“I SHOULD never have come to you,” he said, making a furious dash under
his signature, “only that I’ve been rather annoyed and upset.”
“She was clearly in the wrong, I suppose?”
“Absolutely!” he declared, with emphasis. “It’s made me feel that I want
to get away for a time from everything and everybody. And yours is the
only establishment of its kind. Cheque’s all right, I hope?”
“I hope so, too,” said the voice. And called out, “Pass one!” A curtain
pulled aside and the young man, his chin out determinedly, moved. “Take
the four slips, please. You’ll have to fill them in.”
A reading candlestick with a reflector stood in the corner of the dark
room, which had a faint scent of burnt hay, and he went across to it
carefully, but not so carefully as to escape collision, in which a
hassock appeared to be the less injured party. An extended easy-chair
permitted itself to be seen within reach of the shaded light, and he sat
upon this and read the instructions printed at the head of slip Number
One. “Please Write Distinctly” prefaced the three or four precise and
dogmatically worded rules. He took a pencil, wrote out his desire, and
settled back in the long chair. A hand presented to him a pipe that
looked a ruler, and he took two short whiffs.
* * * * *
His feeling of accumulated annoyance vanished on realising the instant
result. Here he was, in the very centre of the old-fashioned winter he
had ordered, stamping up and down in the snow that powdered the
courtyard; through the archway he identified the main thoroughfare as
Holborn. A cheerful cloud and an agreeable scent of coffee came from the
doorway, and through the doorway came also at intervals apprehensive
travellers, who gave a look of relief on discovering that the stage coach
had not set off without them. Ostlers brought sturdy horses from the
stables, horses that seemed anxious to do right, but somehow failed at
every point to conciliate the men, who on their side did not attempt to
hide opinions. The youth advanced across the cobble-stones and inquired
at what hour the stage coach was supposed to start; the ostler gave an
answer almost identical in terms with the fierce denunciation used to the
animals. The coarseness staggered him until he remembered the year, and
the absence of education in the lives of the class to which the ostler
belonged. He turned to speak to the driver.
“Not what I call cold,” answered the driver, snatching a piece of straw
from a truss and starting to chew it. “Remember January in ’27?”
“Can’t say I do.”
“That was a teaser,” said the coachman. He gave four slaps to each
shoulder. “Snowed up jest afore we got to Reading. No chance of escape.
Not a bit of food after the third day. Fortunately, the guard was a
plumpish man; Tom Bates his name was; the chap who’s with us to-day is
thin, I’m sorry to say. Bates’s widow took it very well, considerin’ how
onreasonable some women are. Course, the passengers made a collection
for her. Tottled up poor Tom, they did, and paid for him at the rate of
eightpence a pound. As she very properly remarked, it isn’t every widow
that can say of her late husband that he was worth his weight in copper.”
The young man offered his cigar-case, and the driver, with a dexterous
scoop, took the whole of the contents and dropped them into one of his
enormous pockets.
“It’s the outside passengers that suffer most,” the driver went on. “You
recollect that case of a gen’leman on the box-seat a year ago this very
day? Don’t say you never ’eerd tell of him! He belonged to a banking
firm in Lombard Street, and he started, just as you might, from this very
spot, cheerful and warm and as pleased with himself as anybody could wish
to be. Talked a bit at first, but before we were ten miles out he had
left off, and when we got twenty miles out I gave him a jerk with the
butt end of my whip like this, and— What do you think?”
“I should imagine that he resented the impertinence.”
“He might have done all that you say,” remarked the driver, slapping one
of the horses, “only he was froze. Froze stiff.”
“Bless my soul!” cried the young man. “What a shocking end!”
“That wasn’t the end, bless you. Tried all we knew to bring back his
circulation, but nothing seemed any use, and it wasn’t until we got to a
oast-house and got the hop-driers to put him in the oven—”
“Hops in December?”
“It was a late year,” said the driver calmly. “Everything were
behindhand. But what I was going to say was this. You’ve got a
box-seat. There’s a gen’leman in there drinking his second cup, with
something in it, and he’s a good-natured chap, and he’s willing to change
his inside seat for yours. Say the word, and it’s done!”
The youth congratulated himself upon his acuteness in seeing through the
device, but later, when he ducked his head on the stage coach going
through the archway and adjusting his muffler, made a polite reference to
the weather and its possibilities, the driver, who was smoking one of the
cigars, responded only with a grunt. He tried again as they took a
corner rather narrowly, and this time the driver made no response of any
kind. Later, when a hackney coach called out something derisive, he
ventured to suggest a retort, and then the driver hinted plainly that he
was not in the mood for conversation, that if he should change his views
he would make intimation of the circumstance; in the meantime the young
man had better talk quietly to himself, or address his remarks to one of
the other passengers. The youth, giving up with regret the impression
that all stagecoach drivers were communicative, cheery, and dispensers of
merry anecdotes, turned to a fellow-traveller seated behind.
“Seasonable weather.”
“What you say?”
“I said,” mentioned the young man deferentially, “it was seasonable
weather.”
“When?” asked the passenger behind.
“Now. At the present time. I mean that, whether you agree with me or
not, the weather to-day is weather that—”
“Do you know what you do mean?”
“I know what I’m driving at,” he asserted, becoming somewhat nettled;
“but apparently I don’t make sufficient allowance for lack of
intelligence on your part.”
“If it didn’t mean taking my hands out of my pocket,” said the passenger
behind, “I’d knock your head clean off your shoulders. That’s what I’d
do to you. Clean off your shoulders!”
They pulled up at a roadside inn, and the young man, thoughtful and
slightly moody after these rebuffs, brightened as he swung himself down
with assistance from the axle and, stamping to and fro, endeavoured to
restore circulation. Two ladies, one old and one young, stepped from the
interior of the coach and looked around distractedly. He went forward
and asked whether he could be of any service.
“Lunch?” he echoed. “Why, of course! I declare I had nearly forgotten
lunch. Pray follow me. The others have preceded us, but doubtless—”
“We are greatly indebted to you, sir,” declared the elder lady. “My
niece is unused to any but the most delicate refinements of life, and it
is on her account rather than my own that I ventured to appeal to you.”
“I could wish for no greater honour,” he said, bowing, “than to render
assistance to beauty.” The girl blushed, and looked very properly at the
ground.
“We had a most objectionable travelling companion, so different from the
class my niece and myself mix with. Her grandfather, you will be
interested, perhaps, to hear, was no less a person than—”
“Aunt, dear?”
“Yes, my love.”
“Food!”
In the largest room (which seemed too small for its sudden rush of
custom) male passengers were feeding themselves noisily and screaming,
with mouths full, to the dazed serving-maids and to the apoplectic
landlady; they gave a casual glance at the two ladies and their escort,
and made no effort to give space at the one table. The young man
appealed; they jerked him off impatiently. One continued an anecdote
after the interruption.
“If there are any gentlemen present,” said the youth, in a loud voice,
“will they be so good as to note that here are two ladies, desirous of
obtaining some refreshment before proceeding on the journey.”
There was a pause, and the sulky passenger who had travelled in the
second seat looked up from his tankard, which he had nearly finished.
“Did you say ‘if’?”
“That was the first word of my remark, sir.”
“Then here’s my answer to you!”
The ladies shrieked and fainted. The youth, wiping from his face the
contents of the sulky man’s tankard, demanded whether any one possessed a
brace of pistols. Willing hands pressed forward, showing an eagerness to
assist that had hitherto been absent. As the serving-maids brought burnt
feathers to the two lady passengers, he strode out to a snow-covered
field at the back, the conductor in attendance, the rest tossing coins on
the way to decide who should have the honour of supporting the sulky man.
The coachman, restored to cheerfulness, paced the ground with laborious
exactitude.
“Are you ready, gentlemen? Then at the word ‘Three.’ One, two—”
* * * * *
He filled in the second form, with a determination to get as far away as
possible from the winter of years ago. The ruler-like pipe was again
handed to him; he took this time but a single whiff, for it occurred to
him that in his first experiment he had perhaps erred on the side of
extravagance. There was no need to give himself a series of shocks.
* * * * *
The youth went down Great Portland Street in such good humour with
himself that he greatly desired to confer a benefit on somebody, to
assist some one less fortunate. He looked about for an old woman selling
matches, or for a boy shivering in the attempt to dispose of newspapers,
and unable to find either, searched for a narrow side-street, where he
might hope to have better success. Here again he received a check, for
Devonshire Street and Weymouth Street and New Cavendish Street had
disappeared, and in their place he found one broad, straight
thoroughfare; he made inquiries and found it was called J & C. This he
did not mind, and, indeed, it seemed an excellent arrangement when,
anticipating that the next street would be J & D, he found this to be the
case. But he still wanted to play the part of Lord Bountiful, and to
satisfy his appetite for benevolence, and it pained him—although on broad
grounds this should have furnished gratification—that up to the present
he had discovered none who varied in apparent prosperity; not a
high-level by any means, but, so far as he could perceive, an
unmistakable level. Little variation existed in costume.
“I hope you will excuse me—” he began.
“What’s that?”
“You must pardon me, please, for speaking, but—”
“Whom do you want?”
“I can scarcely give the name, but if you will permit me to explain, I
think I could make it clear to you, sir.”
“Don’t chatter,” interrupted the man curtly. “And don’t call me sir.
You’re as good as I am.”
“I don’t know,” retorted the youth, with spirit, “why you should think it
necessary to mention the fact!”
“Because you had apparently forgotten it.”
“Don’t go for a moment. I only wish to ask one question. Where are the
poor?”
“Spell it!”
The young man complied; the other shook his head. They took to the edge
of the broad pavement; the centre appeared to be rigidly reserved for
those who were youthful and walked with a certain briskness, whilst
either side was used by elderly folk, and by those whose movements were
deliberate. The young man gave further details.
“I see what you mean now,” said the other. “There was a story about a
man like yourself in one of the journals the other day. He, too, had
been away in a distant colony for his health.”
“One of the humorous journals?”
“All of our journals are humorous. Any paragraph or column in which a
pleasing strain of the ludicrous does not appear is blacked out by the
censor. It isn’t always very clever, but it has to be as clever as can
be reasonably expected for thirty-two and six a week.”
“One pound twelve and sixpence?”
“The rate fixed by the central governing body,” said the other. “Every
man on leaving school receives a wage of thirty-two and six a week, and
in this way all the old class distinctions have vanished, the yawning
spaces between the clever and the foolish, the industrious and the
indolent have been bridged. The sum was fixed—this may interest
you—because it was found that a narrow majority existed of those earning
less than that amount, and the injustice of the change was therefore
lessened.”
“Not sure that I quite follow you,” he said politely, “but it’s
exceedingly good of you to take so much trouble. I’m not delaying you
from your work?”
“So long as I do thirty hours a week, it doesn’t matter when I do them.”
“An ideal existence!”
“Exactly!” cried the man, with triumph. “That’s what we have been aiming
at! Just what we have achieved. Nothing short of perfection is good
enough for us. If there’s any sensible criticism you can pass upon our
present conditions, we shall be ready to consider it.”
“That reminds me!” he exclaimed. “I miss the poor, especially at this
time of the year, when I feel generous. But of course it’s all to the
good to have altered that. Only where are the children? I should like
to see some children.”
“You’ll have to manage without them, unless you can get a special permit
from the Minister of Education in Whitehall. In the old days parents
were, I believe, allowed to bring up children in almost any manner they
thought fit, and some of the results were exceedingly unsatisfactory.
Let me see!” He considered for a few moments, detaining the other with
one hand; his brow wrinkled with the effort of thought. “Pinner!” he
exclaimed; “I rather think Pinner is the nearest. You’ll find about five
thousand youngsters in the Infant Barracks there.”
“I can do with less,” he remarked. “What I want is about three or four,
nephews and nieces if possible; just enough to play at charades, and
musical chairs, and games of some one going out of the room—” The other
smiled pityingly. “Going out of the room whilst the rest think of a man
alive, and then the person who has been outside comes in and puts
questions, and gradually guesses who it is. Surely they still play at
it.”
“My dear sir, under the old scheme, a child wasted valuable years. Now
we arrange that not a single opportunity shall be missed. Go to any of
the barracks and you will find that every child, providing it has begun
to speak, can give quite a pretty little lecture on, say, milk, with all
the latest scientific facts relating to the subject. Each youngster is
made to realise the value of moments. ‘Time is Flying’ are the words
that form the only decoration on the walls of the dormitories.”
“I have it!” he cried. Folk going by stopped and raised eyebrows at this
outbreak of irritation; a small crowd gathered. “Now I see why you make
your journals amusing. You learn nearly everything in your early days,
but you omit to learn how to laugh. When you are grown up, you have to
adopt the most determined means in order to—” He went on with excitement
as he addressed the increasing circle around him. The frowns and the
murmurs did not prevent him from speaking his mind, and he commenced to
whirl his arms. “I tell you what it is. I came here expecting to find
happiness. The present didn’t suit me and I thought I’d try the past and
the future. I declare you’re worse than anything.”
The crowd closed in. The man to whom he had been speaking tugged at his
sleeve; he gave a sharp jerk and disengaged himself.
“And the conceit of you is the most unsatisfactory feature of the whole
situation. What have you to be proud about? Here you are in the New
Year, and not one of you is showing any special signs of amiability
towards his fellow-man; you can’t look back to a cosy family gathering;
you have bought no presents, and you have received none. If you knew how
much you had lost, you would never rest until you had— But I suppose you
are too sensible. Ah, you don’t like to be accused of that!”
They took him at a run through the straight street that in his time had
been curved and called Regent, crying as they went, “To the fountain, to
the fountain!” Almost dazed by the swiftness, and nearly choked by the
grip at the back of his collar, he nevertheless recognised that their
intentions were not friendly, and he endeavoured to struggle and make
escape. He heard the sound of ice being smashed.
“Now then, boys. Altogether!”
A dozen pair of hands competed for the honour of ducking him; they seized
his wrists, elbows, head, ankles.
* * * * *
“Can’t read this,” said the voice. “You’ve written it so badly.”
“Not my best penmanship,” he admitted tremblingly. “What it’s intended
for is—” He wrote it afresh. “If I’m’ giving too much trouble, you can
tear it up and let me go. I can easily find what I want, once I’m
outside. How’s the time going?”
* * * * *
The smallest boy, overcoated and muffled to the eyes, had been dispatched
to meet visitors at the station, and a good deal of anxiety existed in
the household when one of his sisters mentioned a grisly fear that he
would talk too much on the way, betraying facts which should be hidden
and guarded as secrets. His mother declared Franky had too much common
sense to make a blunder of the kind, and, giving a final look-round in
the dining-room, expressed a hope that there would be room for everybody.
She had no doubts concerning food supplies, and, indeed, any one who
peeped into the kitchen, and saw the two noble birds there, would have
been reassured on this point; the cold pies formed an excellent reserve
in case the birds should be reduced, by the invaders, to ruins. The
young man, looking on, without being seen, noticed the eldest girl (whom
he loved) standing perilously on a high chair to give a touch with duster
to a frame, and nearly screamed an urgent appeal for care; it was a
relief to see her step down to the safety of the carpet. He was
wondering whether he would come into the pleasant household, and found
some encouragement in the circumstance that she took a particular
interest in her reflection in the mirror; left alone for a moment, she
selected his card from the rest which crowded the mantelpiece and kissed
it. She also peeped behind the screen, and counted the crackers there;
when her mother called, requesting to be done up at the back, she went
immediately. A dear girl; he could scarce remember why or how he had
found an excuse for quarrelling.
Voices of youngsters outside the front door, and the small brother
rattling at the letter-box in his impatience. One of the two maids,
answering, found herself as nearly as possible bowled over in the narrow
hall, saving herself by clutching at a peg of the hat-stand and allowing
the inrush to sweep by and through to the drawing-room. All the children
loaded with parcels, which they dropped on the way, and all shouting:
“Many happy returns, many happy returns!” and demanding the immediate
production of an aunt, and several cousins, paying no regard whatever to
the reminders from elders that they had formally promised to behave like
little ladies and gentlemen.
The hostess came down in a stately way, pretending to be unaware of the
fact that she was wearing a new dress. The visitors had experienced some
amazing adventures on the journey, and they told them in chorus, with
many interruptions, given in solo form and made up of urgent amendments
concerning unimportant details. Such funny people they had met in the
train, to be sure; somehow at this time of the year one always
encountered the most extraordinary folk. And just as they started, who
should come rushing along the platform, just too late to catch the train,
but Mr.—
“Oh, here you are!” turning to the eldest girl, who had entered the room,
to be instantly surrounded and tugged in every direction by the
youngsters. “We were just telling your mother that your friend— Oh,
look at her blushing!”
“We’ll put dinner back twenty minutes,” said the mother, interposing on
her daughter’s behalf. “That will give him time if he catches the next.”
“Perhaps he never meant to come by that train,” said Uncle Henry. “Very
likely he’s gone off somewhere else. One can never depend on these
bachelors.”
“Tease away,” said the girl courageously. “To tell you the truth, I
rather like it.”
“In that case,” remarked the uncle, “I decline to proceed. If I can’t
give annoyance, I shall simply shut up. Supposing I have a kiss
instead.”
Tragic moments for the children who were being released from the control
of neck-wraps and safety-pins and rubber shoes, for, apart from the
tantalising scent of cooking, they had to endure the trial of saying
nothing about the parcels brought. They clustered around the eldest
girl, knowing this to be the surest quarter for entertainment, and she
would have found a dozen arms few enough for the embraces they required;
some of their questions she answered as though her mind were absent, and
she glanced now and again, when everybody was talking, at the clock on
the mantelpiece. A sharp knock at the front door made smiles come again
to her features; the mother gave a warning word to the kitchen and met
the young man in the hall, where the boys were helping him in the task of
disengaging himself from his overcoat by pulling at it in all directions.
He could not express his regrets at the missing of the train, but every
one knew what motor-omnibuses were, and as he shook hands formally with
the eldest girl (who appeared rather surprised, remarking to him, “Oh, is
that you?”) an aunt began a moving anecdote concerning one of these
conveyances which she had boarded on a recent afternoon opposite St.
Martin’s Church. She asked the conductor as distinctly as she could
speak whether it went to the Adelaide, and she felt certain that he
replied, “Yes, lady,” but, happening to glance out later, found herself
whirling along Marylebone Road, whereupon she, with great presence of
mind, took her umbrella, prodded the conductor in the small of his back—
“If you please, ’m, dinner is served!”
There were chairs at the long table that had the shy appearance of having
been borrowed from the bedroom, but only one of the children made a
remark concerning this, and she found herself told that another word from
her would result in a lonely return to home forthwith. They all declared
they had plenty of room, and Uncle Henry accepted with modesty a position
near to the birds with the comment that he could always manage to eat a
couple; perhaps the others would not mind looking on whilst he enjoyed
the pleasures of the table; the children, now accustomed to Uncle Henry’s
humour, declined to be appalled by this threat, and, indeed, challenged
him, offering the prize of one penny if he should consume the contents of
the dishes, bones and all. They stopped their ears whilst he sharpened
the big knife, and when he said, “Now, has any one got any preference?”
the grown-ups gave a fine lesson in behaviour by declaring that they
would be content with whatever portions were sent down to them. The
maid, waiting at table, exhibited evidence of mental aberration over the
task of handing plates in the right order of precedence, but wireless
telegraphy from her mistress, and from the eldest daughter, gave
instructions and averted disaster.
“Do look after yourself, Uncle Henry!”
Uncle Henry asserted that, but for this reminder, he would have neglected
to fill his own plate, and one of the children, unable to reconcile the
extreme selfishness hinted at in an earlier stage with the astonishing
effacement now proclaimed, stared at him open-mouthed. The same child
later on, after expressing loudly his determination not to be frightened
when the plum-pudding—over a month old and the last of its race—was
brought, surrounded by a purple blaze, found performance a harder task
than that of hypothetical daring, and, burying his little head in the lap
of the eldest daughter, gave way to tears, declining to resume the
appearance of serenity until the flames had been blown out; he regained
complete self-possession on finding in the portion served out to him a
bright silver sixpence, and announced his intention of purchasing with
that sum Drury Lane Theatre, together with the pantomime for the current
year. The elder children listened with tolerance and gave a nod to the
grown-ups, showing that they knew the sum would be altogether
insufficient.
“Well,” said Uncle Henry, after he had resolutely turned his head away
from the offer of a second meringue, “if I never have a worse dinner, I
shan’t complain.”
“Beautifully cooked,” agreed the young man.
“Credit to whom credit is due,” asserted the hostess generously. “If
Mary there hadn’t superintended—”
“Mother, dear!” protested the eldest girl.
Great jokes in trying to induce the ladies to smoke, but the men were
left alone together with the eldest son of the family, who had not yet
taken to cigarettes and was strongly recommended by the others never to
begin. The eldest son found his views on tobacco, on the work of borough
councils, on parliamentary procedure, and other topics, listened to with
great deference by the young man visitor, who declared there was a great
deal in the opinions held by the son of the family with which he felt
able to agree. Nevertheless, it was he who first suggested that they
should rejoin the company of the ladies.
He came out wonderfully so soon as games were started, but it appeared he
could do little without the assistance of the eldest daughter. Together,
they gave an exhibition of thought-reading, and, after whispered
consultation, he, being out of the room whilst the children selected four
figures, came in when called, and standing at the doorway whilst she
appealed for order, gave the exact figures. Even Uncle Henry had to
admit himself flabbergasted.
“Do tell us how it’s done?”
“Please!”
“Don’t believe you know yourselves!”
They declared it a secret which could not be lightly shared, but in
giving way to the general appeal, explained that if the first figure was
(say) one, then she had used a sentence beginning with the first letter
of the alphabet, such as:
“All quiet, please!”
If the next was two, she said:
“Be quiet, please!”
If the next was three:
“Can’t you be quiet!”
And so on. Parcels came in now and strings were cut, and presents given
to the owner of the day. She thanked him very prettily for the brooch
and pinned it at once near to her neck; he followed her out of the room
to help in carrying the brown paper and to tell her that, when his
birthday came, she could reciprocate by offering him the precious gift of
herself. The quarrel had been all his fault. He was bending down to
touch her lips when—
* * * * *
“No, thank you,” he said, tearing up the fourth slip. “The present time
is good enough for me. Is this the way out?”
“Interesting to observe,” remarked the voice, as the curtain went back
and showed the exit, “that our clients, however dissatisfied they may be
in entering, are always perfectly content when they depart!”