why she should have been.... You never liked one another, did you? Poor
Margery! She's old-fashioned. She ought to have lived fifty years ago."
She was surprised when he said, "Did she dislike me? Of course we used
to fight, but I didn't think it meant anything; I didn't dislike her.
I'm so sorry you've quarrelled."
He seemed really concerned about it. One day he amazed her by saying
that he'd seen Margery. They had met somewhere and had a talk. Lois's
heart leapt.
"I'm ready to forgive her," she said, "for what she did. But of course
things can never be quite the same again."
"Oh, she won't come back!" Grenfell said. "I begged her, but she said,
'No.' You weren't as you used to be."
At this Lois felt an unhappiness that surprised her by its vehemence.
Then she put that away and was angry. "I don't want her back," she
cried. "If she came and begged me I wouldn't have her."
But she felt that Grenfell had not reported truly. He was jealous of
Margery, and did not want her to return. He seemed now at times to
be a little restive under her domination; that only made her more
dominating. She had scenes with him, all of them worked up by her. She
arranged them because he was so sweet to her when they were reconciled.
He was truly in despair if she were unhappy, and would do anything to
make her comfortable again. Once they were engaged, she told herself,
she would have no more scenes. She would be sure of him then. She was
in a strange state of excitement and uncertainty; but then, these
were uncertain and exciting times. No one seemed to know quite where
they were, with strikes and dances and all the "classes" upside down.
Although Lois believed that women should be just as men she resented it
when Fanny, the portress, was rude to her. She had got into the way of
giving Fanny little things to do; sending her messages, asking her to
stamp letters, to wrap up parcels. Fanny was so willing that she would
do anything for anybody; but the day came when Fanny frankly told her
that she had not the time to carry messages. Her place was in the hall.
She was very sorry.... Lois was indignant. What was the girl there
for? She appealed to Grenfell. But he, in the charming, hesitating,
courteous way that he had, was inclined to agree with Fanny. After
all, the girl had her work to do. She had to be in her place. At this
little sign of rebellion Lois redoubled her efforts.
He must propose to her soon. She wished that he were not quite so
diffident. She found here that this masculinity of hers hindered a
little the opportunities of courtship. If you behaved just like a man,
swore like a man, drank like a man, discussed any moral question like a
man, scenes with sentiment and emotion were difficult. When you told a
man a hundred times a day that you wanted him to treat you as he would
a pal, it was perhaps irrational of you to expect him to kiss you. Men
did not kiss men, nor did they bother to explain if they were rude or
casual.
She had, however, a terrible shock one night when Conrad Hawke, a man
whom she never liked, seeing her back to the "attic" after the theatre,
tried to kiss her. She smacked his face. He was deeply indignant.
"Why, you've been asking for it!" he cried. This horrified her, and
she decided that Grenfell must propose to her immediately. This was
the more necessary, because during the last week or two he had been
less often to see her--and had been less at his ease with her.... She
decided that he wanted to propose but had not the courage.
She planned then that on a certain evening the event should take place.
There was to be a great boxing match at Olympia. Beckett was to fight
Goddard for the heavyweight championship of Great Britain. She had
never seen a boxing match. Grenfell should take her to this one.
When she suggested it he hesitated.
"I'd love us to go together, of course," he said. "All the same, I
don't think I approve of women going to boxing matches."
"My dear 'Tubby,'" she cried; "what age do you think you're living in?"
"Well, I don't know," he said, looking at her doubtfully.
"If that isn't too absurd!" she cried. "Has there been a war or has
there not? And have I been in France doing every kind of dirty work or
not? Really, 'Tubby,' you might be Mother."
His chubby face coloured. His eyes were full of perplexity.
"Oh, of course, if you want to go, I'll take you," he said. "All the
same, I'd rather not."
She insisted. The tickets were taken. She was determined that that
night he should propose to her.
The great evening had arrived, and they had a little dinner at
the Carlton Grill. Lois was wearing a dress of the very latest
fashion--that is, a dress that showed all her back, that was cut very
low in front, and that left her arms and shoulders quite bare. She
seemed, as she sat at the table, to have almost nothing on at all.
This, unfortunately, did not suit her. Her figure was magnificent,
but the rough life in France had helped neither her skin nor her
complexion. The upper part of her chest and her neck were sunburnt. Her
arms were brown. She had taken much trouble with her hair, but it would
not obey her now as it had done in the old days.
"I'm a fright," she had thought as she looked at herself in the glass.
For a moment she thought she would wear one of her old less-revealing
evening frocks. But no; she was worrying absurdly. All the women wore
these dresses now. She would look a frump in that old dress. In colour
the frock was a bright mauve. She was aware that all eyes followed
her as she came into the grill room. She carried herself superbly,
remembering how many girls--yes, and men too--had called her a queen.
She saw at once that "Tubby" Grenfell was uneasy, and not his cheerful,
innocent self. He seemed to have something that dragged his thoughts
away from her. They both drank a good deal; soon they were laughing
uproariously....
They started off in a taxi for Olympia. The wine that she had drunk,
the sense of the crisis that this night must bring to her, the
beautiful air of this May evening, through which in their open taxi
they were gliding, the whisper and the murmur of the Knightsbridge
crowd--all these things excited her as she had never in all her life
been excited before. Had she looked at herself she would have realised,
from this excitement, the child that she really was.
She put her hand on "Tubby's" broad knee and drew a little closer to
him. He talked to her eagerly, himself excited by the great event. He
explained something of the fighting to her.
"There'll be a lot of 'in-fighting,'" he said; "there always is
nowadays, they've caught it from America. You'll find that rather
boring. But it isn't boring really. There's heaps of science in it;
more than there used to be in the old boxing. They say that that's
where Beckett will be beaten--that he can't in-fight. I don't believe
they're right, but we'll see.... That's what makes to-night so
exciting. No one knows really what Beckett can do. He knocked out Wells
too quickly, and he's improved so much that he's hardly the same man as
he was before."
He chattered on, apparently now quite happy. What a dear he was! What
a boy! How natural and good and simple! She felt maternal to him,
as though he were her child. How happy they would be when they were
married! how happy she would make him!
They drew near to Olympia. They were now in a great stream of cars
and taxis. Crowds thronged the road. They got out and pushed their
way along. The presence of the crowd thrilled Lois so that her eyes
shone and her heart hammered. She clung to "Tubby's" strong arm. Soon
they were through the gates, pushing up the Olympia steps, passing
the turn-stiles. What strange faces there were on all sides of her!
She could not see another woman anywhere. She gathered her cloak more
closely about her. They passed into the arena. For a moment she was
dazzled by the light. The tiers of seats rose on every side of her,
higher and higher. She followed "Tubby" meekly, feeling very small
and insignificant. Soon they were seated close to the ring. Already
men were boxing, but no one seemed to look at them. Everyone hurried
to and fro; people were finding their seats. Around her, above her,
beyond her, was a curious electrical hum of excitement, like the buzz
of swarming bees. She herself felt so deeply moved that she was not far
from tears. She grew more accustomed to the place. She sat back in her
chair, throwing her cloak behind her. "Tubby" talked to her in a low
voice, explaining where everything was, who various celebrities were.
There was Cochran; that was Eugene Corri; there was a famous actor; and
so on. She began to be confident. She knew that men were looking at
her. She liked them to look at her. She asked "Tubby" for a cigarette.
Her eyes moved to the ring; she watched the boxing. She felt a renewed
thrill at the sight of the men's splendid condition; and then, as she
looked about her and saw the black cloud of men rising above and around
her on every side, she could have clapped her hands with joy. Soon she
was impatient of the boxing. She wanted the great event of the evening
to begin. She felt as though she could not wait any longer, as though
she must get up in her seat and call to them to come. She was aware
then that "Tubby" was again uncomfortable. Was he distressed because
men looked at her? Why should they not? Perhaps he did not think that
she should smoke. Well, she _would_ smoke. He was not her keeper.
The heat, the smoke, the stir, confused and bewildered her, but she
liked the bewilderment. She was drunk with it--only this intense
impatience for Beckett and Goddard to come was more than she could
bear. "Oh, I do _wish_ they'd come.... I do _wish_ they'd come!" she
sighed. Then, turning to "Tubby," she said: "Cheer up! What's the
matter?"
"Oh, I'm all right." He moved uneasily. She fancied that he glanced
with anger at a fat, black-haired, be-ringed man near him who, as she
already noticed, stared at her.
"Oh, I _do_ wish they'd come!" she cried, speaking more loudly than she
had intended. Some man near her heard her and laughed.
They came at last. The tall fellow was Goddard. The shorter man in
the dull-coloured dressing-gown was Beckett. They walked about inside
the ring; then they sat down and were hidden by a cloud of men with
towels. A little man walked about the ring shouting something through a
megaphone.
Lois could not hear what he said because of her own excitement. The
ring was cleared; the fight had begun. The breathless silence that
followed was almost more than she could bear. From the first moment
she wanted Beckett to win. His grim seriousness fascinated her. The
way that he stood crouching forward, his magnificent condition, the
brown healthiness of his skin, appealed to her desperately. "I want him
to win! I want him to win!" she repeated again and again to herself.
He seemed to be having the best of it. Men shouted his name. The
first round was over. In the pause of the interval she realised for a
moment, as though she had come down from a great height, that the men
near her were looking at her and smiling. She did not care; if only
Beckett would win she cared for nothing. "The first round's Beckett's
on points, anyway," she heard a man say near her. The ring was cleared
again, the men moved cautiously, watching one another. Suddenly Beckett
had sprung in. Before she could account to herself for what was
happening Goddard was on the floor. Men rose in their seats, shouting.
The referee could be seen counting the seconds. Goddard was up. Then
Beckett was in to him again--right, left, tuned like a piece of music.
Goddard was down again, and this time he lay his full length without
moving. The vast building seemed to rise like the personification of
one exultant man and shout. Lois herself had risen; she was crying
she knew not what, waving her programme. A man had leaped forward and
kissed Beckett. Goddard was dragged by his seconds like a sack to his
chair. The roar continued; men shouted and yelled and cheered. Lois sat
down. It was over; Beckett had won. She had had her desire. She felt
as though she had walked for miles and miles through thick, difficult
country.
She could only see, over and over again those quick blows--right, left,
like a piece of music....
They sat there quietly for a little; then she said, "Let's go. I don't
want to see any more after that."
Grenfell agreed.
Outside there was a strange peace and quiet. A large crowd waited, but
it was silent. It was watching for Beckett.
The street was deliciously cool, and in the broad space beyond Olympia
there was only a rumbling sibilant rustle that threaded the dusky
trees. The stars shone in a sky of velvet. They found a taxi.
"I'll see you to your door," "Tubby" said.
During the drive very few words were spoken. Lois was concentrating now
all her effort on the scene that was to come. She was quite certain of
her victory; she felt strong and sure with the confidence that the
thrill of the fight had just given her. Above all, she loved Grenfell.
It was the first time in her life that she had known love, and now that
it had come she was wrapped in the wonder of it, stripped of all her
artifices and conceits, as simply and naturally caught by it as any
ignorant girl of her grandmother's day.
They were in Duke Street; the car stopped before Hortons.
Grenfell got out.
"Good-night," he said. "I'm so awfully glad you enjoyed it."
"No, you've got to come in. You have, really, 'Tubby.' It's very
early--not ten yet. I'll make you some coffee."
He looked for a moment as though he would refuse. Then he nodded his
head.
"All right," he said; "just for a bit." They went up in the lift
superintended by young William, one of the Hortons officials, in age
about fourteen, but dressed, with his oiled hair, high collar, and
uniform, to be anything over twenty.
"Oh, sir, who won the fight?" he asked in a husky voice when he heard
Lois make some allusion to Olympia.
"Beckett," said Grenfell.
"Gawd bless Joe," said young William piously.
The "attic" looked very comfortable and cosy. Grenfell sank into the
long sofa. Lois made the coffee. It was as though Beckett's victory had
also been hers. She felt as though she could not be defeated. When
she saw him sitting there so comfortably she felt as though they were
already married.
She knew that there was something on his mind. She had seen, ever since
they left Olympia, that there was something that he wanted to say to
her. She could not doubt what it was.... She stood there smiling at
him as he drank his coffee. How she loved him! Every hair of his round
bullet-shaped head, his rosy cheeks, his strength and cleanliness, his
shyness and honesty.
"Oh, I've just loved to-night!"
"I'm so glad you have," he answered.
Another long silence followed. He smoked, blowing rings and then
breaking them with his finger. At last she spoke, smiling:
"'Tubby,' you want to say something to me."
"Well----"
"Yes, you do, and I know what it is."
"You know?" He stared at her, confused and shy.
"Yes," she laughed. "Of course I do. I've known for weeks."
"For weeks? But you can't----"
"Oh, you think you can hide things--you can't!" She suddenly came over
to him, knelt down by the sofa, putting her hand on his arm.
"You ridiculous baby! You're shy. You're afraid to tell me. But, thank
Heaven, all that old-fashioned nonsense is over. I can tell you what
you want to say without either of us being ashamed ... 'Tubby,' darling
... I know. I've known for weeks, and it's all right. I'll marry you
to-morrow if you want me. I've loved you since first I set eyes on
you. Oh, 'Tubby,' we'll be so happy! We----"
But she was stopped by the look in his eyes. He had moved away; his
face was crimson; his eyes wide with dismay. She knew at once that
she had made a horrible mistake. He didn't love her. She rose; shame,
misery, anger, self-contempt, all struggling together in her heart. She
would have liked to speak. No words would come.
"Lois!" he said at last. "I'm awfully sorry. I didn't know you were
going to say that, or I'd have stopped you. We're the greatest pals in
the world, of course, but----"
"You don't want to marry me," Lois interrupted. "Of course. It's quite
natural. I've made a bit of a fool of myself, 'Tubby.' You'd better say
good-night and go."
He got up.
"Oh, Lois, I'm so sorry.... But I couldn't tell. I've had something
else on my mind all these weeks--something that for the last three days
I've been trying to tell you. Margery and I are engaged to be married."
That took the colour from her face. She stepped back, putting one hand
on the mantelpiece to steady herself.
"Margery!... You! That stupid little idiot!"
There she made a mistake. He took her retort as a dog takes a douse of
water, shaking his head resentfully.
"You mustn't say that, Lois. And after all, it was you that brought us
together."
"I!" Her indignation as she turned on him was red-hot.
"Yes. I was sorry for her when you turned her off. I went to see her.
We agreed about you from the beginning, and that was a bond."
"Agreed about me?"
"Yes. We thought it was such a pity that you went about with all these
men. She told me how splendid you were in France. She had thought
that I was in love with you, but I told her of course that I'd always
thought of you as a man almost. Love was a different sort of thing....
Although to-night at the boxing you weren't a man, either. Anyway----"
She cut short his halting, confused explanation with contempt.
"You'd better go. You and Margery have treated me pretty badly between
you. Good-night."
He tried to say something, but the sight of her furious eyes checked
him. Without another word he went. The door closed; the room was
suddenly intensely silent, as though it were waiting to hear the echo
of his step.
She stood, fury, contempt, working in her face. Suddenly her eyes
flooded with tears. Her brow puckered. She flung herself down on the
floor beside the sofa, and burying her face in it cried, with complete
abandonment, from her breaking heart.
IX
MR. NIX
Mr. Nix, the manager of Hortons, had never been an analyser of the
human character: it startled him, therefore, considerably, somewhere
about March or April of 1919, to find himself deep in introspection.
What is deep to one may not be deep to another, and Mr. Nix's
introspection amounted to little more than that he felt, as he found
himself confiding to a friend one evening, as though he "were nothing
more or less than a blooming juggler--one of those fellows, Joe, that
tosses eight or ten balls in the air at a time. That's what I'm doing,
positively."
"If you ask me," said his friend, "what you're doing, Sam, is thinking
too much about yourself--being morbidly introspective, that's what
you're being. I should drop it. That kind of thing grows."
"No, am I really?" said Mr. Nix, anxiously. "Upon my word, Joe, I
believe you're right."
What Mr. Nix meant, however, when he said that he felt like a trick
juggler, was literally true. He not only felt like it, he dreamt it.
This dream was recurrent; he saw himself, dressed in purple tights,
one foot on a rope, the other in mid-air, and tossing a dozen golden
balls. Beneath him, far, far beneath him, was the sawdust ring, tiers
of people rising to either side of it. The balls glittered and winked
and tumbled in the fierce electric light. Always they returned to him
as though drawn towards his stomach by a magnet, but always present
with him was the desperate fear lest one should avoid and escape
him. The sweat stood in beads on his forehead; the leg upon which
everything depended began to tremble. The balls seemed to develop a
wild individuality of their own: they winked at him, they sniggered.
They danced and mocked and dazzled. He missed one, he missed two, three
... the crowd beneath him began to shout ... he swerved, he jolted, he
was over, he was falling, the balls swinging in laughing derision about
him ... falling, falling.... He was awake.
This dream came to him so often that he consulted a doctor. The doctor
consoled him, telling him that everyone was having bad dreams just now,
that it was the natural reaction after the four years of stress and
turmoil through which we have passed. "You yourself, Mr. Nix, have had
your troubles I don't doubt?"
Yes, Mr. Nix had lost his only son.
"Ah, well, that is quite enough to account for it. Don't eat a heavy
meal at night. Sleep lightly covered ... plenty of fresh air."
This interview only confirmed Mr. Nix in his already deep conviction
that all doctors were humbugs.
"The matter with me," he said to himself, "is just this, that I've got
too much to do."
Nineteen hundred and nineteen was a very difficult year for anyone
engaged in such business as Hortons.
That spontaneous hour or two of mirth and happiness on the morning
of the Armistice had its origin in the general human belief that the
troubles of those nightmare years were now over. At once, as though the
Fairy Firkin had waved her wand, the world would be changed. The world
_was_ changed, but only because a new set of difficulties and problems
had taken the place of the old ones, and these new troubles were in
many ways harder to fight. That was a year of bafflement, bewilderment,
disappointment, suspicion. Quite rightly so--but the justice of it
could not be seen by the actors in it.
Mr. Nix was making a brave fight of it, just as throughout the war he
had made a brave fight. He was a little man with a buoyant temperament,
and no touch of morbidity. His boy's death had shocked him as an
incredible event, but he had forbidden it to change the course of his
life, and it remained deep down, unseen, a wound that never healed and
was never examined.
His embarrassments--the balls with which he was forever
a-juggling--were in the main four. First, the Directors in whose power
the fate of Hortons and several other service flats lay. Secondly,
Hortons itself, its servants, its tenants, the furniture, its food, its
finances, its marriages, births, and deaths. Thirdly, his own private
speculations, his little private business enterprises, his pals, his
games, his vices, and his ambitions. Fourth, his wife, Nancy.
Those four "elements" had all been complicated enough before the war;
it would take a man all his time, he used to say, to deal with the
Board--nice enough men, but peremptory in many ways, not understanding,
and always in a hurry.
He had spent the best years of his life in persuading those men that
Hortons was the best service flat in London; they did at length believe
that; they were satisfied; but having brought them to such a height
they must be maintained there. The war brought discontent, of course.
Only the old men were active on the board, and the old men had always
been the trying ones to deal with. The war, as it dragged its weary
coils along, brought nerves and melodrama with it. Only Mr. Nix,
it seemed, in all the world, was allowed to be neither nervous nor
melodramatic. He must never show anger nor disappointment nor a sense
of injustice ... there were days he honestly confessed to Nancy, his
wife, when he longed to pull some of those old white beards....
But worse than those old men were the tenants of Hortons themselves.
Here was a golden ball of truly stupendous heaviness and eccentricity.
The things they had demanded, the wild, unnatural, impossible things!
And the things that Hortons itself demanded! To Hortons the war was
as nothing. It must be fed, clothed, cleaned, just as it had always
been! You might shout to it about the prices, the laziness of workmen,
the heaviness of taxation. It did not care. The spirit of Hortons must
be maintained: it might as well not exist as be less than the fine
creation it had always been.
As to the third of Mr. Nix's "elements," his private life, that had
dwindled until it was scarcely visible. He had no private life. He did
not want to have one now that his son, who had been so deeply connected
with it, was gone. Everything that he had done he had done for his son:
that was his future. He did not look to the future now, but worked for
the day, and rather to his own surprise, for Hortons, which had become
a concrete figure, gay, debonair, autocratic....
His personal life dropped. He saw little of his friends, never passed
the doors of his club, sat at home in the evenings, reading first the
_Times_, then the _Morning Post_, then the _Daily News_. He liked to
have an all-round view of the situation.
It was his sense of Fair Play.