Sinister Street by Compton Mackenzie (great books to read TXT) 📕

very good,” commented the tobacconist. “Well, we want a bit of brightening up nowadays down this way, and that’s a fact. Why, I can remember Cremorne Gardens. Tut-tut! Bless my soul. Yes, and the old World’s End. That’s going back into the seventies, that is. And it seems only yesterday.”

“I rather wish I’d got a ticket,” said Michael.

“Why not let me get you one, sir, and send it round to Cheyne Walk? I suppose you’d like one for a lady as well?”

“No, I’ll have two men’s tickets.”

Michael had a vague notion of getting Maurice or Lonsdale to accompany him, and he went off immediately to 422 Grosvenor Road; but the studio was deserted. Nor was he successful in finding Lonsdale. Nobody seemed to have finished his holidays yet. It would be rather boring to go alone, he thought; but when he found the tickets waiting for him, they seemed to promise a jolly evening, even if he did no more than watch other people enjoying themselves. No doubt there would be plenty of spectators without masks, like himself, and in ordinary evening dress. So about half-past nine Michael set off alone to the carnival.

Redcliffe Hall, viewed from the outside in the January fog which was deepening over the city, seemed the last place in the world likely to contain a carnival. It was one of those dismal gothic edifices which, having passed through ecclesiastical and municipal hands with equal loss to both, awaits a suitable moment for destruction before it rises again in a phoenix of new flats. However, the awning hung with Japanese lanterns that ran from the edge of the curb up to the entrance made it now not positively forbidding.

Michael went up to the gallery and watched the crowd of dancers. Many of the fancy dresses had a very homely look, but there were also professional equipments from costumiers and a very few really beautiful inventions. The medley of colors, the motion of the dance, the sound of the music, the streamers of bunting and the ribbons fluttering round the Maypole in the middle of the room, all combined to give Michael an illusion of a very jocund assemblage. There were plenty of men dancing without masks, which was rather a pity, as their dull, ordinary faces halted abruptly the play of fancy. On second thoughts he was glad such revelers were allowed upon the floor, since as the scene gradually began to affect him he felt it might be amusing for himself to dance once or twice before the evening ended. With this notion in view, he began to follow more particularly the progress of different girls, balancing their charms one against another, and always deriving a good deal of pleasure from the reflection that, while at this moment they did not know of his existence, in an hour’s time he might have entered their lives. This thought did give a romantic zest to an entertainment which would otherwise have been quite cut off from his appreciation.

Suddenly Michael’s heart began to quicken: the blood came in rushes and swift recessions that made him feel cold and sick. Two girls walking away from him along the side of the hall⁠—those two pierrettes in black⁠—that one with the pale blue pompons was Lily! Why didn’t she turn round? It must be Lily. The figure, the walk, the hair were hers. The pierrettes turned, but as they were masked Michael could still not be sure if one were Lily. They were dancing together now. It must be Lily. He leaned over the rail of the gallery to watch them sweep round below him, so that he might listen if by chance above the noise Lily’s languorous voice could reach him. Michael became almost positive that it was she. There could not be another girl to seem so like her. He hurried down from the gallery and stood in the entrance to the ballroom. Where were they now? They were coming toward him: the other pierrette with the rose pompons said something as they passed. It could only be Lily who bowed her head like that in lazy assent. It was Lily! Should he call out to her, when next they passed him? If it were not Lily, what a fool he would look. If it were not Lily, it would not matter what he looked, for the disappointment would outweigh everything else. They were going up the room again. They were turning the corner again. They were sweeping toward him again. They were passing him again. He called “Lily! Lily!” in a voice sharp with eagerness. Neither girl gave a sign of attention. It was not she, after all. Yet his voice might have been drowned in the noise of the dance. He would call again; but again they passed him by unheeding. The dance was over. They had stopped at the other end of the room. He pressed forward against the egress of the dancers. He pressed forward roughly, and once or twice he heard grumbling murmurs because he had deranged a difficult piece of costumery. He was conscious of angry masks regarding him; and then he was free of the crowd, and before him, talking together under a canopy of holly were the two pierrettes. The musicians sat among the palms looking at him as they rested upon their instruments. Michael felt that his voice was going to refuse to utter her name:

“Lily! Lily!”

The pierrette with the pale blue pompons turned at the sound of his voice. Why did she not step forward to greet him, if indeed she were Lily? She was, she was Lily: the other pierrette had turned to see what she was going to do.

“I say, how on earth did you recognize me?” Lily murmured, raising her mask and looking at Michael with her smile that was so debonair and tender, so scornful and so passionate.

“I saw you in November coming out of the Orient. I tried to get across the road to