She was fair, fresh, volatile, beautifully shaped; vain, and therefore
to be reached by flattery; over-confident, perhaps, of her power
to please; but unspoilt and capable of affording him interest and
amusement. He had no interest at all in Amy. She was too crudely
egotistical, and she was, besides, too set. Monty could have foretold
her expressed opinion (not necessarily her true opinion, since she
was often, as he knew, unaware of what she really thought) upon every
matter that was likely to come up between them. Neither did she
interest him physically: for that she was too hard, and although he
supposed her to be sensual she appeared to Monty to lack both mystery
and _abandon_. So, although he knew that he could more easily create
an artificially-emotional situation with Amy, he gave all his interest
to Patricia. There was more in the fresh little new girl, he decided,
than in anybody he had recently met. He eyed her appreciatively, as
a gourmet may eye a dainty dish. She was interesting. All she did,
even if she did nothing but sit quite still upon that enormous cushion
beside the gas fire, had grace and personality in it. Especially
he noticed that impetuous mouth, which might betray weakness or
instability or reckless bravado, but which could never, he was sure, be
associated with tedium. He resolved upon a quick stroke. He saw that
Amy and Jack were debating something which removed their attention from
his own activities, and so he bent towards Patricia.
"I'm so glad you enjoyed the party. Look here ...." He appeared to
consider. "I've got a small party on Friday ... I wonder if you'd
like to come to that. I'm afraid ... Let me see, there are only about
half-a-dozen people...." He was thinking as he spoke, and recollecting
the names of his guests. "I think the only one you know who is coming
is Mayne. You met him, didn't you? Yes, I remember, you went home in
his car. Would you like to come?"
Patricia could have jumped for joy. How lovely!
"I should like to come very much," she made herself say very sedately;
but Monty was not so inexperienced in these matters as she might have
wished him; and she was not altogether sure that her eagerness had
escaped his notice.
"That's delightful," he said in his gentle way. "So nice." He was
extraordinarily polite and agreeable. And in an instant it was as
though that matter were settled and forgotten. Monty rose and went
casually to the easel, Patricia watching him in curiosity as he
contemplated the monstrous botch. "Yes," he said at last. "I like that.
That bit's awfully well-done, Amy." He indicated with a slowly sweeping
hand. Amy was by his side, her expression greedily changed. She was
avid of this expert flattery, and eagerly receptive. Jack Penton hung
behind. He came over to Patricia, stooping to her.
"Do you like it?" He jerked his head at the painting.
"Very much." Patricia was doing her best. She had not had much
experience in catching the true note of art criticism; but a rush of
sympathy made her cordial to him, and anxious to say what she imagined
he might find in some degree reassuring. Jack shrugged, and took a
cigarette-case from his hip-pocket.
"I can't understand it," he said bluntly. "I see an eye, and a blob and
a swish; and I can't make it into a picture." He was clearly puzzled
and undecided. "I wish I _could_ understand it," he went on. "Suppose
I'm dull, or something."
"Perhaps it isn't everybody's idea of painting," agreed Patricia,
guardedly. "I'm afraid I don't know much about it."
Jack lowered himself to the floor at her side.
"I wish I did," he said. "You know, I'm interested, and all that; and
I _want_ to like it, because it's Amy's. But I can't, and that's all
about it. When a chap like Rosenberg comes along.... He's so damned
fluent with it all.... You see, this is what worries me. He's pulling
her leg. He thinks her work's awful."
"Oh! Oh!" came in protest from Patricia.
"It's true," said Jack, gloomily. "They all do. To her face they say
this sort of stuff; and when they're away they make fun of it. They
just laugh. I wish she'd give it up."
"I _can't_ believe ..." began Patricia, greatly distressed.
"No, you don't want to." Jack's dark face, already thin, seemed to
grow haggard. "Imagine what I feel about it. They shut up a bit when
I'm there; but nobody thinks she's really any good. And what's to be
the end of it? Can _you_ see? Can't you imagine her going on, fiddling
with this and that--water colours and oils--all drunk with her conceit.
And then, what? When she's soured and disappointed she'll...." He
shrugged. During the speech his temper had risen, and his tone held
a stabbing savageness. "They won't care. They never care about human
beings, as we do. They'll laugh, and she'll never know it, but she'll
think there's a conspiracy against her. She may go all to pieces;
she may pull through. Anything may happen. Sometimes I feel inclined
to leave her to it; but I've been in love with her for years--since
she was a kid; and I feel I just can't let her drop. She hasn't got
a friend in the world except me. Not one that cares if she sinks or
swims. Look at her purring, and Monty ladling out the lies. _Look_ at
it!"
He checked himself as with venom in his urgent tone he drew attention
to the two by the easel. Patricia had paled under the fury of his quiet
disclosure. The husky voice, which she had previously disliked, was
in keeping with his mood and his words, and it therefore assumed new
meaning, and her dislike was gone immediately. She saw him as a young
man deeply--almost passionately--in earnest, but she was saddened by
the picture of such unhappiness as his must be. Her vision of this
whole affair became horrible, beyond bearing.
"If her work isn't any good," said Patricia, "surely she'll realise it?
She is wise. At any rate, she's shrewd enough to find out the truth,
isn't she? If it _is_ the truth."
"Never. You don't understand what ... all this rot"--he waved
vaguely--"means to her. When did a dud--a second-rate person--ever
realise his second-rateness? Why, all the really able people I know, or
that I've ever heard of, are humble--not that they aren't conceited,
too; but it's in a different way. They're humble as well. They've got
a sense of their own limitations. They're not like Amy. She's mad
about her own cleverness. She calls herself an artist, when it's for
other people to do that. And it's only because she guesses there's a
catch somewhere. She feels she's failing, and won't face the reason.
There's nothing like success for lowering a person's conceit. She's
never had any success--not _real_ success. She's got to make it all up
inside. Her vanity's all out of control; and if you try to warn her she
just flies into a passion and calls you a fool for your pains. She'll
_never_ have any success. It's impossible, with her temperament."
"Well, then, you mean she's worthless," whispered Patricia, with
indignation.
"I'm in love with her," answered Jack, in the same low tone of
doggedness. "That's all."
"Isn't it a funny sort of love that decries ... as you've been doing?"
She was still warm with loyalty, to hide the dreadful convincingness of
his words.
"You're just a dear little girl, as kind as anything," Jack said. "And
you think I'm a cantankerous fool."
"No ... never that. Oh, no." Patricia made a gesture of uneasiness, her
hand almost upon his hand in consolation. "No, I think you're unhappy
and bitter, looking at the dark side ... exaggerating...."
Jack Penton gave a little bitter laugh.
"Exaggerating!" he said. "I wish I was!"
"Then _leave_ her. Let her learn. You're only driving her deeper...."
"I can't leave her," he answered, doggedly. "I'm in love with her. I'd
go, and she'd call to me, and I'd come running back. See, I'm not a
strong chap. Some men could do it. I can't."
"No, no. It's dreadful. Dreadful. I feel helpless. I don't know what to
say. I'm so sorry. So _really_ sorry."
Patricia was as vehement as he. She was carried right out of her young
ignorance, as she often was, by emotion; and she sat looking at him
with a glowing face, her eyes melting in their sympathy. The lines
upon that poor grey forehead and round those troubled eyes hurt her,
and the bitter droop of Jack's thin dark lips made its direct appeal
to her heart, even while that heart sank inevitably at the prospect
of unhappiness in life which lay for all to see in front of this
bewildered lover. It was at this moment that Amy and Monty, both aware
of tension in that other corner of the studio, turned and contemplated
their companions. Very strange impressions were recorded by each at
such manifest intimacy between the two who were sitting absorbed by the
fire.
ii
Upon Monty's side there was a considerable increase of interest in
Patricia. It was as though he addressed to himself an appreciative
"Ah!" at the sight of a young woman less simple than she appeared.
The ideal sport, for him, was to be obtained from freshness that
had _savoir faire_ behind it. He began to relish this girl. As he
scrutinised her his lids were low, and he watched for some betraying
gesture of crude sophistication as only an expert could watch. None
came. He was the more intrigued. His companion was less passive.
"Well, you two," cried Amy. "Jack's the perfect philistine, of course."
She came to the fire, resting her hand upon the mantelpiece, and
holding a cigarette forward in her lips for Monty to light. She spoke
thereafter with the cigarette in the corner of her mouth and the smoke
drifting up into her eyes. "You can explain a thing to him in words
of one syllable for hours on end, and at the end he just says, 'Well,
I know what I like!' Doesn't turn a hair. Not a swerve. Isn't it
marvellous?"
"Why pretend?" suavely demanded Monty. "A great deal of talk about
the arts is humbug. It's created by the apparent necessity for saying
_something_."
"I agree with you," snorted Jack, who was still ruffled by the recent
exploration of his inexhaustible troubles, and who therefore was in
danger of being rather less than polite.
"I felt sure you would, my dear Penton," lazily responded Monty.
"What we need is standardised criticism. Unfortunately, people are so
perverse. They insist on having their own views."
"It's only a pretence," said Jack. "They're all other people's. Unless
they're made up for the occasion, in which case they're nobody's."
"When _you_ say one thing, and somebody else says the opposite, what
happens?" asked Patricia, directly interrogating Monty, and feeling
bold in the action.
"I? Oh, the other person's wrong, of course," rejoined Monty, easily.
"Is there no argument?"
"Oh, no!" Monty's "Oh" was merely a quick intaking of the breath.
"It's ill-bred," sneered Jack. "In the æsthetic world there's no
argument at all. One just slangs everybody else behind their backs."
"Are you quite well, Penton?" archly inquired Monty. His question made
Jack grin, but not altogether with amiability. "I thought you might be
ailing."
"Why is it that anybody who speaks the truth is always suspect?" asked
Jack, vigorously. "It's extraordinary to me."
"It's because you live in the material world of unreality, my dear
Penton. Once you realise that art is the fundamental principle of life,
you'll take yourself less seriously."
Patricia thought: one for Master Jack. Is it that he does that? Does
he take himself--everything--too seriously? I think so. And what is
the material world of unreality? That was the question which Jack was
asking aloud.
"The world of phenomena," explained Monty, "is the unreal world."
"The world of seeing and hearing? Well, in that case what tests have we
left to us?" Jack was puzzled.
"Nothing," whispered Monty, and began good-naturedly to laugh. "None of
these set measures. Only the intrinsic value of everything will stand
revealed."
"Pooh!" said Jack. "I wonder what your intrinsic value is, or mine."
"It lies in terms of character, dear boy."
Patricia saw upon Monty's lips the shadow of contempt. She saw that,
imitatively, Amy was reflecting just such an expression. She sighed.
In terms of character! Well, why should Monty be so confident that
the superiority lay with him? And why Amy? She almost laughed in
their faces--not as a token of amusement, but as a protest. The word
"booh!"--with its immediate implications--would have expressed her
feeling. They were only complacent because they had quicker brains than
Jack. As though quickness of brain mattered! She had it herself, by
starts, and was quite abreast of their comments.
"What's character?" demanded Patricia.
"My dear child!" expostulated Amy, screwing her face under the smarting
onset of cigarette smoke.
"Well, what is it?" This time it was Jack, dangerously bellicose.
"It's what everybody thinks they've got," said Patricia.
"When they haven't got it," added Jack.
"Oh, not nowadays," urged Monty, correcting that assumption with a
quite lordly indifference. "We're all so self-conscious."
"I mean...." Jack was at a loss. Patricia's brain supplemented his
deficiency; but she had not the courage to say her thoughts aloud. He
meant that it was not of character that people were vain. It was of
accomplishments; of quickness, skill, beauty. And yet....
"It all goes much deeper than you think," she announced; and by
provoking sharp laughter from them all by this profundity, Patricia
saved the argument about reality from becoming a real argument. It was
a lively contribution to the evening.
"A philosopher!" cried Monty, in his slow, rather jeering way, very
easily and as if all views were one to him.
"Very well: we'll see," thought Patricia. Rebelliously, she was aware
of power within herself transcending all quickness and all agility. It
was the power in virtue of which she was peculiarly Patricia. She had
not caught more than the faintest glimpse of the fact that Monty had
been playing with them all, and that his interest during the whole of
the discussion had been concentrated upon the changes of expression to
be noted in rapid progress across Patricia's very readable face.
iii
"You _must_ have honesty," grumbled Jack. "It's all so simple. If a
chap's honest and decent, his cleverness doesn't matter. That's what
you mean by character, I take it."
"That's what _you_ mean," suggested Monty.
"If a man's a liar...."
It was here that Patricia interrupted Jack for his salvation.
"Jack: don't be logical," she pleaded. "You couldn't convince anybody
by logic."
He gave a gesture of despair.
"That's just it," he sighed. "That's what I complain of, nowadays.
There's all this damned affected cant against sense. People first find
out what they ought to do, and then do something else, in case they
should be suspected of sense."
Amy and Monty were no longer listening. Patricia gave Jack a warning
glance. What he said, so far as she understood it at all, appeared to
be ridiculous.
"I must go." Monty rose. He bent over Patricia. "You'll come on Friday.
At eight o'clock? Splendid." Neither of the others heard him. Swarthy
and regal, he moved slowly into his overcoat and swept them a slight
bow upon leaving. With his going, there went from the studio, for
Patricia, all vividness of interest. She was prepared to look with
distaste at both of her remaining companions. To them the inevitable
squabble might be--must be--of importance, but she felt she was tired
of them. They bored her. They took themselves too seriously. It was all
thoroughly ugly and absurd. People with only one idea!
She waited, enduring the opening stages of a wrangle.
"My dear Jack. Why you must make a fool of yourself...." began Amy, as
soon as the door had closed. The trouble continued. Saying nothing,
Patricia put on her coat.
"I'm going," she announced, curtly; and left them to their
self-important disagreement.
iv
On the way home, Patricia thought much of what she had heard during
the evening from both Amy and Jack. By a strange chance, she had
heard in the same hour both sides of an unhappy conflict; and this
must always be a depressing experience. It set a weight upon her heart
during the whole of her journey. She saw Jack, incapable of measuring
his words with tact; honest, puzzled, commonplace; she saw Amy selfish
and short-sighted; without talent, sure of her own rightness and
cleverness. Patricia did not know that in each estimate her mind was
quite naturally registering the adverse statements which had been made
to her by the prejudiced parties.
She turned into the street in which her home lay, and for the first
time knew that the hour must be late. The houses were all dark. In
her own house, above the door, she could see only the faintest of
lights, which must be that of her little bedroom lamp. Patricia
shrank, laughing to herself, at the thought of her landlady's views
on successive late nights. Disapproval! Well, she must get used
to that sort of thing. In future there might be many late nights.
Parties of every kind danced before her. Patricia, living for herself,
and venturing forth into this new world of vivid personality and
adventure, was above fear of what any landlady might think. The lure of
anti-conventionality was before her. She laughed quietly in enjoyment
of its charm.
Nevertheless, she opened the front door with stealth. Her expectation
as to the scene which was to meet her eyes was fulfilled. Before her,
upon the hall-table, stood the little lamp, turned very low in case it
should smoke. Cavernous blackness lay along the passage, towards the
kitchen stairs; and above, where she must herself go, was a drab shadow
towards which she must not, for courage's sake, look too sensitively,
lest it be peopled with imagined horrors. Grey ceilings receded into
the dimmest of distances. Patricia closed the door, feeling upon
her cheeks a little warmth from the atmosphere of the house and its
most recent meal. Something very small and white lay upon the table
immediately beside the lamp; and with the thought that it must concern
herself she picked it up at once. Her heart gave a sudden throb.
Almost, her lips trembled. She gazed at the card over which she was
bending; and the mood of unhappiness swept again upon a heart that had
already been deeply troubled in the course of the evening.
Then, slowly, Patricia took her lamp and went up the stairs, Harry's
card between her fingers.
CHAPTER FIVE: EDGAR MOVES
i
But however miserable Patricia may have felt at night, she rose
rewarded in the morning; for upon her breakfast-table she found a
letter in an unknown handwriting. She pounced upon it with a lifting of
the heart. "Miss Patricia Quin," she read. The handwriting was small
and flowing, firm and curly. All the capital letters were large and
beautifully formed; and yet there was a carelessness and grace in the
general style which charmed her. The post mark she could not decipher.
With sudden resolution, Patricia tore open the envelope, her intuition
for once the infallible intuition of every woman's dream.
"Dear Patricia. Sorry you were not in when I called. What about
coming out to dinner and to dance afterwards on Saturday? I suggest
the Marnier, seven-thirty sharp; and then on to either Topping's or
the Queensford. Yours ever, Harry."
Patricia gave a low laugh, and read the letter through a second time.
How lucky that she would have a new dress! She sat down at once, with
her note-paper and pen, biting the end of the pen as she planned the
reply.
"Dear Harry," she wrote. "Splendid. Marnier, seven-thirty. Then
which ever you like. I've never been to either. Yours ever,
Patricia."
She carefully sealed the envelope, and wrote the address in a
handwriting as near that of Harry as her natural penmanship allowed.
She was still contemplating the letter and re-reading her invitation
when Lucy kicked the door open and stamped into the room, kicking the
door back again with her heel. Both sides of the door showed signs of
Lucy's regular methods. With raw and dirty hands Lucy dumped down the
meal.
"Cole," she remarked agreeably. "Young man come for you larce night,
tole me to say he's sorry to miss you."
"Yes, thank you."
"Gotcher letter, then," said Lucy.
"Yes, thank you, Lucy." Patricia was trying to be sedate; but the sharp
grey eyes of Lucy, which shone from above red cheeks and a snub nose
and a grimy neck, were inexorable.
"Thought he'd write," said Lucy. "I ses, 'Can I take any message?'--you
know, sweet as sugar. He gimme a card. Wouldn't leave no message. Fine
lookin' young man, he was."
"I expect you were very excited," said Patricia, dryly--even, she
hoped, quellingly. Lucy stood looking down at her, very sturdy and
determined.
"What say?" she asked. Patricia repeated her remark. Lucy turned
abruptly. "No," she said, over a raised shoulder. "But I thought _you_
would be."
She was gone, leaving Patricia faintly pink.
ii
Although cold, it was a fresh morning. The clouds had gone, and the sky
was blue. Patricia--having eaten her breakfast and hurried exultingly
out of doors--felt a strong temptation to run along one of the streets
leading riverwards. She could imagine herself standing upon the Albert
Bridge and looking down at the swiftly-moving Thames. A fine breeze
would be sweeping there. She would be able to pretend that she was at
sea. How stern Patricia must be with herself! She vigorously maintained
her course along the King's Road, towards Sloane Square, and there made
her purchases. She thought: "I'm not like these other women. I know
what I want. They stand fingering stockings for half-an-hour. I suppose
it's a hobby. I simply ask for what I want. And get it."
This made her seem to the assistant who served her somewhat peremptory.
Patricia took no interest in shop-assistants when she bought material
for a dress for herself. She thought she did; but although she became
indignant--vicariously--at thought of shop-assistants' wages, she
did not really acknowledge that in relation to herself they had any
existence. She retired from the shop with approximately what she had
entered for the purpose of buying; and the assistant watched her go
with an air of some preoccupation. As another assistant near her was
doing the same thing, the two gathered together in order to discuss
Patricia. They appeared to rub noses, as kittens might have done;
mournfully and confidingly, holding conversation in a whisper, and
separated only at the entrance of another customer.
"Yes, moddam?" inquired Patricia's shop-assistant, with mechanical
address.
Patricia was far down the King's Road, carrying her parcel.
"I should hate to be a shop-assistant," she impulsively thought. "It
must be a rotten life, attending to people who don't know what they
want, and stand fingering stockings for half-an-hour, and then buy a
reel of cotton. They like me, because I know what I want."
She could not help being rather pleased with herself.
iii
Now, while Patricia was busy making her dress, and forgetting
altogether that she was going to meet him on the Friday night, Edgar
Mayne, who did not even know that the meeting was to occur, was working
quietly in his office, transacting business in which he had only a
material interest. Edgar was one of those men, of whom there are many,
who made money without deliberately intending to do so. It was true,
as Harry had announced at the party, that Edgar had begun life as an
office boy. He had left school at the age of fourteen, and had answered
advertisements until one of them brought a favourable reply. He had
begun life by copying letters by means of damp sheets and a press; and
he had been promoted a year later to a junior clerkship. He had no
interest in figures beyond that which natural aptitude could supply.
He had none of the born accountant's delight in their possibilities.
Solely, he brought to his accounts a character naturally precise, and
with similar ease he could at this time have directed his intelligence
to many other matters. If Edgar's parents had been wealthy, he would
have had a complete education, and his gifts would have promised a
great career; but they were poor, and themselves ill-educated, and so
it became necessary that Edgar should early add something to the weekly
budget. He did so.
From one competence he advanced to another. By the time he was thirty,
Edgar was manager of the business, which dealt in the importation
of those goods which English people require from abroad, and the
exportation of goods produced in England for which there was a foreign
market. He never saw the goods in bulk; but he saw samples of them
and was furnished with myriads of catalogues specifying their quality
and the current market rates at which they were to be bought and at
which they were being sold. By means of occasional visits abroad, by
more frequent interviews and excursions in England, Edgar grew to
considerable knowledge of prices and conditions of manufacture. His
advice was thus demanded by those directing the firm, who presently
invited him to become one of their number. With increase of business
came increase of income and power; and as Edgar's interests extended
he found himself at thirty-seven a man of some wealth, who had at the
same time a considerable standing among those able to appreciate his
commercial acumen.