PLEASANCE COURT.
One evening Arnold took Eddy to supper with his cousin Jane Dawn and
James Peters’ cousin Sally. They lived in Pleasance Court, a small
square with a garden. After supper they were all going to a first
performance of a play by Cecil Le Moine, called “Squibs.”
“You always know which their window is,” Arnold told Eddy as they turned
into the square, “by the things on the sill. They put the food and drink
there, to keep cool, or be out of the way, or something.” Looking up,
they saw outside an upper window a blue jug and a white bowl, keeping
cool in the moonlight. As they rang at the door, the window was pushed
up, and hands reached out to take the jug and bowl in. A cheerful face
looked down at the tops of their heads, and a cheerful voice said
clearly, “They’ve come, Jane. They’re very early, aren’t they? They’ll
have to help buttering the eggs.”
Arnold called up, “If you would prefer it, we will walk round the square
till the eggs are buttered.”
“Oh, no, please. We’d like you to come up and help, if you don’t mind.”
The voice was a little doubtful because of Eddy, the unknown quantity.
The door was opened by an aged door-keeper, and they climbed
breathlessly steep stairs to the room.
In the room was the smell of eggs buttering over a spirit-lamp, and of
cocoa boiling over a fire. There was also a supper-table, laid with cups
and plates and oranges and butter and honey, and brown,
green-wainscotted walls, and various sorts of pictures hanging on them,
and various sorts of pots and jugs from various sorts of places, such as
Spain, New Brighton, and Bruges, and bronze chrysanthemums in jars, and
white shoots of bulbs pricking up out of cocoa-nut fibre in bowls, and a
book-case with books in it, and a table in a corner littered with
book-binding plant, and two girls cooking. One of them was soft and
round like a puppy, and had fluffy golden hair and a cornflower-blue
pinafore to match cornflower-blue eyes. The other was small, and had a
pale, pointed face and a large forehead and brown hair waving back from
it, and a smile of wonderfully appealing sweetness, and a small, gentle
voice. She looked somehow as if she had lived in a wood, and had
intimately and affectionately known all the little live wild things in
it, both birds and beasts and flowers: a queer unearthliness there was
about her, that suggested the morning winds and the evening stars. Eddy,
who knew some of her drawings, had noted that chaste, elfin quality in
them; he was rather pleased to find it meet him so obviously in her face
and bearing. Seeing the two girls, he was disposed to echo James Peters’
comment, “Can’t think how she and Sally made friends,” and to set it
down tritely to that law of contrasts which some people, in the teeth of
experience, appear to believe in as the best basis of friendship.
Sally Peters was stirring the buttered egg vigorously, lest it should
stand still and burn. Jane Dawn was watching the cocoa, lest it should
run over and burn. Arnold wandered round the room peering at the
pictures--mostly drawings and etchings--with his near-sighted eyes, to
see if there was anything new. Jane had earned a little money lately, so
there were two new Duncan Grants and a Muirhead Bone, which he examined
with critical approval.
“You’ve still got this up,” he remarked, tapping Beardsley’s “Ave Atque
Vale” with a disparaging finger. “The one banal thing Beardsley ever....
Besides, anyhow Beardsley’s _passé_.”
Jane Dawn, who looked as if she belonged not to time at all, seemed
peacefully undisturbed by this fact. Only Sally, in her young
ingenuousness, looked a little concerned.
“I love the Ave,” Jane murmured over the saucepan, and then looked up at
Eddy with her small, half-affectionate smile--a likeable way she had
with her.
He said, “I do too,” and Arnold snorted.
“You don’t know him yet, Jane. He loves everything. He loves
‘Soap-bubbles,’ and ‘The Monarch of the Glen,’ and problem pictures in
the Academy. Not to mention ‘The Penitent,’ which, Jane, is a play of
which you have never heard, but to which you and I will one day go, to
complete our education. Only we won’t take Sally; it would be bad for
her. She isn’t old enough for it yet and it might upset her mind;
besides, it isn’t proper, I believe.”
“I’m sure I don’t want to go,” said Sally, pouring out the egg into a
dish. “It must be idiotic. Even Jimmy thinks so.”
Arnold’s eyebrows went up. “In that case I may revise my opinion of it,”
he murmured. “Well, anyhow Eddy loves it, like everything else. Nothing
is beyond the limit of his tolerance.”
“Does he like nice things too?” Sally naïvely asked. “Will he like
‘Squibs’?”
“Oh, yes, he’ll like ‘Squibs.’ His taste is catholic; he’ll probably be
the only person in London who likes both ‘Squibs’ and ‘The Penitent.’
... I suppose we shan’t see Eileen to-night; she’ll have been given one
of the seats of the great. She shall come and talk to us between the
acts, though.”
“We wanted Eileen and Bridget to come to supper,” said Sally. “It’s
quite ready now, by the way; let’s have it. But they were dining with
Cecil, and then going on to the theatre. Do you like cocoa, Mr. Oliver?
Because if you don’t there’s milk, or lemonade.”
Eddy said he liked them all, but would have cocoa at the moment. Jane
poured it out, with the most exquisitely-shaped thin small hands he had
ever seen, and passed it to him with her little smile, that seemed to
take him at once into the circle of her accepted friends. A rare and
delicate personality she seemed to him, curiously old and young,
affectionate and aloof, like a spring morning on a hill. There was
something impersonal and sexless about her. Eddy felt inclined at once
to call her Jane, and was amused and pleased when she slipped
unconsciously once or twice into addressing him as Eddy. The ordinary
conventions in such matters would never, one felt, weigh with her at
all, or even come into consideration, any more than with a child.
“I was to give you James’ love,” Eddy said to Sally, “and ask you when
you are coming to St. Gregory’s again. The school-teachers, he tells me
to inform you, cannot run the Band of Hope basket-making class without
you.”
Sally got rather pink, and glanced at Arnold, who looked cynically
interested.
“What _is_ the Band of Hope?” he inquired.
“Temperance girls, temperance boys, always happy, always free,” Eddy
answered, in the words of their own song.
“Oh, I see. Fight the drink. And does making baskets help them to fight
it?”
“Well, of course if you have a club and it has to meet once a week, it
must do something,” said Sally, stating a profound and sad truth. “But I
told Jimmy I was frightfully busy; I don’t think I can go, really.... I
wish Jimmy wouldn’t go on asking me. Do tell him not to, Mr. Oliver.
Jimmy doesn’t understand; one can’t do everything.”
“No,” said Eddy dubiously, thinking that perhaps one could, almost, and
that anyhow the more things the more fun.
“It’s a pity one can’t,” he added, from his heart.
Arnold said that doing was a deadly thing, doing ends in death. “Only
that, I believe, is the Evangelical view, and you’re High Church at St.
Gregory’s.”
Jane laughed at him. “Imagine Arnold knowing the difference! I don’t
believe he does in the least. I do,” she added, with a naïve touch of
vanity, “because I met a clergyman once, when I was drawing in the
Abbey, and he told me a lot about it. About candles, and ornaments, and
robes that priests wear in church. It must be much nicer than being Low
Church, I should think.” She referred to Eddy, with her questioning
smile.
“They’re both rather nice,” Eddy said. “I’m both, I think.”
Sally looked at him inquiringly with her blue eyes under their thick
black lashes. Was he advanced, this plausible, intelligent-looking young
man, who was a friend of Arnold Denison’s and liked “The Penitent,” and,
indeed, everything else? Was he free and progressive and on the side of
the right things, or was he merely an amiable stick-in-the-mud like
Jimmy? She couldn’t gather, from his alert, expressive face and bright
hazel eyes and rather sensitive mouth: they chiefly conveyed a capacity
for reception, an openness to all impressions, a readiness to spread
sails to any wind. If he _were_ a person of parts, if he had a brain and
a mind and a soul, and if at the same time he were an ardent server of
the Church--that, Sally thought unconsciously, might be a witness in the
Church’s favour. Only here she remembered Jimmy’s friend at St.
Gregory’s, Bob Traherne; he was all that and more, he had brain and mind
and soul and an ardent fire of zeal for many of the right things (Sally,
a little behind the times here, was a Socialist by conviction), and yet
in spite of him one was sure that somehow the Church wouldn’t do,
wouldn’t meet all the requirements of this complex life. Sally had
learnt that lately, and was learning it more and more. She was proud of
having learnt it; but still, she had occasional regrets.
She made a hole in an orange, and put a lump of sugar in it and sucked
it.
“The great advantage of that way,” she explained, “is that all the juice
goes inside you, and doesn’t mess the plates or anything else. You see,
Mrs. Jones is rather old, and not fond of washing up.”
So they all made holes and put in sugar, and put the juice inside them.
Then Jane and Sally retired to exchange their cooking pinafores for
out-door things, and then they all rode to “Squibs” on the top of a bus.
They were joined at the pit door by one Billy Raymond, a friend of
theirs--a tall, tranquil young man, by trade a poet, with an attractive
smile and a sweet temper, and a gentle, kind, serenely philosophical
view of men and things that was a little like Jane’s, only more human
and virile. He attracted Eddy greatly, as his poems had already done.
To remove anxiety on the subject, it may be stated at once that the
first night of “Squibs” was neither a failure nor a triumphant success.
It was enjoyable, for those who enjoyed the sort of thing--(fantastic
wit, clever dialogue, much talk, little action, and less emotion)--and
dull for those who didn’t. It would certainly never be popular, and
probably the author would have been shocked and grieved if it had been.
The critics approved it as clever, and said it was rather lengthy and
highly improbable. Jane, Sally, Arnold, Billy Raymond, and Eddy enjoyed
it extremely. So did Eileen Le Moine and her companion Bridget Hogan,
who watched it from a box. Cecil Le Moine wandered in and out of the
box, looking plaintive. He told Eileen that they were doing it even
worse than he had feared. He was rather an engaging-looking person, with
a boyish, young-Napoleonic beauty of face and a velvet smoking-jacket,
and a sweet, plaintive voice, and the air of an injured child about him.
A child of genius, perhaps; anyhow a gifted child, and a lovable one,
and at the same time as selfish as even a child can be.
Eileen Le Moine and Miss Hogan came to speak to their friends in the pit
before taking their seats. Eddy was introduced to them, and they talked
for a minute or two. When they had gone, Sally said to him, “Isn’t
Eileen attractive?”
“Very,” he said.
“And Bridget’s a dear,” added Sally, childishly boasting of her friends.
“I can imagine she would be,” said Eddy. Miss Hogan had amused him
during their short interview. She was older than the rest of them; she
was perhaps thirty-four, and very well dressed, and with a shrewd,
woman-of-the-world air that the others quite lacked, and dangling
pince-nez, and ironic eyes, and a slight stutter. Eddy regretted that
she was not sitting among them; her caustic comments would have added
salt to the evening.
“Bridget’s worldly, you know,” Sally said. “She’s the only one of us
with money, and she goes out a lot. You see how smartly she’s dressed.
She’s the only person I’m really friends with who’s like that. She’s
awfully clever, too, though she doesn’t do anything.”
“Doesn’t she do anything?” Eddy asked sceptically, and Arnold answered
him.
“Our Bridget? Sally only means she’s a lily of the field. She writes
not, neither does she paint. She only mothers those who do, and hauls
them out of scrapes. Eileen lives with her, you know, in a flat in
Kensington. She tries to look after Eileen. Quite enough of a job,
besides tending all the other ingenuous young persons of both sexes she
has under her wing.”
Eddy watched her as she talked to Eileen Le Moine; a vivid, impatient,
alive person, full of quips and cranks and quiddities and a constant
flow of words. He could see, foreshortened, Eileen Le Moine’s face--very
attractive, as Sally had said; broad brows below dark hair, rounded
cheeks with deep dimples that came and went in them, great deep blue,
black-lashed eyes, a wide mouth of soft, generous curves, a mouth that
could look sulky but always had amusement lurking in it, and a round,
decisive chin. She was perhaps four or five and twenty; a brilliant,
perverse young person, full of the fun of living, an artist, a
pleasure-lover, a spoilt child, who probably could be sullen, who
certainly was wayward and self-willed, who had genius and charm and
ideas and a sublime independence of other people’s codes, and possibly
an immense untapped spring of generous self-sacrifice. She had probably
been too like Cecil Le Moine (only more than he was, every way) to live
with him; each would need something more still and restful as a
permanent companion. They had no doubt been well advised to part,
thought Eddy, who did not agree with James Peters about that way of
regarding marriage.
“Isn’t Miss Carruthers ripping as Myra,” whispered Sally. “Cecil wrote
it for her, you know. He says there’s no one else on the stage.”
Jane put up a hand to silence her, because the curtain had risen.
At the end the author was called and had a good reception; on the whole
“Squibs” had been a success. Eddy looked up and saw Eileen Le Moine
looking pleased and smiling as they clapped her boyish-looking
husband--an amused, sisterly, half ironic smile. It struck Eddy as the
smile she must inevitably give Cecil, and it seemed to illumine their
whole relations. She couldn’t, certainly, be the least in love with him,
and yet she must like him very much, to smile like that now that they
were parted.
As Jane and Sally and Eddy and Billy Raymond rode down Holborn on their
bus (Arnold had walked to Soho, where he lived) Eddy, sitting next Jane,
asked “Did you like it?” being curious about Jane’s point of view.
She smiled. “Yes, of course. Wouldn’t anyone?” Eddy could have answered
the question, instancing Hillier or James Peters, or his own parents or,
indeed, many other critics. But Jane’s “anyone” he surmised to have a
narrow meaning; anyone, she meant, of our friends; anyone of the sort
one naturally comes into contact with. (Jane’s outlook was through a
narrow gate on to woods unviolated by the common tourist; her experience
was delicate, exquisite, and limited).
She added, “Of course it’s just a baby’s thing. He _is_ just a baby, you
know.”
“I should like to get to know him,” said Eddy. “He’s extraordinarily
pleasing,” and she nodded.
“Of course you’ll get to know him. Why not? And Eileen, too.” In Jane’s
world, the admitted dwellers all got to know each other, as a matter of
course.
“A lot of us are going down into the country next Sunday,” Jane added.
“Won’t you come?”
“Oh, thanks; if I’m not needed in the parish I’d love to. Yes, I’m
almost sure I can.”
“We all meet at Waterloo for the nine-thirty. We shall have breakfast at
Heathermere (but you can have had some earlier, too, if you like), and
then walk somewhere from there. Bring a thick coat, because we shall be
sitting about on the heath, and it’s not warm.”
“Thanks awfully, if you’re sure I may come.”
Jane wasted no more words on that; she probably never asked people to
come unless she was sure they might. She merely waved an appreciative
hand, like a child, at the blue night full of lights, seeking his
sympathy in the wonder of it. Then she and Sally had to change into the
Blackfriars Bridge bus, and Eddy sought London Bridge and the Borough on
foot. Billy Raymond, who lived in Beaufort Street, but was taking a
walk, came with him. They talked on the way about the play. Billy made
criticisms and comments that seemed to Eddy very much to the point,
though they wouldn’t have occurred to him. There was an easy ability, a
serene independence of outlook, about this young man, that was
attractive. Like many poets, he was singularly fresh and unspoilt,
though in his case (unlike many poets) it wasn’t because he had nothing
to spoil him; he enjoyed, in fact, some reputation among critics and the
literary public. He figured in many an anthology of verse, and those who
gave addresses on modern poetry were apt to read his things aloud, which
habit annoys some poets and gratifies others. Further, he had been given
a reading all to himself at the Poetry Bookshop, which had rather
displeased him, because he had not liked the voice of the lady who read
him. But enough has been said to indicate that he was a promising young
poet.
When Eddy got in, he found the vicar and Hillier smoking by the
common-room fire. The vicar was nodding over Pickwick, and Hillier
perusing the _Church Times_. The vicar, who had been asleep, said,
“Hullo, Oliver. Want anything to eat or drink? Had a nice evening?”
“Very, thanks. No, I’ve been fed sufficiently.”
“Play good?”
“Yes, quite clever.... I say, would it be awfully inconvenient if I was
to be out next Sunday? Some people want me to go out for the day with
them. Of course there’s my class. But perhaps Wilkes.... He said he
wouldn’t mind, sometimes.”
“No; that’ll be all right. Speak to Wilkes, will you.... Shall you be
away all day?”
“I expect so,” said Eddy, feeling that Hillier looked at him askance,
though the vicar didn’t. Probably Hillier didn’t approve of Sunday
outings, thought one should be in church.
He sat down and began to talk about “Squibs.”
Hillier said presently, “He’s surely rather a mountebank, that Le Moine?
Full of cheap sneers and clap-trap, isn’t he?”
“Oh, no,” said Eddy. “Certainly not clap-trap. He’s very genuine, I
should say; expresses his personality a good deal more successfully than
most play writers.”
“Oh, no doubt,” Hillier said. “It’s his personality, I should fancy,
that’s wrong.”
Eddy said, “He’s delightful,” rather warmly, and the vicar said, “Well,
now, I’m going to bed,” and went, and Eddy went, too, because he didn’t
want to argue with Hillier, a difficult feat, and no satisfaction when
achieved.