About two years ago [said Sir Charles], during one of my leaves in
London, young Mrs. Harpenden persuaded me to go down with her to a club
of some sort she was helping to run down in the East End.
There were then, and for all I know there are now, a number of pretty
and sound young women doing their best to placate God for the sins of
their Victorian fathers by making life in the East End as tolerable as
possible. Of course, only once a week. Venice’s idea in landing me was
that I should give the young devils down there a rough lecture on the
Navy in general and the Jutland fight in particular--that kind of thing.
So there I stood yapping away, surrounded by a crowd of amiable and
attentive young men and women. In a room nearby poor Napier Harpenden
was trying to get away with only one black eye from a hefty young navvy
to whom he was supposed to be teaching boxing. Across a counter in a far
corner Venice was handing out cups of perfectly revolting coffee. She
had all the bloods at her call that night, had Venice. In one corner
Tarlyon was teaching a crowd Jujitsu, and in another Hugo Cypress was
playing draughts with a Boy Scout--it did one good to see him. And
there, in the middle of all that, was the old mug roaring away about the
silent Navy.
I was just getting settled down and raising laughs with the usual Jack
Tar stuff when--well, there they were, a pair of them, quite plainly
laughing at me. Not _with_ me, mark you. You’ll understand that it put
me off my stroke. However, I did my level best to go on without looking
at them, but that wasn’t so easy, as they were bang in front of me,
three or four rows back. I had spotted the young man first. He was the
one making the jokes and leading the laugh, while the girl only followed
suit. Both Jews, obviously, and as handsome as a couple of new coins.
Smart, too--the young man too smart by half.
You could tell at a glance that they had no right in the place, which
was for very poor folk, and that they had come in just to guy. At least,
that devilish young man had. He had a thin dead-white face, a nose that
wouldn’t have looked amiss on a prince of old Babylon, black eyes the
size of walnuts, and a smile--I’ll tell you about that smile. Hilary,
I’ve never in my life so wanted to do anything as to put my foot
squarely down on that boy’s smile. Call me a Dutchman if they don’t hate
it even down in hell.
The girl wasn’t any less beautiful, with her white face, black hair,
black eyes, fine slim Hebrew nose. Proud she looked too, and a proud
Jewess can--and does--look any two English beauties in the face. But she
was better, gentler, _nicer_. They were of the same stuff, those two
young Jews, the same ancient sensitive clever stuff, but one had gone
rotten and the other hadn’t. You could easily see that from the way,
when she did meet my eyes, she did her level best to look serious and
not to hear what her companion was whispering into her ear. She didn’t
particularly want to hurt my feelings, not she, no matter how much her
man might want to. Of course I could have stopped the lecture then and
there and chucked the young man out, but I didn’t want to go and have a
rough-house the first time I was asked down to young Venice’s potty old
club.
It will puzzle me all my life (or what’s left of it, let’s say) to know
why that diabolically handsome young Jew took such an instant dislike to
me; and why I took such a dislike to him! For that was really at the
bottom of all that followed--just good old black hatred, Hilary, from
the first moment our eyes met. But I want to give you all the facts.
Maybe the girl had something to do with it even then--the girl and his
own shocking smile. You simply couldn’t help fancying that those gentle
eyes were in for a very bad time from that smile. Decidedly not my
business, of course. Nothing that interests one ever is, is it? But, on
the other hand, the young man went on whispering and laughing so all
through my confounded lecture that by the time I had finished there was
just one small spot of red floating about my mind. I don’t think I’ve
ever before been so angry. There’s one particular thing about people who
sneer that I can’t bear, Hilary. They simply insist on your disliking
them, and I hate having to dislike people more than I can tell you.
They began to clear out as soon as I had finished. The young Jew’s
behaviour hadn’t, naturally, made my effort go any better. He needed a
lesson, that bright young man. I collared him in the passage outside.
Of course he and his young lady were much too smart to hurry themselves,
and the rest of the lecturees had almost gone. Inside, Venice had given
up poisoning her club with coffee and was trying to bring it round with
shocking noises from a wireless set.
I can see that passage now. A narrow stairway leading up to God knows
where. Just one gas-jet, yellow as a Chinaman. The front-door wide open
to a narrow street like a canal of mud, for it was pelting with rain,
you could see sheets of it falling between us and the lamp on the
opposite side of the road. A man outside somewhere whistling “Horsey,
keep your tail up,” and whistling it well. Radio inside.
Our young Jewboy was tall. I simply didn’t feel I was old enough to be
his father, although he couldn’t have been more than three or
four-and-twenty. And he liked colours, that boy. He had on a nice bright
brown suit, a silk shirt to match, and not a tartan in the Highlands had
anything on his tie. His young lady’s eyes, in that sick light, shone
like black onyx. It struck me she was terrified, the way she was staring
at me. I was sorry for that, it wasn’t her terror I wanted. And where I
did want it, not a sign. Then I realised she wasn’t terrified for him
but for me. Cheek.
I had the fancy youth by the shoulder. Tight. He was still laughing at
me. “This lout!” that laugh said. I can hear that laugh now. And,
confound it, there was a quite extraordinary authority to that boy’s
eyes. He wasn’t used to following anyone, not he.
I said: “Young man, your manners are very bad. What are you going to do
about it?”
I was calm enough. But he was too calm by half. He didn’t answer, but he
had given up smiling. He was looking sideways down at my hand on his
shoulder. I’ve never had a pretty hand, but it has been quite useful to
me one way and another and I’ve grown attached to it. I can’t attempt to
describe the disgust and contempt in that boy’s look. It sort of said:
“By the bosom of Abraham, what _is_ that filthy thing on my shoulder?”