I was just going into my tailor's in Sackville Street, when who should
be coming out of the same establishment but Mrs Ellis! I was startled,
as any man might well have been, to see a lady emerging from my
tailor's. Of course a lady might have been to a tailor's to order a
tailor-made costume. Such an excursion would be perfectly legal and not
at all shocking. But then my tailor did not "make" for ladies. And
moreover, Mrs Ellis was not what I should call a tailor-made woman. She
belonged to the other variety--the fluffy, lacy, flowing variety. I had
made her acquaintance on one of my visits to the Five Towns. She was
indubitably elegant, but in rather a Midland manner. She was a fine
specimen of the provincial woman, and that was one of the reasons why I
liked her. Her husband was a successful earthenware manufacturer.
Occasionally he had to make long journeys--to Canada, to Australia and
New Zealand--in the interests of his business; so that she was sometimes
a grass-widow, with plenty of money to spend. Her age was about
thirty-five; bright, agreeable, shrewd, downright, energetic; a little
short and a little plump. Wherever she was, she was a centre of
interest! In default of children of her own she amused herself with the
children of her husband's sister, Mrs Carter. Mr Carter was another
successful earthenware manufacturer. Her favourite among nephews and
nieces was young Ellis Carter, a considerable local dandy and "dog."
Such was Mrs Ellis.
"Are you a widow just now?" I asked her, after we had shaken hands.
"Yes," she said. "But my husband touched at Port Said yesterday, thank
Heaven."
"Are you ordering clothes for him to wear on his arrival?" I adopted a
teasing tone.
"Can you picture Henry in a Sackville Street suit?" she laughed.
I could not. Henry's clothes usually had the appearance of having been
picked up at a Jew's.
"Then what _are_ you doing here?" I insisted.
"I came here because I remembered you saying once that this was your
tailor's," she said, "so I thought it would be a pretty good place."
Now I would not class my tailor with the half-dozen great tailors of the
world, but all the same he is indeed a, pretty good tailor.
"That's immensely flattering," I said. "But what have you been doing
with him?"
"Business," said she. "And if you want to satisfy your extraordinary
inquisitiveness any further, don't you think you'd better come right
away now and offer me some tea somewhere?"
"Splendid," I said. "Where?"
"Oh! The Hanover, of course!" she answered.
"Where's that?" I inquired.
"Don't you know the Hanover Tea-rooms in Regent Street?" she exclaimed,
staggered.
I have often noticed that metropolitan resorts which are regarded by
provincials as the very latest word of London style, are perfectly
unknown to Londoners themselves. She led me along Vigo Street to the
Hanover. It was a huge white place, with a number of little alcoves and
a large band. We installed ourselves in one of the alcoves, with
supplies of China tea and multitudinous cakes, and grew piquantly
intimate, and then she explained her visit to my tailor's. I propose to
give it here as nearly in her own words as I can.
I
I wouldn't tell you anything about it (she said) if I didn't know from
the way you talk sometimes that you are interested in _people_. I mean
any people, anywhere. Human nature! Everybody that I come across is
frightfully interesting to me. Perhaps that's why I've got so many
friends--and enemies. I _have_, you know. I just like watching people to
see what they do, and then what they'll do next. I don't seem to mind so
much whether they're good or naughty--with me it's their interestingness
that comes first. Now I suppose you don't know very much about my
nephew, Ellis Carter. Just met him once, I think, and that's all. Don't
you think he's handsome? Oh! I do. I think he's very handsome. But then
a man and a woman never do agree about what being handsome is in a man.
Ellis is only twenty, too. He has such nice curly hair, and his
eyes--haven't you noticed his eyes? His father says he's idle. But all
fathers say that of their sons. I suppose you'll admit anyhow that he's
one of the best-dressed youths in the Five Towns. Anyone might think he
got his clothes in London, but he doesn't. It seems there's a simply
marvellous tailor in Bursley, and Ellis and all his friends go to him.
His father is always grumbling at the bills, so his mother told me.
Well, when I was at their house in July, there happened to come for
Ellis one of those fiat boxes that men's tailors always pack suits in,
and so I thought I might as well show a great deal of curiosity about
it, and I did. And Ellis undid it in the breakfast-room (his father
wasn't there) and showed me a lovely blue suit. I asked him to go
upstairs and put it on. He wouldn't at first, but his sisters and I
worried him till he gave way.
He came downstairs again like Solomon in all his glory. It really was a
lovely suit. No--seriously, I'm not joking. It was a dream. He was very
shy in it. I must say men are funny. Even when they really _like_
having new clothes and cutting a figure, they simply hate putting them
on for the first time. Ellis is that way. I don't know how many suits
that boy hasn't got--sheer dandyism!--and yet he'll keep a new suit in
the house a couple of months before wearing it! Now that's the sort of
thing that I call "interesting." So curious, isn't it? Ellis wouldn't
keep that suit on. No; as soon as we'd done admiring it he disappeared
and changed it.
Now I'd gone that day to ask Ellis to escort me to Llandudno the week
after. He likes going about with his auntie, and his auntie likes to
have him. And of course she sees that it doesn't cost _him_ anything.
But his father has to be placated first. There's another funny thing!
His father is always grumbling that Ellis is absolutely no good at all
at the works, but the moment there's any question of Ellis going away
for a holiday--even if it's only a week-end--then his father turns right
round and wants to make out that Ellis is absolutely indispensable.
Well, I got over his father. I always do, naturally. And it was settled
that Ellis and I should go on the next Saturday.