Merry Go Round (32 page)

'My dear Mr Farley, I congratulate you with all my heart. I see already these shapely calves encased in the gaiters episcopal.'

Mr Farley smiled pleasantly, for he made a practice of appreciating the jests of elderly maiden ladies with ample means, and he could boast that to his sense of humour was due the luxurious appointing of his church; for no place of
worship in the West End had more beautiful altar-cloths and handsomer ornaments, nowhere could be seen smarter hassocks for the knees of the devout or hymn-books in a more excellent state of preservation.

The newly-married couple meant to spend their honeymoon on the river, and having lunched in Charles Street, started immediately.

'I'm thankful they don't want us to see them off at Paddington,' said Frank, when he walked with Miss Ley towards the Park.

'Why are you in such an abominable temper?' she asked, smiling. 'During luncheon I was twice on the point of reminding you that marriage is an event at which a certain degree of hilarity is not indecorous.'

Frank did not answer, and now they turned in at one of the Park gates. In that gay June weather the place was crowded; though the hour was early still, motors tore along with hurried panting, carriages passed tranquil and dignified; the well-dressed London throng sat about idly on chairs, or lounged up and down looking at their neighbours, talking light-heartedly of the topics of the hour. Frank's eyes travelled over them slowly, and shuddering a little, his brow grew strangely dark.

'During that ceremony and afterwards I could think of nothing but Jenny. It's only eighteen months since I signed my name for Basil's first marriage in a dingy registry office. You don't know how beautiful the girl was on that day, full of love and gratitude and happiness. She looked forward to the future with such eager longing! And now she's rotting underground, and the woman she hated and the man she adored are married, and they haven't a thought for all her misery. I hated Basil in his new frock-coat, and Hilda Murray, and you. I can't imagine why a sensible woman like you should overdress ridiculously for such a function.'

Miss Ley, conscious of the entire success of her costume, could afford to smile at this.

'I have observed that whenever you're out of humour with yourself you insult me,' she murmured.

Frank went on, his face hard and set, his dark eyes glowering fiercely.

'It all seemed so useless. It seemed that the wretched girl had to undergo such frightful torture merely to bring these two commonplace creatures together. They must have no imagination, or no shame – how could they marry with that unhappy death between them? For, after all, it was they who killed her. And d'you think Basil is grateful because Jenny gave him her youth and her love, her wonderful beauty, and at last her life? He doesn't think of her. And you, too, because she was a barmaid are convinced that it's a very good thing she's out of the way. The only excuse I can see for them is that they're blind instruments of fate: Nature was working through them, obscurely, working to join them together for her own purposes, and because Jenny came between she crushed her ruthlessly.'

'I can find a better excuse for them than that,' answered Miss Ley, looking gravely at Frank. 'I forgive them because they're human and weak. The longer I live, the more I am overwhelmed by the utter, utter weakness of men; they do try to do their duty, they do their best honestly, they seek straight ways, but they're dreadfully weak. And so I think one ought to be sorry for them and make all possible allowances. I'm afraid it sounds rather idiotic, but I find the words now most frequently on my lips are: "Forgive them, for they know not what they do."'

They walked silently, and after a while Frank stopped on a sudden and faced Miss Ley. He pulled out his watch.

'It's quite early yet, and we have the afternoon before us. Will you come with me to the cemetery where Jenny is buried?'

'Why not let the dead lie? Let us think of life rather than of death.'

Frank shook his head.

'I must go. I couldn't rest otherwise. I can't bear that on this day she should be entirely forgotten.'

'Very well. I will come with you.'

They turned round and came out of the Park. Frank hailed a cab, and they started. They passed the pompous mansions of the great, sedate and magnificent, and driving north, traversed
long streets of smaller dwellings, dingy and grey notwithstanding the brightness of the sky; they went on, it seemed interminably, and each street strangely, awfully, resembled its predecessor. They came to roads where each house was separate and had its garden, and there were trees and flowers. They were the habitations of merchants and stockbrokers, and had a trim, respectable look, self-satisfied and smug; but these they left behind for more crowded parts. And now it seemed a different London, more vivacious, more noisy. The way was thronged with trams and 'buses, and there were coster-barrows along the pavements; the shops were gaudy and cheap, and the houses mean. They drove through slums, with children playing merrily on the curb and women in dirty aprons, blowzy and dishevelled, lounging about their doorsteps. At length they reached a broad straight road, white and dusty and unshaded, and knew their destination was at hand, for occasionally they passed a shop where gravestones were made; and an empty hearse trundled by, the mutes huddled on the box, laughing loudly, smoking after the fatigue of their accustomed work. The cemetery came in sight, and they stopped at iron gates and walked in. It was a vast place, crowded with every imaginable kind of funeral ornament, which glistened white and cold in the sun. It was hideous, vulgar, and sordid, and one shuddered to think of the rude material minds of those who could bury folk they loved in that restless ground, wherein was neither peace nor silence. They might prate of the soul's immortality, but surely in their hearts they looked upon the dead as common clay, or they would never have borne that they should lie till the Day of Judgement in that unhallowed spot. There was about it a gross, business-like air that was infinitely depressing. Frank and Miss Ley walked through, passing a knot of persons, black-robed, about an open grave, where a curate uttered hastily, with the boredom of long habit, the most solemn words that man has ever penned:

Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay.

Miss Ley, pale of face, took Frank's arm and hurried on. Here and there dead flowers were piled upon new graves; here and there the earth was but freshly turned. They came at last to where Jenny lay, an oblong stone of granite whereon was cut a simple cross; and Frank gave a sudden cry, for it was covered at that moment, so that only the cross was outlined, with red roses. For a while they stared in silence, amazed.

'They're quite fresh,' said Miss Ley. 'They were put here this morning.' She turned to Frank, and looked at him slowly. 'You said they'd forgotten, and they came on their wedding-day and laid roses on her grave.'

'D'you think she came, too?'

'I'm sure of it. Ah, Frank, I think one should forgive them a good deal for that. I told you that they did strive to do right, and if they fell it was only because they were human and very weak. Don't you think it's better for us to be charitable? I wonder if we should have surmounted any better than they did their great difficulties and their great temptations?'

Frank made no reply, and for a long time they contemplated those rich red roses, and thought of Hilda's tender hands laying them gently on the poor woman's cold gravestone.

'You're right,' he said at last. 'I can forgive them a good deal because they had this thought. I hope they will be very happy.'

'I think it's a good omen.' She laid her hand on Frank's arm. 'And now let us go away, for we are living, and the dead have nothing to say to us. You brought me here, and now I want to take you on farther – to show you something more.'

He did not understand, but followed obediently till they came to the cab. Miss Ley told the driver to go straight on, away from London, till she bade him stop. And then, leaving behind them that sad place of death, they came suddenly into the open. The highway had the pleasant brown hardness of a country road, and it was bordered by a hawthorn hedge. Green fields stretched widely on either side, and they might have been a hundred miles from London town. Miss Ley stopped the cab, and told the man to wait whilst she and her friend walked on.

'Don't look back,' she said to Frank, 'only look forward. Look at the trees and the meadows.'

The sky was singularly blue, and the dulcet breeze bore gracious odours of the country. There was a suave limpidity of the air which chased away all ugly thoughts. Both of them, walking quickly, breathed with wide lungs, inspiring eagerly the radiance of that summer afternoon. On a turn of the road Miss Ley gave a quick cry of delight, for she saw the hedge suddenly ablaze with wild roses.

'Have you a knife?' she said. 'Do cut some.'

And she stood while he gathered a great bunch of the simple fresh flowers. He gave them to her, and she held them with both hands.

'I love them because they're the same roses as grow in Rome from the sarcophagi in the gardens. They grow out of those old coffins to show us that life always triumphs over death. What do I care for illness and old age and disease! The world may be full of misery and disillusion, it may not give a tithe of what we ask, it may offer hatred instead of love – disappointment, wretchedness, triviality, and heaven knows what; but there is one thing that compensates for all the rest, that takes away the merry-go-round from a sordid show, and gives it a meaning, a solemnity, and a magnificence, which make it worth while to live. And for that one thing all we suffer is richly overpaid.'

'And what the dickens is that?' asked Frank, smiling.

Miss Ley looked at him with laughing eyes, holding out the roses, her cheeks flushed.

'Why, beauty, you dolt!' she cried gaily. 'Beauty.'