theater and all its doings, but he had come to them on the crest of a
violent wave of reaction and had been apt to set them against and
above everything in the world that was solid and stolid and workaday.
It had been enchanted for him by Matilda, and she had in June Street
set an even more potent spell upon him and wafted him not into any
kingdom of the imagination, but into the warm heart of life itself. In
the Copas world he had made no allowance for children: in June Street,
in dull industrial respectability, children were paramount. They
surrounded Matilda and set him, in his slow fashion, tingling to the
marvel of her. His response to this miracle took the form of a desire
to open his pockets to the children. He took out a handful of money,
and had selected five shillings when the door opened and a man
entered, a dark, white-faced, thin-lipped man, with dirty hands and an
aggressive jut of the shoulders.
"Ye've been tea-partying, I see," said the man.
Old Mole explained his identity. The man put his head out of the door
and yelled to his wife. She returned with Matilda, but the children
did not come. James Boothroyd ignored the visitors to his house and
said to his cowering wife:
"You'll clean up yon litter an' you'll lock t'door. What'll neighbors
say of us? I don't know these folk. You'll lock t'door and then you'll
gi' me me tea in t'kitchen."
There was no sign of anger in the man. He had taken in the situation
at a glance and was concerned only to bring it to the issue he
desired. His relations by marriage were spotted by a world which he
shunned as darkest Hell, and he would have none of them.
With as much dignity as he could muster, Old Mole led his wife out
into June Street. He was filled only with pity for Bertha.
Said Matilda: "Didn't I tell you he was a devil?"
Later in their lodging he asked her:
"Are all the men in those streets like that?"
"If they're religious, they're like that. If they're not religious
they're drunk. If they're not drunk you never know when they're going
to leave you. That's the sort of life I came out of and that's the
sort of life I'm never going back into if I can help it."
"You won't need to, my dear."
"You never know."
With which disquieting assurance he was left to reflect that she
seemed to have been as much upset by her visit to June Street as
himself. He was tormented by a vision of England, this little isle,
the home of heroes and great men, groaning beneath the weight of miles
of such streets and sinking under the tread of millions of men like
James Boothroyd. Lustily he strove for a cool, intellectual
consideration of it all, a point from which the network of the meanish
streets of the cities of England could be seen as justifiable,
necessary, and unto their own ends sufficient, but, seen from the
Copas world, they were repulsive and harsh; viewed through Matilda
they were touched with magic.
They were both unsettled and passed through days of irritation when
they came perilously near to quarreling. In the end they made it up
and found that they had conquered new territory for intimacy. On that
territory they discussed their marriage, and he told her that he would
like her to have a child. She burst into tears, and confessed that
after her calamity the doctor had told her it was very improbable she
ever would. He was for so long silent on that, being numbed by the
sudden chill at his heart, that she took alarm and came and knelt at
his side and implored him to forgive her, and said that if he did not
she would go out on to the railway or into the canal. Then he, too,
wept, and they held each other close and sobbed out that the world was
very, very cruel, but they must be all in all to each other. And he
said they would go away and settle down in some pretty place and live
quietly and happily together right away from towns and theaters and
everything. She shook her head, and, with the tears streaming down her
cheeks, she said: No, she did not want to be a lady; at least, not
that sort of a lady. He made many suggestions, but always her mind
flew ahead of his, and she had constructed some horrid sort of a
picture of the existence it would entail. At last he gave it up and
said he supposed if there was to be a change it would come of its own
accord.
It came.
Mrs. Copas, quite suddenly and for no apparent reason, decided that
she was middle-aged, entirely altered her style of dressing and doing
her hair, and, as the outward and visible sign of the advent of her
maturity, set her heart on a black silk gown. She cajoled and teased
and bullied her husband, but in vain. He was replenishing the
theatrical wardrobe and could not be led to take any interest in hers.
She pursued Mr. Mole with hints and flattery, but he could not or
would not see her purpose. He had decided that Matilda should be
dressed in a style more befitting his wife than she had adopted
heretofore, and was spending many happy and weary hours in the shops
patronized by the wives of clerks and well-to-do tradespeople.
Incidentally he discovered a great deal about what women wear and its
powerful influence over their whole being. In her new clothes Matilda
was more dignified, more handsome, more certain of herself, and she
gained in grace. . . . Mrs. Copas took to haunting their lodgings and
was nearly always there when a new hat or a new jacket came home from
the shops. She would insist on Matilda's trying them on, and would go
into loud ecstatic praise and long reminiscences of the fine garments
she had had when she was a young woman, and Mr. Copas was the most
attentive husband in the world.
An old peacock without its tail is a sorry sight, and the young birds
scorn him. Matilda did not exactly scorn her aunt, but her continued
presence was an irritant. She was not yet at her ease in the
possession of many fine clothes and was entirely set on gaining the
mastery of them and of the accession of personality they brought. Mrs.
Copas was a clog upon this desire, and therefore when, after many
hints and references, she came suddenly to the point and asked
pointblank for a loan of four pounds wherewith to buy a black silk
gown, Matilda flushed with anger and exasperation and replied curtly
that her husband was not made of money.
"No, dearie, I know, but I'd so set my heart on a black silk gown."
And the towsled old creature looked so pathetic and disappointed that
Matilda was on the point of yielding; but indeed she was really
alarmed at the amount of money that had been spent--more than twenty
pounds--and she followed up her reply with a firm No.
Mrs. Copas took it ill, and set herself to making things unpleasant
for Mr. Mole and his wife. She had control of affairs behind scenes
and also of the commissariat, and it was not long before she had
provoked a quarrel. Matilda told her she was a disagreeable old woman;
to which she hit back with:
"Some women don't care how they get husbands."
Following on that there was such a sparring and snarling that in the
end Mr. Copas declared that his theater was not big enough for the two
of them, and that Matilda must either eat her words and beg her aunt's
pardon or go. As the most injurious insults had come from her aunt,
Matilda kicked against the injustice of this decree and flounced away.
She said nothing to her husband of what had taken place. They were at
the beginning of December, and already the hoardings of the town were
covered with announcements of the approaching annual pantomime at the
principal theater, together with the names of the distinguished
artistes engaged. Matilda dressed herself in her very smartest and for
the first time donned the musquash toque, tippet and muff she had been
given. They were the first furs she had ever possessed, and she felt
so grand in them that she was shy of wearing them. When she had walked
along several streets and seen herself in a shop window or two, they
gave her courage for her purpose, and she told herself that she was,
after all, as good as anyone else who might be wanting to do the work,
set her chin in the air, went to the theater, and asked to see the
manager. The doorkeeper had instructions not to turn away anything
that looked promising and only to reject those who looked more than
thirty-five and obviously had no chance of looking pretty even behind
the footlights. He did not reject Matilda. She was shown into the
manager's presence, stated her wishes and accomplishments and
experience. The manager did not invite her either to sing or to dance,
but asked her if she minded what she wore. She had seen pantomimes in
Thrigsby, and she said she did not mind.
"All right, my dear," said the manager, who was good looking, young,
but pale and weary in expression. And Matilda found herself engaged
for the chorus at one pound a week.
She told Lomas first, and he was delighted. When it came to her
husband she found it rather difficult to tell him, was half afraid
that he would forbid her to pursue the adventure, and half ashamed,
after his great kindness, of having acted without consulting him.
However, she was determined to go on with it and to uproot him from
the Copas theater. She began by telling him of her quarrel with her
aunt.
"I thought that was bound to happen," he said.
"Yes. It came to that that uncle said I must go. What do you think
I've done?"
"Bought a new dress?"
"No. Better than that."
"Made friends with the Lord Mayor?"
"Funny! No."
"What have you done, then?"
"I've got an engagement at the theater, the real, big theater where
they have a proper stage, and a stage door and a box office, and a
manager who wears evening dress."
"Indeed? And for how long?"
"It may be for ten weeks and it may be for thirteen. It was fifteen
last year."
"And what am I to do?"
She had not thought about him and was nonplussed. However, he needed
very little cajoling before he gave his consent to her plan, and she
told him that if he got bored he could easily go away by himself and
come back when he wasn't bored any longer. Inwardly he felt that the
difficulty was not going to be so easily settled as all that, but he
was on the whole relieved to be rid of Mr. Copas, who had arranged to
move on as soon as the pantomime opened to the distraction of the
public and the devastation of his business. When Mr. Mole announced
his intention of remaining the actor was affronted and refused to
speak to him again. Matilda said, a little maliciously, that he was
afraid of being asked for the money he owed them, and that was her
parting shot after Mrs. Copas, who got her own back with the loud
sneer in Mr. Mole's presence:
"There's not many married women would wear tights and not many
husbands would let 'em."
Old Mole gasped, and looked forward with dread to the first
performance of the pantomime. He was spared the indignity of tights,
for the fifty women in the chorus were divided into "girls" and
"boys," in accordance with their size, and Matilda was a "girl." She
took her work very seriously, put far more energy into it than she had
ever done into "Iphigenia" or "Josephine." The theater, one of the
largest in England, awed her by the size of its machinery, and she was
excited and impressed by all the talk and gossip she heard of the
doings of the theaters and the halls. She disliked most of her
colleagues in the chorus, and of the principals only one was not too
exalted to take notice of her. This was a young actor named,
professionally, Carlton Timmis (pronounced Timms), who played the
Demon King. He was very attentive and kind to her, and when she asked
if she might introduce him to her husband he was obviously dismayed,
but expressed himself as delighted. He was a rather beautiful young
man and very romantic, and he and Old Mole found much to talk of
together.
"You can't think," said Timmis, "what a relief it is to meet a man
with a soul. Among all those idiots one is parched, withered, dried
up."
And much the same thought was in Old Mole's mind. Looking back he was
astonished that he could for so long have tolerated the unintelligent
society in which he had been cast. Timmis had decided, if erratic,
opinions, and he loved nothing better than gloomily to grope after
philosophical conceptions. Being very young and unsuccessful, he was
pessimistic and clutched eagerly at everything which encouraged him in
his belief in a world blindly responding to some mysterious law of
destruction. Old Mole was inclined toward optimistic Deism and
materialism, and they struck sparks out of each other, Timmis moving
in a whirl of nebulous ideas, and his interlocutor moving so slowly
that, by contrast, he seemed almost rigid.
"Take myself," Timmis would say. "Can there be any sense in a world
which condemns me to play the Demon King in an idiotic pantomime, or
indeed in a world which demands, indulges, encourages, delights in
such driveling nonsense as that same pantomime?"
"There is room for everything in the world, which is very large,"
replied Old Mole.
"Then why are men starved, physically, morally and spiritually?"
"The universe," came the reply, between two long puffs of a cigar,
"was not made for man, but man was made for the universe."
(This was an impromptu, but Old Mole often recurred to it, and indeed
declared that his philosophy dated from that day and that utterance.)
"But why was the universe made?"
"Certainly not from human motives and not in terms of human
understanding. To hear you talk one would think the whole creation was
in a state of decomposition."
"So it is. That is its motive force, an irresistible rotting away into
nothing. I don't believe anything but decomposition could produce that
pantomime."
"The pantomime is so small a thing that I think it impossible for it
to be visibly affected by any universal process. It is simply a human
contrivance for the amusement of human beings, and you must admit that
it succeeds in its purpose."
"It has no purpose. It succeeds in spite of its stupidity by sheer
force of the amiable cleverness of an overpaid buffoon and the charm
and physical attractions of two or three young women."
Old Mole was forced to admit the justice of this criticism, and to
drive it home Timmis recited the eight lines with which in the cave
scene he introduced the ballet:
_Now Sinbad's wrecked and nearly drowned, you see.
He thinks he's saved, but has to deal with me.
I'll wreck him yet and rack his soul as well--
A shipwrecked sailor suits my purpose fell.
I'll catch his soul and make it mine for aye
And he'll be sorry he ever stepped this way.
But who comes here to brave my cave's dark night?
Aha! Oh, curse! It is the Fairy Light._
Matilda had been listening to them, and she said:
"Doesn't she look lovely when she comes on all in white? Such a pretty
voice she has, too."
"You like the pantomime, my dear?"
"Oh, yes!"
"Could you say why?"
"It's pretty and gay, and it's wonderful to hear the people in that
great big place laughing and singing the choruses."
"You see, Timmis, the pantomime has justified its existence."
"But what on earth has it got to do with Sinbad?"
"Nothing. Why should it? Sinbad is an Eastern tale. The pantomime is
an English institution. It reflects the English character. It is
heavy, solid, gross, over-colored, disconnected, illogical and
unimaginative. On the other hand, it is humorous, discreetly sensual,
varied and full of physical activity. It affords plenty to listen to
and nothing to hear, plenty to look at and nothing to see, and it is
like one of those Christmas puddings which quickly make the body feel
overfed and provide it with no food."
"Anyhow," said Matilda, "it's a great success, and they say it will
run until after Easter."
It did so: the tunes in it were whistled and sung in the streets, the
comedians' gags became catchwords, the principal buffoon kicked off at
a charity football match, and, upon inquiry, Old Mole found that
clerks, schoolboys and students visited the theater once a week, and
that among the young sparks of the town, sons of mill-owners and
ironmasters, there was considerable competition for the favors of the
chorus ladies. Some of these phenomena he remembered having observed
in Thrigsby, and at least one of his old pupils had come to grief
through a lady of the chorus and been expelled by his affrighted
family to the Colonies. By the end of the fifth week he was thoroughly
sick of it all, and he began to agree with Timmis that the success of
the show was very far from justifying it. It was so completely lacking
in character as to be demoralizing. His third visit left him clogged
and thick-witted, as though he had been breathing stale air. It was a
poison: and if it were so for him, what (he asked himself) must it be
for young minds and spirits? . . . And yet Matilda throve in it. She
liked the work and she now liked the company, who, being prosperous,
were amiable, and they liked her. Most of all, she loved the
independence, the passage from the solid, safe, warmly tender
atmosphere with which her husband surrounded her to the heat, the rush
and the excitement of the theater. When he left her at the stage door
she would give a shrug of the shoulders that was almost a shake, give
him a swift parting smile that he always felt might have been given to
a stranger, and with a quick gladness dart through into the lighted
passage. . . . Before many weeks had passed she had letters, flowers,
presents, from unknown admirers. He asked Timmis if there was any harm
in them, and the actor replied that it was the usual thing, that women
had to look after themselves in the theater, and that these attentions
pleased the management. They pleased Matilda: she laughed at the
letters, decorated their rooms with the flowers, and left the presents
with the stage doorkeeper, who annexed them. Old Mole definitely
decided that he disliked the whole business and began to think
enviously of James Boothroyd, who was religious and a devil, but did
at least have his own way in his own house. To achieve that the first
thing necessary was to have a house, and he half resolved to return to
his old profession--not considering himself to be fit for any other.
But he never rounded the resolution and he never broached his thoughts
to Matilda. He told himself that by Easter it would be all over and
they would go away, perhaps abroad, see the world. . . . Then he
realized that apart from Matilda he had no desires whatever, that his
affections were entirely engaged in her, and that, further, he was
spasmodically whirled off his feet in a desire that was altogether
independent of his will, obedient only to some profound logic either
of his own character or of the world outside him, to mark and consider
the ways of men. Rather painfully he was aware of being detached from
himself, and sometimes in the street, in a tram, he would pull himself
up with a start and say to himself:
"I don't seem to be caring what happens to me. I seem to be altogether
indifferent to whatever I am doing, to have no sort of purpose, while
all these men and women round me are moving on with very definite
aims."
Deliberately he made the acquaintance of men teaching in the little
university of the place and in its grammar school. He saw himself in
them. He could talk their language, but whereas to them their terms
were precise and important, to him they were nothing but jargon. . . .
No: into that squirrel cage he would not go again. They seemed happy
enough and pleased with themselves, but, whereas he could enter fully
into their minds, the new regions that he had conquered for himself
were closed to them. They complained, as he had done in Thrigsby, of
the materialism of their city, and in moments of enthusiasm talked of
the great things they could do for the younger generation, the future
citizens of the Empire, if only some of the oozing wealth of the
manufacturers could be diverted to their uses. But the city had its
own life, and they were no more a part of it than he had been of
Thrigsby. . . . When they had cured him of his discontent he was done
with them, and took refuge in books. He bought in a great store of
them and fumbled about in them for the threads of philosophy he was
seeking. He procured stimulation, but very little satisfaction, and he
was driven to the streets and the public places. Very secret was the
life of that city. Its trades were innumerable. Everything was
manufactured in it from steel to custard powder. It owed its existence
to the neighboring coalfields, its organization to a single family of
bankers whose interests were everywhere, in almost every trade, in the
land, in the houses, in the factories, in the supply of water and
lighting, and everywhere their interests were trebly safeguarded. The
city lived only for the creation of wealth and by it. With the
distribution of wealth and the uses it was put to it had no concern;
nor had its citizens time to consider them. Their whole energies were
absorbed in keeping their place in the markets of the world, and they
were too exhausted for real pleasure or domestic happiness. When Old
Mole considered the life of that city by and large, James Boothroyd
appeared to him as its perfect type. And yet he retained his optimism,
telling himself that all this furious energy was going to the forging
of the city of the future.
"The bees," he said, "build the combs in their hives, the ants the
galleries in their hills, and men their sprawling cities, and to
everything under the sun there is a purpose. Let me not make the
mistake of judging the whole--which I cannot see--by the part."
He had reached this amiable conclusion when Carlton Timmis entered his
room, sat down by the table and laid a bulky quarto envelope on it. He
was agitated, declined the proffered cigar, and broke at once into the
following remarkable oration:
"Mr. Mole, you are one of the few men I have ever met who can do
nothing with dignity and without degradation. Therefore I have come to
you in my distress to make a somewhat remarkable request. And it is
due to you and to myself to make some explanation."
He seemed so much in earnest, almost hysterical, and his great eyes
were blazing with such a fervor that Old Mole could not but listen.
"My real name," said Timmis, "is Cuthbert Jones. My father is a small
shopkeeper in Leicestershire. He is a man, so far as I can discover,
devoid of feeling, but with a taste for literature and--God knows why,
at this time of day!--the philosophy of the Edinburgh school. He had a
cruel sense of humor and he made my mother very unhappy. He encouraged
me to read, to write, to think, to be pleased with my own thoughts. It
amused him, I fancy, to see me blown out with my own conceit, so that
he might have the pleasure of pricking my bladder-head and then
distending it again. For weeks together I would have his praise, and
then nothing but the most bitter gibes. I had either to cling to my
conceit to keep my head above water or sink into the depths of misery
and self-distrust. I devoured the lives of illustrious men and
attributed their fame to those qualities in them which I was able to
find in myself. I sought solitude, avoided companions of my own age,
and I was always desperately, wretchedly in love with some one or
other. I really believed myself to be a genius, or rather I used to
count over my symptoms and decide one day that I was, the next that I
was not. All this roused my father to such a malicious delight, and
with his teasing he made my life so intolerable that at last I could
stand it no longer, and I ran away. I walked to London, and then,
after applying in vain for work at the newspaper offices, I obtained a
situation in a theater as a call boy. I could not possibly live on
what I earned, and should have been in a bad way but for a kind
creature, a dresser, who lodged me in her house, took my wages in
return, and allowed me pocket money and money for my clothes. I wrote
to my father and received an extraordinary letter in which he
applauded my action and expressed his belief that nothing could
prevent a man of genius from coming to the top. 'It is as impossible
to keep a bad man up as to keep a good man down,' he said. I have
neither gone down nor up, Mr. Mole. As I have grown older I have
slipped into one precarious employment after another. No one pays any
attention to me, no one, except yourself, has ever troubled to
discover my thoughts on any subject, and often, when I have been
inclined to think myself the most miserable of men, I have found
correction in the memory of my boyish belief in my genius. . . . Such
changes of fortune as I have had have come to me through women. All
the kindness I ever received came through them, and every disaster
that has crushed me has arisen through my inability to stop myself
from falling in love with them. . . . You will understand what I mean
when I talk of the life of the mind. That life has always been with
me, and it has perhaps been my only real life. I have had great
adventures in it. I have aimed and wrestled and struggled toward a
goal that has many times seemed to me immediately attainable."
He paused and brushed back his hair, and his eyes set into an
expression of extraordinary wistful longing and into his voice came a
sweetness most musical and moving.