AFTER THAT for more than a year whenever Rosie came out with me she used
on the way home to drop into my rooms, sometimes for an hour, sometimes
till the breaking day warned us that the slaveys would soon be scrubbing
the doorsteps. I have a recollection of warm sunny mornings when the
tired air of London had a welcome freshness, and of our footfalls that
seemed so noisy in the empty streets, and then of scurrying along
huddled under an umbrella, silent but gay, when the winter brought cold
and rain. The policeman on point duty gave us a stare as we passed,
sometimes of suspicion; but sometimes also there was a twinkle of
comprehension in his eyes. Now and then we would see a homeless creature
huddled up asleep in a portico and Rosie gave my arm a friendly little
pressure when (chiefly for show and because I wanted to make a good
impression on her, for my shillings were scarce) I placed a piece of
silver on a shapeless lap or in a skinny fist. Rosie made me very happy.
I had a great affection for her. She was easy and comfortable. She had a
placidity of temper that communicated itself to the people she was with;
you shared her pleasure in the passing moment.
Before I became her lover I had often asked myself if she was the
mistress of the others, Forde, Harry Retford, and Hillier, and afterward
I questioned her. She kissed me.
“Don’t be so silly. I like them, you know that. I like to go out with
them, but that’s all.”
I wanted to ask her if she had been the mistress of George Kemp, but I
did not like to. Though I had never seen her in a temper, I had a notion
that she had one and I vaguely felt that this was a question that might
anger her. I did not want to give her the opportunity of saying things
so wounding that I could not forgive her. I was young, only just over
one and twenty, Quentin Forde and the others seemed old to me; it did
not seem unnatural to me that to Rosie they were only friends. It gave
me a little thrill of pride to think that I was her lover. When I used
to look at her chatting and laughing with all and sundry at tea on
Saturday afternoons, I glowed with self-satisfaction. I thought of the
nights we passed together and I was inclined to laugh at the people who
were so ignorant of my great secret. But sometimes I thought that Lionel
Hillier looked at me in a quizzical way, as if he were enjoying a good
joke at my expense, and I asked myself uneasily if Rosie had told him
that she was having an affair with me. I wondered if there was anything
in my manner that betrayed me. I told Rosie that I was afraid Hillier
suspected something; she looked at me with those blue eyes of hers that
always seemed ready to smile.
“Don’t bother about it,” she said. “He’s got a nasty mind.”
I had never been intimate with Quentin Forde. He looked upon me as a
dull and insignificant young man (which of course I was) and though he
had always been civil he had never taken any notice of me. I thought it
could only be my fancy that now he began to be a little more frigid with
me than before. But one day Harry Retford to my surprise asked me to
dine with him and go to the play. I told Rosie.
“Oh, of course you must go. He’ll give you an awfully good time. Good
old Harry, he always makes me laugh.”
So I dined with him. He made himself very pleasant and I was impressed
to hear him talk of actors and actresses. He had a sarcastic humour and
was very funny at the expense of Quentin Forde, whom he did not like; I
tried to get him to talk of Rosie, but he had nothing to say of her. He
seemed to be a gay dog. With leers and laughing innuendoes he gave me to
understand that he was a devil with the girls. I could not but ask
myself if he was standing me this dinner because he knew I was Rosie’s
lover and so felt friendly disposed toward me. But if he knew, of course
the others knew too. I hope I did not show it, but in my heart I
certainly felt somewhat patronizing toward them.
Then in winter, toward the end of January, someone new appeared at
Limpus Road. This was a Dutch Jew named Jack Kuyper, a diamond merchant
from Amsterdam, who was spending a few weeks in London on business. I do
not know how he had come to know the Driffields and whether it was
esteem for the author that brought him to the house, but it was
certainly not that which caused him to come again. He was a tall, stout,
dark man with a bald head and a big hooked nose, a man of fifty, but of
a powerful appearance, sensual, determined, and jovial. He made no
secret of his admiration for Rosie. He was rich apparently, for he sent
her roses every day; she chid him for his extravagance, but was
flattered. I could not bear him. He was blatant and loud. I hated his
fluent conversation in perfect but foreign English; I hated the
extravagant compliments he paid Rosie; I hated the heartiness with which
he treated her friends. I found that Quentin Forde liked him as little
as I; we almost became cordial with one another.
“Mercifully he’s not staying long.” Quentin Forde pursed his lips and
raised his black eyebrows; with his white hair and long sallow face he
looked incredibly gentlemanly. “Women are always the same; they adore a
bounder.”
“He’s so frightfully vulgar,” I complained.
“That is his charm,” said Quentin Forde.
For the next two or three weeks I saw next to nothing of Rosie. Jack
Kuyper took her out night after night, to this smart restaurant and
that, to one play after another. I was vexed and hurt.
“He doesn’t know anyone in London,” said Rosie, trying to soothe my
ruffled feelings. “He wants to see everything he can while he’s here. It
wouldn’t be very nice for him to go alone all the time. He’s only here
for a fortnight more.”