up for breakfast. I did, in a way. But I couldn’t face it. I had the
feeling that if I said nothing special and just treated it as one of her
bad headache days and went off to the office, by the time I got back this
evening the whole affair would have blown over somehow. No, that wasn’t
it. I felt a bit like I do now, “helpless.” What was I to do? Just go on.
That was all I could think of. So I took her up a cup of tea and a couple
of slices of thin bread and butter as per usual on her headache days. The
blind was still down. She was lying on her back. I think she had a wet
handkerchief on her forehead. I’m not sure, for I couldn’t look at her.
It was a beastly feeling. And she said in a weak kind of voice, “Put the
jug on the table, will you?” I put it down. I said, “Can I do anything?”
And she said, “No. I’ll be all right in half an hour.” But her voice, you
know! It did for me. I barged out as quick as I could, snatched my hat
and stick from the hall-stand and dashed off for the tram.
Here’s a queer thing—you needn’t believe me if you don’t want to—the
moment I got out of the house I forgot that about my wife. It was a
splendid morning, soft, with the sun making silver ducks on the sea.
The kind of morning when you know it’s going to keep hot and fine all
day. Even the tram bell sounded different, and the little school kids
crammed between people’s knees had bunches of flowers. I don’t know—I
can’t understand why—I just felt happy, but happy in a way I’d never been
before, happy to beat the band! That wind that had been so strong the
night before was still blowing a bit. It felt like her—the other—touching
me. Yes, it did. Brought it back, every bit of it. If I told you how it
took me, you’d say I was mad. I felt reckless—didn’t care if I was late
for the office or not and I wanted to do every one a kindness. I helped
the little kids out of the tram. One little chap dropped his cap, and
when I picked it up for him and said, “Here, sonny!” ... well, it was all
I could do not to make a fool of myself.
At the office it was just the same. It seemed to me I’d never known the
fellows at the office before. When old Fisher came over to my desk and
put down a couple of giant sweet peas as per usual with his “Beat ’em,
old man, beat ’em”—I didn’t feel annoyed. I didn’t care that he was
riddled with conceit about his garden. I just looked at them and I said
quietly, “Yes, you’ve done it this time.” He didn’t know what to make of
it. Came back in about five minutes and asked me if I had a headache.
And so it went on all day. In the evening I dashed home with the
home-going crowd, pushed open the gate, saw the hall-door open as it
always is and sat down on the little chair just inside to take off my
boots. My slippers were there, of course. This seemed to me a good sign.
I put my boots into the rack in the cupboard under the stairs, changed
my office coat and made for the kitchen. I knew my wife was there. Wait
a bit. The only thing I couldn’t manage was my whistling as per usual,
“I often lie awake and think, What a dreadful thing is work....” I had a
try, but nothing came of it. Well, I opened the kitchen-door and said,
“Hullo! How’s everybody?” But as soon as I’d said that—even before—I
knew the worst had happened. She was standing at the table beating the
salad dressing. And when she looked up and gave a kind of smile and said
“Hullo!” you could have knocked me down! My wife looked dreadful—there’s
no other word for it. She must have been crying all day. She’d put some
white flour stuff on her face to take away the marks—but it only made
her look worse. She must have seen I spotted something, for she caught
up the cup of cream and poured some into the salad bowl—like she always
does, you know, so quick, so neat, in her own way—and began beating
again. I said, “Is your head better?” But she didn’t seem to hear. She
said, “Are you going to water the garden before or after supper?” What
could I say? I said, “After,” and went off to the dining-room, opened the
evening paper and sat by the open window—well, hiding behind that paper,
I suppose.
I shall never forget sitting there. People passing by, going down the
road, sounded so peaceful. And a man passed with some cows. I—I envied
him. My wife came in and out. Then she called me to supper and we sat
down. I suppose we ate some cold meat and salad. I don’t remember. We
must have. But neither of us spoke. It’s like a dream now. Then she
got up, changed the plates, and went to the larder for the pudding.
Do you know what the pudding was? Well, of course, it wouldn’t mean
anything to you. It was my favorite—the kind she only made me on special
occasions—honey-comb cream....
A MAN AND HIS DOG
To look at Mr. Potts one would have thought that there at least went
someone who had nothing to boast about. He was a little insignificant
fellow with a crooked tie, a hat too small for him and a coat too large.
The brown canvas portfolio that he carried to and from the Post Office
every day was not like a business man’s portfolio. It was like a child’s
school satchel; it did up even with a round-eyed button. One imagined
there were crumbs and an apple core inside. And then there was something
funny about his boots, wasn’t there? Through the laces his coloured socks
peeped out. What the dickens had the chap done with the tongues? “Fried
’em,” suggested the wit of the Chesney bus. Poor old Potts! “More likely
buried ’em in his garden.” Under his arm he clasped an umbrella. And in
wet weather when he put it up, he disappeared completely. He was not. He
was a walking umbrella—no more—the umbrella became his shell.
Mr. Potts lived in a little bungalow on Chesney Flat. The bulge of the
water tank to one side gave it a mournful air, like a little bungalow
with the toothache. There was no garden. A path had been cut in the
paddock turf from the gate to the front door, and two beds, one round,
one oblong, had been cut in what was going to be the front lawn. Down
that path went Potts every morning at half-past eight and was picked up
by the Chesney bus; up that path walked Potts every evening while the
great kettle of a bus droned on. In the late evening, when he crept as
far as the gate, eager to smoke a pipe—he wasn’t allowed to smoke any
nearer to the house than that—so humble, so modest was his air, that the
big, merrily-shining stars seemed to wink at each other, to laugh, to
say, “Look at him! Let’s throw something!”
When Potts got out of the tram at the Fire Station to change into the
Chesney bus he saw that something was up. The car was there all right,
but the driver was off his perch; he was flat on his face half under the
engine, and the conductor, his cap off, sat on a step rolling a cigarette
and looking dreamy. A little group of business men and a woman clerk
or two stood staring at the empty car; there was something mournful,
pitiful about the way it leaned to one side and shivered faintly when the
driver shook something. It was like someone who’d had an accident and
tries to say: “Don’t touch me! Don’t come near me! Don’t hurt me!”
But all this was so familiar—the cars had only been running to Chesney
the last few months—that nobody said anything, nobody asked anything.
They just waited on the off chance. In fact, two or three decided to walk
it as Potts came up. But Potts didn’t want to walk unless he had to. He
was tired. He’d been up half the night rubbing his wife’s chest—she had
one of her mysterious pains—and helping the sleepy servant girl heat
compresses and hot-water bottles and make tea. The window was blue and
the roosters had started crowing before he lay down finally with feet
like ice. And all this was familiar, too.
Standing at the edge of the pavement and now and again changing his brown
canvas portfolio from one hand to the other Potts began to live over
the night before. But it was vague, shadowy. He saw himself moving like
a crab, down the passage to the cold kitchen and back again. The two
candles quivered on the dark chest of drawers, and as he bent over his
wife her big eyes suddenly flashed and she cried:
“I get no sympathy—no sympathy. You only do it because you have to. Don’t
contradict me. I can see you grudge doing it.”
Trying to soothe her only made matters worse. There had been an awful
scene ending with her sitting up and saying solemnly with her hand
raised: “Never mind, it will not be for long now.” But the sound of these
words frightened her so terribly that she flung back on the pillow and
sobbed, “Robert! Robert!” Robert was the name of the young man to whom
she had been engaged years ago, before she met Potts. And Potts was very
glad to hear him invoked. He had come to know that meant the crisis was
over and she’d begin to quieten down....
By this time Potts had wheeled round; he had walked across the pavement
to the paling fence that ran beside. A piece of light grass pushed
through the fence and some slender silky daisies. Suddenly he saw a bee
alight on one of the daisies and the flower leaned over, swayed, shook,
while the little bee clung and rocked. And as it flew away the petals
fluttered as if joyfully.... Just for an instant Potts dropped into the
world where this happened. He brought from it the timid smile with which
he walked back to the car. But now everybody had disappeared except one
young girl who stood beside the empty car reading.
* * * * *
At the tail of the procession came Potts in a cassock so much too large
for him that it looked like a night-shirt and you felt that he ought to
be carrying not a hymn and a prayer book but a candle. His voice was a
very light plaintive tenor. It surprised everybody. It seemed to surprise
him, too. But it was so plaintive that when he cried “for the wings,
for the wings of a dove” the ladies in the congregation wanted to club
together and buy him a pair.
* * * * *
Lino’s nose quivered so pitifully, there was such a wistful, timid look
in his eyes, that Potts’ heart was wrung. But of course he would not show
it. “Well,” he said sternly, “I suppose you’d better come home.” And he
got up off the bench. Lino got up, too, but stood still, holding up a paw.
“But there’s one thing,” said Potts, turning and facing him squarely,
“that we’d better be clear about before you do come. And it’s this.”
He pointed his finger at Lino who started as though he expected to be
shot. But he kept his bewildered wistful eyes upon his master. “Stop this
pretence of being a fighting dog,” said Potts more sternly than ever.
“You’re not a fighting dog. You’re a watch dog. That’s what you are. Very
well. Stick to it. But it’s this infernal boasting I can’t stand. It’s
that that gets me.”
In the moment’s pause that followed while Lino and his master looked at
each other it was curious how strong a resemblance was between them. Then
Potts turned again and made for home.
And timidly, as though falling over his own paws, Lino followed after the
humble little figure of his master....
SUCH A SWEET OLD LADY
Why did old Mrs. Travers wake so early nowadays? She would like to
have slept for another three hours at least. But no, every morning at
almost precisely the same time, at half-past four, she was wide awake.
For—nowadays, again—she woke always in the same way, with a slight start,
a small shock, lifting her head from the pillow with a quick glance as if
she fancied someone had called her, or as if she were trying to remember
for certain whether this was the same wallpaper, the same window she
had seen last night before Warner switched off the light.... Then the
small, silvery head pressed the white pillow again and just for a moment,
before the agony of lying awake began, old Mrs. Travers was happy. Her
heart quietened down, she breathed deeply, she even smiled. Yet once
more the tide of darkness had risen, had floated her, had carried her
away; and once more it had ebbed, it had withdrawn, casting her up where
it had found her, shut in by the same wallpaper, stared at by the same
window—still safe—still _there_!
Now the church clock sounded from outside, slow, languid, faint, as if
it chimed the half hour in its sleep. She felt under the pillow for
her watch; yes, it said the same. Half-past four. Three and a half
hours before Warner came in with her tea. Oh dear, would she be able
to stand it? She moved her legs restlessly. And, staring at the prim,
severe face of the watch, it seemed to her that the hands—the minute
hand especially—knew that she was watching them and held back—just a
very little—on purpose.... Very strange, she had never got over the
feeling that watch hated her. It had been Henry’s. Twenty years ago, when
standing by poor Henry’s bed, she had taken it into her hands for the
first time and wound it, it had felt cold and heavy. And two days later,
when she undid a hook of her crape bodice and thrust it inside, it had
lain in her bosom like a stone.... It had never felt at home there. Its
place was—ticking, keeping perfect time, against Henry’s firm ribs. It
had never trusted her, just as he had never trusted her in those ways.
And on the rare occasions when she had forgotten to wind it, she had felt
a pang of almost terror, and she had murmured as she fitted the little
key: “Forgive me, Henry!”
Old Mrs. Travers sighed, and pushed the watch under the pillow again.
It seemed to her that lately this feeling that it hated her had become
more definite.... Perhaps that was because she looked at it so often,
especially now that she was away from home. Foreign clocks never go.
They are always stopped at twenty minutes to two. Twenty minutes to two!
Such an unpleasant time, neither one thing nor the other. If one arrived
anywhere lunch was over and it was too early to expect a cup of tea....
But she mustn’t begin thinking about tea. Old Mrs. Travers pulled herself
up in the bed, and like a tired baby, she lifted her arms and let them
fall on the eiderdown.
The room was gay with morning light. The big French window on to the
balcony was open and the palm outside flung its quivering spider-like
shadow over the bedroom walls. Although their hotel did not face the
front, at this early hour you could smell the sea, you could hear it
breathing, and flying high on golden wings sea-gulls skimmed past. How
peaceful the sky looked, as though it was tenderly smiling! Far away—far
away from this satin-stripe wallpaper, the glass-covered table, the
yellow brocade sofa and chairs, and the mirrors that showed you your side
view, your back view, your three-quarters view as well.
Ernestine had been enthusiastic about this room.
“It’s just the very room for you, Mother! So bright and attractive and
non-depressing! With a balcony, too, so that on wet days you can still
have your chair outside and look at those lovely palms. And Gladys can
have the little room adjoining, which makes it so beautifully easy for
Warner to keep her eye on you both.... You couldn’t have a nicer room,
could you, Mother? I can’t get over that sweet balcony! So nice for
Gladys! Cecil and I haven’t got one at all....”
But all the same, in spite of Ernestine, she never sat on that balcony.
For some strange reason that she couldn’t explain she hated looking at
palms. Nasty foreign things, she called them in her mind. When they were
still they drooped, they looked draggled like immense untidy birds, and
when they moved, they reminded her always of spiders. Why did they never
look just natural and peaceful and shady like English trees? Why were
they forever writhing and twisting or standing sullen? It tired her even
to think of them, or in fact of anything foreign....
HONESTY
There was an expression Rupert Henderson was very fond of using. “If you
want my _honest_ opinion....” He had an honest opinion on every subject
under the sun, and nothing short of a passion for delivering it. But
Archie Cullen’s pet phrase was “I cannot _honestly_ say....” Which meant
that he had not really made up his mind. He had not really made up his
mind on any subject whatsoever. Why? Because he could not. He was unlike
other men. He was minus something—or was it plus? No matter. He was not
in the least proud of the fact. It depressed him—one might go so far as
to say—terribly at times.
Rupert and Archie lived together. That is to say, Archie lived in
Rupert’s rooms. Oh, he paid his share, his half in everything; the
arrangement was a purely, strictly business arrangement. But perhaps it
was because Rupert had invited Archie that Archie remained always—his
guest. They each had a bedroom, there was a common sitting-room, and
a largeish bath-room which Rupert used as a dressing-room as well.
The first morning after his arrival Archie had left his sponge in the
bath-room, and a moment after there was a knock at his door and Rupert
said, kindly but firmly, “Your sponge, I fancy.” The first evening
Archie had brought his tobacco jar into the sitting room and placed it
on a corner of the mantelpiece. Rupert was reading the newspaper. It
was a round china jar, the surface painted and roughened to represent
a sea-urchin. On the lid was a spray of china seaweed with two berries
for a knob. Archie was excessively fond of it. But after dinner, when
Rupert took out his pipe and pouch, he suddenly fixed his eyes on this
object, blew through his moustaches, gasped, and said in a wondering,
astonished voice, “I say! Is that yours or Mrs. Head’s?” Mrs. Head was
their landlady.
“It’s mine,” said Archie, and he blushed and smiled just a trifle timidly.
“I _say_!” said Rupert again—this time very meaningly.
“Would you rather I....” said Archie, and he moved in his chair to get up.
“No, no! Certainly not! On no account!” answered Rupert, and he actually
raised his hand. “But perhaps”—and here he smiled at Archie and gazed
about him—“perhaps we might find some spot for it that was a trifle less
conspicuous.”
The spot was not decided on, however, and Archie nipped his sole personal
possession into his bedroom as soon as Rupert was out of the way.
But it was chiefly at meals that the attitude of host and guest was
most marked. For instance, on each separate occasion, even before they
sat down Rupert said, “Would you mind cutting the bread, Archie?” Had
he not made such a point of it, it is possible that Archie in a moment
of abstractedness might have grasped the bread knife.... An unpleasant
thought! Again, Archie was never allowed to serve. Even at breakfast,
the hot dishes and the tea, both were dispensed by Rupert. True, he half
apologized about the tea; he seemed to feel the necessity of some slight
explanation, there.
“I’m rather a fad about my tea,” said he. “Some people, females
especially, pour in the milk first. Fatal habit, for more reasons than
one. In my opinion, the cup should be filled just _so_ and the tea then
coloured. Sugar, Archie?”
“Oh, please,” said Archie, almost bowing over the table. Rupert was so
very impressive.
“But I suppose,” said his friend, “you don’t notice any of these little
things.”
And Archie answered vaguely, stirring, “No, I don’t suppose I do.”
Rupert sat down and unfolded his napkin.
“It would be very inconsistent with your character and disposition,” said
he genially, “if you did! Kidneys and bacon? Scrambled eggs? Either?
Both? Which?”
Poor Archie hated scrambled eggs, but, alas! he was practically certain
that scrambled eggs were expected of him too. This ‘psychological
awareness,’ as Rupert called it, which existed between them, might after
a time make things a trifle difficult. He felt a little abject as he
murmured, “Eggs, please.” And he saw by Rupert’s expression that he had
chosen right. Rupert helped him to eggs largely.
§
Psychological awareness ... perhaps it was that which explained their
intimacy. One might have been tempted to say it was a case of mutual
fascination. But whereas Archie’s reply to the suggestion would have
been a slow “Possibly!” Rupert would have flouted it at once.
“Fascination! The word’s preposterous in this connection. What on earth
would there be in Cullen to fascinate me even if I was in the habit of
being fascinated by my fellow-creatures; which I certainly am not. No,
I’ll own I am deeply interested. I confess my belief is, I understand
him better than anybody else. And if you want my honest opinion, I am
certain that my—my—h’m—influence over—sympathy for—him—call it what
you like, is all to the good. There is a psychological awareness....
Moreover, as a companion, instinctively I find him extremely agreeable.
He stimulates some part of my mind which is less active without him. But
fascination—wide of the mark, my dear—wide!”
But supposing one remained unconvinced? Supposing one still played with
the idea. Wasn’t it possible to see Rupert and Archie as the python and
the rabbit keeping house together? Rupert that handsome, well-fed python
with his moustaches, his glare, his habit of uncoiling before the fire
and swaying against the mantelpiece, pipe and pouch in hand. And Archie,
soft, hunched, timid, sitting in the lesser armchair, there and not
there, flicking back into the darkness at a word but emerging again at
a look—with sudden wholly unexpected starts of playfulness (instantly
suppressed by the python). Of course, there was no question of anything
so crude and dreadful as the rabbit being eaten by his housemate.
Nevertheless, it was a strange fact,—after a typical evening the one
looked immensely swelled, benign and refreshed and the other, pale,
small and exhausted.... And more often than not, Rupert’s final comment
was—ominous this—as he doused his whisky with soda:
“This has been very absorbing, Archie.” And Archie gasped out, “Oh,
_very_!”
§
Archie Cullen was a journalist and the son of a journalist. He had no
private money, no influential connections, scarcely any friends. His
father had been one of those weak, disappointed, unsuccessful men who see
in their sons a weapon for themselves. He would get his own back on life
through Archie. Archie would show them the stuff he—his father was made
of. Just you wait till my son comes along! This, though highly consoling
to Mr. Cullen _père_, was terribly poor fun for Archie. At two and a
half his infant nose was put to the grindstone and even on Sundays it
was not taken off. Then his father took him out walking and improved the
occasion by making him spell the shop signs, count the yachts racing in
the harbour, divide them by four and multiply the result by three.
But the experiment was an amazing success. Archie turned away from the
distractions of life, shut his ears, folded his feet, sat over the table
with his book and when the holidays came he didn’t like them; they made
him uneasy; so he went on reading for himself. He was a model boy. On
prize-giving days his father accompanied him to school, carried the great
wad of stiff books home for him and, flinging them on the dining-room
table, he surveyed them with an exultant smile. My prizes! The little
sacrifice stared at them, too, through his spectacles, as other little
boys stared at puddings. He ought, of course, at this juncture to have
been rescued by a doting mother who, though cowed herself, rose on
the....
SUSANNAH
Of course there would have been no question of their going to the
exhibition if Father had not had the tickets given to him. Little girls
cannot expect to be given treats that cost extra money when only to feed
them, buy them clothes, pay for their lessons and the house they live
in takes their kind generous Father all day and every day working hard
from morning till night—“except Saturday afternoons and Sundays,” said
Susannah.
“Susannah!” Mother was very shocked. “But do you know what would happen
to your poor Father if he didn’t have a holiday on Saturday afternoons
and Sundays?”
“No,” said Susannah. She looked interested. “What?”
“He would die,” said their mother impressively.
“Would he?” said Susannah, opening her eyes. She seemed astounded, and
Sylvia and Phyllis, who were four and five years older than she, chimed
in with, “Of course,” in a very superior tone. What a little silly-billy
she was not to know that! They sounded so convinced and cheerful that
their mother felt a little shaken and hastened to change the subject....
“So that is why,” she said a little vaguely, “you must each thank Father
separately before you go.”
“And then he will give us the money?” asked Phyllis.
“And then I shall ask him for whatever is necessary,” said their mother
firmly. She sighed suddenly and got up. “Run along, children, and ask
Miss Wade to dress you and get ready herself and then come down to the
dining-room. And now, Susannah, you are not to let go Miss Wade’s hand
from the moment you are through the gates until you are out again.”
“Well—what if I go on a horse?” inquired Susannah.