Produced by Chuck Greif and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This book was
produced from scanned images available at the Interent
Archive.)
POOR RELATIONS
[Illustration: image of the book's cover]
_BY THE SAME AUTHOR_
POOR RELATIONS
SYLVIA & MICHAEL
PLASHERS MEAD
SYLVIA SCARLETT
Harper & Brothers _Publishers_
POOR RELATIONS
By COMPTON MACKENZIE
Author of "SYLVIA SCARLETT" "SYLVIA AND MICHAEL"
ETC.
[Illustration: colophon]
HARPER & BROTHERS PUBLISHERS NEW YORK AND LONDON
POOR RELATIONS
Copyright, 1919, by Harper & Brothers
Printed in the United States of America
Published February, 1920
B-U
THIS THEME IN C MAJOR WITH VARIATIONS IS INSCRIBED TO THE ROMANTIC AND
MYSTERIOUS MAJOR C BY ONE WHO WAS PRIVILEGED TO SERVE UNDER HIM DURING
MORE THAN TWO YEARS OF WAR
CAPRI, APRIL 30, 1919.
POOR RELATIONS
_Poor Relations_
CHAPTER I
There was nothing to distinguish the departure of the _Murmania_ from
that of any other big liner leaving New York in October for Liverpool or
Southampton. At the crowded gangways there was the usual rain of
ultimate kisses, from the quayside the usual gale of speeding
handkerchiefs. Ladies in blanket-coats handed over to the arrangement of
their table-stewards the expensive bouquets presented by friends who, as
the case might be, had been glad or sorry to see them go. Middle-aged
gentlemen, who were probably not at all conspicuous on shore, at once
made their appearance in caps that they might have felt shy about
wearing even during their university prime. Children in the first
confusion of settling down ate more chocolates from the gift boxes lying
about the cabins than they were likely to be given (or perhaps to want)
for some time. Two young women with fresh complexions, short skirts, tam
o' shanters, brightly colored jumpers, and big bows to their shoes were
already on familiar terms with one of the junior ship's officers, and
their laughter (which would soon become one of those unending oceanic
accompaniments that make land so pleasant again) was already competing
with the noise of the crew. Everybody boasted aloud that they fed you
really well on the _Murmania_, and hoped silently that perhaps the sense
of being imprisoned in a decaying hot-water bottle (or whatever more or
less apt comparison was invented to suggest atmosphere below decks)
would pass away in the fresh Atlantic breezes. Indeed it might be said,
except in the case of a few ivory-faced ladies already lying back with
the professional aloofness of those who are a prey to chronic headaches,
that outwardly optimism was rampant.
It was not surprising, therefore, that John Touchwood, the successful
romantic playwright and unsuccessful realistic novelist, should on
finding himself hemmed in by such invincible cheerfulness surrender to
his own pleasant fancies of home. This was one of those moments when he
was able to feel that the accusation of sentimentality so persistently
laid against his work by superior critics was rebutted out of the very
mouth of real life. He looked round at his fellow passengers as though
he would congratulate them on conforming to his later and more
profitable theory of art; and if occasionally he could not help seeing a
stewardess with a glance of discreet sympathy reveal to an inquirer the
ship's provision for human weakness, he did not on this account feel
better disposed toward morbid intrusions either upon art or life, partly
because he was himself an excellent sailor and partly because after all
as a realist he had unquestionably not been a success.
"Time for a shave before lunch, steward?" he inquired heartily.
"The first bugle will go in about twenty minutes, sir."
John paused for an instant at his own cabin to extract from his suitcase
the particular outrage upon conventional headgear (it was a deerstalker
of Lovat tweed) that he had evolved for this voyage; and presently he
was sitting in the barber shop, wondering at first why anybody should be
expected to buy any of the miscellaneous articles exposed for sale at
such enhanced prices on every hook and in every nook of the little
saloon, and soon afterward seriously considering the advantage of a pair
of rope-soled shoes upon a heeling deck.
"Very natty things those, sir," said the barber. "I laid in a stock once
at Gib., when we did the southern rowt. Shave you close, sir?"
"Once over, please."
"Skin tender?"
"Rather tender."
"Yes, sir. And the beard's a bit strong, sir. Shave yourself, sir?"
"Usually, but I was up rather early this morning."
"Safety razor, sir?"
"If you think such a description justifiable--yes--a safety."
"They're all the go now, and no mistake ... safety bicycles, safety
matches, safety razors ... they've all come in our time ... yes, sir,
just a little bit to the right--thank you, sir! Not your first crossing,
I take it?"
"No, my third."
"Interesting place, America. But I am from Wandsworth myself. Hair's
getting rather thin round the temples. Would you like something to
brisken up the growth a bit? Another time? Yes, sir. Thank you, sir.
Parting on the left's it, I think?"
"No grease," said John as fiercely as he ever spoke. The barber seemed
to replace the pot of brilliantine with regret.
"What would you like then?" He might have been addressing a spoilt
child. "Flowers-and-honey? Eau-de-quinine? Or perhaps a friction? I've
got lavingder, carnation, wallflower, vilit, lilerk...."
"Bay rum," John declared, firmly.
The barber sighed for such an unadventurous soul; and John, who could
not bear to hurt even the most superficial emotions of a barber, changed
his mind and threw him into a smiling bustle of gratification.
"Rather strong," John said, half apologetically; for while the friction
was being administered the barber had explained in jerks how every time
he went ashore in New York or Liverpool he was in the habit of searching
about for some novel wash or tonic or pomade, and John did not want to
make him feel that his enterprise was unappreciated.
"Strong is it? Well, that's a good fault, sir."
"Yes, I suppose it is."
"What took my fancy was the natural way it smelled."
"Yes, indeed, painfully natural," John agreed.
He stood up and confronted himself in the barber's mirror; regarding the
fair, almost florid man, rather under six feet in height, with sanguine
blue eyes and full, but clearly cut, lips therein reflected, he came to
the comforting conclusion that he did not look his forty-two years and
nine months; indeed, while his muffled whistle was shaping rather than
uttering the tune of _Nancy Lee_, he nearly asked the barber to guess
his age. However, he decided not to risk it, pulled down the lapels of
his smoke-colored tweed coat, put on his deerstalker, tipped the barber
sufficiently well to secure a parting caress from the brush, promised to
meditate the purchase of the rope-soled shoes, and stepped jauntily in
the direction of the luncheon bugle. If John Touchwood had not been a
successful romantic playwright and an unsuccessful realistic novelist,
he might have found in the spectacle of the first lunch of an Atlantic
voyage an illustration of human madness and the destructive will of the
gods. As it was, his capacity for rapidly covering the domestic offices
of the brain with the crimson-ramblers of a lush idealism made him
forget the base fabric so prettily if obviously concealed. As it was, he
found an exhilaration in all this berserker greed, in the cries of
inquisitive children, in the rumpled appearance of women whom the bugle
had torn from their unpacking with the urgency of the last trump, in the
acrid smell of pickles, and in the persuasive gesture with which the
glistening stewards handed the potatoes while they glared angrily at one
another over their shoulders. If a cynical realist had in respect of
this lunch observed to John that a sow's ear was poor material for a
silk purse, he would have contested the universal truth of the proverb,
for at this moment he was engaged in chinking the small change of
sentimentality in just such a purse.
"How jolly everybody is," he thought, swinging round to his neighbor, a
gaunt woman in a kind of draggled mantilla, with an effusion of
good-will that expressed itself in a request to pass her the pickled
walnuts. John fancied an impulse to move away her chair when she
declined his offer; but of course the chair was fixed, and the only sign
of her distaste for pickles or conversation was a faint quiver, which to
any one less rosy than John might have suggested abhorrence, but which
struck him as merely shyness. It was now that for the first time he
became aware of a sickly fragrance that was permeating the atmosphere, a
fragrance that other people, too, seemed to be noticing by the way in
which they were looking suspiciously at the stewards.
"Rather oppressive, some of these flowers," said John to the gaunt lady.
"I don't see any flowers at our end of the table," she replied.
And then with an emotion that was very nearly horror John realized that,
though the barber was responsible, he must pay the penalty in a
vicarious mortification. His first impulse was to snatch a napkin and
wipe his hair; then he decided to leave the table immediately, because
after all nobody _could_ suspect him, in these as yet unvexed waters, of
anything but repletion; finally, hoping that the much powdered lady
opposite swathed in mauve chiffons was getting the discredit for the
fragrance, he stayed where he was. Nevertheless, the exhilaration had
departed; his neighbors all seemed dull folk; and congratulating himself
that after this first confused lunch he might reasonably expect to be
put at the captain's table in recognition of the celebrity that he could
fairly claim, John took from his pocket a bundle of letters which had
arrived just before he had left his hotel and busied himself with them
for the rest of the meal.
His success as a romantic playwright and his failure--or, as he would
have preferred to think of it in the satisfaction of fixing the guilty
fragrance upon the lady in mauve chiffons, his comparative failure--as a
realistic novelist had not destroyed John's passion for what he called
"being practical in small matters," and it was in pursuit of this that
having arranged his letters in two heaps which he mentally labeled as
"business" and "pleasure" he began with the former, as a child begins
(or ought to begin) his tea with the bread and butter and ends it with
the plumcake. In John's case, fresh from what really might be described
as a triumphant production in New York, the butter was spread so thickly
that "business" was too forbidding a name for such pleasantly nutritious
communications. His agent had sent him the returns of the second week;
and playing to capacity in one of the largest New York theaters is
nearer to a material paradise than anything outside the Mohammedan
religion. Then there was an offer from one of the chief film companies
to produce his romantic drama of two years ago, that wonderful riot of
color and Biblical phraseology, _The Fall of Babylon_. They ventured to
think that the cinematographer would do his imagination more justice
than the theater, particularly as upon their dramatic ranch in
California they now had more than a hundred real camels and eight real
elephants. John chuckled at the idea of a few animals compensating for
the absence of his words, but nevertheless ... the entrance of
Nebuchadnezzar, yes, it should be wonderfully effective ... and the
great grass-eating scene, yes, that might positively be more impressive
on the films ... with one or two audiences it had trembled for a moment
between the sublime and the ridiculous. It was a pity that the offer had
not arrived before he was leaving New York, but no doubt he should be
able to talk it over with the London representatives of the firm. Hullo
here was Janet Bond writing to him ... charming woman, charming
actress.... He wandered for a few minutes rather vaguely in the maze of
her immense handwriting, but disentangled his comprehension at last and
deciphered:
THE PARTHENON THEATRE.
Sole Proprietress: Miss Janet Bond.
_October 10, 1910._
DEAR MR. TOUCHWOOD,--I wonder if you have forgotten our talk at Sir
Herbert's that night? I'm so hoping not. And your scheme for a real
Joan of Arc? Do think of me this winter. Your picture of the scene with
Gilles de Rais--you see I followed your advice and read him up--has
_haunted_ me ever since. I can hear the horses' hoofs coming nearer and
nearer and the cries of the murdered children. I'm so glad you've had a
success with _Lucrezia_ in New York. I don't _think_ it would suit me
from what I read about it. You know how _particular_ my public is.
That's why I'm so anxious to play the Maid. When will _Lucrezia_ be
produced in London, and where? There are many rumours. Do come and see
me when you get back to England, and I'll tell you who I've thought of
to play Gilles. I _think_ you'll find him very intelligent. But of
course everything depends on your inclination, or should I say
inspiration? And then that wonderful speech to the Bishop! How does it
begin? "Bishop, thou hast betrayed thy holy trust." Do be a little
flattered that I've remembered that line. It needn't _all_ be in blank
verse, and I think little Truscott would be so good as the Bishop. You
see how _enthusiastic_ I am and how I _believe_ in the idea. All good
wishes.
Yours sincerely and hopefully,
JANET BOND.
John certainly was a little flattered that Miss Bond should have
remembered the Maid's great speech to the Bishop of Beauvais, and the
actress's enthusiasm roused in him an answering flame, so that the cruet
before him began to look like the castelated walls of Orleans, and while
his gaze was fixed upon the bowl of salad he began to compose _Act II._
_Scene I_--_Open country. Enter Joan on horseback. From the summit of a
grassy knoll she searches the horizon._ So fixedly was John regarding
his heroine on top of the salad that the head steward came over and
asked anxiously if there was anything the matter with it. And even when
John assured him that there was nothing he took it away and told one of
the under-stewards to remove the caterpillar and bring a fresh bowl.
Meanwhile, John had picked up the other bundle of letters and begun to
read his news from home.
65 HILL ROAD,
St. John's Wood, N.W.,
_October 10_.
DEAR JOHN,--We have just read in the _Telegraph_ of your great success
and we are both very glad. Edith writes me that she did have a letter
from you. I dare say you thought she would send it on to us but she
didn't, and of course I understand you're busy only I should have liked
to have had a letter ourselves. James asks me to tell you that he is
probably going to do a book on the Cymbalist movement in literature. He
says that the time has come to take a final survey of it. He is also
writing some articles for the _Fortnightly Review_. We shall all be so
glad to welcome you home again.
Your affectionate sister-in-law,
BEATRICE TOUCHWOOD.
"Poor Beatrice," thought John, penitently. "I ought to have sent her a
line. She's a good soul. And James ... what a plucky fellow he is!
Always full of schemes for books and articles. Wonderful really, to go
on writing for an audience of about twenty people. And I used to grumble
because my novels hadn't world-wide circulations. Poor old James ... a
good fellow."
He picked up the next letter; which he found was from his other
sister-in-law.
HALMA HOUSE,
198 Earl's Court Square, S.W.,
_October 9_.
DEAR JOHN,--Well, you've had a hit with _Lucrezia_, lucky man! If you
sent out an Australian company, don't you think I might play lead? I
quite understand that you couldn't manage it for me either in London or
America, but after all you _are_ the author and you surely have _some_
say in the cast. I've got an understudy at the Parthenon, but I can't
stand Janet. Such a selfish actress. She literally doesn't think of any
one but herself. There's a chance I may get a decent part on tour with
Lambton this autumn. George isn't very well, and it's been rather
miserable this wet summer in the boarding house as Bertram and Viola
were ill and kept away from school. I would have suggested their going
down to Ambles, but Hilda was so very unpleasant when I just hinted at
the idea that I preferred to keep them with me in town. Both children
ask every day when you're coming home. You're quite the favourite uncle.
George was delighted with your success. Poor old boy, he's had another
financial disappointment, and your success was quite a consolation.
ELEANOR.
"I wish Eleanor was anywhere but on the stage," John sighed. "But she's
a plucky woman. I _must_ write her a part in my next play. Now for
Hilda."
He opened his sister's letter with the most genial anticipation, because
it was written from his new country house in Hampshire, that county
house which he had coveted for so long and to which the now faintly
increasing motion of the _Murmania_ reminded him that he was fast
returning.
AMBLES,
Wrottesford, Hants,
_October 11_.
MY DEAR JOHN,--Just a line to congratulate you on your new success. Lots
of money in it, I suppose. Dear Harold is quite well and happy at
Ambles. Quite the young squire! I had a little coolness with
Eleanor--entirely on her side of course, but Bertram is really such a
_bad_ influence for Harold and so I told her that I did not think you
would like her to take possession of your new house before you'd had
time to live in it yourself. Besides, so many children all at once would
have disturbed poor Mama. Edith drove over with Frida the other day and
tells me you wrote to her. I should have liked a letter, too, but you
always spoil poor Edith. Poor little Frida looks very peaky. Much love
from Harold who is always asking when you're coming home. Mama is very
well, I'm glad to say.
Your affectionate sister,
HILDA CURTIS.
"She might have told me a little more about the house," John murmured to
himself. And then he began to dream about Ambles and to plant
old-fashioned flowers along its mellow red-brick garden walls. "I shall
be in time to see the colouring of the woods," he thought. The
_Murmania_ answered his aspiration with a plunge, and several of the
rumpled ladies rose hurriedly from table to prostrate themselves for the
rest of the voyage. John opened a fourth letter from England.
THE VICARAGE,
Newton Candover, Hants,
_October 7_.
MY DEAREST JOHN,--I was so glad to get your letter, and so glad to hear
of your success. Laurence says that if he were not a vicar he should
like to be a dramatic author. In fact, he's writing a play now on a
Biblical subject, but he fears he will have trouble with the Bishop, as
it takes a very broad view of Christianity. You know that Laurence has
recently become very broad? He thinks the village people like it, but
unfortunately old Mrs. Paxton--you know who I mean--the patroness of the
living--is so bigoted that Laurence has had a great deal of trouble with
her. I'm sorry to say that dear little Frida is looking thin. We think
it's the wet summer. Nothing but rain. Ambles was looking beautiful when
we drove over last week, but Harold is a little bumptious and Hilda does
not seem to see his faults. Dear Mama was looking _very_ well--better
than I've seen her for ages. Frida sends such a lot of love to dearest
Uncle John. She never stops talking about you. I sometimes get quite
jealous for Laurence. Not really, of course, because family affection is
the foundation of civil life. Laurence is out in the garden speaking to
a man whose pig got into our conservatory this morning. Much love.
Your loving sister,
EDITH.
John put the letter down with a faint sigh: Edith was his favorite
sister, but he often wished that she had not married a parson. Then he
took up the last letter of the family packet, which was from his
housekeeper in Church Row.
39 CHURCH ROW,
_Hampstead, N.W._
DEAR SIR,--This is to inform you with the present that everythink is
very well at your house and that Maud and Elsa is very well as it leaves
me at present. We as heard nothink from Emily since she as gone down to
Hambles your other house, and we hope which is Maud, Elsa and myself you
wont spend all your time out of London which is looking lovely at
present with the leaves beginning to turn and all. With dutiful respects
from Maud, Elsa and self, I am,
Your obedient servant,
MARY WORFOLK.
"Dear old Mrs. Worfolk. She's already quite jealous of Ambles ...
charming trait really, for after all it means she appreciates Church
Row. Upon my soul, I feel a bit jealous of Ambles myself."
John began to ponder the pleasant heights of Hampstead and to think of
the pale blue October sky and of the yellow leaves shuffling and
slipping along the quiet alleys in the autumn wind; to think, too, of
his library window and of London spread out below in a refulgence of
smoke and gold; to think of the chrysanthemums in his little garden and
of the sparrows' chirping in the Virginia-creeper that would soon be all
aglow like a well banked-up fire against his coming. Five delightful
letters really, every one of them full of good wishes and cordial
affection! The _Murmania_ swooped forward, and there was a faint tingle
of glass and cutlery. John gathered up his correspondence to go on deck
and bless the Atlantic for being the pathway to home. As he rose from
the table he heard a voice say:
"Yes, my dear thing, but I've never been a poor relation yet, and I
don't intend to start now."
The saloon was empty except for himself and two women opposite, the
climax of whose conversation had come with such a harsh fitness of
comment upon the letters he had just been reading. John was angry with
himself for the dint so easily made upon the romantic shield he upheld
against life's onset; he felt that he had somehow been led into an
ambush where all his noblest sentiments had been massacred; five bells
sounded upon the empty saloon with an almost funereal gravity; and, when
the two women passed out, John, notwithstanding the injured regard of
his steward, sat down again and read right through the family letters
from a fresh standpoint. The fact of it was that there had turned out to
be very few currants in the cake, for the eating of which he had
prepared himself with such well-buttered bread. Few currants? There was
not a single one, unless Mrs. Worfolk's antagonism to the idea of Ambles
might be considered a gritty shred of a currant. John rose at once when
he had finished his letters, put them in his pocket, and followed the
unconscious disturbers of his hearth on deck. He soon caught sight of
them again where, arm in arm, they were pacing the sunlit starboard side
and apparently enjoying the gusty southwest wind. John wondered how long
it would be before he was given a suitable opportunity to make their
acquaintance, and tried to regulate his promenade so that he should
always meet them face to face either aft or forward, but never amidships
where heavily muffled passengers reclined in critical contemplation of
their fellow-travellers over the top of the last popular novel. "Some
men, you know," he told himself, "would join their walk with a mere
remark about the weather. They wouldn't stop to consider if their
company was welcome. They'd be so serenely satisfied with themselves
that they'd actually succeed ... yes, confound them ... they'd bring it
off! Yet, after all, I suppose in a way that without vanity I might
presume they _would_ be rather interested to meet me. Because, of
course, there's no doubt that people _are_ interested in authors. But,
it's no good ... I can't do that ... this is really one of those moments
when I feel as if I was still seventeen years old ... shyness, I suppose
... yet the rest of my family aren't shy."
This took John's thoughts back to his relations, but to a much less
complacent point of view of them than before that maliciously apposite
remark overheard in the saloon had lighted up the group as abruptly and
unbecomingly as a magnesium flash. However inconsistent he might appear,
he was afraid that he should be more critical of them in future. He
began to long to talk over his affairs with that girl and, looking up at
this moment, he caught her eyes, which either because the weather was so
gusty or because he was so ready to hang decorations round a simple fact
seemed to him like calm moorland pools, deep violet-brown pools in
heathery solitudes. Her complexion had the texture of a rose in
November, the texture that gains a rare lucency from the grayness and
moisture by which one might suppose it would be ruined. She was wearing
a coat and skirt of Harris tweed of a shade of misty green, and with her
slim figure and fine features she seemed at first glance not more than
twenty. But John had not passed her another half-dozen times before he
had decided that she was almost a woman of thirty. He looked to see if
she was wearing a wedding ring and was already enough interested in her
to be glad that she was not. This relief was, of course, not at all due
to any vision of himself in a more intimate relationship; but merely
because he was glad to find that her personality, of which he was by now
more definitely aware than of her beauty (well, not beauty, but charm,
and yet perhaps after all he was being too grudging in not awarding her
positive beauty) would be her own. There was something distinctly
romantic in this beautiful young woman of nearly thirty leading her own
life unimpeded by a loud-voiced husband. Of course, the husband might
have had a gentle voice, but usually this type of woman seemed a prey to
bluffness and bigness, as if to display her atmosphere charms she had
need of a rugged landscape for a background. He found himself glibly
thinking of her as a type; but with what type could she be classified?
Surely she was attracting him by being exceptional rather than typical;
and John soothed his alarmed celibacy by insisting that she appealed to
him with a hint of virginal wisdom which promised a perfect intercourse,
if only their acquaintanceship could be achieved naturally, that is to
say, without the least suggestion of an ulterior object. _She had never
been a poor relation yet, and she did not intend to start being one
now._ Of course, such a woman was still unmarried. But how had she
avoided being a poor relation? What was her work? Why was she coming
home to England? And who was her companion? He looked at the other woman
who walked beside her with a boyish slouch, wore gold pince-nez, and had
a tight mouth, not naturally tight, but one that had been tightened by
driving and riding. It was absurd to walk up and down forever like this;
the acquaintance must be made immediately or not at all; it would never
do to hang round them waiting for an opportunity of conversation. John
decided to venture a simple remark the next time he met them face to
face; but when he arrived at the after end of the promenade deck they
had vanished, and the embarrassing thought occurred to him that perhaps
having divined his intention they had thus deliberately snubbed him. He
went to the rail and leaned over to watch the water undulating past; a
sudden gust caught his cap and took it out to sea. He clapped his hand
too late to his head; a fragrance of carnations breathed upon the salt
windy sunlight; a voice behind him, softly tremulous with laughter,
murmured:
"I say, bad luck."
John commended his deerstalker to the care of all the kindly Oceanides
and turned round: it was quite easy after all, and he was glad that he
had not thought of deliberately letting his cap blow into the sea.
"Look, it's actually floating like a boat," she exclaimed.
"Yes, it was shaped like a boat," John said; he was thinking how absurd
it was now to fancy that swiftly vanishing, utterly inappropriate piece
of concave tweed should only a few seconds ago have been worn the other
way round on a human head.
"But you mustn't catch cold," she added. "Haven't you another cap?"
John did possess another cap, one that just before he left England he
had bought about dusk in the Burlington Arcade, one which in the velvety
bloom of a July evening had seemed worthy of summer skies and seas, but
which in the glare of the following day had seemed more like the shreds
of barbaric attire that are brought back by travelers from exotic lands
to be taken out of a glass case and shown to visitors when the
conversation is flagging on Sunday afternoons in the home counties. Now
if John's plays were full of fierce hues, if his novels had been sepia
studies of realism which the public considered painful and the critics
described as painstaking, his private life had been of a mild uniform
pink, a pinkishness that recalled the chaste hospitality of the best
spare bedroom. Never yet in that pink life had he let himself go to the
extent of wearing a cap, which, even if worn afloat by a colored
prizefighter crossing the Atlantic to defend or challenge supremacy,
would have created an amused consternation, but which on the head of a
well-known romantic playwright must arouse at least dismay and possibly
panic. Yet this John (he had reached the point of regarding himself with
objective surprise), the pinkishness of whose life, though it might be a
protest against cynicism and gloom, was eternally half-way to a blush,
went off to his cabin with the intention of putting on that cap. With
himself for a while he argued that something must be done to imprison
the smell of carnations, that a bowler hat would look absurd, that he
really must not catch cold; but all the time this John knew perfectly
well that what he really wanted was to give a practical demonstration of
his youth. This John did not care a damn about his success as a romantic
playwright, but he did care a great deal that these two young women
should vote him a suitable companion for the rest of the voyage.
"Why, it's really not so bad," he assured himself, when before the
mirror he tried to judge the effect. "I rather think it's better than
the other one. Of course, if I had seen when I bought it that the checks
were purple and not black I dare say I shouldn't have bought it--but, by
Jove, I'm rather glad I didn't notice them. After all, I have a right to
be a little eccentric in my costume. What the deuce does it matter to me
if people do stare? Let them stare! I shall be the last of the lot to
feel seasick, anyway."
John walked defiantly back to the promenade deck, and several people who
had not bothered to remark the well-groomed florid man before now asked
who he was, and followed his progress along the deck with the easily
interested gaze of the transatlantic passenger.
For the rest of the voyage John never knew whether the attention his
entrance into the saloon always evoked was due to his being the man who
wore the unusual cap or to his being the man who had written _The Fall
of Babylon_; nor, indeed, did he bother to make sure, for he was
fortified during the rest of the voyage by the company of Miss Doris
Hamilton and Miss Ida Merritt and thoroughly enjoyed himself.
"Now am I attributing to Miss Hamilton more discretion than she's really
got?" he asked himself on the last night of the passage, a stormy night
off the Irish coast, while he swayed before the mirror in the creaking
cabin. John was accustomed, like most men with clear-cut profiles, to
take advice from his reflection, and perhaps it was his dramatic
instinct that led him usually to talk aloud to this lifelong friend.
"Have I in fact been too impulsive in this friendship? Have I? That's
the question. I certainly told her a lot about myself, and I think she
appreciated my confidence. Yet suppose that she's just an ordinary young
woman and goes gossiping all over England about meeting me? I really
must remember that I'm no longer a nonentity and that, though Miss
Hamilton is not a journalist, her friend is, and, what is more,
confessed that the sole object of her visit to America had been to
interview distinguished men with the help of Miss Hamilton. The way she
spoke about her victims reminded me of the way that fellow in the
smoking-saloon talked about the tarpon fishing off Florida ... famous
American statesmen, financiers, and architects existed quite
impersonally for her to be caught just like tarpon. Really when I come
to think of it I've been at the end of Miss Merritt's rod for five days,
and as with all the others the bait was Miss Hamilton."
John's mistrust in the prudence of his behavior during the voyage had
been suddenly roused by the prospect of reaching Liverpool next day. The
word positively exuded disillusionment; it was as anti-romantic as a
notebook of Herbert Spencer. He undressed and got into his bunk; the
motion of the ship and the continual opening and shutting of cabin doors
all the way along the corridor kept him from sleep, and for a long time
he lay awake while the delicious freedom of the seas was gradually
enslaved by the sullen, prosaic, puritanical, bilious word--Liverpool.
He had come down to his cabin, full of the exhilaration of a last quick
stroll up and down the spray-whipped deck; he had come down from a long
and pleasant talk all about himself where he and Miss Hamilton had sat
in the lee of some part of a ship's furniture the name of which he did
not know and did not like to ask, a long and pleasant talk, cozily
wrapped in two rugs glistening faintly in the starlight with salty rime;
he had come down from a successful elimination of Miss Merritt, his
whole personality marinated in freedom, he might say; and now the mere
thought of Liverpool was enough to disenchant him and to make him feel
rather like a man who was recovering from a brilliant, a too brilliant
revelation of himself provoked by champagne. He began to piece together
the conversation and search for indiscretions. To begin with, he had
certainly talked a great deal too much about himself; it was not
dignified for a man in his position to be so prodigally frank with a
young woman he had only known for five days. Suppose she had been
laughing at him all the time? Suppose that even now she was laughing at
him with Miss Merritt? "Good heavens, what an amount I told her," John
gasped aloud. "I even told her what my real circulation was when I used
to write novels, and I very nearly told her how much I made out of _The
Fall of Babylon_, though since that really was a good deal, it wouldn't
have mattered so much. And what did I say about my family? Well, perhaps
that isn't so important. But how much did I tell her of my scheme for
_Joan of Arc_? Why, she might have been my confidential secretary by the
way I talked. My confidential secretary? And why not? I am entitled to a
secretary--in fact my position demands a secretary. But would she accept
such a post? Now don't let me be impulsive."
John began to laugh at himself for a quality in which as a matter of
fact he was, if anything, deficient. He often used to chaff himself,
but, of course, always without the least hint of ill-nature, which is
perhaps why he usually selected imaginary characteristics for genial
reproof.
"Impulsive dog," he said to himself. "Go to sleep, and don't forget that
confidential secretaries afloat and confidential secretaries ashore are
very different propositions. Yes, you thought you were being very clever
when you bought those rope-soled shoes to keep your balance on a
slippery deck, but you ought to have bought a rope-soled cap to keep
your head from slipping."
This seemed to John in the easy optimism that prevails upon the borders
of sleep an excellent joke, and he passed with a chuckle through the
ivory gate.
The next day John behaved helpfully and politely at the Customs, and
indeed continued to be helpful and polite until his companions of the
voyage were established in a taxi at Euston. He had carefully written
down the Hamiltons' address with a view to calling on them one day, but
even while he was writing the number of the square in Chelsea he was
thinking about Ambles and trying to decide whether he should make a dash
across London to Waterloo on the chance of catching the 9:05 P.M. or
spend the night at his house in Church Row.
"I think perhaps I'd better stay in town to-night," he said. "Good-by.
Most delightful trip across--see you both again soon, I hope. You don't
advise me to try for the 9:05?" he asked once more, anxiously.
Miss Hamilton laughed from the depths of the taxi; when she laughed, for
the briefest moment John felt an Atlantic breeze sweep through the
railway station.
"_I_ recommend a good night's rest," she said.
So John's last thought of her was of a nice practical young woman; but,
as he once again told himself, the idea of a secretary was absurd.
Besides, did she even know shorthand?
"Do you know shorthand?" he turned round to shout as the taxi buzzed
away; he did not hear her answer, if answer there was.
"Of course I can always write," he decided, and without one sigh he
busied himself with securing his own taxi for Hampstead.