As I stripped off my miserable gewgaws I discovered myself talking into my solitude; weeping, beseeching, though eyes were dry and tongue silent. I scoured away the chalk and paint: and cleansed as far as possible my travel-stained clothes. From my bit of looking-glass a scared and shining face looked out. “Oh, my dear,” I whispered, but not to its reflection, “it is as clean now and forever as I can make it.” I tied up my bundle.
It was impossible to cheat away the moments any longer. I sat down and listened. A distant roar of welcome, like that of a wave breaking over a wreck, had been borne across as the band broke into its welcoming tune. I saw the ring, its tall, lank-cheeked “master” in his white shirt and coattails, the lights, the sidling, squalling clown, and the slim, exquisite creature with its ungainly rider ambling on and on. Where sat Fanny amidst that rabble? What were her thoughts? Was Mrs. Monnerie already yawning over the low, beggarly scene? A few minutes now. I began to count. A scream, human or animal, rose faint and awful in the distance, and died away.
I climbed down the ladder and looked out of the tent. Far-spread the fields and wooded hills lay, as if in a swoon beneath the blazing moonlight. The scattered lamps on the slope shone dim as glowworms. Only a few figures loitered in the gleam of the sideshows, and so engrossed and still sat the watching multitude beneath the enormous mushroom of the tent, so thinly floated out its strains of music, that the hollow clucking of the stream over its pebbles beneath the wan-stoned bridge was audible. A few isolated stars glittered faintly in the heights of the sky. What was happening now? Why did he not hasten? I was ready: my life prepared. I could bear no more waiting. A whip cracked. The music ceased: silence. One moment now.
Again the whip cracked. And then, as if at a signal, a vast, protracted, unanimous bawl poured up into space, a spout of sound, like a gigantic, invisible flower. “That wasn’t applause. But, you know, that wasn’t applause,” I heard myself muttering. There can be no mistaking the sound of human mockery. There can be no mistaking that brutal wrench at the heart, under one’s very ribs. I leapt round where I stood, in a kind of giddiness.
The shout died away. An indiscriminate clamour broke out—clapping of hands, beating of feet, whistling, hootings, booings, catcalls, and these all but drowned by cymbal, drum, trombone: “Goodbye, Sweetheart, Goodbye.” It was over. Unlike Mrs. Monnerie, the mob was imperfectly satisfied. But all was well. The elephant, massive, imperturbable—the sagacious elephant with the hurdy-gurdy, must now be swinging into the ring.
I ran out over the trampled grass to meet the approaching group—showman, gipsy, trembling, sweating pony. Its rider stooped forward on the saddle, clutching its pommel, as if afraid of falling. He pushed himself off, lurched unsteadily, lifted and let fall his arm in an attempt to stroke the milk-white snapping muzzle. The strings of his cloak were already broken. He edged from beneath it, and with his left hand clumsily brushed the dust and damp from his face.
“He hadn’t quite the knack of it,” the showman was explaining. “Stirrup a morsel too short, maybe. All the strength, lady, and the ginger, by God, but not the knack, you understand. And we offered him a quieter little animal too. But what I say is, a bargain’s a bargain, that’s what I say. A bit dazed-like, sir, eh? My, you did come a cropper.”
“Sst! are you hurt?” I whispered.
The head shook; his moon-washed face smiled at me.
“Come now, come now,” I implored him, tugging at his arm, “before the crowd. …”
He recoiled as if my touch had scalded him.
“We go—” I turned to the showman.
Hands thrust under his leathern belt, he looked fixedly at me, and then at the woman. Her eyes glittered glassily back at him.
“That’s it. The young lady knows best. He’s twisted his shoulder, lady; wrenched it; more weight than size, as you might say. She’ll know where to make her friend comfortable. Trust the ladies. Never you be afraid of that. Now, then, Mary, fetch up the gentleman’s cart.”
The woman, with one wolfish glance into his face, obeyed.
“There, sir! Is that easier? Push the rags in there behind his back. It’ll save the jolts. Lord love you, I wouldn’t split on the pair of you, not me. I know the old, old story. There, that’s it! Now, then, your ladyship. No more weight in the hand than a mushroom! All serene, Mary. Home sweet home; that’s the tune, sir, ain’t it? Drive easy now: and off we go.”
LIII
Noiselessly turned the wheels in the grass. We were descending the hill. A jolt, and we were in the road. A hedgerow shut us out from the two shrouded watchers by the tent. The braying music fainted away; and apart from the trotting hoofs and the grinding of the wheels in the dust, the only sound I heard was an occasional lofty crackle in space, as a rocket—our last greeting from the circus—stooping on its fiery course, strewed its coloured stars into the moonlight. Then the rearing hillside shut us out.
Speechlessly, from the floor of the cart, I watched the stooping figure above me. Ever and again, at any sudden lurch against
