A DRAWN BATTLE.
It was about this time, if I recollect aright (for _I_ am the girl who
does not keep a diary), that Romeo invited me to dinner.
I have two reasons for my avoidance of the besetting sin of
diary-writing. The first is that I am usually dog-tired with work when
evening comes, so that to ask me to fill in a journal with the day’s
events is like asking a galley-slave to take a scull in a pleasure-boat
after his toil is over. The second is that if you keep no diary it
cannot be used in evidence against you. As yet, ’tis true, by rigid
self-examination, I have steered clear of capital crimes; but I remember
always Ophelia’s wise saw, “We know what we are; we know not what we may
be.”
Romeo invited me with caution, and tentatively. He began by remarking,
as if for no special reason, that he was giving a dinner next week at
the Savoy—a dinner devised for a particular purpose. Then he added
after a while that his mother would be there. This to inspire
confidence, dear fellow! as though I ever doubted him. Next he inquired
in a rather timid voice whether, if his mother picked me up by the way
in her brougham, I would mind joining the party. “My mother has not
called upon you yet,” he murmured in an apologetic parenthesis, looking
up at me askance from under his ridged eyebrows with an interrogative
lid; “but—perhaps you would waive that.” From the way he said it I
could read much. I felt instinctively she was a black-satin old lady of
the straightest sect; Romeo had implored her to call; she had refused
point-blank to go and see a type-writer girl who lived in one room in an
impossible street in Soho. Romeo had begged and prayed; the mother had
presented the true stiff neck of the black-satin order. Then Romeo had
planned this dinner as a means of introducing me, confident (dear boy)
that if once we were brought together, his mother—well, would think as
much of me as he did. Poor purblind Romeo! I pitied him for that. How
little had he fathomed black-satin psychology!
I hesitated a moment. Not on Romeo’s account, nor even on the
mother’s—I do not fear the smoothest black satin; but because of the
mere material difficulty of a gown, which just at first rose
insuperable. Otherwise I thought so much of Romeo now—he had begun to
play so large a part in the unwritten dramas of my future with which I
lulled myself to sleep—that I felt at all costs I must be present at
this dinner and face the mother. A mother is almost inevitable; the
sooner one gets over her, like measles, the better.
I had one evening dress, or the ghost of one, which had descended to me
from the days when I was a lady. Its sleeves carried date; but the
bodice and skirt were of that fanciful kind which is above the fashion,
and therefore never either in it or out of it. The colour was
sweet—white, shot with faint streaks of the daintiest pink, like the
first downy stage of budding willow catkins. On the other hand, I was
still in mourning for my dear father. Had I loved him less I should have
shrunk from wearing that gown; but my sorrow was not of the sort that
measures itself by yards of crape, which is why I have troubled you with
it so little in this narrative. I reflected a moment; then I answered,
“Yes; it will give me great pleasure.”
That it gave Romeo great pleasure was visibly written on his face. He
had expected a _no_, and was delighted at my acceptance. I knew by his
eyes he had anticipated and even exaggerated the dress difficulty. I did
not misinterpret his pleased look, however. I never thought Romeo was in
love with me; I knew he was interested in me, both personally and as a
possible authoress; and I saw he wished much to bring me officially into
his mother’s circle. More than that, I did not believe, or rather, if I
am to tell you the precise truth, I thought Romeo was falling in love
with me by slow steps, but mistaking his love for mere interest and
friendliness.
For a week I was a woman, not merely a type-writer. I worked hard at
that gown, first planning, then executing my alterations. Dear little
Elsie helped me with it like a Trojan. Nay, in cutting out and fitting
she displayed or developed unexpected talent. When dress was in question
she was no longer stupid; the woman in her grew; she showed taste and
skill; indeed, I have noted in life, throughout, that taste has no
necessary connection, direct or inverse, with intelligence or stupidity;
it is a native endowment which may break out anywhere. She was glad it
was a dinner, not a dance; her religious opinions would not have
sanctioned her assisting me with a ball-dress. But all sects alike
approve the habit of feeding. I must admit that when it came to the
details of my gown she showed herself at once most frankly worldly.
Elsie had little chance of making dresses for herself, poor child; but
she aided me with her needle and her advice till I was truly grateful.
The way she reorganised the sleeves to a Parisian model made one believe
in alchemy. We spent a few shillings on new tulle and lining. Every
evening we had an orgy of dressmaking: whole packets of pins, snippets
of silk on the floor. Before the end of the week we had transformed that
old gown of mine into a joy for ever. It was better than new; as it fell
in soft folds the blush showed on the ridge and cream-white in the
hollows. When I tried it on, Elsie bent over me enraptured. “You dear
thing!” she cried, hugging me (to the danger of the tulle), “I always
knew you were pretty, but I never knew till now you were splendidly
beautiful.”
And I will honestly admit that the frock became me.
The day arrived at last. Elsie came round to help me dress my hair. We
made more of this dinner than I should have made of being presented in
the days of my grandeur—such as it was. Dear little Elsie had brought
me some flowers from a friend’s garden at Ealing, choice sweet-scented
flowers, with a background of maidenhair. If I had believed her, I would
have thought no fairy princess ever looked more radiant than I looked
that evening; and, indeed, our joint efforts on the gown repaid us with
interest. When the last touch had been given Elsie kissed me on both
cheeks. “He will propose to-night,” she whispered. “I know he will: he
can’t help himself, dear. You _are_ so captivating!” I blushed, for I
had never mentioned his name to Elsie; but then, I forgot that Elsie too
was a woman.
At ten minutes to eight the brougham arrived at the door. Never before
had our street beheld so distinguished an equipage. This was
unfortunate, for the children next door came to gaze at me with dirty
faces and unaffected interest, exclaiming, “Oh, my, don’t she look a
reel lidy?” as I made a rush for the carriage.
Romeo’s mother was precisely what I had painted her—a Lady Montague of
the severest, with coffee-coloured point-lace, a Cornelia one shade too
stout for the mother of the Gracchi. Her smooth white hair looked not
gentle, but forbidding; she listened to what I said with well-bred
reserve: too stiff to acquiesce, too polite to contradict, too stony to
show interest.
At the hotel, we were ushered into a handsome private room, most
gracefully decorated with crimson arabesques on white panelling. The
party consisted of Romeo and his mother with some six or eight more
(including a prebendary), among whom the chief guests seemed to be a
certain amiable-faced Lady Donisthorpe and her husband, Sir Everard. I
name them in this order, for though the husband was a man of some force
and character—early English, comfortable—Lady Donisthorpe, like Paul,
was the chief speaker. She seemed what is called “a womanly woman”—one
of those tranquil women with soft, rounded outlines, who look like wax,
but within are flint. She reminded me most of all of a pouter pigeon.
She apologised much because dear Meta could not come. It was _such_ a
disappointment. The poor child had been taken ill—nothing serious she
was glad to say—but impossible to go out. She hoped Romeo would excuse
her. Romeo expressed most courteous regret at dear Meta’s enforced
absence; though I, who knew him now so well, and was used at the office
to note the varying degrees of cordiality or boredom in his reception of
authors, inferred at once from his eyes that he was somewhat relieved at
heart by dear Meta’s non-appearance. It was clear to me, too, that Lady
Donisthorpe flung Meta inartistically at his head; twenty times during
the evening she referred with a rigid smile and a puff of the pouter
bust to one of dear Meta’s sweet ways or to something delightful that
dear Meta had said or done for somebody. The impression she left upon me
was that Meta must be an insipid paragon, with all the virtues and their
concomitant insupportability. Romeo’s absent smile at each such
advertisement of Meta’s charming qualities—“so gentle,” “so
unaffected”—made me feel convinced that he was of the same opinion.
To put it plainly, Lady Donisthorpe showed want of tact in her crude
mode of placarding Meta.
She had another trick of manner which disturbed my peace of mind; like
most of the newly-enriched, she attached an excessive importance to the
after all somewhat negative quality of ladylikeness. The highest praise
she could accord to each achromatically charming girl of her
acquaintance was that of being “a perfect lady.” She flung the phrase in
my teeth. Apart from the fact that it seems to imply a somewhat narrow
standard, I always suspect women who insist upon this point of being
themselves cotton-backed ladies.
I knew her type: she belonged to an aristocracy recruited by the names
of all the best-known brands of beer, soap, and whiskey.
I protest, however, that just at first I began by treating Romeo’s
mother and Lady Donisthorpe with the utmost cordiality. For had I not
good reasons for desiring to conciliate them? But their treatment
chilled me. I could see they had come prepared to dislike me for a
conceited upstart. In return, I soon found I disliked their texture.
Cornelia was cold; I felt she regarded my humour as ill-timed. Lady
Donisthorpe had the vulgar fear of vulgarity. I do not share it; nature
is vulgar enough; we can only be “perfect ladies” on the Donisthorpe
pattern by shutting our eyes, shutting our ears, and shutting our noses
to most things around us. Now, I will not shut my eyes nor my mouth
either. If facts obtrude themselves, I recognise them. I fear Lady
Donisthorpe thought it painfully unladylike of me to have lived in the
East-End, and positively rude to tell stories of slop-makers. She raised
her tortoise-shell glasses at the very word as a mute protest.
In fine, both were conscious of a social barrier. So was I—with a
difference. Lady Donisthorpe moved in what calls itself “good society,”
but _genteel_ would have been scarce too hard a word to describe her.
Romeo’s mother swept in to dinner on Sir Everard’s arm, a three-decker
under full sail. Romeo offered me his; I gathered it was because Meta
had not arrived as expected. Always handsome, he looked handsomer in
evening dress. A waxy white flower lay on each plate: Romeo pinned mine
on my bodice. Lady Donisthorpe’s placid eyes did not let the action pass
unnoticed.
The dinner—by which you shall understand the food—was the best I ever
tasted. The champagne, in the judgment of one who is no judge, was a
thought too dry, but delicious. The _mousse de jambon_ was an epicure’s
dream. I really enjoyed myself. Besides, I was conscious that Romeo
liked my dress and felt some mild surprise to see how well I looked in
it. He had hitherto known me in my black office gown alone. I forgot my
poverty and was once more a lady.
It suits me better. I blossom under it. I did not even object to Sir
Everard for being a millionaire; it was hardly his fault; millionaires,
after all, are an outcome of the age: one can but regret that they
absorb its income. Lady Donisthorpe’s talk reeked of wealth till I felt
it would be delightful to get home at night and see something cheap
again. My seat was between Romeo and a clever young man, with keen eyes
and _pince-nez_, a rising physiologist. It relieved me to learn he was
not an electrical engineer; all the young men I used to meet in my
præ-type-writing days had been given over to riotous electrical
engineering. My neighbour’s hobby was a cheerful one—the identity of
genius and madness. He took _Paradise Lost_ and the Vatican frescoes for
premonitory symptoms of acute mania; he held the steam-engine to be a
by-product of the insane temperament. Yet he urged his thesis so well
that, on his own showing, I foresaw he must be qualifying for residence
in an asylum. When I told him so, he cavilled at my graceful compliment.
To escape his retort, I turned to the other side and joined talk with
Romeo and the prebendary. I do not know what a prebendary does; his
functions are more mysterious than even the archidiaconal; but I have
said I love mystery; and I found the prebendary a capital talker.
Romeo was charming, as always—more charming to me that night, I
fancied, than ever. Perhaps it was because he had never seen me dressed
like a human being before; but also, I think, he was conscious of his
mother’s keen eyes and Lady Donisthorpe’s steely glance; smiling ever
her set smile, she felt Meta’s chances were slipping from her visibly.
She was an ox-eyed Hera, a little run to seed, and now almost cow-faced,
but cat-like in her watchfulness. To counteract the chilling effect of
the two mothers—one a feather-bed, the other a poker—and to put me at
my ease, Romeo behaved with the sweetest courtesy. He talked to me; he
drew me out; if I ever can be brilliant (which ’tis not for me to judge)
I was brilliant that evening. I flashed to my own surprise; Romeo’s
admiration, and the two elder women’s scarcely concealed hostility, put
me on my mettle.
I was not angry with his mother; it was comprehensible, of course;
mothers are made like that. We erect each other into a class, and judge
accordingly. Could any woman with an aquiline nose, and white hair
neatly dressed by an immaculate maid, sit by unperturbed while her only
son paid open court to a type-writer girl? I suppose I should have felt
as she did, had I been put in her place. Being put in my own, I
naturally did my best to let myself be seen to the greatest advantage.
So did Romeo. Having brought me there, he was determined I should be
treated with proper respect. He insisted on talking to me; Lady
Donisthorpe’s cat-like graciousness, Cornelia’s Roman austerity, only
increased his anxiety to do me honour. The more his mother froze, the
more Lady Donisthorpe, smiling her mechanical smile, and gently
crushing, raised her tortoise-shell eye-glasses to decide whether I was
human, the more did Romeo draw me out, and the more did I scintillate,
till at last all the table was talking to me or listening to me. I
laughed and raised laughter; I sparkled and parried. When Lady
Donisthorpe interposed sweetly, “And so you type-write at the office!
How fatiguing it must be!” on purpose to disconcert me, I had my
repartee ready: “At least it preserves me from being a perfect lady.” I
could see Romeo was pleased. I was a social success. I had justified his
temerity.
In the midst of our fencing, of a sudden, Cornelia drew out a gold
pencil, wrote something on a card, and handed it across to him. Romeo
glanced at it and crumpled it up; I could guess by his face her note had
not pleased him. “As you will,” he answered across the table; then he
turned to me once more. “That was delicious,” he said; “and what did you
reply to him?”
I went on with my story. Still, I could gather that he was annoyed; not
only annoyed, indeed, but perplexed and troubled. Dinner solemnised, we
withdrew to the comfortable divans of the balcony for Turkish coffee.
All the party crowded round me, save the two mammas; they did not sit
apart, but, joining our group, they preserved an austere moral
aloofness. The rest, however, redeemed their abstention. Even Sir
Everard was untrue to poor Meta’s chances. I was flushed by this time,
and the men’s eyes told me I was looking my prettiest. The two other
girls of the party chimed in and encouraged me. So did the prebendary; I
talked easily and brightly. Sir Everard laughed again and again at my
sallies. He was a portly old gentleman with a massive white waistcoat,
very like a toad as he leaned back on the ottoman. His voice, too, was a
purr; he was a toad, not a natterjack.
But Romeo had stolen away to give some mysterious orders. I felt rather
than saw that something had gone wrong somewhere with the machinery.
We were to adjourn to a theatre. We drove round in state. Our stalls
were near the centre; Lady Donisthorpe in claret-coloured velvet looked
truly imposing. In one of the interludes I looked round at the pit.
Directly behind me, in the front row, sat a foxey-headed man staring
open-eyed towards me. It was the Grand Vizier, accompanied by a lady (no
doubt “with brains”) and concealing but imperfectly the fact that he had
been dining.
For a moment—a rare moment—I felt really disconcerted. Under any other
circumstances it would only have amused me had the Vizier leaned forward
and shouted, “Good evening, miss,” in his own dialect. But to-night,
with the eyes of those two mothers fixed stonily on my face, I confess I
trembled lest he should rise in his seat, wave one hairy hand, and call
out loudly across the intervening rows, “Allow me to introduce my
fee-on-say to you, Miss Appleton!” I looked away hastily, not before he
had caught my eye. I expected to see his goggle eyes fall out and drop
upon the floor: he was so evidently surprised at my transfigured
appearance. The last time he had parted from me it was beneath the
golden symbol of St. Nicholas at the shop in the Strand; to light upon
me there that night, dressed like a lady, surrounded by a little court,
made much of by the men, and flushed from the Savoy, might naturally
astonish him.
However, he behaved with better taste than I could have anticipated. He
nudged his companion, and whispered in her ear, but kept his face
averted. He was puzzled, I felt sure; still he had sense enough to know
that this greeting would be ill-timed, and good feeling enough to
prevent him from forcing himself upon my notice.
When the play was over Romeo led me to the door. I was still hot and
uncertain. So far as he was concerned this evening was for me a great
triumph; every man and woman there, save only the two mothers, had paid
me much attention, and, I will even venture to add, admired me. I had
looked and talked my best, and I was satisfied with my performance. But
the two elder women hung like black clouds lowering in the rear; I could
feel them disapproving of me with various degrees of rancour. One feared
for her son, the other for her daughter.
Very natural, I knew; but so too was my own attitude. No woman is born
to be merely a type-writer.
At the door Romeo led me by myself into a well-appointed brougham. Then
I knew what had happened. Cornelia had written across to him that she
declined to take me back in her carriage to Soho; and Romeo, to save me
the knowledge of that slight, had slipped away at the hotel, and ordered
another carriage to await me at the theatre. He held my hand in his own
for a brief space after he put me into it.
“It was so good of you to come,” he said. “I have so much enjoyed this
talk with you.”
But the two mothers hardly gave me the tips of their fingers, and bowed
distantly as I drove away alone, with chilly politeness.
When I got back to my room my feelings were mixed. The jealous Gods thus
alloy our triumphs. Romeo had seen me at last as I really was. But I had
innocently disturbed the peace of two families.
I did what every other woman would have done in my place—sat down to a
good cry and thought about Romeo.