singing, his smile wide-slit through his face--

Now me paw-in-law 'E's a rum ole bloke; Got a 'and as light As a ton o' c.o.ke.

Came 'ome late one night An' what oh did 'e see?

Saw me ma-in-law On the lodger's knee.

Tinka, Tinka, Tinka; Tinka, Tinka, Tink 'It 'im in the eye an' made the lodger blink.

Tinga, Tinga, Tinga; Tinga, Tinga, Teg, Never larfed so much since farver broke 'is leg.

Enthusiasm was rising high. Number Fourteen braced himself for his great effort on the effects of beer. Then, gracious and master of the crowd, he beat time with his hands while the chorus sounded from a thousand throats. Victoria happened to look at Cairns. His head was beating time and, from his lips issued gleefully:

Tinka, Tinka, Tinka; Tinka, Tinka, Tink 'It 'im in the eye--

Victoria scrutinised him narrowly. Cairns was a phenomenon.

'Never larfed so much since farver broke 'is leg,' roared Cairns. 'I say, Vic, he really _is_ good.' He noticed her puzzled expression. 'I say, Vic, what's up? Don't you like him?'

Victoria did not answer for a second.

'Oh, yes, I--he's very funny--you see I've never been in a music hall before.'

'Oh, is that it?' Cairns's brow cleared. 'It's a little coa.r.s.e, but so natural.'

'Is that the same thing?' asked Victoria.

'S'pose it is. With some of us anyhow. But what's the next?'

Cairns had already relapsed into the programme. He hated the abstract; a public school, Sandhurst and the army had armoured him magnificently against intrusive thought. They watched the next turn silently. A couple of cross-talk comedians, one a shocking creature in pegtop trousers, a shock yellow head and a battered opera hat, the other young, handsome and smart as a superior barber's a.s.sistant, gibbered incomprehensibly of songs they couldn't sing and lies they could tell.

The splendid irresponsibility of the music hall was wasted on Victoria.

She had the mind of a schoolmistress grafted on a social sense. She saw nothing before her but the gross riot of the drunken. She saw no humour in that c.o.c.kney cruelty, capable though it be of absurd generosity. She resented too Cairns's boyish pleasure in it all; he revelled, she felt, as a buffalo wallows in a mud bath. He was gross, stupid, dull. It was degrading to be his instrument of pleasure. But, after all, what did it matter? He was the narrow way which would lead her to the august.

Though Cairns was not thin-skinned he perceived a little of this.

Without a word he watched the cross-talk comedians, then the 'Dandy Girl of Cornucopia,' a rainbow of stiff frills with a voice like a fretsaw.

As the lights went down for the bioscope, the idea of reconciliation that springs from fat cheery hearts overwhelmed him. He put his hand out and closed it over hers. With a tremendous effort she repressed her repulsion, and in so doing won her victory. In the darkness Cairns threw his arms round her. He drew her towards him, moved, the least bit hysterical. As if fearful of losing her he crushed her against his s.h.i.+rt front.

Victoria did not resist him. Her eyes fixed on the blackness of the roof she submitted to the growing brutality of his kisses on her neck, her shoulders, her cheeks. Pressed close against him she did not withdraw her knees from the grasp of his.

'Kiss me,' whispered Cairns imperiously.

She cast down her eyes; she could hardly see his face in the darkness, nothing but the glitter of his eyeb.a.l.l.s. Then, unhurried and purposeful, she pressed her lips to his. The lights went up again. Many of the crowd were stirring; Victoria stretched out her arms in a gesture of weariness.

'Let's go home, Vic,' said Cairns, 'you're tired.'

'Oh, no, I'm not tired,' she said. 'I don't mind staying.'