THE ROMANCE OF VARNISH
A separation of six months makes in the middle years of a man's life
little break in a relationship. Human life was compared over two
thousand years ago by a Greek philosopher to the stream that is never
the same from one moment to another. And though, indeed, nothing is
permanent, though everything is in flux, the stream during the later
stages of its passage flows quietly through soft meadows to the sea. A
man of forty-five who has been married for several years may leave his
family to go abroad and returning at the end of the year find his wife,
his home, his friends, to all appearances, exactly as he left them.
Roland returned from Belgium a different person. He was no longer
a schoolboy; he was a business man. He had been introduced to big
financiers; he had listened to the discussion of important deals; he had
witnessed the signatures of contracts. In the evenings he had sat with
Marston and gone carefully over the accounts of the day's transactions.
"There's not much profit here," Marston would say, "hardly any, in fact,
when we've taken over-head charges, office expenses and all that into
consideration. But we're not out for profits just now. We're building up
connections. If we can make these foreign deals pay their way we're all
right. We shall crowd the other fellows out of the market, we shall make
ourselves indispensable, and then we can shove our prices as high as we
blooming well like."
To Roland it was a game, with the thrills, the dangers, the recompenses
of a game. He did not look on business as part of the social fabric. He
did not regard wealth as a thing important in itself. A credit balance
was like a score at cricket. You were setting your brains against an
opponent's. You made as many pounds as you could against his bowling. He
did not allow first principles to attach disquieting corollaries. He did
not ask himself whether it was just for a big firm to undersell their
smaller rivals and drive them out of the market by the simple expedient
of taking money out of one pocket and putting it into another. Business
was a game: if one was big enough to take risks one took them.
Within a month Gerald was writing home to his father with genuine
enthusiasm.
"He really is first class, father. I thought he would be pretty useful,
but I never expected him to be a patch on what he is. He's really keen
on the job and he's got the hang of it already. He ought to do jolly
well when he comes out here alone. The big men like him; old Rosenheim
told me the other day that it was a pleasure to see him about the place.
'Such a relief,' he said, 'after the dried-up hard-chinned provincials
that pester me from morning to night.' I believe it's the best thing we
ever did, getting Roland into the business."
Roland, realising that his work was appreciated, grew confident and
hopeful of the future. They were happy days.
It is not easy to explain the friendship of two men. And Roland would
have been unable to say why exactly he valued the companionship and
esteem of Gerald Marston more highly than that of the many boys,
such as Ralph Richmond, whom he had known longer and, on the whole,
more intimately. Gerald never said anything brilliant; he was not
particularly amusing; he was often irritable and moody. But from the
moment when he had seen him for the first time in Brewster's study
Roland had recognised in him a potential friend. Later, when they had
met at the Oval, he had felt that they understood each other, that they
spoke the same language, that there was between them no need for the
usual preliminaries of friendship. And during their weeks in France and
Belgium this relationship or intuition was fortified by the sharing of
common interests and common adventures.
The majority of these adventures were, it must be confessed, of doubtful
morality, for it was only natural that Roland and Gerald should in their
spare time amuse themselves after the fashion of most young men who find
themselves alone in a foreign city.
In the evenings, after they had balanced their accounts, they used to
walk through the warm lighted streets, surrounded by the stir of a
world waking to a night of pleasure, select a brightly coloured café,
sit back on the red plush couch that ran the length of the room, and
order iced champagne. The band would play soft, sentimental music that,
mixing with the wine in their heads, would render them eager, daring
and responsive, and when two girls walked slowly down the centre of the
room, swaying from the hips, and casting to left and right sidelong,
alluring glances, naturally they smiled back, and indicated two vacant
seats on either side of them. Then there would be talk and laughter and
more champagne, and afterwards.... But what happened afterwards was of
small importance. Gerald had had too much experience to derive much
excitement from bought kisses. And for Roland, these romances were the
focus of little more than a certain lukewarm kindliness and curiosity.
They were not degrading, because they were not regarded so. They were
equally unromantic, because neither was particularly interested in the
other. Indeed, Roland was a little dismayed to find how slight, on the
whole, was the pleasure, even the physical pleasure, that he received
from his companion's transports; these experiences, far from having the
devastating effect that they are popularly supposed to have on a young
man's character, would have had in Roland's life no more significance
than an act of solitary indulgence, had they not been another bond
between himself and Gerald. And this they most certainly were.
It was amusing to meet in the morning afterwards and exchange
confidences. And as everything is transmuted by the imagination, Roland
in a little while came to look on those evenings--the wine, the music,
the rustle of skirts, the low laughter--not as they had been actually,
but as he would have wished to have them. They became for him a
gracious revel. And in London his thoughts would wander often from his
ink-stained desk, from the screech of the telephone, from the eternal
tapping of the typewriter, to those brightly coloured cafés, with their
atmosphere of warm comfort, the soft sensuous music, the cool sparkling
champagne, the low whisper at his elbow. When he went out to lunch
with Marston he would frequently contrast the glitter of a Brussels
restaurant with the tawdry furniture and over-heated atmosphere of a
City eating-house.
"A bit different this, isn't it?" he would say. "Do you remember that
evening when we went down the Rue de la Madeleine and found a café in
that little side street?"
"That was where we met the jolly little girl in the blue dress, wasn't
it?"
"Yes. And do you remember what she said about the old Padre?"
And they would laugh together over the indelicacies that had slipped so
charmingly in broken English from those red lips.
But Gerald was the one figure that remained distinct for Roland. The
girls, for the most part, resembled each other so closely that he could
only in rare instances recall their features or what they had worn or
what they had said. He remembered far more vividly his walks with Gerald
through the lighted streets, their confidences and hesitations. Should
they go into this café or into that: and then when they had selected
their café how Gerald would open the wine list and carefully run his
finger down the page, while the waiter would hover over him: "Yes, yes,
sir, a very good wine that, sir, a very good wine indeed!" And then when
the wine was ordered how they would look round at the girls who sat in
couples at the marble-topped tables, sipping a citron or a bock. "What
do you think of that couple over there?" "Not bad, but let's wait a bit;
something better may turn up soon"; and a little later: "Oh, look, that
girl over there, the one with the green dress, just beneath the picture;
try and catch her eye, she looks ripping!" They had been more exciting,
those moments of expectation, than the subsequent embraces.
Gerald was always the dominant figure.
It was the expression of Gerald's face that Roland remembered most
clearly on that disappointing evening when they had taken two chorus
girls to dinner at a private room and Roland's selected had refused
champagne and preferred fried sole to pheasant--an abstinence so
alarming that, in spite of Roland's protests, Gerald had suddenly
decided that they would have to catch a train to Paris that evening
instead of being able to wait till the morning.
And it was Gerald whom Roland particularly associated with that
ignominious occasion on which he had thought at last to have discovered
real romance.
They had dropped into a restaurant in the afternoon for a cup of
chocolate, and had seen sitting by herself a girl who could hardly have
been twenty years of age. She wore a wide-brimmed hat, under which
Roland could just see, as she bent her head over her ice, the tip of
her nose, the smooth curve of a cheek, the strain on the muscles of her
neck. She raised the spoon delicately to her mouth, her lips closed on
it and held it there. Her eyelids appeared to droop in a sort of sensual
contentment. Roland watched her, fascinated: watched her till she drew
the spoon slowly from her mouth. She lingered pensively, and between
the even rows of her white teeth the red tip of her tongue played for a
moment on the spoon. At that moment she raised her eyes, observed that
Roland was staring at her, smiled, and dropped her eyes again.
"Did you see that?" whispered Roland excitedly. "She smiled at me, and
she's ripping! I must go and speak to her!"
"Don't be a fool," said Gerald; "a smile may not mean anything. Besides,
she's obviously not a tart and she may be known here. If she is she
won't want to be seen talking to a stranger. You sit still, like a good
boy, and see if she smiles at you again."
Against his will Roland consented. But he had his reward a few minutes
later when she turned her chair to catch the waitress's attention, and
her eyes, meeting his, smiled at them again--a challenging, alluring
smile that seemed to say, "Well, are you brave enough?" He was dismayed,
however, to notice that she had turned in order to ask for her bill.
He saw her run her eye down the slip of paper, take some money from
her purse and begin to button on her gloves, long gauntlet gloves that
fastened above the elbow.
"She's going! what shall I do?" he asked.
For answer Marston took a piece of paper from his pocket and wrote on
it: "Meet me at the Café des Colombes to-night at eight-thirty."
"Now, walk up to the counter and pretend to choose a cake; if she wants
to see any more of you she will drop her handkerchief, or purse, or at
any rate give you an opportunity of speaking to her; if she does, slip
this note into her hand. If she doesn't, you can buy me an éclair, and
thank your lucky stars that you've been preserved from making a most
abandoned fool of yourself."
Roland was in such a hurry to get to the counter that he tripped against
a table and only saved himself from falling by gripping violently the
shoulder of an elderly bourgeois. By the time he had completed his
apologies his charmer had very nearly reached the door.
"It's all up," he told himself; "she thinks me a clumsy fool, that it's
not worth her while to worry about, I ought to have gone straight up to
her at once"; and he followed with dejected eyes her progress towards
the door.
She was carrying in one hand an umbrella and in the other a little
velvet bag. As she raised her hand to open the door, the bag slipped
from her fingers and fell upon the floor. There were three persons
nearer to the bag than Roland, but before even a hand had been stretched
out to it he had precipitated himself forward, had picked it up and was
handing it to the lady. She smiled at him with gracious gratitude. So
far all had gone splendidly. Then he began to fumble. The note was in
the other hand, and in the flurry of the moment he did not know how to
manœuvre the bag and the note into the same hand. First of all, he tried
to change the bag from the right hand to the left. But his forefinger
and thumb were so closely engaged with the note that the remaining three
fingers failed to grasp the handle of the bag. He made a furious dive
and caught the bag in his right hand just before it reached the floor.
Panic seized him. He lost all sense of the proprieties. He handed the
bag straight to her, and then realising, before she had had time to take
it from him, that somehow or other the note also had to come into her
possession, he offered it to her between the forefinger and thumb of his
left hand with less secrecy than he would have displayed in giving a tip
to a waiter. The sudden change of the lady's expression from inviting
kindliness to a surprised affronted indignation threw him into so acute
a fever of embarrassment that once again he endeavoured to move the bag
from the right hand to the left. Again he fumbled, but with a different
result. He piloted the bag successfully into the lady's hands, but
allowed the note to slip from between his fingers. It fell face upwards
on the floor.
Several ways of escape were open to him. He might have affected
unconcern, and either picked up the piece of paper or left it where
it lay. He might have kicked the note away and walked forward to open
the door. He might have placed his foot on the note till the attention
of the room was once again directed to its separate interests. None
of these things, however, did he do. He did what was natural for him
in such an unexpected situation. He did nothing. He stood quite still
and gazed at the note as it lay there startlingly white against the
black tiles of the floor. The eyes of everyone in the room appeared to
be directed towards it. The features of the startled lady assumed an
expression of horrified amazement. Two waitresses leant over the counter
in undisguised excitement; another stopped dead with a tray in her hand
to survey the incriminating document. The fat gentleman against whom
Roland had collided began to make some unpleasantly loud remarks to his
companion. An old woman leant forward and asked the room in general what
was happening. From a far corner came the horrible suppression of a
giggle.
The lady herself, who was, as a matter of fact, perfectly respectable,
though she liked to be thought otherwise, and had dropped her bag
accidentally, was the first to recover her composure. She fixed on
Roland a glance of which as a combination of hatred and contempt he had
never seen the equal, turned quickly and walked out of the restaurant.
The sudden bang of the door behind her broke the tension. The various
spectators of this entertaining interlude returned to their ices and
their chocolate, the waitresses resumed their duties, the patron of the
establishment fussed up the centre of the room, and Gerald, who had
watched the scene with intense if slightly nervous amusement, left his
table, picked up the note, and taking Roland by the arm, led him out of
the public notice, and listened to his friend's solemn vow that never
again, under any circumstances, would he be induced to open negotiations
with any woman, be she never so lovely, who did not by her dress,
her manner and the places she frequented proclaim unquestionably her
profession.
* * * * *
It was hardly surprising that as a result of these adventures a more
developed, more independent Roland returned at the end of his six
months' tour, a Roland, moreover, with a different attitude to himself,
his future, his surroundings, who was prepared to despise the chrysalis
from which he had emerged. His school-days appeared trivial.
"What a deal of fuss we made about things that didn't really matter at
all," he said to Gerald as they leant over the taffrail and watched the
dim line that was England grow distinct, its grey slowly whitening as
they drew near. "What a fuss about one's place in form, one's position
in the house; whether one ragged or whether one didn't rag. I can see
all those masters, with their solemn faces, thinking I had perjured my
immortal soul because I had walked out with a girl. They really thought
it mattered."
How puny it became in comparison with this magnificent gamble of
finance! What were marks in an exam. to set against a turnover of
several thousands? Duty, privilege, responsibility; what had they
been but the brightly coloured bricks with which children play in the
nursery; and as for the fret and fever concerning their arrangement,
where could be found an equivalent for the serious absorption of a
child?
In the same way he thought of his home and the environment of his
boyhood. What a grey world it had been! How monotonous, how arid! He
remembered sitting as a child at the bars of his nursery window watching
the stream of business men hurrying to their offices in the morning,
their newspapers tucked under their arms. They had seemed to him like
marionettes. The front door had opened. Husband and wife had exchanged
a brusque embrace; the male marionette had trotted down the steps, had
paused at the gate to wave his hand, and as he had turned into the
street the front door had closed behind him. Always the same thing
every day. And then in the evening the same stream of tired listless
men hurrying home, their bulky morning paper exchanged for the slim
evening newssheet. They would trot up the white stone steps, the front
door would swing open, again in the porch the marionettes would kiss. It
had amused him as a child, this dumb show, but as a boy he had come to
hate it--and to fear it also. For he knew that this was the life that
awaited him if he failed to turn to account his superior opportunities.
The fear of degenerating into a suburban business man had been always
the strongest goad to his ambition. But now he could look that fear
confidently in the face. He had won through out of that world of routine
and friction and small economies into one of enterprise and daring and
romance.
And April: he had not thought very much about her during his six months'
absence; she belonged to the world he had outgrown, a landmark on his
road of adventure. And it was disconcerting to find on his return that
she did not regard their relationship in this light. Roland had grown
accustomed to the fleeting relationships of school that at the start
of a new term could be resumed or dropped at will. He had not realised
that it would be different now; that six months in Belgium were not the
equivalent of a seven weeks' summer holiday; that he would be returning
to an unaltered society in which he would be expected to fulfil the
obligations incurred by him before his departure. It was the reversal
of the Rip Van Winkle legend. Roland had altered and was returning to a
world that was precisely as he had left it.
Nothing had changed.
On the first evening he went round to visit April, and there was Mrs
Curtis as she had always been, sitting before the fire, her hands
crossed over her bony bosom. She welcomed him as though he had been
spending a week-end in Kent.
"I'm so glad to see you, Roland, and have you had a nice time? It must
be pleasant for you to think of how soon the cricket season will be
starting. I was saying to our little April only yesterday: 'How Roland
will be looking forward to it.' What club are you thinking of joining?"
"The Marstons said something to me about my joining their local club."
"But how jolly that would be! You'll like that, won't you?"
Her voice rose and fell as it had risen and fallen as long as Roland's
memory had knowledge of her. The same clock ticked over the same
mantelpiece; above the table was the same picture of a cow grazing
beside a stream; the curtains, once red, had not faded to a deeper
brown; the carpet was no more threadbare; the same books lined the
shelves that rose on either side of the fire-place; in the bracket
beside the window was the calf-bound set of _William Morris_ that
had been presented to April as a prize; on the rosewood table lay
yesterday's copy of _The Times_. Mrs Curtis and her setting were eternal
in the scheme of things.
April, too, was as he had left her. Indeed, her life in his absence had
been a pause. She had no personal existence outside Roland. She had
waited for his return, thinking happily of the future. She had gone
to school every morning at a quarter to nine and had returned every
evening at half-past five. During the Christmas holidays she had read
_Nicholas Nickleby_ and _Vanity Fair_. She was now half-way through
_Little Dorrit_. At the end of the Michaelmas term she had gained a
promotion into a higher form and in her new form she had acquitted
herself creditably, finishing half-way up the class. At home she had
performed cheerfully the various duties that had been allotted to her.
But she had regarded those six months as an interlude in her real life:
that was Roland's now. Happiness could only come to her through him;
and, being sure of happiness, she was not fretful nor impatient during
the delay. She did not expect nor indeed ask of life violent transports
either of ecstasy or sorrow. Her ideas of romance were domestic enough.
To love and to be loved faithfully, to have children, to keep a home
happy, a home to which her friends would be glad to come--this seemed to
her as much as any woman had the right to need. She felt that she would
be able to make Roland happy. The prospect was full of a quiet but deep
contentment.
Roland had no opportunity of speaking to her on that first evening;
Mrs Curtis, as usual, monopolised the conversation. But he sat near to
April. From time to time their eyes met and she smiled at him. And the
next morning when he came round to see her she ran eagerly to meet him.
"It's lovely to have you back again," she said; "you can't think how
I've been looking forward to it!"
Roland was embarrassed by her eagerness. He did not know what to say and
stood beside her, smiling stupidly.
She pouted.
"Aren't you going to kiss me?" she said. And a moment later: "I
shouldn't have thought, after six months, you'd have needed asking!"
Roland met her reproach with a stammered apology.
"I felt shy. I thought you might have got tired of me, all that long
time."
"Oh, but Roland, how horrid of you!" And she moved away from him. But he
took her in his arms and made love prettily to her and consoled her.
"I daresay," she said, "I daresay. But you didn't write to me so very
often."
"I wanted to, but I thought your mother wouldn't like it."
"Oh, but, Roland, that's no excuse; she expected you to. There's an
understanding." Then with a quiet smile: "Do you remember the row we had
about that understanding?"
"I was a beast."
"No, you weren't, I was a silly."
"I was miserable about it."
"So was I. I didn't know what to do with myself. I thought you'ld never
speak to me again, that you'd gone off in a huff, like the heroes in the
story books."
"But the heroes always come back in the story books."
"I know, and that's just why I thought that very likely you wouldn't in
real life. I was so unhappy I cried myself to sleep."
"We were sillies, weren't we?"
"But it was worth it," said April.
"Worth it?"
"Don't you remember how nice you were to me when we made it up?"
They laughed and kissed, and the minutes passed pleasantly. But their
love-making fell short of Roland's ideal of love. It was jolly; it was
comfortable; but it was little more. He was not thrilled when the back
of his hand brushed accidentally against hers; their kisses were hardly
a lyric ecstasy. Even when he held her in his arms he was conscious
of himself, outside their embrace, watching it, saying to himself:
"Those two are having a good time together," and being outside it he
was envious, jealous of a happiness he did not share. It was someone
else who was holding April's hand, someone else's head that bent to her
slim shoulder. It was an exciting experience. But then had it not been
exciting to walk across Hampstead Heath on a Sunday evening and observe
the feverish ardours of the prostrate lovers.
He despised himself; he reminded himself that he was extraordinarily
lucky to have a girl such as April in love with him; he was unworthy
of her. Was not Ralph eating out his heart with envy? And yet he was
dissatisfied. The Curtises' house had become a prison for him; a soft,
warm prison, with cushions and shaded lights and gentle voices, but it
was a prison none the less. He was still able to leave it at will, but
the time was coming when that freedom would be denied him. In a year or
two their understanding would be an engagement; the engagement would
drift to marriage. For the rest of his life he would be enclosed in
that warm, clammy atmosphere. There was a conspiracy at work against
him. His father had already begun to speak of his marriage as an
accomplished fact. His mother was chiefly glad he was doing well in
business because success there would make an early marriage possible. On
all sides inducements were being offered him to marry--marriage with its
corollary to settle down. Marry and settle down, when he was still under
twenty!--before he had begun to live!