brains were constantly and secretly occupied in weaving exotic and
sentimental romances round herself. If in her walks she received the
casual homage of a stare from a passer-by in the street, she flamed with
unsubstantial surmises. Positively there was nothing too silly for her;
if the passer-by was shabby and disordered she saw in him an eccentric
millionaire or a mysterious baronet, casting glances of respectful
adoration at her; if he was well-dressed and pleasant to the eye she
saw--well, she saw another one. There would be a wild and fevered
courtship, at the end of which, in a mist of rice and wedding-bells, she
would enter the magnificent Rolls-Royce and drive away, a lady of title,
between the lines of the guard of honour furnished by her unfortunate
sisters.
She kept these lurid imaginings strictly to herself, aware that neither
Florence nor Mary nor Diana nor Jane nor Queenie would extend a
sympathetic hearing to them. As far as that went she was sensible
enough, for her imagination, lurid as it was, was right in anticipating
a very flat and stern reception for them if she confided them to her
sisters. But since she never ran the risk of having them dispersed by
homely laughter, her day-dreams became more and more real to her, and
at the age of twenty-two she was, in a word, silly enough for anything.
Then the amazing thing happened. A real baronet, a concrete,
middle-aged, wealthy, delicate baronet who was accustomed to dine at the
Non-Commissioned Officers’ mess once or twice in the season, proposed to
her, and it appeared that all her imaginings had not been so silly after
all. She accepted him without the smallest hesitation, feeling that
‘faith had vanished into sight.’ Besides, her mother was quite firm on
the subject.
Sir Gilbert Falcon (such was his prodigious name) was a hypochondriac of
perfectly amiable disposition, and his Winny-pinny, as he fatuously
called her, was at first extremely contented. He treated her like a toy,
when he was well enough to pay any attention to her; and in the manner
of a little girl with her doll, he loved dressing her up in silks and
jewels, with an admiration that was half child-like, half senile, and
completely unmanly. It pleased his vanity that he, a little, withered,
greenish man, should have secured so young and pretty a wife, and
finding that green suited her, gave her his best jade necklace, the
beads of which were perfectly matched, and represented years of patient
collecting. He gave her also for her lifelong adornment the famous
Falcon pearls, which pleased her much more. She wore the jade by day,
and the pearls in the evening, and he would totter after her, when he
felt well enough, into the Rolls-Royce (for the Rolls-Royce had come
true also) and take her to dine at the Savoy. Afterwards, when he had
drunk his tonic, which he had brought with him in a little bottle, he
often felt sufficiently robust to go on to a revue, where he took a box.
There he would sit, with a shawl wrapped around his knees, and hold her
hand, and tell her that none of the little ladies on the stage were half
so enchanting as his Winny-pinny.
Of course he could not indulge in such debauches every night, and the
evenings were many when they dined at home and he went to bed at
half-past nine. Then when he was warmly tucked up with a hot-water
bottle, and an eider-down quilt, he would like her to sit with him, and
read to him till he got drowsy. Then he would say, ‘I’m getting near
Snooze-land, Winny: shall we just talk a little, until you see me
dropping off? And then, my dear, if you want to go out to some ball or
party, by all means go, and dance away. Such a strong little Winny-pinny
to dance all night, and be a little sunbeam all day--’ And his wrinkled
eyelids would close, and his mouth fall open, and he would begin to
snore. On which his Winny-pinny gently got up, and after shading the
light from the bed, left the room.
At first she was vastly contented. Being a quite unreal little creature
herself, it seemed delicious that her husband should call her his fairy
and his Winny-pinny and his sunbeam, and only require of her little
caresses and butterfly-kisses and squeezes. All the secret sentimental
imaginings of her girlhood seemed to be translated into actual life; the
world was very much on the lines of the day-dreams she had never
ventured to tell her sisters. But by degrees fresh horizons opened, and
her imagination, reinforced by continuous reading of all the sentimental
trash that she could find in circulating libraries, began to frame all
sorts of new adventures for herself. Just as, in her girlhood, she had
had visions of baronets and millionaires casting glances of hopeless
adoration at her in the streets, so now, when she had got her baronet
all right, she still clung to the idea of others looking at her with
eyes of silent longing. She decided (in a strictly imaginative sense) to
have a lover who pined for her.
Now with her pretty meaningless face, pink and white, with her large
china-blue eyes, and yellow hair, it was but natural that there were
many men who looked with interest and admiration at her, and were very
well content to sit and talk to her in secluded corners at the balls to
which she so often went alone. After a few days’ indecision she settled
that the hopeless and pining swain (for she was determined to be a
faithful wife, that being part of the romance) should be Joe Bailey, a
pale and willowy young soldier, who spent most of the day at the
manicurist and most of the night in London ball-rooms. From the first
time she had seen him, so she now told herself, having adopted him as
her lover, she had known that there was some secret sympathy between
them; a chord (this came out of the circulating library) vibrated
between their two souls. His pallor was instantly accounted for, so too
was the tenderness with which he held her hand when they danced
together: in spite of his noble reticence his soul had betrayed its
secret to her.
After a week or two of noble reticence on his part, she came to the
conclusion that she must also pine for him, else there would be no
nobility in her fixed determination to be faithful to her husband. She
flattered herself that she was getting on nicely with this, when the
most dreadful thing happened, for Joe Bailey became engaged to somebody
quite different, a real live girl with a great appetite, whose
vocabulary was chiefly confined to the word ‘top-hole.’ Winifred herself
was ‘top-hole,’ so was Joe Bailey, so were dogs, golfin’ and dancin’.
Anything that was not ‘top-hole’ was ‘beastly.’
This was very disconcerting, and seeking safety in numbers Winifred
decided to have quantities of lovers, for it was not likely that they
should all go and marry somebody else. To ensure greater security she
included in her list several married men, who had met her too late. Thus
amply provided, she plunged into a new set of adventures.
The situation thus created was truly thrilling, and the thrill was
augmented by amorous little sallies on her husband’s part. His nerve
tonic suited him, and about this time he used often to go out to dinner
with her, and even come on for an hour to a ball, where he sat in a
corner, feeding his vitality with the sight of all the youth and energy
that whirled in front of him. He liked seeing his Winny-pinny enjoy
herself, and gave little squeals of delight when he saw her dancing (her
dancing was really admirable) with a series of vigorous young men. Then
as they drove away together (for when he went to a ball with her, she
had to come away with him) he would squeeze her hand and say:
‘Who was that last young man my Winny-pinny danced with? And who was it
in the dance before who looked at her so fondly? And who was it she sat
out with all that time? But her old man was watching her: oh, he had his
eye on her!’
Here then was the thrill of thrills in the new situation. Gilbert had
noticed how many men were in love with her. And before long she added to
herself the almost inevitable corollary, ‘Gilbert is so terribly
jealous.’
But in spite of Gilbert’s terrible jealousy, and the suffocating crowds
of lovers, nothing particular happened. The lovers all remained nobly
reticent, and a fresh desire entered her circulating-library soul. She
must get talked about: people other than Gilbert must notice the fatal
spell that she exercised broadcast over the adoring males of London: she
must get compromised, somehow or other she must get compromised.
According to the circulating library there was nothing easier. A note
with a few passionate words addressed to her had only to be picked up
by somebody else’s wife, or somebody else’s husband had only to be found
on his knees at midnight in her boudoir (a word she affected) and the
thing was done. But, as always, it was the _premier pas qui coûte_, and
these enchanting situations, she supposed, had to be led up to. A total
stranger would not go on his knees at midnight in her boudoir, or leave
passionate notes about; she had to rouse in another the emotion on which
were built those heavenly summits, and begin, so to speak, in the
valleys.
At this point a wonderful piece of luck came her way. The faithless Joe
Bailey had his engagement broken off. It was generally supposed that the
top-hole girl found him beastly, but Winifred knew better. She felt
convinced that he had broken it off on her account, finding that
passionate celibacy was the only possible condition for one who had met
her too late. Here was an avenue down which compromise might enter, and
when in answer to a broad hint of hers, he asked her to play golf with
him at Richmond, she eagerly consented.
The plan was that he should lunch with Sir Gilbert and herself, and Sir
Gilbert held out hopes that if it was not too hot, he would drive down
with them, sit on the verandah, or perhaps walk a hole or two with
them, and drive back again at the conclusion of their game. But these
hopes were shattered or--should it be said--more exciting hopes were
gloriously mended, for an inspection of the thermometer convinced him
that it would be more prudent to stay indoors till the heat of the day
waned. So she and Joe Bailey drove off together in the Rolls-Royce.
She looked anxiously round as they left the door in Grosvenor Square.
‘I wonder if it was wise of us to come in this car,’ she said, timidly.
Bailey looked critically round.
‘Why not,’ he said rather stupidly. ‘Quite a good car, isn’t it?’
Clearly he was not awake to the danger.
‘Oh, yes,’ she said, ‘but people are so ill-natured. They might think it
odd for you and me to be driving about in Gilbert’s car.’
He was still odiously obtuse.
‘Well, they couldn’t expect us to walk all the way to Richmond, could
they?’ he said.
To her great delight, Winifred saw at this moment a cousin of her
husband’s, and bowed and waved her hand and kissed her fingers. She sat
very much back as she did this so that Florrie Falcon, who had a
proverbially unkind tongue, could clearly see the young man who sat by
her side. That made her feel a little better, for it was even more
important that other people should see her in the act of doing
compromising things, than that he with whom she compromised herself
should be aware of the fact. During their game again they came across
several people whom Bailey or she knew, who, it was to be hoped, would
mention the fact that they had been seen together.
It was a distinct disappointment to poor Winifred that this daring
escapade seemed to have attracted so little notice, but she did not
despair. A further glorious opportunity turned up indeed only a day or
two later, for her husband was threatened with what he called a
bronchial catarrh (more usually known as a cough) and departed
post-haste to spend a couple of days at Brighton. Winifred, so it
happened, was rather full of engagements, and he readily fell in with
her wish to stop in town, and not to accompany him. So, the moment she
had ceased kissing her fingertips to him as he drove away in the
Rolls-Royce with all the windows hermetically closed, she ran back into
the house, and planned a daring scheme. She telephoned to Lady
Buckhampton’s, where she was dining and dancing that night, to say her
husband had this tiresome bronchial catarrh, and that she was going down
to Brighton with him, and, while the words were scarcely spoken,
telephoned to Joe Bailey asking him to dine with them. He accepted,
suggesting that they should go to the first-night at the Criterion after
dinner, and then go on to the Buckhamptons’ dance.
A perfect orgie of compromising situations swam before her, more
thrilling even than the famous kneeling scene in her boudoir at
midnight. She would go to the Criterion with her unsuspecting lover,
where certainly there would be many people who would go on to the
Buckhampton dance afterwards. They would all have seen her and Joe
Bailey together, and even if they did not, he in the babble of ball-room
conversation would doubtless popularise the fact of their having been
there together. He might even tell Lady Buckhampton, whose invitation,
on the plea of absence at Brighton with her husband, she had excused
herself from, about this daring adventure.
The mere material performance of this evening came up to the brilliance
of its promise. All sorts of people saw her and her companion, and the
play happening by divine fitness to be concerned with a hero who backed
out of his engagement at the last moment because he loved somebody
else, Winifred could scarcely be expected not to turn blue eyes that
swam with sympathy on her poor Joe. But again this hopeless young man
did not understand, and whispered to know if she wanted sixpenny-worth
of opera-glasses. He saw her home--this she had not contemplated--and
sat with her in the barren boudoir, smoking a cigarette. Surely now he
would slide on to his knees? But he did not, and went to his ball. There
he actually told Lady Buckhampton that he had dined and been to the play
with Lady Falcon, and she only laughed and said, ‘Dear little Winny! She
told me some nonsense about going to Brighton with her husband.
How-de-_do_? _How_-de-do? So nice of you to have come.’
Then it is true Winny almost despaired of this particular lover. She
made one more frantic effort when she met him next day at lunch, and
said, ‘You must talk to your neighbour more. People will notice,’ but
this only had the effect of making him talk to his neighbour, which was
not what she meant.
She decided to give another lover a chance, and selected Herbert Ashton,
a somewhat older man, who no doubt would understand her better. Several
encouraging circumstances happened here, for her husband more than once
remarked on the frequency with which he came to the house, and she
thought one day that Lady Buckhampton cut her in the Park. This joy, it
is true, was of short duration, for Lady Buckhampton asked her to spend
the week-end with them next day, and she was forced to conclude that the
cut had not been an intentional one. But it stimulated her to imagine a
very touching scene in which Herbert, when they were alone together in
the boudoir, was to say, ‘This is killing me,’ and fold her in his arms.
For one moment she would yield to his fervent embrace, the next she
would pluck herself from him and say, ‘Herbert, I am a married woman: we
met too late!’ On which he would answer, ‘Forgive me, my dearest: I
behaved like a cad.’
And then the most dreadful thing of all happened, for part, at any rate,
of her imaginings came true. She was with Herbert shortly afterwards in
her boudoir, and in ordinary decent response to a quantity of little
sighs and glances and glances away and affinity-gabble on her part, he
had given her a good sound proper kiss. But it was real; it was as
different as possible from all the tawdry tinsel sentimentalities which
she had for years indulged in, and it simply terrified her. She gave
one little squeal, and instead of yielding for a moment to his fervent
embrace, and saying, ‘Herbert, I am a married woman, etc.,’ cried, ‘Oh,
Mr. Ashton!’ which was very bald.
He looked at her completely puzzled. He felt certain she meant him to
kiss her, and had done so.
‘I’m sorry,’ he said, ‘I thought you wouldn’t mind.’
A dreadful silence overcharged with pathos followed. Then recovering
herself a little, she remembered her part.
‘You must go now,’ she said faintly, with a timid glance that was meant
to convey the struggle she was going through. But unfortunately he only
said ‘Right oh,’ and went.
Since that day she has always retreated in time to prevent anything real
occurring. But she cannot succeed in getting talked about in connection
with anybody. The instinct of London generally, often at fault, is here
perfectly correct. She can’t be compromised--no one will believe
anything against a woman so mild. And all the time, in the clutch of her
sentimental temperament, she sees herself the heroine of great
romances. Lately she has been reading Dante (in a translation) and
feels that England lacks someone like the mighty Florentine poet, for
his Beatrice is waiting for him....
It is all rather sad for poor Winny-pinny. It is as if she desired the
rainbow that hangs athwart the thundercloud. But ever, as faint yet
pursuing she attempts to approach, it recedes with equal speed. Indeed,
it is receding faster than she pursues now, for her hair is getting to
be of dimmer gold, and the skin at the outer corners of those poor eyes,
ever looking out for unreal lovers, is beginning faintly to suggest the
aspect of a muddy lane, when a flock of sheep have walked over it,
leaving it trodden and dinted.
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE GRIZZLY KITTENS
A fount of perennial youthfulness has been and will be the blessing and
curse of certain people’s existence. Up to the age of about thirty-five
for a woman and round about forty for a man, it is an admirable thing to
feel that the morning of life is still lingering in rosy cloudlets about
you, but when these austere ages have been arrived at, it is wiser for
those who still behave like imperishable children to recollect,
impossible though they will find the realisation of it without
exercising patience and determination, that, though their immortal souls
are doubtless imperishable, they are no longer boys and girls. Otherwise
the dreadful fate of becoming grizzly kittens will soon lay ambushes for
them, and to be a grizzly kitten does not produce at all the same
impression as being an imperishable child. Like Erin in the song and
King David in the psalm, they should remember and consider the days of
old, and attempt quietly and constantly to do a little subtraction sum,
whereby they will ascertain how far the days of old have receded from
them. Their spring-tide has ebbed a long way since then: they are
swimming in it no longer, they are not even paddling, but they are
standing just a little gaunt and skinny high up on the beach, with
wisps of dry sea-weed whistling round their emaciated ankles. Almost
invariably those threatened with grizzly kittenhood are spare and thin,
for this fact encourages the pathetic delusion that they have youthful
figures, and in a dim light, to eyes that are losing their early
pitilessness of vision they doubtless seem slim and youthful to
themselves, though they rarely present this appearance to each other.
But it is very uncommon to find a stout grizzly kitten: amplitude makes
it impossible to skip about, and cannot be so readily mistaken by its
hopeful possessors for youthful slimness.
Imperishable children, who are threatened with grizzly kittenhood, are,
like other children and kittens, male and female. At this stage great
indulgence must be extended to them whichever their sex may be, for
their error is based upon vitality, which, however misapplied, is in
itself the most attractive quality in the world. That they have no sense
of time is in comparison a smaller consideration. For they are always
cheerful, always optimistic, and if, at the age of forty, they have a
slight tendency to say that events of twenty years ago are shrouded in
the mists of childhood and the nursery, this is but an amiable failing,
and one that is far easier to overlook than many of the more angular
virtues. Of the two the female grizzly kitten (in the early stages of
the complaint) is entitled to greater kindliness than her grizzly
brother, for the obvious reason that in the fair of Mayfair the
merry-go-round and the joy-wheel slow down for women sooner than they do
for men. Thus the temptation to a woman of behaving as if it was not
slowing down, is greater than to a man. It will go on longer for him; he
has less excuse--since he has had a longer joy-ride--for pretending that
it is still quite at its height of revolving giddiness. She--if she is
gifted with the amazing vitality which animates grizzly kittens--can
hardly help still screaming and clapping her hands and changing hats,
when first the hurdy-gurdy and the whirling begin to slacken, in order
to persuade herself that they are doing nothing of the sort. If she is
wise, she will of course slip off the joy-wheel and, like Mr.
Wordsworth, ‘only find strength in what remains behind.’ But if she did
that, the danger of her grizzly kittenhood would be over. Pity her then,
when first the slowing-down process begins, but give less pity to the
man who will not accept the comparatively kinder burden of his
middle-age. Besides, when the early stages of grizzly kittenhood are
past, the woman who still clings to her skippings and her rheumatic
antics after blind-tassels has so much the harder gymnastics to perform.
Two sad concrete examples of grizzly-kittenhood, both in advanced
stages, await our commiseration. Mrs. Begum (née Adeline Armstrong) is
the first. From her childhood the world conspired to make a grizzly
kitten of her, and in direct contravention of the expressed wishes of
her godfather and godmother who said she was to be Adeline, insisted on
calling her Baby. Baby Armstrong she accordingly remained until the age
of twenty-five, when she became Baby Begum, and she never got further
from that odious appellation, at her present age of fifty-two, than
being known as Babs, while even now her mother, herself the grizzliest
of all existing kittens, calls her Baby still.