With my system thus in full swing I experienced the intoxication of
assured freedom. To say I was elated does not describe it. I walked on
air. This was my state of mind when I determined to pay a visit to the
Gunton-Cresswells. I had known them in my college days, but since I had
been engaged in literature I had sedulously avoided them because I
remembered that Margaret had once told me they were her friends.
But now there was no need for me to fear them on that account, and
thinking that the solid comfort of their house in Kensington would be
far from disagreeable, thither, one afternoon in spring, I made my way.
It is wonderful how friendly Convention is to Art when Art does not
appear to want to borrow money.
No. 5, Kensington Lane, W., is the stronghold of British
respectability. It is more respectable than the most respectable
suburb. Its attitude to Mayfair is that of a mother to a daughter who
has gone on the stage and made a success. Kensington Lane is almost
tolerant of Mayfair. But not quite. It admits the success, but shakes
its head.
Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell took an early opportunity of drawing me aside,
and began gently to pump me. After I had responded with sufficient
docility to her leads, she reiterated her delight at seeing me again. I
had concluded my replies with the words, "I am a struggling journalist,
Mrs. Cresswell." I accompanied the phrase with a half-smile which she
took to mean - as I intended she should - that I was amusing myself by
dabbling in literature, backed by a small, but adequate, private
income.
"Oh, come, James," she said, smiling approvingly, "you know you will
make a quite too dreadfully clever success. How dare you try to deceive
me like that? A struggling journalist, indeed."
But I knew she liked that "struggling journalist" immensely. She would
couple me and my own epithet together before her friends. She would
enjoy unconsciously an imperceptible, but exquisite, sensation of
patronage by having me at her house. Even if she discussed me with
Margaret I was safe. For Margaret would give an altogether different
interpretation of the smile with which I described myself as
struggling. My smile would be mentally catalogued by her as "brave";
for it must not be forgotten that as suddenly as my name had achieved a
little publicity, just so suddenly had it utterly disappeared.
* * * * *
Towards the end of May, it happened that Julian dropped into my rooms
about three o'clock, and found me gazing critically at a top-hat.
"I've seen you," he remarked, "rather often in that get-up lately."
"It _is_, perhaps, losing its first gloss," I answered, inspecting
my hat closely. I cared not a bit for Julian's sneers; for the smell of
the flesh-pots of Kensington had laid hold of my soul, and I was
resolved to make the most of the respite which my system gave me.
"What salon is to have the honour today?" he asked, spreading himself
on my sofa.
"I'm going to the Gunton-Cresswells," I replied.
Julian slowly sat up.
"Ah?" he said conversationally.
"I've been asked to meet their niece, a Miss Eversleigh, whom they've
invited to stop with them. Funny, by the way, that her name should be
the same as yours."
"Not particularly," said Julian shortly; "she's my cousin. My cousin
Eva."
This was startling. There was a pause. Presently Julian said, "Do you
know, Jimmy, that if I were not the philosopher I am, I'd curse this
awful indolence of mine."
I saw it in a flash, and went up to him holding out my hand in
sympathy. "Thanks," he said, gripping it; "but don't speak of it. I
couldn't endure that, even from you, James. It's too hard for talking.
If it was only myself whose life I'd spoilt - if it was only myself - - "
He broke off. And then, "Hers too. She's true as steel."
I had heard no more bitter cry than that.
I began to busy myself amongst some manuscripts to give Julian time to
compose himself. And so an hour passed. At a quarter past four I got up
to go out. Julian lay recumbent. It seemed terrible to leave him
brooding alone over his misery.
A closer inspection, however, showed me he was asleep.
* * * * *
Meanwhile, Eva Eversleigh and I became firm friends. Of her person
I need simply say that it was the most beautiful that Nature ever
created. Pressed as to details, I should add that she was _petite_,
dark, had brown hair, very big blue eyes, a _retrousse_ nose,
and a rather wide mouth.
Julian had said she was "true as steel." Therefore, I felt no
diffidence in manoeuvring myself into her society on every conceivable
occasion. Sometimes she spoke to me of Julian, whom I admitted I knew,
and, with feminine courage, she hid her hopeless, all-devouring
affection for her cousin under the cloak of ingenuous levity. She
laughed nearly every time his name was mentioned.
About this time the Gunton-Cresswells gave a dance.
I looked forward to it with almost painful pleasure. I had not been to
a dance since my last May-week at Cambridge. Also No. 5, Kensington
Lane had completely usurped the position I had previously assigned to
Paradise. To waltz with Julian's cousin - that was the ambition which
now dwarfed my former hankering for the fame of authorship or a
habitation in Bohemia.
Mrs. Goodwin once said that happiness consists in anticipating an
impossible future. Be that as it may, I certainly thought my sensations
were pleasant enough when at length my hansom pulled up jerkily beside
the red-carpeted steps of No. 5, Kensington Lane. As I paid the fare, I
could hear the murmur from within of a waltz tune - and I kept repeating
to myself that Eva had promised me the privilege of taking her in to
supper, and had given me the last two waltzes and the first two extras.
I went to pay my _devoirs_ to my hostess. She was supinely
gamesome. "Ah," she said, showing her excellent teeth, "Genius
attendant at the revels of Terpsichore."
"Where Beauty, Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell," I responded, cutting it, as
though mutton, thick, "teaches e'en the humblest visitor the reigning
Muse's art."
"You may have this one, if you like," said Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell
simply.
Supper came at last, and, with supper, Eva.
I must now write it down that she was not a type of English beauty. She
was not, I mean, queenly, impassive, never-anything-but-her-cool-calm-
self. Tonight, for instance, her eyes were as I had never seen them.
There danced in them the merriest glitter, which was more than a mere
glorification of the ordinary merry glitter - which scores of girls
possess at every ball. To begin with, there was a diabolical abandon
in Eva's glitter, which raised it instantly above the common herd's.
And behind it all was that very misty mist. I don't know whether all
men have seen that mist; but I am sure that no man has seen it more
than once; and, from what I've seen of the average man, I doubt if
most of them have ever seen it at all. Well, there it was for me to
see in Eva Eversleigh's eyes that night at supper. It made me think
of things unspeakable. I felt a rush of classic aestheticism: Arcadia,
Helen of Troy, the happy valleys of the early Greeks. Supper: I believe
I gave her oyster _pates_. But I was far away. Deep, deep, deep
in Eva's eyes I saw a craft sighting, 'neath a cloudless azure sky,
the dark blue Symplegades; heard in my ears the jargon, loud and near
me, of the sailors; and faintly o'er the distance of the dead-calm sea
rose intermittently the sound of brine-foam at the clashing rocks....
As we sat there _tete-a-tete_, she smiled across the table at me
with such perfect friendliness, it seemed as though a magic barrier
separated our two selves from all the chattering, rustling crowd around
us. When she spoke, a little quiver of feeling blended adorably with
the low, sweet tones of her voice. We talked, indeed, of trifles, but
with just that charming hint of intimacy which men friends have who may
have known one another from birth, and may know one another for a
lifetime, but never become bores, never change. Only when it comes
between a woman and a man, it is incomparably finer. It is the talk, of
course, of lovers who have not realised they are in love.
"The two last waltzes," I murmured, when parting with her. She nodded.
I roamed the Gunton-Cresswells's rooms awaiting them.
She danced those two last waltzes with strangers.
The thing was utterly beyond me at the time. Looking back, I am still
amazed to what lengths deliberate coquetry can go.
She actually took pains to elude me, and gave those waltzes to
strangers.
From being comfortably rocked in the dark blue waters of a Grecian sea,
I was suddenly transported to the realities of the ballroom. My
theoretical love for Eva was now a substantial truth. I was in an agony
of desire, in a frenzy of jealousy. I wanted to hurl the two strangers
to opposite corners of the ballroom, but civilisation forbade it.
I was now in an altogether indescribable state of nerves and suspense.
Had she definitely and for some unfathomable reason decided to cut me?
The first extra drew languorously to a close, couples swept from the
room to the grounds, the gallery or the conservatory. I tried to steady
my whirling head with a cigarette and a whisky-and-soda in the
smoking-room.
The orchestra, like a train starting tentatively on a long run,
launched itself mildly into the preliminary bars of _Tout Passe_.
I sought the ballroom blinded by my feelings. Pulling myself together
with an effort, I saw her standing alone. It struck me for the first
time that she was clothed in cream. Her skin gleamed shining white. She
stood erect, her arms by her sides. Behind her was a huge, black velvet
_portiere_ of many folds, supported by two dull brazen columns.
As I advanced towards her, two or three men bowed and spoke to her. She
smiled and dismissed them, and, still smiling pleasantly, her glance
traversed the crowd and rested upon me. I was drawing now quite near.
Her eyes met mine; nor did she avert them, and stooping a little to
address her, I heard her sigh.
"You're tired," I said, forgetting my two last dances, forgetting
everything but that I loved her.
"Perhaps I am," she said, taking my arm. We turned in silence to the
_portiere_ and found ourselves in the hall. The doors were opened.
Some servants were there. At the bottom of the steps I chanced to see a
yellow light.
"Find out if that cab's engaged," I said to a footman.
"The cool air - - " I said to Eva.
"The cab is not engaged, sir," said the footman, returning.
"Yes," said Eva, in answer to my glance.
"Drive to the corner of Sloane Street, by way of the Park," I told the
driver.
I have said that I had forgotten everything except that I loved her.
Could it help remembrance now that we two sped alone through empty
streets, her warm, palpitating body touching mine?
Julian, his friendship for me, his love for Eva; Margaret and her love
for me; my own honour - these things were blotted from my brain.
"Eva!" I murmured; and I took her hand.
"Eva."
Her wonderful eyes met mine. The mist in them seemed to turn to dew.
"My darling," she whispered, very low. And, the road being deserted, I
drew her face to mine and kissed her.
CHAPTER 16
I TELL JULIAN
_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_
Is any man really honourable? I wonder. Hundreds, thousands go
triumphantly through life with that reputation. But how far is this due
to absence of temptation? Life, which is like cricket in so many ways,
resembles the game in this also. A batsman makes a century, and, having
made it, is bowled by a ball which he is utterly unable to play. What
if that ball had come at the beginning of his innings instead of at the
end of it? Men go through life without a stain on their honour. I
wonder if it simply means that they had the luck not to have the good
ball bowled to them early in their innings. To take my own case. I had
always considered myself a man of honour. I had a code that was rigid
compared with that of a large number of men. In theory I should never
have swerved from it. I was fully prepared to carry out my promise and
marry Margaret, at the expense of my happiness - until I met Eva. I
would have done anything to avoid injuring Julian, my friend, until I
met Eva. Eva was my temptation, and I fell. Nothing in the world
mattered, so that she was mine. I ought to have had a revulsion of
feeling as I walked back to my rooms in Walpole Street. The dance was
over. The music had ceased. The dawn was chill. And at a point midway
between Kensington Lane and the Brompton Oratory I had proposed to
Eversleigh's cousin, his Eva, "true as steel," and had been accepted.
Yet I had no remorse. I did not even try to justify my behaviour to
Julian or to Margaret, or - for she must suffer, too - to Mrs.
Gunton-Cresswell, who, I knew well, was socially ambitious for her
niece.
To all these things I was indifferent. I repeated softly to myself, "We
love each other."
From this state of coma, however, I was aroused by the appearance of my
window-blind. I saw, in fact, that my room was illuminated. Remembering
that I had been careful to put out my lamp before I left, I feared, as
I opened the hall door, a troublesome encounter with a mad
housebreaker. Mad, for no room such as mine could attract a burglar who
has even the slightest pretensions to sanity.
It was not a burglar. It was Julian Eversleigh, and he was lying asleep
on my sofa.
There was nothing peculiar in this. I roused him.
"Julian," I said.
"I'm glad you're back," he said, sitting up; "I've some news for you."
"So have I," said I. For I had resolved to tell him what I had done.
"Hear mine first. It's urgent. Miss Margaret Goodwin has been here."
My heart seemed to leap.
"Today?" I cried.
"Yes. I had called to see you, and was waiting a little while on the
chance of your coming in when I happened to look out of the window. A
girl was coming down the street, looking at the numbers of the houses.
She stopped here. Intuition told me she was Miss Goodwin. While she was
ringing the bell I did all I could to increase the shabby squalor of
your room. She was shown in here, and I introduced myself as your
friend. We chatted. I drew an agonising picture of your struggle for
existence. You were brave, talented, and unsuccessful. Though you went
often hungry, you had a plucky smile upon your lips. It was a
meritorious bit of work. Miss Goodwin cried a good deal. She is
charming. I was so sorry for her that I laid it on all the thicker."
"Where is she now?"
"Nearing Guernsey. She's gone."
"Gone!" I said. "Without seeing me! I don't understand."
"You don't understand how she loves you, James."
"But she's gone. Gone without a word."
"She has gone because she loved you so. She had intended to stay with
the Gunton-Cresswells. She knows them, it seems. They didn't know she
was coming. She didn't know herself until this morning. She happened to
be walking on the quay at St. Peter's Port. The outward-bound boat was
on the point of starting for England. A wave of affection swept over
Miss Goodwin. She felt she must see you. Scribbling a note, which she
despatched to her mother, she went aboard. She came straight here.
Then, when I had finished with her, when I had lied consistently about
you for an hour, she told me she must return. 'I must not see James,'
she said. 'You have torn my heart. I should break down.' And she said,
speaking, I think, half to herself, 'Your courage is so noble, so
different from mine. And I must not impose a needless strain upon it.
You shall not see me weep for you.' And then she went away."
Julian's voice broke. He was genuinely affected by his own recital.
For my part, I saw that I had bludgeon work to do. It is childish to
grumble at the part Fate forces one to play. Sympathetic or otherwise,
one can only enact one's _role_ to the utmost of one's ability.
Mine was now essentially unsympathetic, but I was determined that it
should be adequately played.
I went to the fireplace and poked the fire into a blaze. Then, throwing
my hat on the table and lighting a cigarette, I regarded Julian
cynically.
"You're a nice sort of person, aren't you?" I said.
"What do you mean?" asked Julian, startled, as I had meant that he
should be, by the question.
I laughed.
"Aren't you just a little transparent, my dear Julian?"
He stared blankly.
I took up a position in front of the fire.
"Disloyalty," I said tolerantly, "where a woman is concerned, is in the
eyes of some people almost a negative virtue."
"I don't know what on earth you're talking about."
"Don't you?"
I was sorry for him all the time. In a curiously impersonal way I could
realise the depths to which I was sinking in putting this insult upon
him. But my better feelings were gagged and bound that night. The one
thought uppermost in my mind was that I must tell Julian of Eva, and
that by his story of Margaret he had given me an opening for making my
confession with the minimum of discomfort to myself.
It was pitiful to see the first shaft of my insinuation slowly sink
into him. I could see by the look in his eyes that he had grasped my
meaning.
"Jimmy," he gasped, "you can't think - are you joking?"
"I am not surprised at your asking that question," I replied
pleasantly. "You know how tolerant I am. But I'm not joking. Not that I
blame you, my dear fellow. Margaret is, or used to be, very
good-looking."
"You seem to be in earnest," he said, in a dazed way.
"My dear fellow," I said; "I have a certain amount of intuition. You
spend an hour here alone with Margaret. She is young, and very pretty.
You are placed immediately on terms of intimacy by the fact that you
have, in myself, a subject of mutual interest. That breaks the ice. You
are at cross-purposes, but your main sympathies are identical. Also,
you have a strong objective sympathy for Margaret. I think we may
presuppose that this second sympathy is stronger than the first. It
pivots on a woman, not on a man. And on a woman who is present, not on
a man who is absent. You see my meaning? At any rate, the solid fact
remains that she stayed an hour with you, whom she had met for the
first time today, and did not feel equal to meeting me, whom she has
loved for two years. If you want me to explain myself further, I have
no objection to doing so. I mean that you made love to her."
I watched him narrowly to see how he would take it. The dazed
expression deepened on his face.
"You are apparently sane," he said, very wearily. "You seem to be
sober."
"I am both," I said.
There was a pause.
"It's no use for me," he began, evidently collecting his thoughts with
a strong effort, "to say your charge is preposterous. I don't suppose
mere denial would convince you. I can only say, instead, that the
charge is too wild to be replied to except in one way, which is this.
Employ for a moment your own standard of right and wrong. I know your
love story, and you know mine. Miss Eversleigh, my cousin, is to me
what Miss Goodwin is to you - true as steel. My loyalty and my
friendship for you are the same as your loyalty and your friendship for
me."
"Well?"
"Well, if I have spent an hour with Miss Goodwin, you have spent more
than an hour with my cousin. What right have you to suspect me more
than I have to suspect you? Judge me by your own standard."
"I do," I said, "and I find myself still suspecting you."
He stared.
"I don't understand you."
"Perhaps you will when you have heard the piece of news which I
mentioned earlier in our conversation that I had for you."
"Well?"
"I proposed to your cousin at the Gunton-Cresswells's dance tonight,
and she accepted me."
The news had a surprising effect on Julian. First he blinked. Then he
craned his head forward in the manner of a deaf man listening with
difficulty.
Then he left the room without a word.
He had not been gone two minutes when there were three short, sharp
taps at my window.
Julian returned? Impossible. Yet who else could
have called on me at that hour?
I went to the front door, and opened it.
On the steps stood the Rev. John Hatton. Beside him Sidney Price. And,
lurking in the background, Tom Blake of the _Ashlade_ and
_Lechton_.
_(End of James Orlebar Cloister's narrative.)_
Sidney Price's Narrative
CHAPTER 17
A GHOSTLY GATHERING
Norah Perkins is a peach, and I don't care who knows it; but, all the
same, there's no need to tell her every little detail of a man's past
life. Not that I've been a Don What's-his-name. Far from it. Costs a
bit too much, that game. You simply can't do it on sixty quid a year,
paid monthly, and that's all there is about it. Not but what I don't
often think of going it a bit when things are slack at the office and
my pal in the New Business Department is out for lunch. It's the
loneliness makes you think of going a regular plunger. More than once,
when Tommy Milner hasn't been there to talk to, I tell you I've half a
mind to take out some girl or other to tea at the "Cabin." I have,
straight.
Yet somehow when the assist. cash. comes round with the wicker tray on
the 1st, and gives you the envelope ("Mr. Price") and you take out the
five sovereigns - well, somehow, there's such a lot of other things
which you don't want to buy but have just got to. Tommy Milner said the
other day, and I quite agree with him, "When I took my clean
handkerchief out last fortnight," he said, "I couldn't help totting up
what a lot I spend on trifles." That's it. There you've got it in a
nutshell. Washing, bootlaces, bus-tickets - trifles, in fact: that's
where the coin goes. Only the other morning I bust my braces. I was
late already, and pinning them together all but lost me the 9:16, only
it was a bit behind time. It struck me then as I ran to the station
that the average person would never count braces an expense.
Trifles - that's what it is.
No; I may have smoked a cig. too much and been so chippy next day that
I had to go out and get a cup of tea at the A.B.C.; or I may now and
again have gone up West of an evening for a bit of a look round; but
beyond that I've never been really what you'd call vicious. Very likely
it's been my friendship for Mr. Hatton that's curbed me breaking out as
I've sometimes imagined myself doing when I've been alone in the New
Business Room. Though I must say, in common honesty to myself, that
there's always been the fear of getting the sack from the "Moon." The
"Moon" isn't like some other insurance companies I could mention
which'll take anyone. Your refs. must be A1, or you don't stand an
earthly. Simply not an earthly. Besides, the "Moon" isn't an Insurance
Company at all: it's an _As_surance Company. Of course, now I've
chucked the "Moon" ("shot the moon," as Tommy Milner, who's the office
comic, put it) and taken to Literature I could do pretty well what I
liked, if it weren't for Norah.
Which brings me back to what I was saying just now - that I'm not sure
whether I shall tell her the Past. I may and I may not. I'll have to
think it over. Anyway, I'm going to write it down first and see how it
looks. If it's all right it can go into my autobiography. If it isn't,
then I shall lie low about it. That's the posish.
It all started from my friendship with Mr. Hatton - the Rev. Mr. Hatton.
If it hadn't have been for that man I should still be working out rates
of percentage for the "Moon" and listening to Tommy Milner's so-called
witticisms. Of course, I've cut him now. A literary man, a man who
supplies the _Strawberry Leaf_ with two columns of Social
Interludes at a salary I'm not going to mention in case Norah gets to
hear of it and wants to lash out, a man whose Society novels are
competed for by every publisher in London and New York - well, can a man
in that position be expected to keep up with an impudent little
ledger-lugger like Tommy Milner? It can't be done.
I first met the Reverend on the top of Box Hill one Saturday
afternoon. Bike had punctured, and the Reverend gave me the
loan of his cyclists' repairing outfit. We had our tea together.
Watercress, bread-and-butter, and two sorts of jam - one bob per
head. He issued an invite to his diggings in the Temple. Cocoa and
cigs. of an evening. Regular pally, him and me was. Then he got into
the way of taking me down to a Boys' Club that he had started.
Terrors they were, so to put it. Fair out-and-out terrors. But they
all thought a lot of the Reverend, and so did I. Consequently it was