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The Tempting of Tavernake, a novel by E. Phillips Oppenheim |
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Book One - Chapter 12. Tavernake Blunders |
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_ BOOK ONE CHAPTER XII. TAVERNAKE BLUNDERS Tavernake felt that he had indeed wandered into an alien world as he took his place the following evening among the little crowd of people who were waiting outside the stage-door of the Atlas Theatre. These were surroundings to which he was totally unaccustomed. Two very handsome motor-cars were drawn up against the curb, and behind them a string of electric broughams and taxicabs, proving conclusively that the young ladies of the Atlas Theatre were popular in other than purely theatrical circles. The handful of young men by whom Tavernake was surrounded were of a genus unknown to him. They were all dressed exactly alike, they all seemed to breathe the same atmosphere, to exhibit the same indifference towards the other loungers. One or two more privileged passed in through the stage-door and disappeared. Tavernake contented himself with standing on the edge of the curbstone, his hands thrust into the pockets of his dark overcoat, his bowler hat, which was not quite the correct shape, slightly on the back of his head; his serious, stolid face illuminated by the gleam from a neighboring gas lamp. Presently, people began to emerge from the door. First of all, the musicians and a little stream of stage hands. Then a girl's hat appeared in the doorway, and the first of the Atlas young ladies came out, to be claimed at once by her escort. Very soon afterwards, Beatrice arrived. She recognized Tavernake at once and crossed over to him. "Well?" she asked. "You looked very nice," he said, slowly, as he led the way down the street. "Of course, I knew about your singing, but everything else--seemed such a surprise." "For instance?" "Why, I mean your dancing," he went on, "and somehow or other you looked different on the stage." She shook her head. "'Different' won't do for me," she persisted. "I must have something more specific." "Well, then, you looked much prettier than I thought you were," Tavernake declared, solemnly. "You looked exceedingly nice." "You really thought so?" she asked, a little doubtfully. "I really thought so. I thought you looked much nicer than any of the others." She squeezed his arm affectionately. "Dear Leonard," she said, "it's so nice to have you think so. Do you know, Mr. Grier actually asked me out to supper." "What impertinence!" Tavernake muttered. Beatrice threw her head back and laughed. "My dear brother," she protested, "it was a tremendous compliment. You must remember that it was entirely through him, too, that I got the engagement. Four pounds a week I am going to have. Just think of it!" "Four pounds a week is all very well," Tavernake admitted. "It seems a great deal of money to earn like that. But I don't think you ought to go out to supper with any one whom you know so slightly." "Dear prig! You know, you are a shocking prig, Leonard." "Am I?" he answered, without offence, and with the air of one seriously considering the subject. "Of course you are. How could you help it, living the sort of life you've led all your days? Never mind, I like you for it. I don't know whether I want to go out to supper with anybody--I really haven't decided yet--but if I did, it would certainly be better for me to go with Mr. Grier, because he can do me no end of good at the theatre, if he likes." Tavernake was silent for several moments. He was conscious of feeling something which he did not altogether understand. He only knew that it involved a strong and unreasonable dislike to Mr. Grier. Then he remembered that he was her brother, that he had the right to speak with authority. "I hope that you will not go out to supper with any one," he said. She began to laugh but checked herself. "Well," she remarked, "that sounds very terrible. Shall we take a 'bus? To tell you the truth, I am dying of hunger. We rehearsed for two hours before the performance, and I ate nothing but a sandwich--I was so excited." Tavernake hesitated a moment--he certainly was not himself this evening! "Would you like to have some supper at a restaurant," he asked, "before we go home?" "I should love it," she declared, taking his arm as they passed through a stream of people. "To tell you the truth, I was so hoping that you would propose it." "I think," Tavernake said, deliberately, "that there is a place a little way along here." They pushed their way down the Strand and entered a restaurant which Tavernake knew only by name. A small table was found for them and Beatrice looked about with delight. "Isn't this jolly!" she exclaimed, taking off her gloves. "Why, there are five or six of the girls from the theatre here already. There are two, see, at the corner table, and the fair-haired girl --she is just behind me in the chorus." Tavernake glanced around. The young women whom she pointed out were all escorted by men who were scrupulously attired in evening dress. She seemed to read his thoughts as she laughed at him. "You stupid boy," she said. "You don't suppose that I want to be like them, do you? There are lots of things it's delightful to look on at, and that's all. Isn't this fish good? I love this place." Tavernake looked around him with an interest which he took no pains to conceal. Certainly the little groups of people by whom they were surrounded on every side had the air of finding some zest in life which up to the present, at any rate, had escaped him. They came streaming in, finding friends everywhere, laughing and talking, insisting upon tables in impossible places, calling out greetings to acquaintances across the room, chaffing the maitre d'hotel who was hastening from table to table. The gathering babel of voices was mingled every now and then with the popping of corks, and behind it all were the soft strains of a very seductive little band, perched up in the balcony. Tavernake felt the color mounting into his cheeks. It was true: there was something here which was new to him! "Beatrice," he asked her suddenly, "have you ever drunk champagne?" She laughed at him. "Often, my dear brother," she answered. "Why?" "I never have," he confessed. "We are going to have some now." She would have checked him but he had summoned a waiter imperiously and given his order. "My dear Leonard," she protested, "this is shocking extravagance." "Is it?" he replied. "I don't care. Tell me about the theatre. Were they kind to you there? Will you be able to keep your place?" "The girls were all much nicer than I expected," she told him, "and the musical director said that my voice was much too good for the chorus. Oh, I do hope that they will keep me!" "They would be idiots if they didn't," he declared, vigorously. "You sing better and you dance more gracefully and to me you seemed much prettier than any one else there." She laughed into his eyes. "My dear brother," she exclaimed, "your education is progressing indeed! It is positively the first evening I have ever heard you attempt to make pretty speeches, and you are quite an adept already." "I don't know about that," he protested. "I suppose it never occurred to me before that you were good-looking," he added, examining her critically, "or I dare say I should have told you so. You see, one doesn't notice these things in an ordinary way. Lots of other people must have told you so, though." "I was never spoilt with compliments," she said. "You see, I had a beautiful sister." The words seemed to have escaped her unconsciously. Almost as they passed her lips, her expression changed. She shivered, as though reminded of something unpleasant. Tavernake, however, noticed nothing. For the greater part of the day he had been sedulously fighting against a new and unaccustomed state of mind. He had found his thoughts slipping away, time after time, until he had had to set his teeth and use all his will power to keep his attention concentrated upon his work. And now once more they had escaped, again he felt the strange stir in his blood. The slight flush on his cheek grew suddenly deeper. He looked past the girl opposite to him, out of the restaurant, across the street, into that little sitting-room in the Milan Court. It was Elizabeth who was there in front of him. Again he heard her voice, saw the turn of her head, the slow, delightful curve of the lips, the eyes that looked into his and spoke to him the first strange whispers of a new language. His heart gave a quick throb. He was for the moment transformed, a prisoner no longer, a different person, indeed, from the stolid, well-behaved young man who found himself for the first time in his life in these unaccustomed surroundings. Then Beatrice leaned towards him, her voice brought him back to the present--not, alas, the voice which at that moment he would have given so much to have heard. "To-night," she murmured, "I feel as though we were at the beginning of new things. We must drink a toast." Tavernake filled her glass and his own. "Luck to you in your new profession!" he said. "And here is one after your own heart, you most curious of men!" she exclaimed, a few seconds later. "To the undiscovered in life!" He drained his glass and set it down empty. "The undiscovered," he muttered, looking around. "It is a very good toast, Beatrice. There are many things of which one might remain ignorant all one's life if one relied wholly upon one's own perceptions." "I believe," she agreed, "that if I had not appeared you were in great danger of becoming narrow." "I am sure of it," he answered, "but you see you came." She was thoughtful for a moment. "This reminds me just a little of that first dreary feast of ours," she said. "You knew what it was like then to feed a genuinely starving girl. And I was miserable, Leonard. It didn't seem to me that there was any other end save one." "You've got over all that nonsense?" he asked anxiously. "Yes, I suppose so," she answered. "You see, I've started life again and one gets stronger. But there are times even now," she added, "when I am afraid." The mirth had suddenly died from her face. She looked older, tired, and careworn. The shadows were back under her eyes; she glanced around almost timorously. He filled her glass. "That is foolishness," he said. "Nothing nor anybody can harm you now." Some note in his voice attracted her attention. Strong and square, with hard, forceful face, he sat wholly at his ease among these unfamiliar surroundings, a very tower of refuge, she felt, to the weak. His face was not strikingly intellectual--she was not sure now about his mouth--but one seemed to feel that dogged nature, the tireless pains by which he would pursue any aim dear to him. The shadows passed away from her mind. What was dead was gone! It was not reasonable that she should be haunted all her days by the ghosts of other people's sins. The atmosphere of the place, the atmosphere of the last few hours, found its way again into her blood. After all, she was young, the music was sweet, her pulses were throbbing to the tune of this new life. She drank her wine and laughed, her head beating time to the music. "We have been sad long enough," she declared. "You and I, my dear serious brother, will embark in earnest now upon the paths of frivolity. Tell me, how did things go to-day?" It flashed into his mind that he had great news, but that it was not for her. About that matter there was still doubt in his mind, but he could not speak of it. "I have had an offer," he said guardedly. "I cannot say much about it at present, for nothing is certain, but I am sure that I shall be able to raise the money somehow." His tone was calm and confident. There was no self-assurance or bluster about it, and yet it was convincing. She looked at him curiously. "You are a very positive person, Leonard," she remarked. "You must have great faith in yourself, I think." He considered the question for a moment. "Perhaps I have," he admitted. "I do not think that there is any other way to succeed." The atmosphere of the place was becoming now almost languorous. The band had ceased to play; little parties of men and women were standing about, bidding one another goodnight. The lamps had been lowered, and in the gloom the voices and laughter seemed to have become lower and more insinuating; the lights in the eyes of the women, as they passed down the room on their way out, softer and more irresistible. "I suppose we must go," she said reluctantly. Tavernake paid his bill and they turned into the street. She took his arm and they turned westward. Even out here, the atmosphere of the restaurant appeared to have found its way. The soberness of life, its harder and more practical side, was for the moment obscured. It was not the daytime crowd, this, whose footsteps pressed the pavements. The careworn faces of the money-seekers had vanished. The men and women to whom life was something of a struggle had sought their homes--resting, perhaps, before they took up their labors again. Every moment taxicabs and motor-cars whirled by, flashing upon the night a momentary impression of men in evening dress, of women in soft garments with jewels in their hair. The spirit of pleasure seemed to have crept into the atmosphere. Even the poorer people whom they passed in the street, were laughing or singing. Tavernake stopped short. "To-night," he declared, "is not the night for omnibuses. We are going to have a taxicab. I know that you are tired." "I should love it," she admitted. They hailed one and drove off. Beatrice leaned back among the cushions and closed her eyes, her ungloved hand rested almost caressingly upon his. He leaned forward. There were new things in the world--he was sure of it now, sure though they were coming to him through the mists, coming to him so vaguely that even while he obeyed he did not understand. Her full, soft lips were slightly parted; her heavily-fringed eyelids closed; her deep brown hair, which had escaped bounds a little, drooping over her ear. His fingers suddenly clasped hers tightly. "Beatrice!" he whispered. She sat up with a start, her eyes questioning his, the breath coming quickly through her parted lips. "Once you asked me to kiss you, Beatrice," he said. "To-night -- I am going to." She made no attempt to repulse him. He took her in his arms and kissed her. Even in that moment he knew that he had made a mistake. Nevertheless, he kissed her again and again, crushing her lips against his. "Please let me go, Leonard," she begged at last. He obeyed at once. He understood quite well that some strange thing had happened. It seemed to him during those next few minutes that everything which had passed that night was a dream, that this vivid picture of a life more intense, making larger demands upon the senses than anything he had yet experienced, was a mirage, a thing which would live only in his memory, a life in which he could never take any part. He had blundered; he had come into a new world and he had blundered. A sense of guilt was upon him. He had a sudden wild desire to cry out that it was Elizabeth whom he had kissed. Beatrice was sitting upright in her place, her head turned a little away from him. He felt that she was expecting him to speak--that there were inevitable words which he should say. His silence was a confession. He would have lied but the seal was upon his lips. So the moment passed, and Tavernake had taken another step forward towards his destiny! . . . As he helped her out of the cab, her fingers tightened for a moment upon his hand. She patted it gently as she passed out before him into the house, leaving the door open. When he had paid the cabman and followed, she had disappeared. He looked into the sitting-room; it was empty. Overhead, he could hear her footsteps as she ascended to her room. _ |
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