and some of Edgar's more nourishing products with the most urbane
pleasure. To Edgar, who came second in the procession, she was
especially friendly, for she had been absorbed by Harry's tale of his
history. She had time only to thank him and to catch his grave smile,
and then Dalrymple, rather officiously, brought himself to her notice.
"Is Patricia having a good time?" the old man asked, with his smirking
air of hints and mystery. "That's right. That's right. Is there room
here for an old man?"
Amy looked at him with aversion as he squeezed into their seat beside
Patricia, and her expression was suspicious and scornful. But Patricia
had no criticism. It was nothing to her that his eyes were protruding
and gooseberry-like, and the fringe of his moustache above the mouth
browned with the stains of food and much drink. She was in a mood
to welcome all who contributed to this party. She felt in a curious
psychic way that it was peculiarly _her_ party; and the atmosphere
of the place would have led her, in any case, to frank friendliness
with all comers. She was transported, and hardly conscious of her own
actions. The barbaric colours seemed to have mingled into a glorious
harmony, and she was as much intoxicated by these colours and the
sounds and associations of the evening as she could have been made by
deep potations. The glass in her hand was only half-empty; but she
was drunk with happiness, her cheeks flushed, her eyes brimming with
laughter, her lips parted in eager sportiveness. Danger she could not
foresee. She lived in the moment, and knew that for her it was good.
She was unaware of Dalrymple's singular glance, with its old man's
ugliness and preoccupation. She could not read the expression upon
Monty's face when he looked at her over the glass-laden tray. She knew
nothing of Amy's grave distrust and even suspicion. She only felt that
she had never been so happy.
Upon an impulse she thrust her glass into Dalrymple's hand, and rose
and went straight to Edgar. It was extraordinary that she should feel
no embarrassment; but Patricia did not reflect. She was acting upon
impulse, and she exalted impulse, as modern young women are in the
habit of doing. Moreover, all who knew Edgar trusted him.
"I wanted to ask you ..." began Patricia, and then faltered. Edgar's
face was blurred to her vision by the tears that suddenly filled her
eyes. She blinked them away, and took new courage from his expression.
This man, so different from the others there, was one of those, she
felt, who could always be reached by the truth. He was so controlled,
so grave, that he might have terrified her in other circumstances; but
in this mood of exaltation Patricia was carried beyond fear. "I wanted
to ask you ..." she stammered again. "They say ... Mr. Greenlees says
you've just bought a newspaper.... And will you _please_ make him
Sports Editor! I don't think he means really to ask you; but he said he
would; and I think he wants to be.... If only you could, it would be so
awfully nice.... He's really ..."
And then Patricia faltered. She was at the end of her knowledge.
Her cheeks flushed. For the first time she was conscious of grave
discomfort. She would have cancelled all she had said if it had been
possible; but it was too late, and her trembling smile of anxiety was
the most beautiful thing Edgar had seen for many days. Nevertheless, he
shook his head.
"Such an advocate would secure a man _any_ position," he said. "But
only if it were available. It is quite true that I've bought a paper;
but _what_ a paper! Miss Quin--I hardly like to tell you what paper
it is. I have only bought it because the Editor is a man I love and
admire, and because the paper would otherwise die. It is called 'The
Antiquarian's Gazette,' You see, we could only have some very antique
sports in such a paper."
"Couldn't you ... couldn't you ... bring it up-to-date?" begged
Patricia.
Edgar shook his head with so concerned an expression that she could
hardly detect his lurking smile.
"I'm afraid ..." he said.
"No." Patricia was rueful. "No, I see it wouldn't do. I'm sorry,
though." Her thoughts ran on apace. "Did you mean," she asked suddenly,
"that the editor would have ... he wouldn't have had anything to live
on?"
"Well, he's a very proud old gentleman," admitted Edgar.
"And then you've bought it to ..."
"More or less," he agreed. "It's a very special case, of course."
"Well, I think you're splendid," Patricia cried. "But then, everything
..." She paused, almost overcome. "To-night, everything's splendid."
And with that she began quite suddenly to cry, large tears rolling down
her cheeks, while Edgar took one of her half-raised hands and held it
in his own until she should have regained self-control. It came in a
moment, and her friendly smile, so almost roguish, pierced the tears
and obliterated them. Edgar smiled also, in relief and friendship.
"All right?" he questioned, very quietly.
Patricia's other hand was for the lightest instant upon his, and she
was free. She nodded reassuringly, and with her handkerchief caused
two tears which stood upon her cheeks to vanish. She was like a little
girl; but she had made another friend, for nobody could have withstood
behaviour as free from artifice and so full of naïve emotion. The
episode was finished; but its consequences could never be finished, for
a human relation had been established, and these things are undying.
v
With the arrival and circulation of the drinks, Monty's party took
a new turn. The noise at first increased, into such a sustained and
stentorian buzzing that the sounds would have stunned a newcomer
unprepared for such celebrations; but presently the noise so died that
the steady downpour of rain could be heard upon the studio's glass
roof. The cup was a strong one, mixed by a cunning hand; liqueurs
followed; tinklings and small clashes were audible. The party grew
quieter. A heaviness began to show in its members. The pallor of
some of the guests increased, and with the now great heat of the
poorly-ventilated room there came closeness and some discomfort. Only
Dalrymple and Frederick Tallentyre (the husband of Blanche--a swarthy
man with a mass of dark hair) remained at the buffet; and Dalrymple
began to laugh quietly, showing his old yellow teeth.
Patricia looked once at her escort, and if she also had not had the
first Benedictine of her life she would have been shocked. As it was
she sat still beside Amy, her lips a little swollen and her eyes
glowing; almost noisy, but no longer happy as she had been. Any
outbreak of noise and dancing would have carried her with it; but these
people, with their increasingly white puffy faces and the seriousness
which began to overtake most of those present, were no longer adorable.
They fell into a monotony of familiar dummies. Even Harry, eager though
he was, she saw with less intensity of vision. He was still delightful
and gay; but she was surfeited with emotion. Not at all intoxicated,
but over-tired, she was now ready for the end of the evening. She even
observed the first departure with some gladness. Departures began and
continued.
"I say ... I'm sorry ..." Harry was murmuring in Patricia's ear. His
hand was upon her wrist. "I say ... we must meet again, you know."
"Of _course_," she agreed, her face clear and open and full of the
sweet candour she was feeling.
"How ... when can I see you?" He was hot and urgent. "I'm awfully
sorry, but I promised to see young Rhoda home. But ... I ... er....
When, I mean ... when can I see you. I must.... It's got to be soon,
you know." Oh, they were of one mind upon that!
Dalrymple was now alone at the buffet, a benign smile upon his aged
face, and his attitude that of one by the world forgotten.
"Any time. Let me know," said Patricia, very gravely, and without
coquetry.
"But how can I find you?"
"Amy.... Any way, it's ..."
She was giving him her address when Rhoda appeared against the
doorway, all muffled in furs, with her expression one of impatience
ill-concealed. Harry shook Patricia's wrist, and made off to the door.
He turned as he reached it, and kissed his hand. Patricia, with
her head back and her eyes suddenly sombre, waved in return. He was
gone. She turned to Amy, who was frowning at Jack Penton. Amy sharply
whispered:
"How are you going to get home?"
As if in answer, Dalrymple approached rather lurchingly from the
buffet. He smiled ingratiatingly upon the reduced company.
"Where's ... where's my lit ... little ... companion?" he said, coming
towards them. It was clear that although he could control his movements
he was no longer quite sober.
"No," said Amy, in Patricia's ear.
"I wonder if I might give you a lift in my car, Miss Quin."
The voice was that of Edgar. It was so quiet as to be almost an
undertone.
"Oh, _do_." Amy was the one to answer, for Patricia was dazed.
"Get your coat, then. Will you take her?" Edgar supplemented his
instruction with the request to Amy; and the two girls moved quickly
away. They saw no more of Dalrymple. By the time they were dressed
Edgar was waiting in the hall; and they stood in the doorway together
while he started the engine of his car. Two great lights illumined the
gravel sweep in front of Monty's house. Then Patricia was in a warm,
soft-lighted vehicle, and they were in motion. She pressed back in her
place, her head throbbing and her mouth still nervously smiling. It
was as though she were flying from all unpleasantness, very tired and
happy, with one she trusted and would have trusted with her life.
"And now ..." said Edgar. "Where do we go?"
Patricia was looking back at the doorway. In it she could no longer see
Amy and Jack Penton. There remained, silhouetted against the light of
the hall, only the figure of Monty; and Monty, so still that he might
have been without pulses, stood watching the departure of Patricia and
her escort. For her thereafter there was nothing but the soft purring
of the engine and the sense of security and safe harbourage against all
the elements.
vi
In the studio, Monty stood alone. His last guest had gone. He was
in the midst of that stale atmosphere and the wreck of a past
entertainment. Smoke hung about in the air, the faint pungent smells
of the drinks and of drying dampness combined with it. All was hot and
vitiated. Monty stood with perspiration faintly upon his cheeks and
under his heavy eyes. He had mixed himself a glass of whisky and soda,
and rested it now upon the mantelpiece. The soft front of his dress
shirt was crumpled, and his hair was less thickly smooth than it had
been; but he was otherwise immaculate, from his beautifully-cut dinner
jacket to his patent-leather shoes. He looked round the studio, and
listened to the pattering of rain above his head.
Slowly Monty sank into one of his soft armchairs, and set his glass
upon the floor. Around him was an indescribable mess of cigarette
ash. The ghost of the party was risen. It was everywhere about him,
in the now-silent chatter and the remembered scents and interests of
the evening. Monty's thoughts were not mournful or stagnant, as those
of one more sensitive might have been. He was entirely collected, and
satisfied with his party. There had been no hitch at all; and even
Dalrymple had at last been persuaded to go by the arrival of a taxi and
the loan of his fare. Monty was alone, well content.
All the same, Dalrymple must never again come to one of his parties.
Monty had no use for a man such as he had shown himself to be. This
was for Monty the end of Dalrymple. Far otherwise was the case with
Dalrymple's companion. Far otherwise.... The exclusion of Dalrymple
must not affect the little Quin girl. She could be reached through Amy
Roberts ... possibly through Harry Greenlees....
Monty almost smiled as he had this last thought. Then he became
serious again. He had other matters to think of. There were many other
things....
Half-an-hour later he still sat in the studio, and at last, as his
man-servant came into the doorway to ask if there were any further
instructions, he roused himself from his reverie.
"No. Good-night, Jacobs," said Monty.
It was quite remarkable how long that little girl's face had remained
in his memory, he thought. Fresh.... She was fresh. Attractive little
thing ... Greenlees seemed to like her...."
Monty laughed quietly to himself.
CHAPTER THREE: PATRICIA
i
Patricia was indoors. She lived in two rooms in an old house near
the King's Road, and her rooms were at the top of the house. As
the door snapped behind her she saw her little bedroom lamp as the
only illumination of a narrow passage leading to the stairs; and
instinctively she paused, her shadow thrown solid and leaping against
the door, while the muffled sound of Edgar's car died away in the
distance. The house was dark and silent, and Patricia's heart sank.
A sigh of regret escaped her. It was hard to come so abruptly from
the glowing scene she had left, with her brain in a ferment of all
its new memories and wonderings, to this dingy home in which all was
so tasteless. She slowly mounted the stairs, smoke from the lamp's
flame smirching the glass chimney and rising acrid to her nostrils.
Her bedroom was cold; and a damp shivering breath came from the open
window, across which the curtains were yet undrawn. Outside the window
everything was black. No lights came even from the houses that backed
on to the one in which she lived. She could hear the rustling of the
rain. A shudder shook Patricia. Deeply chilled, she moved away from the
window.
Even when she was in bed, and slow warmth had returned to her body,
she was conscious of unhappiness. It was not that she was normally
discontented: she suffered now only from a sense of the acute contrast
between this sullen room with the steady rain without and the warmth
and peacock brilliance of the studio she had left. And the journey
had been so rapid, and for the most part so silent, that she was
plunged sharply back from her dreaming joy to sombre consciousness of
every-day reality. Had there been a gay party homeward, had friendly
voices shouted jocular farewells from the pavement, the happiness
might have continued; but she was shaken at this sharp transition. For
the first time Patricia girded at her loneliness, which until now--as
independence--had made her feel so proud. To the sense of loneliness
was added a memory of her poverty. To be alone and poor, young and
eager, was to struggle with gloom itself. She did not cry; but a sob
rose in her throat. It was such unmistakable anti-climax to be made
to face the fact that she did not rightfully belong to this sparkling
world of noise and light and colour in which she had spent the
wonderful evening.
"Oh, dear!" cried Patricia to herself, suddenly desperate and at war
with her lot, as other debutantes have been. "It's too bad. It's too
_bad_!"
And then, fortunately, some little recollection from the multitude of
recollections which would presently disengage themselves, made her
smile. A soft little sound, such as a baby might have made, came from
her throat, the lips being once again closed. Her hands were bunched
at her breast. It was the reaction caused by the bed's cosiness and
her sweet exhaustion. An instant later she was fast asleep, and in her
sleep she smiled as she dreamed of a party of beautiful gaiety, in
which she was supreme and unchallenged, ... the admired and the adored
of all ... Patricia!
ii
In the morning she awoke to ambitious determination. At first waking
she knew it was late, and sighed, very drowsy and comfortable. Happy
thoughts began to float into her consciousness, and she smiled again
to herself like a little girl. But when Lucy, the maid of the house,
tramped up to her door and knocked there with knuckles of iron,
Patricia no longer lay in reverie. She instantly arose, took her
primitive bath, and was in her sitting-room long before the breakfast
arrived.
There were no letters. There were never any letters for Patricia.
Letters never come, she believed, to the truly deserving. She had a
hunger for letters. She longed intensely to be like those young men
in demodé books who opened uncountable bills and billets doux at the
breakfast-table and stuck all their cards of invitation round the
edges of the mirror upon the mantelpiece. The mirror was there; but
no cards adorned it. The mirror had a gilded frame, and was no longer
very fresh. It was flanked by vases intended to represent perfectly
incredible marble. In the fireplace was a gas-fire, alight. The floor
was covered with green and red oilcloth, and a woolly rug of yellow and
magenta lay before the hearth. There was a sofa against the opposite
wall, and at the window stood a sturdy table bearing a typewriter. In
the middle of the room was another table upon which the first signs
of breakfast were laid. Here, too, was Patricia's own little bowl of
flowers. That bowl, the flowers, and the typewriter, were here her sole
possessions. The rest belonged to the landlady who lived somewhere far
below stairs, and it received daily a severe banging from Lucy, whose
speed and energy exceeded her competence by about as much as the salary
of a competent staff would have exceeded Lucy's wages.
Patricia went to the flowers and raised the bowl so that she could
still detect the ghost of their waning fragrance. In her morning dress
of blue serge, the collar high and the shape quite simple, she seemed
perhaps taller and slimmer than she had been on the previous night.
But she was quite as pretty, and the fresh pink of her rounded cheeks
betokened good health. Her hair, which was not long, was arranged
to-day as it had been arranged at Monty's party. She was the same girl,
but she was graver, because this morning her thoughts were more active
and she was therefore more sad.
She remembered old Dalrymple, whom she had met through the agency of
Amy, asking her to go to the party with him, and calling for her; she
remembered their journey, her entry of the mysteriously charming house,
of the studio, her first sight of Monty and instinctive interest in
that dark and impenetrable face. And then the noise and brilliance,
and Amy, and all the gay talk, and Mr. Mayne.... For a long time she
was shy of permitting any thought of Harry, as one sometimes leaves
the finest peach to the last; and it was delicious to be always almost
returning and arriving at Harry, to feel him perpetually there,
summonable at impulse, and wilfully to hold thought of him in reserve.
Yet in reality it was most often of Harry that she was aware in every
wayward turn of memory.
iii
Breakfast was another blow for Patricia. There were bacon and eggs, and
both were depressingly cold. The tea was strong and cold. Not so would
breakfast be, she decided, in any home truly her own; though if, as she
had long ago assumed, her future home were to be one in which servants
played a leading part, she had no notion of the way in which cold
breakfasts were to be avoided. Were there not such things as spirit
lamps? Patricia had not stayed often enough in large houses to know
that cold breakfasts are inevitable there unless the meal is eaten in
the kitchen. She merely felt sure that Monty had hot breakfasts. But
she did not associate her confident belief with the fact that he was
an autocrat with a man-servant. It is the woman's lot to be ill-served
wherever she goes. One has only to lunch at a woman's club in London to
have this truth emphasised.
So breakfast this morning was a disappointment. Only good
digestion--which she fortunately possessed--could have dealt with
it effectively. And with breakfast finished, and the dish with
solid streaks of grease upon it mercifully concealed by the cracked
dish-cover, Patricia wondered what she would do next. She was at
leisure, which meant that she was not in a situation; and her ambition
exceeded her powers of performance. Her father and mother had both
died long ago, and Patricia had lived the greater part of her life
with Uncle Roly until his death a year since. He had been a casual
man, subsisting from week to week upon a large salary which his habits
converted into a small one. What he had done, except to go to an
office every day, Patricia had never known; but while she had been
with him there had always been plenty to eat, idleness and chocolates
for herself, and drinks for Uncle Roly; and a holiday each year at
the seaside or in the country. And then he had died, to Patricia's
great but quite short-lived grief, and with his death ended the salary
from which nothing had been saved. Patricia had exactly two hundred
pounds, and the world to face. No relatives barred her path with
offers of homes or advice. There followed a situation as typist at a
time when even young girls were able to find remunerative situations.
Dancing, suburban gaiety, restlessness, and boredom lasted as long
as the situation. That too had ended; and Patricia, with only one
hundred pounds of inheritance and savings left (for she had not been
thrifty, any more than her fellow-workers and -players had been), was
confronted with a new problem.
The alternatives were another situation, which was difficult to find,
and a life of vague splendour derived from her talent. Search for the
situation being tiresome, and therefore not very sedulously pursued,
she was inclined to stake everything upon her talent, as yet unproved.
A novel was undertaken--a very autobiographical novel, in which the
heroine was extraordinarily charming; and short stories, small poems,
little sketches and essays, were all produced from her brain and typed
by her busy fingers. When one or two of the stories were accepted
and paid for, she had no real fear for the future. She was sanguine
with youthful confidence; and her remaining hundred pounds seemed an
inexhaustible sum. As she thought of these things Patricia could not
help feeling rather conceited. Sometimes, when she dreamed of her
ultimate fame, she could almost suppose that those who passed her in
the street were already conscious of it.
iv
It was after a day of wasted literary effort, when nothing would come
right, that Patricia swept aside all sign of her work, and sought
comfort from a visit to Amy. Amy--at least, the adult, as opposed to
the child of other days--had first been encountered by accident about
a month previously, when she and Patricia had both been shopping. They
had stared at each other for a couple of minutes, both half-recognising
and half-recognised, and had then pronounced each other's names,
reviving a school friendship. Amy, who was alone in the world of
London æstheticism by her own choice, and in receipt of an allowance
from parents who had plenty of money, was embarked upon an artistic
career, and was trapesing about from publisher to publisher with a
large portfolio containing pen-and-ink sketches depicting scenes in
"The Vicar of Wakefield" and other classic novels. She thus sought
employment as a designer and illustrator. She also made drawings of
her friends in water-colour and experimented with oils; but as far as
Patricia could see (with the candid eye of a true friend) she spent
much of her time in dress-making and in drinking tea and smoking
cigarettes. She wore her hair bobbed, and dressed in loose cretonne
frocks and brilliant stockings and shoes that were as much like sandals
as anything could be. She had a casual and dissatisfied air, and was
developing extreme untidiness under the impression that untidiness was
distinguished. That she was happy in her chosen life nobody to whom
it was unfamiliar could have supposed; for it held neither security
nor romance. On the contrary, it resulted in an aimless see-saw
between gregariousness with others equally ego-ridden and amateurishly
opinionated about the arts, and solitary days of labour at work which
might have been done more competently by those of smaller æsthetic
pretensions. Still, this was the sort of society to which Patricia
felt herself at this time drawn; and bohemianism in any guise was
fascinating for both of them. They became good friends once more.
Patricia made her way to the chintz-adorned studio in Fitzroy Street.