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Title: London Lavender
An entertainment
Author: E. V. Lucas
Release date: May 24, 2025 [eBook #76154]
Language: English
Original publication: New York: The Macmillan Company, 1912
Credits: Al Haines
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LONDON LAVENDER ***
LONDON
LAVENDER
AN ENTERTAINMENT
BY
E. V. LUCAS
AUTHOR OF "OVER BEMERTON'S,"
"MR. INGLESIDE," ETC.
New York
THE MACMILLAN COMPANY
1912
_All rights reserved_
COPYRIGHT, 1912,
BY THE MACMILLAN COMPANY.
Set up and electrotyped. Published September, 1912.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
A CHOICE OF MOTTOES
"... across the field of vision ..."--_Optician's Catalogue_.
"Nothing doing."--_Stock Exchange Bulletin_.
"It is almost impossible to exclude truth altogether.'"--_Observer's
Corner_.
"The mixture as before."--_Dr. William Osler_.
NOTE
Try as I might to prevent it, certain characters from _Listener's
Lure_, _Mr. Ingleside_, and particularly _Over Bemertons_, would keep
breaking into this book.
I have to thank Mr. Cecil Sharp for permission to reproduce the music
on pages 26, 27, and 276. That on pages 143 and 144, also due to his
courtesy, is now published for the first time.
E. V. L.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER
I. In which a new home is found, and the status of anthropoid apes is
carefully determined
II. In which the four gentlemen above us obtain their characters, and
Primrose Terrace is rudely disturbed
III. In which a visit is paid to a red-haired lady, and certain
members of London's foreign population are enumerated
IV. In which I am forbidden to be idle, and therefore find congenial
employment
V. In which we find lovers of two kinds, and meet with a poignant
invention
VI. In which we meet the first-floor-back, and find that the milk of
human kindness still runs
VII. In which Mr. Dabney warms his house with a discussion, and I am
glad to get home
VIII. In which an honest couple who never did anyone any harm are
seen on the brink of the struggle with prosperity
IX. In which the top-floor-back turns out to be an acquaintance, and
schemes are unfolded for the salvation of an effete race
X. In which we find ourselves in the bosom of an English family, and
watch a Utopian in love
XI. In which there is trouble in the house of Wiles owing to a
husband once again getting his own way
XII. In which the first-floor-front unfolds, and some of the secrets
of a remarkable modern invention are laid bare
XIII. In which Mrs. Duckie discusses the duties of life, and Mr.
Bemerton introduces me to certain village pessimists
XIV. In which a jovial party joins England's annual Saturnalia, and a
new Knight philosophizes on his greatness
XV. In which I am initiated into the mysteries of the ring, and am
more bewildered than usual by my countrymen's avoidance of facts
XVI. In which four-legs make much anxiety for two-legs, and Sir
Gaston develops occult gifts
XVII. In which an old gambler (retired from business) tells of a
triumph, and the younger generation in love comes under review
XVIII. In which Sussex voices are raised in melody, Uncle Jonah gives
his memory play, and we meet a Napoleonic Quaker
XIX. In which inadvertently I become a public character and, also
inadvertently, give an opportunist an idea
XX. In which a number of craftsmen discuss their practices, and Mr.
Lacey defines the things that matter
XXI. In which we watch an impulsive good Samaritan's deeds and hear
his self-reproaches
XXII. In which the Wynnes and ourselves make a journey to Italy, and
find the Middle Ages
XXIII. In which we luxuriate in a tideless sea and witness a
bloodless battle
XXIV. In which an experiment is made in quickening the intelligence
of the young, with distressing results
XXV. In which we make the mistake of preferring "rich eyes" to
comfort, and taste the questionable pleasures of a minute Republic
XXVI. In which two modern lovers lay their cases before me, and I do
nothing for either
XXVII. In which a company of intelligent, and, for the most part,
conceited, men meet more than their match
XXVIII. In which we lose a few centuries, and find a living-picture
by Sir David Wilkie
XXIX. In which Naomi communicates a tremendous piece of news, and
"Placida" fights it out with "Lavender" and loses
XXX. In which we journey to the north by nefarious means, and Naomi
and I stumble on a precisely similar feeling
XXXI. In which we meet a Warden and her charges, and hear two or
three stories of stormy voyages on life's waters before haven was
reached
XXXII. In which I at last become acquainted with the top-floor-front
and hear his romantic story
XXXIII. In which I become the very opposite of a thief, yet feel all
a thief's sense of guilt
XXXIV. In which I bring together three men who were due to meet, and
a novel and beneficial scheme is decided upon
XXXV. In which Lavender Falconer enters this life and meets with
general approval
XXXVI. In which Mrs. Duckie employs an annihilating phrase which so
rankles that it seems almost absurd to go on at all
XXXVII. In which a trying ceremony goes for nothing, and a father
puts down his foot
XXXVIII. In which farewell is said to Primrose Terrace, and the earth
finds a new axis
SOME OF THE PEOPLE IN THIS BOOK
ANNIE. An adopted child.
BARBARA. An ourang-outang.
BEMERTON, Joseph. A second-hand bookseller.
CARSTAIRS, John. A recluse.
COLE, Miss. An arbiter.
DABNEY, Mr. A London editor.
DEVON, John. A novelist.
DIMMAGE, James. A carpenter.
"DIRECTOR, The." A folk-song enthusiast.
DRAX, Martha. An inmate of the Pink Almshouses.
DUCKIE, John. A waiter.
DUCKIE, Martha. His wife.
ENGLISHMAN, The. An Italian bathing man.
FALCONER, Kent. The narrator of this story.
FALCONER, Naomi. His wife.
FALCONER, Lavender (Nan). A mite.
FARRAR, Algernon. A young motorist of means.
FARRAR, Gwendolen. His wife.
FREELAND, Nancy. Robert Spanton's _fiancée_ (for a time).
FURLEY, Sam. A maker of cinema films.
GOLDEN EAGLE, The. An innkeeper.
HARBERTON, Edith. Lynn Harberton's wife.
HARBERTON, Lynn. A rural dilettante, her husband.
HAYES, Eli. }
HAYES, Jack. } Ancient Morris dancers.
HEATHCOTE, Adolphus. A young man about town.
INGLESIDE, Ann. Engaged to Adolphus Heathcote.
INGLESIDE, Sir Gaston. A civil servant.
LACEY, Nathan. A good-natured man.
LEIGH, Starr. A novelist.
LOUISA. A Chimpanzee.
MITT, Miss Lydia. The Warden of the Pink Almshouses.
MUGGERIDGE, James. A pipe and tabor player.
MURCHISON, James. See Carstairs.
PACKER, Emma. }
PACKER, Laura. } Twins and landladies.
RUDSON-WAYTE, Mr. A politician.
SANKVILLE, Matthew. A novelist.
SPANTON, Robert. A Socialist.
SPEYDE, William. A novelist.
STILL, Selina. An inmate of the Pink Almshouses.
SURELY, Jonah. A shepherd.
WILES, Mordecai. A keeper at the Zoo.
WILES, Susan. His wife.
WYNNE, Mrs. Frank. A mother.
LONDON LAVENDER
LONDON LAVENDER
CHAPTER I
IN WHICH A NEW HOME IS FOUND AND THE STATUS OF ANTHROPOID APES IS
CAREFULLY DETERMINED
Having once decided--very much against my will (such as it is)--to
leave my old single rooms at Mrs. Duckie's, the question where to
live was before us. Far enough away to make a good walk in fine
weather, was a point on which Naomi insisted first of all, and,
indeed, it was because Mrs. Duckie's house was too near Queen Anne's
Gate that her hostility to it was so firm.
"It's no nearer than it was before we were married," I pointed out.
"In fact, just the same distance."
"Yes," said Naomi, "and look how you suffered for want of exercise."
(Did I?) "No, we must live farther away from it all. That's
absolutely necessary."
By "it" she meant her father's house in particular; Pall Mall; and an
area bounded by the Haymarket Theatre in the South, Kreisler and
Casals in the North, and Bond Street in the West; but we were to be
not so far as to be more than one and tenpence (the frugal young
woman's limit, with twopence for the blackguard chauffeur) in a taxi;
we were to have contiguity to an open space; nice rooms; and a
comfortable landlady who could cook. For we agreed that we wanted no
oven responsibilities of our own, although a chafing dish was to
fortify the menu on occasion.
These were not very exacting conditions, and at 7 Primrose Terrace,
close to Regent's Park, we found as complete an approximation as this
vale of tears and disappointment is equal to offering, the rooms
being large and just vacated by an old occupant with a very high
standard of comfort: a self-protective gentleman of means whom the
gods had, mercifully for us, visited with a nervous breakdown, making
two years' travel in warmer climes an obligation. As that
sententious amateur, Herbert Trist, says, "The art of life is to
succeed a good tenant."
Our landlady is a twin--two sisters, the Misses Laura and Emma
Packer, unmarried, very refined, fragile, and Victorian, who are
assisted in the duties of the house by a worthy rotund woman named
Mrs. Wiles. One of my earliest proceedings after becoming the tenant
having been to take the steps necessary for election to a fellowship
of the Zoological Society of London, you may judge of my satisfaction
to learn that Mrs. Wiles' husband was no other than the head keeper
of the ape house. Here was a friend at court who had it in his power
to make even the Zoo more agreeable.
But, once again to prevent misunderstanding, let me remark that when
we say ape--Mrs. Wiles and I--we mean ape and ape only. For there
are, it seems, persons so lost to nice feelings and etymological
exactitude that they speak of apes and monkeys indiscriminately as
though they were the same, whereas, of course, monkeys are only
monkeys--gibbering unreticent shameless travesties of the worst kind
of man--while apes are without tails, and have a certain patient
dignity, and lay serious claim to the attention of the theorizing
biologist.
"No," said Mrs. Wiles, "not monkeys. Not Wiles. I don't say as how
I am overjoiced when I meet a lady, as it might be Mrs. Johnson last
evening, and after she has asked me what my husband does and I've
told her he's an official in the employ of the Zoological Society,
she says, 'Oh, a keeper, I suppose'; and when I say, severe like, 'A
head keeper,' she says, as they all do, the same two things,
sometimes one first and sometimes the other, but always the
same--'Oh, I hope it's not the monkey house,' and 'Could you possibly
give me two tickets for next Sunday afternoon?'"
Mrs. Wiles now and then stops for breath, although, like most
Londoners, she talks without apparently using any, and this, on our
first exchange of confidences on the matter, enabled me to ask why
she thought the monkey-house query was always propounded.
"I don't know," she said, "but I suppose it's because to most people
the Zoo is monkeys first and foremost. It's the monkeys they want to
see. But Wiles has nothing to do with monkeys, nothing whatever.
Wiles has charge of the apes. I won't go so far as to say I don't
sometimes wish it was lions or elephants, but this I will say, that,
good husband as Wiles is, I don't think I could live with him if it
was monkeys pure and simple--although how anyone can call them pure
and simple, I can't think. Apes are different, aren't they, sir?
Wiles says that apes are the next things to us. Wiles says they have
brains and beautiful natures; but what gives me most peace of mind is
knowing that they haven't got tails. Tails would be too much, as I
often tell him. I've got a bit of writing about it which Wiles found
in a dictionary, and if you'll permit me, sir, I'll bring it round
and show it to you to-morrow morning. I always keep it in the Bible,
handy."
Mrs. Wiles unfolded it the next morning and I read aloud these words:
"In common use the word ape extends to all the tribe of monkeys and
baboons, but in the zoological sense" ("Ah!" said Mrs. Wiles,
smoothing her apron) "it is restricted to those higher organized
species of the Linnæan genus _Simla_, which are destitute of a tail,
as the ourangs, chimpanzees, and gibbons."
"There!" she said triumphantly, when I had finished.
Our opportunities for conversation with Mrs. Wiles come after
breakfast, for it is one of her duties to clear away. Wiles and she
appear to live close by, and she moves between the two houses, first
getting Wiles his breakfast, packing him off to his apes, and
"redding up" her own home; then locking her door and "redding up" the
Misses Packers'; then returning to prepare Wiles's and her own
dinner; and in the late afternoon returning to the Misses Packers' to
help them with theirs and ours. Wonderful creatures, women! There
is nothing done by men to put in the balance against such steady
undeviating dreary mule-work as women cheerfully perform. At least,
not in England. On the Continent you get something like it, in the
small hotels where a man does everything; but not here--not in the
land of public-houses.
The Misses Packer, our tutelary twins, although aware that in Mrs.
Wiles they have a treasure, deprecate her volubility in our rooms.
Like all consciously refined persons, they have no appreciation of
character, and both Miss Laura and Miss Emma have separately
apologized to us for their hireling's familiarity and hoped we will
not allow her to impose upon our good nature. What is to be done
with people like this?--and they are everywhere.
Miss Laura (who claims to be the older by half an hour, and has will
power to justify the claim), although she has been in the
lodging-house business for years and years, still affects to be
ashamed of it. "I can't think what father would say if he could know
what we were doing," is the burden of her life-song. "It's the last
thing he would ever have wished his girls to do--keep a
lodging-house." The paternal Packer, it seems, was related distantly
but sufficiently to a City Sheriff, and himself was for many years a
highly respected messenger in one of the older London banks. In
their more daring moments his daughters have, I believe, referred to
him quite easily as a banker, or at any rate have permitted the
impression that he had charge of huge sums of money (as indeed he
had) to go uncorrected, with the suggestion added that events were at
last too much for him, and, owing to financial depression, due to
vague causes, of which an iniquitous Government was the chief, he
came upon heavy losses and poverty. For anyone may have a father who
was a business failure; but no real lady would confess to springing
from a bank messenger's loins.
Miss Emma, although less assertive than her sister (as becomes one
born so long after), bleats a sympathetic chorus to the lament; and
to her sister's amazement at what father would say could he only see
his girls in their degrading situation, has been known to remark,
"But who knows?--perhaps he does see us!" thus calling up a picture
of the vigilant bank messenger at one of heaven's loopholes with but
this drop of bitterness--his daughters' decline from perfect
ladyhood--in an eternal cup of bliss.
They are, however, good women, the Packer sisters, and one of them
cooks excellently, and if some of God's creatures have brains like
dried peas and no imagination at all, the best of us are not so very
wonderful.
CHAPTER II
IN WHICH THE FOUR GENTLEMEN ABOVE US OBTAIN THEIR CHARACTERS AND
PRIMROSE TERRACE IS RUDELY DISTURBED
One of the first questions which I put to Mrs. Wiles referred very
naturally to the other residents of the house. The twins had
severally and collectively assured us that they offered hospitality
to none but gentlemen, and that four of the nicest gentlemen living
were at present under their roof; but the twins have no
discrimination. To them a gentleman is a gentleman--that is to say,
a trousered creature who lives on bacon, makes (compared with a lady)
no trouble at all, and pays his rent. Mrs. Wiles has a more
observant eye, and to her, therefore, I resorted for the finer
shades. The house, it appears, has three floors and a basement. The
first floor is ours; above are four rooms, two of which, at the back,
belong to Mr. Lacey and the two in front to Mr. Furley; above these
is the top floor with four more rooms, two of which in front belong
to Mr. Carstairs and two at the back to Mr. Spanton.
Of all these, Mr. Carstairs most perplexes Mrs. Wiles, and Mr. Lacey
most pleases her. Mr. Carstairs, whom she refers to as "a nermit," I
occasionally see on the doorstep--a tall, stooping man, once
handsome, with a face as profoundly sad as any of Mr. Wiles's
charges. "He does nothing," says Mrs. Wiles. "Retired, I suppose.
And no one ever comes to see him. But he's always polite and
considerate."
What the gentleman has retired from, I gather, has been this many a
day and night the question which has occupied the curiosity of the
basement; since what is a basement without interest in floors? That
there is a mystery is certain, for has he not those two damning
provocations to suspicion--a profound reticence and an inner cupboard
of which he keeps the key?
From what Naomi tells me of what Mrs. Wiles tells her, the desire of
the basement and its particular friend, Miss Cole (who drops in
pretty regularly for a cup of tea), to find the key of this cupboard
left by accident in the lock amounts to a passion. If they only knew
it, they are foolish; for compared with a closed cupboard, all the
open cupboards in the world are negligible. Speculation is as much
superior to certainty as anticipation to fruition.
Miss Cole, who is one of London's spinster _rentiers_, with so little
life of her own that other people's lives take the first place in her
thoughts, and enough of an income to make her envied by her carefully
chosen friends--chosen, as is too often our way, because they are
humbler and capable of envy--darkly hints at crime itself, her simple
line of reasoning being that no honest person has secrets.
But Mrs. Wiles has no patience with such suggestions. "A secret he
may have," she says, "but there's no harm in it, I'll be bound. But
that Miss Cole always thinks the worst."
"Of course she does, poor woman," I said. "How would she get on if
she didn't?" and was promptly rebuked by Naomi for my cynicism.
But Mrs. Wiles, who is an old campaigner, only laughed. "I believe
you're right, sir," she said. "We're a funny lot, aren't we?"
And there, perhaps, is as true an epitaph as human nature could get.
Mr. Spanton, who has the next room to Mr. Carstairs, is a young
gentleman who calls himself a Socialist. "But do you think," Mrs.
Wiles asks earnestly, "that Socialists ought to have silk pyjamas?
And his toilet requisites: like a lady's! But quite civil and
pleasant spoken, although rather too particular about his things, and
sharp with you if you dust the pictures and leave them crooked, as
who that is yuman can help doing?"
The Misses Packer evidently have a very soft place in their hearts
for Mr. Spanton. "Such a fastidious gentleman, and of the best
family. You can tell that by the places where he gets his clothes.
All his hosiery from Bond Street itself, and Miss Cole, who is often
in the West End of an afternoon, tells us that she has seen the shop,
and the Royal arms are over it. How such a gentleman can talk about
the country as he does, and take such an interest in the poor, is a
marvel; but Miss Cole, who has a friend in the household at
Buckingham Palace and hears all kinds of things, says that Socialism
is quite a hobby with some of the aristocrats now. And look at Lady
Warwick! Such a beautiful place as she has--Warwick Castle, where we
went once with our dear father in a char-à-banc from Birmingham, when
we were visiting his sister there. And Guy's Cliff, too, you know.
And another day we were at Stratford-on-Avon and saw Miss Corelli's
house. Such lovely window-boxes; and there, to think that Lady
Warwick should be a Socialist!"
"Mr. Furley, in the first floor front, has a funny business," says
Mrs. Wiles. "You'd never guess what it is. I gave Wiles three
guesses and he didn't get near it--at least not nearer than
conducting a matrimonial agency. He's a cinema gentleman. He makes
picture plays for the theatres. Many's the ticket he's given Wiles
and me to see his pieces free in the Tottenham Court Road. I love
the cinema plays, especially the sad ones, but Wiles is all for the
comics. It's funny we should have a cinema gentleman here now, isn't
it, because before he came his rooms were occupied by a gentleman who
wrote a real play--I mean a play for a real theatre. He gave us
tickets too. Isn't that a coincidence--two gentlemen running who
were able and willing to give tickets? I often tell people of it and
laugh. It wasn't a bad play, either," Mrs. Wiles continued,
"although there was rather too much talk in it and it ended
unhappily. At any rate it didn't end with wedding bells, as I hold
plays should."
When, however, I pointed out to her that life rarely ended there, but
in a manner of speaking only began there--her own life, for
example--she was forced to confess I was right.
"I never thought of that before," she said, but quickly added, with
admirable sagacity, "Still, that's life, and plays are plays; and
they've nothing whatever to do with each other, have they?
"But the nicest gentleman here," she went on, "is Mr. Lacey. Always
full of his jokes, and so kind. Mr. Furley is kind too, but he
doesn't think. Mr. Lacey's kindness is special to yourself, if you
know what I mean. And you should see his rooms--they're just like a
museum, and if I dare to lift so much as a piece of crumpled-up paper
he's all over me. The things he calls me, you'd be astonished; but
so different from Mr. Spanton. Mr. Spanton cuts, but Mr. Lacey says
them in such a way that I only laugh; and yet if a stranger that
didn't know his ways were to hear, they'd think it awful. The
language! In a Court of Law they'd nearly hang him for it. But
there, there's few things we say or do, I often think, as wouldn't
get the rope round our necks in a Court of Law if the right kind of
barrister gentleman asked the questions. It makes me shiver reading
the cross-examinations."
How long she would have continued, I cannot say, had she not been
interrupted by the sound of voices in the street, which proceeded
from a comedy storm in which the part of Boreas was played by her
hero, the first-floor-back. For Mr. Lacey, although normally genial
and out for fun, has in reserve for injustice a hurricane temper
which he keeps in some cave of the winds within his brain. It was
this that we now witnessed in action from our open window. An
organist, who was English and who had but one leg, had been playing
for a few minutes to a delighted audience of children. The tune was
"Every nice girl loves a sailor," which is, I believe, old, but as
sound in melody as the sentiment which it conveys is sound in fact.
Then suddenly a policeman had arrived and waved the musician to a
less select neighbourhood. Lacey, who appears to have been watching
from the door step, was in the theatre of war in a moment. From our
private box we could hear everything.
"Why do you send this man away?" Lacey had evidently asked.
The policeman said that he had been requested by residents not to
allow street music thereabouts.
"When?" Mr. Lacey inquired.
"Oh, at different times."
"Not this morning?"
"No."
"Very well, then, give the man his chance."
"It couldn't be done," said the policeman.
"It shall be done," said Lacey. "If anyone is to be arrested let it
be me," and he told the organ-grinder to continue.
At this moment a resident came out of the opposite house, and,
ignoring Lacey entirely, requested the constable to move the music on.
This was meat and drink to Lacey. He turned his back on the organ
and the officer and settled down to action with the householder.
Why, might he ask, was the music to be moved on?
Because the householder objected to it.
Was anyone in the house ill?
No.
And what was the householder's objections?
Such things were a nuisance and should not be permitted.
Had the householder noticed that the man had but one leg?
He had: but that was the man's affair. It had nothing to do with the
case. He might, on the contrary, be a centipede for all the
householder cared. The case merely was that Primrose Terrace was a
quiet part, with rents accordingly, and one expected with reason to
be exempt from organs.
"Very well," said Lacey. "Then understand that I too reside in
Primrose Terrace and I like organs. If a sufficient number of
unimaginative blockheads like yourself, who live here, decide against
organs you can have a notice prohibiting them put up at the end of
the street, like the other self-protective snobs all over London.
But until you do, the organs shall come here, I promise you that.
And you, constable," he said, turning to the policeman, "understand
that I, a resident in Primrose Terrace, wish to hear street music."
"But I can't take orders from private persons," said the policeman.
"Good," said Mr. Lacey. "That's just what I wanted you to say. I
shall now make it my business to see your inspector and inform him
that you take orders from private persons for harrying the poor, but
refuse them for encouraging the poor. Then we shall see where we
are."
And, so saying, he handed the organ-grinder a shilling and walked off
to the police station.
That is Lacey. Right or wrong, that is Lacey. But, as a matter of
fact, fundamentally he is always right--although his idea of
Tightness and Society's idea do not agree.
I need hardly say that the result of Lacey's visit to the police
station was the speedy erection of a notice-board forbidding street
music; for he is rarely successful in his crusades. But the crusade
is the thing: not the result of it.
CHAPTER III
IN WHICH A VISIT IS PAID TO A RED-HAIRED LADY AND CERTAIN MEMBERS OF
LONDON'S FOREIGN POPULATION ARE ENUMERATED
Armed with a message of introduction from Mrs. Wiles, I called on Mr.
Wiles at his place of business. He is to be found under the New Ape
House. You knock on the closed door opposite the King's Nepal
exhibits, and as you stand there waiting for it to be opened the
contemptible monkey house and the shameless prismatic mandril are on
your left. By and by steps are heard on a stone passage and Mr.
Wiles or his mate opens the door.
"Are you Mr. Wiles?" I asked.
He said he was, and I told him that I was Mr. Falconer, and our
alliance was completed. Some friendships are made beforehand, and
this was one of them.
He showed me his kitchen, where the food of these delicate exotic
creatures is prepared, and then he led me to the little warm room
where Barbara holds her court. She herself opened the door for us--a
young clinging ourang-outang, red as Rufus, with quick sad eyes and
restless hands and arms that could strangle a bull. These arms she
flung round Mr. Wiles's neck and he carried her to the window.
"Wouldn't do for the missis to see too much of this," he said.
"Women don't understand it. She's a brick, my missis, but, bless
your heart, she'd carry on a treat if she found me and Barbara like
this. The rum thing," he went on, "is that Barbara's a woman too.
In fact, you can't be long in these Gardens without finding out how
much alike we all are--us and them. As for babies, why, they ought
to be here; and lots of grown-up people too. Makes you think a bit,
you know." He lowered his voice. "It makes you think too much,
almost. What I ask myself is this, What is a soul? Because, here's
Barbara, here, hasn't got one, and I have; and as far as I can see,
the only difference between us, after clothes, is that she can't talk
and I can. But knowing! there's nothing she doesn't know and nothing
she doesn't feel. She's as understanding as a Christian and much
more affectionate than many of them. What I ask myself sometimes is,
Why is Barbara in a cage and all these people out and about? or, Why
aren't I in a cage and Barbara paying a bob to see me? It wants a
bit of thinking. It isn't enough just to say, Because I'm a man and
Barbara's an ourang-outang; because, who was it called me a man and
Barbara an ourang-outang? Why, man did. That is to say, it's all
going his way. But what do you suppose ourang-outangs call us? Ah!
Suppose"--he lowered his voice to a whisper--"suppose ourang-outangs
call themselves men and us apes! Wouldn't that be terrible? But
nobody knows. Not even Dr. Chalmers Mitchell knows."
Barbara meanwhile sat absolutely motionless save that her eyes roved
and her great jaws worked a little. It was enough for her that she
was in Mr. Wiles's arms and he in hers.
"Look at her now," Mr. Wiles continued; "she's taking it all in. She
knows what I'm saying. And another thing. The best in the land come
to see her. The King and Queen are often here. Great scholars come,
artists, authors. And they all make a fuss of her such as they
wouldn't make of any human being outside their own families, and not
them often. That's odd, isn't it? Makes you think there's something
more in apes than you bargained for.
"The trouble is," he went on, "they're so delicate, ourang-outangs,
and so are chimpanzees; in fact, all the larger apes. First it's
bronchitis and then it's pneumonia. I've had so many pass through my
hands--all dead now. Barbara's doing fairly well, but I dread the
winter. I dare say you've heard of the famous performing
chimpanzee--Consul? Seen him, perhaps? It might surprise you to
know that there have been twenty-six Consuls since he first appeared.
The public think it's the original one, but it's not. Twenty-six."
Whatever else I may have to do later in the day I manage to get to
the Zoo for a little while every fine morning. Only thus can one
obtain real intimacy with any of its inhabitants, whether they have
souls or not. Only thus could I have become so close a friend of the
wombat, that engaging stupid Australian with his broad, blunt,
good-natured face. As the wombat lives on the north bank of the
turgid dyke called the Regent's Canal, into which apathetic but
sanguine Londoners drop bait all day with never a bite, and
nursemaids drop surreptitious love-letters when they have read them a
sufficient number of times, it is upon him that I pay one of my first
calls, since it is by the Albert Road gate that I enter this
attractive sanctuary: passing on my way Owls' Terrace, the solemn
occupants of which are either reflecting so sagely upon life (far
more sagely than anybody in Primrose Terrace) or are merely
pretending to, no one will ever know which.
After the wombat I visit the capuchin (or sapajou), whose peculiarity
it is to be more like an old man seen through the wrong end of a
telescope than any other monkey or ape will ever be, although it is
the chimpanzee that has the credit of coming nighest to our perfect
state. So it may, taken as a whole, but for human features, however
wizened and poor, the capuchin (or sapajou) bears away the bell.
According to the Zoo guide-book, the capuchin (or sapajou) differs
from man principally in retaining his tail and possessing four more
grinding teeth than even those of us who are lucky to keep the
complement that Heaven allowed us.
I then cross the canal by the private half of the public bridge,
where the visitor to the Zoo is separated from the common outsider by
an iron railing which makes each look to the other far liker a wild
beast than is pleasant in this neighbourhood, and so come to my
gentle friends, the giraffes, those pathetic survivals from the past
whom American ex-presidents and gallant big-game hunters generally
are so eager to exterminate. How any thinking creature proud in the
possession of an immortal soul can bring his finger to pull the
trigger at such an innocent, beautiful, and liquid-eyed vegetarian as
this I shall never have imagination enough to understand; but they do
it continually, and evidently have no compunctions, for they are
photographed afterwards with one foot on the victim's corpse.
And so past the island cave of the beaver, a creature upon whom no
visitor's eye has ever rested, and who, for all the British public
knows, may not be there at all, to the elephants, one of whom has
been nodding his head against the bars and opening his inadequate
mouth for buns ever since 1876, and will, I dare say, continue to do
so for many years yet. How many buns he has eaten let the
statistician compute. I have no doubt that if placed in a line
touching each other they would extend from London to Adelaide in the
usual manner.
After the elephant, who is all deliberate matter, I visit the otter,
who is all nervous fluid and the merriest creature in the gardens,
and so, by way of the magical lizards, come to Mr. Wiles and Barbara.
That is my short round. When there is more time I extend it to take
in the gay little foreign birds with the pretty names, who live
between the lizards and the bears, and who, with the lizards, seem to
be almost more wonderful achievements on the part of the Creator than
the elephant or giraffe. And I like also to look once again at the
King Penguin and the Snow Leopards; but the lions and tigers I rarely
visit, for I cannot bear the forlorn look in their eyes. It hurts me
to think that it is partly my subscription that is keeping them here.
And coming out again into the world of men, it seems strange and
unbelievable that anyone should choose to live anywhere but close to
Regent's Park.
CHAPTER IV
IN WHICH I AM FORBIDDEN TO BE IDLE AND THEREFORE FIND CONGENIAL
EMPLOYMENT
Naomi was very firm about my finding an occupation. Men must do
something, she said. As for herself, she intended to retain her
various poor protégés, and to continue to visit her mother in Queen
Anne's Gate every day, and probably lunch there; which made it the
more important that I should have something to engage me.
"A man who has no employment is like a ship without a rudder," she
said.
I replied that perhaps it was employment enough to be married to an
epigrammatist. This being received without enthusiasm, I pointed out
that I was executor to no fewer than three persons.
"All of whom are alive and extremely healthy," said Naomi.
"True," I answered, "but think how insecure is one's hold upon life.
At any moment one of them may be crushed by a falling aeroplane and
plunge me into affairs."
"'It's ill waiting for dead men's shoes,'" Naomi quoted, and at the
totally new light which the proverb threw upon the attitude of the
ordinary executor I broke down.
"How do you know," I asked, "that I am not writing a really valuable
work on the Zoo? A philosophical treatise on apes?"
"You're not, are you?" she asked. Naomi for all her shrewdness has a
childlike belief in certain things that she hears. A child could
pull her leg.
"No," I said; "I am not. But I had thoughts of playing a little at
writing. Wouldn't that satisfy you?"
She did not thoroughly kindle to it. "I hope you will write, dear,"
she said; "but that is only play anyway. And what would you write?"
"Well," I said, "supposing I was to write a book about you?"
Naomi was indignant. "About me? How could I make a book?"
"Very well then," I replied; "about us."
"But we are so uninteresting," she said. "We're so ordinary.
Besides, I don't think, dear, you have--have you?--quite the
novelist's gifts."
"Perhaps not," I said, "but you mustn't be a reviewer before I've
begun. Anyway, mightn't I play a little at being a novelist, just
for fun? I asked advice from quite a good man the other day and he
said: 'When in doubt, to describe your neighbours is perhaps the
second-best piece of counsel that one can give.' And that's not so
very difficult. Mightn't I try that?"
"I'd love you to," she said, "only I want you to do something."
Then I made use of a cowardly argument: "When one has worked and then
can afford to retire, one ought not to keep others out of a job."
Naomi, bless her, has no patience with this kind of talk. "If work
is good for the soul," she said, "as I believe, one must work and let
the work of others be their own affair. A pretty pass we should come
to if the good men abstained from work because by so doing they were
giving the loafers a better chance of taking it if they felt so
inclined! But I don't want you to make any money," she added.
"Something honorary and useful."
"Such as?" I asked.
"We'll find it," she said.
Chance, as so often happens, took the matter into its hands and
settled it; for an evening or so later we met at a party a gentleman
who had given his life to the search for, and reproduction of, old
English songs and dances, several of which were rendered by a troop
of London girls that he brought with him, and these melodies were so
simple and fresh and charming that, although no musician, I was
completely captured. In conversation with him afterwards, we learned
that he was in need of assistance in forming and managing a society
for the systematic encouragement and performance of these things, and
at Naomi's suggestion I offered my services. So I am now an honorary
secretary, one of those bustling diplomatic persons whom reporters
always describe as courteous and indefatigable.
The duties connected with the launching of this Society, together
with such desultory private desk-work as it amuses me to do, ought to
satisfy anyone. They convince me at any rate that no one is in such
danger of overwork as that man of more or less amiable disposition
who gives it out that he has retired.
I don't pretend to understand the full value of folk-music or to be
able to distinguish between the mixolydian and the dorian mode, and
so forth; but I do know this, that there are no sweeter songs for
young voices, or merrier and more innocent measures for young feet,
and that the more we can catch of the spirit of the early days when
English music had these pure and happy characteristics the better for
all of us.
A very little music is ordinarily enough for me; and though I do not
say that an evening at the Opera, especially when the Russians are
dancing, or an afternoon at Queen's Hall now and then, is not very
welcome, I would not too often be found at either. Sophisticated
self-conscious music makes me too old, and the world too old, and its
enigmas too difficult, and all that is best too fugitive. But these
ancient English songs of an unthinking peasantry do not trouble the
waters; they make for joy.
It seems to me that essential melody never reached a more exquisite
purity than in "Mowing the Barley," and I often wonder what Society
would say if, without any warning, when they were all securely in
their seats at the Opera, in their best clothes, and had finished
ascertaining who their immediate neighbours were, and who occupied
the boxes, the curtain rose, not upon the voluptuous passion of _La
Bohème_, or the civilized ache of _Louise_, or the barbaric excesses
of _Scheherazade_, but upon a company of youths and children and
maidens singing this lovely song. After the first shock of surprise,
anxious searching of influential countenances and bewildered
references to the programme, might they not settle down to the
profoundest content? And as song gave way to dance, and dance to
song--"Blow away the Morning Dew" to "Laudnum Bunches," and
"Dargason" to "The Keys of Heaven," and "I'm Seventeen come Sunday"
to "Lord Rendal"--might they not experience a feeling wholly new in
that building and wholly pleasurable? For there is nothing like a
plunge into the simple life now and then.
And yet--I don't know. It might be dangerous. These songs are too
fascinating: Mayfair would be decimated. There is one of them so
infectious in its melody, so irresistible in its appeal, that it
should be rigidly excluded from the programme. The Italian's _La
Bohème_, which sets so many of our stately dames in a quiver, is
quite safe compared with this concise English treatment of the same
theme. For "The Wraggle Taggle Gipsies" has the very seeds of revolt
and escape in it. Here is the first verse:
[Illustration: Music fragment]
There were three gip-sies a-come to my door, And
down-stairs ran this a la dy, O!
One sang high an an-oth-er sang low And the
oth er sang bon-ny, bon-ny Bis cay, O!
Then she pulled off her silk finished gown
And put on hose of leather, O!
The ragged, ragged rags about our door--
She's gone with the wraggle taggle gipsies, O.
It was late last night, when my lord came home,
Inquiring for his a-lady, O!
The servants said, on every hand:
"She's gone with the wraggle taggle gipsies, O."
There's a new version of _La Bohème_ for you, and no less
provocative! I do not hear Caruso in it; but Caruso is not all.
His lordship at last overtakes the rebel:
"What makes you leave your house and land?
What makes you leave your money, O?
What makes you leave your new wedded lord,
To go with the wraggle taggle gipsies, O?"
And what says she? She has heard the call of the road:
"What care I for my house and my land?
What care I for my money, O?
What care I for my new wedded lord?
I'm off with the wraggle taggle gipsies, O."
For the most part, however, these old English songs which we want to
see popularized are less intoxicating. Their tunes are not those of
the pied piper who would upset the family, but more serene and sweet,
like the music of birds by a running stream. And the words are
emotion remembered in tranquillity. This exquisite "Mowing the
Barley," for example, is as artless a love-ballad as ever was
written, in which the least romantic character in English life is
transfigured into a hero. A lawyer, in short. I wonder that in the
Temple they ever sing anything else, so proud should this ditty make
them. It begins:
[Illustration: Music fragment]
Law-yer he went out one day, A for to take his plea-sure, And
who should he spy but some fair pret-ty maid,
So hand-some and so clev er? Where
[Illustration: Music fragment]
are you go-ing to, my pret-ty maid,
Where are you go-ing my hon ney? Go-ing
o-ver the hills, kind sir, she said,
To my fa-ther a-mow-ing the bar ley
Rhymes, you see, don't matter much in our kind of song. We hate
pedantry; and we hate everything that sets up the slightest obstacle
between the singer and the listener.
The lawyer said no more that day, but the next he rode forth again,
and though at first she gave him the slip (for she thought him like
all lawyers, true to type) he
Caught her round the middle so small,
And on his horse he placed her.
The legal courting then began
"Hold up your cheeks, my fair pretty maid,
Hold up your cheeks, my honey,
That I may give you a fair pretty kiss,
And a handful of golden money."
The fair pretty maid at first refused, for she suspected the honesty
of his intentions; but after he had talked a little more, and more
ardently,
She quite forgot the barley field,
And left her father a-mowing.
And now--the end is perfect--
And now she is the Lawyer's wife,
And dearly the Lawyer loves her;
They live in a happy content of life,
And well in the station above her.
No one who has ever heard a company of fresh young voices lilting out
this beautiful piece of rural idealism--for I take it that it is no
small thing for a country girl to catch a lawyer, that terrible
person who knows everyone's business and arranges for distraints and
evictions as well as the making of wills and the lending of
money--has ever known music at its very spring.
Such is "Mowing the Barley," which I always think our best song, but
there is not one of the many hundreds which our indefatigable
Director has collected and scored that has not a certain charm. And
you can understand that I am proud to be able to help him in his
organized effort to find still more, with new dances too, wherever
they are still remembered, and to get enthusiasts to sing and dance
them.
CHAPTER V
IN WHICH WE FIND LOVERS OF TWO KINDS AND MEET WITH A POIGNANT
INVENTION
"What we want," the Director said, "in particular, is young men and
young women to be enthusiastic about these songs and dances and get
them spread about;" and lunching with Naomi at her father's, and
finding there Dollie Heathcote and with him the young woman to whom,
after various flirtations with others, he has become engaged, I
endeavoured to kindle them. But to little purpose. Dollie, like all
young men with good education and no particular bent, is just now,
having given up his mild liaison with the law, thinking of selling
motor-cars, and to such a character folk-song and dance has no more
attraction than a nut-food luncheon to a company promoter. His line
of music is that purveyed at the Gaiety and the Halls; and all he
would say in commendation of our simple pleasures was that if we
could do anything half as good as "In the Shadows" we might count on
him to whistle it. His fiancée, a Miss Ann Ingleside, was hardly
more promising as regards the songs, but was quite willing to come to
one of the dance classes and see if it was good enough fun to go on
with; and that is something gained.
Why these young people should be engaged is not patent to the
ordinary observer, for each seems to be an adept at independence, and
they give no signs of tenderness or even affection. But among the
leisured classes the devout lover has gone out. They were talking at
lunch about the afternoon's plans. Dollie was for a matinee; Ann for
a hockey final at Richmond. They were selfish enough to refuse each
to give way to the other, but not sufficiently detached to wish to be
alone. Such conflicts naturally end in victory for the stronger,
since there is no spontaneous giving way, and of course that was Ann.
So Heathcote had to forego his matinee. Personally I think I would
like to see some colourable imitation of turtle-doving come in again.
It was very silly, no doubt, for young couples to be so publicly
fond, and yet it was rather pretty too; whereas the new ostentation
of cool self-sufficiency can be almost ugly.
Yet there are still the profounder tendernesses. Let me tell you a
story:
The man had become very ill--could hardly move from where he lay; and
she, who loved him, and was to have married him, and spent all her
waking hours in thinking what she could do for him, persuaded him to
have a telephone installed and brought to his bedside so that he and
she could talk, and he could talk with others, too. Every night he
rang her up and they had a long conversation; many times in the day
also. Nothing, as it happened, could have saved his life, but this
modern device lightened his last weeks.
His death, although it blasted her hopes, made no difference to her
devotion. She merely installed his memory in the place of his rich
personality and loved that. He, almost more than ever, was her
standard. What he would have liked, she did; what he would have
disliked, she left undone. Although dead, he swayed her utterly; and
under his dominion she was equable and gentle, although broken at
heart. She took all things as they came, since how could anything
matter now that everything that mattered was over?
One perplexity only had power to trouble her, and that was the
wonder, the amazement, the horror, not only that so much knowledge
and kindliness and sympathy and all that made for the world's good
and happiness should be so wantonly extinguished; but that no touch
of the vanished hand should be permitted to the one soul (now left
behind) with whom his soul had been fused. This she could neither
understand nor forgive. Religious she had never been in the ordinary
sense, although such religion as must sway a true idealistic lover
was hers; but now she broke even from such slender ties as had held
her to orthodoxy. She threw off the creed of her parents as
naturally and simply as if it were a borrowed garment, and sank into
her sorrow, which was also her solace, without another thought of
here or hereafter.
So it went on for a year or so, during which time his house had
remained empty, save for a caretaker--for she (who was rich) could
not bear that anyone else should live there--and his room exactly as
he had died in it.
One evening she dined out. Her next neighbour on one side was a
young American engineer, and in their conversation they came in time
to the topic of invention and the curious aptitude for inventiveness
shown by the American race. It was a case, said the engineer, of
supply following demand: all Americans required
time-and-labour-saving appliances, and they obtained them. Where
servants abounded and there was no servant problem, as in England and
on the Continent, the need for such contrivances was not acute. And
so on. The conversation thus begun reached at last specific
inventions, and the engineer told of a remarkable one which had come
under his notice just before he left New York.
"You will probably not believe me," he said; "the thing sounds
incredible; but then who would have believed once that there could be
a telegraph, and still less a telephone? Who would have believed
that the camera would ever be anything but a dream? I will tell you
what this is. It is a machine in which you insert a portion, no
matter how small, of a telephone wire, and by turning a handle you
compel this piece of wire to give back every message that has ever
passed over it."
She held her heart. "This really exists?" she forced herself to ask.
"Actually," said the engineer. "But when I left home the inventor
was in a difficulty. All the messages were coming out all right, but
backwards. Naturally the reproduction would be from the most recent
to the less recent. By writing down the words and then reversing
them the investigator could of course get at what he was wanting--I
may say that the invention is for the New York police--but my friend
is convinced that he can devise some mechanical system of reversing
at the time which will make the messages read forward as they should.
Just think of the excitement of the detective, listening through all
the voices and ordinary conversations on the wire for the one voice
and the one sentence that will give him his long-desired clue!--But
are you ill?"
"No, no," she said, although her face was a ghastly white, "no; it is
nothing. The room is a little hot. Tell me some more about your
inventive friend. Is he wealthy?"
"Indeed, no," said the engineer. "That is his trouble. If he had
more money, or if he had some rich backers who believed in him, he
might do wonders."
"I should like to help him," she said. "This kind of work interests
me. Could you not cable him to come over and bring the thing with
him? I would gladly finance him. I want some sporting outlet like
that for my money."
"Cable?"
"Yes, cable. There are things that one does by impulse or not at
all. The butler here will get you a form."
It was a few weeks later that she went to the empty house with an
employee of the telephone company, and they extracted a foot of the
precious wire. That night she held it in her trembling fingers and
placed it in the machine. Then she carefully locked the door and
drew the heavy curtain over it and carried the machine to the
farthest corner of the room. There, with a sigh of relief and tense
and almost terrible anticipation, she sat down and placed her ear to
the receiver and began to turn the handle.
His voice sounded at once: "Are you there?" It was quite clear, so
clear and unmistakable and actual that her hand paused on the handle
and she bowed her throbbing head. She turned on. "Are you there?"
the familiar tones repeated. And then the reply, "Yes, who is it?"
in a woman's voice. Then he spoke again. "Ernest," he said. "Is it
Helen?" Again her hand paused. Helen--that rubbishy little woman he
had known all his life and was on such good terms with. She
remembered now that she had been away when the telephone was
installed and others had talked on it before her. It could not be
helped: she had meant to be the first, but circumstances prevented.
There must be many conversations before she came to her own; she
would have to listen to them all. She turned on, and the laughing,
chaffing conversation with this foolish little Helen person repeated
itself out of the past now so tragic.
To other talks with other friends, and now and then with a tradesman,
she had to listen; but at last came her own.
"Is that you?" she heard her own voice saying, knowing it was her own
rather by instinct than by hearing. "Is that you? But I know it is.
How distinctly you speak!"
"Yes, it's me"--and his soft vibrant laugh.
"How are you, dear?"
"Better, I hope."
"Have you missed me?"
"Missed you!"
And then the endearments, the confidences, the hopes and fears, the
plans for the morrow, the plans for all life. As she listened the
tears ran down her face, but still she turned on and on. Sometimes
he was so hopeful and bright, and again so despairing.
She remembered the occasion of every word. Once she had dined out
and had gone to the theatre. It was an engagement she could not well
refuse. It was an amusing play and she was in good spirits. She
rang him up between the acts and found him depressed. Hurrying home,
she had settled down to talk to him at her ease. How it all came
back to her now.
"Are you there, my dearest?"
"Yes, but oh, so tired, so old!"
"It is a bad day. Everyone has been complaining of tiredness to-day."
"You say that because you are kind. Just to comfort me. It's no
use. I can see so clearly sometimes, I shall never get
well--to-night I know it."
"My darling, no."
And then silence--complete, terrifying.
She had rung up without effect. He had fainted, she thought, and had
dropped the receiver. She was in a fever of agony. She leaped into
a cab and drove to his house. The nurse reassured her; he had begun
to sob and did not want her to know it, and now he was asleep.
But there was no sleep for her that night. What if he were right--if
he really knew? In her heart she feared that he did; with the rest
of her she fought that fear.
As she listened, the tears ran down her face, but still she turned on
and on. She sat there for hours before the last words came, the last
he was ever to speak over the wire.
It was to make an appointment. He had rallied wonderfully at the end
and was confident of recovery. She was to bring her _modiste_ to his
room at eleven o'clock the next morning with her patterns, that he
might help in choosing her new dress. He had insisted on it--the
dress she was to wear on his first outing.
"At eleven," he had said. "Mind you don't forget. But then you
never forget anything. Good night once more, my sweet."
"Good night."
She had never seen him again alive. He died before the morning.
She put the machine away and looked out of the window. The sun had
risen. The sky was on fire with the promise of a beautiful day.
Worn out, she fell asleep; to wake--to what? To such awakening as
there is for those who never forget anything.
* * * * * * *
Every night found her bending over the machine. She had learned now
when not to listen. She had timed the reproduction absolutely, and,
watch in hand, she waited until the other messages were done, and her
own voice began. There was no condensing possible; one must either
each time have every conversation or stop it. But how could she stop
it before the end?
Locking the door and drawing the heavy curtain, she would sit down in
the far corner and begin to turn. She knew just how fast to turn for
others; so slowly for herself. When the watch gave her the signal
she would begin to listen.
"Is that you? Is that you? But I know it is. How distinctly you
speak!"
"Yes, it's me"--and the soft vibrant laugh.
"How are you, dear?"
"Better, I hope."
"Have you missed me?"
"Missed you!"
CHAPTER VI
IN WHICH WE MEET THE FIRST-FLOOR-BACK AND FIND THAT THE MILK OF HUMAN
KINDNESS STILL RUNS
So far I agree with Mrs. Wiles in thinking Mr. Lacey the pick of the
house; but my opinion is of less weight than it might be since I have
not yet met the others, except in the most casual way, at the front
door, when we say how fine it is or how exceedingly probable is rain,
and so part. But no London house of apartments could possibly
shelter two men as attractive as Mr. Lacey.
We came into knowledge of each other by the merest chance. I was
returning very late at night, and found, seated on the top step
fondling a cat, the first-floor-back. I knew him by sight, of
course, owing to the organ-grinder scena, but we had not spoken.
"I'm glad you've come," he said; "I've been here for nearly an hour,
and the bell's broken and I've left my latch-key somewhere. I was
banking on the chance of one of the others coming in late."
I let him in and he bade farewell to his companion. "Poor thing," he
said, "she's so miserable. She's just going to have kittens. It's a
hard world for women."
Since then we have walked into London together now and then, and I
have taken him to the Zoo on Sundays. He is at his best there. He
seems to love and understand all animals, and he knows a good deal
about them. In fact, it was he who introduced me to the giant toad
who eats worms behind the scenes at the Reptile House. No one who
has not seen this miracle of dining would believe either in the
length or quickness of the toad's tongue.
Lacey is a little spare man, very active and restless, with a
clean-cut aquiline nose, sensitive mouth, alert grey eyes, and a brow
which extends to the back of his head. His hands are delicate and
strong and always perfectly kept, although his clothes can be rather
shabby. His nose and his name, Nathan, combined, have led people to
suppose him a Jew; but he has no Jewish blood.
"Why my father gave me such a name beats me," he says, "and why I
never had enough pluck to change it beats me even more. But he was a
good old soul and he chose it deliberately; and I have gone back on
him sufficiently as it is. But what chance has a Christian called
Nathan? He is doubly handicapped, for everyone thinks him a Jew and
acts accordingly, and not being a Jew he cannot profit or retaliate.
If I had been a Jew I should be a millionaire to-day. The chances
I've had! But it is my destiny to be unable to carry through any
speculation. I acquire at top prices and sell at bottom: that's me.
Or else I get bored with bargaining and give the infernal thing away.
I have the wish, but not the instinct--that's the trouble. I make
the most pathetic efforts to be cunning, but it's all no good."
Without such talk his face tells me that the world has dealt him some
hard blows; but he has never given in. He has the finest of all
breastplates--enthusiasm; and to this he adds that other trusty
buckler against the arrows of fate, a short memory. I mean a short
memory for his own troubles: it is long enough if he promises to do
anything for you. The rapidity of his mental recovery is amazing.
If he were sentenced to death and on his way to the Tyburn gallows
from Newgate, he would see, long before the cart reached Chancery
Lane, something in the streets so interesting that all recollection
of the rope would be effaced.
Lacey is more intelligent and sympathetic than most persons, but the
trait which distinguishes him chiefly from the mass of his fellows is
his impulsive, generous helpfulness and his desire that you should
share in any good secret. He simply cannot leave any house or any
acquaintance quite as he finds them. He had not been in our
sitting-room for five minutes the first time I invited him in, before
he had noticed that we wanted new candle-shades. "You've got the
wrong kind of holder too," he said. "You should get those heavy ones
that slip down automatically as the candle burns. Give me a piece of
paper and I'll let you have the address. And here's the address of a
little woman who makes the most exquisite shades."
It is characteristic of Lacey that he knows so many little women who
want a helping hand. Always little women or devilish unlucky women.
In fact, he is the best friend the unlucky ever had: they gravitate
to him as by a natural law.
He is the frankest man I ever met and certainly one of the most
engaging. He has no reticences at all. His character is public
property. And this without any swagger of disclosure, but naturally
and simply. He says all that he feels and thinks at the same moment
that he feels and thinks it: in fact, speech is a part of the feeling
and the thought. Without this articulation both would be incomplete.
But although so frank currently, he does not refer much to his past.
His present occupation is secretary to one of the London Art clubs,
and during their exhibitions he sits at a table and arranges for the
sale of the few pictures which attract the few persons who can find
money for such luxuries after having paid their chauffeur's bills.
He always has a scheme for adding to his income. One day he has
bought for a few shillings a grimy oil-painting which when cleaned
and restored will fetch thousands. This morning he was all on fire
to open a restaurant in a novel place, somewhere off Fleet Street or
in the city itself. The novelty consists in limiting the food
provided strictly to chops, hot, with hot buttered toast, and chops,
cold, with salad. Nothing else at all, except drink. I don't see
why the place should fail; but I feel sure that if it is started and
made profitable Lacey will not be the chief receiver of the profits.
"You see," he says, "my difficulty. I can't run a restaurant. I
should hate it too much. What I want--what men like me want--is a
decent financier to pay us for our ideas and for assisting in making
them practicable, and then to let us go. But the worst of it is,
that few things succeed unless the man who invented them goes through
with it. But how could I? There's not only the horror of spending
beautiful days among chops hot and chops cold, but I should pay
everyone too much."
"How did you come to think of it?" I asked.
"Well," he said, "I thought of it yesterday. I let my chop get cold
owing to all kinds of distractions, and then found it delicious.
'This is the food for busy men,' I said, and in the late afternoon I
walked down Fleet Street and looked for a suitable site. That's
where I stopped. A really capable man would have found the site and
arranged for the restaurant. But my fate," he said, "is to make
money for other people; never for myself. I have never touched a
scheme that did not fail, and I have never given anyone else a piece
of financial advice that was not successful. All the horses I ever
backed have fallen dead at the starting gate. That's my luck. But
otherwise--except for money--I don't think I'm so unlucky. For one
thing I can always sleep, and I'm never ill."
Lacey always has little odds and ends of information such as no one
else can supply. The other day, for example, he had heard what
muffin and crumpet men do in the summer. I don't say all of them,
but one at any rate. He sews chenille spots on ladies' veils.
Lacey also collects strange names and words, and just now is in
transports of delight over a country cobbler's bill which included a
charge of fourpence for "unsqueakening" a pair of boots.
Naomi likes him no less than I do; and since husbands and wives, I
have noticed, do not always agree about friends, this is most
satisfactory. He likes her, too, and brings her little offerings
which I feel sure he can ill afford. "You shouldn't buy all these
things," Naomi says; to which he replies, "Buy! I never buy
anything. Now and then I pick up something; but I never pay anything
for it."
Last night, for example, he brought her a sampler for her
collection--a peculiarly amusing one, made by Katherine Vallance, who
finished it on the 5th of August 1783.
"It never ought to be given to you," said Mr. Lacey, "since it was
obviously made for a plain woman; but I'm sure you'll like it."
The verse runs thus:
What is the blooming tincture of the skin
To peace of mind and harmony within?
What the bright sparkling of the finest eye
To the soft soothing of a calm reply?
Can comeliness of form, of shape, of air,
With comeliness of words or deeds compare?
No, those at first th' unwary heart may gain,
But these, these only, can the heart retain!
One wonders how the little Katherine came to set about embroidering
those sentiments. But perhaps it was not a little Katherine at all,
but a maturer one who had been jilted for a prettier face, and this
was at once her consolation and revenge.
Naomi's samplers offer a complete scheme of placid rectitude.
Whether it was really easier to be good a hundred and more years ago
than now one cannot know; but the testimony of the woolwork of the
time makes virtue almost automatic. Thus, one of Naomi's samplers
(the work of Lydia Vickers, aged ten) begins with this inquiry:
How shall the young preserve their ways from all pollution free?
That was the question. The answer comes promptly:
By making still their course of life with Thy commands agree.
Nothing could be simpler; except perhaps the instructions of the
dying Sir Walter Scott to his son-in-law and biographer: "My dear, be
a good man; be virtuous; be religious. Nothing else will give you
any comfort when you come to lie here." Those surely were less
complex times. To-day--well, my Utopia, if ever I framed one, would
be a land where the laws demanded that people should be vicious.
Then one would be able to count at any rate on a little virtue. If
no man might live with a woman in any but an irregular union, there
would be at once quite a run on honest matrimony and the Law Courts
would be full of desperately wicked monogamists; while if everyone
was expected to steal and swindle, there would soon be an extensive
criminal class who respected property.
CHAPTER VII
IN WHICH MR. DABNEY WARMS HIS HOUSE WITH A DISCUSSION AND I AM GLAD
TO GET HOME
Mr. Dabney of _The Balance_ having asked me to his housewarming, I
found myself in his new rooms at about half-past nine, prepared for
an unwonted night of it. He pretends that after my departure for the
altar a period of decadence set in over Bemerton's and he had at last
to leave. All inhabitants of rooms know these fluctuations.
Everything will go smoothly for years and then suddenly comes a
relaxation of energy on the part of the staff. It will come _chez_
Packer without a doubt; but not just yet.
Dabney has moved from Westminster to the Temple, where a gentleman
ought to live--to a noble suite in King's Bench Walk with a sidelong
view of the river across the grass, on which in the cool of the
evening the agile barristers disport themselves at lawn-tennis. He
looks towards Lambeth and has a blessed glimpse over the trees and
roofs of the giant gasometer of the Oval, and he can imagine on a
summer's day all kinds of delectable occurrences in progress on the
other side of it--Hitch at mid-off stopping express trains; Hobbs at
the wicket, punishing and masterful; or whatever he most fancies.
The white wainscotted room when I entered it was full of smoke and
noisy with talk. I contrived to find Dabney's hand in the fog and he
pushed me into a chair. I gathered that public men were under
discussion: the session was well advanced and the unexpected
abilities which it had brought forth and the old abilities which it
had tested and found wanting were being appraised, in the off-hand
smoking-room way. Funny to one outside the machine to hear names
which ought by their eminence to inspire respect--and among the
simple and ignorant do so--tossed about so lightly and discussed so
contemptuously. This man, it is true, was fifty per cent. stronger
than last year; but most of them were disappointments, done.
These terrible fellows sized up everyone and everything, as they
puffed and sipped. And there was nothing they did not know. They
knew all the secrets of the Court as well as of Parliament. They
knew why this man's name was not in the last list of honours and why
that man's was. They knew everyone who drank too much and everyone
who loved unwisely but too well.
Politics, I confess, do not interest me, except as warp and woof of
the newspaper drama of life. I would not like to be a politician;
nor indeed could I. Only a surgical operation would be able to
effect that: some phlebotomizing process, to be followed by an
injection of molten brass into the deplenished veins. But I like to
watch the wire-pullers at work. There was one at Dabney's, the
secretary to some organization: a bulky Rabelaisian cigar-smoker, or
I might almost say cigar-eater, named Rudson-Wayte. Looking at him
through the haze, as he absorbed his tobacco and drank his whisky, I
found myself wondering if on that idle Sunday--the first
week-end--the Creator, when He surveyed His six days' work, had exact
foreknowledge of these two lenitives and the extent to which His
children in the distant days to come would depend upon them.
Rudson-Wayte more even than most men at an editor's housewarming
leant upon both, and they seemed to agree with him, for his head was
undoubtedly clear and hard. In a bout with the gloves or a hundred
yards' sprint no doubt he would cut a poor enough figure on such a
regimen; but then the highly specialized civilization under which he
flourishes has eliminated both necessities. Perfectly easy nowadays
for a London gentleman to live fifty years after leaving College and
never accelerate his steps at all.
Not that Rudson-Wayte was a stranger to the strenuous life; but
always from without. He had looked down amusedly from many a
platform and watched ejections and free fights; but he had not taken
part. His, to observe and make the best of the situation for his
party. He told us of many such experiences and of the strategy which
he had devised for the safety of his speakers. He referred to them
as his men. "Of course, the only thing for me to think of was how to
get my man out of it." And so forth.
"My man was a bit of a stick, not long married, and his precious skin
was rather on his mind. The crowd was ugly too; began breaking the
chair legs off for clubs. He hadn't any way with him at all, but
there were reasons why he should have gone down there to speak, and
he was sound enough on the principal question. Brought down his fist
at the right moments, you know, and had quite a clever way with the
word 'Mister'--for or against. But the game was up now, and things
got worse when we heard that there was a gang outside waiting for us.
There was only one thing to do and I did it. I got hold of four
others of my lot and told them their roles. Then I turned up my
collar, and smashed my hat in so as not to be recognized, grabbed my
man, and we carried him forcibly out by the back door. As I feared,
there were a thousand of them there waiting to duck the whole
platform. The instant we emerged from the door supporting our
burden, who was all collapsed into his clothes, I called out, 'A
doctor! A doctor! Is there a doctor here?' They shut down at once
and made a path for us. Bless you, the British public can't be
trusted to carry anything through. They're always waiting to be
diverted. It touched their old hearts, don't you see? 'Somebody
hurt? Steady on, boys. Let them through first,' and so on. So we
got through and were driving to the next town and the train for
London in no time. London's the mother."
He seemed to me rather a hateful type, this cynical manipulator of
candidates and passions; but Dabney tells me that he is really one of
the best of men, with naturally very simple tastes, domesticated,
musical, and devoted to ornithology. It is one of the bores of
growing old, that one loses the power of dividing the sheep and the
goats. When one is young, bad men are bad men and good men good men.
As one gets older their boundaries begin to get confused and encroach
each on the other; and I suppose that by the time I am seventy I
shall not know any difference between them.
I asked Rudson-Wayte about bribery and corruption--were they extinct?
"As the dodo, I don't think," he replied. "The more you have to do
with politics, the more you realize that human nature is human
nature. Nothing ever changes. People tell you that Dickens was a
caricaturist, an exaggerator. He may have been when he wrote about
some things, but not when he described the Eatanswill election.
That's as true as a Blue Book--every word of it--and always will be.
Human nature doesn't get out of date. Bribery and corruption!--great
Heavens, what else should there be? I don't say that money passes
from hand to hand quite so crudely; but money's not the only medium
of bribery. Every man has his price to-day, as ever, only he often
prefers payment in kind. Why, you can bribe a man with virtue now
and then. The big Nonconformist employers who carry a hatful of
votes--lay preachers, you know--you can get at them by sitting under
them one Sunday. They don't want money or promises: they want
homage. Of course they do. Another man merely wants to be seen
accepting a cigar from your own case; another to take your arm in
public. It's after the election's over that this last type becomes
such a nuisance."
"It's a low game," Dabney said, "and you're a low lot, and I don't
really know why I like you and ask you to sit under a decent roof."
Rudson-Wayte smiled joyously. "No worse than editing a paper," he
said, "and suppressing the truth about everything."
"And who does that?" Dabney asked quiveringly.
"You do, of course, every week. You attack one side for its
turpitude and cynicism and applaud the other side for its high ideals
and self-sacrifice, when you know there's not a penny to choose
between them. They're just the same men, with different views as to
how a business should be managed. You know that: you must know,
because directly one of the big men on the other side--one of your
blackest bugbears--retires, or dies, or loses his wife, you have an
article on his personal charm and private integrity, the whole thing
really proving him an arrant humbug ready to support against his
conscience any policy forced upon him by his party or venal
circumstance. You can't deny it. And again, every now and then when
some non-party question brings two conspicuous opponents on the same
platform in agreement, with compliments to each other, you say how
delightful are these amenities of English political life which permit
private friendliness to exist alongside public hostility; whereas
that is, when looked into a little deeper, really a cause for shame,
because men should be all of a piece. Well, what I say is that if
you can write calmly like that of party politicians, and defend it,
there is no need lor me to be troubled by your condemnation of me for
being concerned in the making of party politics."
Dabney really took it very well, and as a matter of fact I don't know
that he could have made much of a defence even if he had not been our
host. All he said was, "Well, damn the party system anyway."
A young man who had been interjecting remarks very freely here took
the floor.
"Of course," he said, "damn the party system. The whole mischief is
the party system. It's rotten to the core. What we want in
Parliament is the best men, not the machine-made men. But that's all
that the voter can be allowed to vote for. How many independent,
thinking men are there in Parliament to-day? Not half a dozen, and
the few that there are steadily being frozen out. The machine can't
endure them, and the machine is on top. I got a ticket for the House
the other day and saw the conspiracy in action. There was an old man
in our village who used to say that 'very few persons are better than
anyone else,' and I thought of these words as I sat there and watched
all those blighters at work. It was a terrible eye-opener. I knew
that they were obsolete and stupid and pledged to the swindle, but I
had no notion how stupid they were. No candour anywhere. On the one
side bland red-tapism, and on the other the insincere acrimony of the
Jack-out-of-office. Their manners, too, are an outrage--they chatter
while speeches are going on; they shout offensive criticisms; there
is never a moment when some one is not walking about. It's got to be
changed."
"All very well," said Rudson-Wayte; "but you'll never be without it.
Men fall into parties as naturally as they fall into temptation.
There must be pros and cons. If you want to know how deeply rooted
the party system is you have only to read the papers that advocate
its removal. Their objection to party is to the party that is in. I
have observed that when a paper boasts of having no favour for one
party or the other it makes up for it by having an increased
hostility towards one party or the other. No; if you really wanted
to lead a crusade you would call for a party pledged not to add
another law to the Statute Book as long as it held office. That
would be something like. Also it would automatically rid the party
at any rate of the legal element. But this is shop. For Heaven's
sake talk about something else."
"We will," said Dabney, "but it will be shop all the same."
Dabney was right. Everything came round to shop very quickly, and,
tiring of the monotony, I slipped away.
Dabney apologized for the dullness of the evening. "You see, this
time," he said, "I had to ask everyone. We have better talk at our
smaller gatherings. Come when I entertain some novelists."
I said that perhaps I would, and walked homewards correcting my
estimates of our public men by the light of the evening's
revelations. But by the time I reached the Euston Road I had decided
to let them all stand as they were a little longer. Those fellows
were only talking, I said. Strike London dumb for a year and how we
should get on! Progress then!
CHAPTER VIII
IN WHICH AN HONEST COUPLE WHO NEVER DID ANYONE ANY HARM ARE SEEN ON
THE BRINK OF THE STRUGGLE WITH PROSPERITY
It was the next morning, I think, that Mrs. Wiles entered the room in
a state of high tension and handed me a letter. It came, she said,
after Wiles had left for the Zoo, and would I do her the great favour
of conveying it to him? But, first of all, would I read it and give
my opinion as to whether or not it was a "have"? With these words
she asked permission to sit down, and sank into a chair with her hand
on her heart in something very like collapse. While Naomi fetched a
restorative I opened the letter and read as follows:
"MR. MORDECAI WILES.
"DEAR SIR,--It is our pleasure to inform you that in accordance with
the terms of the will of the late Samuel Wiles of 18 Bonchurch Road,
Melbourne, of which we enclose a copy, you are sole heir to his
property. To what this amounts we cannot at present state, but not
less than £50,000. We beg to enclose a cheque for £500 to meet any
emergencies that may occur, and await your instructions as to our
future action.--We are, yours obediently,
"MORGAN & RICE"
Who was this Mr. Wiles, I asked. Mrs. Wiles said that he was an
uncle of her husband's, as indeed I instinctively knew, for is not
Australia peopled by uncles who do this kind of thing?
"Do you know how much it is?" I asked her. "It's two thousand a
year, without touching the capital at all. What are you going to do?"
"I don't know," she said. "Ask Wiles. It frightens me. We were so
happy, too."
"But you needn't be any less happy," said Naomi.
"I don't know. It frightens me," the poor thing repeated. "It's too
late. Wiles will get so fat."
"Oh no," said Naomi, "we must see to that. We must keep him busy."
"It isn't as if we had children," said Mrs. Wiles. "Then it might be
a good thing. But we're all alone. We've never spent so much as two
pounds a week in our lives. And the little nest-egg we'd been saving
all these years--to buy a house with--it makes that look so foolish!"
The good creature was actually in tears. "But perhaps it's all a
mistake," she added more brightly.
"I don't think so," I said. "This cheque is too real for that, and
the copy of the will, too. Your husband's name is Mordecai, isn't
it?"
"I'm afraid so," she said.
I carried the momentous documents to the New Ape-House, not without
trepidation and misgiving. They were, I could see, the death-warrant
to Wiles as Barbara's keeper; and I felt resentment against fate for
so brutally breaking this bond, apart altogether from other mischief
which might ensue. It was not as if either Wiles or his wife had
imagination or any breadth of view. They were the most ordinary,
simple, faithful creatures, not in the least discontented with their
lot, and not in the least fitted to receive a fortune. They were too
good for it; they had done nothing to deserve such a chastisement. A
hundred a year--that would have been sensible: a fund against
illness, a security for old age, a sanction for certain little extras
now; but two thousand a year was monstrous.
Wiles was just showing out some impatient F.Z.S. when I arrived, and
I watched the transfer of a shilling from hand to hand. Looking the
F.Z.S. over, I doubted if he had more than £1800 a year, and smiled
to myself. Wiles led me in, and for a time I did nothing but caress
Barbara and feed her with grapes.
Then I said, "Mr. Wiles, how would you like to be rich?"
"Rich," he said. "How rich?"
"Well, rich enough to spend as many days as you liked at Lord's or
the Oval?"
"But what about my apes?" he asked.
"I mean so rich that you couldn't very well go on looking after
them," I said.
"I shouldn't like that," he replied.
"But don't you ever want a holiday?"
"Not more than a day or so. I can't trust my mate enough for more
than that."
"But surely if you had to leave the Zoo owing to a fortune you could
get accustomed to it?"
Wiles became suspicious. "May I ask who and what you're getting at?"
he said.
I handed him the letter. He read it and the will several times.
"Well, I'm jiggered," he said at last. "Well, I'm jiggered."
"Your wife asked me to bring it," I told him.
"So I supposed," he said. "And she, what does she think of it all?"
"She's jiggered too," I said.
"Poor old girl," he said. "How much a year do you reckon it comes
to?" he asked.
"About two thousand pounds."
He whistled. "And here have I been looking in a pawnbroker's window
in Camden Town High Street for the past three months, wondering if I
could treat myself to a meerschaum pipe he's got there, at
twelve-and-six, to smoke on Sundays. I can have a bushel of them
now, and there's no fun in it."
I walked back by way of the sea-lions' enclosure to refresh my eyes
with the King Penguin's perfect ecclesiastical tailoring. He was
pacing moodily about as usual, in what one felt to be the interval
between a marriage ceremony and a funeral service. Much better, I
thought, to have left the £2000 a year to him. No harm would then be
done, and what perfect episcopal garden-parties he could give with it!
The Misses Packers' attitude to Mrs. Wiles, Naomi tells me, underwent
an extraordinary change on hearing the news. That they were losing
an excellent and inexpensive assistant they could not forget; and
they overwhelmed her with attentions, led her downstairs with the
tenderest solicitude, and plied her with tea. This was not, I am
convinced, the rather ugly homage of the poor to the rich, but merely
paying success its due. For the Misses Packer belong to that large
branch of the human family which worships success. Mrs. Wiles had
succeeded: she was worth £2000 a year; and they recognized her merit
accordingly. They did not want any of her money or envy her her
position at the top of the tree: they merely lit a votive lamp before
her.
The next day Mrs. Wiles was able to tell us more. Wiles had been
thinking it over and had decided to do nothing until the estate was
wound up and all the money his. He had, however, mentioned the
matter to two or three of his mates in confidence; but this turned
out to be one of the secrets that apparently no one ever pretends to
try to keep, for by night everyone knew of it: Wiles was a
millionaire; and fourteen men that he didn't like first asked him to
drink and then tried to borrow five shillings.
"I shall go on here too," said Mrs. Wiles. "That is, as long as
they'll let me. But they do treat me so ladylike it makes me
nervous, and that Miss Cole wants to find a house for me and
introduce me to some of her friends. The idea! Still, it would be a
nice thing to give up the place and then find the whole affair was a
noax. Oh, and please, Wiles says, would you be so kind as to take
care of this cheque for him--put it in your bank?"
As it happened, it was no hoax, and, circumstances quickly proving
too much for them, the Wiles had to become gentlefolk. The result is
that Wiles has left the Zoo and wears black clothes. These are not
out of respect for the avuncular gander who laid the golden eggs, but
because black clothes signify a holiday, and all life is now a
holiday for him. Mrs. Wiles has left us and wears a hat ten years
too young for her, with cherries. They have moved to a new house in
a quiet street off the Camden Town Road, where they keep a small
servant; but this is a waste of money, for, in the first place, Mrs.
Wiles does everything in the end, and, in the second place, their old
neighbours would gladly club together to pay the girl's wages
themselves, just to be kept informed at first hand of how the
millionaires are going on.
Naomi and I called, by invitation, to take tea with them, and we were
all polite and uncomfortable, and I saw poor Wiles's eyes and
thoughts wandering towards the kitchen, where he could have taken off
his coat and been at his ease. I found that he had spent the
morning, as I expected, at the Zoo, talking to old friends, and in
fact he usually drops in for an hour every day.
"Yes," said his wife, rather acidly, "can't keep away from his
Barbara."
Mrs. Wiles admitted that she had been cleaning up a little;
unoccupied rooms do get that dirty in London. In the afternoon Wiles
reads the paper or takes a walk, and sometimes Mrs. Wiles accompanies
him to a picture palace. In the evening he becomes more normal again
and drops into a public-house and perhaps plays a game of billiards;
but even in these blessed hours, when bed is approaching and another
day dies, things are not the same, for he can no longer frequent his
old haunt, the Cross Keys. He went there for a little while, but had
to give it up, partly on account of chaff, but chiefly because he
found that he was expected to pay for everything for everybody. So
now he spends his evenings in finding new houses of call, where his
history is unknown, in continual fear of an old acquaintance coming
in and giving him away.
"Then wealth isn't an unmixed blessing?" I asked.
"I wouldn't say that, sir, not yet; but it's a terrible change. What
worries me more than anything else--even more than finding how many
friends I've got that I'd never dreamed were friends at all--is the
way that when you have money you're afraid of spending it. When I
had my wages and a little over in tips I knew where I was. Now I
don't know anything. As I've told the missis time and again, it's
going to make a miser of me."
"If you'll take my advice," I said to Wiles, "you will buy a share in
some small business that will give you an interest and an occupation.
You are too young to be doing nothing: you'll go to seed and get ill.
Don't let money injure you: make it a useful servant and friend."
"Yes; but what can I do?" he asked.
"Well, we must make inquiries," I said. "There must be such things
going."
"And if you'll take my advice," said Naomi to Mrs. Wiles, '"you'll
adopt a child; not so small as to be an anxiety, but just big enough
to be a companion and a nice responsibility."
Personally I wish this Australian uncle had been a decent bankrupt,
for his money has done no one any good. The Zoo has lost a capable
keeper; the Misses Packer and ourselves have lost a good servant; and
the Wiles have lost peace of mind and any real reason for existence.
CHAPTER IX
IN WHICH THE TOP-FLOOR-BACK TURNS OUT TO BE AN ACQUAINTANCE AND
SCHEMES ARE UNFOLDED FOR THE SALVATION OF OF AN EFFETE RACE
We had at school a literature master who, in the course of many
hundreds of discourses, made two remarks which have never left me; or
would it not be fairer to say that of the hundreds of lectures which
I heard from a certain literature master I have succeeded in
retaining two injunctions? One was the comment (which he had from
Dr. Johnson) that repetition is a fault rarely committed by bad
writers, and the other, that what we call coincidences should never
be noticed. This being so, I cannot describe as a coincidence the
fact that the young Socialist at Dabney's turns out to be our own
Socialist of the top floor of whose profounder sincerities Mrs. Wiles
is so sceptical. I saw him the next day both enter the house and
leave it, banging the door with a vehemence that would break up any
delicately organized communistic home; and since then we have met in
mutual recognition and have conversed.
Spanton seems to be very much in earnest--a boyish figure of about
twenty-six, clean shaven, but without the soft brown clothes, costly
Jaegerisms, and other external insignia of his kind. On the
contrary, he is a bit of a dandy, uses quite superlative soap, and
has a manicure set. It has been said that nothing is more annoying
than to be agreed with when one is indulging a mood of
self-depreciation. Well, Spanton will never be annoyed that way.
"They're a foolish lot," he said, referring to the company at
Dabney's. "They go there every week just to cackle, and none of them
ever lives at all. Except possibly that blackguard, Rudson-Wayte,
and he ought to be in gaol. But the whole world's like that. All my
friends and acquaintances are either writing or talking or
vegetating. Dabney kindles to excitability every day over something
said in the House, or something said by other journalists about
something said in the House, and that's how he will go on spending
this boon of life to the end--never travelling, never suffering,
never being hungry or thirsty or wicked. What a way to live! And
your novelists and dramatists too"--like so many of the world's
reformers this young man has the most exasperating way of saying
"you" and "your"--"your novelists and dramatists trafficking in the
sham emotions of their puppets, how they are wasting this boon of
life! And all their myriad audiences in the theatres, or readers
reclining on sofas, how they are wasting it!--lulling themselves with
the stories of fictitious mannikins, instead of doing something,
almost no matter what. And this enemy of society who lives under our
very roof, the cinema man, what an account there will be to settle
with him one day! He's one of the worst lullers.
"It infuriates me. Something has got to be done, and I'm going to do
it. England's got to look herself in the face. She's been dodging
the mirror for years, but she's got to do it. I'm out to see that
she does."
Asked what he did towards that end, Spanton said that at the moment
he was delivering a series of lectures at such boys' schools as
permitted treason to be talked. They were addresses on Socialism;
not pure Socialism, but a brand of his own.
"Because, of course," he said, "we must get hold of the younger
generation. The middle-aged and the elderly are no good; young men,
youths, and boys are the best material. I show them as vividly as I
can how dependent all of them are on labour not only for their
comfort, but for the necessities of life. I have slides illustrating
all the chief industries and some of the minor ones, even to
cricket-bat making. I take them down coal-mines and show them what
kind of a life a miner has to lead before our eggs and bacon can be
cooked. I draw comparisons between their own pocket-money and the
earnings of many kinds of labourers. In short I do all I can to make
them think vividly of what the underworld of toil is like, and to
realize how the spectacle of the upper world of wealth, as reflected
in the halfpenny papers, must strike the toiler. If once they can be
brought to understand this--to put themselves in the place of those
others--things will be easier. Because it is a realization which
they will never forget. I don't draw any moral. I don't suggest
that there shall be an equal division of property or anything like
that. For one thing, the schoolmasters wouldn't let me, and for
another, I don't believe in equality. But I do drop a hint now and
then that cricket and football are not all, and that the possession
of riches carries with it a responsibility to the State."
"I should guess," I said, "that not the least of your difficulties in
preparing your addresses is softening the adjectives. You must want
to say so much more than you dare."
"O Heavens, yes!" he replied fervently. "I have the very deuce of a
time with the blue pencil. And there are other troubles too. Some
little while ago, for example, I was just rabid about a freak dinner
that had been given in one of the big London restaurants, where some
dancing girl was throned on a solid bank of roses that cost eight
hundred pounds, and the musicians were seated in a barca that glided
about a lake made for that evening only. There was a strike on at
the time, and the contrast between this lavish rotten luxury on the
one side and the destitution of the strikers' wives and children on
the other was too extreme. In the old days when the poor couldn't
read, or papers were too expensive, such dinners had a chance of
being missed; but to-day everything is made public and reaches even
the poorest, and helps very properly to inflame them. That is one of
the principal reasons why nothing is ever going to be the same any
more.
"Well, anyhow, I found something to say about this, and said it with
a certain amount of unambiguity. And what happened? The
schoolmaster seemed at the time quite satisfied, but I received a
letter from him later asking me not to come again. It appears, as I
afterwards found out, that one of the givers of the feast was a
notoriously rich Jew whose son was at the school. The son wrote home
about it and the father threatened to take him away if any more such
lectures were delivered. So there you are!
"But what I really want to see in force more than anything else,"
Spanton went on, "and these lectures of mine are really a kind of
gentle preamble to the campaign, is compulsory manual labour for
everybody. A kind of pacific conscription. Ruskin, you remember,
set his undergraduates to make a road. They did it perhaps rather
too much as a lark and not steadily or sweatily enough. I would
catch the boys earlier and put them for one or two years to mining,
building, engineering, digging, whatever it is, at the time when they
would naturally be at the Universities or just entering office. That
would enlarge their sympathies and give them the practical insight
which is the next best thing to imagination. But the time for such a
scheme is not yet."
"It seems to me," I said, "that your scheme might go farther with
enormously beneficial results. If to know all is to understand all,
a system of interchange of employment and positions, carried out
fully, would get into every section of society an understanding of
the others. If the lady took a turn in the kitchen she would
understand her cook's difficulties, while the cook in the dining-room
would know for the first time what it felt like when the dishes were
cold, underdone, or late. A bond would thus grow. Again, if the
impatient patron of the restaurant had to take the waiter's napkin
for a while, he would learn not only the reason of delay, but what it
feels like to be spoken to like dirt, and the waiter, if he came in
equally hungry and pressed for time, would appreciate the provocation
to be sarcastic and rasping. And so on, right through society, until
we all knew."
Spanton was pleased to say that my amendment was sensible; but it
would not be very practicable, he thought. He has little humour, and
no respect for it.
"And meanwhile," I asked, "what trade have you learned?"
He said he had learned none. He had been to Paris to learn painting;
had given it up and become a convinced Socialist, and was now
devoting himself to propaganda.
"But surely," I said, "it would be well, if only to strengthen your
case, to put the plan into execution yourself. You are so young and
you lay yourself open to the charge of inconsistency."
"I don't care about that," he said. "All Socialists are
inconsistent: that is the first thing to get into your head in any
dealings with us. But we are not more inconsistent than
Christians--that is, if Christ was a Christian, which one often
doubts. My special line is clear thinking and persuasiveness, and
one must do what one can do best."
"And meanwhile what of the great boon of life?" I said. "Is it not
in danger, like unpopular bills, of being 'talked out'?"
He was silent. "Oh, well," he said at last, "perhaps I like talking
best. I wonder. But it's constructive talk. You can't deny that."
CHAPTER X
IN WHICH WE FIND OURSELVES IN THE BOSOM OF AN ENGLISH FAMILY AND
WATCH A UTOPIAN IN LOVE
For some obscure reason Spanton has taken a fancy to me, and I must
admit in return that I find something rather likeable in the
scientific coolness of his mind and his dominating desire to see
straight. Having taken a fancy to me, it follows that he wanted me
to meet his betrothed, for although it naturally goes against his
grain to do anything so conventional and banal as to be engaged, with
the prospect of a legalized union in the future, human nature has
been too much for him, and rather than lose his Nancy he has agreed
to her father's very moderate wishes as regards an engagement and a
registrar. But I need hardly say that he has given her no ring. In
fact, his only presents to her so far, I understand, are a
typewrriter and a pair of sandals.
Nancy is a Miss Freeland, one of a family of girls who live a few
miles out of London in a roomy Georgian house, with a large untidy
garden, near Richmond.
The first words that I heard on entering the Freelands' hall told me
instantly that I was among a twentieth-century household: "Oh,
father, don't be such an ass!"
The speaker--Jocelyn, a pretty girl in a soft Liberty dress--at once
broke away to welcome her prospective brother-in-law, who was there
humanized to Bob, and his friend; and Mr. Freeland laid his hard case
before us.
"Tell me," he said, "is a man and a father an ass because he thinks
that one visit to the theatre a week is enough for a growing girl of
fifteen?"
I was hesitating in my reply when another of the daughters came to
the rescue.
"I know what Mr. Falconer will say," she said: "he will say that he
has always made it a point never to interfere in disputes between
relations. But Bob's not like that. Bob's never so happy as when he
can set relatives disputing; aren't you, Bob?"
Nancy here entered the room, bringing the number of the unmarried
sisters to seven. She is the only one who is engaged, and is
twenty-two. Jocelyn is older; the rest younger. Nancy is pretty
too, but less pretty than Jocelyn. The married daughter is a Mrs.
Gosling, of whom Jocelyn wickedly says that her husband is the only
one of her suitors who has not married well.
At lunch-time Mrs. Freeland appeared, an easy-going, smiling lady,
and we all sat down to a vast table covered with food and noisy with
chatter. The great joke of the day--and in such families as these,
where chaff is the grain of life (if I may so express it), each day
produces its new joke--was their father's recent cleverness in the
matter of the garden-party costume.
"Have you heard," Jocelyn asked me, "father's absolutely topping
idea?" and entered upon the history; but beneath the Freeland roof no
narrator is permitted to get to the end of anything unaided. Every
story is composite. This one ran something like this.
"You see," Jocelyn began, "we all had an invitation to Lady Sydney's
garden-party; and father wanted to go, but didn't know what to wear."
"Because," Mona explained, "it wasn't an ordinary garden-party. It
was in connection with father's great educational scheme."
"Yes," said Mr. Freeland, "if there had been a nice little word like
Tennis in the corner I should have had no qualms, but have gone in
flannels, swinging a racket. But there wasn't, and a number of
influential people were going to be there, largely to talk to me."
"Swank!" whispered Joan.
"So father turned on his wisdom-of-the-serpent tap," said Jocelyn,
"with a vengeance. He began by dressing in tweeds with a straw hat."
"Don't forget the white slip and spats," said Phillida.
"Yes, and white spats. They're so white that beetles and other
creeping things are blinded. It's like flashes of lightning down
there."
"Oh, get on!" said Mona. "Let me tell Mr. Falconer."
"I assure you," said Mr. Freeland to me, "it's the tamest story you
ever heard. The only chance of its being made attractive is for me
to tell it."
"Well," said Jocelyn, "that was what he wore. But he also put into
the car a complete suit of the tail-coat and top-hat variety, and
then Harris and he drove off. The rest of us had to get there as
best we could in a fleet of cabs. Well, Harris and he drove off and
pulled up outside the party gates to see the others go in and count
the straw hats and the top hats."
"It was very awkward," Mr. Freeland put in, "at first, because they
came out equal. But then the toppers began to make the running, and
when they were about six lengths ahead I decided that that was good
enough, and so we turned into a narrow lane close by----"
"Where"--Jocelyn took it up again--"father changed."
"You see," Mona explained, "he'd started with his tweeds and straw
hat."
"Mr. Falconer knows that," said Jocelyn.
"You can't make it too clear," Mona replied. "The whole story
depends on that."
"Well," Jocelyn went on, her face kindling with excitement, "he had
no sooner changed and got nicely into his tail coat and things--and
he really can look quite decent, although to-day you wouldn't think
it--"
"My dear," said Mrs. Freeland, "you mustn't say things like that.
Your father always looks nice."
"Not in his green jodelling hat, anyway," said Mona. "No one can
defend that honestly."
"I like it very much," said Mrs. Freeland.
"Of course," said Janet, "but then you're his wife. We're not."
"Anyway," Jocelyn went on, "father and Harris----"
"Harris is the chauffeur," said Joan.
"--were patting each other on the back for being so jolly artful,
when what do you think happened?"
"Father, you tell," said Nancy, who has an eye for drama.
Mr. Freeland at once struck in. "This is what happened," he said.
"Another car turned into the same lane and pulled up just round the
corner, and, peeping through the trees, to our horror we observed a
gentleman in a tall hat and morning coat stand up in it and begin
changing into a straw hat and tweeds. I pass over the extraordinary
coincidence that two guests should have hit upon an identical device
to find out the correct thing to do----"
"And we pass over too," said Jocelyn, "father's terrible discovery
that the neighbourhood contained another man as brilliant as himself."
"--and simply ask you to conceive of Harris's and my feelings. For
if this other man was right we were wrong."
"Yes," said Mona; "but if he was wrong you were right."
"Exactly," I said.
"Very well, then," continued Mr. Freeland, "I instantly made up my
mind."
"Napoleon at six stone," said Janet.
"'There is only one thing to do,' I said. 'I can't change again.
We're too late as it is. We must therefore get there first. To
follow this man in, in his vulgar clothes, would be a serious
blunder.' So with infinite difficulty and the most perfect
tact--carefully turning our heads from his quaint occupation (as
though the lanes of England were meant to be dressing-rooms!)--we
scraped past him, taking, I am pleased to say, a little varnish off
his mudguard, and were away before his braces were properly fastened."
"There," said Jocelyn, "don't you think that a masterly move?"
"I do," I said.
"All brain work," said Mona.
"And when you were among the people," I said, "did you find that tall
hats prevailed?"
"Absolutely," said Mr. Freeland.
"I counted them," said Jocelyn. "There were eighty-five straws, with
tweeds or flannels; a hundred and ten tall hats; and forty-three
Homburgs. Some of the Homburgs were worn with tail coats, so father
could have taken his instead of his topper if he had liked."
"Thank Heaven he didn't!" said Janet.
"My dear Janet," said Mrs. Freeland, "how can you?"
There was also, I need hardly say, a joke against Mrs. Freeland.
Herself the most temperate of women, she had lately been presented
with an Aberdeen terrier named Whisky. Like all Aberdeens, he was
just a mass of original sin, and naturally the last thing he would do
on a walk was to keep near his mistress. The result was, as Jocelyn
informed me with the keenest zest, that the neighbourhood had
suddenly become painfully aware of Mrs. Freeland's repeated calls for
whisky, ranging from the pathetic to the urgent, and was drawing its
conclusions accordingly.
"Yes," said Joan, "poor father, the dipsomaniac's husband!"
I hope to see more of the Freelands, for life goes very easily among
them, and it is amusing to be among so many fresh, unsophisticated
young things, growing like grass upon the weir. It is one of those
families where the skeleton seems never to leave the cupboard, and it
is tonic to visit these now and then. Very different from the houses
where it is the family that lives in the cupboard and one meets only
the skeleton.
Spanton as a lover differs radically from Dollie Heathcote. Dollie
lets his Ann go her own way and rather admires her for it; but
Spanton is the influencing moulding type. The last infirmity of
modern man, some one has said, is to force women to give up their
sex; and Spanton is indulging it. His one idea is to make his Nancy
not only a man, but another Spanton. He controls her. He arranges
both her clothes and her reading. Being only an ordinary English
girl, with no experience and a great joy and pride in being engaged,
she has fallen in with his every suggestion, to the great disgust of
her sisters. Gradually and surely she is ceasing to have any common
ground with them; which is of course very foolish, for Spanton is not
making her better, but merely different. Her Spantonisms are only
veneer; the sound Freeland stock remains, and will remain underneath,
although for the time being it is invisible.
"When half-gods go the gods arrive," says the poet. But it isn't
generally true. More accurate would it be to say, "When gods arrive
the half-gods go." That is a phenomenon which most families have
witnessed and the Freeland family are witnessing now. Before the
advent of the god Spanton, Nancy had been loyal to her sisters' and
their friends' enthusiasms. She had had local heroes too--this
cricketer, that tennis-player. But Spanton, although he may not be
so proficient, has the only right way of behaving at these games, or
else he despises them; while when it comes to the arts, he leads by
lengths. Nancy used, for example, to be rather keen on musical
comedy; but Spanton being all for Shaw, farewell to Gertie Millar.
Nancy used to go to the Academy every May and revel in it; but
Spanton believing only in the New Englishmen, farewell to the Hon.
John Collier. And so it is, all over this little island.
CHAPTER XI
IN WHICH THERE IS TROUBLE IN THE HOUSE OF WILES OWING TO A HUSBAND
ONCE AGAIN GETTING HIS OWN WAY
Naomi has had a letter from Mrs. Wiles saying that she was in trouble
and badly in need of advice, and would Mrs. Falconer be so kind as to
call. We therefore went round in the afternoon and found the
millionairess in tears.
"Wiles will be here directly," she said. "He's just gone out for
some medicine."
"No one's seriously ill, I hope?" I said.
"Well, I don't know," she replied. "But you remember, ma'am, what
you said about adopting a child. We talked that over and over, and
Wiles didn't seem to care about it at first, and then all of a sudden
he got brighter and thought it was a good idea. Only, 'Leave it to
me,' he kept saying; 'I'll do it.' Well, I know Wiles has his wits
about him most times, but when it comes to adopting a child, why,
there I think that the choice ought to have been mine. It's woman's
work, anyway, especially as it's me who would have to look after it,
or so I thought. But Wiles, he only laughed, funny like, and
wouldn't hear of it. 'Leave it to me,' he kep' on saying. And what
do you think? Yesterday the baby came; and what do you think it is?
Why, not a Christian at all, but a baby chimpanzee. I'll admit it's
not a monkey; that's something gained; but I don't know how to hold
me head up, all the same. Look at the degrasion of it! What can the
neighbours say? Because of course they'll think it's just a monkey.
And in our position! Here we are, come into money and moving into a
nice house, with a servant, and getting rid of the Zoo and all its
fleas once and for ever, as I thought, and now to have it all
beginning again and another of those creatures brought into the very
house where we eat and sleep: that is if ever I, for one, will sleep
again! Never did I think to see my own back-kitchen a menagerie."
At this moment Wiles came in, looking a little self-conscious, but
important too. "Ah," he said, "I can see what the missis has been
saying, but don't you take any notice of her. She'll be all right.
Come and see my Lou," and he led us to the back-kitchen, where a
timid and distrustful chimpanzee huddled in a corner. "That's her,
that's my Lou," he said. "That's our adopted child, ma'am. She's
got a touch of bronchitis, I'm afraid, and I've been getting some
medicine. But she ought to be all right here, with me to look after
her. Why, I feel another man already. Something to do again."
Lou was a picture of melancholy and suspicion as her new father
poured out a spoonful of the linctus; but it was syrupy and she took
it with pleasure. "There," he said, as she finished the dose, "my
little girl isn't going to die of pneumonia. She's going to get
strong and learn some good tricks, isn't she?"
"Tricks!" said Mrs. Wiles. "You know what that means: shaking hands,
eating with a spoon, pretending to read the paper. Nothing worth
doing. Nothing like a nice little orphan girl who would be a
companion and a pleasure to us and go to a cinema now and then. I'm
so disappointed."
"Well," I said, "there's time. It's only Wiles having his adopted
child first. Your turn next. That's fair, isn't it, Wiles?"
"We'll leave it at that for the present," said Wiles, pointing to an
illuminated card on the wall. "That's our motto," he added.
I am always attracted by stories of what might be called beneficent
error, and this gesture of Wiles's gave me a perfect example. To my
eyes and to ninety-nine observers out of a hundred the device, which
ran thus,
[Illustration: NOT NOW]
represented nothing in the world but the text, "No Cross, no Crown."
Judge, then, of my astonishment when Mrs. Wiles supplemented her
husband's remark by saying: "Yes, we've had a lot of comfort out of
those words in our day. 'Not now.' Later, it'll be all right.
There's a better time coming. But it isn't quite ripe yet, so pull
yourselves together and wait cheerfully. Wiles had it given him by
an aunt of his, who was a very pious body, and it always puzzled us
why she shouldn't have sent something more religious. But, as it
happens, nothing religious could have helped us more, could it,
Wiles? 'Not now.'"
Naturally I said nothing to them about it, but I have been wondering
since what difference it would have made had they known all along
that "No Cross, no Crown" was the true reading. Once they accepted
the full meaning of the phrase, none, I suppose; for "No Cross, no
Crown" and "Not now" come to mean the same thing in the end. But it
is an amusing confusion, and not the least amusing part of it is the
circumstance that two poets at any rate have toiled to combine words
that would convey the same ideas, while all the time such a
commonplace and terse locution as "Not now" could have done it all.
For what more does Pope's famous couplet say:
Hope springs eternal in the human breast,
Man never is, but always to be, blest?
or "Rabbi Ben Ezra's" beautiful line:
Grow old along with me: the best is yet to be?
CHAPTER XII
IN WHICH THE FIRST-FLOOR-FRONT UNFOLDS AND SOME OF THE SECRETS OF A
REMARKABLE INDUSTRY ARE LAID BARE
Mr. Lacey has now introduced me to Mr. Furley, with whom he divides
the first floor, and whom we hear moving restlessly about overhead at
all hours. On my mentioning this habit to him he said that he always
walked when he was inventing. Asked what he was inventing, he said
film stories. For Mr. Furley not only makes pictures of real events,
which is the staple of his odd business, but devises dramas too. He
has bought an estate near London, in Essex, where walled gardens with
fine trees in them are so plentiful and cheap, and here he has
erected a huge crystal palace for indoor photography as well as
having natural surroundings for open-air episodes. Here, too, he has
formed a stock company of actors and actresses to perform his plays.
Mr. Furley sent a message in one fine morning to say that he had a
drama in the making that day, and would I like to see it. I said I
would, and we were soon dashing off to his suburb in his motor-car.
We turned into the gateway of his estate, and there among the trees
was a Red Indian encampment with a number of tethered horses--only a
few yards from a busy High Street with electric trams in it. Cowboys
on ponies waited near by, and an excited manager was shouting through
a megaphone while the camera clicked off its myriad impressions. The
whole effect was strangely bizarre, and I must admit it struck me as
desperately silly. At least it seemed desperately silly that in a
few days' time thousands of my countrymen all over England, and
later, thousands of people all over the rest of the world, were going
to pay to have their feelings worked up by such cynically
manufactured heroics.
"I had no idea," I said, "that these cowboy dramas were made in
England."
"Bless your heart, why not?" said Mr. Furley. "Nearly everything can
be done in England. A background of trees in Essex is enough like a
background of trees in Texas to satisfy most people. It's the
movement and the humanity that they look at; they don't criticize.
As a matter of fact, the cinema won't let them--it's too hypnotic.
It lulls you."
The cowboys having done their scene, a cardboard room was quickly
erected and the unhappy heroine sat in it to receive a visit from a
drunken lover whom she was to reclaim from whisky. There were but
three walls, and the two side ones were set at an obtuse angle to the
back.
"You wouldn't think when you see these things on the screen," said
Mr. Furley, "that the fourth wall is the world itself, with the
camera in the midst. We build up the three walls in the open air for
the most part, and keep the actors in focus by means of those long
strips of wood on the ground, over which they mustn't step. When
they are ready we take them, but they have been rehearsing a long
time. Some words, you notice, are being spoken or the time would be
wrong and the actions wouldn't fit; we don't ask them to learn
anything by heart, but merely get the sense. No actor need ever
retire into private life any more because his memory or voice has
gone: the cinema will employ him.
"There's nothing you can't do with the cinema," he said. "For
instance, suppose I want to show you run over by a steam-roller. I
could do it so thoroughly as to make your wife shriek. First of all,
I place you here and then the roller advances on you. I take
photographs until the roller touches you. Then I stop the camera,
lay on the floor a dummy figure, and take the roller advancing over
that. I stop the camera again and place on the floor a brown-paper
shape like a pressed-out man and I take the roller just passing off
that. Then a lot of people crowd in, and I stop it while you take
your place on the ground in the middle of them, and then I turn the
wheel again and we see you restored to life. When the picture is
exhibited it runs straight on as if there had been no breaks at all;
but the breaks do it. It's the art of leaving out. The camera's
good for anything; it's the new ideas that we want.
"Another thing we want is English actors and actresses with a sense
of gesture. The idiots, they stand there and deliver their speeches
as if they were posts, and how do you suppose that comes out on the
film? The result is that we have to get foreigners for all the best
plays--Italians first of all--because they move their hands while
they are speaking and convey their meaning. Our own actors can do
certain things all right, but not the best emotional things, and the
result is I'm now writing a series of purely English plays where only
English stolidity is needed. Then they'll be at home."
Mr. Furley showed me how some of the trick films are made. For
example, one in which a box of bricks opened automatically, the
bricks came out and built themselves into a house, and then unbuilt
themselves and returned to the box.
"It's on the single picture principle," he said. "One picture at a
time and then they're reeled off as if they were taken continuously,
like views of the opening of Parliament and so forth. Suppose this
is the box of bricks and you want that brick to come out of it by
itself and stand itself on end. You take a piece of thread so fine
as to be invisible and fasten it to the brick. Then you lift the
brick an infinitesimal way and that is photographed; a little more,
and another photograph; a little more, and another; and so on.
Perhaps before that brick is on end sixty separate pictures have had
to be made, and so on with the others. The film may take five
minutes to exhibit; and it has required two weeks of ten-hour days to
make.
"Historical scenes are still popular in some places," he said. "But
you have to be careful how you do them. The public doesn't want them
exact, but exact in the way it has always thought of them. For
instance, I wanted to do an execution of Mary Queen of Scots, so I
went to the British Museum to see contemporary pictures. But do you
think I could use them? Not a bit of it. The public, accustomed to
think of Mary as they have seen her in so many modern paintings,
wouldn't have stood it. So I went to the modern painters instead and
got some good ideas. But it isn't the real thing. Executions are
always popular. The women like it. And a sad story--Jane Shore, Amy
Robsart, the Princes in the Tower, Charles the First--you can't go
wrong with those.
"But as a matter of fact, I hold that whatever you give the public
now will do, because they've got the cinema habit. The films change
every Monday and Thursday in most halls. Well, every Monday and
every Thursday you see the same people roll up. If it's a good set,
they tell their friends it's good and perhaps come again themselves.
If it's a bad set they say nothing but hope for better luck next
time. The one thing they can't do is to stay away. The cinema's got
them."
As I looked over this strange place and heard Mr. Furley's
explanations, ideas as to the further possibilities of the cinema
crowded into my mind. Its educational advantages, for example, are
remarkable, and a day will certainly come when most schools will have
a machine for exhibiting films. The most delicate physiological
processes can be recorded: the evolution of the butterfly from the
egg; the hatching of chickens; and so forth--all making a biology
lesson as fascinating as a romance. Every science can in fact be
humanized by this invention, and school children actually see the
world in the act of growing. My own particular hobby just now,
too--folk dancing--how easily the cinema could help that, by
reproducing the steps and movements so exactly as to make teachers
almost unnecessary.
Geography again--how vastly more entertaining a lesson would be if
the scholar was taken for a short trip through the country that was
under examination. London in the early days of the cinema had
several halls where only scenery was shown; and they were very
popular. To-day the taste has declined and everyone wants melodrama.
But those old topographical films are not lost and they would be
priceless for quickening the imagination of the young at school.
I made some of these suggestions to Mr. Furley, but he was not
enthusiastic. He is a serious man with taste, but he does not let
that interfere with his business. "In our trade," he said, "you must
give the public what they want. People like you come to me and say,
'Why don't you raise the tone of the films and make them more
instructive?' But I want to retire, and in order to do that I must
make money. I used to have a notion once that I would be ahead of
the time, but I've given that up. The fact is, the cinema managers
who buy my films won't let me. They decide what the public want, or
the public want what they decide: I'm not sure which it is, but
whichever it is, there's no chance for much that isn't vulgar. After
the real events, and now and then a landscape film, everything has to
be either passionate or comic.'
"Well," I said, "the time must surely come, and soon, when the cinema
will begin to need brains. All this sham stuff will fatigue and the
real thing will have a chance. If you take my advice you will try to
be in the van. As it is, I feel sure that London could stand one
hall at any rate where something better was given. There are such
possibilities. Satire, for example, never had such an ally. Think
how deadly at political meetings could a film be which depicted the
rival candidate in ridiculous situations! Think of what Socialism
might gain from a series of views of the stately homes of England and
their idle plutocratic owners at play! Think of the way in which the
cinema could fortify and supplement the work of the illustrated
papers! No, you are only just beginning, and it is absurd for you to
talk of retiring yet. For every ten camera films you make, to
satisfy the stupid public, you ought to make one good one for your
conscience's sake."
But Mr. Furley only laughed. "You don't know the ignorant buyers I
have to deal with," he said.
"Then open theatres of your own," I urged.
"Not for anything," he replied. "No, I want to get out of it all.
It's getting on my nerves. I can't sleep. My eyes have turned into
lenses and my brain into a camera, and I see everything like that.
Nothing but farming will do me any good, and I want to get to my farm
as soon as I can and stop there. When I'm talking to people--as it
might be you now--I find myself all ready to swear at them for not
being more animated. I search the papers for the death of kings,
because there's nothing so popular as royal funerals. I'm a lost
soul."
No one who has not gone into the matter has any notion of what an
industry has sprung up around the cinema. There is first of all the
photographer, who must be supplied with materials, not the least of
which is, annually, many miles of celluloid film. This film has to
be made, and factories came into being to do nothing but make it.
Passing over the other photographic accessories, we come to the
buildings, where the dramas are enacted, the actors who perform, the
costumes, horses, motor-cars, and scenery which they require, and the
managers who rehearse them--often day after day for hours before the
few minutes occupied by the final photography. Then the development
and reproduction of the film, its sale to various syndicates that
control the cinema shows of the world, and its exhibition in the
theatres themselves, all day long, for three days only, in each, for
the delectation of the thousands of spectators. And the whole thing
isn't more than fourteen years old.
I made some remark to this effect.
"Oh," said Mr. Furley, "the cinema industry's nothing here compared
with America. There they take it seriously. Expensive actors and
actresses are retained, large tracts of country are rented, and the
activity is prodigious. In Italy and France too they pay immense
salaries to their funny men and huge fees to dramatists to devise
scenarios. Here we pay next to nothing, and if possible nothing at
all. One can get all the plots we want out of our heads or old
novelettes. I have a man always at work reading old novelettes for
plots."
England, my England!
CHAPTER XIII
IN WHICH MRS. DUCKIE DISCUSSES THE DUTIES OF LIFE, AND MR. BEMERTON
INTRODUCES ME TO CERTAIN VILLAGE PESSIMISTS
For old sake's sake I look in now and then on Mr. Bemerton and bring
away a book, and recently I exchanged a few words with Mrs. Duckie,
who is now very lonely by day, Be-trice having gone on to the
music-hall stage under the name of Lazie Glee, a serio-comic singer,
and Ern having thrown up a situation in a garage in order to join a
troupe in the same profession who are known as "The Four Uglies."
Mrs. Duckie naturally began by asking after my young lady. "The
pretty dear," she said, "I hope she's well, and that you're
comfortable where you are. Sorry we were to lose you. And are there
any little ones? Not yet--but there will be, I hope and trust. Such
a sweet lady and such a nice gentleman, it would be a sin not to have
any. So many people to-day aren't having any, and I call it a crying
shame. But you're not like that. There must be one little Master
Falconer at any rate, if not two, and a little Miss Falconer as well.
One of each is best. Single children get spoiled and too clever too:
no give-and-take and always hearing their parents talk; not good for
a child. No, a noisy nursery is best, with a good quarrel now and
then. That's the way to make men and women. The next time you call
I hope you'll be able to bring the good news," the honest creature
concluded.
She went on--without interruption--to talk of her own family. "Why
all my children should be so bitten by the music halls I can't
think," she remarked mournfully. "I never cared for the places
myself, and my husband is all for serious music when he gets the
chance; while their grandfather on their father's side was a local
preacher, and my father, God bless him, as quiet a man as you'd find
anywhere, and so little ear that he didn't know the 'Old Hundredth'
from 'Home, Sweet Home.' It just shows what a wonderful thing this
heredity is. I suppose there must have been someone in the family
somewhere who was more skittish. Of course one never knows all about
anyone. Perhaps Duckie's father sang a bit loose before he took to
religion."
"Your mother didn't sing?" I asked.
"No, bless her heart, she didn't. But I've heard her say, now I come
to think of it, that her mother was famous in 'Sir Roger.' Perhaps
that's where it all started. But it makes me very unhappy. There's
Be-trice now, these two houses a night just wear her out. And Ern
calling himself an 'Ugly,' it's dreadful. Such a pretty child as he
was too, with fair curls down to his shoulders. I don't know what
the world's coming to."
I asked after Mr. Duckie.
"He's very well," said Mrs. Duckie, "but tired. Always on his poor
feet, you know. He's got a great idea of finding someone with a
little money to join him in starting an eating-house of his own, and
though of course it's very risky I almost wish he could; for he's
getting on in years and it's a shame he should spend his whole life
in making money for someone else. I wonder if you know of anyone
with a little capital, sir?"
"I'll think about it," I said, at once remembering both the
unoccupied Mr. Wiles and Lacey's cold chop scheme.
Mr. Bemerton was somewhat depressed too. Old-book buying, he said,
was declining steadily. Reprints were hitting him very hard, but the
love of pleasure harder. People spent their money now on
entertainment and food, where they once used not only to dine at home
but sit at home all the evening reading. Now if they sat at home
they played bridge. He wouldn't be so pessimistic as to say that
England was going to the dogs, but he would like to see something
happen to make us pull ourselves together. His niece, Miss Waghorn,
had left him. Married a mild young man in a hosier's, ten years her
junior, and the pair of them reminded Mr. Bemerton of nothing so much
as a cruet: oil and vinegar. "But I dare say they'll mix," he said.
"They met in a lodging-house at Margate: nothing like such places to
settle one's hash. With no home comforts one gets desperate for
company, and then Cupid begins to shoot.
"I've got a little book for you," said Mr. Bemerton, "that I've been
keeping till you came in. A privately printed one. It would be too
much to say that they are the best books, but they often have a
quality that the others haven't. Sometimes of course they're merely
the result of vanity, but here and there, as in the present case,
they contain a very special kind of record, such as a modest observer
with a humorous sense of character might like to preserve for her
friends but not wish the world at large to see, lest perhaps some of
the simple folk described in the pages might get to know of it and be
hurt."
Mr. Bemerton, who had been turning a little volume over and over in
his hands all this time, while mine were stretched out and withdrawn
and again outstretched to take it, here opened it.
"It's the modestest little thing," he said. "Just a few pages of
talk among villagers in the Midlands; but it's a jewel of literature.
Among its very great admirers when it appeared was Mr. Gladstone.
Now, I've only one copy and I can't get another; but I'll lend it to
you. You must treat it as if it were a black pearl."
I have done so and allowed no one but Naomi to see it. It is a
strange little book and might well cease to be private, although one
likes to think of a few good things being withheld from the world at
large. Miss A., the author or recorder of these conversations, was
an invalid lady living in the country, to whom her humble neighbours
were a perpetual joy; she helped them, she sympathized with them, and
she laughed at their little foibles afterwards. In these pages she
has preserved certain of their odd speeches, the period being chiefly
early in the eighteen sixties. But the type is eternal.
Although we meet several characters in the book, most of them have a
family resemblance in that they have had a hard time, and expect
nothing better, and do not always make the best of it. No doubt Miss
A. had neighbours who were more optimistic or less sardonic; but to
her these did not appeal as those others did. All artists have
preferences in types, and the humorous grumbler was hers. But it is
not discontent that gives this little book its unity; it is marriage.
Almost every page touches upon that imperfect state, so that by the
end an impressionable reader would as soon think of entering the
bonds as of sitting voluntarily in the electrocuting chair; that is,
if marriage did not chance to be the one hazard in the world from
which no one person can withhold another.
Here are Miss A. and Mary Powell, a labourer's wife, together, in
Mary Powell's cottage, as reported by Miss A.:
_Miss A._ "How have you and John agreed together since I left
Bewley?"
_Mary._ "Well, ma'am, those words of yours when we parted have
hacted very well. 'Mary,' says you, 'when John's in a bad temper you
be in a good 'un; for it's both on you being in a bad temper together
as does the mischief.' So mony a time when he's contraried me I've
said to myself, 'Now I'll be on Miss A.'s plan;' and we've had
nothing but bits of houts since--never no fighting--and a very good
thing we've left it off. For, ye see, a man's hand falls very heavy
on a woman, and mony a time I've been black and blue; only he was a
deal more careful where he hit me at after he had that
seven-and-sixpence to pay for them leeches to my side. You remember
it, don't you, ma'am? I'd been saying summat again his mother--he
calls her all to pieces himself, only he wunna let me--so he knocked
me hoff the chair, and it caused himplamation; and fine and foolish
John looked when the doctor shook his head at him. But he niver said
he was sorry; he's too stupid for that."
_Miss A._ "Have you taken my advice on the other point--about going
to church?"
_Mary._ "Well, ma'am, I did go twice after my brother died; but I
can scarce ever find time, betwixt waiting on the cow, and the pig,
and John--and he taks as much as t'other two put together; he won't
so much as reach out his hand to reach hisself a cup or a saucer. I
gets up at four o'clock on Sundays to milk cow, and then there's
John's boots to be blacked, and a deal of mud scraped off 'em first,
and breakfast to get in time for him to go to chapel at nine (and he
scolds me finely if he's late), and then pig to be fed and our dinner
to get. I said to John one Sunday, when he'd been saying, 'Woman,
thou'lt go to Fire and Brimstone as sure as thou'rt born, for thou
niver goest to church nor chapel;' 'Very well,' says I, 'then thou
must feed pig thyself to-day.' 'I'll let him starve first,' says
John; and, sure enough, pig would have starved if I had na' crep out
at night to feed him. So when I come back I thought I'd have it out
wi' John, so I says, 'I'm not a bit likelier to go to Fire and
Brimstone than thou art, with all thy blaating and praying; and as
for them Methodies, I hates 'em, with all them collections, sixpence
here and sixpence there; and I have read in a book that John Wesley
did not improve of their axing folks for money.' So John says quite
scornful, 'I wonder where you got that much larning, woman.' 'When I
had the hopportunity,' I says quite scornful back again. You know,
Miss A., I'd read it in a book as was full of all manner of things
about railroads and such like. I suppose, ma'am, you've seen London
Bridge. Eh! dear, what a place it must be! They say the railway
carriages, and carriages and cabs with horses, are all running
together upon the rails, and it's nothing but them pints as keeps
them from all being smashed together."
Again, two years later:
_Miss A._ "How have you and John been getting on since I saw you?"
_Mary._ "Pretty well; indeed, I darsna fly into them passions; the
doctor says it'll be present death if I do. Mine is the white
passions as drives the blood hinwards and causes bad palpulation at
the heart. Mr. Walker, the doctor, come in one day just as I'd
knocked John back'ards at the door for coming in with dirty shoes
just when I'd been two hours on my hands and knees cleaning the
floor; but, you know, Miss A., a hot temper is naterally grounded in
me. My mother had a hawful temper; I've seen her empty a shovel full
of hot ashes on my father's head. Now, I won't say but what I've
thrown a ash or two at John, but they've been could 'uns; and one day
my mother snatched up a gown as I had been buying for myself, and put
it on the fire, and her said, 'There now, and next time I'll put you
on the fire too, if you buy finery without my jurydiction.' Eh! how
I cried when I see'd them beautiful pink and yallow stripes kindling;
but her was a good mother at the root for all her was so strict; and
when I sees girls nowadays fithered and flounced up, and pomped out
so as when they comes swelling along one's obliged to get out o' the
road, I often thinks to myself, it's a pity there's not some mothers
in Bewley like mine. John often says to me, 'Thou'rt the very model
of thy mother, Mary, temper and all.' 'Yes, John,' says I, 'and
didn't her warn thee that I'd a foul temper; and didn't thee say,
like a big fool, "I wull have her, temper and all." Thou conceitedst
thou couldst master me, but thou hast larnt different.' 'I have
that,' said John. He often fetches texes out of Scripture about
women doing their juties, to clench me with, and he knows it taks me
a long time to pick out a tex to clench him with. There was no
natteral schools whin I was yong."
The next year:
_Mary._ "I hope you're better of the lombagger, Miss A. John had it
wunst, and he was cured with some stuff he got gracious from Doctor
Woods; it was uncommon strong, for he could feel it playing back'ards
and forrards about his heart afore it went down. John's mother is
dead at last, but she lay a long while; you know sick folks canna go
hoff unless they're kept nice and clean; I'll be bound her'd have
died a deal sooner if I'd had the tending of heir, because I should
always have been fettling and washing of her. For all her'd been so
wicked, her died like a good 'un, and said her was going to Glory;
but I'm partly of your opinyan, Miss A., that according as folks
live, so they'll die."
So much for Mary Powell. Now for Anne Williams:
_Miss A._ "I think you seem as cheerful as ever."
_Anne._ "Yes! as Mary James says, I'm always at the top o' the tree,
and so I ought to be, for the Lord has been very good to me. You
would not have conceited as He would listen to the prayers of a poor
hignorant woman like me, but I've pruven as He did; for many a time
as my husband has rampaged out of the house door like a lion, I've
felled on my knees, and he's come back like a lamb. I never used to
tell him what it was as had peacified him, because I knew that 'ud
cause him to break out worse till ever; and now when he's a bit for
wrangling, I only just say, 'Daniel, we wasn't paired to tear up one
another's minds, but to live comfortable.' I should like you to see
my youngest girl; she's not out o' the way handsome, for you know,
ma'am, I'm hard-featured, and Daniel is long-featured (though he
looks pretty well when he's tidied up a bit), but she has the
loveliest tongue for a child of two and a half as ever anybody heard.
Whatever we say, long or short, she has it in a minute, and specially
if there's a bad word said she's sure not to miss it; and then, if I
hoffer to beat her, her'll cry out, 'If mother beats Hemma, Hemma'il
tell daddy, and then daddy'll beat mother': really, I say such an
admyrable little creatur is more than nateral. I shall be taking her
with me to chapel by-and-bye; we attends the Primities."
_Miss A._ "Are those the Ranters?"
_Anne._ "Oh! no, ma'am, the Ranters jump, and the Primities only
shouts. I don't hold with jumping myself, though to be sure wasn't
it St. Paul--oh no, it was King David--as danced before the ark? The
shouting is a realality, depend upon it, Miss A., for you know when
the facts of the Lord works into one's inside one cannot help but
shout."
The next cottage is a stonemason's. The stonemason is ill and his
wife receives the visitor:
"My husband is very bad indeed, ladies; indeed, I thought it was a
done job with him last week, and him unconvarted yet. He was very
near getting his convarsion last winter; he came in from the public
one Saturday night near ten o'clock, and he says to me, 'Anne, it's
plain enough thy prayers isn't strong enough for me, and I'm
determined to try what they can do for me at Cresbrook Chapel, and
we'll set out this very night, to be ready for the meeting in the
morning.' So we set out, and as we passed the Nag's Head I could
hear him saying, 'Be off with ye,'--that was to the Devil, you know,
ladies. It was twelve o'clock when we got to Cresbrook to my
mother's; and as soon as morning came my husband said, 'I'll go to
cousin Jane, as has axed me so often to go to chapel, and if her axes
me again, I'll go.' So he went, but her never axed him, so I took it
that the Lord had not appinted this time for Ned, so we come home
again, and he soon took to drink worse than ever; but he's better to
me than he used to be, for when I knelt down to say my prayers he'd
often pull me up again by the roots of my hair. He's coming
downstairs now, ladies. Ned, thou must tell these ladies what ails
thee, though they'll scarce understand such broad talk as thine, but
thou must speak thy best and they'll excuse it."
_Ned._ "The doctor says the muscles of my liver is set fast, and he
ordered me a hot slivver bath to loosen 'em; so I borrowed one, and
while I was in it two or three of the neighbours looked in, and they
kept saying, 'Stop in a bit longer, lad, it'll fatch the grease out
of thy boones;' so I stopped and stopped till I was well-nigh jead,
and I have been going worse ever since."
_Miss A._ "Have you been subject to these attacks before?"
_Ned._ "Yes, ma'am, since I was a lad. I was 'prentice to my uncle,
a stonmason, and one day when I was at the top of a ladder, thirty
feet high, me and the big ston I was carrying come down together; and
when I laid on the ground half-stunned, the first words my uncle said
was, 'The ston's not brocken;' he never axed me if I was hurt, and as
soon as I could move, he said, 'Up with it again, lad;' so I went,
but afore I was half-way up I fainted right away, and fell to the
ground with the ston atop of me that time, and I was in bed eleven
weeks. My uncle was a bit of a rogue, but he grew to be quite a big
sort of a man afterwards, and used to ax me to dinner, and very
handsome victuals he set before me, but I niver felt right in the
stomach till I'd said summat about the big ston. However, I niver
said much, for I kept thinking to myself, 'The words as one has not
yet spooken, one has got yet for to say.'"
And, lastly, here is an old Welsh widower:
_Miss A._ "I hear that you lost your wife ten years ago. You must
have led a sad, lonely life since her death."
_David._ "Quite the other way, ma'am. I'd never no peace at all
till she went. I prayed to the Lord night and day for thirty years
that He would please to part us; but I left it to Him which way it
should be. I was quite ready to go myself; but He took her at last,
and right thankful I was indeed."
_Miss A._ "I suppose you were always quarrelling?"
_David._ "I had a hot temper enough before I was married; but when I
see what an awful woman she was, I says to myself, 'Now, two fires
cannot burn together;' and I grew as quiet as could be, and never
contraried her no ways. But she was a most awful woman; indeed, she
did throw a coffee-pot just off the fire at my head one day."
_Miss A._ "I hope she repented before she died."
_David._ "Indeed, I don't know. I did often say to her when she lay
a-dying, 'My dear, I hope the Lord will forgive your sins; but I do
not know as He will, for you have been a most awful woman indeed, my
dear."
They ring very true, these grumbles, do they not? And they all add
to the wish which so many reflective persons must have entertained at
one time or other, that the Perfect Man had not narrowed His earthly
experiences and diminished the variety of His example by remaining
single.
CHAPTER XIV
IN WHICH A JOVIAL PARTY JOIN ENGLAND'S ANNUAL SATURNALIA AND A NEW
KNIGHT PHILOSOPHIZES ON HIS GREATNESS
Naomi's young friend Dollie Heathcote, who goes everywhere and does
all the doggy things, as he calls them, was so shocked to find that I
had never been to the Derby that, in order to save his reason, which
seemed to be tottering under the blow, I said we would accompany him
there, on condition that he took care of us.
"Very well, then," he said. "I'll make up a jolly party. Wow, wow!"
For some time past he has been including this insane exclamation in
most of his remarks. From what I can understand, the intention is to
signify that the speaker is capable of all--ready for any emergency,
and particularly a convivial one.
"We go, I suppose, in a hearse," I said, when he came to announce
that all the plans were settled.
"Great Heavens, no," replied Dollie. "That's all over. We go in a
motor brake, and my friend Farrar's got a box for us in the Grand
Stand."
"All right," I said. "But I always understood that one should go to
the Derby in a hearse, wearing a green puggeree. You see, I was out
of England so long, I don't really know."
"I hope you'll be able to bear up without your green puggeree next
Wednesday," said Dollie, with real anxiety. These young men, for all
their "wow-wows," are very scrupulous dressers and anxious
company-keepers nowadays, I notice.
"I'll try," I said.
"But, look here," he added, "I don't want to bore you, you know, but
I hope that when we're there you're all going to bet. You haven't
any rotten objections, have you?"
I said that I knew of none. For my own part I would cheerfully put
something on.
Dollie was immensely relieved. "That's all right, then," he said.
"Racing without betting's like oysters without lemon. Some people
pretend to like it for the sport only; but there isn't any sport.
There's only a great, sweltering crowd that lasts for hours, and
every half-hour a brown rush which lasts a second that you can't see
because someone's in the the way. That's racing when you don't bet.
But when you do bet it is interesting all the while. You don't
notice the crowd and you do notice the merry little gees."
"But isn't betting very bad for people?" Naomi inquired.
"Bad for those who can't afford to be pipped," said Dollie, "yes.
But I don't know that it's done me much harm. Whisky and soda
instead of _vino veritas_, now and then, I'll admit; but when you
chance to hop on to a winner, what ho, for the ancient vintage. The
awful thing about betting," Dollie continued, "is, that no matter
whether you lose or whether you win, you always reproach yourself.
You always say, 'If only I'd done so and so."
"But you had what's called a tip, I suppose," said Naomi, with, I
thought, strange knowledge.
"Yes, but a man who bets is always in two minds. That's the second
tragic thing about it. The third is that he's always superstitious.
I'll give you an instance. You've got a strong tip for a horse
called Knucklebones. But there's another horse in it called Bobby.
Well, you're just crossing the road to send a telegram to your bookie
to back Knucklebones (or perhaps you've sent it), when a policeman
grabs your arm and snatches you out of the way of a taxi. After that
how can you possibly not back Bobby?"
"Why?" Naomi inquired blankly.
"Because of the policeman--Bobby--don't you see?"
"Poor things," said Naomi, with real anguish. "How difficult you
make life for yourselves, and how sorry we ought to be for you. I
never thought before how racing men suffer. And some people are so
down on them too!"
"Oh," said Dollie, "if you want to pity us I can give you plenty more
material. If you only knew what I suffer before I send the
telegrams. Which bookie to send to, for example. If I lost the last
time, I wonder whether I hadn't better change to another; for
everyone has more than one. And then the post offices: which one to
go to, because some have been luckier than others. And even which
hand to take the stamps with when you lick them on."
"Poor Dollie, poor Dollie," said Naomi.
"And then," Dollie continued, "think what it must be to have a tip
for a horse and put your shirt on it in a telegram, and then, not
long before the race, meet another man whose information is usually
good who gives you a totally different tip! There's misery for you!"
"And what do you do?" Naomi asked.
"Do?" said Dollie. "Nothing, only suffer and wait for the result.
Haven't you ever watched men's faces after they've bought the evening
paper? Some men with a lot at stake daren't look at the paper at all
in the street. I've carried a paper about for an hour, myself,
before I could bring myself to learn the worst."
"Poor Dollie," said Naomi, "and I have always thought you so
frivolous."
"Few people have more serious times than I do," he replied. "Often I
can't sleep at all wondering if I've done right about a gee. And
then there's scratching."
"Dollie!" exclaimed Naomi reprovingly.
"No, no, I don't mean that," said Dollie. "Scratching means taking a
horse out of a race beforehand. If you've backed him and then he's
scratched, you lose your money just as if he had run and lost."
"I don't think that's fair," said Naomi.
"Well, it's the rule anyhow," said Dollie.
"Don't tell me any more," said Naomi. "I shall get you on my mind
and lose my sleep too. But answer just this one question. It's
about the saying 'If only I'd done so and so.' How is it that all
you poor dears say that if you win as well as if you lose?"
"Well, if you lose," said Dollie, "you say, 'If only I'd backed that
other gee instead;' but if you win you say, 'If only I'd put on a
tenner instead of a fiver.' Don't you see? You can't get away from
it. The words 'If only I'd' are engraven on every betting man's
heart."
"Then really I almost wonder you don't give up betting," Naomi
replied.
"Give up betting? Good Heavens! You must do something," said
Dollie, in alarm. "How could one get through the day without a
little flutter? I don't mean at the races only, but in town? It
just keeps you going. You pick out your fancies in the morning, and
then you go on buying the evening papers all through the day. That's
life."
"I am afraid I have sadly misspent mine," I said. "I haven't had a
bet for thirty years."
"We must get you into good habits again on Wednesday," said Dollie.
The ride to the Derby was amusing, but to have chartered a motor was
the height of foolishness. The motor's recommendation is its speed;
but owing to the congestion of the road we rarely proceeded above a
walking pace after the first few miles. As a matter of fact, a
donkey barrow with three passengers kept ahead of us for an hour.
Dollie had charge of the party. With him was Ann Ingleside; Algy
Farrar and his wife Gwen, whom it appeared Naomi had known and liked
at school; Naomi; I; and, to my great pleasure, Ann's father, Sir
Gaston Ingleside, who had been induced to go, much, he said, against
his will and, he feared, in his country's time, he being a Whitehall
magnate; but he thought it only right, as a good parent, to
participate in some of Ann's actions.
"But what I am chiefly doing," he said, "is marvelling at the change
that has come over life in my time. I can no more fancy my father
taking me to the Derby than to an opium den; yet here am I placidly
seated in the same dissolute vehicle as my unmarried daughter, on our
way to the great reprehensible annual carnival of vice."
"Yes," said Ann, "and you one of the newest K.C.B.s too, fresh from
the King's presence."
"By the way," said Dollie, "the King will be there to-day. He always
goes to the Derby. Perhaps you'll meet, sir. You know each other
now, don't you?"
"I shall never forget him as long as I live," said Sir Gaston; "but
even if he, as is likely, has forgotten my face, the spectacle of my
legs, in hired knee-breeches, walking perilously backwards with a
sword between them, must be indelibly printed on his memory."
"Do tell me," said Naomi. "Was it very dreadful?"
"Very," said Sir Gaston. "We did our best to hearten each other, but
the dentist is nothing to it. Decent fellows we were, most of us:
brewers, music hall managers, actors, Party-plutocrats, caterers, and
so forth, all armed to the teeth, all conscious of clothes we had
never worn before and should probably never wear again--which is in
itself an embarrassment--and all on the brink of changing our
identity for ever."
"How do you mean?" Naomi asked.
"Why, all my life until then, or a few days before (but unofficially,
of course, since the accolade had not been bestowed), I have been to
the world Mr. Ingleside. My Christian name, which always seemed to
me a strangely affected one and was due to my mother as a young woman
having deplorable romantic tendencies, I have done my best to
suppress. And now the Ingleside alone goes for ever, and everyone is
entitled to call me Sir Gaston."
"I almost wonder you accepted the title," Naomi said.
"My dear Mrs. Falconer," said Sir Gaston, "I wonder, too, now; but at
the time there seemed to be several rather good reasons. Perhaps the
best of all was that I was a widower."
Sir Gaston gave me a sidelong glance here which I greatly esteemed.
Here was good company; old in bottle. The joke was lost, I fear, on
Naomi, who puckered her beautiful forehead over it in vain. As for
the rest, they had not been listening to us at all but were busy
watching the occupants of the other carriages, with some of whom
Dollie and Farrar were on very familiar terms.
We reached the course at last and the Grand Stand, where Farrar, who
seems to be a millionaire, had a box for the week, in which not only
were chairs but a very attractive lunch.
I thanked him later in the day for being so hospitable to strangers.
"That's all right," he said, almost as if I had apologized for
something.
A curious young man, one of those mixtures of sagacity and apathy,
thoughtfulness and blankness, which the idle classes throw up so
easily and which make an expensive education look so foolish. His
passion is motoring, but he has leanings towards the air, which,
however, his wife discourages. He therefore does not fly himself,
although he has been up as a passenger once or twice, but spends most
of his time between Brooklands and Hendon, being convivial with his
aviating friends while they are alive, and following them loyally to
the grave when they fall.
"What is it like in the air?" I once asked him.
"Ripping," he said.
"But the sensations?" I continued. "How do you feel?"
"Ripping," he said.
"And what does the world look like down below as you rush along?"
"Ripping," he said.
CHAPTER XV
IN WHICH I AM INITIATED INTO THE MYSTERIES OF THE RING, AND AM MORE
BEWILDERED THAN USUAL BY MY COUNTRYMEN'S AVOIDANCE OF FACTS
The scene from our box was remarkable. Beneath was stretched an
undulating mass of people such as it is usual to call, in descriptive
articles, a sea of humanity, and in the present instance the simile
has peculiar propriety, for from it rose a persistent, murmuring roar
very like the waves in certain moods. This sound proceeded chiefly
from the breakers--or bookmakers--immediately beneath us, in the
privileged enclosure where gambling is a duty. Then came the course,
and then a square mile of rabble, black in the main, like all crowds,
but chequered with brighter colours, and broken by booths and
roundabouts and all the fun of the fair.
We began our lunch at once and ate through the first race, on which
Dollie was not betting. Then Dollie invited me down among the
bookies, and the men of us went, except Ingleside.
"No," he said, "so many of the staid young gentlemen in my department
are absent to-day owing to domestic troubles, that I am nervous. It
would hurt me too much to run into any of them. It is too crowded,
too," he added. "The fact is, I am an anti-social animal and it's no
use disguising the fact. I like a few persons very much; but all the
rest affright me. Write me as one who loves his fellow-men but is
very easily bored by them."
So we fought our way into the enclosure in the very centre of the
competitive clamour. Never have I heard such a noise; never seen
human faces so distorted by vociferousness. It was a remarkable
scene. Everyone there was doing a thing which it is generally agreed
by statesmen and sociologists is bad, and which, if it is done
outside the course, is illegal. Some of the leading men in the land
were here, and the Monarch and Defender of the Faith was in a box
just above. Enough money to endow all the hospitals of the country
was changing hands lightly over the issue of a contest between a
dozen horses; and not one penny of it was going to the country,
except indirectly, later on, in the form of death duties or income
tax. For we do not make racing men or bookmakers pay a farthing
towards the exchequer for their amusement. Even France, which has
never pretended that betting was wrong and holds its most popular
race-meetings on Sunday, makes the betting class pay two and a half
per cent. of its winnings to the hospitals of the land; but in
England we allow this great source of revenue to go untouched.
I afterwards asked Sir Gaston how this was.
"Simple enough," he said. "If you tax betting you legalize it; and
then you have all Nonconformity in arms against you."
"But we let it go on," I said.
"Yes," he replied, "but that's England. We have a profound aptitude
as a nation for closing one eye."
"The odd thing about England in that respect," I said, "is that,
individually, all the Englishmen that one meets agree that we are
absurdly illogical if not hypocritical; yet in the mass these
hypocrisies are encouraged. How is that? In France the units are
representative of the national feeling; in England the units are not
representative."
"I don't know," said Sir Gaston. "The same problem has perplexed me.
I'm not proud of the anomaly."
"Are they all Jews?" I asked Dollie, in the ring.
"Nearly all, and the owners, too," said Dollie; "but that's all
right. What's the matter with Jews? They're good enough Christians,
most of them. Here's a tip-topper anyway," and he stopped to speak
to an eager anxious man in a white hat who, if he was not a Jew, had
been vaccinated with Hebrew lymph.
I was introduced to the tip-top Christian and he wished me a lucky
day.
"No money about," he said, "compared with what it used to be."
"Do you mean there's less betting?" I inquired.
"Oh no, much more," he said, "but; it's chiefly S.P. now. They don't
do it here as they used."
"Starting price, that means," Dollie explained. "The law allows
starting-price betting anywhere, but betting of this kind only on
race-courses. The difference is that in S.P. betting you don't know
what the odds are until the race is finished, and in course betting
you try to get the best odds you can. S.P. betting is chiefly done
by telegram, and no money may change hands till after the race,
otherwise it's illegal. They say the post office would smash if it
weren't for betting."
"Oh, do stop," I said; "you are giving me far too much to think
about."
Turning away from this predatory avaricious scene--for it is idle to
call it anything else--I made my way to the distant paddock to see
the innocent causes of all the trouble, the race-horses. It is one
of the strangest mysteries in a world that specializes in such
things, that this beautiful, loyal creature should leave behind it
such a wake of seaminess and fraud.
After a few minutes in the paddock I returned to the ring where
Dollie and Farrar were still busy trying to find longer odds on their
fancies; but the horses coming out of the paddock on their way to the
starting-point sent Dollie upstairs at the run to see what the girls
wanted to back. "Girls," he added, "always choose horses by either
the jockey's face or his colours--and I'm hanged if it isn't as good
a way as following what we call form."
Dollie was an eternity on his mission, and I had a thousand elbows in
my back in my efforts to remain where he had placed me; and I heard,
I suppose, a thousand tips as to the winner passing between friends.
But one phrase alone impressed me, uttered by a jovial old man to a
youthful companion who might have been his nephew, "Always back the
favourite to win, my boy," he said, "and the most likely of the
outsiders both ways."
Being always open to good counsel I determined to follow this advice;
so when Dollie returned and asked me what I wished to back, I said I
wanted four pounds on the favourite to win, and three pounds each way
on Peppermint.
Dollie opened his eyes. "You seem to know your own mind all right,"
he said.
"I always determined to follow this rule," I said, "if ever I should
take to betting--to back the favourite to win and a likely outsider
both ways."
Dollie whistled. "Are you taking me to the Derby or am I taking
you?" he asked. "Very well, come and put it on. Naomi is on to
Peppermint too; she says the jock's such a little angel. (She ought
to hear him in the paddock!) Mrs. Farrar wants old rose and
purple--he's on a hopeless ruin named Usquebaugh. See what you can
get," Dollie added.
I approached the reputed Christian, who was besieged by clients, and
at last secured his ear.
"I want to put four pounds on Paladin," I said.
"Seven pounds to four, Mr. Heathcote's friend," he directed his clerk
instantly, without even looking at me, but holding out his hand for
the money.
"And three pounds each way Peppermint," I said.
"Twenty-four pounds to three and six pounds to three Peppermint, Mr.
Heathcote's friend," he continued, and was taking Dollie's various
commissions before I could move.
"That's the way," said Dollie, as we struggled back up the stairs.
"Those are the heads! If we only had Cabinet Ministers like that!"
We were in time to see the start through our glasses a mile away over
the crowds and the booths. A roar indicated that the horses were off
and at once the hubbub below quieted, only to break out afresh into
new offers as the horses began to assert themselves.
One race, knowing men often say, is as good as another; only one
horse can win anyway, and as desperate efforts to be that horse are
made at Lingfield as at Newmarket, Ascot or Epsom. This may be true,
on paper, but, as a matter of emotional fact, there is no race like
the Derby, because there is no race with so much human interest
behind it. These thousands of people cannot be disregarded; each
brings something of intensity. And then the stage management of the
Derby is so much more elaborate than that of any other race; the
steady growth of interest in the horses, the daily bulletins in the
press, the sweepstakes, and so forth. And the race itself--all
horses starting at the same weight and the same age. No, there may
by chance be finer riding in certain races of the year, and closer
finishes, but the Derby horses start in an air more heavily charged
with human electricity than any other, and, I imagine, always will.
For heroic endurance on a great scale, the Grand National; but for
the maximum of excitement, the Derby.
An outsider won, and the favourite was not even placed; and
immediately we knew the result we all knew why we should have backed
it if only we had thought a little longer. But at the Derby thought
is not easy; there is so much distraction, and the conditions of life
are so upset, that one's ordinary mental processes refuse to work.
The winner was a grey filly, and there was every reason why I, for
one, should have known it would win, because the only horse that I
had specially noticed on the way down was a grey filly rolling in a
field. Surely there was the finger of Providence in that! On my
mentioning this, Dollie asked with much asperity why I had not told
him?
"It meant nothing to me," I said, "partly because I am not a gambler,
and not a little because I had no notion that any of the Derby
runners were grey or fillies. Had I stayed at home and read the
paper I might have known; absurd to bring me to the course and then
expect me to know anything of the horses. There was no grey filly in
the paddock."
"No," said Dollie, "I'm afraid you're right. No one ever yet saw a
real horse in the paddock--at least, not until the race was over."
CHAPTER XVI
IN WHICH FOUR-LEGS MAKE MUCH ANXIETY FOR TWO-LEGS AND SIR GASTON
DEVELOPS OCCULT GIFTS
"Well," said Dollie, later in the afternoon, "how do we stand? I
personally am forty pounds down. Farrar here is fifteen pounds down.
Falconer, having neglected my advice, is several pounds to the good.
Mrs. Falconer and Mrs. Farrar, having had the good sense to ignore
form and the prophets, and to bet entirely on combinations of colour,
have made a little, and Ann saved her face. But if we are going to
make anything we must do it now. You study the card while Farrar and
I go and do some intelligent eavesdropping."
On their returning they brought news of a likely outsider named
Crumpet, ridden by one of the most successful jockeys of the day.
"I've put my shirt on him," said Dollie, "both ways. If he wins I
make a lot; if he's only placed I get back my dropped forty."
"And if he loses?" I said.
"We will draw a veil," Dollie replied. "But my favourite poison is
prussic and apollinaris."
"Here you are," said Ann Ingleside quietly. "Please put this
half-sovereign for me on Witch Hazel to win."
"Why Witch Hazel?" Dollie asked.
"I fancy him," she said.
"Any other orders?" Dollie asked.
"Yes," I said, "here is a five pound note and a sovereign. Heaven
knows I need both, but if they go it will make a picturesque topic on
which to converse at dinners and such places, and if I win, I dare
say I shall find something to do with it. I want you to put four
pounds on Ratton's mount for a place, and two pounds to win."
"Why Ratton's?" Dollie asked. Our independence was beginning to tell
on him.
"Because Ratton hasn't had a win to-day, and he is in the habit of
doing better than that. He will ride like a demon this time because
it's the last chance."
"Very well," said Dollie. "But why I've been wasting my breath
instructing you about racing, I shall never understand."
Naomi produced ten shillings and asked for it to be put on my horse,
five shillings each way.
Downstairs ran Dollie, and we watched him moving from one group to
another seeking the largest price--or at least we thought we did,
for, from a box at Epsom, every young man in the ring looks alike.
It was a race that I shall never forget. The other races Dollie had
watched stolidly enough; but here, with so much at stake, he gave in
and disappeared from the room. Men seem to be affected very
differently. Some hate to see the horses at all, after the start,
and at the close come out of retirement to know the result; others
watch every step through their glasses, and either learn their fate
early or do not know it till the post; some are silent; others shout
instructions to the horses and their riders, quite oblivious to the
fact that they are a mile away doing their best.
The field in this race kept very closely together and the horses
passed us in a mass of brown and silk from which our eyes could
distinguish nothing definite. So we had to wait for the numbers,
which went up like this
9
3
7
9 was Palimpsest, ridden by Ratton; 3 was Witch Hazel, and 7 was
Crumpet. Dollie came in at this moment and glanced at the board.
"Good Heavens," he said, "I've just scraped in, but Falconer's on to
the winner. And 3--who's 3?"
"Witch Hazel," said Ann.
"Perhaps you'll tell me," said Dollie, "why you fixed on such an
outsider as that?"
"Because," said his betrothed, "Mrs. Boody, our housekeeper, always
says that if you're ever in doubt what to do you should try Witch
Hazel. I mean when you've hurt yourself."
"Why didn't you tell me that?" Dollie asked with some spirit.
"Because tips of that kind are such personal things. They don't work
for others. Anyway, you're all square."
"Yes, but I could only get 3 to 1 for a place on Crumpet, while I got
you 4½ to 1. But if I don't hurry we shan't get even what we have
won."
Dollie returned laden with gold and five pound notes, which he
distributed. To Ann he gave two pounds, fifteen shillings which she
took with a little pout, remarking, "If only I'd put it on to win!"
while Naomi, when he gave her her ill-gotten gains, remarked, "If
only I'd made it a sovereign!"
"Ah," said Sir Gaston, "what you ought to say is, 'If only I hadn't
bet at all.' There's an insidious poison in that money. Mark my
words. Some day if you go on like this you'll be on the staff of the
_Star_ or become a secret cocoa-drinker. If you go to my overcoat,
Ann," he continued, "and feel in the right-hand pocket, you'll find
the card I marked before this race."
Ann fetched it and gave it to her father. '"I don't insist on your
believing me," he said, "but it is true none the less. While you
were making up your minds how to lay out your money, I tried my luck
at spotting the winner, and here's the result."
He held out the card and, to our astonishment and almost to Dollie's
permanent and tragic undoing, we saw that he had named not only the
winner but the second horse as well.
"My hat, sir," cried Dollie, "how did you do that?"
Sir Gaston looked inscrutable.
"No, but do tell us," Naomi said. "It's like magic."
"Well," said Sir Gaston, "I'll tell you. But you'll keep the secret,
I hope. I first placed the race-card on the table--you could have
seen me if you hadn't all been so consumed by the lust for money. I
then took my pencil in my right hand, held the card with my left,
closed my eyes, and made a dot at random. That was the first horse.
Then I made dots for the other two, and you behold the result--two
right out of three."
"But why didn't you back your fancy?" Dollie asked. "You've thrown
away a fortune."
"For two reasons," said Sir Gaston. "One is that I never bet and
don't want to. And the other is that I had no confidence in my
prescience."
"Will you try the same thing for me for the Oaks on Friday?" Dollie
asked.
"Certainly--if you will promise me something."
"Well?"
"Not to bet on the result."
"Oh, but that's what I want it for."
"Yes, but such lucky shots don't come off twice in one week."
The Farrars came back at this moment in very low spirits, for they
had had bad luck all day.
"Well," I said, "I'm rolling, anyway. And you're all going to dine
with me to-night and the balance shall go to the hospitals--as though
I had won it in France."
"But why don't you follow your luck and put in on a horse?" Dollie
gasped.
"Not for another year," I said. "I bet only at the Derby. I
couldn't stand the wear and tear of it oftener. It's too exciting.
My heart is beating at this moment like a propeller. I want a quiet
life. Besides, think of Naomi--you know the miseries in store for a
gambler's wife. And another thing--I have it very clearly fixed at
the back of my head--and nothing that I have seen to-day alters the
feeling--that there is nothing to pluck on a race-course but Dead Sea
fruit."
"We will now sing hymn one hundred and forty-two," said Dollie, with
great solemnity; "Wow-wow!"
I approached Farrar with an expression of sympathy for his losses.
"Oh, that's nothing," he replied. "I'm still on the right side for
the year and I'll pull this round safe enough. Things look blackest
before the dawn, don't you know."
"If you take to proverbs," said Sir Gaston, who was standing by,
"you'll never know where you are, for there's a neutralizer for every
one of them."
"I can give Farrar an example," I said, "that will take some
neutralizing--'The grey mare's the better horse.'"
Farrar groaned, but his wife laughed.
"Thank you, Mr. Falconer," she said; "what a pretty compliment!"
Which only shows how we stumble on some of our neatest things.
CHAPTER XVII
IN WHICH AN OLD GAMBLER (RETIRED FROM BUSINESS) TELLS OF A TRIUMPH,
AND THE YOUNGER GENERATION IN LOVE COME UNDER REVIEW
On the way back Sir Gaston told us of an incident many years ago,
when he did occasionally put something on a horse--not as a habit,
but if he heard anything.
He had been staying, he said, with two friends for a fortnight in
Ireland, fishing at a man named Regan's. One friend was Glenister, a
curious obstinate fellow, now in India; the other was Horace Bradley,
the K.C. The day before their last they were driving over to
Rushtown to see the races, and on the way Captain O'Driscoll overtook
them in his American buggy. I reconstruct Sir Gaston's story.
"'Going to the races?' O'Driscoll asked, as he slowed down for a
moment. 'So'm I. See you there.' He clicked on, and then, stopping
again, turned round to call out--'Don't forget Blackadder for the
College Stakes. Dead cert. Put your shirts on,' and was again off.
"'All very well,' said Glenister thoughtfully, 'but where are our
shirts? Speaking personally, my shirt is a return ticket to London
and about eighteen shillings, which I shall need.'
"'Yes,' said Bradley. 'And I'm no better off, confound it!'
"'You forget,' said I, 'that I have a five-pound note in my pocket
intended as our joint tip to old Rice.' (Rice was Regan's butler.)
'Lucky we decided to put it aside.'
"'Yes,' said Glenister, 'but that's the butler's.'
"'Not till to-morrow,' said I.
"'No,' said Bradley, 'not till to-morrow.'
"'But hang it all,' said Glenister, who was a precisian and adored
his conscience, 'where are we if we put it on this horse and the
beggar loses? I know these dead certs. It won't be Rice's
to-morrow, then, will it? To my mind it's his now, and we ought to
respect his ownership. It was to make sure of his having it that we
gave it to the Goat to keep.'
"I was the Goat. How funny to think of it now! I haven't been
called the Goat for hundreds of years."
"O father," said Ann, "may I call you the Goat?"
"Certainly not," said the Knight. "I admitted that Glenister was
logical," he continued, "'but all the same,' I said, 'here's a
straight tip, and it's a sin not to use it. One doesn't often get
them, and to start a whole menagerie of sophistries in return is the
kind of ingratitude that providence doesn't soon forgive.'
"'Of course,' said Bradley. 'The Goat's right. And, after all,
there's no sense in being so infernally conscientious. A gamble's a
gamble, and old Rice would be almost as pleased to hear that we had
put his fiver on a horse as to have it shoved into his hand.'
"Glenister laughed. 'I say no more,' he said. 'You do what you like
with the fiver. Personally, I shall have ten shillings on Blackadder
to win, although why on earth we all swallow that soldier man's
advice so unquestioningly I shall never understand.'
"'If the Goat will lend me two pounds,' said Bradley, 'I will back
Blackadder for a pound each way.'
"'The Goat won't,' said I. 'All that the Goat proposes to do is to
put the butler's fiver on to win.'
"This, later, I did, having found a bookmaker who was giving 10 to 1;
and, true to Captain O'Driscoll's word, Blackadder romped in an easy
winner.
"I collected the eleven rustling five-pound notes and stowed them
carefully away inside my coat, and in the late afternoon we drove
back. Naturally we had a good deal to say about the racing, our
fortunate meeting with O'Driscoll, and so forth. And then suddenly
Glenister remarked, 'I wonder what the old boy will do with it? Set
up as a small tobacconist in Dublin, do you think?'
"'What old boy?' I asked.
"'Why, Rice, of course.'
"'You can't set up as a small tobacconist on five pounds,' said
Bradley. 'At least, if you did, you'd be so small a tobacconist that
your customers would want a microscope.'
"'Don't be an idiot,' said Glenister. 'He'll have fifty-five pounds,
won't he?'
"Bradley and I were silent. This was a proposition that needed
thought.
"'I don't see why he should have more than the fiver,' I said at
last. 'It was all we were going to give him, wasn't it? You will
admit that?'
"'Certainly,' said Glenister. 'It was his fiver, and you were
keeping it for him, weren't you? You won't deny that?'
"'In a way I was,' I said.
"'O law!' groaned Bradley. 'What a hair-splitter!'
"'Very well, then,' said Glenister. 'You had Rice's five pounds and
you gambled with it--in itself a jolly unprincipled thing to do, as
it wasn't yours: poor devils are doing time all over the place for
much less; and now, when your flutter turns up trumps, you deny
him--who might have been your victim--the benefit! I call it
downright mean--squalid, in fact.'
"'You make it sound rotten,' I said, 'but there's a fallacy
somewhere. To begin with, as I said before, it isn't the butler's
own money till to-morrow. He hadn't earned it till the end of our
visit. If it wasn't his it is ours, and we could do as we liked with
it. We did, and the result is we have now enough to divide up into
sixteen pounds, thirteen shillings, and fourpence each, which I shall
be pleased to give you directly we get back, while Rice has his fiver
intact.'
"'Not for me,' said Glenister. 'I won five pounds with my own ten
bob, and that's all I make out of Blackadder. I can't take your
sixteen pounds odd, because it isn't mine. I may snore, as you agree
to allege, but I'm not a thief.'
"'O law!' Bradley groaned again. 'My dear Glenister, you're talking
like a Herbert Spencer sort of ass. All it means is that the Goat
and I will have to take twenty-five pounds each?'
"'No,' said Glenister, 'you can't do that; because a third, at any
rate, of the original fiver was mine, or, as I hold, the butler's,
and he must have what that share made. You and the Goat can take the
sixteen pounds odd each, but the butler must have my third and the
original fiver besides. But I don't envy you your explanation to
him.'
"'No,' I said after a while, 'either the butler must have all or
none. I can see that.'
"'Dash the whole stupid business!' exclaimed Bradley. 'Let him have
it all. We'll be generous.'
"'It belongs to him,' said Glenister. 'There's no generosity in the
matter. There's nothing but justice or injustice.'
"'Very well,' Bradley snapped out. 'I'm tired of it. Next time I go
to a race-meeting I'll take care it's not with a blooming Socrates.'
"'Then that's settled,' I said as cheerfully as I could. 'Rice has
the lot.'
"'The lot,' said Glenister. 'I'll admit it's enough, but there's no
other course.'
"We rode the rest of the way in disgust and silence, and then"--here
Sir Gaston began to laugh--"and then the rummest thing happened.
Regan's groom met us at the stable-yard and took the mare's head. He
seemed to be unusually excited, and I wondered if he had learned that
he too had backed a winner.
"'I'm afraid you'll find the house a bit upset,' he said to
Glenister, 'but the fact is, there's been a little trouble while you
were away. The butler's bolted. It seems he's been dishonest for a
long time, and to-day he thought the game was up and ran.'
"We looked at each other and then a threefold sigh rent the air.
"Bradley suddenly began to roll with laughter.
"Glenister for a while did not speak. Then, 'I'll trouble you,' he
said to me, 'for sixteen pounds, thirteen shillings, and fourpence,
and the third of a five-pound note."
I wondered what were Sir Gaston's feelings as to his prospective
son-in-law's gambling propensities, and later, on the way back, he
enlightened me.
"It's an odd business, this," he said, "to you and me, for I take it
that you, like myself, were brought up in a middle-class way by quiet
and God-fearing parents. Here we are with a lot of young people
doing a thing which my father would have heartily disapproved of, and
which we should have the greatest difficulty in defending if we were
accused of it in public by a professional religious man or
enthusiastic philanthropist. You, of course, would have a
comparatively easy time. You would come out merely as a retired
gentleman from abroad who was interested in social customs. But I--I
am a Government servant and the father of a young girl who is going
to marry this racing habitué. What sort of a case should I have?"
"Well, if it comes to that," I said, "what sort of case does one ever
have while the prosecution is talking? Personally, I always agree
with my own censors, although dimly I am conscious that there is
another side to the case--mine--if only it could be made articulate.
All the same, I too have been considering the question of young
Heathcote. When are they going to marry?"
"I haven't a notion," said Sir Gaston. "All I know is that it will
be later rather than sooner. My daughter is out for what she calls a
good time--by which, of course, she means an irresponsible one. She
has enough instinct and good feeling to realize that once she is
married irresponsibility will cease. She has not enough emotional
dependence to be impatient for marriage. Heathcote seems to me
precisely similar in temperament. Hence I look upon them as two of
the most enviable creatures living. I sit and watch them at their
superficial jokes and superficial wranglings, and most of all at
their frivolous plan-makings for the morrow, and consider them the
heirs of the ages in the happiest sense. The best of it is that both
are really exceedingly sensible, and it only needs a shock--such as
standing at the altar steps in their best clothes, with a really
serious person in a surplice saying really serious things--to steady
them for life. Ann, who has already shown her capacity for work and
routine, having learned typing thoroughly in an office, will
instantly become a wife and Heathcote instantly a husband. He will
adopt regular habits, come home to lunch, and very likely keep
accounts. The very harmless form of wild oats that they are sowing
now I don't fear in the least. I should be much more alarmed if they
were always embracing and whenever they walked out he took her arm
and they were both hastening the wedding: then I should fear that the
flame might die down too quickly, and trouble follow. But these
two--they're all right. They have a public contempt for each other
which contains the best promise."
I dare say Sir Gaston is right. He seems to be shrewd. But his
remarks caused me to press Naomi's hand under the rug with more than
usual fondness.
Yet Ann was not really selfish, even if she shared with her father a
perversity which made her willing to appear so; for when once we
found ourselves in a block, and were conscious of the crying of a
small child, with its mother, father, and two other children in a
donkey barrow, it was Ann who saved the situation. Never have I
heard such pitiful wailing. The mother was tired and cross, and in
no mood to be patient with it; the father was cross too, and the
other children began to whimper in sympathy. Before anyone knew what
she was about, Ann had jumped out of the car, taken the child from
its mother, and was giving it one of Dollie's expensive chocolate
creams and saying pretty crooning things to it. The mother and other
children had the rest of the box, and in a short time all were happy
again.
"But although it amuses me to watch them," Sir Gaston continued, "I
can't find much real satisfaction in it. My other daughter, Alison,
is completely lost to me, except for letters, for her husband has
taken her to Ceylon. And now Ann is going; and deprived of any
society of the younger generation, which, however it may irritate us
at times, helps us to keep young and in touch with the day (I can say
'topping' with the best of them, although 'wow-wow' is beyond me), I
have no alternative but to become old. And old age has no kind of
attractiveness. I have no patience with people who profess to enjoy
growing old. They merely remind one of those lines of the American
poet:
Unto each man comes a day when his favorite sins all forsake him,
And he complacently thinks he has forsaken his sins.
Speaking for myself, who am nearing sixty, I would say that the only
piece of satisfaction that the process of ageing has brought to me is
the knowledge that the word 'unshrinkable' has no real basis in fact.
But I do not call myself really old yet. Not till a young woman
offers me her seat in a railway compartment will that tragedy really
be mine. At that moment I shall know that all is up."
CHAPTER XVIII
IN WHICH SUSSEX VOICES ARE RAISED IN MELODY, UNCLE JONAH GIVES HIS
MEMORY PLAY, AND WE MEET A NAPOLEONIC QUAKER
We have just been down into Sussex to get some songs of which word
had reached the Director, whose passion is the search for these
ancient melodies. Where others hunt hares or foxes, he pursues the
elusive ditty. Village after village he draws blank, without ever
losing heart, and then is rewarded by hearing at last of some old
gaffer to be met with at the Red Lion or Blue Boar or King's Head, no
matter how far away, who once sang a rare good song and can still
quaver out the ghost of it. Then the Director rises to his greatest
heights, for although deep potations and himself are at enmity, yet
in the interests of England and music he has had (to allay suspicion)
to consume much ale and stand ever so much more before the melodist
was ready to begin.
Of course, not all his singers are in inns; he has found many in
cottages, too; but the village public-house naturally remains the
happiest hunting-ground.
On this occasion we were bound for a private house to which the
singer had been bidden. The party consisted of the Director of
course with his little musical notebook, Naomi, and I. My duty was
to take down the words, a far more difficult task, as I have pointed
out again and again, than to get the music, because all the words are
different, whereas, the tune is the same all through. An added
difficulty for the word-transcriber is the fact that old Sussex
labourers have few or no teeth, and Heaven alone knows what sometimes
they sing: certainly they themselves do not.
We were driven from the station in the dark to a rambling house under
the hills, and having dined were led to another room in which three
elderly brothers were seated and one brother's wife. Two were
shepherds, one of whom--Uncle Jonah--still retained the round, or
smock, frock. This one, I am pleased to record, could not read, nor
could his younger brother, the married one, but the elder brother and
the younger brother's wife were "scholards." The elder brother was
the chief singer, and while the others played a little at
backwardness, he was always ready with whatever song he could
remember: a tall man about sixty-seven, with a ruddy, rather
mischievous face fringed with whiskers, and a gentle sly humour. He
and the shepherd were the pick; the younger brother was slower and
more stolid.
It was a successful evening in that it yielded six or seven songs
that the Director had not heard before, although the quality, he
said, was not equal to that of the West Country. Why, when we all
equally have the gift of speech, there is this capriciousness in the
bestowal of the gift of song, is a problem and anomaly that have
always perplexed and irritated me. Why should one human throat be
melodious, and another--my own, for example--emit nothing but
dissonance? Again, why should one human creature with a voice be
willing to use it, and another hide the gift under a bushel of
self-consciousness? But the Director has a way with the shy that
sooner or later prevails. He too begins to sing, and by-and-bye the
shy enter in, and then gradually the Director drops out and the shy
sing on alone and never falter again.
If the Director's methods were bewildering to me, what must they have
been to these simple folk? For he takes out pencil and his little
notebook ruled with staves, and the instant the singer has done he
can go to the piano and play the song word for word, with all its
peculiarities of movement, its hurryings and pauses, its unexpected
cadences, its curious melancholy. Magic, surely! I can just begin
to understand shorthand, but not this mystery. During the first
verse he sits intent, with his pencil poised over the paper, waiting
to strike. During the second verse he is recording all the time.
During the third he makes little refining touches, and the tune is
complete.
The words, taken separately, were my department. The words of
folk-songs without music are always far enough removed from melody,
but the ditty which I copy here, which we may call "Winter's Signs,"
is, I think, the farthest removed of all, although as a piece of
bleak impressionism it is good: indeed, rather like an etching; and
yet, as sung by this old man, with his soft musical quavers, it was
not only beautiful but hauntingly so. The words are exactly as he
had them, all unconscious that they made contradictions and have
neither scansion nor rhyme. Here they are:
The trees they're all bare, not one leaf to be seen,
The meadows their beauty's all gone.
And as for the leaves, they're falling from the trees
And the streams they were--and the streams they were--fast
bound by the frost.
In the yards where the oxen all foddered with straw
Send forth their breath like a stream,
The sweet-looking milkmaid she finds she must go;
Flakes of ice finds she--flakes of ice finds she--on her cream.
The poor little small birds to the barn doors fly for food,
Silent they rest on the spray,
The poor innocent sheep from the Downs until the fold
With their fleeces all--with their fleeces all--covered with snow.
The poor little pigeon all shivering with cold,
So loud the north winds do blow;
The poor tiny hares search the woods all for their food
Unless their footsteps their--unless their footsteps
their--innocence betray.
Now Christmas is gone my song is almost sung,
Soon will come the springtime of the year,
Come unto me the glass and let your health go round
And we wish you a--and we wish you a--happy New Year.
That, as I have said, is poor stuff, although it successfully carries
its wintry feeling; but now try it with the music.
[Illustration: Music fragment]
The trees they're all bare, not one leaf to be seen; The
mea - dows their beau - ty's all gone; And
as for the leaves they're fall - ing from the trees,
And the streams they were, . . And the streams they
were fast bound by the frost.
I assure you that the old man's gentle caressing voice when singing
about the poor little pigeon, the poor innocent sheep, and the poor
tiny hares, made the situation absolutely poignant.
One other of the songs I am tempted to reproduce: this also with an
innocent hare in it; a hunting song. There is something rather
pretty about the willingness of the poor to sing hunting-songs--to
praise a sport which exists wholly for their masters and in which
they cannot participate. At the most they see the horsemen and
hounds go by and hear the horn and the shouts; even the hare falls to
the pack. But the English peasant is not envious. He accepts his
lot quite simply and naturally, and after a long day's work in the
fields and the rain, for insufficient shillings to add meat to the
family table, is quite cheerfully ready to lift up his voice in
praise of the sport which his roystering master has been enjoying.
So let it be: I am merely recording the fact.
Here is the merriest and most tuneful of the hunting-songs.
[Illustration: Music fragment]
Ye sports-men, rouse the morn - ing fair, The
larks are sing - ing in . . the air; Go
tell your sweet lover the hounds are out, Go
tell your sweet lover the hounds are out; Saddle your hor-ses, your
sad-dles pre-pare, A - way to the covers to look for a hare.
We searched the fields that grows around,
Our trail is lost, our game is found,
Then out she springs, through brake she flies,
Then out she springs, through brake she flies.
Follow, follow the musical horn,
Sing follow, hark follow, the innocent hare.
Our horses go galloping over the ground,
Go breathing all after the torturing hound.
Such a game she has led us four hours or more,
Such a game she has led us four hours or more,
Follow, follow the musical horn,
Sing follow, hark follow, the innocent hare.
Our huntsman blows the joyful sound,
See how he scours over the ground.
Our hare's a sinking, see how she creeps,
Our hare's a sinking, see how she creeps,
Follow, follow, the musical horn,
Sing follow, hark follow, the innocent hare.
All on the green turf she pants for breath,
Our huntsman shouts out for death.
Hullo, hullo, we've tired our hare,
Hullo, hullo, we've tired our hare.
Wine and beer we'll drink without fear,
We'll drink success to the innocent hare.
The last line has an irony which no one seemed to see.
I must confess that a whole evening of song is to me full measure,
and I took all the opportunities I could of getting Uncle Jonah, the
voiceless shepherd in the smock, to talk of old times; but always
with the fear of the Director very lively in me. For anecdotage is
nothing to him. His purpose in life is to fill blank bars with
little magical dots; for this and this only does he scour the
coloured counties. All conversation is therefore an interruption, if
not a misdemeanour. But when the singers, having sung all that the
Director did not know, began to respond with songs that he did, I
openly drew Uncle Jonah aside and filled again his glass and made
certain masonic signs to indicate that though no doubt the Director
was a worthy and even gifted man, here was one who sympathized with
those who had no music in them, but preferred character and comedy in
the blessed spoken word.
Old shepherds are peculiarly the treasuries of reminiscences of
eccentric and historic figures of the country-side: such as Charley
Dean, over at Coombe Place, who would ride his horse down the
steepest slopes of the hills when hunting, so that you could see
slide-marks several yards long afterwards--a "terrible daring rider
he was"; and old David Wade, over at Madingdean, who did his own
farriery work and mended his grey mare's broken leg so out an' out
cleverly that he won a Point to Point steeple-chase on her the next
year; and Tom Woolley, over at West Green, whose lifelong feud with
the Gipos (or gipsies), who stole his chickens and cut his gorse for
umbrella handles, drove him, with the assistance of strong drink, off
his head, so that he attacked every stranger with his stick and had
to be kept in one room, the barred window of which is still to be
seen, while Mrs. Woolley made the farm pay as it had never paid
before.
But best I liked his tales of his first master--dead now these many
years--over at Bollingdean. A good man, a just man, and kind to the
poor, but terrible hard and cautious. A Quaker. Couldn't bear to be
kept waiting. Everything must be right. He used to lend money to
smaller men now and then--he was a big maltster himself, with a small
farm just for his own amusement--and one market day one of these
debtors--Mr. Raikes, the ironmonger--was to meet him at the Black
Horse yard at three o'clock to pay him one hundred pounds and clear
off his debt. That was a Wednesday. The trap was ready; the Master
and his nephew came into the yard; the Master looked at his watch,
and precisely at three whipped up and away. Uncle Jonah--then a
small stable-boy--was sitting behind, and as the trap sped along the
High Street towards home he noticed Mr. Raikes running after it. He
ventured to tell his master, who at once stopped.
Mr. Raikes came panting up. "Here you are, Mr. Willing," he gasped,
proffering a canvas bag. "I'm sorry I missed you, but I had a
customer."
"What is it in the bag?" Mr. Willing asked.
"The money," said Mr. Raikes.
"The Master took out his watch and turned to his nephew. 'I had no
appointment, had I,' he asked, 'to see anyone about money in the High
Street at five minutes past three? No, Mr. Raikes, not here. I'll
see thee in thy shop next market day;' and off we went, leaving Mr.
Raikes with his mouth open in the middle of the street.
"When we got home, the Master said to his nephew, 'Take thy pencil
and work out the interest at five per cent. on one hundred pounds for
one week and let me know what it is.' Well, he did it and it came to
one and elevenpence, and blowed if the Master didn't make Raikes pay
the one and eleven-pence extra the next week and send it to the local
hospital. That was what he was like.
"Another time," Uncle Jonah went on, talking in broad Sussex, which I
make no effort to reproduce, "a poor tramping woman gave birth to a
baby under a hedge on his land. She was found in the morning and the
Master was told about it. He asked exactly where she was and then
gave orders for her to be carried into the Eight Acre barn and the
doctor sent for.
"'But the Low Bottom barn's a matter of a mile nearer,' said the man,
'and it's empty too.'
"'Do as I tell thee,' said the Master, 'and let me know directly she
is comfortable there and thy mistress will send her some soup from
the house and go and see her.'
"Well, we carried her there. It was too soft for a cart, so there
was nothing for it but to place her on some straw on a hurdle and
carry her every inch of the way. I helped, and my arms ache to this
minute when I think of it. And the worst of it was we had to go past
the other barn, which was all warm and snug, only a few yards away.
You may be sure that we talked about what the Master was up to. But
we weren't clever enough to guess right, not we.
"Directly she was comfortable I was sent back to tell the Master, and
he himself drove off to fetch the doctor; and by-and-bye they came
back together and the doctor did what he could for her and went off
home to fill up the birth certificate. It wasn't for some time
afterwards," said Uncle Jonah, "that we learned why we had to carry
her all that way. Can you guess why it was?" Uncle Jonah asked; but
I had no notion.
"Why," he said, "the Master's farm was in two parishes--Arringly and
Thangmer--but only a little tiny corner where the barn stood was in
Thangmer. All the rest was in Arringly, and so he had her carried to
the barn so that the child should be registered as born in Thangmer
parish and not be on the Arringly rates. 'For,' as he said, 'we
don't want more pauper children than we can help in Arringly.'
That's the sort of man he was; looked ahead and took everything into
account."
Uncle Jonah told also of his own experiences in driving large flocks
of sheep or lambs to distant markets in the country when he was a
lad; and how they had to work out the route beforehand with great
care so as to have as few turnpike gates to pass through as possible.
I asked him how much they had to pay for lambs to go through.
"Fippence a score," he said.
We did not break up till after midnight. To me the evening harvest
of song seemed to be rather notable; but the Director knew better.
Sussex is not a distinguished singing country, he explained.
Somerset is the happiest hunting-ground. There they sing sweetest
and have the best songs. By the time a good song reaches Sussex it
is debased. Sussex has no style. But Somerset is full of style.
This, surely, is very odd, and the Director offers no theories to
explain it. He would like to, but he cannot; he is not a
sociologist, he says, or an ethnologist, or a psychologist; he is
merely a collector and preserver of the best old English songs that
he has the fortune to hear. Well, I would rather be that than an
"ist" of any calibre. I consider him to have done and to be doing
one of the finest things any Englishman has ever done: a piece of the
most exquisite patriotism; and I am proud to be of assistance in the
cause.
CHAPTER XIX
IN WHICH INADVERTENTLY I BECOME A PUBLIC CHARACTER AND, ALSO
INADVERTENTLY, GIVE AN OPPORTUNIST AN IDEA
Mr. Furley overtaking me recently on my way into London asked if I
should be in the neighbourhood of Parliament Square about a quarter
to three.
"Be there if you can," he said.
As it happened I was lunching at Queen Anne's Gate, and so I did pass
through the square at the time named, glanced at our legislators--or
at men who wished to look like our legislators and be taken for them,
and, as far as I was concerned, succeeded--entering the House, and so
went on to Chelsea, whither I was bound, by the Embankment.
The next day Mr. Furley sent down a note to Naomi asking her to be
sure to drop in at the Shakespeare Electric Theatre (shameless name!)
in Tottenham Court Road, if she was in that neighbourhood. So we
both dropped in, and there, suddenly, as a series of pictures
representing the meeting of Parliament on the day of the great debate
was thrown upon the screen, my blood turned cold, for among the other
passers-by I saw myself. No one who has ever seen himself walk is
likely to get over the shock, especially in the slightly accelerated
gait of the cinema. Swift's "forked radish" does not compare as a
reminder of littleness and mortality, and I am now convinced that
Parliament should be approached either in cabs or on roller skates.
One sometimes wonders if the New World was not invented to destroy
the mental balance of the Old. There is something sinister in the
thought that America was discovered in the year that Lorenzo de'
Medici died. With Lorenzo's life the richest period of generous and
stimulating intellectual activity that man has seen--that revival of
art and learning which we call the Renaissance--may be said to have
come to an end. At that moment Columbus ran his prow against the
land which was to produce in its greatest profusion everything which
Giotto and his followers would most cordially condemn. Sitting in
this picture palace, where my own gauche contours had been so
disconcertingly sprung upon me, and watching scenes comic and scenes
dramatic, carefully built up false stories of wild life and so forth,
all passing dazzlingly across the sheet to the accompaniment of a
clockwork _obbligato_ and a piano, and all due to that amazing
Edisonian inventiveness, I realized for the first time what a menace
to human endeavour it has the chance of becoming, and how opposed to
the humanist spirit. How many picture palaces London boasts I have
no notion, but let us say at a hazard two hundred. Each is open from
noon till eleven at night continuously, and each contains daily, let
us say, six hundred persons. These figures are probably far too low,
but they will serve. That makes twelve thousand persons for every
day of the year (for they open on Sundays), in London alone, watching
a mechanical device which illustrates the activities of others. Not
an ounce of personality--just sheer hard mechanism, whose only
purpose is to beguile, to prevent thought.
I have not said all this to Mr. Furley, but if I did he would agree
with me; for, like all men who derive their livelihood from concerns
that exist for the amusement of their fellows, he is a cynic.
The next time I met him after the Tottenham Court Road experience he
had an amused expression. "How did you like it?" he inquired.
"It was horrible," I said. "But where was your photographer? I saw
no one about."
He laughed. "Did you notice a small furniture van pulled up at the
side of the road?" he asked. "If you had examined it closely you
would have noticed a little hole at the back. The photographer was
inside and the camera was at that hole."
We were walking through Regent's Park at the time of this
conversation and suddenly I sneezed, and I can sneeze louder than
most men. It was fortunate I did so, for it showed me Mr. Furley's
brain in action. He stopped dead.
"By Jove," he said, "there's an idea!"
I asked him to explain.
"Why," he said, "for a film. A comic one. 'Mr. Splodgers catches
cold,' or, if you like, 'The Fatal Sneeze.' You begin with Mr.
Splodgers being caught in a shower and drenched; or falling into a
river would perhaps be better. Anyhow, he gets wet through. Then
you show him trying to prevent a cold. He tries everything,
including the home Turkish bath, but in vain; the cold comes on. You
see him in a sneezing-fit. The first sneeze brings down the
chandelier, the second the bookcase, the third all the ornaments on
the mantelpiece, the fourth the ceiling itself, and so on. It will
be great. I'll arrange it right away. How would you like to be Mr.
Splodgers?"
I declined.
"I must pay you for the idea, anyway," Mr. Furley continued. "What
do you think would be fair? Five guineas?"
"No," I said; "the idea was yours. All that I did was to sneeze. I
make you a present of it."
But you can't make a free gift to men like that. Although I was at
home again in less than two hours I could not beat Mr. Furley's sense
of reciprocity, and on my table was a package containing a hundred of
the choicest cigars I ever owned.
CHAPTER XX
IN WHICH A NUMBER OF CRAFTSMEN DISCUSS THEIR PRACTICES, AND MR. LACEY
DEFINES THE THINGS THAT MATTER
I took Lacey to the novelists' evening at Dabney's. "We'll just sit
in a corner," I said, "and listen through the smoke. Unless, of
course, you want to join in: I am quite certain I shall not."
"I shall join in if anyone is talking rubbish, of course," said Lacey
quite simply, "just to put him right."
How jolly to be as sure of oneself as that!
"Well," I said, "I shall be silent. In fact, I have to be; because
when I argue I am always converted, and that is so humiliating; or,
at any rate, I recognize the truth in the other side's position.
That is one disability; and another is that I am never sure of my
spoken words. Give me a pen and whatever I say I will stand by; but
when I talk I get led away."
"We must each go our way," said Lacey, "but, personally, when I find
a man talking nonsense I sling him up."
Dabney's room was in full buzz when we arrived. Among the big guns
present were Devon, the urbane reformer, with his warm heart,
passionate sense of justice, his universal pity and fastidious taste;
Speyde, the uncompromising analyst of the body and mind in revolt,
and the friend of freedom; Leigh, the sentimental humorist or
humorous sentimentalist of middle-class London; and Sankville, who
writes provincial epics with a Dutch brush, but with the expansive
view and detached tolerance of an arbiter throned on a star.
These were the best known; but there were others: younger men feeling
their way towards fiction, some independent, some still wondering
whom it would be wisest to imitate. Twenty years ago there was no
doubt, since all the manuscript babies, when at last they were born,
had a way of resembling Stevenson; but to-day there are new
influences. Sankville, himself, for example, is one, and a powerful
one. Everyone will soon be describing provincial birthplaces with
minute fidelity--and nothing else! Speyde's manner and method it is
less easy to catch: he is intensely individual; he has had no
predecessors and will leave no school of writers. His influence is
rather upon life than upon his own craft. Devon, again, is
idiosyncratic. The appeal of his work is so largely dependent upon
his point of view; and points of view are the only safe thing left:
imitators have to be wary in stealing them. It is when manner and
matter are both straightforward that the imitators have their most
profitable time. Look, for example, at _The Prisoner of Zenda_, what
a progeny has that romance!
Novel-writing has become a habit. Men used to write novels to amuse
their fellow-creatures--to take tired people to the islands of the
blest, as one of our finest living hands has put it--but to-day
novel-writing has become a habit, resorted to for many different
reasons. Some men write novels because they have got into a mess
with a woman and want to see how it looks on paper, or to explain
their real motives, or to find a way out. Other novels are really
intimate letters intended for one reader only. Others--and these are
largely those written by women--create the kind of life which the
writer would have lived had she ever had the chance: exercises in
what may be called the Consolation School of Fiction. But the
greatest number are written because someone else wrote better, and
the imitative faculty is so strong in us.
Of course there is only one thing for a novelist to be, and that is
himself. But one has to attain a certain age to know that. To try
to write in anyone else's manner is fatal. To novelists who have not
the courage or the conceit to be themselves, but who try to infuse a
popular element into their work, I would give this advice, "Do what
you can as well as you can, and let the others do what you can't,
without envying them." And when they have succeeded I would go to
them again and say, "Never have the faintest fear of a copyist."
Devon and Sankville not only were novelists but successful dramatists
too; but Speyde had had no luck with the stage.
"How you can do it, I can't think," he said. "It's a new language, a
new world. Everything that one has learnt has to be forgotten. The
things that should be whispered have to be shouted. At least, that
is what the stage-managers and producers say, and since you are in
their hands you have to believe it. But no more of it for me; I have
done with limelight. Of course it's all right for Devon, because
he's a homilist. Anyone with a lesson to teach can disregard
conventions or accept them."
"That's all very well," said Devon, "but I must decline to be
isolated as the one dramatist who has a moral to enforce. All the
best dramatists have."
"Of course," said Sankville, "every Englishman is a Puritan at heart,
in so far as he prefers that everyone else should be virtuous. Hence
when he writes a play it naturally makes for virtue. The study of
our neighbour's conduct is the national profession. It also forms
the material of every play and every novel."
"And every newspaper," said Leigh.
"Of course--every newspaper, and every weekly review, doesn't it,
Dabney?" Sankville replied.
"I suppose so," Dabney said; "but, at any rate, newspaper men don't
pretend to do more than record results. They make no claim, as you
novelists and dramatists do, to be able to read the heart and discern
the springs of action and all the rest of it."
"Well, and can't we?" Sankville asked.
"Of course you can't," said Dabney. "It was at once one of the
kindest and cruellest things that Heaven ever did to deny to human
beings all capacity for really knowing anything about other human
beings. You fellows can deceive us by your art into the illusion
that you know; but that's all. Nobody knows. There's only one way,
I take it, to write a psychological novel, and that is to proceed
from yourself outwards. Done with courage and fidelity, that might
give us one character that approximated to life; but you fellows
crowd a hundred characters into each book. Someone once said, as a
joke, that the way to write a novel was to make all the characters
behave exactly as the author would, because we're all exactly alike,
except that you yourself are a shade more imaginative and sensitive
than anybody else. That was intended ironically, but I don't see any
fault in it as a piece of practical advice. It has been successfully
enough followed. But the result is not good enough--except as
saleable stuff calculated to provide you with a motor-car, or a
rock-garden, or whatever else you want.
"It is because no one can really know others and can only guess at
himself in imaginary situations," Dabney continued, "that I think all
this recurring talk about absolute freedom for the novelist is such
rot. Speyde here is always claiming for the novelist an unfettered
hand. Everything, he says, must be told. We must have full-lengths;
not mere heads or kit-cats any more. For too long had novelists
suffered under the restrictions placed upon them by Mrs. Grundy and
the circulating libraries. No story of a man's or woman's life is
worth telling unless it tells all; and so on. But, in my capacity as
a provocative host, let me say I don't give a row of pins for it."
"Nor I," Lacey burst in. "If that's what the new novel is to be I
shall return to my Dickens with the greater pleasure."
Speyde was indignant. "We are talking about novels," he said:
"documents. Not panoramas. Dickens doesn't count here. Thackeray
might have counted if he'd had a chance. You remember his complaint
that since Fielding no one had been allowed to draw a whole man."
"Thackeray did very well without the dispensation," said Dabney. "As
a matter of fact, I doubt if he could have gone further than he did;
I doubt if anyone can go further than he does go: we all do our
damnedest. I have always rather suspected that remark of
Thackeray's: it was one of those hasty things which great men say and
forget and some little twopenny-halfpenny listener remembers and sets
down for ever. Given any imagination in the reader, he knows as much
about Mr. Arthur Pendennis as there is any need for him to know, and
surely you will admit that a novel is the work of the reader as well
as the author."
"I quite agree," said Sankville. "A novelist's duty is to do his
work within the limits imposed upon him. The English don't like
certain things blurted out in their stories. Very well, then, the
English novelist had got to say these things between the lines.
Thackeray, who was about equally interested in cause and effect, did
it most admirably; Meredith, who was rather more interested in cause
than effect, did it better; Dickens, who was interested only in
effect, left it alone. Nowadays there is a kind of competition among
novelists as to which shall be boldest."
"Yes," said Dabney, "but the bore of it is, to those of us who know
anything of life, that their boldness is such childish business.
There is only one thing that they want to say, and we know exactly
what it is. When Speyde talks about full lengths that's all he
means. Nothing else. You would all save lots of time--if you will
allow a mere journalist and frivolous novel-reader to make a
suggestion--if you put at the beginning of your books a warning to
the effect that the hero, heroine, and villain who are to be met in
the pages that follow are human beings with the ordinary emotions.
That, after all, is the only thing you want us to understand."
"Reverting to that matter of saying the more critically emotional or
physical thing between the lines," said the quiet voice of Devon, "it
might be laid down as an axiom--might it not?--that the success of a
novelist in thus conveying these impressions without printing them is
largely the proof of his excellence? It seems to me that the
photographic reproduction of life which Speyde asks for requires
totally different gifts from those of the novelist. Something of the
statistician; much of the morbid anatomist."
"There's another thing," said Dabney, "that makes this realistic
stuff a mistake, and that is that the English don't want the truth
about anything. They never tell it and don't want it told to them.
An appearance of truth--the ghost of truth--is all you need offer
them."
But Speyde wouldn't have it. "No," he said. "English fiction has
got to be freed, and the only way to do it is for the novelist to
tell the whole truth, extenuating and suppressing nothing."
"Granting that for a moment," said Leigh, "it does not even then
follow--with all the libraries clamouring for this kind of minute
revelation--that the novel will come; because before there can be a
novel there must be a novelist, and the novelist required here is one
of stupendous genius."
"Quite right," said Dabney, "and you can bet that when the stupendous
genius comes he will do exactly as he likes, just as, in fact,
Shakespeare did, and Thackeray and Dickens and Meredith did. It is
the little people who lay down and obey the rules; the big ones, who
use the vintage inks, go their own gait. What England wants is not
franker novels but a greater novelist. A measure of frankness is the
heritage of us all, although we have a way of neglecting it, but
greatness comes capriciously, and you may whistle for it in vain."
"Meanwhile," said Leigh, "let's go on writing just as we always do;
because, in default of greatness, that pays best. That is to say,"
he said, "I will go on with my London fairy tales; and Speyde will go
on with his exposures of the folly of the marriage laws; and Devon
will go on with his thoughtful gentlemen and ladies in perplexity;
and Sankville will go on throwing details in the eyes of the public.
Oh, you minutiæ men, I don't believe in you a bit," he continued;
"you have us all the time. We don't know where we are. We look for
an impulsive human action, and tumble over the coal-scuttle."
Sankville laughed. "You can't visualize people until you've got
their surroundings," he said.
"And then there's not time," replied Leigh. "Life is short, you
know. Art can be too long."
"And what do you think of all this talk?" Lacey asked me.
"It's interesting," I said, "but it's only talk."
"That's just it," he replied. "They're always at it. They go on as
if novels mattered."
"What does matter?" I asked.
"There you have me," he said, "but not novels, anyway. Paying your
way matters. Not letting people down matters. Keeping a hold on
yourself matters. But books, bless your heart, books! Books don't
help you to real life, except possibly as an anodyne to take away the
thoughts from facts--from Carey Street and things like that."
"Quite right," said Dabney, who had joined us; "and I would like to
make every public man publish his truthful list of the things that
matter. H.G. Wells, who one feels would seek the truth even in the
cannon's mouth, once wrote a book called _First and Last Things_, a
kind of spiritual stock-taking. That was some time ago, and his mind
is so sensitive to progress and so receptive of ideas, drawing them
from the air as Franklin's key drew electricity from the
thunder-cloud, that he may by now have changed his opinions in many
ways. None the less it was his creed at the time, expressed with all
his mastery of unambiguous prose and his desire not to be
misunderstood. It was his catalogue of the things that mattered. I
remember thinking as I read it what an interesting and valuable thing
it would be if some such confession--some such diploma thesis of
unburdenment--was demanded of every statesman and author. Such an
exaction would, at any rate, help to stem the Scotch competition in
public life."
CHAPTER XXI
IN WHICH WE WATCH AN IMPULSIVE GOOD SAMARITAN'S DEEDS AND HEAR HIS
SELF-REPROACHES
Lacey and I walked back together, and in Kingsway we were overtaken
by Spanton, who had been to a debate at Essex Hall. I observed at
once that he and Lacey were antipathetic. It was quite natural, for
both are vigorous in their beliefs or impulses, and they look at life
from totally different points of view. Lacey is a sentimentalist
with roots in the past; Spanton is a scientific state-builder with
his eyes on the future. Lacey is disillusioned and tired, content to
get through each day as well as he can, expecting little. Spanton is
confident and resolute.
On our way through Russell Square we passed a girl leaning against
the railing of a house, crying. She was dressed in tawdry finery and
her left hand was bound in a handkerchief. Lacey was at her side in
a moment.
"What's it all about?" he asked, in his hearty, kind voice.
Amid her sobs she told the story. She had had a quarrel with her
man; he had struck her; the table fell with the things on it and she
fell too, on a broken glass. He had turned her out.
Lacey examined her hand, which was badly cut and still bleeding.
"We must get this bound up," he said, and we found a cab and drove to
a chemist's in New Oxford Street which is open all night, as, of
course, Lacey knew.
"And what is the next thing?" he said. "Where do you live?"
"I couldn't go back there," the girl said, clinging to him.
She was a fine girl, rather on the coarse side, with a dull red
complexion, thick lips, and blunt nose; but her large, dark-brown
eyes were really splendid.
Lacey comforted her and reassured her, stroking her other hand.
Spanton said nothing.
There had been quarrels before, she explained, and the man's
brutality had been increasing. This was the last. Nothing would get
her there again.
"Very well, then," said Lacey, "we must find you a bedroom, and
to-morrow I will see what I can do. It is too late now to talk."
He thought a while and then told the cabman to drive to a street off
the Hampstead Road.
"When I was in business," he said, "I had an old carpenter named
Dimmage. I dare say he's got a room empty; we shall just catch him
coming home after the 'Time, gentlemen, please.'"
Lacey was right. Mr. Dimmage had just returned and was locking up.
His delight--rendered a shade more exuberant by his evening's
libations--at recognizing his old employer was a joy to watch.
The story was soon told, and Mrs. Dimmage, extricated from bed,
appeared, dishevelled and testy, at the head of the narrow stairs.
She descended for the purpose of scrutinizing the girl a little more
closely under the candle-light, and then retreated again.
"We've no room here," she said.
(It is an open question whether women are not _au fond_ women's worst
enemy.)
"But what about that truckle-bed where Jim used to be?" said the
tactless but hero-worshipping Dimmage.
"There's no room in this house for stray women at this time of
night," said Mrs. Dimmage.
Mr. Dimmage looked at us blankly.
"But, I say," he said, "it's a favour Mr. Lacey's asking. You
wouldn't deny Mr. Lacey anything? After all he's done for us, too;"
and he went upstairs and engaged in whispered conversation.
"You are good to me," said the girl, who still clung to Lacey's arm.
"You'll come round in the morning, won't you? You're one of those
that do keep their promises, aren't you?"
"Yes, worse luck," said Lacey. "But you've not got your room yet."
"Oh yes, I have," she said. "She's getting it ready now."
The girl was right. Mrs. Dimmage was conquered, as Mr. Dimmage
informed us with many winks and grimaces.
"She's a good old soul," he said confidentially, "but damned
partickler. But it'll be all right now."
And so we left, Mr. Lacey promising to be there at half-past nine.
"I call that a triumph for alcohol," he said, as we walked on. "If
Dimmage had been a teetotaller we should never have got in. He would
have been asleep, for one thing, and for another he would have had no
courage to stand up to his wife. Alcohol is always called the friend
of vice, but I have often found it the friend of virtue too."
All this while Spanton had been looking grimly on; and when we came
away he at last spoke.
"It's a waste of time and energy, Mr. Lacey. All that you've done is
to keep us out of our beds and reduce our store of vitality. There's
no sense in helping a woman like that. She's no good to Society.
She's a parasite. If you had an impulse to do something for her the
best thing would have been to give her a shilling and leave her."
"Oh, rubbish," said Lacey. "We must do as we're made. I couldn't
leave a poor creature like that. Common humanity wouldn't let me."
"That's because you don't reason," said Spanton. "If you had thought
for a moment instead of being so impulsive you would have realized
that you were doing no good--in fact, only being self-indulgent. We
have no right to go about the world squandering our emotions on
worthless strangers. We ought to control and direct them, to help
those that are worth helping."
"That's a counsel of perfection," said Lacey. "I am not perfect. I
am just an ordinary person with a heart not made of logic or stone.
If I see anyone in a hole I like to try and get them out. That's not
self-indulgence, is it?"
"Almost always," said Spanton.
"Well, it's Christianity," said Lacey, "and that's good enough for
me."
"Yes, but Christianity won't work," said Spanton. "It's never worked
yet. Look at our army. Look at our navy. Look at our archbishops'
salaries. Is there any connection between them and Galilee?"
"Rubbish," said Lacey. "Why, of course, Christianity works. It
makes our conduct. And if you don't stop this vile talk I'll punch
your head;" and so saying he stood still and began to take off his
coat.
"All right," said Spanton, "I'll stop. But just see how true it was,
what I said about Christianity not working. You've already forgotten
the instruction about the other cheek."
A most irritating young man.
But Lacey was quick enough for him. "Of course I shouldn't do
anything so abject as that," he said. "My Christ is he who scourged
the money changers out of the Temple. Come on!"
"That girl's an awful nuisance," said Lacey to me a day or so after.
"She's fallen in love with me. I was afraid she would. It's my
destiny to attract the wrong women. She's just a poor dumb animal
full of gratitude, and I haven't a notion what to do about her. Your
cold-blooded young Socialist is right: one should repress one's
humanitarian impulses."
I asked him what he should do.
"I'm wondering," he said. "She wants to be my servant and work
herself to death for me. I can see the twins' faces when they find
her cleaning up my room! There's only one phrase with the twins for
that kind of girl--'brazen hussy.' What the good women will never
understand about these others is that even in brazen hussying there
are off moments when ordinary life has to be lived. Fortunately she
doesn't know my address and old Dimmage won't tell her. I shall send
her five pounds and say I have to go abroad for three months, and so
wash my hands of her."
I strongly advised him to do this and offered to contribute to the
sum. But he wouldn't have it.
"No," he said, "this is my show. I let myself in for it, and I must
get out of it. Poor girl, I'm so sorry for her. Such a nice thing
too; but hopeless, of course. When they've once tasted freedom they
won't go back. How can they? What has service to offer? Do you
remember how in one of Byron's letters he bursts out in disgust,
'Nothing but virtue pays in this damned world.' He was right.
Nearly everyone is experimenting with vice, yet nothing but virtue
really pays. The difference between virtue and the other thing may
be as slight as tissue paper, but there it is, and all our social
system is based on virtue. Such a nice girl too. She ought to marry
a policeman and beget life-guardsmen.
"There's a poem in that Chinese book you lent me," Lacey continued,
"which I have learnt by heart and am trying to obey. It teaches one
not to meddle. This wretched girl who is on my mind all comes of
meddling, just as Spanton said. The poem--it's hundreds of years
old--runs like this--it is quite short--only four lines:
I wander north, I wander south, I rest me where I please...
See how the river-banks are nipped beneath the autumn breeze!
Yet what care I if autumn's blasts the river-banks lay bare?
The loss of hue to river-banks is the river-banks' affair.
That's the way to live. Go your own way and don't care a hang for
anyone. I wish I could do it!
"That poem's given me an idea too. To make a little collection of
poems all of which are four lines long and no more. You'd get some
fine things and it wouldn't tire anyone. Some day, when I've more
time, I shall do this."
But, of course, he won't.
CHAPTER XXII
IN WHICH THE WYNNES AND OURSELVES MAKE A JOURNEY TO ITALY AND FIND
THE MIDDLE AGES
Since the events described in the last chapter I have been a
traveller. I forget if I have mentioned that Naomi has a brother
Frank, a journalist, with a pretty wife and three children. We do
not see very much of them, as they live out of London, but these
children having been ordered the best kind of sea bathing, and Mr.
Wynne--Frank, and Naomi's father--having generously put his hand deep
into his pocket, and Naomi having talked me round, we all went to
Rimini to bathe; because good authorities said that Rimini bathing
was of the superlative best.
When I had at last consented I began (as often happens) to be
enthusiastic. I used to go about London saying "Rimini, Rimini,"
just for the sheer joy of the syllables. For I can think of no other
three, in that Italian language of beautiful syllables, that contain
the suggestion of so much that is splendid and old and romantic. I
pictured it on the grand scale, a little as though Hugo had sketched
it, noble but decayed. I saw a crumbling fortress, an empty palace,
vast, sun-baked streets, a cool, twilit cathedral, and dark doorways
and passages in which the clash of steel was still almost audible.
That is how I began; but gradually, as I met travellers and conversed
with them, these poetical anticipations lost their fine bloom.
Said one: "It's the very dickens of a place for mosquitoes."
Said his son, a healthy schoolboy, who was present: "I believe it's
near San Marino. If I give you a couple of bob will you buy me some
stamps?" (What a lot the young know!)
"If you are going to Rimini," said Dabney, "you must get Symonds and
read up the Malatesta lot. They're awfully interesting. But perhaps
you're going to write about them."
"No," I said, "I think not. I'm going to Rimini solely for bathing
and mosquito bites."
A Scotch physician gave me advice of a different and totally
unexpected variety. "Don't forget the Rimini beer," he said. "It's
the best I ever tasted."
Rimini beer! Shade of Dante! But the doctor was right. The Rimini
beer is wonderful, especially with the Rimini sun to create a thirst
for it. Apollo and the brewer (who has, I regret to say, a German
name) working in partnership can always lead to admirable results,
but never more admirable than at Rimini.
One lady alone played the game. She threw up her hands in an
ecstasy. "Rimini!" she crooned. "How delightful! Paolo and
Francesca."
But the prettiest thing was said in a letter from a literary friend.
"Lucky you!" he wrote, "and if you stay till October you will see the
swallows and get some English news, for they always rest at Rimini on
the way south."
Our party was enormous and a tremendous responsibility for me, who
foolishly undertook to pilot it; for, in addition to ourselves, who
knew a little French and Italian, there were two maids who knew none,
one of them being the children's nurse, and the other Mrs. Wynne's
new maid, who was advertised for as not objecting to going abroad,
and replied that she was "fond of travail."
I pass over the horrors of the journey. No one who vividly
remembered his railway experiences would ever go to Italy again; but
Providence has a kindly way of blurring them or relegating them to a
distant background behind Italian joys. One quaint experience the
last stage offered. In the confusion of Bologna's crowded platforms,
and the absence of any official who knew anything, and the lateness
of our train, and the changing into the next, which was, like all
Italian trains, packed with passengers before we could reach it,
there had been no opportunity that I considered safe to buy any
refreshments. As, therefore, the appalling journey lengthened out
between Bologna and Rimini, where the line hits the Adriatic coast
and thereafter clings to it for many miles, we were all conscious of
the pangs of hunger.
In despair I explored the train for food, hoping against hope, and
came upon a peasant in a corner with a basket at his feet from which
oozed a thick fluid. That it would prove to be inedible I was
confident; but none the less I asked him what it was, and behold,
when he opened the mouth of the basket it was eggs. To his immense
astonishment I led him to the compartment which we had at last
obtained, and, to his greater surprise, he watched us each consume
one or more of his eggs broken into the cup of a pocket flask. Even
Naomi, whose horror of a raw egg amounts in England to a mania, took
one; even the children took one, with a reverence and distortion
proper only to medicine.
The strange part of the story, which otherwise lacks all the elements
of excitement, is, that when I offered the man some money he refused
it. It had given him pleasure to be of use to us, he said. He would
on no account accept any payment. Noble egg-merchant of Rimini, may
you have many children, and may they have many children, and so come
to repopulate and regenerate Italy! But, he said, if we really
wished to make some return, he would greatly esteem a taste of the
liquor which the flask contained and which some of us had poured into
the broken eggs. I therefore handed him a cup of the national
beverage of Caledonia, which he took at a gulp, and the last we saw
of our good Samaritan was his honest, sunburned face in spasms of
astonishment at its strength, and the last we heard of him was his
strangling gasps as he fought with the unaccustomed draught. I
looked for him after in Rimini but never saw him more.
And so, after many many hours in grubby carriages, we reached Rimini
late at night, which is the right thing to do, and in that dazed
state that follows sudden entry in the dark into a strange town,
after a fatiguing and noisy train, we were driven through narrow
streets to the hotel: having chosen, for fun, the ancient
posting-house of the centre rather than the new and splendid hostel
of the _plage_. In spite of certain disabilities I think we were
wise, for it made just the difference between being in Rimini and
being anywhere--Ostend, say, or Dieppe--for all _plage_ hotels are
the same and all ancient posting-houses have their own character.
The Golden Eagle and Three Kings was our magnificent sign and we
completely captured it. We had vast rooms in which gilt beds with
canopies over them (like royal couches in a fairy tale) occurred as
incidents, isolated as palm trees in the desert; while the
gaily-painted ceilings were high above as the vault of heaven. Such
a thing as a small room was unknown. The hostess was shrewd and
masterful, with all the machinery of geniality. The host was not
only landlord but housemaid, parlour-maid, cellar-man, and everything
else. Heavy, pallid, puffy, and unbuttoned, with a kind face and a
heavy moustache, he was to be met with on the stairs at all hours,
carrying either a broom or a pail or both. We called him (Heaven
forgive us!) the Golden Eagle; but his consort was liker that
commanding and predatory fowl. In addition there was an odd man or
two in an apron, also busy with brooms and pails, and also the
natural objective of the eagless's criticism; a head waiter (from
Florence, for the season); a piccolo, who smiled ever and longed to
be up to mischief but dared not; a kitchen staff; and two or three
prim and superior daughters, or eaglets, glimpses of whom were
occasionally to be caught in the hotel, avoiding their father, and
whom, with their efficient mother, all in black, we met more than
once returning from Mass. Such was the personnel of the Golden Eagle
and Three Kings.
But at lunch and dinner sparkling young commercial travellers
appeared from obscure regions of the building inaccessible to us,
where no doubt the rooms approximated to the English size, and these
would surround a long table and eat and drink and incessantly talk;
but always first executing some courteous preliminaries from which
emerged the senior, to take the head of the table.
Rimini has but this one hotel of any class at all, and one café, and
this café, I observed, has but one habitué who wears evening dress;
but he is so proud of it that his unceasing promenade before the
little tables outside conveys the illusion of a Smart Set.
The city, I may say at once, is not the city of my dreams. I do not
say it is disappointingly not so, for everything about it is so
foreign and so interesting and (with the exception of the _plage_,
the railway, and the trams) so mediæval--such a feat of
survival--that it is satisfying even to one who had expected too
much. The town itself is small and half derelict, and a long way (in
hot weather) from the sea. On the shore, for a mile and more, is a
new settlement of villas and bathing-boxes, a casino and the great
white _à la mode_ hotel. This mile, inhabited wholly by strangers,
comes to life in June and dies again in September, and has no
dealings with the old town and the Golden Eagle and Three Kings
whatever. Nor has the old town any dealings with the shore, for no
one living at Rimini ever bathes. The only way in which old Rimini
recognizes the sea is to circulate round the bandstand on Sundays and
musical nights, otherwise it prefers to crumble in the sun, and recks
nothing of salt water.
Rimini's streets are narrow and paved with stones chosen carefully
for their unsuitability for such a purpose. Its houses are high and
squalid, but most charmingly sheltered with green. Its palaces are
now rookeries. The main street is entered from the plain through a
massive gateway--the Porta Romana--and passing through the town
widens first into an arcaded oval, with a monument in it celebrating
Cæsar's crossing of the neighbouring Rubicon in 49 B.C., then narrows
again; then becomes the side of the principal square, the Piazza
Cavour, where the theatre, the post office, the Municipio, the café,
and the one suit of evening clothes are; then narrows again to pass
the Golden Eagle and Three Kings; and after a further narrow period
leaves the town by way of a stone bridge with five arches over the
Marecchia, which was begun before Christ by Augustus and finished by
Tiberius in A.D. 20; and so once more we enter the plain again.
There are a few by-streets and the castle of the Malatestas and an
amphitheatre, within the walls; and that is all. And everything has
the disintegrating baked appearance of a city with a past.
The famous cathedral has a façade as unfinished and untidy as a
peacock from behind, and it is usually deserted; but it is Rimini's
best, still. Interesting to loiter here and ruminate upon its
makers: chief of them the black Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta, who
built it, not only as a service for a God whom he too often forgot,
but as a fitting resting-place when that orgy, his life, was over.
His story is a dark one. He was born in 1417 and died in 1468. His
imperious hawk-shaped head tells us that he could brook no
opposition, and throughout his tempestuous career he did everything
he wished, as Italian tyrants of the Middle Ages were peculiarly able
to. Three wives at least he espoused and then murdered, but at last
fell completely under the charm of the fair and gifted Isotta degli
Atti, who had enough influence with him to force him to marry her and
enough good fortune to survive him.
Sigismondo as a bold bad man has almost no superior in the annals of
wilfulness and turpitude, but alongside his abnormal cruelties and
excesses was a devotion to art and philosophy which not only led him
to invite Alberti here to design, and the sweet and simple Piero
della Francesca to paint, and certain of the best sculptors to carve,
his cathedral--but he entertained scholars and poets continually in
his city of lawless passions, and himself brought hither from Greece
the bones of the famous Neo-Platonist, Gemisthos Plethon, the father
of the New Learning, and reinterred them in state in this Christian
fane. Strange lurid times and strange anomalies in them!
Sigismondo's tomb, with the elephant pertaining to his crest, and
Isotto's tomb near it (with Isotto herself as an angel on the altar)
were both constructed in their lifetime and must have been visited
continually by their intended occupants to see what progress was
being made. His own tomb bears a cynical couplet which, with his
descriptive name, sufficiently describes the man for posterity.
As for the most famous figures in Rimini, those two fated lovers of
whom Dante first sang--Paolo and Francesca--one hears nothing of them
in the city to-day, and sees only picture post-cards representing a
modern meretricious painting of the hapless pair. It was an ancestor
of Sigismondo (he himself left no lawful descendants), Giovanni the
Lame, who was the husband of Francesca. And Francesca loved too well
her husband's brother Paolo the beautiful, and Giovanni had both of
them put to death in 1288, when Dante was a young man of twenty-three.
But the sweetest and rarest life to think upon in this forsaken
temple is that of its architect--Leon Battista Alberti, the first
Admirable Crichton of a period when Crichtons were almost the rule.
Of noble birth, Alberti developed his many-sided genius very early.
He controlled the wildest horses almost by a word; he could jump his
own height without a run; he could throw a coin accurately over the
tallest building; none could beat him at wrestling or archery; he
painted, modelled, and was a superb musician. To his skill and taste
as an architect this cathedral testifies, as do the façade of S.
Maria Novella at Florence and the old Ruccellai palace there. He
dived deeply into physical science, read everything that was readable
in those early days before printing, was among the keenest of the
Neo-Platonists, and, like Leonardo after him, a mountaineer. He
worshipped beautiful things, jewels, flowers, landscapes, and was
peculiarly delighted by the spectacle of healthy and handsome old
men. When one of his dogs died he wrote a funeral oration for it.
Among his literary works were a treatise on the family, essays on art
and science, and an autobiography. Like Michael Angelo and Leonardo,
his greatest successors, he never married, and his wealth was always
at the disposal of his friends. Such was Leon Battista Alberti, the
builder of this cathedral, who was dead nine years before our Edward
V came to the throne.
Neither universal genius nor tyrant is to be found in Rimini to-day.
The cathedral is forlorn and deserted; the castle of the Malatestas
is a prison; no fierce or genial despot stirs the languid populace to
activity. They loaf about in deshabille, gossip, sip their coffee,
read the papers, and care for nothing. Sun-beetles, every one of
them; that is, in summer. I cannot conceive of Rimini in winter at
all.
But the girls of Rimini. Ah! Olive coloured, with regular features
a little rounded, tall, straight, with level eyes that never wander,
they are the most beautiful things there. They walk proudly in
couples, talking, laughing; they are never seen with men. They come
along so statelily and easily, like sailing ships. At other times
they look out of the windows, but still never at men. Where else are
beautiful women so disdainful?
CHAPTER XXIII
IN WHICH WE LUXURIATE IN A TIDELESS SEA AND WITNESS A BLOODLESS BATTLE
Let me say at once that not only is the Rimini bathing the best in
the world, so far as I know, but the sands are the best too; and the
fishing-boats that flit in and out of the little harbour have the
best burnt-umber sails.
The English are learning to enjoy _plage_ life, but they are not
naturally ready for its beguilements as the French and Italians are;
while the Germans, after their wont, overdo it, with a coarse
self-consciousness and their always visible intention of extracting
the last drop of material bliss. The Italians are children in the
water and on the sands: the dark, hairy men, the placid, olive-hued
women with subterranean fires. At Rimini, where it is really hot,
one lives all day in bathing clothes, alternately in the water and
out; but from twelve to one everyone is eating, and from one to three
everyone is asleep--except the indefatigable children. In those
hours the sands under the tent awnings present the appearance of a
battle-field, strewn with the prismatic dead. This to the human eye;
to the eye of a sand insect the scene must be more like the South
Downs to a Wealden labourer, such are the undulating contours of the
full-length Italian parents who repose in profusion and negligence on
every hand.
These parents were more entertaining to me than any of the younger
bathers: they were so patiently happy; so sensibly careless of their
habiliments; so wisely unmindful of their bulk; such creatures of
comfort. Their pretty daughters and slender sons had their vanities;
the parents were without any.
I had often wondered when abroad what kind of impression one makes.
All these swarthy Italian men, for example, looked like tenors: but
what type did I, for instance, suggest to the Italian eye, if any?
There are many more casts of face in England than in Italy, and
several more than in France; and now that whiskers have gone out and
clean shaving is the fashion it must puzzle the continental
caricaturist to fix the English type. But of one thing I feel
certain, that our little party broke no hearts. No dark Italian eyes
looked yearningly our way: the Carusi will always win there.
Few of the Italians, young or old, thought of swimming. Their
pleasure was to stand about or make lazy voyages on the double-canoe
rafts, meanwhile carrying on conversations with their tent at
terrific range. Only the English or an eccentric native thought of
swimming, and the English, so far as I know, were confined to our own
party.
I say we were the only English; but is that quite just? For on the
first morning, while I was arranging with the bathing master in his
little _guichet_ for our tickets and so forth, he sent for one of the
bathing men to be our particular attendant, on the grounds that he
was English, or, at any rate, knew English. "The Englishman,"
therefore, he became in our minds; but what English! He had one
word--"awry"--which meant the very opposite, "All right," and this he
used continually. He could also say "ole man." No more. The secret
of his reputation as a linguist was a sojourn he had made in San
Francisco; but it is extremely easy, I take it, in San Francisco, to
consort only with your own countrymen, no matter what race is yours,
and therefore avoid the necessity of learning any new tongue. The
Englishman, however, was our friend. He taught the children to swim;
he placed his double canoe at our exclusive disposal at a heavy cost;
he fixed the awning of the tent; he procured additional deck-chairs;
he brought bottles.
And once he fought for us. During his momentary absence one morning
we had received some attention from another of the men, and the
Englishman had heard about it. Such a liberty was, of course,
outrageous and must be punished; and the Englishman set to work to
chastise this upstart and interloper. The attendants had cubicles at
the head of the little pier, side by side, and the Englishman and his
foe chose this site for their battle, for all the world to see. They
began by calling each other names at a distance of a yard; then they
closed up and shouted these and other names into each other's very
mouths. Then they took to fisticuffs. Not, however, in any vulgar
northern way, upon each other's body, but on the doors and walls of
each other's cubicle. They fought like this for ten minutes, beating
the woodwork mercilessly, every blow being accompanied by a new
epithet, which it is fortunate was not in any language that we
understood; and then they disappeared within, each in his own lair.
For a while there was silence, to the intense regret of the _plage_,
but not for long; for the Englishman would think of something good
which he had not yet called the other, and would come out and call it
him, with a knock-out blow on the panel; and the other would remember
a terrible insult which had been hurled at him a year or two ago and
which, in the excitement of the past few minutes, had escaped his
memory, and he would fire this into the Englishman with an undercut
on the pitch pine. They came out so rhythmically that one could
almost believe they were consulting slang dictionaries in the
meanwhile; and then the warfare gradually died down, as the
dictionaries gave out, and in half an hour they were in friendly
intercourse again. From the circumstance that the other man ever
after avoided us, we gathered that the Englishman had won.
CHAPTER XXIV
IN WHICH AN EXPERIMENT IS MADE IN QUICKENING THE INTELLIGENCE OF THE
YOUNG, WITH DISTRESSING RESULTS
Mrs. Frank, I have not perhaps said, is one of the serious mothers
who wish to make her children clever from the very first, and she has
enlisted my services in the campaign, although I am not clever yet.
We all stay on the sand until four, and then there are two hours for
the twins and their small sister before bedtime. It is this
interlude which Mrs. Frank has entreated me to spend now and then,
say three times a week, in instruction.
"Be original with them," she says, "there's a good Kent. Make them
think and see."
"Heavens, woman," I reply, "why not save time by telling me to be
perfect? What's their father about, anyway? Why isn't he teaching
his brood?"
"Oh, Frank's too lazy," says his wife. "Besides, he hasn't any
patience. He hates to be interrupted with questions--not a little
because he can't answer them."
I am lazy too, and am equally afraid of questions, but it has long
been understood in this world that I cannot say no, while ever since
I took charge of Mr. Bemerton's shop I have been the natural prey of
all mendicants. Moreover, Naomi supporting her sister-in-law's
request, I had to say yes once more.
I borrowed my plan from Spanton. You remember what he said about his
school lectures and his description of the lives of the labourers.
Well, I took that as a basis, and, applying the idea to younger
minds, began a little story for these children which should have the
effect of making them realize, although so young, their dependent
position in the world, and their indebtedness to the world and its
workers not only for their luxuries but their necessities. At first
it would be merely a matter of curiosity quickened and satisfied, but
later, as they grew older and went to school, it might make them the
more ready not to harbour insularity and arrogance.
We had a chapter at a time. My story began thus:
WHAT THE WORLD DOES FOR PRUE
Once upon a time there was a little girl called Prue. Or, to be more
exact, there is a little girl named Prue, for she is living in London
at this minute and is still only ten years old. Prue has no brothers
and sisters, but I don't think that this matters very much to her
happiness, for she has many friends, not only of her own age but
bigger too, quite grown up, in fact, and also a very busy mind which
leads her to be interested in a large number of things and so keeps
her contented. Her father goes into London in the morning at
half-past nine by the Hammer-Smith Tube from Gloucester Road, and he
comes back in the afternoon so exactly at the same time every day
that Prue can be sure of meeting him by the greengrocer's and
florist's on the way, where he buys some flowers for Prue's mother,
who is an invalid. On Saturday, however, he does not go to his
business at all, but in the morning he plays at golf in the Old Deer
Park at Richmond (close to Kew Gardens), and in the afternoon he
takes Prue to a picture gallery or a concert. On Sunday afternoons
they always go either to the South Kensington Museum, which they are
getting to know by heart, from Constable's water-colours of Brighton
to Michael Angelo's "David," and from teak houses at Benares to lace
caps for babies in the time of Queen Anne; or to the British Museum,
which they know also equally well, from the Elgin Marbles to the
little Tanagra family groups in terra-cotta, and from Egyptian
mummies to Staffordshire jugs with poetry on them. You have no idea
how interesting a museum can be if you take it easily and have
someone to describe the things to you. The mistake people make in
museums is to try and see too much, as if they were going to die
to-night.
Prue also has a governess named Miss Fry, and a considerable library
of her own, and a dachshund named Herr Bandy, and threepence a week
pocket money. She has fair hair and blue eyes, and would much rather
be laughing than not, in spite of her visits to museums. And that, I
think, is enough introduction to Prue.
The purpose of this story is to give you the same idea as that given
to Prue by her father, of the thanks which you owe to the world at
large; and when I say you I mean all of us, but particularly those
living at this moment in England. For I want you to think of Prue as
a little girl standing on England in the flat map of the world which
we call Mercator's Projection, to whom from all directions steamers
and trains are hurrying. Each of these steamers and trains is
bringing her something that is necessary for everyday life, to eat or
to wear or to use, and were it not for these steamers and trains, and
the sailors and engineers on them, and stevedores who loaded them and
others who will unload them, and the workmen who made or dug or
gathered the articles they are loaded with, that little girl would
very likely die or, at any rate, be no better than a savage. And
again when I say that little girl I mean you and me and all of us
prosperous, protected, English people who have only to go into the
Stores and lay down our money to get all we want, and, for the most
part, never think of the way in which men have been toiling under hot
suns or freezing skies or in stifling cities, mostly on poor wages,
to provide us with it. We take such things for granted: just as Prue
did until her eccentric Uncle Frank, who always did such odd things,
came back from India, where he was a judge, for a holiday, and told
her a little about the origin of things, as I am going to tell you.
That was the start, and it was very successful, except that the twins
both wondered why I had made a little girl the heroine.
"Well," I said, "it is because girls are more interesting. I wrote
it really for Jill, only she is too young for it at the moment.
Little boys don't make such good stories as little girls."
"Why?" they asked.
"Ah," I replied (for I am not altogether a fool), "you must ask your
father. He knows everything."
Now for the real beginning, the first chapter:
It was a bright morning in April. Prue woke up at seven, half an
hour before she need get up. This is a very pleasant thing to do.
She knew it was seven because she looked at her watch. Her watch!
This is rather serious, because few things that we use in daily life
contain the results of more labour in many countries than a very
ordinary watch, and if I tell you all about that now, we shall not
get back to Prue for many pages. I had forgotten that Prue's watch
would come in so soon. Let us then postpone the examination of her
watch for a little, because I want to tell you how she began to think
of this dependence of hers (and ours) upon the rest of the world.
She lay there in her little bed all cosy between the sheets and
blankets. (Sheets and blankets, did I say? This story is not only
never going to end, I can see, but is never going to begin either,
for Prue's sheets jump us straight away to Carolina in North America,
and the cotton fields, and the negroes at work there, and the great
Atlantic steamers being laden with the bales, and the Lancashire
cotton mills, and the girls in clogs, and the boys thinking of
football as they work, and the broad, Lancashire dialect filling the
air, and ... do you see what a task we have before us? While as for
Prue's blankets, they take us farther still, right away to Australia,
to a great sheep farm with thousands and thousands of sheep, and the
hot sun, and the dry Bush stretching as far as the eye can reach, and
the rouseabouts driving the sheep up to the shearing sheds, and rows
of half-naked men shearing and shearing, with the sheep kicking and
struggling beneath them. Think of the heat of it all, and the dust
and thirst and weariness, and nothing to do when evening comes in
this wilderness but rest and get ready for the next day! And then
the despatch of the wool in wagons to the nearest train, and the
train going to the port and the long voyage to the factory in England
where it is to be spun. How many sheep's warm coats contributed to
make one of your blankets? You never thought of that before,
perhaps. But still we have not reached the awakening of Prue's
consciousness on this great matter of herself and the world.)
She lay there in that blessed half-awake, half-asleep state for some
minutes, until she began to feel something warm on her cheek, and
realized that it was the sun. And she suddenly thought how wonderful
it was that there should be such a substance as glass which can keep
out the cold but lets light and warmth through it, and, idly
thinking, she began to wonder how glass is made, and when it was
discovered, and what people did before they had it, and either how
draughty or how dark their rooms must have been; and she determined
to ask her father and Miss Fry about it; and that was the beginning
of this story.
From the window as she lay there, her eyes strayed all round the
room, and everything that they saw set her wondering afresh. It was
a very nice little bedroom. The wall-paper was white, with little
bunches of wall-paper flowers tied with blue ribbon all over it--the
kind of wall-paper that does not look like anything but what it is
and is therefore happy and restful, and very different from the
wall-paper that was there when Prue had measles last year. That had
a curly, twisted pattern on it which, when Prue had fever, turned
into animals and frightened her; and then it was badly hung in some
places, and Prue would lie there for hours wishing that it fitted and
longing to get up and alter it. But the new paper was gay and
properly pasted on, and Prue liked it very much.
On the walls were a few pictures--one or two coloured ones from the
Christmas numbers in cheap frames (glass again!) and the "Angels'
heads," by Sir Joshua Reynolds from the National Gallery, and the
little King Philip on his pony, by Velasquez, from the Wallace
Collection, and an illuminated text from Aunt Mildred, very
beautifully done in gold and water-colours--"The Lord is my
Shepherd," and a Shakespeare date calendar. There were ornaments on
the mantelpiece--a gaily-painted wooden figure from Munich, two
Japanese vases, a tiny cat and a tiny dog in brass, painted just like
life, from Vienna, and a serpentine cup from the Lizard. In the
fire-place was coal and wood all ready to be lit when Prue had a
cold. Before the window was her dressing-table with a mirror over
it, and her brush and comb and so forth on little mats with fringe
round them. Then there were the curtains, and the blind, and the
wardrobe of white wood with a little painted pattern, and the chest
of drawers, and the washing-stand with soap and toothbrush and so
forth, and the chairs. There was also a little hanging bookshelf,
and on the floor was a bright green carpet.
Prue lay in her little brass bed and looked at these things one by
one while the sun continued to pour through the windows and the time
to get up came nearer and nearer. And all the while she was getting
up she was thinking about these things, and how they were made, and
where they came from, and when she came downstairs she told her
father about it.
We have seen something about the origin of the sheets and the
blankets of Prue's bed. But what about the mattress and the pillows
and the framework. Just as before there could be the blankets there
had to be sheep with fleece on their backs, so before there could be
this mattress there had to be horses, for it was stuffed with
horsehair, the long hairs combed from their tails chiefly in Russia,
South America, and Australia. But, you say, the hair in a horse's
tail is long and straight, while the hair that one can pull out of
mattresses is short and curly. That is true; but the curl has been
put there artificially, for a number of processes have to be gone
through between the combing of the tail and Prue's slumbers on the
mattress, and curling the hair is one of the most important, or there
would be no spring to it.
And just as sheep and horses had to live before there could be
blankets or mattresses, so did geese have to cackle over commons and
be killed for the market before Prue could lay her head on that soft
pillow. The goose is a familiar enough bird; a much rarer bird
contributed to keep Prue warm at nights by supplying her with the
beautiful soft quilt that lay on the top of her bed--the eider duck.
The eider duck is a bird that lives in very cold regions, such as
Spitzbergen and Greenland and Iceland and the north of Norway. The
down comes from her breast and is plucked by herself to cover her
eggs and keeps them warm. Having marked down an eider-duck's nest,
the down-hunter takes away all its contents, and this he does again
and again at intervals of a few days until he guesses that the
eider-duck's patience is almost exhausted. He then leaves the eggs
and down undisturbed, for fear that she will lay no more. The
business of collecting down has become so important that artificial
nests are made to which the birds gladly come, and in which, in spite
of the way they are treated, they bravely go on laying eggs. From
each of these nests half a pound of down is collected each breeding
season; but before it is ready to be put into quilts it has to be
washed and cleaned to such an extent that the half-pound has dwindled
to a quarter. It all does not sound very gentlemanly, does it? but
there are worse things than that in store for us. Well-to-do little
girls in London cannot be made comfortable without a good deal of
suffering going on in other parts of the world.
Take the looking-glass, for example, over there on the
dressing-table: what about the brightness at the back of it which
makes it reflect, and reflect not only what is in front of it but, as
you have probably discovered by looking sideways at it, that which is
apparently wholly out of its range too. I must confess that this
strange power of a mirror amazes me as much as its ordinary gift of
reflecting what is straight in front of it amazes a dog. The
reflecting power of a mirror is obtained by spreading mercury or
quicksilver on the back; but before this can be done the mercury has
to be obtained, and that process is one of the most dangerous to men.
Quicksilver is a most delightful plaything. The first school to
which I was sent, a school for girls and boys, was kept by a little
old Quaker lady with highly-magnifying, gold-rimmed spectacles, who,
when we had been good, used to bring out a little bottle of
quicksilver and pour great shining drops from it on the green baize
table, and it would run about in all directions. No doubt she
explained the origin and nature of mercury as it ran, but I have
forgotten that. All that I remember and have always remembered is
that the presence of the quicksilver proved that we had been good and
that everyone was happy; and it remains in my mind as a sign of
content. This little old lady with the gold-rimmed spectacles kept
also a casket containing those yellow, round, gelatine lozenges which
look like sovereigns, and which confectioners often use to mend
broken windows with. One of them was given to any child who coughed.
You should have heard what a lot of coughing there was!
There I stopped the first lesson; and, as it happened, there the
experiment stopped permanently. For I had let loose the furies! For
the rest of that evening and the whole of the next morning, before we
got them into the sea, the children did nothing but ask questions as
to the origin of this and that. We were in despair, and my
unpopularity reached a point almost beyond endurance. Frank avoided
his family as though it owed him money; Wynne was undisguisedly
testy, and even Mrs. Frank confessed that children's intelligences
can be overstimulated. "At any rate," she said, "at Rimini and in
summer. You must wait till we get back and it is colder."
I accepted the decree with composure.
"At any rate," I said, "you will admit that the idea was good."
"It depends," she said, "on Frank. If he returns to his wife I will
forgive you."
CHAPTER XXV
IN WHICH WE MAKE THE MISTAKE OF PREFERRING "RICH EYES" TO COMFORT,
AND TASTE THE QUESTIONABLE PLEASURES OF A MINUTE REPUBLIC
We made an excursion or so, but not with any avidity; the sea was too
good to leave, and it was the sea that we had come all this way to
enjoy, as one cannot enjoy it at home except on days that are so few
and far between as by their very rarity to make for misgivings rather
than delight. It was also so hot that to be in the train at all was
a distress, while to be in the train in the middle hours was
martyrdom; and to be in a strange town in the middle hours was
discomfort too. But as it seemed wrong to be so near Ravenna and not
see it, we made a great effort and were away before seven one lovely
morning. It was a day of interesting sights and associations; but
how the call of the placid, wet exhilarating Adriatic sounded in our
ears the while!
Ravenna has had two immense losses: first the sea, which gradually
withdrew from the town centuries ago; and then the Pinetum, which,
after centuries of existence, was burned down not many years since.
The nearness of such a forest must have both sweetened and cooled the
city; to-day its heat can be pitiless.
The two lodestars of Ravenna are the exile poets Dante and Byron--but
Dante, of course, far outshines that other. Byron is an accident
here; Dante gives Ravenna most of its lustre, for here he made his
home for many years after Florence turned him forth; here he wrote
most of the "Divine Comedy"; here he died. We saw his tomb, and
afterwards we saw his bones in their wooden coffin in the library of
the old Camaldulensian monastery of Classe, now a civic building with
an immense collection of Dante literature. Here, too, we were shown
by the custodian a little illuminated Book of Hours that belonged to
Mary Queen of Scots, and is as pretty as a Kate Greenaway calendar
and indeed rather like one; but how it came to be at Ravenna, I
cannot say. And where it ought to be, were there a general
restitution of foreign treasures to their rightful situations, I
cannot say either.
One other thing we saw in this museum--the bedstead on which
Garibaldi's wife, Anita, died in 1849, during the flight from the
Austrians; and a few minutes later we saw a little company of
Garibaldi's veterans, lame and decrepit, place a wreath on the
patriot's statue, just by the Hotel Byron, amid apathy which would be
striking anywhere, but among Italians was astounding. Not a soul but
ourselves and some errand boys watched or followed.
We had lunch at the Hotel Byron, in a vast salon, on the polished
floor of which I seemed to hear his capricious lordship's club foot;
for this was his home for two years, in 1819-1821, when it was called
the Palazzo Rasponi, and here he consoled himself with his large,
blonde, stupid Guiccioli; here he wrote myriad letters to Murray; and
here Shelley stayed with him and despatched that amusing missive to
Thomas Love Peacock, detailing not only the spoiled poet's
extraordinary habits but also his extraordinary house-mates. "Lord
Byron gets up at _two_. I get up, quite contrary to my usual custom,
but one must sleep or die, like Southey's sea-snake in 'Kehama,' at
twelve. After breakfast we sit talking till six. From six till
eight we gallop through the pine forests which divide Ravenna from
the sea; we then come home and dine, and sit up gossiping till six in
the morning. I don't suppose this will kill me in a week or
fortnight, but I shall not try it longer. Lord B.'s establishment
consists, besides servants, of ten horses, eight enormous dogs, three
monkeys, five cats, an eagle, a crow, and a falcon; and all these,
except the horses, walk about the house, which every now and then
resounds with their unarbitrated quarrels, as if they were the
masters of it.... After I have sealed my letter, I find that my
enumeration of the animals in this Circean Palace was defective, and
that in a material point. I have just met on the grand staircase
five peacocks, two guinea hens, and an Egyptian crane. I wonder who
all these animals were before they were changed into these shapes."
Odd to have this letter in one's mind in this now highly respectable
building, where the only animals are men, women, and waiters.
For the rest, I think now of Ravenna chiefly as a city of mosaic
churches under a sky of brass, and wonder and wonder how--even with
the Pinetum and the abounding Guiccioli--Byron can have been willing
to stay there so long.
We returned from the little wayside station of Classe, a mile or so
outside Ravenna, in order to visit the vast deserted fane of Sant'
Apollinaris in Classe Fuori, which rears its huge bulk from the plain
like a mammoth. This basilica was built in the sixth century and
seems likely to stand for fourteen centuries more, if permitted to;
it is empty and forlorn, with a wretched old custodian to open the
doors upon its lost magnificence, for though the mosaics remain, our
friend Sigismondo Pandolfo Malatesta of Rimini carried off its marble
in 1449. Past this church rode Byron almost daily on his way to the
pine forest.
On another day we drove from Rimini to San Marino--a day ill-spent
indeed, for the sun shone, and our backs were to the sea all the way
there, and returning it was too late for bathing. Why does one do
these things? In England one can resist the deadly lure of the
excursion; but abroad, no.
San Marino means two horses and a carriage with an awning--in our
case two carriages with awnings and four horses, at twenty-five lire
the carriage. And for what? For a long, dull, dusty drive between
vineyards to a baking rock and back again. This rock is the centre
of the republic of San Marino, and I do not deny that its little city
is piled bravely upon it; but the wise traveller will permit the
camera to make the journey for him. Having left Rimini at seven we
were there by half-past ten, and we had not been within the gates
twenty minutes before I found one of the drivers and told him that we
would return at once. Idle breath! No one returns at once, or does
anything at once, in these parts. Impossible, he said. The horses
were worn out with the journey. The sun was too powerful. We could
leave at three--not a moment sooner. Here then we remained, bound to
this blistering crag, like so many Prometheus's, for four hours;
while the sea sparkled for us only ten miles away. As a matter of
fact, we could have got off earlier had I known and insisted. It was
not the fatigue of the horses, it was not the heat, that detained us;
but one of the drivers was courting a San Marino girl.
I warn all intending visitors to San Marino that after having bought
some of its absurd postage-stamps, on the sale of which it subsists,
and attempted to eat its inferior food, there is, in hot weather,
nothing whatever to do. To climb to the citadel is too exhausting;
to explore the public buildings is impossible, after Rimini's
cathedral, for if there is one more ridiculous thing than another it
is a toy republic. San Marino once belonged to Urbino, and,
declining to be joined to the Papal states in 1631, it has remained
independent. The population is about ten thousand, chiefly peasants,
who scratch the rock with hoes and breed cattle, and the Government
consists of a Grand Council of sixty life members, of which a third
are nobles, while a smaller Supreme Council of twelve are chosen from
these. You see them on the picture post-cards, which compete with
the stamps for the money of the stranger, and it is a few minutes'
beguilement to endeavour to set the point of a pin between the nobles
and the others.
So what did we do? We sat on a little balcony of the inn,
overlooking a tiny piazza, and watched such life as the place has,
which became almost galvanic when, after a terrible cracking of
whips, a mule rounded the corner dragging behind it a water-cart, and
all the republicans swarmed about this cart with vessels in which to
carry off the precious fluid at so much a litre.
That was the last of our follies. For the rest of the time we were
in Rimini we made Rimini suffice--bathing or watching the sea and its
serene yellow sails all the day, and afterwards taking short lazy
walks in the cool of the evening--now beside the river, from the
bridge to the harbour mouth and back again, past all the activities
of this little port of fishermen; now round the walls of the town;
now in the by-streets; and now down to the sea again, after dinner,
to see the moon and perhaps hear a little music.
Except for mosquito bites we all kept well, in spite of the heat and
in defiance of the prophecies of many friends, who took the gloomiest
views of Italian drinking water. But the mosquitoes! There is no
preparation against mosquitoes sold by Italian chemists that we did
not rub on our luckless skins; yet all in vain. We came at last to
believe that it is an Italian form of humour, this preparation, under
the name of preventives, of expensive delicacies dear to the mosquito
palate--an Italian joke against the English. Be that as it may,
nothing did any good; while as for the little cones which we burned
at night, filling the room with a thick aromatic smoke guaranteed to
disgust these insects more than anything else, I used to wake up and
hear them drawing great draughts of it into their lungs as if it were
ozone.
CHAPTER XXVI
IN WHICH TWO MODERN LOVERS LAY THEIR CASES BEFORE ME AND I DO NOTHING
FOR EITHER
I have had two lovers to see me: such different ones too. The first
was Dollie Heathcote, very nervous--for him; which means that his
eyeglass dropped ten times in a quarter of an hour instead of only
five times. If he would wear a cord this would not matter; but as he
has an objection to do so, a great deal of his time is spent on the
floor, which, in one so thoughtful of the knees of his trousers, is a
curious anomaly.
"Look here, Mr. Falconer," said Dollie, "you know the world and
you're married. What do you advise me to do? Do you think I'm
really a marrying man?"
"Not impetuously," I replied.
"Oh," he said, "no rotting. You see, it's like this. I'm awfully
keen on Ann and she's keen on me, I believe, but I've had a bit of a
facer lately. There's my brother Dick, for example, a much better
sort than I am--much steadier and domesticated and all that--well,
he's just left his wife for no other reason than because he's tired
of her. Whether there's anyone else, I don't know; fellows at the
Club tell me there always is. But Dick swears there isn't. Anyway,
he's gone. That's one thing. Another thing is that I had a fearful
jaw the other day from an old aunt of mine who says it's the
cruellest and wickedest thing there is to be engaged to a girl for a
long time and not marry her; because the girl's losing the best years
of her life. That set me thinking, because don't you see there's
always the possibility that Ann, although she doesn't mind knocking
about with me, might, if she were free, meet some other Johnnie whom
she would want to marry at once."
"How would you like to see her doing that?" I asked.
"Oh, I couldn't stand it," said Dollie.
"Then why don't you marry now?" I asked.
"Well," he said, "for one thing, Ann doesn't seem to want to, and for
another, I don't much want to myself."
"But you're so keen on her, you say," I remarked.
"Yes, of course I am. But the word husband's so stuffy."
I groaned for the younger generation.
"Yes," he went on, "I'm glad you agree with me. And there's
something so ghastly in the thought of settling down, don't you know."
"Well, that's what so many people like--the settlement of it. But
look at your friend Farrar, he's not exactly a home-bird, yet he and
his wife seem very happy, and they lead, married, very much the same
life that you do, unmarried."
"That's true," said Dollie. "But he's Farrar, and I'm not. I'm
another Johnnie altogether--the sort that's ever so much happier
engaged than he will be when he's married; and so's Ann, I believe;
but the silly thing about it is that we're only so happy now because
the idea is we're going to be married--otherwise she wouldn't be
allowed to go about with me at all. Isn't that what you call a bally
paradox? But anyhow, what do you advise?"
"Suppose I were to say," I replied, "that my advice to you was to
marry at once."
He started nervously. "Oh, I say," he said. "Not really. But that
would be awfully risky, you know. Look at poor old Dick--suppose I
got tired like that too? And it's not impossible, you know. Why, I
was awfully fond of Naomi once, and then you remember Miss Verity. I
was fearfully gone there for a while. Do you really think I ought to
make the plunge?"
"Then suppose," I said, "that my advice was, go to Ann and say that
you have realized that you don't love her enough"--he started
nervously again--"and wish to break off your engagement."
"Oh, but," he said, "I don't. I should be miserable without her.
And so would she."
"Well," I said, "since no practical advice would meet your views, as
I suspected, the only thing I can give is a sermon, or address, on
the dangers of the new cult of diversion which deprives the character
of any intensity, and leave you to draw the right moral. But I'm not
going to do that. You are both obviously very weak in what the
phrenologists call philo-progenitiveness. If you could only develope
that bump the problem would solve itself. That, however, is a
counsel of perfection. My advice, then, is this: in the words of an
illustrious statesman, cultivate an attitude of expectant hesitancy."
Dollie looked very blank.
"Put in another way," I said, "wait and see."
"Oh, I say," he said, "no chaff!"
"But I really mean it," I said.
"Honour bright?" he asked.
"Absolutely," I said.
"Thanks awfully," he replied, shaking my hand. "Tophole. That's a
great load off my mind."
I was glad to see him go.
The bore about the people who ask for advice is that they never tell
everything; and it is just the reservations that make the case
complex.
The second lover was poor Spanton.
"How's Nancy?" I asked.
His face fell. "As a matter of fact," he said, "I wanted to see you
about Nancy. She has broken off our engagement. I had her letter
this morning, and of course I went down at once to put the matter
right. You see, she has been away on a visit and must have come
under some foolish influence. She's a very impressionable girl. I
couldn't get her to admit this, but I'm sure it's the case. Nothing
that I said was any good. For the moment she is out of her mind, I
think. She simply refused to discuss it, merely saying that she had
discovered that she did not feel for me as deeply as she ought to if
we were to marry. So absurd to talk like that at her age and with
her inexperience, when, as I told her, I had deliberately chosen
her--picked her out from all the other girls I knew."
Luckily he sprang up at this moment and began to pace about, or he
would have seen my face.
"I went on to remind her," he continued, "of the campaign we had
planned for ourselves--my great social amelioration programme--and
showed her how she was breaking faith not only with me, but with the
country, the race. Useless. She merely repeated her original phrase
like a parrot. I left her and appealed to Mr. Freeland, but he said
he should not interfere. Nancy was old enough to know. Don't worry
her now, he said: give her another week's holiday. I saw Mrs.
Freeland, who is, of course, as you must have noticed, desperately
out of date; and she, too, declined to fight for me. She was very
sorry, she said, and hoped that Nancy knew her own mind; but how much
better to discover a mistake early rather than late! You know how
people always say this, and when it is a mistake I agree with them;
but this is not a mistake, but the simulacrum of a mistake. How can
Nancy know her own mind when she has not got one? She is a dear,
sweet girl, and I was devoted to her--am devoted to her--but she has
no mind. It was I who was to give her that."
What was I to say to him? Was I to say--what was of course evident
to anyone but himself--that she had found some simple fellow on her
own level whom she liked better? Was I to say, "You silly young ass,
you deserve to lose her for not taking her as she was and loving
that, instead of playing the dictator and unsexing her? For the best
thing in the world is a pretty, affectionate girl true to her nature,
and the silliest thing is a pretty, affectionate girl pretending to
be something she is not."
Either of these speeches I might have made, but instead I sympathized
with him and advised him to wait a little longer before confessing
complete failure.
"No," he said; "her attitude was final. I don't feel as if I could
reopen the matter. All those laughing sisters, too."
(I liked to hear that human note.)
"No, I shall go abroad for a while and then gather up the fragments
and begin again. But of course I shan't marry now. That's the end
of women for me."
And with these words, which the ironical gods must be so tired of
hearing, he strode away.
It was, I must admit, a little to my relief. It is difficult to take
these perplexities of other persons seriously. One somehow has the
feeling that one's own wedding should be the last.
Spanton does not admit that he has been in any way to blame about
Nancy. He is still the same ardent futurist, unshaken in anything
but woman's stability (in which, however, of course; he never had
much belief); yet, none the less, when we were on a motor bus the
other day, bowling down the Hampstead Road like an avalanche, I saw a
wistful expression come into his face as he watched two lovers on the
seat in front of us. They were quite common, from the superior point
of view, he a shop assistant or clerk and she a clerk or shop
assistant, and her engagement ring was only a pearl surrounded by
five little turquoises; but they were as near as possible to each
other, and one happiness did for both, and the only words I caught
were his, in a lull in the racket made by our terrible vehicle, when
he finished a sentence by saying, "And of course I shall _have_ to
obey you _then_." A sickening sentiment for Spanton to hear, yet
none the less, although a spasm crossed his face, it did not kill the
wistful look.
What I am now wondering is whether he has learnt anything from what
has happened. Because, of course, many of us learn so badly, and
Spanton is so lacking in humility, which is the seed-of-learning's
most fruitful soil. That Nancy has made no mistake, I feel
convinced; nor will any bitterness be hers. There she is fortunate.
One of the hardest things in life, and for women, is that it is only
by failing to make one woman happy that many a man acquires the
experience which is to serve him in succeeding with another.
CHAPTER XXVII
IN WHICH A COMPANY OF INTELLIGENT AND FOR THE MOST PART CONCEITED MEN
MEET MORE THAN THEIR MATCH
I still tingle with mortification over an experience at Dabney's last
evening, the only satisfaction being that others tingle with me. We
were talking of the supernatural--that unprofitable but endlessly
alluring theme--and most of us had cited an instance, without,
however, producing much effect. Among the strangers to me was a
little man with an anxious white face, whom Rudson-Wayte had brought,
and he watched each speaker with the closest attention, but said
nothing. Then Dabney, wishing to include him in the talk, turned to
him and asked if he had no experience to relate, no story that
contained an inexplicable element.
He thought a moment. "Well," he said, "not a story in the ordinary
sense of the word: nothing, that is, from hearsay, like most of your
examples. Truth, I always hold, is not only vastly stranger than
fiction, but also vastly more interesting. I could tell you an
occurrence which happened to me personally, and which oddly enough
completed itself only this afternoon."
We begged him to begin.
"A year or two ago," he said, "I was in rooms in Great Ormond
Street--an old house on the Holborn side. The bedroom walls had been
distempered by a previous tenant, but the place was damp and great
patches of discoloration had broken out. One of these--as indeed
often happens--was exactly like a human face; but more faithfully and
startlingly like than is customary. Lying in bed in the morning,
putting off getting up, I used to watch it and watch it, and
gradually I came to think of it as real--as my fellow-lodger, in
fact. The odd thing was that while the patches on the walls grew
larger and changed their contours, this never did. It remained
identically the same.
"While there, I had a very bad attack of influenza, with
complications, and all day long I had nothing to do but read or
meditate, and it was then that this face began to get a firmer hold
of me. It grew more and more real and remarkable. I may say that it
dominated my thoughts day and night. There was a curious turn to the
nose, and the slant of the forehead was unique. It was, in fact,
full of individuality: the face of a man apart, a man in a thousand.
"Well, I got better, but the face still controlled me. I found
myself searching the streets for one like it. Somewhere, I was
convinced, the real man must exist, and him I must meet. Why, I had
no notion: I only knew that he and I were in some way linked by fate.
I frequented places where men congregate in large numbers--political
meetings, football matches, the railway stations when the suburban
trains pour forth their legions on the City in the morning, and
receive them again in the evening. But all in vain. I had never
before realized as I then did how many different faces of man there
are and how few. For all differ, and yet, classified, they belong to
only as many groups as you can count on your hands.
"The search became a mania with me. I neglected everything else. I
stood at busy corners watching the crowd until people thought me
crazy, and the police began to know me and be suspicious. Women I
never glanced at: men, men, men, all the time."
He passed his hand wearily over his brow. "And then," he continued,
"at last I saw him. He was in a taxi driving east along Piccadilly.
I turned and ran beside it for a little way and then saw an empty one
coming. 'Follow that taxi,' I gasped, and leaped in. The driver
managed to keep it in sight and it took us to Charing Cross. I
rushed on to the platform and found my man with two ladies and a
little girl. They were going to France by the 2.20. I hung about to
try and get a word with him, but in vain. Other friends had joined
the party, and they moved to the train in a solid body.
"I hastily purchased a ticket to Folkestone, hoping that I should
catch him on the boat before it sailed; but at Folkestone he got on
board before me with his friends, and they disappeared into a large
private saloon, several cabins thrown into one. Evidently he was a
man of wealth.
"Again I was foiled; but I determined to cross too, feeling certain
that when the voyage had begun he would leave the ladies and come out
for a stroll on the deck. I had only just enough for the single fare
to Boulogne, but nothing could shake me now. I took up my position
opposite the saloon door and waited. After half an hour the door
opened and he came out, but with the little girl. My heart beat so
that it seemed to shake the boat more than the propeller. There was
no mistaking the face--every line was the same. He glanced at me and
moved towards the companion-way for the upper deck. It was now or
never, I felt.
"'Excuse me,' I stammered, 'but do you mind giving me your card? I
have a very important reason for wishing to communicate with you.'
"He seemed to be astonished, as indeed well he might; but he
complied. With extreme deliberation he took out his case and handed
me his card and hurried on with the little girl. It was clear that
he thought me a lunatic and considered it wiser to humour me than not.
"Clutching the card I hurried to a deserted corner of the ship and
read it. My eyes dimmed; my head swam; for on it were the words: Mr.
Ormond Wall, with an address at Pittsburg, U.S.A. I remember no more
until I found myself in a hospital at Boulogne. There I lay in a
broken condition for some weeks, and only a month ago did I return."
He was silent.
We looked at him and at one another and waited. All the other talk
of the evening was nothing compared with the story of the little pale
man.
"I went back," he resumed after a moment or so, "to Great Ormond
Street and set to work to discover all I could about this American in
whose life I had so mysteriously intervened. I wrote to Pittsburg; I
wrote to American editors; I cultivated the society of Americans in
London; but all that I could find out was that he was a millionaire
with English parents who had resided in London. But where? To that
question I received no answer.
"And so the time went on until yesterday morning. I had gone to bed
more than usually tired and slept till late. When I woke the sun was
streaming in the room. As I always do, I looked at once at the wall
on which the face is to be seen. I rubbed my eyes and sprang up in
alarm. It was only faintly visible. Last night it had been as clear
as ever--almost I could hear it speak. And now it was but a ghost of
itself.
"I got up dazed and dejected and went out. The early editions of the
evening papers were already out, and on the contents bill I saw,
'American Millionaire's Motor Accident.' You must all of you have
seen it. I bought it and read at once what I knew I should read.
Mr. Ormond Wall, the Pittsburg millionaire and party, motoring from
Spezzia to Pisa, had come into collision with a wagon and were
overturned; Mr. Wall's condition was critical.
"I went back to my room still dazed, and sat on the bed looking with
unseeing eyes at the face on the wall. And even as I looked,
suddenly it completely disappeared.
"Later I found that Mr. Wall had succumbed to his injuries at what I
take to be that very moment."
Again he was silent.
"Most remarkable," we said; "most extraordinary," and so forth, and
we meant it too.
"Yes," said the stranger. "There are three extraordinary, three most
remarkable, things about my story. One is that it should be possible
for the discoloration in a lodging-house in London not only to form
the features of a gentleman in America, but to have this intimate
association with his existence. It will take Science some time to
explain that. Another is that that gentleman's name should bear any
relation to the spot on which his features were being so curiously
reproduced by some mysterious agency. Is it not so?"
We agreed with him, and our original discussion on supernatural
manifestations set in again with increased excitement, during which
the narrator of the amazing experience rose and said good-night.
Just as he was at the door, one of the company--I rejoice to think it
was Spanton--recalled us to the cause of our excited debate by asking
him, before he left, what he considered the third extraordinary thing
in connection with his deeply interesting story. "You said three
things, you know," Spanton reminded him.
"Oh, the third thing," he said, as he opened the door, "I was
forgetting that. The third extraordinary thing about the story is
that I made it up about half an hour ago. Good-night, again."
After coming to our senses we looked round for Rudson-Wayte, who had
brought this snake to bite our bosoms, but he too had disappeared.
CHAPTER XXVIII
IN WHICH WE LOSE A FEW CENTURIES AND FIND A LIVING-PICTURE BY SIR
DAVID WILKIE
The Director in his search for primitive English music had tidings of
two old Morris dancers in an Oxfordshire village, survivals from the
past when the whole of that county fostered the art, and he took me
to see them. Never have I spent a more curious evening.
We left the train at Bicester late on a golden afternoon, and were
driven to a little hamlet a few miles distant where the old fellows
lived. They were brothers: one a widower of seventy, still lissom,
and the other a bachelor of sixty-seven, bent and stiff; and with
them when we arrived was another elderly man, a little their junior,
blowing and beating away at his pipe and tabor as though dear life
depended upon it.
Unfamiliar music these ancient instruments give forth, and I defy
anyone hearing it to keep his feet still. They are not the drum and
fife by any means, although those are the nearest things to them
to-day, nor are they like the old magic drum and pipes of the "Punch
and Judy" man (never to be heard again, alas, with a beating heart);
but something between the two, with a suggestion of rollick or even
madness added. I heard the sounds while we were still approaching
the cottage and had no notion what they were; and the strangeness of
their melody was increased by the player's total disregard of our
entry, although it was a tune that might have ended anywhere. The
pipe and tabor have now passed into the limbo of musical archaisms,
but it was absurd to allow them to do so. There are certain effects
on the stage that no other instruments could so well achieve, and
their invitation to the dance is in a simpler way not less commanding
than Weber's.
The old fellow played both instruments simultaneously; his left hand
at once fingering the three holes of the pipe and supporting the
string to which the tabor was suspended, while his right held the
little stick with which he unceasingly beat it. For the twain are
never separated.
Upon his stopping at last--and I for one could have heard him,
uninterfering, for hours--we had a little talk as to his repertory
and so forth, until, having changed their boots, the venerable
capering brethren were ready. The elder one, Eli, was bright of eye
and still very light on his feet; but the younger, Jack, creaked a
little. Eli had a gentle smile ever on his curved lips, and as he
danced his eyes looked into the past; Jack kept a fixed unseeing gaze
on the musician. Together, or alone, they went through several of
the old favourites--"Shepherds, Hey," "Maid of the Mill," "Old Mother
Oxford," "Step back," "Lumps of Plum-pudding," "Green Garters"--and
it was strange to sit in that little, flagged Oxfordshire kitchen,
with its low ceiling and smoky walls, and watch these simple
movements and hear those old tunes. More than strange; for as they
continued, and the pipe and tabor continued, I became conscious of a
new feeling. For the Morris dance is like nothing else. It is as
different from the old English dance as that is different from the
steps of the _corps de ballet_. It is the simplest thing there is,
the most naïve. Or, if you are in that mood, it is the most stupid;
jigging rather than dancing, and very monotonous. But after a little
while it begins to cast its spell, in which monotony plays no small
part, and one comes in time to hope that nothing will ever happen to
interrupt it and force one back into real life again.
The feeling became positively uncanny when old Jack, the bent one,
jigging alone, still with his eyes fixed on the musician, but seeing
nothing nearer than 1870, began to touch his body here and there in
the course of the movements of the dance, every touch having a
profound mystical meaning, of which he knew nothing, that probably
dated from remotest times, when these very steps were part of a
religious or ecstatic celebration of fecundity. Odd sight for a
party of twentieth century dilettanti in an Oxfordshire kitchen!
The occasion was not only curious but pathetic too; one saw after a
while not these dancers, so old and past the joy of life, but the
dancers as once they were, when, forty years ago, they would set out
in a team every Whitsuntide, six in all, to dance the Morris in other
villages, and sleep in a barn all so jolly, and drink the good ale
provided by the farmers, and each strive to be the most agile and
untiring for the sake of a pair of pretty Oxfordshire eyes.
Forty years ago!
Asked if there were any others who still remembered the steps, they
said no. "We be the last, us be," said Eli, in his soft, melancholy
voice. "All the others be dead."
The brothers described, each fortifying the other and helped by the
promptings and leading questions of the Director, the ritual of the
Morris as they remembered it. A lamb would be led about by a
shepherd, and behind this lamb they danced. At night the lamb was
killed and the joints distributed. Most was eaten, but portions were
buried in the fields. Why, the old men had no notion; they had never
heard. But the Director knew, although he did not explain.
For upwards of an hour these energetic enthusiasts continued to
dance, sometimes without a hitch, and then again with hesitations and
arguments as to the next step or movement. What thoughts were
theirs, I wondered. Since he had last danced Eli had married, had
had children, had seen his children grow up and his wife die. Yet I
am certain that as he skipped and capered on those flagstones in the
cottage where he was born, his personality was that rather of a young
man than an old. And then the music stopped and he ceased to wave
his handkerchief and spring from foot to foot, and he sank into a
chair and the light left his face and wistful old age settled over it
again.
I congratulated him on his sprightliness, and again asked his age, to
make sure.
"Seventy," he said. "I shall be seventy-one in July if I live. If I
live," he added, after a while.
"Of course you'll live," I said. "You're good for many years yet and
many more dances."
He shook his head.
That he thinks of his end a good deal, I am sure; but never morbidly,
or with any affectation of sadness, but with the peasant's quiet
acceptance of the fact. All his life he has been a tiller of the
soil: the same soil, year after year, turning it afresh, sowing it
afresh, gathering the harvest afresh, and then beginning all over
again--the best school for patience and acceptivity.
And so, after some ale had been brought, we said good-night and drove
away, for Oxford and London again, or, in other words, for the
twentieth century.
CHAPTER XXIX
IN WHICH NAOMI COMMUNICATES A TREMENDOUS PIECE OF NEWS, AND "PLACIDA"
FIGHTS IT OUT WITH "LAVENDER" AND LOSES
Naomi was very quiet at breakfast and, I thought, very beautiful.
She startled me, afterwards, as I stood at the window, watching the
rain, by asking quietly, "Which would you like, Kent, dear, a girl or
a boy?"
I had a moment's giddiness, but did not show it.
"I almost said 'Both,'" I replied.
"I shouldn't mind," she said. "But in case I disappoint you to that
extent, which do you prefer?"
"I would like it to be what you want," I said. "But little girls are
rather nice, and biggish girls are rather nice, and a daughter to
walk about with when one is white-haired--but erect, of course--is
something to look forward to. But you?"
"Oh yes," said Naomi, "I would like a girl."
"Then let it be a girl," I replied.
How differently things happen in novels and in life. Had I been a
husband in a novel or a play I should have been thunderstruck that
anything of this kind could possibly be happening; while my poor wife
would have crimsoned and hid her face on my shoulder. As it was, we
both laughed a little and I stroked her pretty head; and then she sat
down to add up some accounts and I went to the Zoo. But underneath
we were as conscious of the epoch-making moment as any of the
husbands in the novels who, try as they may, cannot succeed in
anticipating these somewhat trite events.
A few days later we began seriously to consider the question of
names. I found on a bookstall a little pocket encyclopædia which
gave two of its precious pages to columns and columns of girls' names
in small print, in alphabetical order. Some of these names I will
admit were outside the domain of practical politics. Jezebel, for
example. No child of mine shall ever be called Jezebel, nor do I
care much for Judith; although Judy I think pretty. But Naomi would
have a boy rather than call her daughter Judy. Privately I may say
that I believe that Naomi wants a boy; I believe that all women would
like their babies to be sons. But she pretends that her wishes
coincide with mine, and, after all, a girl is the next thing to a boy.
Beginning at the wrong end, our first duty was to examine the claims
of Zoë, but that did not take long. No child of ours, we decided,
should have a name that carried a diæresis with it. That is an
axiom. Zoë therefore went.
"Zena?" I said.
"Certainly not," replied Naomi.
The only Y's were Yseult and Yvonne, but these were useless, as we
intend never to live in Kensington. Winifred we also dismissed and
Wilhelmina.
"How about Victoria?" I said.
But Naomi remained firm.
I dwelt fondly on Virginia. Miss Virginia Falconer sounds
distinguished.
Naomi, however, was against it.
I like Veronica too, but not so well as Virginia. The other V's were
negligible--Vashti and Vesta; but I affected to put in a plea for
Volumnia.
"I could never nurse a Volumnia," said Naomi. "It is so immense. It
also sounds like a steamer."
"Still," I said, "there ought to be a Volumnia Falconer, just to
cheer up the birth announcements in the _Times_. Think of the double
portions of samples that you would receive! To call a child Volumnia
is as useful as having twins."
"I don't like it; but if you really want the samples you could call
the child Volumnia in the _Times_ and then change the name. A
_Times_ announcement is not binding," were Naomi's astonishing words:
her first appearance as a profound strategist!
"If you talk like that," I said, "and the child takes after you, we
had better call her Portia at once, or Christabel."
And so we explored the alphabet, rejecting name after name for the
most curious reasons. This one because Naomi was at school with a
girl named like that whom she did not like; that one because some
public _bête noire_ had it; a third because it was too Jewish;
another because it was too scriptural, and Naomi had herself suffered
for that; a fifth because it would not go with Falconer; and many
because they smacked of the stage.
In the end we found ourselves with two names about as different as
they could be, over the merits of which we were obliged to fight.
These were Placida and Lavender. Lavender was Naomi's choice;
Placida was mine.
"Placida is charming," Naomi said, "but if names, as they say, have
an influence on character, won't she be a little too quiet?"
"Can she be?" I replied.
"Well, it would be dreadful if it meant loss of spirit. Meekness is
so unattractive."
"She'd inherit the earth," I said.
"Oh no," exclaimed Naomi, "don't let her do that! I would like
Placida," Naomi went on, "if it could dominate her character only in
her very early days."
"And nights," I added hastily.
"Yes, and nights. But after that? Should a name be so descriptive?
Suppose she became a terrible romp?"
"I hope so," I said. "Then there will be piquancy of contrast added,
and she will be the more likely to attract the millionaire whom all
good fathers hope to descry on the horizon."
"Don't be foolish," said Naomi. "You will be furious when she falls
in love, and unbearable when she is engaged."
"Very well, then," I said; "Lavender. But we can't call her
Lavender. It's too artificial. Its special charm is that it's such
a beautiful word. We can think of her as Lavender, but call her
something else. What shall that be?"
"Nan," said Naomi, by an inspiration; and so it was settled.
CHAPTER XXX
IN WHICH WE JOURNEY TO THE NORTH BY NEFARIOUS MEANS, AND NAOMI AND I
STUMBLE UPON A PRECISELY SIMILAR FEELING
Naomi's old school friendship with Mrs. Farrar, who is the daughter
of the Rector of Winfield, is ripening into a new intimacy, into
which I am being drawn. Not unwillingly; for although she is rather
a slangy, frivolous young woman, she is very fresh and impulsive and
genuine, and I have long given up that wish (with which most of us
begin life) that every candidate for friendship should conform to
one's own standards.
Farrar, I confess, is not exciting; but it is not unamusing to watch
the mental and physical processes of a young man who has been brought
up never to know the meaning of hunger or thirst, except as the
prelude to their agreeable gratification, or to do a day's work
beyond fiddling with a defective motor-engine, or walking miles in
pursuit of a rubber-cored ball. He is not offensively selfish in his
idleness, and has a ready hand for subscription-hunters. In fact, he
is really very generous, although, of course, not thoughtful enough.
He distributes the kind of presents, for example, that cause servants
to give notice: silver chafing-dishes, patent foot warmers--things
like that. Generosity, however, is far from being all, and indeed it
may be and often is merely the selfish man's device to be spared
worry. It could not save Farrar from Spanton, who would say that the
Farrar lily cannot long continue to toil not, neither to spin, in a
community such as ours. Times are changing; and though I doubtless
shall see little of the social revolution, for things move slowly in
England, it will come.
Something, of course, must be done to make these young people
responsible; for nothing does it now. They are anti-social to the
roots, if they only knew it. Their one desire is to enjoy
themselves, which they do in a curious monotonous way that to the
ordinary domesticated observer seems to be singularly like
discomfort. Their first essential for enjoyment is to get away from
home as much as possible, and to reduce to a minimum the
responsibility of home. There are therefore no children, although
there is youth, vigour, and wealth. Some day they may settle down
and have perhaps two, but preferably one; but not yet. To-day they
are too keen on moving about, and Gwendolen is too keen on doing
everything that Farrar does. She is, in short, a good fellow; and
these female good fellows are becoming a danger to the State.
After much mild opposition on my part, we consented to join the
Farrars in a motor trip to Winfield. I did not want to go, for
several reasons. I like my hearth; I like my habits; I dislike
motor-cars; I dislike strange inn beds. I was not prepared for four
or five days' racing through this green England in company so limited
in imagination. But when I found that Farrar and his wife always sat
in front, I relented a little, for it would mean that Naomi and I had
the inside wholly to ourselves. I hazarded the stipulation that we
should make it a rule on desirable occasions to offer lifts on the
road; but Farrar asked me not to press it. It would not work, he
said. And I now agree with him, for, as a matter of fact, you can't
do things like that in a motor. Motors refuse to stop quickly
enough. There can be only one mind in a motor, and that is the
driver's, and the driver's is stunned or dulled by his office.
Hence, just as one always overshoots the prettiest cottages and
gardens and the most beautiful by-roads, so one has long passed the
unhappy footsore pedestrian before the impulse to pick him up can be
communicated to the man at the wheel; and of course in a motor there
is no going back.
As a matter of fact, we did chance to assist one man in this way, but
he came up to us when we were stopping for a sandwich on the
roadside. That is to say, he overtook us and caught us off our
guard: a tall lean man with a stubble on his chin and an air still
slightly rakish in spite of travel-stains and weariness. He asked
how far it was to Birmingham, and told us that he was an actor and
had heard of a travelling company with whom, before a long illness,
he had been associated, and he was walking to Birmingham hoping it
might find room for him.
Gwendolen came inside and the histrion (as I am sure he would love
best to be called) rode beside Farrar in silence. But when he said
good-bye he wrung my hand under the impression that I was the owner
of the car, and drew me aside to mention the fact that the loan of
half a crown for two days would be an incalculable boon. Poor
fellow, he looked so fragile and empty that I made the sum a good
deal larger, and pressed him not to be so hasty in returning it; and
he promised he would not.
"I could wish sometimes," he said brokenly, with his hat in his hand,
as we parted, "that the Great Prompter would ring down the curtain!"
"Hullo!" said Farrar, as I rejoined them, "been biting your ear, eh?
That's what always comes of this lift business. How much did he bite
it for?"
"Only half a crown," I said, and spent the next hour wondering why it
is that one is so terrified of letting a man of the world think one a
human being.
We reached Winfield for lunch in Canon Frome's hospitable rectory,
and at tea-time strolled over to see some friends of the Fromes named
Harberton, who live in a very charming house amid a thick shrubbery:
one of those secure and serene houses that are found only in England,
a perfect backwater in the stream of industry and ambition.
Harberton is a man of about my own age, a dilettante with literary
tastes and some reputation as the editor of Boswell. His wife is
much younger--a beautiful woman with very quick sympathies and
understanding. Not particularly clever herself, but stimulating
others to their best. She has three children, all girls, and when we
arrived the whole family was under a cedar about a tea-table. Some
white pigeons fluttered on the roof and a spaniel regained its feet
with extreme deliberateness and walked slowly to meet and investigate
us. The lawn was like velvet: too soft for any game.
Looking at it all I could not help wondering how my young friend
Spanton would snort at it. Nothing but leisure and culture here, he
would say. No progress. Dead languages, belles-lettres. Everything
that is retrograde.
And yet surely there must be, even in a new England of intense
socialistic activity, some oases such as this, where ancient peace
reigns and children are being thoughtfully brought up to be
old-fashioned--as I am sure these three little girls will be. Let
there be here and there tiny spots of ointment among the flies!
Mrs. Harberton is all right, of course: she is a mother, and an
influence; but as to how far it would be possible to defend Harberton
against the Spantons I cannot say. His class doubtless will be put
upon its trial before long, just as the Farrars will. You may be
very charming and distinguished and all that, the Spantons will say,
but what are you doing for your country and your kind? You are
living on dividends earned by other people's labour. That has got to
stop. You have got to disgorge and labour yourself. What will you
do? What could Harberton do? What could I do?
It is funny that I should thus bracket myself with Harberton, for
that night Naomi told me that he reminded her not a little of me.
"That's odd," I said, "for Mrs. Harberton reminds me rather of you."
CHAPTER XXXI
IN WHICH WE MEET A WARDEN AND HER CHARGES, AND HEAR TWO OR THREE
STORIES OF STORMY VOYAGES ON LIFE'S WATERS BEFORE HAVEN WAS REACHED
Two pretty maids having arrived, one to take away the tea and the
other to be with the little girls, Mr. Harberton suggested that we
should go and see the Warden. This he said with a slight smile that
made the invitation very pleasant, and I joined Mrs. Harberton with
thoughts of Trollope in my head and visions of the white-haired
president of a college. Judge, then, of my surprise when a little
shy woman met us not far from the gate and we were introduced to Miss
Mitt, the Warden of the Pink Almshouses. Again I anticipated
wrongly, for instead of the rose-tinted building which these words
led me to expect, I found a very beautiful edifice in grey stone with
a long, warmly-tiled roof, the founder of which was a Mrs. Pink, a
friend of Mrs. Harberton.
There are beautiful almshouses all over England, and someone ought to
write a book describing them, especially as almshouse architecture is
almost the best indigenous domestic architecture that we have. Such
temptations as beset modern architects when they build private houses
seem for the most part to be absent when they build almshouses.
Another triumph for humility, perhaps. For the time being even the
most ambitious designer, remembering the purpose of the building, is
forced to be simple.
The most amusing almshouse I know is at Chichester, where, under one
great dark red roof with pretty dormers in it, dwell several old
ladies, each in her own apartments, like an undergraduate or a nun,
with a nurse at one end of the central passage and a chapel at the
other. But I like the more usual plan better--the row of tiny
domiciles like a terrace for fairy godmothers, the little gardens,
the muslin blinds, and all the evidences of security. Such a
building was that which a young architect in a soft flannel collar
(as I guess) had put up for Mrs. Harberton with Mrs. Pink's legacy.
Mrs. Pink's almshouses are all that she would have desired: a long,
low façade with two wings at right angles and a flagged garden in the
intervening space. Quite a suggestion of "The Harbour of Refuge,"
but no harm in that. By using old materials the architect had
prevented any appearance of crudity, and creepers were already high
on the walls. There are thirteen little houses under this long roof,
three in each wing and seven in the main building, of which the
Warden's house is the middle one. The twelve old women have to be
either spinsters or widows and to be fifty-five or over, and it makes
not the faintest difference whether or not they have ever been in
receipt of parish relief. Each has ten shillings a week, light, and
coal. On this allowance they find their own meals and dress; but in
both respects they are often a little helped out by other friends or
their own relations.
That anyone meeting Miss Mitt, in London, say, would guess her to be
the Warden of twelve pernickety old women, is unlikely; and this not
because London seldom or never estimates provincials at their true
worth, but because she was so small and unobtrusive. But in her own
abode of authority there was no doubt, for, though still small and
unobtrusive, she wore there, on her brow, the sign manual of
responsibility and control. I had a long talk with her about her
duties and difficulties.
"I love the work," she said, "but it's not too easy. I'm not
complaining, you know. I don't think things ought to be easy."
"Why ever not?" I asked.
"Oh, I don't know," she said, "but I've always had that feeling ever
since I was a child."
Of course she had, poor little Nonconformist, or, shall I say, poor
little Anglo-Saxon?
"Lotus-eating would give you a terrible stomach-ache," I said,
"wouldn't it?"
And the plucky little creature had the hardihood to reply, "I hope
so."
What can you do with people like this? and England is full of them.
Suspicion of happiness is in our blood.
"Tell me about the old pests," I said.
"Oh no, Mr. Falconer," she replied, "they're not old pests. They're
dears. Only now and then, as old people will, they have troublesome
ways. I really believe that the worst of all is jealousy. It makes
it so difficult for me to be quite open, and I hate not to be. If I
show a little more attention to one than another I'm sure to hear
about it or notice the effects of it."
"Ah, jealousy!" I said. "That's the real blot on mankind. You know
the origin of it, of course. The good God first made man, and then,
as you remember, He extracted woman from man's side. He was so much
occupied in gazing at this new work of His hand, so suddenly thought
of and created, that He forgot that the aperture was not closed, and
before He could close it a little poisonous reptile had crept in. It
has been there ever since, and no human blood is free from it. Look
how much of it Cain at once inherited!"
"Oh dear, how terrible!" said Miss Mitt. "And is that really true?"
and she clicked her tongue. "Well, there's plenty of it here. I can
do with their ordinary tantrums and their ailments and their
grumblings: but it is so hard to have to keep away from the nicer
ones because the others can't bear it, and to have to do things
surreptitiously."
I asked her which were the worse, the single or the married women.
She was forced to give the palm to the single. "I suppose," she
said, "it's because the married ones have been married and are
therefore--therefore----" Here she was at a loss.
I helped her out. "--are therefore," I said, "more inured to trouble
and vexations."
"Yes," Miss Mitt agreed, "if you don't mind my thinking so."
"Men are a nuisance, aren't they?" I said.
"Oh dear, I didn't mean exactly that. Not exactly," said the little
Warden. "What I meant was that married women understand
give-and-take better than the others who have lived alone. But you
mustn't think that all the single ones are cross, or all the widows
are always good tempered. It isn't so. This one, for example"--and
she knocked at a door--"is the sweetest spinster you could wish to
meet. Her name is Selina Still. Isn't that pretty?"
Miss Still let us in--a little grey woman. Her room was a marvel of
radiant precision. "Mr. Falconer has come from London all the way in
a motor-car," said Miss Mitt.
"It's very wonderful," said the little grey woman. "But I should be
frightened to go in one;" and indeed, how could a Selina Still be in
a motor-car? It would be a sin against Nature.
The others now joined us, and Farrar laughed at the notion of fear.
"What about flying, then?" he asked.
"Oh," said Miss Still very solemnly, "I think this flying's dreadful,
and I don't believe it's going to last. For I can't help feeling
there's One above Who won't much longer brook those things getting so
near Him."
Miss Still expressed a wish to see London again, but did not expect
to. She was last there in 1860, when she was a lady's maid. Her two
most prized recollections were the Crystal Palace and Spurgeon's
preaching.
Next to Selina Still lived Gipsy Woods, who must in her long-ago
youth have been a beauty. Her mother had named her Gipsy for her
black eyes. She was now nearing eighty, and was very rheumatic. She
had married a gentleman--that is to say, one who would walk about as
if he had money in his pockets and do no work, while she was toiling
day and night bringing up eleven children. For her belief was that
so long as you kept a roof over your head nothing else matters, and
that is what she always told the children. She had twins when she
was fifty-one, and brought them up too! Her husband disappeared, and
most of the children dropped away, and a few years ago she had to go
into hospital because her legs were so bad; and when she came out the
people in the house where she had a room had vanished with all her
few things, and had it not been for these almshouses she would be in
the union.
Quite a typical story, this, not only as illustrating the wife's
dogged courage and the husband's unthrift, but also the uselessness
of so many children. It would seem indeed to be the exception rather
than the rule to find sons and daughters of the poor growing up to
help their parents, poverty being so hard put to it to provide any
spring-board from which to take off for a better position.
Apropos of twins, another of the old ladies who was not otherwise
interesting, a mournful body in black, with pink cotton wool in her
ears which gave her head the appearance, seen hurriedly, of being
hollow, boasted of having had "two couple of twins twice." This
works out, if we are exact in the use of the word twin, to eight at a
birth or sixteen in all. But she meant only that she had had four
altogether. I congratulated her on her achievement, but she was
apathetic about it. "Mrs. Nottidge," she said, "the wife of the
landlord of the 'Jolly Bricklayers,' had triplets and got the Queen's
bounty." The heroine of the twins, the Warden told us, liked to keep
a bottle of gin, which was always referred to tactfully as medicine.
It was supplied to her by a neighbouring lady who once sent a pound
of tea in the same basket, and the gin bottle breaking, the tea was
saturated. An ordinary person would merely have deplored a loss; but
this recipient was more resourceful. She dried the tea in the oven
and found it vastly improved for its drenching. That old women like
a drop of something strong in the teacup, we all know; but here is
possibly an idea for the tea trade which might enormously increase
its profits. When consuming her gin in a more normal manner, Miss
Mitt told us, the old lady always stirred it with a sprig of rue. It
made it "healthier."
At No. 8 was Martha Drax. Mrs. Drax was now nearing seventy, and all
the time that she could spare from her household duties she devoted
to meditating upon a letter to the King. Not that she was exactly
mad--although this occupation might suggest it--but a little
enfeebled in intellect, as indeed all poor old women have every right
to be, considering what most of them go through in their long lives
of penury and struggle; but in her case there was more than enough
reason. Martha's story was this:
As a girl in service she had become engaged to the son of the local
baker. All had gone well until they took a day's holiday to visit a
seaside resort, where he became wholly and dangerously intoxicated,
and so terrified her that she broke off the match. He did all he
could to win her again, but in vain; and after some years he married
another girl from the same place, a big, strong creature who was cook
to the doctor. They lived in the village, where the man worked as a
gardener and attended the same chapel as Martha, who also had
remained there, although only too eager to get away, tethered to it
by an epileptic brother and bedridden mother, on whom she had to
wait. At last the dislike of seeing the man and his wife together so
told upon her that she left chapel and began to go to church; the man
himself she avoided, exchanging the time of day with him when they
met, but no more, and though not jealous of his wife, she intensely
resented her.
So things went on for sixteen years, when she was at last able to
leave the village and take service in a neighbouring town, and cease
to be reminded of the man's existence.
One evening, two years after, there was a knock at the back door, and
when she went to it there he was. His wife had been dead six months;
he was very lonely and unhappy; he had never really loved anyone but
Martha, and would she marry him now? Partly from the suddenness of
the shock; partly from a feeling that here was the finger of Fate;
not a little from pleasurable excitement and pride to think of the
power she exerted; and partly, in her own words, because "it seemed
more natural like to die a married woman," she consented. "The
thought," to quote her again, "of his coming back after all those
years and saying he had never wanted anybody else took my breath
away, and made it impossible to say no."
Anyway, they were married, only for her at once to discover that her
husband was a secret drinker of the worst kind, and had been so for
years. He made no disguise of it to her, and even told her that his
first wife had helped to keep it dark by locking him in the house
till the orgy was over and then thrashing him with his own leather
belt--a feat to which Martha refers in envious admiration, for she is
a little meek woman. She had no power to cope with the situation,
and her husband became worse. The secret was a secret no longer; he
lost his work, and, during a period of distress, died of pneumonia
three years after his second marriage.
Martha, who was now a woman of over fifty, went back to service and
became housekeeper to a country clergyman, an old bachelor, where for
two weeks she was in transports of delight, only to be plunged in
misery and anxiety by the discovery that her new master also was a
drunkard, and that the real reason of her engagement to him was to
assist in keeping this fact from the parish. This, with the
assistance of a curate, she did her best to accomplish; the poor old
gentleman during his periodical outbreaks was confined as much as
possible to one room. Again and again she made up her mind to run
away, but she was restrained, partly by pity for her employer, who,
when not in his cups, was the sweetest of characters, and partly from
the knowledge that her age was a bad one for re-engagement. The
clergyman, who knew all about his unfortunate malady, further
enlisted her sympathies by telling her that it was after his wife's
death that he had begun to give way.
For seven years the deception was maintained, when one day the
scandal could be hidden no longer; the parish rose, the Bishop
interfered, and the unhappy invalid was removed to closer restraint.
Martha for a while lived on her savings, such as they were, and
assistance from the clergyman's friends, who knew how hard she had
toiled to preserve his good name, and then Mrs. Pink's almshouses
being set up in her neighbourhood, she entered that haven, and is now
in security for the rest of her days.
She is perfectly sane except for the obsession that it is her duty to
write to the King, calling upon him to prohibit the sale of alcohol
anywhere in England, and so save millions of homes. But although she
is convinced that a letter sent to the King always gets to him and
cannot fail of its purpose, the missive has never gone, for the
simple reason that she cannot compose it to her satisfaction, being
too little of a scholar, and she will not allow anyone else to write
it for her. It is because of vicarious assistance in such matters
that similar letters have not had the desired effect, and she will
not prejudice her case in that way. Such is the life story of Martha
Drax at No. 8.
I came away, again wondering what Spanton would say of all this
serenity and comfort. Foolish sentimentalism, probably. Wanton and
anti-social waste of money to cosset these old, unproductive women.
Let the back-numbers either perish or look after themselves. And so
on. But to talk like that is to disregard human nature and the
kindlier feelings. A state that deliberately refused the
responsibilities of protecting and caring for its old might achieve
miracles of scientific housing, profit-sharing, and so forth; but it
would be fossilized at the core. Sentiment and emotion cannot be
left out.
CHAPTER XXXII
IN WHICH I AT LAST BECOME ACQUAINTED WITH THE TOP-FLOOR-FRONT, AND
HEAR HIS ROMANTIC STORY
It was just as I was putting away my book, quite late, that Miss
Laura knocked at the door to say that Mr. Carstairs, the gentleman on
the top floor, who had been ill for some days, had asked if I would
be so good as to pay him a short visit. This seemed to me odd, for
beyond exchanging "good morning" now and then, we had never spoken;
but it was not a request that I could disregard, and up I went.
The old gentleman was in bed, and as he lay there, gaunt and grey,
with his hollow cheeks and bright eyes and pointed beard, he was like
nothing in the world but Don Quixote. With a courteous movement he
motioned me to a chair, and then thanked me for having compassion on
a stranger's whim.
For a while after this there was silence, and I had an opportunity of
noticing how bare was his room of all but necessities, although those
seemed of the best. There were no pictures.
"I asked you to come," Mr. Carstairs began, "because I had a bad
night last night and I have had a bad day. This you may think but a
poor reason," he continued, in his quiet, cultured voice, smiling
faintly, "and to you, who are well and strong, it is inadequate. But
to me, who am dying, it is justification for any eccentricity. I
liked you directly I saw you, and it pains me to think that I have
taken no steps to cultivate the acquaintance of yourself and your
wife; but I have long got out of the way of making overtures of
friendship, and to occupy rooms in the same house is not one of the
best passports to a good understanding."
He lay back exhausted and began to cough. I looked among the bottles
for a lenitive and found only an empty one. Asking him if there was
another, I understood him to say it was in the cupboard by the
window; and to this I hurried. But no sooner was my hand on the
handle than his face underwent a terrifying transformation, and he
half-sprang from bed crying, "Not there! Not there!"
I came hurriedly from the door, and he quieted down and directed me
to a cupboard on the other side. Now what Bluebeard's closet was
this? I wondered (with Mrs. Wiles). I was soon to know.
"I throw myself on your good nature," he resumed, "because I am _in
extremis_ and have no friend within call. It is extremely improbable
that I shall get well from this attack. You see, for one thing I am
a good age, and for another I have very little to live for, and
therefore am not likely to make a fight of it."
I murmured the usual things.
"No," he said, "there's very little in it. If I recover it is only
for a brief while, with impaired strength. If I were younger and
happier even that would be worth having; but really one may as well
die to-day as to-morrow. It's got to be."
This is a form of fatalism with which I am as fit to grapple as a
seamstress with a cuttlefish, so I said nothing.
"Your kindness in coming up," he continued, "leads me to ask you to
be kinder still and administer my effects. They are few enough. I
want everything to go to the National Art Collections Fund. It
sounds simple, but there is this complication, that the name by which
I am known is not my real name; and my real name, although it is
bound to come out, I want to be still suppressed in connection with
myself. I die as John Carstairs."
My face, no doubt, indicated some perplexity, for he went on.
"You will understand only if I tell you the whole story; but first I
must confess that I am one of the most notorious of living
thieves--perhaps almost the most famous of all, in this country--who
have never been found out. When I die the secret must of necessity
be in part discovered. I look to you to help me so that my name and
the theft are kept distinct."
I said nothing for a little while, but merely pondered on the
accidents of life in general, and in particular that accident which
had led me to 7 Primrose Terrace, Regent's Park, to a
respectable-looking house kept by refined twins, in which I was to
live beneath a dying brigand and be forced into the position of his
executor.
"Does the prospect alarm you?" he asked.
"Well," I said, "to be frank, it is not what I should have asked for.
But," I added hastily, "you may continue your instructions: that is,
if you are really certain that there is no one but myself to help
you. Have you no lawyer?"
"A lawyer witnessed my will quite recently," he said. "It is in
order. You will perhaps go to him for its execution."
"And what about your next-door neighbour, Spanton?" I said.
He smiled grimly.
"Then Lacey, the best of men and the most ingenious and helpful?"
"Yes," he said, "I thought of Lacey. But he has too much to do; and
I was afraid he might be too clever. He is impulsive. This topic is
so delicate that impulse might ruin it. So," he smiled humorously,
"I had your name put in the document."
"Kismet," I replied; but Heaven knows I wished myself downstairs with
my door carefully locked. I neither wanted to hear his story nor
administer his ill-gotten estate. The whole thing was absurd. The
chance of passing fellow-lodgers on the stairs and having the
misfortune to appear benevolent and virtuous to their defective
vision ought not to be permitted to lead to such embroilments as
this. But I have ever been weak and acquiescent; and when I looked
at his melancholy, wasted features, what else could I do? A dying
Don Quixote--who would not be foolish for him?
When I agreed he gave a great sigh of relief--probably at once the
most tragic and satisfactory sound I shall ever hear--and held out
his long, bony hand.
"You can take it without fear," he said, smiling again; "when I said
I was a thief I did not say all. There is such a thing as stealing
your own. But listen. The story briefly is this: I was a well-to-do
business man, unmarried and not very sociable. That was twenty and
more years ago. Then a serious crisis came in my life of which I
need say nothing, and I decided suddenly to leave civilization
completely and begin all over afresh where the conditions were
simpler. There was no disgraceful element in the matter. An event
occurred which led to complete disillusionment setting in; I
developed acute misanthropy and realized that England and I were
incompatible. That is all. Many men--and perhaps many women--must
have been through a similar experience; but not all are as free as I
was to act.
"I laid my plans very carefully. I converted a sufficient amount of
stock into cash; I made my will, leaving everything to the
establishment of a certain kind of night refuge in London for the
homeless, wherever they were most needed; and then I disappeared.
This was not difficult. I took a passage to America. Between
Liverpool and Queenstown I shaved off my long beard and moustache and
changed my clothes. At Queenstown I left my stateroom, after
depositing a last letter on the table, and went ashore among a crowd
of other passengers. There I took train at once and was soon in
London again, where I shipped for Australia and the South Seas.
Meanwhile, that had happened on the steamer which I had foreseen. My
stateroom was not opened until some hours after the vessel was on her
way to America, and the contents of the letter there led people to
assume that I had jumped overboard. I was therefore dead. A
sufficient time having elapsed, the courts officially presumed my
death, my estate was wound up, and I was a thing of the past. Any
reasonably careful man can disappear still, in spite of Marconi and
all the other modern obstacles, provided he has not committed a
crime. And it was easier then."
"Were the night refuges built?" I asked.
"Oh yes," he said. "I have slept in one. A most curious experience.
"Arrived in Sydney I opened a banking account in my new name, made
some investments, and passed on to the South Seas, where, for fifteen
years, I lived a calm life, succeeding commercially, as I was bound
to do, and happier perhaps than not, although happiness was never in
my grasp, nor could it be. Then gradually the desire once more to be
in London became very powerful; while an absolute mania seized me
again to see pictures. Particularly one picture. That it would be
safe, I felt sure, for I was much changed and had had few intimate
friends at any time."
He paused, tired with his effort, and lay still.
"I must tell you," he continued, "that I had been not only a great
lover of pictures wherever they were to be seen, but a collector too.
At the time of my disappearance I had one of the best small private
collections in the country. Such, however, had been my disgust with
life that it included these pictures too, and in my rage and haste to
have broken with everything, I was ready to break with them as well,
and my will gave instructions for all my pictures to be sold save one
little jewel of paint, the very gem of the collection--a small
Madonna which has been attributed to Verrocchio--and this I left to
the National Gallery. It was this picture that I felt I must at any
risk again see. I therefore sold my South Sea business, wound up my
affairs, and returned to London, again a rich man, finding a lodging
in this house. That was seven years ago.
"So far all is well. Now comes the criminal part of the story. No
sooner did I see my little Verrocchio on its easel in the National
Gallery--in the most honoured place--than I realized that I could not
live without it. I had not known what a spell I was under or I would
have stayed away. It had always been in my living-room in my old
life, and I found that I belonged to it still. I used to go day
after day to Trafalgar Square to worship it--nothing less. I became
known to the attendants. After closing hours I would plot how to get
possession of it again. I could not go to the Director and say who I
was and insist on a return of the picture until I died in earnest.
For one thing he would not have believed me, and to make him believe
me would have meant an endless and merciless raking up of the past:
more than that, a return to my old identity, which was unbearable:
men shaking hands with me, newspaper comment, and all the rest of it.
Again, there was the risk that he might think me a dangerous lunatic
and forbid me the Gallery. Think of that!
"I had therefore to consider how to get the picture secretly, and at
last I managed it--at noon, of course, for that is the true time for
successful theft, and by means of a big cloak on copying day. I had
carefully noted the times when vigilance was relaxed, and waited my
chance. It came; I removed the picture, passed quietly into the
street, and found my way here unobserved."
He paused again. "You will, of course, remember the incident," he
went on. "The world rang with it. 'Theft of the famous Verrocchio.'
I had very little fear of being discovered and, naturally, no
remorse; but I must admit to a little self-consciousness on my next
visit to Trafalgar Square--for, of course, I was not so foolish as to
discontinue my old habits. But I was cunning. I went to the
Director and offered to give £5000 as a reward for the detection of
the thief--on the condition that the donor's name was not published.
I was able also to discuss the theft with the officials quite calmly.
My one regret was that the custodian of the room in which my little
masterpiece was kept was discharged, but I have seen to it, always
anonymously, that he has not lost financially.
"I now began to be almost happy. I had my picture and, the National
Gallery being negligible, I was again able to look in at Christie's
whenever I wished and mix again in this ocean we call London. I
bought no more; I had the best; but I saw everything that was good,
and became an amateur expert at the service of any of my dealer
acquaintances.
My one disappointment was that being so exceptional a picture thief I
was not and am not able to enter into the feelings of the more
typical kind. For naturally the one thing above all others that I
want to know is who took the Louvre Leonardo, and why, and where it
is. The motive could not have been identical with mine, but it might
be akin. But this I shall never know, because I am going to die."
"Not yet," I said, "not yet."
"Yes," he replied. "And I must waste no more time. I am very weak.
What I want you to do is to get this picture back into the possession
of the National Gallery without anyone suspecting my connection with
it. That is all. The ordinary execution of my will you and the
lawyer can manage without the faintest difficulty, and I have left
you plenty for such expense and trouble as you are put to. But the
restitution of this picture I count on you to make alone. You will
do it?"
I shook his hand. "I will do everything possible to preserve
secrecy," I said.
"There is no hurry," he replied. "Take your time. Keep it in your
room in a parcel until you are ready. Only the suspected are
suspected in this world, and you and I are equally remote from their
thoughts."
He lay still again.
"But where," I asked, after a while, "is the picture?"
"In there," he said, pointing to the door to which I had wrongly gone
for the cough mixture. "Go in. No one has seen it here but myself."
I opened the door and found myself in a little room lighted by one
window. Opposite this on the wall was a curtain.
"Turn on the light," he said, "and draw back the curtain."
I did so, and beheld one of the most exquisite paintings I ever
saw--the head of a girl, sweet, wistful, understanding, and gay. Not
quite a Madonna; no mother; but the very personification of youthful
joy, sympathy, and loveliness. I knew too little of painting to
express an opinion as to the authenticity, and Verrocchio, I am told,
although he was the master of Leonardo and Perugino and Lorenzo di
Credi, has left almost nothing authentically from his own brush; but
there is a candour and charm in the treatment, and transparency in
the colours, which are like nothing that I know except the National
Gallery picture attributed to this master's school.
"Bring it to me, please," said Carstairs from his bed, and I carried
it in and held it for him.
"No one has ever seen it but myself--and now you--since it left the
Gallery four years ago," he said. "Mrs. Wiles has done her best to
get into that room, but in vain. I suppose everyone who steals a
picture or becomes the owner of a stolen picture has similar
difficulties. Perhaps the safer way would be to have another canvas
or panel over the stolen one, in the same frame, to slide aside when
one is alone; but that would mean taking a workman more or less into
one's confidence, and no wise thief does that.
"Put it back, put it back," he cried suddenly, as he fell on his
pillow unconscious.
I did so at once, put the key of the cupboard door in my pocket, and
telephoned for the doctor.
Carstairs died that night.
CHAPTER XXXIII
IN WHICH I BECOME THE VERY OPPOSITE OF A THIEF, YET FEEL ALL A
THIEF'S SENSE OF GUILT
After visiting Naomi to tell her of the state of things upstairs, I
returned to Mr. Carstairs' room and awaited the doctor. The sick man
did not recover consciousness. It was then necessary to inform the
Misses Packer and telephone to the undertaker, and this I agreed to
do. Before, however, I descended to the basement with my grim
message, I secured some paper and string, made a parcel of the little
Verrocchio, and placed it on a shelf in my room. Having agreed to
carry out this peculiar and delicate commission, I meant to do it
thoroughly.
Miss Laura and Miss Emma took the demise of Mr. Carstairs as a
personal affront. I gathered that he had never been a favourite with
them, although his money was good and he gave no trouble; but to die
under their roof they held to be an action not only ungentlemanly but
dishonest.
"Brings such a bad name on a house to have anyone die in it," said
Miss Laura. "I shouldn't be at all surprised if Mr. Spanton were to
leave. Of course with you, sir, it's different, you not being
acquainted with the deceased, and two floors away, whereas Mr.
Spanton's so close."
Having had another look at the mysterious cupboard, I thought it best
to obtain the services of a lawyer before proceeding further; and
together we looked for the will. It was easily found, and on reading
it I discovered that the old fellow had truly inserted my name as his
executor with a firm hand some days before he asked me: not a bad
divination of my besetting complaisance! I discovered also something
that caused the Misses Packer not only to change their tone with
regard to the deceased but send them cheerfully to his funeral in new
and becoming mourning, for he left them each fifty pounds in
recognition of their unremitting kindness, and asked to be allowed to
pay for the new papering and whitewashing of his rooms. To Mrs.
Wiles he left ten pounds, and to his executor, "to compensate him for
any unusual worry, vexation, and expense to which he may be put,"
five hundred pounds--an amount which seemed to perplex the lawyer not
a little. "You're very lucky, my dear sir," he said. "Why, there's
nothing to do!" If the Law only knew!
We buried John Carstairs at Kensal Green, and I ordered the
stonecutter to place on his tombstone the words, from the Song of
Solomon, "O thou fairest among women," and to this hour the honest
fellow thinks I am mad.
These things being accomplished, I was free to bend my mind to the
question of the restitution of the little Verrocchio; and this I had
to work out absolutely alone. I could not even tell Naomi, even
under that elastic understanding which is held to entitle married
people to share secrets entrusted to either, for although I am no
believer in the old saying that no woman can keep a secret, or,
rather, do not believe that a woman is less of an oyster in these
matters than a man, yet I did not wish to burden her with so good a
forbidden mystery. I do not say she would have been embarrassed to
retain it; but even the most cautious of us have a way now and then
of dressing up a friend's confidence vaguely, with several removes,
and so forth, which, though safe enough in some companies, might give
everything away to a clever listener who was acquainted with one's
circle. Anyway I did not tell her.
The only real temptation which I had to break the dead man's
injunction, was to tell Lacey. Lacey would not only have been
useful, but he would have so enjoyed it. I did not even dare to
skirt the subject with him, to get the benefit of his improvisations.
Furley, too, what would he not have given to be in a position to
"film" me (as he calls it) with the famous picture under my arm on
the errand of restitution!
I began--as I guess most criminals do, and I was a kind of inverted
criminal with all a criminal's desire for secrecy--by inventing
elaborate schemes, the cleverest things you ever heard of. But I
gave them all up in favour of the most obvious commonplace
simplicity. Having decided what to do, I waited three months and
then did it. The delay was due to the fear that if I acted at once,
two and two might easily be put together, since Carstairs had left
all his money--no inconsiderable sum--to the National Art Collections
Fund, and a comparison of dates might lead to investigation, and an
interview with the Misses Packer or Mrs. Wiles might educe the fact
of the locked cupboard, and then perhaps there would be a
cross-examination of myself, from which the truth would probably
emerge. At least, so I feared.
I therefore allowed the parcel to remain among my papers--every night
waking up convinced the house was on fire, and never leaving it
without expecting to find only ashes on my return--and at the end of
three months I chose a moment when everyone was out, and in broad day
conveyed the parcel to the cloak-room of that very centre of bustle
and incuriosity, the Piccadilly Circus Tube station, where in the
thick of passengers and chorus girls, I deposited it and paid my
twopence. The boy gave me my ticket without lifting his eyes, and I
again merged with the crowd. I had already printed on a piece of
plain paper an intimation that if the Director of the National
Gallery would send for the parcel concerned, he would not regret the
deed, and this I enclosed with the ticket in an envelope, and dropped
it into the post.
I could not send the picture direct, because that would have meant
either an intermediary or myself carrying it. I could not send the
note by express, because that would have meant a visit to the post
office at a given registered time. Hence the pillar box, which,
though safe, gave me one further anxiety--fear lest the Piccadilly
Circus station should also be consumed by fire in the night; but this
very unlikely contingency did not keep me awake, for, as Trist says,
"The art of life is to take all reasonable precautions and then throw
the responsibility on the shoulders of Fate."
The next day nothing happened, but _The Times_ of the morning after
had the whole glorious story. The lines
"RECOVERY OF A LOST MASTERPIECE.
THE STOLEN VERROCCHIO."
caught my eye at once, and I settled down to the perusal of what
still is to me the most amusing piece of literature in the language.
"Listen," I said to Naomi, "here's something interesting," and I read
as follows:
"'It will be remembered that some four years ago the world was
startled by the news that the portrait of an unknown woman,
attributed to Verrocchio, the master of Leonardo da Vinci, had
disappeared from the National Gallery. The theft was contrived in
full daylight, probably by a clever gang whose plans had long been
maturing, and although Scotland Yard exerted every effort, no trace
of the miscreant was found. Yesterday the Director received, by the
first post, a letter in a disguised hand enclosing a ticket for the
cloak-room at Piccadilly Circus station on the Hammersmith-Finsbury
Park Railway, and the parcel when opened was found to contain the
missing picture. As to who brought the parcel in, the cloak-room
attendant has no knowledge; he is too busy, he says, to take
particular notice of people, but he fancies it was an elderly woman.
"'The picture has been subjected to the most careful scrutiny, and is
found to be in perfect condition, and any question of its being a
copy may be set aside. The nation is to be congratulated on the
recovery of such a treasure. No doubt certain lines of investigation
will be followed, but it is not likely that the Trustees will wish to
devote any large portion of their very exiguous income to the
inquiry, which after all could afford only a certain sentimental
satisfaction. We may take it that the restitution sufficiently
indicates the remorse of the thief, and let the question of
punishment go.
"'The picture, we may add, came into the possession of the nation in
1888, the bequest of a wealthy merchant and connoisseur named James
Murchison, who committed suicide on a voyage to America very shortly
after leaving Queenstown. This is the same James Murchison who
founded and endowed the Murchison night refuges all over London."
I need hardly add that there followed a short article proving that
whoever painted the picture it was most certainly not Verrocchio.
"What a strange thing!" said Naomi. "How did you say the picture was
returned?"
"Someone seems to have left it at a Tube cloak-room," I replied, "and
sent the Director the ticket."
"That was very clever," Naomi said. "I wonder how you would set
about it if you had to restore a stolen picture. Not like that, I
feel certain. You'd do something at once more clever and less
clever."
"Yes," I said.
"I should like to see the picture so much," Naomi continued. "Do you
think it is on view?"
"Sure to be," I said.
"Then let's look in this morning, shall we?"
I was only too willing, and together we stood before the little
Verrocchio in its new position, screwed to the wall, with a custodian
on either side. Never have I been so glad to see any picture in its
right place.
"Why do you sigh like that?" Naomi asked.
"It's so satisfying," I said, but I did not mean quite what she
thought.
And so ended not only my first, and I hope last, participation in the
higher crime, but also my first, and I hope last, deception of Naomi.
CHAPTER XXXIV
IN WHICH I BRING TOGETHER THREE MEN WHO WERE DUE TO MEET, AND A NOVEL
AND BENEFICIAL SCHEME IS DECIDED UPON
Heaven, I am glad to say, has been pleased to remove Mr. Wiles's
adopted daughter from this transitory sphere. She was sickly when
she came, and she never rallied, in spite of the most assiduous care
on his part, in which he was more or less assisted by a loyal wife.
"Wiles does nothing but mope," Mrs. Wiles told Naomi. "At first,
after he found it was no good and the creature was bound to die, he
was a little excited and above himself with a scheme he had for
getting it Christian burial. I don't know what's come over the
man--he never used to have such ideas--but he actually thought of
trying to smuggle it into a cemetery as though it was a real child.
Went about peering in undertakers' windows and wondering which looked
most like helping him. But I put a stop to all that. It wasn't fair
to the real people buried there, I said. A pretty thing to pay money
for a nice grave or comfortable family vault, and then have a heathen
ape laid near you! Wiles came round to my way of thinking, but he's
never recovered his spirits. In the end, he paid good money to have
it buried in the dogs' cemetery in the Bayswater Road, and he let me
have the scullery new whitewashed without saying a word. If he
doesn't get something to do soon I don't know what will happen. But
I'm afraid of the drink and the Stock Exchange, both, for he's begun
to be interested in tin mines and things like that. If only Mr.
Falconer could find him an occupation!"
The good woman's concern about her husband had long made me want to
help, and after Mrs. Duckie's statement that the head waiter of the
"Golden Horn" had saved enough to start an eating-house of his own,
the finger of Providence seemed to be in it, pointing directly at the
homely features of Mordecai Wiles, late of the New Ape House.
It is amusing to be able to help a little, but a mistake to
congratulate oneself upon the feat. For two reasons, of which one is
that one is only an instrument of fate or chance, and the other that
most deeds which at first wear the guise of assistance have a way of
turning into mischief. The Spaniards, whose proverbs are the best,
say that he who would tell the truth should have one foot in the
stirrup; and similarly I would advise most self-conscious benefactors
of their neighbours to be all ready to run. For otherwise they are
in danger of the wrong kind of thanks.
In the present case, however, no harm has yet come to me. The
victims of my experiment in busybodydom--or helpfulness, if you
like--are not only Mr. Wiles and Mr. Duckie, but (such strange
bedfellows can an active altruist bring together) Mr. Lacey. Mr.
Duckie for the reasons given; Mr. Wiles also for the reasons given;
and Mr. Lacey, because he had told me of his wonderful chop-house
scheme. It was a simple duty to unite them; and we met at Mr.
Wiles's for the purpose--the time and the place and the interested
ones all together.
The weight of the interview fell upon Mr. Lacey, but he enjoyed it.
He had to convince Mr. Wiles that there was money in an eating-house
at all; and Mr. Duckie, that to limit the food so severely was
practicable; and both, that (as I had told them, but men are
stubbornly sceptical in such matters) he was an enthusiast and not a
company promoter. One can so easily be misunderstood on this point.
He outlined his scheme, I must admit, with a persuasiveness that no
company promoter could exceed, and a poor observer might easily have
confused him with that _bête noire_; but neither of his hearers
kindled perceptibly. Mr. Wiles has had so many affable gentlemen
endeavouring, as Farrar's phrase has it, to bite his ear, that he has
come to adopt an apathetic mien as second nature; while Mr. Duckie
was obviously pained and startled by the revolutionary character of
Mr. Lacey's proposal.
"Hot chops, of course, gentlemen like," said Mr. Duckie, "but not for
ever. Cold chops I've never heard of. That is to say, chops cold on
purpose."
Mr. Lacey admitted that it was an experiment. Possibly there might
not be many customers who would come every day, but there ought to be
enough regular customers for every other day, and plenty of strangers
in a hurry, always. It would be, frankly, a house for hasty lunches.
That would be stated. There should be no disguise about it; the
outside would convey the intimation that within you could have a cold
chop and salad in one minute, or a hot chop and hot buttered toast in
ten minutes, and nothing else. "This world," said Mr. Lacey, "would
be a vastly easier place if everyone announced his business in plain
language. There's no diplomacy like frankness."
The idea was a novel one to Mr. Duckie, who had served for so many
years in a restaurant where the bill of fare spelt new potatoes and
new peas in capital letters right into August, and prefixed the word
fresh to its coffee all the year round.
"People don't like to be told that they can't get nothing else," he
said. "The words are not hospitable, if I may say so."
Mr. Lacey pointed out that in the long run the plain dealer won.
That is, if his quality was equal to his candour.
Mr. Duckie, however, was a very old dog to learn such unwonted tricks.
"But what about the people who want roast beef?" he asked at length.
"They must go elsewhere," said Mr. Lacey. "We have nothing for them."
"Yes," said Mr. Duckie, "but roast beef's such a popular dish."
"It can't be helped," said Mr. Lacey. "We must specialize."
"I see that," said Mr. Duckie, "but wouldn't it be better to
specialize in beef rather than mutton? Gentlemen are so partial to
beef. Hot beef, cabbage, and potatoes, or cold beef and salad."
Mr. Lacey pointed out the difference between the two schemes. "If
you want beef and vegetables you want an oven and a totally different
arrangement of kitchens. The difficulty about potatoes is, they are
never hot; cabbage is not always in season; and joints of beef mean a
certain amount of waste. Chops and toast can be cooked at the grill,
and there is no waste. The place would need plenty of grill
accommodation and two or three of the best grillers to be obtained.
Also the best chops, butter, and salad oil. Could anything be
simpler? The salad oil should come from Italy direct; the house
should become famous for it. Tarragon vinegar too--very little
dearer than the other and much more memorable."
What a wonderful man, I thought, as he went on, kindling as he spoke,
and thinking as he spoke, for he is a born improviser; business men
in every walk of life ought to pay him ten guineas an hour just to
make him talk on their own affairs. But business men have always a
horror of men with ideas.
Mr. Duckie, I noticed, began to kindle too, but very cautiously. He
still had beef on his mind.
"Very true," he said; "but what I mean about roast beef is, that
gentlemen seem to expect it. When they're in a hurry they always ask
if there's any cold beef."
Mr. Lacey told him again about the big notice outside the chop-house.
No one could come in under false pretences.
"But, sir," said Mr. Duckie, "you don't know them. It doesn't matter
what you say outside, they'll come in and ask for roast beef. People
who're hungry have no reason."
"Very well, then, let them ask; they won't get it," said Mr. Lacey.
"But it's such a mistake in a restaurant not to have what people
want," said Mr. Duckie.
Poor Lacey, his quick mind was in despair.
I relieved his agony by asking Mr. Wiles how it all struck him.
"I think it is a good scheme," he said. "I believe in finding a good
food and sticking to it. That's what we do with our apes, and after
all they're not so wonderfully different from city men. We find what
suits them best and keep them on it, with a grape or two or slice of
apple when they've done a trick, of course. I'm all for cold mutton
myself. It's nourishing and it's clean. You can cut it with a
pocket knife, like whittling a stick, and eat it all. But what I've
been wondering is, what about drink?"
"Beer," said Mr. Lacey, "and whisky and soda, and coffee. Nothing
else. But the best of each."
Mr. Duckie had been very thoughtful. "Supposing," he said, at last,
"we were to have three beef days a week and three mutton?"
Mr. Lacey would not hear of it. "But," he said, "look here. This is
what I'll do. The scheme's mine, and if you take it up I'll help you
with advice about a site and furnishing and so forth, and you shall
give me ten per cent. of the profits after each of you has drawn ten
per cent., and nothing if you don't draw that. That's all I ask, and
I ask that only if you stick to my idea. But if you decide to do
something else, then I make you a present of the whole thing and
retire at once. It interests me only as a whole."
Mr. Duckie admitted that this was more than fair, and looked at Mr.
Wiles.
Mr. Wiles said that for his part he would go into it and find capital
to run it for three years at a reasonable loss, with Mr. Duckie as
manager and partner, on a definite understanding--but only if I
approved and Mr. Lacey had control. "But," he said, "of course I
must ask my wife's opinion," and Mrs. Wiles was called in.
The good woman, after asking my views and finding that I supported
the scheme, pronounced in its favour, speaking both as a cook and a
speculator. "And all I can say," she ended, "is, that I hope you'll
arrange to keep Wiles busy. For I'm tired of him mooning about the
house. And now, sir, if you've finished your talk, I wish you'd come
and see my Annie."
She drew me from the room, and with her finger on her lips and
tiptoeing along, led me to a bedroom, where, in a cot, I saw a little
girl asleep.
"That's our Annie," she said proudly. "She only came to-day. I want
Mrs. Falconer to see her to-morrow, if she will, because, of course,
Annie was her idea."
Lenient as thoughts of Lavender had made me to all small creatures, I
cannot say that I viewed Annie with any active satisfaction, she was
so poor and stunted a little Cockney. But, of course, it is best
that the good woman should lavish herself on a weakling than on a
robust child. The robust grow up anyway, but the others want
attention. I asked Annie's history.
"It's very sad," said Mrs. Wiles. "She is an only child, and the
mother and father died within a few days of each other. The mother
died of pneumonia, which in a kind of way gives Wiles a special
interest in Annie, he having seen so much of it; while the father was
knocked down and killed by a motor-bus only last week. So the child
was taken to the St. Pancras Workhouse, and we heard of it through
one of Wiles's friends, and applied for her, and here she is. But I
shall never think quite the same about motor-buses any more. Talk
about blessings in disguise--I mean, of course, to Wiles and me; but
what a disguise!"
Upon rejoining the others, Lacey and I came away, leaving Mr. Duckie
as the Wiles's guest for supper. The last words I heard him say were
to his hostess, to the effect that, for some reason or other,
gentlemen seemed to like beef best.
CHAPTER XXXV
IN WHICH LAVENDER FALCONER ENTERS THIS LIFE AND MEETS WITH GENERAL
APPROVAL
After a period of reluctance, in which she very nearly lost all my
good opinion, Miss Lavender Falconer entered this vale of tears at
the most inconvenient hour possible, namely, at 3.15 A.M. on a rainy
morning. My night's rest was ruined; but mother and child at once
began to do exceedingly well.
I do not pretend that Lavender was beautiful. She had a crumpled
appearance impossible to reconcile with that lissom gracefulness
beneath her gown which her proud father some years hence will so
value in her; but there was something very attractive in her
helplessness--although even at the tender age of twelve hours she was
manifestly already a member of the stronger sex. She dominated the
room, and still dominates whatever room she may occupy, and promises
to continue so to do. So far as I am concerned, I have no objection.
I like a strong woman in the background engendering confidence.
Lavender's visitors were many and enthusiastic, and some, like the
Magi, brought gifts. Her grandfather placed in each of her tiny
fists a new sovereign by way of laying the foundation of her dot, and
these she at once allowed to drop on the floor, an action which was
held by wise observers to predicate a generous nature. Mr. Lacey
made a special visit to Mitcham for lavender and filled the room with
it, while the Director produced from his stores of melody this
charming old lavender cry:
[Illustration: Music fragment]
Won't you buy my sweet blooming lav - en - der, Six-teen
branch - es one pen - ny? La - dies fair, make no de -
lay, I have your lav-en-der fresh to-day! Buy it once you'll
buy it twice--It makes your clothes smell sweet and nice.
It will scent your pock-et - hand - ker - chiefs-- Six - teen
branch - es for one pen - ny! As I walk thro' London streets, I
have your lav-en-der nice and sweet, Sixteen branches for one pen-ny!
The Misses Packer were in ecstasies of admiration, although, of
course, we did not permit unskilled evidence to turn our heads.
Still, they had seen many babies in their time and were entitled to
respectful hearing when they indulged in comparison between Lavender
and those others.
"Mrs. Harvey's baby, you remember, Emmie," said Miss Laura, "was a
picture; but nothing compared with Mrs. Falconer's. There's a
something about this little darling--I don't know what it is, but a
something--which makes it more remarkable than any I've ever seen."
Miss Emma agreed with her, attempting--I thought hazardously--to
discover what the something was, but of course failing.
Mrs. Wiles also came in to worship, and as she gazed grew very
tearful. "Adopted children are all very well," she said, "and my
Annie's a little pet; but there's nothing like one of your own.
Well, well, we can't have everything, and Wiles has just bought a
lovely gramophone, and Annie is trying to say 'Daddy' and 'Mammy'
quite natural; and the invites that come to us to join committees of
charitable societies, with lords and ladies sitting on them too,
would make some of our friends go green with envy."
CHAPTER XXXVI
IN WHICH MRS. DUCKIE EMPLOYS AN ANNIHILATING PHRASE WHICH SO RANKLES
THAT IT SEEMS ALMOST ABSURD TO GO ON AT ALL
Mrs. Duckie, whom, after her long speech to me on the duties of
husbands, I felt I must acquaint with Lavender's arrival, came up in
her best bonnet to see the ladies. She had tea with me afterwards in
the sitting-room, the nurse having driven her and her kindly but not
too reposeful tongue sternly forth. She said nothing for a minute or
two except about Mr. Duckie and the "Gog and Magog Chop House," which
is doing famously, thanking me for my share in it; but then, laying
down her cup, she uttered quietly, as if speaking of the weather, the
most devastating words I ever listened to.
"It's the healthiest baby I ever saw," she said, "and I've seen many.
I'm so glad about it. And now you could die to-morrow, Mr. Falconer,
if you liked."
Did you ever hear of such a bombshell?
What on earth did she mean? I asked.
"Why," she said, "I often think about it. That's what we're for--to
marry and have children. But I didn't mean to say what I did. It
must have sounded dreadful. It just popped out. Still, you're one
as understands. You know what a difference there is between a father
and a mother--the mothers have all the responsibility."
"All very well," I said, "if one were limited to one child. But am I
not needed for more?"
"Oh," said Mrs. Duckie, laughing, "don't worry about that. You'll
never have another. Not you! You've got 'one child only' written
all over you."
"Then Nature's done with me?" I said as lightly as I could.
"Oh, I dare say you'll live to be eighty, and I hope you will," Mrs.
Duckie replied, "such a nice gentleman as you are; but
you've--you've----"
"I've answered her purpose," I suggested bravely.
"Yes," said Mrs. Duckie, without the faintest trace of mercy.
"And what about bringing up--education and so forth?"
"Oh, Mrs. Falconer will do that beautifully," said this vixen. "I
couldn't think of a better mother."
I was struck dumb for a while. Here was an attitude for a woman (and
one's old landlady too, thus aggravating the offence) to take up to a
lord of creation!
"So you don't think husbands are any other use?" I asked at last.
"They bring in the money, of course," she replied, "but that's all.
They don't really help with the children--not most of them don't. A
few, yes, but even those very likely are only a bother, when all's
said, and in your case there's enough money already."
No need to say that I was glad when she had gone; but when I peeped
into Naomi's room and the nurse (who used to be a nice woman) hushed
me sternly away, my spirits sank again.
I walked out into Regent's Park and sat down and thought about it.
City men in tall hats were hastening home. "Foolish to be in such a
hurry," I said; "you're not wanted. Homes are for women. Leave the
money for the rent and the butcher and get out again." Nurses and
mothers were here and there with their charges. "Ladies," I said, "I
salute you. Permit one who could die to-morrow, if he liked, without
being missed, to bid you farewell. Not, however, that your reign is
much longer than mine--but a little longer. Wait till those babies
are of age and see then how much you are needed!" Children were
playing all about. "To you," I said, apostrophizing them at large,
"is the earth and the fulness thereof. It is for you that all Nature
is working, but only that you may work for her, for she does nothing
for nothing. In a few years' time you too will be fathers and
mothers under sentence, like me. So play on and be happy while you
can."
As I was sitting there Lacey came up and joined me. "You look blue,"
he said--"so am I. It's that infernally beautiful sunset that's done
it. Not for nothing did Dürer give his 'Melancholia' the setting
sun. What's the matter? Have you suddenly discovered that your nose
is out of joint?" (What an instinct the fellow has!) "Every baby
puts someone's nose out of joint; either its father's or mother's or
another baby's. But that's all right. That's part of the fun. Life
is nothing but readjusting. Lovers are always becoming parents.
There's no sense in the world, only movement; but luckily we all have
our moments off, and the thing is to get as many of them as possible.
That's the principal reason why brewers and distillers are so rich
and noble, and why old Furley's films do so well. Anodynes, don't
you see; devices for cheating facts. Take me into the Zoo with your
powerful autograph and we'll soon forget our troubles. There's a
little kinkajou on the right as we go in, with a tail like a boa, who
hangs round your neck and drives all griefs away. I dare say, if we
only knew, there's a wild animal for every mental malady."
We went in and strolled about for a while: bewaring of pickpockets,
according to instructions.
"As a matter of fact," said Lacey, as we sat down in the little
pavilion reserved for Fellows and ordered something to drink, "I am
miserable too. But then that's about all I expect. I've made such a
mess of things. Never mind how, but I have. I get too fond of too
many people. Anyway, I called on an old flame of mine to-day who is
married--happily married--and it hurt. I ought to have married her
myself, but things went wrong. I understood her and she understood
me, but we had no luck. At least perhaps she did. We fenced a good
deal to-day, of course. It was the only thing to do. She asked me
that inevitable question, What I was doing with my life and going to
do? When a happily married woman asks this it means only one thing:
it means, When are you going to be happily married too? I said I had
no reason to admire marriage sufficiently to think of nothing else.
"'But love?' she asked.
"I admitted that love was all right, and was silent in the idiotic
way that one is, at intervals, during such meetings.
"'Well?' she asked after a while.
"'I have nothing to report,' I replied. Nor had I, Heaven knows; yet
I should not have mentioned it, even if I had. There is no pleasure
in confessing to those who belong to another. She was still charming
and beautiful and sympathetic; but sympathy when one comes second is
a very different thing from sympathy when one might possibly come
first. And then I left the house and, of course, for a while I saw
nothing but pretty girls on young fellows' arms, as one always does
when one's most lonely and miserable; and then I walked bang into
that blighting sunset and then into you."
He said nothing for a while and we watched the passers-by.
"How happy other people can be, confound them!" he said. "And that
is why one is never so wretched as in a crowd. Omar's comparison of
life to a game of chess--
'But helpless Pieces of the Game He plays
Upon the Chequer-board of Nights and Days;
Hither and thither moves, and checks, and stays,
And one by one back in the Closet lays--'
is no doubt true enough to such a pessimistic mind as poor,
fastidious, solitary FitzGerald's and those of us to whom the Creator
has not given the happy acceptive temperament. But when one hears
the stories that London--and I suppose all other towns and
cities--has in such numbers, of frustrated affections and loveless
marriages and irregular alliances, it is rather as His jig-saw puzzle
that one sees life, where the least likely pieces fit together and
the most likely can never be joined. Well!"
He got up. "Now I'm going to be jolly again," he said. "Life, with
all its bothers and disappointments and disillusions, and even with
the circumstance that one has to live it chiefly with that impostor
oneself, is too good to run down. There are so many little things to
keep one going. Here, for example, see what I found to-day in a West
End bookseller's catalogue:
À KEMPIS. _Imitation of Christ_. Printed on Real Vellum (only ten
copies issued). Illuminated Frontispiece and Illuminated Fronts, and
all the initials illuminated. Bound in Cape Levant Morocco Red,
tooled in blind design with doublures. £18 18s. net.
There's a first step towards imitating the simple Nazarene! Eighteen
guineas for the primer. One has no right to be doleful in a world
where things like this happen."
Lacey's revived spirits did me good, and on returning home I found
Naomi more sweet than ever before, and even Nan conveyed some of the
illusion of pleasure at my approach, although the nurse (who was
otherwise her old self again) insisted that the phenomenon was purely
the effect of internal disturbance.
Lacey was more right than not. I did not and shall not forget what
Mrs. Duckie said, because I know it to be true; but it has already
sunk below the surface of memory into that woolly receptacle where so
much of the past is preserved. Not often do I bring it out, but it
has a way of desiring an airing between four and five A.M. when one's
pulse is at its lowest and hope almost non-existent; and I am often
conscious of its presence when I watch Naomi and Nan together, or,
greatly daring, take Nan into my own hands. Greatly daring!--there
you have it again. For Naomi does not greatly dare: she picks up
this fragile pink atom as naturally and unthinkingly as a cricketer
picks up the ball.
Nan, I must admit, does not help me. Perhaps some day, as I tell
her, when she is tall and slender and seventeen, she will be more
ready to accompany her grey father than her bonny mother; and then
(if I have succeeded in living so long) I shall be in receipt of a
little return for all my services to Nature. But it will be only for
a brief season then, for her eyes will be beginning to wander this
way and that for the comely form (as she considers it) of another of
Nature's dupes, who at this moment is perhaps squealing in another
awkward progenitor's arms in some other London nursery. For life, as
Lacey says, is all progression, if not progress.
Nan, as I say, gives me no help. There is something about my
features, which are not unpleasing to many of my friends, that she
finds curiously terrifying; and the more kindly disposed I am to her
and beam with tenderness on her little person, the more evidently do
I remind her of one of the most fearsome monsters of that mysterious
nowhere from which she journeyed hither.
But with her mother...! The two together make such an adorable
picture that I wish I could get it painted by a worthy brush. The
balance of sex wants readjusting among the representations, both in
paint and in stone, of mother and child. For centuries no man of
genius ever painted or graved a girl-baby at all: there might not
have been such a thing in the world. In fact, if art and not biology
were the evidence upon which the historian has to work, there never
was a girl-baby until quite recently. It is a great pity, because
this preoccupation with the boy-baby has deprived us of renderings of
girl-babies which would have been exquisite beyond imagination.
Think what adorable little nestling mites Luca della Robbia could
have moulded, and what tiny feminine rogues Correggio would have
painted! One wonders that no artist rebelled. Did none of them ever
look at a family of children and think the little girls lovely? Or,
against their better taste, did they merely slavishly obey tradition?
CHAPTER XXXVII
IN WHICH A TRYING CEREMONY GOES FOR NOTHING, AND A FATHER PUTS DOWN
HIS FOOT
Dollie and Ann walked in after lunch, looking, as I think now, a
shade less natural than usual, but only a shade. Their visit was so
remarkable that I wish to record its progress with minute accuracy.
Dollie greeted us with a somewhat piano "Wow, wow!" and sat himself
in the most comfortable chair. Ann took a chair by the window and
asked how Lavender was, and if she might see her.
Naomi went out to arrange for the display, and Dollie asked if
cigarette smoke was bad for it.
I asked what he meant by "it," and he said he meant Lavender, and Ann
told him with some asperity that he ought to be more careful in
referring to babies. She seemed more critical of him even than usual.
I asked after her father, and she said he had seemed all right at
breakfast.
"Better than he'll be at dinner, I guess," Dollie said darkly, and
Ann frowned.
After a long silence Dollie said that it had turned colder. He then
asked me if I had had any racing tips lately, and I asked him in
return how I, moving in the society that I did, could expect to have
any. "I go nowhere," I said. "Except to the Zoo. Besides, I don't
want tips."
"Why don't you ask the keepers?" he said, and Ann told him not to be
absurd.
Naomi, entering with Lavender, made a diversion.
Ann asked if she might hold her and was exceedingly tender, and
pretty in her tenderness. Dollie threw away his cigarette, surveyed
Lavender minutely through his monocle, and said nothing, but sighed
heavily.
Naomi asked Dollie where he was dining that night, and he looked at
Ann.
Ann said she was not sure.
I drew Dollie to the window and said, "Well?"
He gripped me by the hand and took out another cigarette, and I
guessed that these young hesitants had this morning come at last to
grips, and that the day was named, and I was feeling very complacent
about my devilish perspicacity when Ann took off her gloves and
revealed the newest wedding-ring on earth.
And then, Lavender having been removed, on account of her immaturity,
we had the story. These young idiots had been registered that very
morning, and Sir Gaston did not yet know.
"But why weren't you married properly?" Naomi asked.
"Well," said Ann, "we didn't want the fuss of a wedding, and,
honestly, I wanted to save father all that trouble and expense."
"But it's so furtive-looking," Naomi said.
"That's all right," said Dollie. "We had witnesses. Farrar was
there and Gwen. Farrar signed the book like a good 'un. All
straight and above board."
"Yes," said Naomi, "that's all right, I know, but, Ann, think of your
grandmother, old Mrs. Ingleside. She would have given everything to
be at your wedding. And your mother, Dollie."
"Oh well," said Dollie, "my mother gave me up as a conventional being
years ago. She'll be jolly glad I'm settled and done for. That's
what she'll say."
"But your sisters? How they would have enjoyed being bridesmaids!"
"Not they," said Dollie; "they've done it too often. Besides, I
protest against marrying in order to give one's people enjoyment.
That's all out of date. Ann and I wanted to save fuss, and, by
Jingo, we've done it!"
"And what is the next move?" I asked.
"Well," said Ann, "we wondered if you would come down to Buckingham
Street with us and help with father."
"I like that," I was beginning to say, when, "Of course he will,"
said Naomi.
Sir Gaston was in when we arrived.
After greeting me, he looked at Dollie and remarked that he had the
appearance of one who had backed a loser.
Dollie groaned. "Not so bad as that, I hope," he murmured.
Ann went over to her father and kissed him.
He seemed rather surprised, but merely asked what he had done to
receive such an unusual attention.
Ann replied that she felt like it, and I realized that the time had
come to stop this drama of reticences and disguised feelings.
"Well, Ingleside," I said, "I must say you take it very much as a
matter of course."
"What?" he asked.
"Why, a kiss from a pretty, young, married woman," I said.
"Good Heavens!" he exclaimed, running his keen eyes over Ann and
Dollie.
"Yes," I said, "this is Mrs. Adolphus Heathcote. She asked me to
introduce her."
"I'm very glad," he said. "Have some cake," and we all mercifully
laughed, and the strain snapped.
"But," he said a little later, "we must now fix the date of the
wedding."
"We are married," said Ann. "Look at my ring."
"Yes," said her father. "That's all right. But we'll forget that.
I can't have my daughter marrying in this hole-and-corner way.
Saving trouble and expense is all very well, but there are things
more important. One of them is giving my aged mother an opportunity
of seeing you at the chancel steps. There are others, too, but that
comes first. Now get out an almanack--I'm sure Dollie has a
bookmaker's diary in his pocket--and find the earliest date for
dresses and so forth, and we'll get it over properly; but until then
you must consider yourself still Ann Ingleside."
Dollie looked by no means cheerful as he searched for the diary.
"I'm afraid you're vexed with me?" he said to Sir Gaston.
"Not at all," was the reply. "I should have been, if you hadn't come
to me to-day. But your mother and sisters ought to be."
"That's a cert," said Dollie.
"Yes, and there's someone who would have been even more furious than
any of them," said Sir Gaston.
"Who?" Dollie asked.
"Your tailor. The idea of trying to evade destiny in this way! If
ever there was a man born to be married in new clothes, it is you,
and you sneak about London in tweeds trying to find a registrar base
enough to be your accomplice. Now, Ann has never been dressy. For
Ann it was all right. But you--my dear Dollie, never do anything so
out of character again. It doesn't suit you. Go right off to Savile
Row the first thing in the morning and arrange for the war-paint, and
Ann, in her own more restricted way, will do the same. Meanwhile, I
claim the custody of the ring."
The next evening I chanced to run across Dollie in St. James's Park
as I was on my way to Queen Anne's Gate, and he had a smile that
irradiated his honest countenance like the sun on the sea. He
unfolded an evening paper, and although the breeze defeated his
efforts several times, he pronounced no malediction. Evidently Mr.
Adolphus Heathcote was in a good temper.
"Look here," he said, "here's a little bit of all right."
I followed the direction of his gloved finger and saw that a horse
named Decree Nisi had won a race.
"Wait a bit," he said, moving his finger lower, and I saw that the
starting price of Decree Nisi was 20 to 1.
"What do you think of that?" he asked. "Not bad odds?"
"Very good," I said.
"Well," he said, "what do you think I did? After the painful
experiences of yesterday I took them as a tip, because, don't you
see, I was, in a manner of speaking, jolly well divorced last
evening, wasn't I? Very well. I added the cost of the wedding
ring--three pounds ten, for it was a downright, solid affair, as I
dare say you noticed--to the cost of the special licence, and put the
whole boiling on Decree Nisi. And it romps in at 20 to 1. Never let
me hear anyone talk about marriage being unlucky again. Wow, wow!"
CHAPTER THE LAST
IN WHICH FAREWELL IS SAID TO PRIMROSE TERRACE, AND THE EARTH FINDS A
NEW AXIS
I write these final words in another house, not too far from Primrose
Terrace and our dear Lacey and the Zoo; a house with its own garden.
For Lavender could not flourish in the Misses Packers' restricted
space, and Lavender is, of course, the principal person to consider.
And since it is a house with a garden, and all our own, it follows
(in London) that we have no neighbours, and therefore, not having
neighbours any more to describe, there is nothing to do but to take
my novelist friend's best piece of advice.
Finding the right house was as difficult as ever it is, and was
attended by the usual rages as we gazed upon ideal residences already
selfishly occupied by other persons; more difficult, indeed, since it
was to be the theatre of the dramas of Lavender's infancy, childhood,
girlhood, and young womanhood. No joke selecting an historic abode
of this kind.
Yet here we are, on our first evening, and Lavender (whose home it so
pre-eminently is) has just consented to fall asleep.
The house--but, excuse me, I feel certain I heard her cry.
THE END
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