over, feeling like an animal that has contracted a disease and is
ashamed to be seen, and my mental condition was by no means improved
by the cheap sarcasms of young Booth or Eric Ganton. We did not get
Celminster out for the second time, and the certainty that the result
would not be affected by the second innings led to introduction of
strange and unlikely bowlers being put on and given their chance.
I remember that just at the end of the day even young “Togs” was
tired. He sent down three most extraordinary balls that went nowhere
within reach of the batsman, the fourth was a full pitch, and a
young rustic giant who was then batting, promptly hit it right over
the pavilion. The next ball was very short and came on the leg
side. I was fielding at short leg and I saw the batsman hunching his
shoulders for a fearful swipe. I felt in a horrible funk. I heard the
loud crack of the ball on the willow, and I was aware of it coming
straight at my head. I fell back in an ineffectual sort of manner,
and despairingly threw up my hands in a sort of self defence. And
then an amazing thing happened: the ball went bang into my left hand
and stopped there. I slipped and fell, but somehow I managed to hang
on to the ball. I remember hearing a loud shout, and suddenly the
pain of impact vanished in the realization that I had brought off a
hot catch.
It was a golden moment. The match was over. I remember all our chaps
shouting and laughing, and young “Togs” rushing up and throwing his
arms round me in a mock embrace. We ambled back to the pavilion and
it suddenly struck me how good looking most of our men were, even
Tony Peebles, whom I had always looked upon as the plainest of the
plain. My heart warmed toward Bunty with a passionate zeal when he
struck me on the back and said: “Good man! You’ve more than retrieved
your muff in the long field.”
I know they ragged me frightfully in the pavilion when we were
changing, but it was no effort to take it good-humouredly. I felt
ridiculously proud.
We took a long time getting away, there was so much rubbing down and
talking to be done, and then there was the difficulty of getting Len
Booth out of the “Bull” inn. He had a romantic passion for drinking
ale with yokels, and a boy had stuck a pin into one of Ganton’s
tires, and he had to find a bicycle shop and get it mended. It was
getting dark when we all got established once more in the brake.
I remember vividly turning the corner in the High Street and looking
back on the solemn profile of the inn. The sky was almost colourless,
just a glow of warmth, and already in some of the windows lamps were
appearing. We huddled together contentedly in the brake, and I saw
the firm lines of Bunty’s face as he leaned over a match lighting his
pipe.
The grass is long to-day in the field where we played Celminster, and
down by the stream are two square, unattractive buildings, covered
with zinc roofing, where is heard the dull roar of machinery. The
ravages of time cannot eradicate from my memory the vision of Bunty’s
face leaning over his pipe, or the pleasant buzz of the village
voices as we clattered among them in the High Street, or the sight of
the old corn merchant’s face as he came up and spoke to Bunty (Bunty
had stopped the brake to get more tobacco) and touched his hat and
said:
“Good noight, sir. Good luck to ’ee!”
Decades have passed, and I have to press the spring of my memory to
bring these things back; but when they come they are very dear to me.
I know that in the wind that blows above Gallipoli you will find the
whispers of the great faith that Bunty died for. Eric Ganton, young
Booth, and Jimmy Guilsworth, where are they? In vain the soil of
Flanders strives to clog the free spirit of my friends.
“Good noight, sir. Good luck to ’ee!”
Again I see the old man’s face as I gaze across the field where the
long grass grows, and I see the red ball tossed hither and thither,
with its story still unfinished, and I hear the sound of Jimmy’s
voice:
“Oh, well hit, sir!” as he encourages an opponent.
The times have changed since then, but you cannot destroy these
things. Manners have changed, customs have changed, even the faces of
men have changed; and yet this calendar on my knee is trying to tell
me that it all happened _two years ago to-day_!
And overhead the garrulous rooks seem strangely flustered.
MRS. BEELBROW’S LIONS
Mrs. Poulteney-Beelbrow is the kind of woman who drips with
refinement. Everything else has been squeezed out of her. Even her
hair, which once was red, has been dried to a rusty gray. Her narrow
face is pinched and bloodless; the lines of her figure blurred by
shapeless and colourless materials, as though she resented any
suggestion of organic functioning, as though blood itself were not
quite “nice.” The voice is high pitched, toneless, ice-cold. She
speaks with dead monotony, without enthusiasm. And yet one can hardly
describe Mrs. Beelbrow as a woman who has not had enthusiasms.
Lions!--lions have been the determining passion of Mrs. Beelbrow’s
life. A life amidst lions can hardly be called an apathetic life, you
might say.
I would like to have known Mrs. Beelbrow when she was quite young,
although the condition is difficult to visualize. She is now--that
quite indeterminate age which æsthetic women sometimes arrive at
too soon and forsake too early. She might easily be in the early
thirties; on the other hand she might be in the late forties; even
later, even earlier--she is _so_ refined, you see. You can imagine
her doing nothing so vulgar as visiting the Royal Academy or reading
a popular magazine. As for the cinema, or a revue--oh, my dear!
It is only her eyes which sometimes give you an inkling of a restless
soul. They are almost green with a tiny gray pupil. She sometimes
smiles with her lips, but never with her eyes, which are always
roaming--searching--lions.
She was a Miss Poulteney (you know, the Hull shipping people), and
she married Beelbrow the stockbroker. God knows why! You can seldom
find Beelbrow. Sometimes you may observe him standing against the
wall at one of those overpowering receptions she gives. He is tubby,
genial and negative. He smiles at his wife--busily occupied with
lions--and mutters:
“Wonderful woman, my wife--wonderful! um-m.”
And then he retires to the refreshment-room and waits on people.
Everyone will tell you that Mrs. Beelbrow was once a remarkably
talented violinist, though we have never met any one who has heard
her play. She certainly knows something about music, and can talk
shiveringly about every ancient and modern composer of note, in
addition to many composers without note. But do not imagine that
her discriminations are confined to music. She shivers about
architecture, sculpture, painting, and literature. She dissects
tone-poems, eulogizes discords, subdivides futurism into seven
distinct planes, considers Synge too sensational, professes a
pallid admiration for Bach when performed in an empty church, is
coldly contemptuous of the Renaissance, dislikes Dickens, Scott,
Zola and Tolstoi (in spite of the latter being a Russian and a
lion). By the way, everything Russian exercises a curious influence
over her--Russian and Chinese. Things Japanese she condemns as
_bourgeois_. She is enormously refined, a sybarite of æsthetic
values. She has no children, but she keeps a marmoset, a Borzoi,
five chows, two smoke-gray Persian cats, a parakeet, and some baby
crocodiles in a sunk tank in the conservatory. The latter she keeps
because they remind her of the slow movement of some sonata by
Sibelius.
But it is of the lions she keeps that we would speak. They
are not real lions, of course. Real lions are peculiarly
commonplace--reminiscent of Landseer and the Zoölogical Gardens.
Mrs. Beelbrow’s lions roar in drawing-rooms and concert halls.
They are mostly indigenous to the soil of Central or Eastern
Europe. She imports them from Russia, Bohemia, Hungary, Austria, or
Tcheko-Slovakia. No other breeds are any good. Neither must they be
popular in the generally accepted sense. If you say to Mrs. Beelbrow:
“I heard Kreisler play the Bach _chaconne_ very finely last night,”
she shivers and says: “Ah! but have you heard De Borch play the slow
movement of the Sczhklski sonata?”
You weakly reply “No.” The name of De Borch seems familiar, but you
had never heard of him as a violinist.
She leans backward and regards you through half-closed eyes. Upon
her face there creeps an expression of genuine sympathy. There is an
almost imperceptible shrug of the shoulders, and she turns away. You
mutter “Damn!” and also repair to the refreshment-room, where Mr.
Beelbrow waits on you. (The refreshments are very good.) He says:
“Have you seen my wife? She’s a wonderful woman--wonderful--um-m!”
We should mention that this “um-m” of Mr. Beelbrow is a curious kind
of low hum that he affixes at the end of every statement. It seems to
deliberately contradict just what he has said. It is like a genteel
“I don’t think!”
It is said that in the old days Mrs. Beelbrow used to make a hobby
of genuine lions, famous opera singers and painters. There is a full
length of her by Sarjeant in the billiard-room; a very good portrait,
too, if somewhat merciless. It is characteristic of her that it
should now be in the billiard-room--a room that is only used on the
night of a great crush to deposit hats and coats that are crowded out
of the cloak-room. Sarjeant is _passé_. If you mention the portrait
to her, she says:
“Ah! but have you seen the pastel of me by Splitz?”
The pastel by Splitz is in the place of honour in the drawing-room.
You suspect that it is meant to be a woman by the puce-coloured
drapery and what appears to be long hair--or is it a waterfall in the
background? She says of it:
“It is wonderful! Splitz got into it the expression of all that I
have yearned for and never achieved. You can feel the wave-lengths of
my thoughts vibrating esoterically.”
(Good luck to Splitz! I hope he got his cheque.)
The day came when Mrs. Beelbrow tired of genuine lions.
They were a little disillusioning, too business-like, and too fond of
being waited on by Mr. Beelbrow in the refreshment-room. And so she
said:
“I will make my own lions.”
She travelled abroad, taking with her the marmoset, two of the chows,
one smoke-gray Persian cat, the parakeet, the crocodiles in a special
tank, and Mr. Beelbrow. It was in Budapest that she discovered her
first embryo lion. His name was Skrâtch. She heard him playing the
fiddle in an obscure café. She went to hear him three nights running.
On the third night she went up to him after the performance, and she
said:
“Come with me. I will make you a lion.”
Now we are anxious to deal fairly by Skrâtch. He was young, talented,
poor and hungry. He had the normal ambitions, desires, appetites,
and the weaknesses of the normal young man. He had often dreamed of
being a lion, and after one or two beers he frequently persuaded
himself that the accomplishment was not impossible. Nevertheless, he
had never been blind to its difficulties. And here was a woman who
came to him and said, quite simply: “I will make you a lion,” in the
same way that she might have said, “I will cut you a liver-sausage
sandwich.”
How could you expect Skrâtch to take it?
When he arrived in London he impressed us as being quite a pleasant,
amiable young man. He had a thin body, but rather puffy, sallow
cheeks, jet black hair, and brown eyes. He was obviously at first a
little apprehensive, suspicious. The eyes seemed to say:
“Oh, well, anyway they can’t eat me.”
He lived at Mrs. Beelbrow’s and had what she called finishing lessons
with a Polish professor. It was exactly a year before Skrâtch was
launched into lionhood. During that time no one heard him play a
note. And yet a most remarkable thing happened in connection with the
launching. Months before Skrâtch appeared in public the newspapers
were always containing paragraphs about “a remarkable young violinist
shortly expected from Budapest. Said to be a second Ysaye.” Mrs.
Beelbrow’s drawing-room was always crowded, but Skrâtch never played.
He was introduced to all kinds of people, and whispered about. I
remember meeting there the critics of the--no, perhaps this kind
of revelation is not quite fair. Anyway, when Skrâtch gave his
first orchestral concert at the Queen’s Hall the affair had been so
cleverly prepared that the place was packed. The Press reviews, when
not eulogistic, were for the most part non-committal. Dogs are afraid
to bark at a lion. It would be a terrible blunder to condemn a real
lion. One must wait and see what the general verdict is.
There is no denying also that Skrâtch did play very well. He was what
is known as a talented violinist. One may assert without fear of
contradiction that there were at that time in London probably thirty
or forty violinists (leaving out, of course, the few supreme artists)
equally as talented as Skrâtch. But they had not the _flair_ of
lions. They just went on with their job, playing when an opportunity
occurred but for the most part teaching.
The following day an advertisement appeared in the papers announcing
that “owing to the colossal success of Herr Skrâtch’s concert, three
more would follow on such-and-such dates.” (The advertisement must
have been sent in before the colossally successful concert took
place.) From that day forward Skrâtch did indeed become a qualified
lion. The more responsible papers certainly began to damn him with
faint praise, and even to pull him to pieces. But if you assert a
thing frequently enough, insistently enough, and in large enough
type, people will come to accept it. He became a kind of papier-mâché
lion, and it didn’t do the boy any good. For two years the hoardings
and the newspapers reeked with advertisements and notices about the
“great violinist Skrâtch.”
And then he began to develop in other ways. From a slim, nervous
boy he rapidly became a robustious, self-assured, florid man. His
body filled out, his cheeks reddened, his hair grew unmanageable. He
adopted an eccentric mode of dress. And Mrs. Beelbrow? The affair
reacted upon her just as one might expect. She became more precious,
more aloof, more impossible. She floated round the drawing-room with
her protégé with an air which implied:
“Look at me! I’m the woman who made a lion!”
She wore a tiger skin and left Mr. Beelbrow at home to look after the
live stock.
And after the first flush of triumph and excitement, Skrâtch treated
Mrs. Beelbrow with complete indifference and contempt. He left
lighted cigar-ends on the lid of the grand piano, spilt wine on his
bed-linen, walked about the house all day in a dressing-gown, threw
his boots at the servants, and snubbed visitors. He would get up from
table in the middle of a meal and walk out of the room without an
apology. He was even rude to her in public, and she revelled in it.
The ruder he was the more delighted she appeared. She would glance
round the room proudly, as much as to say:
“There! didn’t I tell you I had made a lion?”
They went about everywhere together. They went to the opera, the
theatre, to concerts and receptions, for motor rides in the country,
and they were always alone. Mr. Beelbrow was very busy, you see,
making money in the city. (He had to do that to pay for Herr
Skrâtch’s publicity campaign.) Of course, people began to talk. They
might have talked on much less evidence than they had. The thing was
simply thrown at them. She glued herself to him, and he accepted her
and what she gave him as only right and proper. Sometimes he would
treat her with playful familiarity. He would put his arm round her
shoulders and call her “ol gel!” All very well, but how old really
was Mrs. Beelbrow? What was happening in the dark places of _her_
heart? Of course, it couldn’t go on for ever. We all shook our heads
and were very wise, and we were right. It went on for nine months,
and then Mr. Beelbrow--no, Mr. Beelbrow did nothing. He just sat
tight, helped people to hock-cup, and expatiated upon his wife’s
remarkable character and abilities. The disruption came from outside.
Another woman appeared on the scene. Her name was Fanny Friedlander.
She was an accompanist. Now, if you had wanted to invent a complete
antithesis to Mrs. Beelbrow, Fanny would have saved you the trouble.
She was it. She was young, common, ignorant and frivolous; at the
same time she had emotional warmth. There was something sympathetic
and lovable about her. She was not exclusively a man-hunter. She
liked to be petted and admired. When she accompanied she wore red
carnations in her hair, and cast glad, furtive glances at the
audience, and sometimes at the soloist, who, of course, was Herr
Skrâtch.
Herr Skrâtch was not the kind of gentleman to make any bones about
such a position. He flirted with her outrageously, even on the
platform. Whether Mrs. Beelbrow made any protest about this affair at
its inception is not known. By the time the infatuation was apparent
it was too late. Inflated by his meretricious successes, he was in no
mood to brook interference. Mrs. Beelbrow’s face expressed little.
I really believe she was rather fascinated by the girl herself. She
seemed to be watching a little bewildered and uncertain how to act.
It ended in the three of them going about everywhere together, the
usual unsatisfactory triangle. The fact that she had to play his
accompaniments was sufficient excuse for Fanny Friedlander to go with
him to concerts where he was playing, and to call at Mrs. Beelbrow’s
for rehearsals, but hardly an excuse for her to go to the opera,
the theatre, and motor rides, or even to stop all the afternoon at
Mrs. Beelbrow’s and then to stay on to dinner. It was surmised that
Mrs. Beelbrow only tolerated it because she knew that if she turned
the girl out, Skrâtch would have gone with her. She appeared to be
content with the crumbs the younger woman left over. Ah! but only for
the moment, we were convinced.
At that time, as if conscious of his delinquency, Herr Skrâtch was a
little more polite to Mrs. Beelbrow; whilst the girl made no end of
a fuss of her in a loud common way that must have jarred the good
lady’s sensibilities horribly. We waited to see what would happen
next, what would be the next move of Mrs. Beelbrow to rid herself of
this dangerous rival. To our surprise, a few weeks later the girl
went there to live. She was actually living in the Beelbrows’ house!
Was there ever a queerer _ménage à quatre_? There was Mrs. Beelbrow,
the lion-hunter, badly mauled by one of her own lions, entertaining
her most dangerous enemy. She must have shut her eyes to all kinds
of things. Skrâtch was behaving abominably. The girl was not the
kind you could trust anyway. There was Mr. Beelbrow, quite negative,
merely earning the money to support the absurd drama.
“It’s incredible,” said Jimmy Beale, one night in the club, “that a
woman as conceited as Mrs. Beelbrow is could possibly put up with
such a damned indignity. It’s making her look the prize fool of
London.”
“Love is more powerful than a sense of dignity,” remarked some
sententious bore from the corner.
Love? Well, an unanalyzable quantity. I was perhaps the only one
fortunate enough to have the opportunity to judge of the _dénouement_
by any practical evidence. And even then it was only a fluke, a
glance. It occurred a few nights before Skrâtch disappeared. Some say
he went back to the obscure café in Budapest, taking the girl with
him. It is hardly likely in view of the handsome _dot_ which someone
presented to Fanny.
It was one of Mrs. Beelbrow’s most overwhelming crushes. You could
not hear yourself speak for the roar of lions. I was squeezed against
the folding doors. Behind a palm in the corner was an empire mirror,
tilted at an angle. It was about the only thing I could see. It gave
me a good view of certain people a little farther down the room. The
first person I saw was Mrs. Beelbrow, and as I glanced at her I saw
an expression come over her face, an expression I can only describe
as one of blind jealousy--a nasty, vindictive, dangerous look.
“Oh, ho!” I thought, and sought for the reflection of Fanny or Herr
Skrâtch. But to my astonishment I realized very clearly that her
glance was not directed at these two at all. She was looking at Mr.
Beelbrow, whose wicked, malevolent little eyes were fixed on Fanny’s.
Skrâtch for the moment was occupied with some other woman.
You might imagine that the defection of Skrâtch would have broken
Mrs. Beelbrow’s heart for the business. But, oh dear, no! don’t you
believe it. Whatever you may say or think about Mrs. Beelbrow she has
proved herself a true and indomitable lion-hunter. Only last Thursday
I was again in her crowded drawing-room. A little East-end Jewess was
playing the piano quite nicely. Mrs. Beelbrow was standing by the
folding-doors, her face set and taut. When the child had finished,
she murmured:
“Ah, if Teresa Carreño could have heard that! Teresa never reached
that velvety warmth in her mezzo passages. I believe the child must
be the reincarnation of--who would it be? Liszt? No, someone more
southern, more Byzantine. I will make her a lion.”
In the refreshment-room Mr. Beelbrow was ladling out hock-cup as
usual. When I approached him he said:
“Halloa, old boy! Have some of this? Good! Have you seen my wife?
She’s a wonderful woman--wonderful--um-m.”
A MAN OF LETTERS
ALFRED CODLING TO ANNIE PHELPS
MY DEAR ANNIE,
I got into an awful funny mood lately. You’l think I’m barmy.
It comes over me like late in the evenin’ when its gettin
dusky. It started I think when I was in Egypt. Nearly all
us chaps who was out there felt it a bit I think. When you
was on sentry go in the dessert at night it was so quite and
missterius. You felt you wanted to _know_ things if you know
what I mean. Since I’ve come back and settled in the saddlery
again I still feel it most always. A kind of discontented
funny feelin if you know what I mean. Well old girl what I
mean is when we’re spliced up and settled over in Tibbelsford
I want to be good for you and I want to know all about things
and that. Well I’m goin to write to Mr. Weekes whose a
gentleman and who lives in a private house near the church.
They say he is a littery society and if it be so I’m on for
joinin it. You’l think I’m barmy won’t you. It isn’t that old
dear. Me that has always been content to do my job and draw my
screw on Saturday and that. You’l think me funny. When you’ve
lived in the dessert you feel how old it all is. You want
something and you don’t know what it is praps its just to
improve yourself and that. Anyway there it is and I’ll shall
write to him. See you Sunday. So long, dear.
ALF.
ALFRED CODLING TO JAMES WEEKES, ESQ.
DEAR SIR,
Someone tells me you are a littery society in Tibbelsford. In
which case may I offer my services as a member and believe me.
Your obedient servant
ALFRED CODLING.
PENDRED CASTAWAY (SECRETARY TO JAMES WEEKES,
ESQ.) TO ALFRED CODLING.
DEAR SIR,
In reply to your letter of the 27th inst. I beg to inform
you that Mr. James Weekes is abroad. I will communicate the
contents of your letter to him.
Yours faithfully,
PENDRED CASTAWAY.
ANNIE PHELPS TO ALFRED CODLING
MY DEAR ALF,
You are a dear old funny old bean. What _is_ up with you. I
expeck you are just fed up. You haven’t had another tutch of
the fever have you. I will come and look after you Sunday. You
are a silly to talk about improvin considerin the money you
are gettin and another rise next spring you say. I expeck you
got fed up in the dessert and that didn’t you. I expeck you
wanted me sometimes, eh? I shouldn’t think the littery society
much cop myself. I can lend you some books. Cook is a great
reader. She has nearly all Ethel M. Dells and most of Charles
Garvice. She says she will lend you some if you promiss to
cover in brown paper and not tare the edges. They had a big
party here over the weekend a curnel a bishop two gentleman
and some smart women one very nice she gave me ten bob. We
could go to the pictures come Wednesday if agreeable. Milly is
walking out with a feller over at Spindlehurst in the grossery
a bit flashy I don’t like him much. Mrs. Vaughan had one of
her attacks on Monday. Lord she does get on my nerves when
she’s like that. Well be good and cheerio must now close. Love
and kisses till Sunday.
ANNIE.
JAMES WEEKES, ESQ. (MALAGA, SPAIN) TO ALFRED
CODLING
DEAR SIR,
My secretary informs me that you wish to join our literary
society in Tibbelsford. It is customary to be proposed and
seconded by two members.
Will you kindly send me your qualifications?