The Drunkard

Gilbert ate nothing at the Carlton, but drank again. Distinguished still, an arresting personality in any room, his face had become deeply flushed and rather satyr-like as he watched Rita with longing, wonder, and an uneasy suspicion that only added fuel to the flame.

It was after midnight when he drove her home and they parted upon the steps of Queens Mansions.

He staggered a little in the fresh air as he stood there, though Rita in her excitement did not notice it. He had drunk enough during that day and night to have literally killed two ordinary men.

"To-morrow!" he said, trying to put something that he knew was not there into his dull voice. "To-morrow night."

"To-morrow!" she replied. "At the same time," and evading his clumsy attempt at an embrace, she swirled into the hall of the flat with a last kiss of her hand.

And even Prince, at the club, had never seen "Mr. Gilbert" so brutishly intoxicated as he was that night.

CHAPTER III

THIRST

"A little, passionately, not at all?"
She casts the snowy petals on the air..

    – Villanelle of Marguerites.
Lothian had taken chambers for a short time in St. James' and near his club. Prince, the valet, had found the rooms for him and the house, indeed, was kept by the man's brother.

Gilbert would not stay at the club. Rita could not come to him there. He wanted a place where he could be really alone with her.

During the first few days, though they met each night and Gilbert ransacked London to give her varied pleasure, Rita would not come and dine in his chambers. "I couldn't possibly, Gilbert dear," she would say, and the refusal threw him into a suppressed fever of anger and irritation.

He dare show little or nothing of it, however. Always he had a haunting fear that he might lose her. If she was silent or seemed cold he trembled inwardly and redoubled his efforts to please, to gratify her slightest whim, to bring her back to gaiety and a caressing, half lover-like manner.

She knew it thoroughly and would play upon him like a piano, striking what chords she wished.

He spent money like water, and in hardly any time at all, the girl whose salary was thirty-five shillings a week found a delirious joy in expensive wines and foods, in rare flowers, in what was to her an astounding vie de luxe. If they went to a theatre – "Gilbert, we simply must have the stage box. I'm not in the mood to sit anywhere else to-night," – and the stage box it was.

There is a shop in Bond Street where foolish people buy cigarettes which cost three pence or four pence each and a box of a hundred is bought for two guineas or so. Rita wouldn't smoke any others. Rita knew no more about wine than she did about astronomy, but she would pucker her pretty brows over the carte des vins in this or that luxurious restaurant, and invariably her choice would fall upon the most expensive. Once, it was at the Ritz, she noticed the word Tokay – a costly Johannesburger wine – and asked Gilbert what it was. He explained, and then, to interest her, went on to tell of the Imperial Tokay, the priceless wine which is almost unobtainable.

"But surely one could get it here?" she had said eagerly.

"It's not on the card, dear."

"Do ask, Gilbert!"

He asked. A very special functionary was called, who hesitated, hummed and hawed. "There was some of the wine in the cellars, a half bin, just as there was some of the famous White Hermitage – but, but" – he whispered in Gilbert's ear, "The King of Spain, um um um – The Grand Duke Alexis – you'll understand, sir, 'm 'm."

They were favoured with a bottle at last. Rita was triumphant. Gilbert didn't touch it. Rita drank two glasses and it cost five pounds.

Lothian did not care twopence. He had been poor after he left Oxford. His father, the solicitor, who never seemed to understand him or to care much about him, had made him an infinitesimal allowance during the young man's journalistic days. Then, when the old man died he had left his son a comfortable income. Mary had money also. The house at Mortland Royal was their own, they lived in considerable comfort but neither had really expensive tastes and they did not spend their mutual income by a long way. Gilbert's poems had sold largely also. He was that rare bird, a poet who actually made money – probably because he could have done very well without it.

It did not, therefore, incommode him in the least to satisfy every whim of Rita's. If it amused her to have wine at five pounds a bottle, what on earth did it matter? Frugal in his tastes and likings himself – save only in a quantity of cheap poison he procured – he was lavish for others. Although, thinking it would amuse him, his wife had begged him to buy a motor-car he had always been too lazy or indifferent to do so.

So he had plenty of money. If Rita Wallace had been one of the devouring harpies of Paris, who – if pearls really would melt in champagne – would drink nothing else, Gilbert could have paid the piper for a few weeks at any rate.

But Rita was curious. He would have given her anything. Over and over again he had pressed her to have things – bracelets, a ring, a necklace. She had refused with absolute decision.

She had let him give her a box of gloves, flowers she could not have enough of, the more costly the amusement of the night the better she seemed to like it. But that was all.

In his madness, his poisoned madness, he would have sold his house to give her diamonds had she asked for them – she would not even let him make her a present of a trumpery silver case for cigarettes.

She was baffling, elusive, he could not understand her. For several days she had refused to dine alone with him in his rooms.

One night, when he was driving her home after the dinner at the Ritz and a box at the Comedy theatre, he had pressed her urgently. She had once more refused.

And then, something unveiled and brutal had risen within him. The wave of alcohol submerged all decency and propriety of speech. He was furiously, coarsely angry.

"Damn you!" he said. "What are you afraid of? – of compromising yourself? If there were half a dozen people in London who knew or cared what you did, you've done that long ago. And for heaven's sake don't play Tartuffe with me. Haven't I been kissing you as much as ever I wanted to for the last three days? Haven't you kissed me? You'll dine with me to-morrow night in St. James' Street or I'll get out of town at once and chuck it all. I've been an ass to come at all. I'm beginning to see that now. I've been leaving the substance for the shadow."

She answered nothing to this brutal tirade for a minute or two.

The facile anger died away from him. He cursed himself for his insane folly in jeopardising everything and felt compunction for his violence.

He was just about to explain and apologise when he heard a chuckle from the girl at his side.

He turned swiftly to her. Her face was alight with pleasure, mingled with an almost tender mischief. She laughed aloud.

"Of course I'll come, Gilbert dear," she said softly – "since you command me!"

He realised at once that, like all women, she found joy in abdication when it was forced upon her. The dominant male mind had won in this little contest. He had bullied her roughly. It was a new sensation and she liked it.

But when she dined in the rooms and he tried to accomplish artificially what he had achieved spontaneously, she was on her guard and it was quite ineffectual.

They sat at a little round table. The dinner was simple, but perfectly served. During the meal, for once, – once again – he had talked like his old self, brilliantly touching upon literary things and illuminating much that had been dark to her before with that splendour of intellect which came back to him to-night for a space; and brought a trace of spirituality to his coarsening face.

And after dinner he had made her play to him on the little Bord piano against the wall. She was not a good pianist but she was efficient, and certain things that she knew well, and felt, she played well.

With some technical accomplishment she certainly rendered the "Bees' Wedding" of Mendelssohn with astonishing vivacity that night. The elfin humour of the thing harmonised so much with certain aspects of her own temperament!

The swarming bees of Fairyland were in the room!

And then, with merry malice, and at Gilbert's suggestion, she improvised a Podley Polonaise.

Then she gave a little melody of Dvôrak that she knew – "A mad scarlet thing by Dvôrak," he quoted to her, and finally, at Gilbert's urgent request, she attempted the Troisième Ballade of Chopin.

It reminded him of the first night on which he had met her, at the Amberleys' house. She did not play it well but his imagination filled the lacunae; his heated mind rose to a wild ecstasy of longing.

He put his arm round her and embraced her with tears in his eyes.

"Sweetheart," he said, "you are wonderful! See! We are alone here together, perfectly alone, perfectly happy. Let us always be for each other. Dear, I will sacrifice everything for you. You complete me. You were made for me. Come away with me, come with me for ever and ever. My wife will divorce me and we can be married; always to be together."

He had declared himself, and his wicked wish at last. He made an open proffer of his shameful love.

There was not a single thought in his mind of Mary, her deep devotion, her love and trust. He brushed aside the supreme gift that God had allowed him as a man brushes away an insect from his face.