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THE SENSATIONALISTS: II
THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE
STEPHEN McKENNA
* * * * *
By STEPHEN McKENNA
THE SENSATIONALISTS
PART ONE: LADY LILITH
PART TWO: THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE
PART THREE: _In preparation_
SONIA MARRIED
SONIA
MIDAS AND SON
NINETY-SIX HOURS' LEAVE
THE SIXTH SENSE
SHEILA INTERVENES
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
* * * * *
THE EDUCATION OF
ERIC LANE
BY
STEPHEN McKENNA
AUTHOR OF "LADY LILITH," "SONIA MARRIED,"
"MIDAS AND SON," "SONIA," "NINETY-SIX
HOURS' LEAVE," ETC.
NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
* * * * *
COPYRIGHT, 1921,
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
* * * * *
TO
THE WITTIEST WOMAN
IN LONDON
* * * * *
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION 11
II LADY BARBARA NEAVE 52
III LASHMAR MILL-HOUSE 88
IV INTERMEZZO 120
V MORTMAIN 149
VI DAME'S SCHOOL EDUCATION 184
VII EDUCATION FOR THOSE OF RIPER YEARS 210
VIII THE STRONGEST THING OF ALL 237
IX THE EDUCATION OF BARBARA NEAVE 260
THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE
"Because lust was not good enough, the Celt invented romance."
--SHANE LESLIE: _The End of a Chapter._
THE EDUCATION OF ERIC LANE
CHAPTER ONE
AN EXPERIMENT IN EMOTION
". . . A genial . . . bachelor, whom the outside world called
selfish because it derived no particular benefit from him. . . ."
OSCAR WILDE: "THE PICTURE OF DORIAN GRAY."
1
Eric Lane, visible only from ear to chin above the water-line, peered
through the steam of the bathroom at a travelling-clock on his
dressing-table. The bath would have been improved by another half
handful of verbena salts; but, even lacking this, the water was still
too hot to be lightly dismissed with an aggrieved gurgle down the
waste-pipe. It was an added self-indulgence to know that, if he lay
gently boiling himself for more than another minute, he would be late
for dinner with Lady Poynter; but, if any one had to suffer, let it be
Lady Poynter. It was not his fault that the rehearsal of "The
Bomb-Shell" had dragged on until after seven; something had to be
sacrificed--the letters which his secretary had left for him to sign, or
the hot bath, or the cigarette and glass of sherry as he dressed, or (in
the last resort and quite obviously) Lady Poynter. He had already
foregone a cocktail, which would have made him two minutes later.
As the water began to cool, Eric threw a towel over his shoulders, wiped
the steam from the face of the clock and began to dry himself slowly,
looking round with ever-fresh delight at the calculated ingenuity of
comfort in his new flat. It was his reward for the successful play. For
ten years after coming down from Oxford he had lived in the Temple,
first with Jack Waring and afterwards by himself; lonely, hard-working
years, when he had painfully learned the value of money and time. With
one play running indefatigably, another rehearsing and a third in sight
of completion, he had decided to construct a frame better suited to his
new position. Ten years ago he had dreamed at Oxford of a day when he
would burst upon London as a new young Byron; and, when the dream was
almost forgotten, he found himself living in its midst. He was courted
and quoted, photographed and "paragraphed"; Lady Poynter and the rich,
malcontent world which aspired to intelligence humbly invited him to
dine, and it did not matter whether she wanted to pay him homage or to
exhibit him as her latest celebrity. It was time to leave the Temple and
to burst, fully equipped, upon London. A friend in the artillery made
over the remainder of his lease, and Eric gave himself a fortnight's
holiday to order the furnishing and decoration of the six tiny rooms.
When he surveyed telephone and dictaphone, switches and presses, files
and cases, tables and lights, he felt that the ease and beauty of which
he had dreamed were dulled and stunted by the reality.
Over the dressing-table hung a framed poster of his play: "_Regency
Theatre_" in a scroll of blue lettering: "_A Divorce Has Been Arranged_"
under it; then his own name; then the cast. Eric looked affectionately
at the trophy, as he began to comb his dripping, black hair. He was
proud of the play and grateful to it; grateful for money, reputation and
the added importance of himself. As he entered the Carlton that day one
unknown woman had whispered to another, "Isn't that Eric Lane? I thought
he was older." He was boy enough to be gratified that seventeen people
had stopped him that morning between Grosvenor Street and Piccadilly.
Eight months ago no one outside Fleet Street or the Thespian Club had
heard of him. Jack Waring and O'Rane, Loring and Deganway always seemed
to regard him as a harmless eccentric who wrote unacceptable plays for
his own amusement. . . .
The hair-brushing completed, he put on a dressing-gown and crossed the
hall to his smoking-room for the sherry and cigarette. On the table lay
a pile of typewritten letters, awaiting his signature, and another pile
not yet opened and secured from the late summer breeze by a glass
paper-weight. It was shaped like a horse-shoe and had been sent him on
his first night, to be followed by a telegram: "_Best wishes for all
possible success Agnes._" He had kept it for luck and in gratitude to
Agnes Waring, who had been a sympathetic, if rather undiscriminating,
friend for many years. Until eight months ago he had never earned enough
money to think of marrying; and, at thirty-two, he told himself that he
was not a marrying man; but more than once in the early hours of triumph
he had thought of Agnes and of his own return to Lashmar; they had often
talked jestingly of the day when he would come back famous, and behind
the jest lay a hint of romance and sentiment which told him that she was
waiting for him and believed in his success when he himself doubted it.
Next to the letters lay an album in which his secretary had at last
finished pasting his press-cuttings. He could not resist the temptation
to glance at two or three of his favourite notices before opening the
letters. The critics had treated him kindly, for he had been a critic
himself and had not scrupled to secure a good press; but mere flattery
never kept a bad play running. . . . He decided that he was going to
enjoy his dinner with the Poynters, though the chiming of the clock in
the hall warned him that he could not hope to be dressed and in Belgrave
Square by a quarter past eight. The new Byron would achieve an effect,
if he gained the reputation of _always_ being ten minutes late for
everything; but the pose offended Eric's sense of tidiness. Signing his
letters, he ripped open half-a-dozen envelopes and glanced at the
contents, pushed the news-cutting album neatly into its shelf and
hurried into his bedroom with a glass of sherry in his hand.
It was time to order a taxi, and a tall Scotch parlour-maid, of whom he
lived in secret dread, came in answer to his ring. He would have
preferred a man, but men were unprocurable in war-time. He let fall a
word of instruction on the correct way of laying out dress-clothes and
was beginning to get ready in earnest, when the telephone-bell rang
simultaneously in bedroom, bathroom, dining-room and smoking-room. As he
finished his sherry, he tried to remember where he had left the
instrument.
"Hul-lo," he cried, exploring to see whether the bathroom chair was dry.
"That you, Ricky? Sybil speaking. I say, are you coming down on
Saturday? You've not been here for months, and we want to see you."
Eric sighed patiently before he remembered that the sigh was unlikely to
carry as far as Winchester. The prophet could look for affection in his
own country and in his own house; he would not find honour.
"If you feel I'm essential to the family happiness----" he began.
"You're not. But we've got some people dining on Saturday--Agnes Waring
amongst others. You can bring your work with you. . . . Say you'll come,
like a good boy, and don't be selfish."
"Well, I might," Eric answered. "Good-bye, Sybil."
"You needn't be in such a hurry! What are you doing to-night?"
"I'm being--_extraordinarily_--late for dinner with some people I don't
know," he answered.
His sister's voice in reply was slightly aggrieved.
"I wouldn't detain you for worlds. I only wanted to know if you'd seen a
full-page photograph of yourself----"
"In the 'Gallery.' Yes, I know the editor and I got him to shove it in.
As my own advertising agent, I take a lot of beating. Good-bye, Sybil."
"Good-bye, selfish pig. You're being spoilt by success, you know."
Eric made no answer, but, as he snatched up his hat and cane, still more
as he settled himself in the taxi with his feet on the opposite seat, he
reflected with philosophic indulgence how wide of the mark his sister
had fired. He was self-satisfied, perhaps, as he had some reason to be;
self-sufficient, assuredly, as he had set out to become. After all, he
could have entered the Civil Service ten years before, as his father had
wished; and there would have been ten years of material comfort, an
unchallengeable social position, a wife, a home, spiritual paralysis and
soul-destroying domestic worries as his portion. Instead, he had elected
to make his own way in a hard and somewhat despised school. A young
journalist had no status. People invited him to their houses, because he
had been at the same college as their sons, because other people had
already taken the plunge; but he had always had enough detachment to
recognize where the intimacy was to stop.
Now he was being accepted at his own valuation. As he passed the Ritz,
two officers and a girl hailed a taxi and told the driver to take them
to the Regency. At eleven o'clock they would be saying: "Good show,
that." (Had he not loitered in the hall of the theatre, with coat-collar
turned up, to hear just that?) In another month they would be going to
"The Bomb-Shell," because it was by the fellow who wrote "A Divorce Has
Been Arranged." . . . He had money, friends, adulators and the health to
do a full day's work. In speaking to Sybil, he had only hesitated
because he was not sure whether he wanted to meet Agnes Waring yet. When
they became engaged. . . . _If_ they became engaged, he would lose in
interest with the women like Lady Poynter who were always inviting him
to be lionized. . . .
As the taxi drew up in Belgrave Square, he looked at his watch.
Twenty-seven minutes past eight. He handed his hat and cane to a footman
and followed the butler upstairs with complete self-possession. As he
was asked his name at the door of the drawing-room, however, he
stammered:
"Mr. Eric L-lane."
It was intolerable that he could not overcome that stammer, so entirely
alien to a new young Byron. . . .
2
Lady Poynter had finished dressing and was writing in her diary when her
maid entered to ask whether Mrs. Shelley might come in. At luncheon the
Duchess of Ross had complained that no one would give her a chance of
meeting young Eric Lane; Gerald Deganway had murmured, "One poor martyr
without a lion"; and, as Deganway was incapable of originating anything,
Lady Poynter felt that she was not infringing any copyright in recording
the jest against that day when Eleanor Ross tried to steal any more of
her young men the moment she had put a polish on them and made them
known. . . .
"Angel Marion!" cried Lady Poynter, throwing down her pen so that it
described an inky semi-circle. "The idea of asking!"
She embraced her guest as effusively as she had addressed her. Lady
Poynter was forty-eight years of age, daily increasing in bulk,
masculine in voice, intellectual through vanity and childless by
preference. Her husband was rich, patient, stupid and self-indulgent,
bearing with her literary passions and in self-defence displaying that
care for household comfort which it was Lady Poynter's pride to neglect.
Why, she asked, were men given brains if they made gods of their
bellies? Mrs. Shelley was the widow of a well-known free-lance
journalist, who in his day had brought her into contact with a
sufficient number of authors for her to imitate on austerely simple
lines the symposia of wit and learning which Lady Poynter assembled on
the strength of her own personality and her husband's cellar. There was
a long-standing gentle competition between the two, which they abandoned
in common hostility to Lady Maitland, who excelled them both in the
ruthlessness and speed of her hunting. At the moment, however, Mrs.
Shelley had eclipsed both her rivals by the chance of having known Eric
Lane for ten years; to Lady Maitland he was still "Mr. Eric," to Lady
Poynter "Mr. Lane."
"You don't mind my coming like this, do you?" she asked timidly,
disengaging herself from Lady Poynter's embrace and indicating her
commandant's uniform. "I was at the hospital until eight."
"As if I minded what you wore!" her hostess cried. "In war-time, when we
haven't a moment to turn round . . .! And it isn't as if this were a
party."
Mrs. Shelley walked to a mirror and looked thoughtfully at her
unassertive reflection. Her hair was a dusty brown, her eyes an
unsoftening grey, and her cheeks, which were careworn with exacting,
humble ambition, acted at once as frame and background for a thin nose
and unrelaxing mouth.
"You always say that, darling," she protested gently, leaning forward
to the mirror and dabbing at herself with a powder-puff. "And it means
the _most_ delightful----"
"I've got Eric Lane coming," interrupted Lady Poynter, groping for a
crumpled half-sheet of paper marked as with the sweeping strokes of a
hay-rake in soft mud. "Who else? Sonia O'Rane you know; Max--or did Max
say he was dining at his club? It doesn't matter, because I can't
pretend that Max contributes much, even though he is my husband; then
there's my nephew, Johnnie Gaymer; and Babs Neave----"
"Dear Babs," murmured Mrs. Shelley with conscientious enthusiasm. It was
her favourite boast that she sincerely tried to make allowances for all
and permitted ill-speaking of none. In the years before the war, when
Lady Barbara's friends were wondering whether they really could continue
to know her, Mrs. Shelley remained embarrassingly loyal. "I haven't seen
her for months."
"She's been nursing at Crawleigh all this time, simply wearing herself
out. I've never seen any one so changed. We met in Bond Street this
morning; I hadn't _meant_ to invite her, but I felt I must do
_some_thing. . . ." Lady Poynter projected herself from the sofa and
rustled to the door, murmuring: "I _must_ find out whether Max is dining
at home to-night."
Mrs. Shelley made her way downstairs to the drawing-room and stood on
the balcony outside one of the French windows, looking down through the
warm dusk on Belgrave Square. An open taxi drew up at the door, and she
watched Mrs. O'Rane descending daintily and smiling at the driver; a
second taxi drove from the opposite corner of the square, and Captain
Gaymer, in Flying Corps uniform, jumped out and hurried to the door,
looking apprehensively at his watch. Mrs. Shelley left the balcony and
shook hands with Lord Poynter who was dutifully dressed in time to
receive any guests who might arrive before his wife appeared.
"Two. Four," he counted timidly. "Babs Neave is sure to be late. That
leaves only Lane. Does every one know him?"
An indistinct murmur was drowned by Gaymer, who knitted his brows and
repeated:
"Lane? Eric Lane? The dramatist fellow? I saw something about him in one
of the picture-papers to-day, when I was having my hair cut. Oh, I know!
He'd left London, and letters weren't going to be forwarded. Didn't he
tell you?" he asked as his aunt crossed the room in concern.
Lady Poynter's jaw fell in affronted indignation. Lady Maitland had
already secured Mr. Lane for luncheon, the Duchess of Ross had wired:
"Don't know you but must. Have just seen your play. When will you dine?"
and Mrs. Shelley had staked out a claim before any one else had heard of
the man.
"That is really _too_ abominable," she cried. "He made a note of the
time in his book . . . only two days ago. . . . And then he hasn't the
consideration even to telephone."
She counted the numbers and turned angrily, as the door was thrown open.
After pausing on the threshold to see who was present, Lady Barbara
Neave entered the room falteringly and with a suggestion that she was
belatedly repenting a too venturesome effect in dress. The men, she
knew, were only watching her eyes and waiting for the surprised smile of
recognition which always made them feel that they had been missed; but
Mrs. Shelley, she would wager, was privately noting that a dove-coloured
silk dress and a scarlet shawl embroidered with birds in flight made a
white face look ashen; Sonia O'Rane was probably wondering why her maid
did not tell her that a band of black tulle with a red rose at one side
simply emphasized her hollow cheeks and sunken eyes. . . . She moved
listlessly and smiled mysteriously to herself as though unconscious that
every one was silent and watchful; then the surprised smile transfigured
her, she kissed the other women with childlike abandon, leaving the men
to watch and envy.
"Babs, darling, it _is_ sweet of you to come. I've no party for you,"
said Lady Poynter, forgiving the girl's lateness and forgetting her own
discomfiture.
Barbara shook her head and looked round the room with eyes which had
lost their momentary colour, as though the light behind them had been
doused.
"I've forgotten what it's like to meet people and try to talk
intelligently," she laughed with the mirthlessness of physical
exhaustion. "Well, Max! And Johnnie! I'm sorry to be late, Margaret, but
until the last moment I didn't know that I should feel up to coming."
"If _you_'d thrown me over, too----" began Lady Poynter. "Give us some
light, Max. My dear, you're losing all your looks, and that black thing
gives you a face like a sheet of mourning note-paper. You _must_ take
proper care of yourself. And you're nothing but skin and bones."
Barbara smiled again, as listlessly as before.
"Yes. My maid has given notice; I don't do her credit. . . . But I'm a
dull subject of conversation. How's dear Marion been all this time?"
She broke up the group by drawing Mrs. Shelley to a sofa with her and
again looked cautiously round the room. This was the first time that she
had dined out since her illness, almost the first time since the
beginning of the war; and the light and noise, magnified by fancy and
sensitive nerves, made her dizzy. Her mother and the doctor had tried to
keep her at home; but natural obstinacy and uncontrollable whim had been
too much for them. A few weeks ago she had fainted in the train, as she
returned to London from Crawleigh Abbey; an unknown man had taken care
of her, but, though she remembered his voice, she was too giddy to see
or recall his face. On arriving at her father's house in Berkeley
Square, she found her fingers grasping a silver flask with a monogram
"E. L."; and that morning, when Lady Poynter invited her to dinner, she
had divined that "E. L." must stand for Eric Lane. The coincidence would
not have been worth following by itself, but in the latter days of her
illness she had repeatedly dreamed of a child with the stranger's voice;
and, vaguely and shamefacedly, Barbara believed that dreams had an
influence on life and were glimpses beyond the veil of the unknown. She
was coming to believe, too, in predestination as the one cause able to
explain a long series of isolated acts for which she could not hold
herself responsible; and to-night predestination would be put to the
test, for half-a-dozen people had already invited her to meet Eric Lane
and for one reason or another she had never been able to accept. It was
the thought that she might be meeting him at last which had so taken
away her composure that she had hardly been able to cross the room.
"_I_ don't think it's worth waiting," muttered Lady Poynter, her
indignation returning reinforced by hunger. "You might ring the bell,
Max, and find whether any telephone message _has_ been received----"
"It's Eric Lane," Mrs. Shelley explained. "Captain Gaymer was saying
that he'd left London."
"Oh! I'm sorry. I've never met him," said Barbara.
Evidently she was predestined never to meet him; and the noise and light
made her too giddy to decide whether she was relieved or disappointed.
Predestination was winning another round; and, while she was ill and
unresisting, it was comforting to feel that she was not responsible for
all the follies and the one crime which had ruined her life; but it was
sad to feel that she would never meet the hero of her dream-romance. He
might have filled the whole of a life that for a year had been empty
and aching; at the lowest computation, their meeting would have been an
experiment in emotion. . . .
Lord Poynter had shambled flat-footedly half-way to the bell, when the
door was thrown open again and the butler announced "Mr. Eric Lane."
There was a tiny stir of interest among those who had not met him and of
surprise among all. Eric's eyes narrowed for a moment under the light of
the chandelier; then he collected himself, swiftly identified Lady
Poynter and shook her hand with a murmur of apology for his lateness.
"But, dear man, we'd given you up!" she exclaimed. "Why did you frighten
us by announcing in the papers that you'd left London? You've not met
Max, have you?"
Eric shook hands with Lord Poynter.
"That was my s-secretary," he explained. Shyness was rushing in waves to
his head, and he could only save himself from disgrace by pretending to
be more icily collected than any one in the room. "I'm f-frightfully
overworked at present with rehearsals and things, so I applied for a
f-fortnight's leave from my department and everybody thinks I'm
f-fishing in Scotland or doing a walking tour on Dartmoor. This party is
my f-final dissipation, Lady Poynter."
He looked round to see with whom he had still to shake hands. As he
began to speak, Barbara had shivered so violently that Mrs. Shelley
turned at the movement; then she tried to remember even seeing his face
as he bent over her in the train and carried her along the platform at
Waterloo. She was paralyzed with dread of the moment when he would
recognize her, for she had nothing adequate to the drama of their
meeting. . . . He shook hands first with those nearest to him, and she
hastened to make a mental picture before he saw that she was watching
him; black hair, a thin face restless with vitality, bloodless lips
tightly shut and eyes that were out of keeping with the assurance of the
face--eyes unexpectedly big and soft, deep in colour and timid in
expression, reminding her of the stammer and quick eagerness of his
speech.
He was shaking hands now with Mrs. Shelley, and Barbara grew rigid with
fear. His face turned, and their eyes met; but he passed on to Gaymer
without recognizing her. She found herself trembling with relief; and
the reaction swept away disappointment and all interest but dislike.
Voice and eyes, movements and manner became hateful to her; she longed
for an opportunity of upsetting his precarious composure, of pricking
his conceit and hurting him. If Margaret Poynter did not put her next to
him, she would walk out of the room and go home. . . .
The butler entered to announce that dinner was served, and Lady Poynter,
with an unconcentrated "Babs, you haven't met Mr. Lane, have you?" tried
to remember her ordering of the table.
"Tell me who 'Babs' is," Eric begged in an undertone, as he and Gaymer
prepared to follow the others down to the dining-room.
"Babs Neave? Don't you know her?" Gaymer asked in surprise.
"Oh, by name, of course. I didn't recognize her."
"She's been rather ill, I think."
As he pulled his napkin out of its folds, Eric stole a glance at
Barbara. By sight he had known her distantly for years as a girl who
hardly missed a first night or private view; she was always to be found
acting, reciting or at least selling programmes at charity _matinees_;
he had seen her at Stage Society performances, and the illustrated
papers gave her a full-page photograph after any of the big costume
balls. And, like most of his generation, he knew her by reputation
better than by sight; for half-a-dozen years her epigrams and escapades
had been on every one's lips; while he was still at Oxford and she a
child of twelve, her cousin Lord Loring had wondered despairingly what
was to be done with her. On the disclosure of her name, Eric had
expected to see some one flamboyant and assertive. He was relieved to
find her quiet and reserved, a little hostile, perhaps bored and
certainly ill.
"I'm so sorry to hear you've not been well," he began timidly. Her
expression and the angle at which she was seated convinced him that he
had left an unfavourable impression on her, and he half feared a rebuff.
"I suppose, like every one else, you've been overworking?"
3
"You'll find me thoroughly dull," Barbara announced abruptly, with the
candour of one who studies her effects and with a brusqueness which
discouraged further advances. "The doctor says--oh, Mrs. O'Rane's trying
to attract your attention."
Eric felt himself dismissed and, submitting to her hint, looked over the
malachite bowls of white roses to the place where Mrs. O'Rane was
leaning forward with one elbow on the table and her other hand
repressing Gaymer. The cast of the "Divorce" was being slightly changed,
and they had thought it worth while to venture a sovereign on the name
of one nonentity who was retiring in favour of another. Eric adjudicated
in Gaymer's favour and was turning to give Barbara a last chance, when
he found that the flood-gates were open and that every one, taking his
time from Lady Poynter, was prepared to discuss dramatic art in general
and, in particular, the construction and history of his play. Their
enquiries were simple-minded; bombarded from four different quarters at
once, he took the questions at the volley; then, as they seemed
interested, he became more expansive, losing his stammer and straying
unconsciously into an unrehearsed lecture. There were occasional
objections and challenges; but Lady Poynter silenced them ruthlessly
with a "Now, my dear, you mustn't interrupt when Mr. Lane's explaining
the whole basis of his art," and he discovered suddenly that he was
talking well.
"I expect you're tired of hearing it, but I _loved_ that play of yours,"
said his hostess with a beaming glance which confidently asked her other
guests whether she was not well justified in summoning them to meet him.
"I've been to see it three times."
"I've been twice, and some one's taking me to it again to-morrow,"
continued Mrs. O'Rane, for whom no subject of conversation was complete
until she had decorated it with a personal touch.
"Even I've been once," murmured Barbara, rousing reluctantly from the
silence which she had maintained since the beginning of dinner: "George
Oakleigh insisted on taking me. It seems to be having a great success,
Mr. Lane."
Eric smiled a little self-consciously; but her deliberate avoidance of
enthusiasm chilled him after Lady Poynter's extravagant appreciation.
"No one here seems to have escaped it," he said.
"I kept thinking how clever of you it was to write it," she went on,
half to herself.
Such criticism led to nothing but a second self-conscious smile; and,
knowing her reputation, he had expected something more stimulating.
"Was it a good house?" he asked.
"Very full, if that's what you mean." She looked past him and lowered
her voice. "It was full of Lady Poynters," she went on. "Rows and rows
of them. They took it conscientiously, they laughed at the jokes, they
missed nothing, even the obvious things; and, if I went next week, I
should find them all there again--or other people exactly like them. It
was a wonderful--" she hesitated and looked at him long enough to see
that he was perplexed, if not annoyed--"experience."
"I hope you don't regret going?"
"Very few plays are as amusing as the audience," she answered
thoughtfully. "Oh, I wouldn't have missed it for anything. I wondered
what you were like. . . ." She turned to look at him with leisurely and
unsmiling interest. "I expected to find you much younger. How old are
you? Twenty-six? _Thirty-two!_ You're ten years older than I am! What in
the world have you been doing with yourself?"
"That would take _rather_ a long time to tell!" he laughed.
"I don't expect it would. Life is not measured by days, but by
sensations. . . ."
"Those you experience or those you create?" Eric interrupted.
Barbara turned away and nodded to herself.
"It's like that, is it?" she murmured. "Are you declaring war? If so,
you're clever enough to fight with your own weapons instead of picking
up the rusty swords of men I've already beaten. You knew little Val
Arden, of course? And my cousin Jim Loring? _They_ taught you to call me
a 'sensationalist.' Labels are an indolent man's device for guessing
what's inside a bottle without tasting."
"They sometimes prevent accidental poisoning."
"If the right labels are on the right bottles. That's what I have to
find out. And it's worth an occasional risk. . . . Sensationalist! I
collect new emotions, but you must be _bourgeois_ yourself if you want
to _epater le bourgeois_. Now, _you_ can't have had many emotions, or
you wouldn't have written that play. And yet--what were you doing
before?" she demanded abruptly.
"I followed the despised calling of a journalist."
"Ah!"
She nodded and began eating her quail without explaining herself
further. Eric was nettled by her tone, for she was taking pains to let
him see that she had not liked his play, perhaps even that she despised
him for writing it. He half turned to Lady Poynter, but she was deep in
conversation with her nephew. For a time he, too, concentrated his
attention on the quail; but every one else was talking, and, though
Barbara's challenge was too pert to be taken seriously, he felt that
half-praise from her was more valuable than the adulation of women like
Mrs. Shelley who were content to worship success for its own sake.
"What was the precise meaning of the 'Ah!'?" he enquired lazily.
"'Meaning'; not 'precise meaning.' You surely don't want me to see that
you're rather losing your temper and trying to cover it up by being
dignified. You've been so careful with your effects, too! . . . I said
'Ah,' because you'd given me the clue I was looking for. You were a very
clever journalist, I should think."
"Isn't that rash on half an hour's acquaintance?"
"You're forgetting your play--for the first time since it was produced!
I felt that, however bad it was as a play, it was first-rate journalism.
I've told you that I kept thinking how clever of you it was to write it.
You mustn't think I didn't enjoy myself. The construction's quite
tolerable, and the dialogue's admirable--not a word too much, not a
syllable put in for 'cleverness,' no epigrams for epigrams' sake. And
you've got a good sense of the theatre."
"I was a dramatic critic for some years. Hence my good press."
"Ah! Well, I felt that night that, if you weren't too old and set, you
might live to write a really good play." He bowed slightly. "Have you a
cigarette? I hate people smoking in the middle of meals; but Margaret's
begun, and I must have something to drown it. Now _that_, I suppose,
would be called an ironical bow, wouldn't it? I mean, in your stage
directions? You must guard against that kind of thing, you know."
"I will endeavour to do so, Lady Barbara."
"'Try,' not 'endeavour.' And you mustn't talk like your own characters;
you've no idea how debilitating that is. It's bad enough when you try to
drag us into the world of your plays, but it's intolerable if you try to
drag your plays into our world. Did you ever read a story about a boy
who lost all sense of reality by going to the theatre too much? He
became dramatic. He slapped his forehead and groaned---- Well, we
_don't_ slap our foreheads or groan, however great the provocation. And
in moments of stress he would shake hands with people and turn away to
hide his emotion. And it wasn't only in gestures, he became dramatic in
conduct. When compromising letters came into his hands, he used to burn
them unread and without any one looking on, which is manifestly absurd.
I forget what happened to him in the end, but I expect he was charged
with something he hadn't done to save the husband of the woman he wanted
to marry--and whom he'd have made perfectly miserable, if she hadn't
taken him in hand very firmly at the outset. And he'd have insisted on
having all their quarrels in her bedroom."
Barbara seemed to have talked away her listlessness. The champagne had
brought colour into her cheeks and eyes. Eric looked at her with new
interest, waiting for the next abrupt change.
"I'm not finding you as thoroughly dull as you warned me to expect," he
observed, borrowing her candour of speech.
"I should think not! I'm never dull when it's worth while taking any
trouble. I didn't think you _were_ worth while, till you began talking.
Then I saw that in spite of the play----"
"I didn't think I should be spared that," he murmured.
"And the poses----"
"Poses?"
"Oh, my dear child, you've postured and advertised yourself till every
one's sick of you! A good press--I should think you had! You're never
out of it! An announcement that you've left London--and the intolerable
effrontery of telling us all about it! The only way you could escape
from your mob of adorers."
"I don't think I used the word 'adorers'; and I've _got_ to find time
somehow to rehearse my new play."
His voice had grown a little stiff. Barbara smiled to herself and
discovered suddenly that the desire to hurt him was dead.
"When's the new play coming out?" she asked.
"In the middle of next month."
"You can't make it later?"
"Are you afraid you won't be able to attend the first night?" he
laughed.
"God forbid! But I shan't have time to complete your education in a
month. Now, I'm talking seriously. Put that play off! You're only a
child, you've made a mint of money out of this present abomination. If
you'll wait till I've educated you----"
Her pupils had dilated until the irises were swamped in black. The early
warm flush had shrunk and intensified into two vivid splashes of colour
over her cheek-bones. Neurotic, Eric decided; but arresting and
magnetic.
"And what do you propose to teach me?" he enquired.
As he spoke, he was conscious of a lull in the conversation. Without
looking round, he knew that every one was watching them and that both
their voices had risen a tone.
"Life!" she cried. "You've never _met_ men and women. I told George
Oakleigh so that night. That's why the public loves your play."
Eric turned to Lady Poynter.
"I have a new play coming out next month," he explained, "and Lady
Barbara wants me to hang it up till she's taught me--did you say
'life'?"
"Yes! Margaret, darling, any young man may write _one_ successful bad
play----"
There was a gasp of orotund protest from Lady Poynter.
"My _dear_ Babs!"
"Of course it's a bad play! What I don't know about bad plays isn't
worth knowing, I've seen so many of them! Have you _ever_ met a woman,
Mr. Lane? Have you ever even _fancied_ that you were in love?"
Eric took a cigarette and lighted one for Barbara.
"I thought I knew a lot about life when I was twenty-two," he said,
studiedly reflective. "I'd just come down from Oxford."
Her attention seemed to have wandered to her cigarette, for she drew
hard at it and then asked for another match.
"Which was your college?" she enquired with neurotic suddenness of
transition.
"Trinity."
"Did you know my brother? He must have been up about your time. He was
at the House."
"I knew him by sight. Tall, fair-haired man; he was on the Bullingdon. I
never met him, though. I didn't know many men at the House."
Barbara thought for a moment.
"I don't believe I know any one who was at Trinity in your time. Did you
ever meet a man called Waring?"
"Jack Waring of New College? I've known him all my life. They're
neighbours of ours in Hampshire. You know he's missing?"
Barbara nodded quickly.
"So I heard. . . . I suppose nothing definite's known?"
"I haven't met any of the family since the news was published, but I
shall see his sister this week-end."
"Well, if you can find out anything without too much bother----"
"Oh, she's a great friend of mine," Eric explained. "It's no trouble."
Barbara turned to him with a rapid backward cast to her earlier quest.
"Are you in love with her? Oh, but why not?" she demanded querulously.
"It would do you so much good--as a man and as a writer. You'll never
get rid of your self-satisfaction till then; and you'll never write a
good play. It's such a pity, when you've everything except the
psychology. Why don't you fall in love with me? I could teach you such a
lot, and you'd never regret it." Barbara caught her hostess' eye and
picked up her gloves. "You'd write a tolerable play in the middle of it,
a work of genius at the end----"
Eric's laugh interrupted her eager outpour.
"I'm quite satisfied to be an observer of life."
"Dear child, you're quite satisfied with _every_thing. You're sunk in
soulless contentment; you shirk emotion because it would force you to
see below the pink-and-white surface; that's why you write such bad
plays. Margaret!" She approached Lady Poynter with outstretched arms.
"I've argued myself hoarse trying to persuade Mr. Lane to fall in love
with me. Do see what you can do! He shews all the obstinacy of a young,
weak man; he won't _see_ how much I should improve him. When he'd learnt
life at my hands----"
Lady Poynter threw a crushing arm round the girl's waist.
"Come on, Babs. You're looking better than you did," she said. "I _told_
you you'd fall in love with him," she added, as they walked upstairs.
"There's nothing much the matter with Babs," commented Gaymer meaningly,
as he shut the door and settled into a chair beside Lord Poynter.
4
As Barbara's voice faded and died away, an air of guilty quiet settled
upon the dining-room. Eric tidied himself a place among her wreckage of
crumpled napkin, sloppy finger-bowl, nut-shells and cigarette-ash. For
ten minutes he could rest; conversation with either of his companions
threatened to be as difficult as it was unnecessary. John Gaymer, in
upbringing, intellect, habits of mind and method of speech, belonged to
a self-centred world which cheerfully defied subjugation by a brigade of
Byrons, reinforced by a division of Wesleys and an army of Rousseaus;
for him there was one school and no other, one college and no other, one
regiment, club, restaurant, music-hall, tailor, hairdresser and no
other. Eric was always meeting John Gaymers and never penetrating below
the sleek, well-bred and uninterested exterior; they were politely
repellent, as though an intrusion from outside would disturb their
serenity and the advantageous bargain which they had struck with life;
it might cause them to think, and thought was a synonym of death. The
Flying Corps, at first sight, was an unassimilating environment for a
John Gaymer, but this one had not gone in alone and he had certainly not
been assimilated. A closely knit and self-isolated group had formed
itself there, as it could be trusted to form itself in a house-party or
under the shadow of the guillotine, genially unapproachable and
uncaringly envied.
To shew his fairness and breadth of mind Eric tested the specimen under
his hand with politics, the war and a current libel action, only to be
rewarded at the third venture. Before surrendering to his desire for
silence and rest, he glanced under lowered lids at his host's
blue-tinged, loosely-hanging cheeks. Conscientiously silent when his
wife wished to discuss literature with her new discoveries, Lord Poynter
became dutifully loquacious when exposed defenceless to the task of
entertaining them and took refuge in gusty, nervous geniality or odd,
sly confidences on matters of no moment.
"Aren't you drinking any port wine?" he demanded of Eric after brooding
indecision.
"Thank you, yes. It's a '63, isn't it?" Eric asked, as he helped himself
and passed the decanter.
Lord Poynter's discoloured eyes shone with interest for the first time
that night.
"Ah, come now! A kindred spirit!" he wheezed welcomingly. "I'll be
honest with you; I was in two minds whether to give you that wine
to-night. Women don't appreciate it, they're not educated up to it. It
was that or the Jubilee Sandeman, and I'm _not_ an admirer of the
Jubilee wines. Very delicate, very _good_," he cooed, "but--well, you'll
understand me if I call them all _women's_ wines. Now, if you _like_
port, I've a few bottles of '72 Gould Campbell. . . . Johnny, your
grandfather would have had a fit, if he'd seen you trying to drink port
wine with a cigarette in your mouth. Not that it makes much difference,
when people have been smoking all the way through dinner; your palate's
tainted before you come to your wine. People pretend that it makes a
difference whether you approach the tobacco through the wine or the wine
through the tobacco. I don't see it, myself. . . ."
His tongue uncoiled, he soliloquized on wines of the past and present,
as the survivor of a dead generation might dwell dotingly on the great
men and beautiful women of a long life-time. Empire, devolving its cares
upon his shoulders, enabled him--as he explained with sly gusto--to
secure that there should be no inharmonious inruption of coffee and
liqueurs until the sacred wine had been in reverent circulation for
twenty minutes. Half-way through, warming to his new friend, he rang for
a bottle of wood port first known to history in 1823, when it was
already a middle-aged wine, and fortified from every subsequent vintage.
"I don't say you'll like it, but it's an experience," he told Eric with
an air of cunning, respectable conspiracy. "Like a _ve-ery_ dry sherry.
If I may advise you, I would say, 'Drink it as a liqueur'; don't waste
your time on my brandy, I'm afraid I've none fit to offer _you_. There
was a tragedy about my last bottle of the Waterloo. . . ."
He diverged into a long and untidy story about a dinner-party in honour
of a late Austrian Ambassador which coincided with the collapse of his
wife's maid with pneumonia. Eric, listening with half his brain,
wondered whether any one would believe him if he transplanted the room,
the conversation and Lord Poynter into a play; with the other half he
thought of Lady Barbara's advice that he should fall in love, if not
with her, at least with somebody. His sister's telephone message had
started the train of thought; he was looking forward to the week-end and
the opportunity of meeting Agnes Waring. The time would come--if there
were many hosts like Lord Poynter and if they all talked "Hibernia" port
and Tuileries brandy, it would come very soon--when he would grow tired
of being pushed from one house to another and made to talk for the
diversion of sham intellectuals. In this, at least, he had had enough of
his triumphal progress; there was rest and companionship in being
married, it was the greatest of all adventures. . . . He wondered how
Agnes would acquit herself at a party like this; he would not like
people to cease inviting him because they felt bound to invite a
tiresome wife as well. . . .
Gaymer, too, was growing impatient of his uncle's cellar Odyssey and
was calling aloud for a cigar, while he scoured the side-board for
Benedictine.
"They'll be wondering where we've got to," said Lord Poynter guiltily,
recalling his mind from a distance and lapsing into silence. And Eric
felt compunction in helping to cut short the man's one half-hour of
happiness in the day.
In the drawing-room they found the four women seated at a bridge-table,
disagreeing over the score. Lady Poynter archly reproached her husband
and Gaymer for "monopolizing poor Mr. Lane"; there was a shuffling of
feet, cutting, changing of chairs, and Mrs. Shelley crept to the door,
whispering that she had to start work early next day or she would not
dream of breaking up such a delightful party; she was promptly arrested
and brought back by Mrs. O'Rane with the offer of Lady Maitland's
brougham, which was to call for her at eleven. After an exhibition of
half-hearted self-effacement by all, a new four was made up, and Eric
found himself contentedly alone on a sofa with Lord Poynter mid-way
between him and the table, uncertain whether to watch the game or
venture on more conversation. He had whispered: "I can tell you a story
about that cigar you're smoking . . .," when, at the end of the second
hand, Barbara looked slowly round, pushed back her chair and walked to
the sofa.
"Thinking over your wasted opportunities?" she asked, as she sat down
beside Eric.
"There are none," he answered lazily. "I've been a great success
to-night. I can see that our host won't rest content till I've promised
to dine here three times a week to drink his port; I've been good value
to Lady Poynter; if I play bridge, I shall lose a lot of money to
Gaymer--not that I don't play quite a fair game, but I'm sure, without
even seeing him, that he plays a diabolically good game and I know I
shall cut against him. Mrs. Shelley? Every one's always a success with
her; talking to her is as demoralizing as cracking jokes from the Bench.
Mrs. O'Rane wants me to write her a duologue--just as one draws a rabbit
for a child . . . . That only leaves you. And you capitulated more
completely even than Poynter, without the '63 port as an introduction
and bond."
Barbara looked at him with a dawning smile.
"I _think_ you're the most insufferably conceited young man I've ever
met!" she exclaimed.
"I'm adjusting the balance. If you hadn't disparaged me the whole way
through dinner. . . . Now, when you got up here, you pumped Mrs. Shelley
with both hands for everything you could get her to tell you about me.
Didn't you?"
"Well?"
Eric smiled to himself.
"She's the only one here who knows me, but she didn't tell you much."
"I shan't say."
Three impatient voices from the bridge-table met and struggled in an
unmelodious chorus of "_Babs!_ Come--here!"
She returned a moment later, but had hardly sat down before Gaymer
spread out the substantial remains of his hand with a challenge of "Any
one anything to say about the rest? Babs, don't keep us waiting
_again_!"
As she stood up, Eric rose, too, and said good-bye.
"I have some work to finish before I go to bed," he told her.
"Won't you wait and see me home? Sonia O'Rane's got a brougham, and
we'll borrow it first."
Eric laughed and shrugged his shoulders.
"Certainly, if you wish it."
"You're not very gracious," she pouted.
"It was so transparent. You could go with Mrs. O'Rane. Or Gaymer would
be delighted to find you a taxi. Or you could go on foot."
She drew herself up to her full height.
"Instead of which I humiliated myself by asking a small thing which was
just big enough to give you the opportunity of being rude."
She turned away to the table, but stopped at the sound of laughter from
Eric. He had hesitated a moment before taking the risk, but laughter
seemed the only corrective for her theatrical dignity.
"I spend hours each day watching people rehearsing this sort of thing,"
he murmured.
"Why do you _imagine_ I ask you to see me home?" she demanded, with a
petulant stamp.
"Partly because you're enjoying me; partly because you know I want to
work and you think it will be such fun to upset my arrangements even by
ten minutes."
Barbara smiled at him over her shoulder.
"We're a game all," she pleaded, motioning him back to the sofa.
Eric smiled and lit a cigarette from the stump of his cigar.
Ten minutes later they were driving along Piccadilly towards Berkeley
Square, Eric rather tired, Barbara excited and restlessly voluble.
"Is Mr. Lane going to forget our second meeting as quickly and
completely as he forgot the first?" she asked.
"The first?" Eric echoed. "This is the first time I've set eyes on
you--except in the distance at theatres and places."
"It's the first time I've ever seen your face; but I recognized your
voice and, if you will come into the house for a moment, I can restore a
certain flask."
Eric turned on her in amazement.
"Was that _you_? Well . . . Good . . . Good Heavens!"
Barbara laughed softly.
"Try not to forget me so quickly again! I've still to apologize for
being such a beast when we met to-night. I was ill . . . and
miserable----"