"The play's on the other side, the crowd's on the other side, all the
fun's on the other side, and I am on this side with nothing more lively
than you, you little shivering idiot, for company."
Poppy St. John drew the spaniel's long silky ears through her fingers
slowly.
"I am bored, Cappadocia," she said, with a yawn which she made not the
slightest effort to stifle, "bored right through to my very marrow. Oh
dear, oh dear, oh dear, how I do wish something would happen!"
Poppy sat, propped up with scarlet silk cushions, in a cane deck-chair,
on the white-railed balcony upon which the first-floor bedroom windows
opened. Around her were strewn illustrated magazines and ladies'
papers; but unfortunately the stories in the former appeared to her
every bit as silly as the fashion-plates in the latter. Both had
equally little to do with life as the ordinary flesh and blood human
being lives it. She was filled with a rebellious sense of the banality
of her surroundings this afternoon. Even from her coign of vantage upon
the balcony, whence wide prospects disclosed themselves, everything
looked foolish, pointless, of the nature of an unpardonably stale joke.
The said balcony, divided into separate compartments by the
interposition of wooden barriers, extended the whole length of the
terrace of twenty-seven houses. And these were all precisely alike,
with white wood and stucco "enrichments," as the technical phrase has
it. Cheap stained and leaded glass adorned the upper panels of the
twenty-seven front doors, which were approached by twenty-seven flights
of steps--thus securing a measure of light and air to the twenty-seven
basements. The front doors were set in couples, alternating with
couples of bay windows. There was a determination of cheap smartness, a
smirking self-consciousness about the little houses, a suggestion of
having put on their best frocks and high-heeled shoes and standing very
much on tiptoe to attract attention. The balconies, narrow where the
upper bays encroached on them, wide where the house fronts were
recessed above the twin front doors, broke forth into a garland of
flower-boxes. Cascades of pink ivy-leaf geranium, creeping-jenny, and
nasturtiums backed by white or yellow Paris daisies, flowed outward
between the white ballusters and masked the edge of the woodwork. The
effect, though pretty, was not quite satisfactory--being suggestive of
millinery, of an over-trimmed summer hat.
Immediately below was the roadway, bordered by an asphalt pavement on
either side, then the high impenetrable oak paling, which had baffled
Dominic Iglesias' maiden effort at participation in the amusements of
the rich. From Poppy's balcony, however, the palings offered no
impediment to observation. All the green expanse of the smaller
polo-ground was visible. So was the whole height of the grove of
majestic elms on the right and the back of the club house; and, and the
left, between _massifs_ of shrubbery, a vista of lawns sloping towards
the river peopled by a sauntering crowd.
It was upon this last that Poppy directed her gaze. To the naked eye
the units composing it showed as vertical lines of grey, brown, and
black, blotted with bright delicate colour, and splashed here and there
with white, the whole mingling, uniting, breaking into fresh
combinations kaleidoscope fashion. Through the opera-glasses figures of
men, women, and horses detached themselves, becoming quaintly distinct,
neat as toys, an assemblage of elegant highly finished marionnettes.
There was a fascination in watching the movement of these brilliant,
clear-cut silent little things upon that amazingly verdant carpet of
grass. But it was a fascination which, for Poppy, had by now worn
somewhat thin. The interest proved too far away, too impersonal. Indeed
it may be questioned whether any who have not within themselves large
store of resignation, or of hope, can look on at gaiety, in which they
have no share, without first sadness and then pretty lively irritation.
And of those two most precious commodities, resignation and hope, Poppy
had but limited reserve stock at present. So she pulled the little
dog's ears rather hard and lamented:
"Oh! my good gracious me, if only something would happen!"
Then, the words hardly out of her mouth, she shot the much-enduring
Cappadocia off her lap and, restoring her elbows on the rails, leaned
right out over the balcony.
"Come here, dear beautiful lunatic, come here," she cried. "For pity's
sake don't pass by!"
Perhaps fortunately this very unconventional invitation was lost upon
Dominic Iglesias, soberly crossing the road with due observance of the
eccentricities of the drivers of motor-cars and riders of bicycles.
Looking up, he was aware of a vision quite sufficiently indicative of
welcome, without added indiscretion of words.--The white balustrade,
the trailing fringe of nasturtiums, succulent leaves and orange-scarlet
blossoms; the woman's bust and shoulders in her string-coloured lace
gown, her small face, curiously vivid in effect, capped by the heavy
masses of her black hair, her singular eyes full of light, the red of
her lips and tinge of stationary pink in her cheeks supplemented by a
glow of quick excitement. A few weeks ago the ascetic in Iglesias might
have taken alarm. Now it was different. He had his idea, and, walking
in the strength of it, dared adventure himself in neighbourhoods
otherwise slightly questionable.
Five minutes later Poppy advanced across the little drawing-room to
meet him.
"Well," she said, "of course you might have come sooner. But, equally
of course, you might never have come at all, so I won't quarrel with
you about the delay, though I would like you to know it has worried me
a good deal."
"Has it? I am sorry for that," Dominic answered gravely.
"Yes, be sorry, be sorry," she repeated. "It is comfortable to hear you
say so."
She looked at him with the utmost frankness, took his hand and led him
to a settee filling in the right angle between the fireplace and the
double doors at the back of the room.
"Sit down," she said, "and let us talk. Have another cushion--so--and
if you're good I'll give you tea presently. And understand, you needn't
be careful of yourself. I'll play perfectly fair with you. I've been
thinking it all out during this time you didn't come; and I never go
back on my word once given. So, look here, you needn't account for
yourself in any way. I don't even want to know your name--specially I
don't want to know that. It might localise you, and I don't want to
have you localised. Directly a person is localised it takes away their
restfulness to one. One begins to see just all the places where they
belong to somebody else, notice-boards struck up everywhere warning one
to keep off the grass. And that's a nuisance. It raises Old Nick in
one, and makes one long to commit all manner of wickedness which would
never have entered one's head otherwise."
Poppy held her hands palm to palm between her knees, glancing at
Dominic Iglesias now and again sideways as she spoke. The bodice of her
dress, cut slightly _en coeur_, showed the nape of her neck, and the
whole of her throat, which was smooth and rounded though rather long.
Her make altogether was that not uncommon to London girls of the lower
middle-class: small-boned and possibly anæmic, but prettily moulded,
and with an attraction of over-civilisation as of hot-house-grown
plants. Just now her head seemed bowed down by the weight of her dark
hair, as she sat gathered together, making herself small as a child
will when concentrating its mind to the statement of some serious
purpose.
"I've knocked about a lot," she went on. "It's right you should know
that. And there's not very much left to tell me about a number of
things not usually set down in conversation books designed for
_débutants_. But just on that account I may be rather useful to you in
some ways.--Don't go and be offended now, there's a dear, good man,"
she added coaxingly. "Because judging by what you told me the other
day, there's no doubt that, under some heads, you are very much of a
_débutant_."
"I suppose I am," Iglesias said slowly. It was very strange to him to
find himself in so sudden and close an intimacy with this at once so
wise and so artificial woman creature. But he had his idea. Moreover,
increasingly he trusted her.
"Of course you are," she asserted. "That's just where the beauty of it
all comes in. You're the veriest infant. One has only to look into your
face to see that.--Don't go and freeze up now. You belong to another
order of doctrine and practice to that current in contemporary society."
Poppy gazed at the floor, still making herself small, the palms of her
hands pressed together between her knees.
"And that's just why you can be useful to me, awfully useful, if you
choose--I don't mean money, business, anything of the kind. I'm
perfectly competent to manage my own affairs, thank you. But you're
good for me, somehow. You rest me."
She began to rock herself gently backwards and forwards, but without
taking the heels of her shoes off the ground.
"Yes, you rest me, you rest me," she repeated.
"I am glad," Iglesias said. He felt soberly pleased, thankful almost.
Again Poppy glanced at him sideways.
"Yes, I believe you are," she said. "And that shows things have
happened to you--in you, more likely--since we last met. You have come
on a great piece."
"I doubt if I have come on, so much as gone back, to influences of long
ago," he answered; "to things which had been overlaid by the dust of my
working years almost to the point of obliteration."
"Was it pleasant to go back?" Poppy asked.
"Not at all. The going was painful. It required some courage to brush
off the dust."
"It usually does require courage--at least that's my experience--to
brush off the dust."
Dominic Iglesias made no immediate answer. He was a little startled at
his companion's acute reading of him, a little touched by her
confidence. Her words seemed to suggest the possibility of a
relationship which fitted in admirably with the development of his
idea. He sat looking away across the room, and, doing so, became aware
that the said room possessed unexpected characteristics, calculated to
elucidate his impressions of its owner's character. It was a man's room
rather than a woman's, innocent of furbelows and frills. Two low, wide
settees, well furnished with cushions and upholstered in dark
yellowish-red tapestry, fitted into the corners on either side the
double doors. A couple of large armchairs and a revolving book-table
occupied the centre of the room. An upright piano, in an ebonised case,
draped across the back with an Indian phulkari--discs of looking-glass
set in coarsely worked yellow eyelet holes forming the border of
it--stood at right angles to the wall just short of the bay window. In
the window, placed slant-wise, was a carved black oak writing-table, a
long row of photographs stuck up against the back shelf of it. The
walls were hung with a set of William Nicolson's prints, strong, dark,
distinct, slightly sinister in effect; a fine etching of Jean François
Millet's _Gleaners_; and, in noticeable contrast to this last, a
mezzotint of Romney's picture of Lady Hamilton spinning. Upon the
book-table were a silver ash-tray and cigarette-box. The air was
unquestionably impregnated with the odour of tobacco, which the burning
of scent-sticks quite failed to dissemble.
While Mr. Iglesias thus noted the details of his surroundings, his
companion observed him, closely, intently. Suddenly she flung herself
back against the piled-up cushions.
"Let the dust lie, let it lie," she cried, almost shrilly. And as
Dominic turned to her, surprised at her vehemence, she added, "Yes,
it's safest so. Let it lie till it grows thick, carpeting all the
surface, so that, treading on it, one's footsteps are muffled, making
no sound!"
Poppy jumped up, crossed swiftly to the writing-table, swept the long
row of photographs together and pushed them into a drawer.
"There you go, face downwards, every man Jack of you," she said. "And,
for all I care, there you may stay."
Then she turned round, confronting Dominic Iglesias, who had risen
also, her head carried high, her teeth set.
"You may not grasp the connection of ideas--I don't the very least see
how you should, and I've no extra special wish that you should. But you
must just take my word for it that's one way of thickening the dust, in
my particular case, and not half a bad way either!"
She pushed the heavy masses of her hair up from her forehead, crossed
the little room again and stood before Iglesias smiling, her hands
clasped behind her back.
"Yes, you rest me," she said, "you do, even more than I expected. I
wanted awfully to see you; and yet I was half afraid if I did we
mightn't pull the thing off. But we are going to pull it off, aren't
we?"
This direct appeal demanded a direct answer; and Iglesias, looking down
at her, felt nerved to a certain steadiness of resolve.
"Yes, we are," he said gravely. "That, at least, is my purpose. I have
very few friends. I should value a new one." Then he added, with a
certain hesitancy, "I am glad you are not disappointed."
"Ah! you have come on--not a question about it," Poppy cried. "Sit down
again. You needn't go yet. And we are through with disturbances for
this afternoon anyhow. An anti-cyclone, as the weather reports put it,
is extending over all our coasts. I feel quite happy. Let me enjoy the
anti-cyclone while it lasts--and I'll give you your tea."
But of that tea Dominic Iglesias was fated not to drink. A ring at the
bell, a parley at the front door, followed by the advent of an elderly
parlourmaid bearing a card on a small lacquer tray.
"His lordship says if you're engaged he could wait a little, ma'am. But
he wants particularly to see you to-day."
Poppy took the card, glanced at it, and then at Dominic Iglesias.
"I'm afraid, I'm awfully afraid I shall have to let you go," she said.
She took both his hands, and holding them, without pressure but with a
great friendliness, went on: "Don't be offended, or you'll make me
miserable. But he's an old friend; and he's been a perfect brick to
me--stood by me through all my worst luck. I can't send him away. You
won't be off ended?"
"No," Iglesias said.
"And you will come again? You make me feel all smooth and good. You
promise you'll come?"
"Yes," Iglesias said.
In the narrow passage a tall, eminently well-dressed middle-aged
gentleman stood aside to let him pass. Dominic Iglesias received the
impression of a very handsome person, whose possible insolence of
bearing received agreeable modification, thanks to the expression of
kindly humorous eyes and a notably beautiful mouth.
Upon the centre table of the square first-floor sitting-room at Cedar
Lodge a note awaited Mr. Iglesias, addressed in George Lovegrove's neat
business hand.
"Dear old friend," it ran--"the wife asks you to take supper with us
to-morrow night. Step across as early as you like. My cousin, Miss
Serena Lovegrove, is paying us a visit. Yours faithfully, G. L.--N. B.
Come as you are: no ceremony. G. L."