The “forced draught” conversation--the phrase was Sir
Creighton’s--which the two girls exchanged at lunch and which has been
in some measure recorded, formed excellent exercise for their wits, Sir
Creighton thought, though he had not the privilege of listening to their
latest battledore and shuttlecock in this direction, the fact being that
he and Lady Severn were partaking of a more exciting meal aboard the new
electric turbine yacht which Sir Creighton had just perfected. It was
certainly a stimulating reflection that for the first time since the
waters were spread over a portion of the surface of the earth, a
meal was partaken of in comfort aboard a vessel moving at the rate of
forty-two miles an hour. Even the conversation of the two girls in the
dining-room at home could scarcely beat that Sir Creighton remarked to
his wife as she clutched at her cap on the hurricane deck and gasped.
(There was a pretty fair amount of cap clutching and gasping aboard that
boat while it was flying over the measured mile.)
But when the girls were being motored to the Technical School of
Literature, their chat was of such commonplaces as the new evening
dress bodice with the lace up to the throat, and the future of the
Khaki dresses which every one was wearing as a token of respect to the
Colonial office. They had not exhausted the latter question when they
arrived at the school.
It was located in an interesting house in Hanover Square for the
present, Amber explained to her friend; and her friend cordially
opined with her that it would be foolish to enter into possession of
an important building before the school had taken a sure hold upon the
affections of the people of Great Britain.
Mr. Richmond was just opening the fiction class in the largest room when
Miss Severn and Miss West entered. Mr. Richmond, who represented the
latest of Amber’s experiments, had met Miss West a few days before. He
knew that her father was a member of the Government and he hoped to
be able to squeeze a grant out of the Government with his assistance,
therefore--the logic was Mr. Richmond’s and thoroughly sound--he thought
it well to pay as little attention as was consistent with good manners
to Miss West, and even to her friend and his friend, Miss Severn. He
had a pretty fair working knowledge of a world in which woman has at all
times played a rather prominent part, and he knew that while some young
women are affected by flattery, those who are most potent in getting
grants from their fathers in favour of certain enterprises resent being
singled out for attention.
He paid no attention to the entrance of the two girls, but commenced his
lesson--he refused to make use of the commonplace word “lecture”: the
mention of such a word should be enough to frighten people away from
the school, he said; and on the same principle he chose to call his
undertaking a school, not a college.
Josephine and Amber took seats at one of the desks, with paper and
pens in front of them, and the former glanced round the class. It was
composed of some interesting units. At a desk well to the front sat bolt
upright a gentleman of rather more than middle-age. Half-pay was writ
large all over him. There was not a wrinkle in his coat that did not
harbour a little imp that shrieked out “half pay--half pay!” for all the
world to hear. His hair was thin in places, but at no place was it too
thin to afford cover to half a dozen of those frolicsome demons with
their shriek of “half pay!” His over-brushed frock coat (of the
year before last), his over-blackened boots, and the general air of
over-tidiness that he carried about with him proclaimed the elderly
officer of correct habits who after trying for a year or two to obtain
congenial employment as the secretary to a club and for another year or
two to persuade people to drink the wines of Patagonia, for the sale of
which he had been appointed sole agent for Primrose Hill, had resolved
to commence life again as a popular novelist.
Not far off sat a youth with receding forehead and chin, and a face like
a marmot of the Alps. He kept his small eyes fixed upon the head of a
drowsily pretty girl, with towzled hair of an orange tint unknown to
nature but well known to art--the art of the second class coiffure. She
did the reviews for a humble paper but hoped to qualify to be herself
the reviewed one some day. It was clear that she would not ruin her
chances by a _misalliance_ with the well-balanced scheme of retrocession
observable in his profile.
Two interested young girls sat at another desk guardianed by a
governess--they, at any rate, Josephine thought, possessed the first
qualification for success in fiction, for they observed every one
about them, and made rude remarks to each other respecting their
fellow-creatures. The governess took notes by the aid of a stumpy pencil
the blunt end of which she audibly touched with the tip of her tongue
after every few words; and Josephine perceived that she was anaemic.
Her simple methods contrasted with the elaborate _batterie d’écriture_
of a young lady who sat at the desk next to that at which Josephine
and Amber had placed themselves; for she had placed in front of her a
silver-mounted case, monstrously monogrammed, with double ink-bottles,
each containing something under half a pint. A rack holding half a dozen
pens of varying shapes and sizes, stood imposingly at one side, and on
the other lay a neat ream of letter paper, crested and monogrammed, and
a pronouncing dictionary. The apparatus certainly seemed quite adequate
to the demands of the occasion; and as it turned out, it contained a
good deal that was absolutely unnecessary, for the young lady slipped
into an unobtrusive doze, the moment the lecturer began to address his
class.
A young woman who had removed her hat in order to show that she had a
brow with generous bumps scattered about it, resembling Kopjes above a
kloof, lounged with an ungracefulness that a plebiscite had pronounced
to have a distinct literary flavour about it, half across her desk. It
was understood that she had once written a column in a lady’s paper on
something and so could afford to be careless.
A youth with a cloak and a yellow smile was understood to be a poet.
People said that his smile would work off. But he had never tried.
A well-dressed man of middle age looked, Josephine thought, as if he
were something in the city; but that was just where she was mistaken. It
was only when he was out of the city that he was something; in the city
he was nothing. He was on the eve of drafting a prospectus; and so had
joined the fiction class to gain the necessary finish.
Two or three younger men and a few young women who seemed to have come
straight from the hands of a confectioner’s artist in frosting and
almond icing, had taken up positions of prominence. They looked as if
they were anxious to be commented on, and they were commented on.
Mr. Owen Glendower Richmond, the founder of the school was not a
well-dressed man, only an expensively dressed man. He was young but not
so very young as to be able to disregard the tendency to transparency in
that portion of his hair which covered (indifferently) the crown of his
head. He had the art of making one hair do duty for two over this area.
He had also a very persuasive voice.
Many men have gone with success through life with fewer endowments. But
Mr. Richmond had never been quite successful in anything that he had
attempted, and at thirty-four he had occasional regrets that earlier in
life he had not let his hair grow curiously, or acquired a reputation
for a profile--a profile like that of Dante in the picture.
He had published a book or two; but people about him were good-natured
and had agreed to ignore the incident and to give him another chance.
He proved that their benevolence had not been misplaced by becoming
bankrupt over a scheme for regulating the output of fiction. The public
had subscribed generously to his bureau, and it might possibly have
succeeded but for the discovery of the new element to which the name of
neurosis was given.
Taking advantage of his position on the summit of a base of bankruptcy,
he had no difficulty in finding a sufficient number of friends to assist
him in the realisation of his scheme for establishing on a permanent
basis a School of Literature; and among his friends he would have
permission to include Sir Creighton Severn and his daughter. He knew
that their appetite for experiments was insatiable, and he had at one
time taught Archie Severn--Amber’s only brother--all that he knew on the
subject of exotic forms of verse--a science in which the young man had
been greatly interested at one period of his life. He was not altogether
free from a suspicion that his claims upon the family were somewhat
attenuated; but when he had an interview with them he felt that such a
suspicion was unworthy of him. Sir Creighton told his daughter that she
was free to experiment with the experimenter, and Mr. Richmond found
that his year’s rent was guaranteed.
Although the school had only been established for six months it was
already a paying concern and Mr. Richmond was in such prosperous
circumstances that he felt at liberty to dress less expensively, so
he bought a frock coat at seven pounds instead of the one at seven
guineas--the one which Josephine West had first seen him wear: the one
with the silk quilted lining where most men were quite contented to have
a material bearing the trade name of satinette.
It was the cheaper garment that he was wearing on the afternoon of this
first visit of Josephine’s to the school, and being an observant young
woman, she had really no trouble in perceiving that his aspirations for
the moment were to assume that pose which offered the greatest chance of
permanency to the impression that he carried his frock coat as easily as
a Greek god carried his drapery.
She was a very observant young woman and she admired the adroitness of
Mr. Owen Glendower Richmond in associating himself, even though he did
so only through the agency of a crease that began at the waist and ended
short of the knee, with classical tradition.
And then she admired herself for the subtlety of her observation, and
thus was in a psychological frame of mind to yield to the persuasive
charm of Mr. Richmond’s voice.