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Chapter XII

"God!Did you ever see anything funnier in your life?" said Arthur Devereux, without moving a muscle of his face.

"I certainly never did," Sidney agreed, making desperate efforts to control her amusement.

They sat in a fern bower in a corner of the Whakapara hall, watching the dancers at a charity ball.

A young and popular farmer had been killed by a fall from his horse, and the shocked community had risen as one man to assist his young wife and two babies, who were left with little but mortgages and debts. Only too glad of a dramatic event that would draw everybody and make the occasion memorable the young people decided for a ball, easily persuading their elders. Something about a real ball, they knew, always stirred the single men to propose as the weekly dances never did.

Every girl for ten miles around slaved to get the finest supper and produce the most lavish decorations the Whakapara hall had ever known. And, in truth, there was little wrong with either.

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The bare walls of the building were entirely hidden by ferns and greenery, which also festooned out of sight a considerable part of the unsightly ceiling. The sitting-out bowers had received special attention, and were cunningly devised to obscure the vision of people without as to what was going on within. In a hard row all round the hall in front of them were the chairs designed for the chaperons and the middle-aged.

Almost the entire thing was contributed. Only the Chinese lanterns and the programmes had to be paid for out of the proceeds. The committee at first fixed the price at five shillings, but wisely changed it to half a crown, so that whole families could afford to go.

Everybody who had ever been at a ball, and a great many who had not, were there. At least fifty Ridgefield men went from the bush and the mill, many of them giving half a sovereign and refusing the change, for your bushman is a human of generous instincts. They swelled the number of males to an exciting surplus. Every girl knew from the start there would be no wall flowers that night. This fact added considerably to their spirits and the general sparkle.

Jack Ridgefield sent a cheque for twenty pounds, but did not go. Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie did not dance, and Alec Graham's wife was ill. So Bob Lindsay was, besides Sidney, thepage 121 only member of the mill aristocracy present. He had willingly consented to contribute his talents as a piano player. There were, besides him, two violinists, both men from the mill, and a man from far back in the Puhipuhi who played the flute. To fill in, if necessary, there were two first-class accordeon artists.

When Arthur Devereux asked Sidney to go with him for the fun of the thing, she accepted with childish delight. Her first thought was that it would be lovely to dance with him, for she was sure he was an expert. And her second was that it would amuse her to see how he fitted in to so incongruous an environment.

It was now well on in the winter, and she had seen him many times since the tripping of the dam. Not only had they met at Mana's, but they had met at the Lindsays', and they had gone riding together on Sunday afternoons. She felt the keenest enjoyment of his good company and his impersonal brotherliness.

So far nothing about him had touched anything but her mind. And he had given no sign whatever that he regarded her as anything but pleasant company in a dull place. Sidney had gone along without asking herself any questions about the friendship, or seeing there was any reason for asking any.

But now, as they sat together in the fern bower,page 122 she felt her interest in him intensified, she knew not why.

Arthur was not in full evening dress, as were many of the men present. He wore the orthodox white shirt and tie, but his suit was a square cut navy blue, and he looked much like a naval officer. As Sidney seldom saw him out of riding clothes, she was struck anew by his good looks, his fine fastidiousness, and his boyish charm.

She, herself, was in semi-evening dress, in the colour that suited her best, a grey blue, that put deep shades into her eyes and brought out the colour in her cheeks. She wore a large salmon velvet rose at her belt, and no jewellery whatever. She had dressed her hair very carefully, so that it was perfectly balanced on her head.

Arthur was intensely aware, as he sat beside her, of her distinction, her physical vitality, and the glory of her unpoisoned youth. He, too, got an entirely fresh impression as he watched her. But he was suspicious of impressions—he had had so many. Sidney baffled him a little. He had not yet been able to estimate how sophisticated she was. Somewhere down in his consciousness he knew he had asked her to-night to see if the evening would enlighten him.

But for some time after the dancing started they were too much amused watching others topage 123 think of themselves. Never, indeed, had either of them been in such crude company.

Arthur had provided against possible encroachments upon his partner. He had foreseen that some of her "parents" might presume that they could dance with her. So he and Bob Lindsay had filled her programme beforehand. Bob, as pianist, got only two dances, but he was delighted to get that out of the limited number that Sidney meant to dance, for she and Arthur left their bower only for the waltzes.

It was the lancers they were watching from their corner when Arthur spoke. It was a pretty rough-and-tumble business as danced in the Whakapara hall. There were wild shrieks, the result of much clutching of the female by the male, and many retirements to the cloakroom to adjust unsteady garments.

As he watched it he got all the wandering vibrations as he had at other balls more gilded and refined. He spoke his thoughts aloud.

"Yes, it's funny, as all balls are funny. But it's the pretentiousness of it that makes it absurd. These programmes, for instance," he looked at the gilt atrocity that hung by a cord from her arm. "What an affectation here! But apart from little things like that it is the universal ball."

She looked up at him.

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"Where did you dance last?" she asked curiously.

"I guess it was in Auckland, at the Governor's," he answered, as simply as he could. He detested the appearance of bragging.

"Did you ever go to balls in Calcutta? I have read in novels that they were particularly glittering."

"Yes, I've been there. They are pretty gay, curiously exciting, an undercurrent of sex intrigue always about them. You know they mean liaisons and divorces and elopements and the hell of a row generally." He smiled, pursuing some memory of his own.

She laughed, ignoring his retrospection.

"What a contrast!" she said, looking out into the mêlée that kicked up the dust from the floor.

"In ways, yes. The method's different, cruder, but the fundamental thing is the same. There isn't a single girl here who isn't hoping she will get a love affair out of it, if she hasn't got one already. And that's the object of all balls."

"Really, I suppose that's true," she began, half laughing.

Then suddenly she remembered that she was one of the single girls present, and she looked quickly away from him out into the final scramble of the lancers. She rarely blushed, but now she could not keep a quick heat from her face.

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He was not aware that he had said anything that could be taken personally till he saw the deepened colour on her cheeks. He had spoken lightly, thinking of the ways of nature in general. In a minute he saw that he had either suggested a possibility to her, or made her more aware of something she already suspected.

But Arthur Devereux was an artist with a very delicate touch. It didn't interest him to rush anything in the way of a human attraction. He knew well that once the climaxes were reached something alluring was gone for ever.

So he went on talking lightly, and completely disabused her mind of any personal intent.

"Of course it's true. From the African bushman upwards all dancing is sex dancing. By the way, that's one thing the natives beat us hollow at. They are beautiful and artistic in their primitive ways. We are showy and vulgar and hypocritical in our artificial ones. You have seen the Maori poi dance?"

"Oh, yes," she answered, recovering.

"Well, compare it with that."

He nodded his head at the last disentanglement of the lancers.

Mopping their faces, perspiring tanned men led their steaming and dishevelled partners to the bowers or the cloakroom. There was hardly a graceful pair in the whole crowd. If they werepage 126 young and healthy they were crude. If they were middle-aged, they were stiff. Most of those who had lived and danced in what they would have called superior places were pretentious and ridiculous.

Sidney, who had quite recovered her composure, agreed that the aboriginal in his unashamed simplicity was the superior.

"It's a waltz next," said Arthur, examining her programme. "Let's try it if there is not too much of a crush."

She agreed gaily. She was pining to get up.

Seeing that they meant to dance at last, Bob Lindsay, who had glanced their way several times, chose "The Tales of Hoffman." He had learned that Sidney thought it very seductive.

And, indeed, it always stirred her profoundly. She vibrated to something in its sensuous rhythm, she had never asked why. She felt it was a delightful coincidence that it should begin her dancing acquaintance with Arthur Devereux.

As she had foreseen, he danced perfectly, and she knew, with secret pride, that he could find no fault with her. As a dancing pair they were splendidly matched. Also, he held her in the good old-fashioned way, the way she liked to be held. She had never danced a second time with a man who made mistakes in the ballroom. She had always felt it was the poetry of motion onepage 127 danced to achieve. She was furious with anyone who had not her sense of fitness, and who projected personal attentions into it.

Arthur Devereux appeared to forget her as he danced. She appeared to forget him. They each wondered if the other really did, and liked having to wonder. They were both more vividly alive when they went back to the bower.

"That was good," he said, sitting down beside her. "By Jove, I wish I had you where there was more room. I know I don't have to tell you you're a glorious dancer."

But it made her glow inside to hear him say it.

He fanned her idly and made no attempt at flirtation. He had decided early in their acquaintance that there was no fraction of a coquette about her. She was singularly lacking in one of civilized man's greatest arts.

They were now diverted by a youngish pair who came to sit on the chairs immediately in front of their bower. The newcomers were obviously jointly responsible for the two infants they carried. They were thin, gaunt, and saddened by overwork. But they had a determined air of having come out to enjoy themselves. They had not been to a ball since they were married. They each hoped to catch again a fleeting renewal of the glory of their courtship, which had begun and progressed in this same hall. They sat down,page 128 hushed the babies, and gazed about them, looking for acquaintances.

The woman had made pathetic attempts to dress up, but had only succeeded in looking eccentric. The man had done better only because he was more limited. His idea of festivity was an enormous buttonhole.

The parents had agreed beforehand to dance alternately, while the other held the twins.

As they had sat down Arthur tapped Sidney lightly on the knee. "Look," he whispered.

For some minutes they watched silently, talking merely with their eyes, as the parents settled, and patted the babies off to sleep again.

A farmer came up to them.

"I see yer got 'ere, after all. What about a dance, missis? Will ee let yer?" He grinned at the husband.

"You bet. It'll be my turn next. If she don't be'ave I won't. No flirtin' now."

And they all laughed foolishly.

The father was left with a twin on each arm. For the next dance he found a partner, while the mother held the infants, who hardly resented the change. And so it went for several rounds. Then it came to the waltz that Sidney and Bob had together. As they went off Arthur, who had said he would go out to smoke, noticed that the par-page 129ents of the twins were sitting dejectedly together. Neither had found a partner.

Arthur realized that they were not getting something they had come for, that their poor emotions were being sadly disappointed. An inspiration struck him. He stuck his head through the bower, and touched the man on the shoulder.

"Pardon me, but wouldn't you two like to dance together?" he asked. "I'll take the kids."

They looked round at him, astonished, and then delighted.

"You're very good, sir, but——"

"No buts. They'll be all right with me. There's a kind of couch in here. Hand them over."

Grinning, they did so, and the amazing infants slept.

Arthur did not know that Sidney and Bob saw the incident as they went by. He had not had his eye on the gallery.

"Now that's a Christian act," said Bob warmly. "Only one man in a thousand would have given up a smoke to do that."

And Sidney felt he was right. Arthur's action warmed and excited her. It coloured her feeling about him then and ever afterwards.

"You are a brick!" she said, when she returned to him. "Don't move them. We may as well keep them awhile if they are asleep."

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As the twins filled half the couch there was room only for Sidney to sit comfortably. Arthur balanced himself on the low end of the sofa above her. The parents looked through, expecting to claim their offspring.

"All right. Go ahead and dance some more," said Arthur. "We are sitting out the next three. The kids are sound asleep."

The parents went off in great spirits.

"Poor devils," he whispered down to her. "At first I thought them merely funny. But they're pathetic. They need to dance so badly."

She looked up eloquently at him, passionately admiring this simple bit of human kindness, and wondering why she was surprised that it should come from a man of the world.

"You were going to smoke," she said. "Please go out now. Yes, please. I shan't feel deserted. I really wish you to."

"Thanks. Then I will."

Alone in the bower with the twins she looked tenderly into their hot and ordinary little faces, aware that she had become absurdly emotional about babies. Plain though they were, they were the unconscious means of stirring something in Sidney that had never been stirred before.

Arthur came back at the end of the dance.

"It's a wonderful night. How long do you want to stay?"

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"One more waltz. It will be suppertime, and there will be more room."

"That's true. And we must have some supper. I looked in at it. It looks scrumptious."

She smiled. "Yes, you can always be sure of a wonderful meal in the backblocks, I believe. Everybody can cook. They can even create food."

They had their waltz, the best of the evening, and some of the cold chicken and ham and trifle. After saying good-bye to Bob they got their coats and started for the mill.