THE FRIENDS
[Illustration: Of this atmosphere White and Mapleson were part and
parcel]
THE FRIENDS
AND OTHER STORIES
BY
STACY AUMONIER
Author of “Olga Bardel,” etc.
“_As a general rule, people, even
the wicked, are much more naïve
and simple-hearted than we suppose.
And we ourselves are, too._”
DOSTOEVSKY.
[Illustration: colophon]
NEW YORK
THE CENTURY CO.
1917
Copyright, 1915, 1917, by
THE CENTURY CO.
_Published August, 1917_
CONTENTS
PAGE
THE FRIENDS 3
THE PACKET 69
“IN THE WAY OF BUSINESS” 121
THE FRIENDS
AND OTHER STORIES
THE FRIENDS
White and Mapleson often tried to recall the occasion when their
friendship began, but neither succeeded. Perhaps it had its origin in
some moment when the memory was to some extent blurred. Certain it is
that they drifted together across the miasma of commercial London and
founded a deep and lasting friendship that found its chief expression in
the clinking of glasses in the saloon and luncheon bars of various
hostelries off Oxford Street and Bloomsbury.
White acted as an agent for a firm of wire-mattress manufacturers in Old
Street in the city, and as his business was conducted principally among
the furnishing and upholstering businesses in the West End, and as
Mapleson was the manager of the brass bed department at Tauntons, the
large Furnishing Emporium in Bloomsbury, it is not surprising that they
came in contact and that they had so many interests in common. There is,
alas, no doubt that the most absorbing interest of both was the
consumption of liquid refreshment, and there is also, alas, no doubt
that the friendship was quickened by the curious coincidence of their
mental vision when stimulated by alcoholic fumes. And it is here that
one or two curious facts relating to the personalities of the two men
should be noted. During the day, it would be no uncommon thing for
either man to consume anything between ten and fifteen whiskies and
sodas, and sometimes even more, yet of neither man could it be said
that he ever got really drunk. On the other hand, of neither man could
it be said that he was ever really sober. White was of medium height,
rather pale, and slight. He had a dark mustache and was always neatly
dressed in a dark blue suit with well-fitting boots and gloves. He was
extremely quiet and courteous in manner, and his manner varied but
little. The effect of alcohol upon him was only to accentuate his
courtesy and politeness. Toward the evening his lips would tremble a
little, but he would become more and more ingratiating. His voice would
descend to a refined gentle croon, his eyes would just glow with a
sympathetic light, and he would listen with his head slightly on one
side and an expression that conveyed the idea that the remarks of the
speaker were a matter of great moment to him. Not that he did not speak
himself; on the contrary, he spoke well, but always with a deferential
_timbre_ as though attuning himself to the mood and mental attitude of
his companion.
On the other hand, Mapleson always started the day badly. He was a
large, florid man with a puffy face and strangely colorless eyes. He
wore a ponderous frock coat that was just a little out of date, with a
waistcoat that hung in folds, and the folds never seemed free from
sandwich crumbs and tobacco ash. He had an unfortunate habit with his
clothes of never being quite complete. That is to say, if he had on a
new top hat his boots were invariably shabby, or if his boots were a
recent acquisition his top hat would seem all brushed the wrong way. As
I say, he always started the day badly. He would be very late and
peevish and would fuss about with pills and cloves. He would complain of
not being quite “thumbs up.” Eleven fifteen would invariably find him
round at “The Monitor,” leaning against the mahogany bar and asking
Mrs. Wylde to mix him “a whisky and peppermint” or some other decoction
that between them they considered would be just the thing for his
special complaint that morning. “In the way of business,” he would treat
and be treated by several other pals in “the sticks,” as this
confraternity called the Furnishing Trade. It would be interesting to
know what proportion of Mapleson’s and White’s income was devoted to
this good cause. When Mapleson would arrive home, sometimes late at
night, breathing heavily, and carrying with him the penetrating
atmosphere of the taproom, he would say in response to the complaints of
his tired wife, “I hate the stuff, my dear. You have to do it though.
It’s all in the way of business.”
A sociologist might have discovered (if he were searching for concrete
instances) that White and Mapleson spent on each other every year very
nearly eighty pounds, although the business they did together amounted
to rather less than thirty, an unsound premium surely!
As the day wore on Mapleson would improve. And it was one of the assets
of the White-Mapleson friendship that they usually did not meet till
lunch-time. Then the two friends would clink glasses and stroll
arm-in-arm into Polati’s in Oxford Street, for, as Mapleson would say,
“When a man works hard he needs feeding,” and White would agree with him
deferentially, and then they would secure a seat not too near the band,
and, after thoroughly considering the menu, they would order a “mixed
grill” as being “something English and that you can get your teeth
into.” During the interval of waiting for the mixed grill, which took
fifteen minutes to prepare, Mapleson would insist on standing White a
gin and bitters, and of course it was only right and courteous of White
to return the compliment. The mixed grill would be washed down with a
tankard of ale or more often with whisky and soda, after which the
friends would sometimes share a Welsh rarebit or a savory; and it was
Mapleson who introduced the plan of finishing the meal with a coffee and
liqueur--“It stimulates one’s mind for the afternoon’s business,” he
would explain--and White flattered him on his good sense and insisted on
standing an extra liqueur, “Just to give value to one’s cigar.” Under
the influence of these good things Mapleson would become garrulous, and
White even more soothing and sympathetic. This luncheon interval
invariably lasted two hours or two hours and a half. They would then
part, each to his own business, while making an appointment to meet
later in the afternoon at “The Duke of Gadsburg.”
And here a notable fact must be recorded. For an hour or two in the
afternoon each man _did_ do some work. And it is a remarkable point that
“Tauntons,” the great house in Bloomsbury, always considered Mapleson a
good salesman, as so indeed he was. The vast lapses of time that he
spent away from business were explained away on the score of active
canvassing. His turnover for the year compared favorably with that of
the other managers at “Tauntons.” While of White, strange rumors of the
enormous fortune that he was accumulating were always current. The
natural reserve of the wire-mattress agent, and his remarkable lucidity
on matters of finance, added to the fact that he took in and studied
“The Statist,” gave him a unique position in the upholstering world. Men
would whisper together over their glasses and say, “Ah, old White! he
knows a thing or two!” and grave speculations would go on as to whether
his income ran into four figures, and in what speculations he invested
his money. Considerable profundity was given to these rumors by the fact
that White always _had_ money and that he was always willing to lend it.
He carried a sovereign purse that seemed inexhaustible.
Mapleson, on the other hand, though natively lavish, had periods of
“financial depression.” At these periods he would drink more and become
maudlin and mawkish, and it was invariably White who helped him out of
his troubles. The two friends would meet later in the afternoon “to take
a cup of tea,” and it often happened that Mapleson felt that tea would
not be just the thing for his nervous constitution, so White would
prescribe a whisky and soda, and they would adjourn to a place where
such things may be procured. It is remarkable how quickly the time
passed under these conditions, but just before six Mapleson would “run
back to the shop to see if any orders had come in.” With studious
consideration, White would wait for him. It was generally half-past six
or seven before Mapleson returned, thoroughly exhausted with his day’s
work.
It was then that the suavity and charm of White’s manner was most
ingratiating. He would insist on Mapleson having a comfortable seat by
the fire in the saloon, and himself carrying across the drinks from the
bar.
Mapleson soon became comforted and would suggest “a game of pills before
going home.” Nothing appealed to White more than this. For White was a
very remarkable billiard player. Young Charlie Maybird, who is a
furniture draughtsman and an expert on sport, used to say that “White
could give any pub. marker in London 40 in a 100 and beat him off the
mark.” He had a curious, feline way of following the balls round the
table; he seemed almost to purr over them, to nurse them and stroke
them, and make them perform most astounding twists and turns. And each
time he succeeded he would give a little sort of self-depreciatory
croon, as much as to say, “I’m so sorry. I really don’t know how the
balls happen to do all this.” And yet it is remarkable how often White
lost, especially against Mapleson.
Mapleson was one of those players who gave one the impression of being
an expert on an off day. As a matter of fact, he never had an “on” day.
He was just a very third-rate player, only he would attempt most
difficult shots and then give vent to expressions of the utmost surprise
and disgust that they didn’t come off.
The billiards would last till eight o’clock or half past, when a feeling
of physical exhaustion would prompt the arrangement that “a chop would
be a good idea.” They would then adjourn once more to the dining-room at
“The Monitor” and regale themselves with chops, cheese, and ale, by
which time Mapleson would arrive at the conclusion that it wasn’t worth
going home, so an adjournment would be made once more to the bar and the
business of the evening would commence.
It might be worth while to recall one or two features of “The Monitor”
bar, which was invariably crowded by salesmen and assistants from
“Tauntons” and was looked upon as a sort of headquarters of the
upholstering trade at that time. It was a large room, fitted in the
usual way with glittering mahogany and small glass mirrors. Two long
seats upholstered in green leather were set around a cheerful fireplace
of blue tiles. There were also four small circular tables with marble
tops, and on either side of the fireplace two enormous bright blue
Doulton ware pots of hideous design containing palms. On the side facing
the bar was a florid staircase with a brass handrail leading up to the
dining-and billiard-rooms.
The only difference that a stranger might have felt between this and any
other place of a similar description at that time lay perhaps in its
mental atmosphere. There was always a curious feeling of freemasonry. In
addition to Mrs. Wylde there were two other barmaids, Nancie and Olive,
who was also sometimes called “The Titmouse.” They were both tall,
rather thin girls, with a wealth of wonderful flaxen hair. They seemed
to spend a considerable amount of time (when not engaged in serving) in
brewing themselves cocoa and hot milk. Olive was a teetotaler and
confessed frankly with regard to alcohol that she “hated the muck,” but
Nancie would occasionally drink stout.
To be served by Mrs. Wylde was a treat that only occasionally occurred
to the more favored devotees of “The Monitor.” She was a woman of
enormous proportions with a white-powdered face, and also a wealth of
flaxen hair. She invariably wore a rather shabby black dress trimmed
with lace, and a huge bunch of fresh flowers, usually lilies and
carnations.
Now everybody who came into the bar of “The Monitor” seemed not only to
know Nancie and Olive and Mrs. Wylde by name, but everybody else by
their name or nickname. For instance, this sort of thing would happen. A
pale, thin, young man with pointed boots and a sort of semi-sporting
suit would creep furtively in and go up to the bar and lean across and
shake hands with Nancie and after a normal greeting would say, “Has the
Captain been in?” and Nancie would reply, “Yes, he was in with the
Rabbit about four o’clock,” and the young man would say, “Oh! didn’t he
leave nothing for me?” and Nancie would say, “No. I wouldn’t be
surprised if he came in later. ’Ere! I tell you what,” and she would
draw the young man to a corner of the bar and there would be a whispered
conversation for a few moments, and then the young man would go out.
All of which would seem very mysterious to a casual visitor.
Of this atmosphere White and Mapleson were part and parcel. They had
their own particular little round table near the fire, where, in spite
of Mapleson’s daily avowal to get home, one could rely on finding them
nearly every evening. And they gathered around them quite a small colony
of kindred spirits. Here they would sit very often till nearly twelve
o’clock when “The Monitor” shut, talking and drinking whisky. As the
evening advanced Mapleson expanded. One of his favorite themes was
Conscription. On this subject he and White were absolutely in accord.
“Every man ought to be made to serve his country,” Mapleson would say,
bringing his fist down with a bang on the marble table. “He ought to be
made to realize his civil responsibilities and what he owes to the
Empire! Every man under thirty-five should serve three years” (Mapleson
was forty-four). “It seems to me we’re becoming a nation of knock-kneed,
sentimental women.”
And White would dilate upon what the Germans were doing and would give
precise facts and figures of the strength of the German army, and the
cost and probabilities of landing two army corps on the coast of
Suffolk.
Another favorite theme was the action of “these silly women!” and
Mapleson would set the bar in roars of laughter with a description of
what _he_ would do if _he_ were Home Secretary.
Mapleson was very fond of talking about “his principles.” In
conversation it seemed that his actions must be hedged in by these
iron-bound conventions. In effect they were practically as follows.
Business comes first, always.
Never fail to keep a business appointment.
Never mix port and whisky.
Never give anything to a stranger that you might give to a pal.
He had other rules of life, but they were concerned exclusively with
rules of diet and drinking and need not concern us here.
Thoroughly exhausted with the day’s business, Mapleson would leave the
imperturbable White just before twelve o’clock, and not infrequently
would find it necessary to take a cab to Baker Street to catch his last
train to Willesden Green where he lived, and where he would arrive at
night, having spent during the day a sum varying between twenty and
thirty shillings, which was precisely the amount he allowed his wife
every week to keep house for a family of five, and to include food,
clothing, and washing.
White lived at Acton, and no one ever quite knew how he arrived there or
by what means. But he never failed to report himself at nine o’clock the
next morning at Old Street with all his notes, orders, and instructions
neatly written out. It was remarkable how long “The Monitor” remained
the headquarters of this fraternity, for, as one of them remarked, “the
licensing business is very sensitive”; in the same way that a flock of
crows will simultaneously and without any apparent reason fly from one
hill to another, it will be a sort of fashion for a group of men to
patronize a certain establishment and then suddenly to segregate
elsewhere. It is true that there were one or two attempts at
defection--Charlie Maybird once made an effort to establish a
headquarters as far away as “The Trocadero” even, but the birds soon
returned to the comforting hostelry of Mrs. Wylde.
And then one summer Mapleson was very ill. He got wet through walking to
Baker Street one evening when, after having started, he found he had
only three coppers on him. He traveled home in his wet clothes and next
day developed a bad chill which turned into pneumonia. For days he lay
in a critical state, but thanks to the attention of Mrs. Mapleson, who
did not go to bed for three nights, and a careful doctor, he got over
the crisis. But the doctor forbade him to go back to business for a
fortnight and suggested that, if it were possible to arrange it, a few
days at the seaside might set him up. White called several times, and
was most anxious and solicitous, and assured Mrs. Mapleson that he would
do anything in his power to help his friend, and sent a large basket of
expensive fruits and some bottles of very old port wine.
Mapleson’s illness, however, was of more troublesome a nature than
appeared at first. After a rather serious relapse, the doctor said that
his heart was not quite what it should be, and it was nearly a month
before the question of moving him could be considered. Tauntons treated
Mapleson very well over this, and his salary was paid every week, only
of course he lost his commissions, which in the ordinary way represented
the bulk of his income, and it became necessary for Mrs. Mapleson to
economize with the utmost skill, especially as the invalid required
plenty of good and well-cooked food on regaining his strength. The rest
of the family had therefore to go on shorter commons than usual, and
matters were not helped by the fact of one of the children developing
glands and being in an enfeebled condition. White called one evening and
was drinking a glass of the old port with the invalid, and they were
discussing how it could be arranged for Mapleson to get a week at
Brighton. “I think I could travel now,” said Mapleson, “only I don’t see
how the Missus is going to leave Flora.”
It was then that White had an inspiration. If it would help matters in
the Mapleson family, he would be pleased to take a week off and go to
Brighton with Mapleson. Mapleson hailed this idea with delight, and Mrs.
Mapleson was informed on entering the room a little later, “You need not
bother about it any more, my dear; White has been good enough to offer
to go to Brighton with me.” Mrs. Mapleson was a woman who said very
little, and it was difficult on this occasion to know what she thought.
In fact her taciturnity at times irritated Mapleson beyond endurance.
She merely paused, drew in her thin, pale lips, and murmured, “All
right, dear,” and then busied herself with preparing Mapleson’s evening
broth.
The friends were very lucky with the weather. Fresh breezes off the
Channel tempered the fierce August sun and made the conditions on the
front delightful. It might be hinted that perhaps the weather might have
been otherwise for the interest that they took in it.
For after the first day or so, finding his vitality returning to him,
Mapleson soon persuaded his companion that the choicest spot in Brighton
was the saloon bar of “The Old Ship.” And he could not show his
gratitude sufficiently. White was given _carte blanche_ to order
anything he liked. But White would not listen to such generosity. He
knew that the expenses that Mapleson had had to endure must be telling
on him, so he insisted on paying at least twice out of three times.
Mapleson acknowledged that it was “a hell of a worry and responsibility
having a family to keep. They simply eat up the money, my dear chap.”
The week passed quickly enough and soon both were back at their
occupations in town. The friendship pursued the even tenor of its way,
and it was fifteen months before any incident came to disturb it....
Then one day in October something happened to White. He fell down in the
street and was taken to a hospital. It was rumored that he was dead.
Consternation prevailed in the upholstering confraternity, and Mapleson
made anxious enquiries at the hospital bureau.
It was difficult to gather precise details, but it was announced that
White was very ill and that a very serious operation would have to be
performed. Mapleson returned to the bar of “The Monitor,” harboring a
nameless dread. A strange feeling of physical sickness crept over him.
He sat in the corner of the bar sipping his whisky, enveloped in a
lugubrious gloom. He heard the young sparks enter and laugh and joke
about White. It was a subject of constant and cynical mirth. “Hullo,”
they would say; “heard about old White? He’s done in at last!” and then
there would be whisperings and chucklings, and he would hear, “Drunk
himself to death,” “Doesn’t stand a dog’s chance, my dear chap; my uncle
had the same thing. Why, he’s been at it now for about twenty-five
years--can’t think how he’s lasted so long!” And then they would come
grinning up to Mapleson, hoping for more precise details. “Sorry to
hear about your friend, Mr. Mapleson; how did it happen?...”
Mapleson could not stand it. He pushed back his half-filled glass and
stumbled out of the bar. He was not conscious of an affection for White,
or any sentiment other than a vast fear and a strange absorbing
depression. He crept into the saloon of a small house off the Charing
Cross Road, where no one would be likely to know him, and sat silently
sipping from his glass. It seemed to have no effect upon him. The vision
of White lying there--like Death--and perhaps even now the doctors were
busy with their little steel knives....
Mapleson shivered. He ordered more whisky and drank it neat. He stumbled
on into other bars all the way to Trafalgar Square, drinking and
wrestling with his fear. The spirits ultimately took their effect and
he sat somewhere, in some dark corner, he could never remember where,
with his mind in a state of trance. He remembered being turned out. It
must have been twelve o’clock--and engaging a cab--he could just
remember his address--and ordering the man to drive home. In the cab he
went sound asleep, hopelessly drunk, the first time for many years. He
knew nothing more till the next day. Some one must have come down to
help carry him in--he was no light weight--perhaps the cabman had to be
bribed, too. He woke up about one o’clock feeling very ill and scared.
He jumped up and called out, “What the devil’s the time? What are we all
doing? Why haven’t I been called?”
Mrs. Mapleson came in--she put her hand on his forehead and said, “It’s
all right. I sent a telegram to say you were ill. You had better stop
here. I’ll get you some tea.” Mapleson fell back on the pillows, and
the sickening recollection of last night came back to him.
Later in the evening Mrs. Mapleson came in again and said, “I hear that
Mr. White has had his operation and is going on as well as could be
expected.” Beads of perspiration streamed down Mapleson’s face and he
murmured, “My God! my God!” That was all that was said, and the next day
Mapleson went back to work.
The officials at the hospital seemed curiously reticent about White. The
only information to be gleaned for some days was that he was alive.
Mapleson went about his work with nerveless indifference. He drank, but
his drinking was more automatic than spontaneous. He drank from habit,
but he gained neither pleasure nor profit from doing so.
The nameless fear pursued him. Great bags appeared under his eyes which
were partly blood-shot. He stooped in his walk, and began to make
mistakes in his accounts, and to be abstracted in dealing with
customers.
He was arraigned before two of the directors of Tauntons, and one of
them finished a harangue by suggesting that “it might be more
conformable to business methods if he would remove the traces of
yesterday’s breakfast from the folds of his waistcoat.” The large man
received these criticisms in apathetic silence. “Poor old Mapleson!”
they said round in the bar of “The Monitor.” “I’ve never seen a chap cut
up so about anything as he is about White,” and then abstract
discussions on friendship would follow and remarkable instances of
friendships formed in business.
Of course White would die--that was a settled and arranged thing, and
curiously enough little sympathy was expressed, even by those to whom
White had lent money. In spite of his charm of manner and his
generosity, they all felt that there was something about White they
didn’t understand. He was too clever, too secretive.
On Friday he was slightly better, but on Saturday he had a relapse, and
on Sunday morning when Mapleson called at the hospital he was informed
that White was sinking, and they didn’t expect him to last forty-eight
hours.
Mapleson had inured himself to this thought; he had made up his mind to
this conclusion from the first, and this last intimation hardly affected
him. He went about like one stunned, without volition, without interest.
He was only conscious of a vast unhappiness and misery, of which White
was in some way a factor.
For five days the wire mattress agent lay on the verge of death, and
then he began to rally slightly. The house surgeon said it was one of
the most remarkable constitutions he had ever come up against. For
three days there was a distinct improvement, followed by another
relapse. But still White fought on. At the end of another week he was
out of danger. But the convalescence was long and tedious.
When at the end of six weeks he was well enough to leave the hospital,
the house-surgeon took him on one side and said, “Now, look here, my
friend; we’re going to let you out. And there’s no reason why you
shouldn’t get fairly well again. Only I want you quite to understand
this: If you touch alcohol again in any form--in any case for
years--well, you might as well put a bullet through your own head.” In
another ten days White was back at business, looking exactly the same as
ever, speaking in the same suave voice. He soon appeared in “The
Monitor,” but with the utmost courtesy declined all offers of drinks
except ginger ale. It need hardly be said that to Mapleson such an
event seemed a miracle. He had sunk into a low morbid condition from
which he had never hoped to rise.
Out of courtesy the first evening Mapleson insisted on drinking ginger
ale himself so that his friend should not feel out of it.
And they sat and had a long discussion into the night; White giving
luminous and precise details of the whole of his illness and operation,
eulogizing hospital methods and discussing the whole aspect of society
toward therapeutics in a calmly detached way.
But Mapleson was not happy. He was glad to have White back, but the
element of fear that White had introduced him to was not eliminated. He
felt ill himself, and there somehow seemed a great gap between White in
the old days and White drinking ginger ale and talking medicine! For
three nights Mapleson kept this up and then thought he would have “just
a nightcap.”
It gradually developed into the position that Mapleson resumed his
whisky and White stuck to his ginger ale. And it is a curious fact that
this arrangement depressed Mapleson more than it did White. He drank
copiously and more frequently to try and create an atmosphere of his
own, but always there was White looking just the same, talking just the
same.
The ginger ale got on Mapleson’s nerves. He felt that he couldn’t stand
it, and a strange and enervating depression began to creep over him
again. For days this arrangement held good, White seeming utterly
indifferent as to what he drank, and Mapleson getting more and more
depressed because White didn’t drink whisky. At length Mapleson
suggested one evening that “surely just one” wouldn’t hurt White. But
White said with the deepest tone of regret that he was afraid it would
be rather unwise, and, as a matter of fact, he had got so used to doing
without it that he really hardly missed it.
From that moment a settled gloom and depression took hold of Mapleson.
He just stood there looking at White and listening to him, but hardly
troubling to speak himself. He felt utterly wretched. He got into such a
state that White began to show a sympathetic alarm, and one evening
toward the end of February as they were sitting at their favorite table
in “The Monitor” White said, “Well, I’ll just have a whisky and soda
with you if you like.”
That was one of the happiest evenings of Mapleson’s life. Directly his
friend began to drink some chord in his own nature responded, his eyes
glowed, he became garrulous and entertaining.
They had another and then went to the Oxford Music Hall into the
lounge, but there was such a crowd that they could not see the stage so
they went to the bar at the back, and had another drink and a talk. How
they talked that night! They talked about business, and about dogs, and
conscription, and women, and the Empire, and tobacco, and the staff of
Tauntons. They had a wild orgy of talk and drink. That night White drank
eleven whiskies and sodas, and Mapleson got cheerfully and gloriously
drunk.
It was perhaps as well that the friends enjoyed this bacchanale for it
was the last time they met. By four o’clock the next afternoon White was
dead....
Mapleson heard of it the following night. He was leaning against the
fireplace in “The Monitor,” expatiating upon the wonderful improvement
in White and extolling his virtues, when young Howard Aldridge, the
junior salesman to Mr. Vincent Pelt, of Tauntons, came in to say that
White’s brother-in-law had just rung up Mr. Pelt to say that White was
dead. When Mapleson heard this he muttered, “My Christ!”
These were the last words that Mapleson ever uttered in the bar of “The
Monitor.”
He picked up his hat and went out into the street. It was the same
feeling of numbed terror and physical sickness that assailed him. With
no plan of action arranged, he surprised his wife by arriving home
before ten o’clock, and by going to bed. He was shivering. She took him
up a hot-water bottle and she said, “I’m sorry to hear about White.”
Mapleson didn’t answer, but his teeth chattered. He lay awake half the
night thinking of Death....
The next day he got up and went to business as usual. But for the second
time the head of the firm felt it his duty to point out one or two cases
of negligence to Mapleson and to warn him that “these things must not
happen in the future.”
Two days later Mapleson received a postcard signed by “F. Peabody” to
say that the funeral of the late G. L. White would take place at such
and such a church at East Acton and would leave the “Elms” Castlereach
Road, Acton, at 12 o’clock, and it was intimated that a seat for Mr.
Mapleson would be found in a carriage.
A fine driving rain out of a leaden sky greeted Mapleson when he set out
for White’s funeral on the Saturday. His wife tried to persuade him not
to go, for he was really ill. But he made no comment. He fiddled about
with a Cassell’s time-table and could come to no satisfactory decision
about the way to get there. His wife ultimately looked him up a train to
Hammersmith from which terminus he could get a train. Before reaching
Hammersmith a strange revulsion came over him. Why, after all, should
he go to this funeral! White wouldn’t know about it, and what did he
know of White’s relations? A strange choking and giddiness came over
him, and at Hammersmith he found a comfortable refreshment room, where
he partook himself, and decided that after refreshing he would go on to
business.
After having two whiskies, however, he changed his mind. “No,” he
muttered to himself, “I’ll see it through.” He boarded a tram that went
in the direction of Acton. He found that he had to change trams at one
point. It seemed an interminable journey. He kept wondering how White
managed to get home at night from Oxford Street at 12 o’clock. He felt
cold and wretched. The effect of the whisky wore off.
At last he reached Acton and asked for Castlereach Road. Nobody seemed
to know it. He was directed first in one direction and then in another;
at last a postman put him on the right track, but suggested that as it
was some way he might get a ’bus to Gaddes Green and then it was only
about fifteen minutes’ walk.
Mapleson set off, keeping a sharp lookout for a place of refreshment,
for the reactionary spirit was once more upon him. The ’bus put him down
at a forlorn looking corner where there was only a sort of workman’s
alehouse. “I expect I’ll pass one on the way,” he thought, and taking
his directions from the assistant of a greengrocer’s shop he set out
once more through the rain.
The farther he went the meaner and more sordid did the streets become.
He did not pass a single public house that he felt he could approach. “I
expect the neighborhood will change soon,” he thought. “I expect I’ve
come the wrong way. Why, every one said White must be making at least
eight hundred a year! He wouldn’t live in a place like this.”
At length he came to a break in the neighborhood where some newly built
villas crowded each other on the heels of the more ancient squalor. An
errand boy told him that “Castlereach Road was the second turning on the
right off Goldsmith’s havenue.” He found Goldsmith’s Avenue where a
barrel organ was vomiting lugubrious music to an audience listening from
the shelter of their windows, and swarms of dirty children were hurrying
through the rain on nameless errands. A slice of bread and jam was
thrown from a second story window to a little boy in the street and
missed Mapleson’s hat by inches. His progress was in any case the source
of considerable mirth to the inhabitants.
At last he came to Castlereach Road. After the noise and bustle of
Goldsmith’s Avenue it seemed like the end of the world. It was a long
straight road of buff-colored villas with stucco facings and slate
roofs, all identically the same. From the end where Mapleson entered it,
it looked interminably and utterly deserted. Doubtless if it had been a
fine day the gutters would have been crowded with children, but with the
pouring rain there was not a soul in sight.
Mapleson blundered on in search of number 227, and as he did so a
thought occurred to him that he and White had a common secret apart. He
always had felt in his inmost heart a little ashamed of his red-brick
villa in Willesden Green, and that was one reason why he had always kept
business well apart from domestic affairs, and White had casually
referred to “his place at Acton.” His place at Acton! Mapleson entered
it, horribly tired, horribly sober, horribly wretched. All the blinds
were down. It had taken so long to get there he half hoped that he was
too late.
A tall, gaunt woman in black with a slight down on her upper lip opened
the door. She seemed surprised to see him.
He explained who he was.
She said, “Oh, yes. My! you are early. It’s only half-past twelve!”
“Half-past twelve!” said Mapleson, “but I thought the funeral was to be
at twelve.”
Then the gaunt woman called into a little side room, “’Ere, Uncle Frank,
what ’ave you been up to? Did you tell Mr. Maple that the funeral was at
twelve?”
“Oh, don’t sye that! don’t sye that!” came a voice from the room, and a
small man with sandy hair and wizened features and small, dark, greedy
eyes came out into the hall. “Oh, don’t sye that, Mr. Mapleson; I’m
Peabody. I quite thought I said two o’clock!”
Mapleson had a wild impulse to whistle for a cab or a fire-engine and to
drive away from this, anywhere. But the utter helplessness of his
position held him fast. Before he had time to give the matter serious
thought he was being shown into the drawing-room, a small stuffy room
with a blue floral wall paper and bamboo furniture, and many framed
photographs, and the gaunt woman was saying, “Oh, Uncle Frank, how could
you have made that mistyke!” And Uncle Frank was explaining how it might
have occurred and at the same time saying that they must make the best
of it, that Mr. Mapleson would have a bit of lunch, “there was a nice
cut of cold leg of mutton and of course no one under circumstances like
this would expect an _elaborate_ meal; in fact no one would _feel_ like
it apart from anything else.” And then the gaunt woman left the room,
and Mapleson was alone with Uncle Frank.
Mapleson could not recollect ever having met any one whom he so
cordially hated at sight. He had a sort of smug perpetual grin, a habit
of running his hands down his thighs as far as his knees, and giving
vent to a curious clicking noise with his cheeks. “Well, this is a very
sad hoccasion, Mr. Mapleson,” he said; “very sad indeed. Poor George,
did you know him well? Eva, his wife, you know, she’s upstairs quite
prostrate; that was her sister who showed you in. Yes, yes, well, how
true it is that in the Midst of Life we are in Death! I’m afraid poor
George was careless, you know. Very careless! Clever, mind you, clever
as they make ’em, but careless. Do you know, Mr. Mapleson, he hadn’t
even insured his life! And he’s left no will! There isn’t enough to pay
his funeral expenses! Fortunately Eva’s clever, oh, yes, she’s clever
with her fingers; they say there’s no one in the neighborhood can touch
her in the millinery. Oh, yes, she’s been at it some time! Why, bless my
soul, do you know she’s paid the rent of this ’ouse for the last four
years. Oh, she’s a clever woman! Poor soul though, her great consolation
is that George didn’t die in the ’orspital. Yes, Mr. Mapleson, he died
upstairs quiet as a lamb. She was there at the end--it was a great
consolation!”
And Uncle Frank nodded his head and his little eyes sparkled, but the
grin never left his lips. Mapleson said nothing, but the two men sat
there in a somber silence, Uncle Frank occasionally nodding his head and
muttering, “it’s a sad hoccasion.”
The rain increased and it seemed unnaturally dark in the blue
drawing-room, and Mapleson felt that he had sat there an eternity,
consumed by desire to get away, when there was another knock at the
door, and a youth was let in.
Uncle Frank called him “Chris,” and he seemed to be a cousin or some
near relation of White’s. He was a raw youth who had just gone to
business and was very conscious of his collars and cuffs. He seemed to
take to Mapleson and he sat watching him furtively. Mapleson seemed so
very much man of the world, so very desirable a personality. He made
many advances to draw the large man out, but the latter felt a
repugnance for him in only a slight less degree than in the case of
Uncle Frank.
At length the gaunt sister asked them all into the dining-room, which
was a room on the other side of the passage that seemed even smaller and
stuffier than the drawing-room. It was papered with a dark red paper and
the woodwork painted chocolate. As they crossed the hall they passed
Mrs. White, who had apparently been persuaded by her sister “to try and
take something.” She was a little shriveled person with white cheeks
and her eyes were red with weeping.
She hurried by the men without speaking, and a curious thought struck
Mapleson. During the twenty years or so that he had known White, he
could not recollect him speaking of his wife. He probably had done so,
but he could not recollect it. He remembered him talking about “his
place at Acton” but never of his wife. He did not feel entirely
surprised. White was probably ashamed.
In the window of the dining-room were several bird-cages containing two
canaries, a bull-finch, and a small, highly colored bird, that hopped
from the floor of its cage on to a perch and kept up a toneless squeak,
with monotonous regularity. Uncle Frank went up to the cage and tapped
the wires and called out, “Ah, there he is! cheep! cheep! This is our
little Orstrylian bird, Mr. Mapleson! Isn’t he! Yes, yes, he’s our
clever little Orstrylian bird!” and during the course of the hurried
meal of cold mutton and cheese, the birds formed a constant diversion.
Uncle Frank would continually jump up and call out, “Oh, yes, he’s our
little Orstrylian bird!”
Mapleson tried to recall whether he had ever discussed birds with White,
and he felt convinced that he had not. And yet it seemed a strange
thing, White apparently had had these birds for some time, three
different varieties in his own house! Mapleson would have enjoyed
talking about birds with White; he could almost hear White’s voice, and
his precise and suave manner of discussing their ways and peculiarities.
And the terrible thought came to him that he would never hear White talk
about birds, never, never.
This breach of confidence on White’s part of never telling him that he
kept birds upset Mapleson even more than his breach of confidence in
not talking about his wife.
“Oh, yes, he’s a clever little Orstrylian bird!” A terrible desire came
to Mapleson to throw Uncle Frank through the window the next time he
heard this remark.
Before they had finished the meal three other male relations appeared,
and a craving came over Mapleson for a drink. Then the sister came down
with a decanter of sherry and said that perhaps the gentlemen would like
some. Uncle Frank poured out a glass all round. It was thin sickly stuff
and to the brass bed manager like a thimbleful of dew in a parched
desert. A horrible feeling of repugnance came over him; of repugnance
against all these people, against the discomfort he found himself in.
After all, who was White? When all was said and done White was really
nothing to him, only a man he’d met in the course of business and had a
lot of drinks and talked with. At that moment he felt he disliked White
and all his sniveling relations.
He wanted to go, to get away from it all, but he couldn’t see how. There
was half a glass of sherry left in the decanter. He unblushingly took it
as the funeral cortège arrived. There were two ramshackle carriages and
a hearse and a crowd of dirty children had collected. He tried to mumble
some excuse for not going, to Uncle Frank, but his words were lost by an
intensely painful scene that took place in the hall as the coffin was
being brought down. He did not notice that the sister with the down on
her upper lip became an inspired creature for a few moments, and her
face became almost beautiful....
He felt that he was an alien element among all these people, that they
were nothing to him, and that he was nothing to them, and he felt an
intense, insatiable desire for a drink. If he couldn’t get a drink he
felt he would go mad.
Some one touched him on the arm and said, “Will you come with us in the
second carriage, Mr. Mapleson?” He felt himself walking out of the house
and through a row of dirty children. For a moment he contemplated
bolting up the street and out of sight, but the feeling that the
children would probably follow him and jeer paralyzed this action, and
then he was in the carriage, with Chris and another male relation who
was patently moved by the solemnity of the occasion.
Chris wriggled about and tried to engage him in banal conversation with
an air that suggested, “Of course, Mr. Mapleson, this is a sad affair,
but we men of the world know how to behave.”
The dismal cortège proceeded at an ambling trot, occasionally stopping.
Chris gave up for the moment trying to be entertaining, and the forlorn
relation talked about funeral services and the comfort of sympathy in
time of bereavement. They crawled past rows of congested villas and
miles of indescribable domesticity of every kind, till as they were
turning round a rather broader avenue than usual where there were shops,
the forlorn relation said, “We shall be in the cemetery in five
minutes.”
And then Mapleson had an inspiration. They were ambling along this
dreary thoroughfare, when his eye suddenly caught a large and
resplendent public house. It was picked out in two shades of green and
displayed a gilt signboard denoting, “The Men of Kent.”
Almost without thinking and certainly in less time than it takes to
chronicle, Mapleson muttered something to his two companions and called
out of the window to the driver to stop. He jumped out and called out
to the driver of the hearse and the other carriage to stop, and then,
before any one realized what it was all about, he darted into the saloon
bar of “The Men of Kent.”
The bar was fortunately empty, but through the little glass shutters two
women and a man in the private bar watched the performance.
There was a moment of dazed surprise followed by a high shriek of
laughter and a woman’s voice in strident crescendo, “Oh, Gawd! He’s
stopped the funeral to come in an’ ’ave a drink! Oh, my Gawd!”
Mapleson’s tongue seemed to cling to the roof of his mouth but he gasped
out an order for a whisky and soda. To the barman these incidents were
nothing and he served the drink instantly, but to the three in the
private bar it was a matter of intense enjoyment. The other woman took
it up. “Well, I’m damned! That’s the first time I’ve known that
’appen--Gawd! fancy stoppin’ a funeral to come and ’ave a drink!” and
then the other woman, “Lap it up, Charlie! won’t you let me ’ave a drop,
old bird?” and the man bawled out, “’Ere, I sye, ain’t the others comin’
in! Let’s make a dye of it!”
The women continued shrieking with laughter, and the appalling ignominy
of his position came home to him. He knew that he was damned in the eyes
of White’s friends.
Curiously enough the thought of White had passed out of his mind
altogether. He was a thing in revolt against Society, without feelings,
and without principles.
Yet when the whisky was put in front of him, his hand trembled and he
could not drink it. He fumbled with the glass, threw down sixpence and
darted out of the bar again.
In the meanwhile, Uncle Frank and other members of the funeral party
had got out of the carriages and were having a whispered consultation on
the curb. Instructions had evidently been given for the cortège to
proceed, for Uncle Frank was talking to the driver of the hearse when
Mapleson appeared.
As they all got back into the carriages, the three people came out of
the bar and raised a cheer, and one of the women called out, “Oh, don’t
go, dearie! come back and fondle me!” and the other two started a song
and dance on the pavement. Mapleson lay all of a heap in the corner of
the carriage and he noticed that he was alone with Chris. The forlorn
relation had gone into the other carriage.
In a few minutes they arrived at a church, a large new building with
early Victorian Gothic arches and a profusion of colored glass. The
funeral party huddled together in the gloom of the large church, and
somehow the paucity of their numbers seemed even more depressing than
the wretchedness of their appearance.
Mapleson sat a little way back, and curiously enough his mind kept
reverting during the service to the little birds. He felt a distinct
grievance against White on account of the little birds. Why hadn’t White
told him? especially about the small Australian bird? It would have made
a distinctly interesting subject of conversation.
The service seemed interminably long, and it was a relief when the tall,
rather good-looking young clergyman led the way out into the cemetery.
The rain was still driving in penetrating gusts, and as they stood by
the graveside the relations looked askance at each other, uncertain
whether it was the proper thing to do to hold up an umbrella. As to
Mapleson, he was indifferent. For one thing he had not brought an
umbrella. But it seemed frightfully cold.
They lowered the coffin into the grave and earth was sprinkled. For a
second it flashed through his mind, “That’s White being let down,” and
then a feeling of indifference and repugnance followed, and the craving
desire to get away from all these sordid happenings. Then he suddenly
thought of White’s wife. “A miserable looking slattern, she was!” he
thought. “Why, what was _she_ sniveling about? What could she have been
to White, or White to her? Why, he never mentioned her during twenty
years!”
He experienced a slight feeling of relief when the service finished and
the party broke up, and he hastily made for the cemetery gates, knowing
that White’s friends would be as anxious to avoid him as he was to avoid
them, but he had not reached them before some one came hurrying behind
and caught him up.
It was the young man named Chris. “I expect you ’re going up west, Mr.
Mapleson,” he said. “If it’s not putting myself in the way, I’ll come
too.” Mapleson gave an inarticulate grunt that conveyed nothing at all,
but the young man was not to be put off.