THE ROSSITERS
The Rossiters' house in Park Crescent was at the northern end of
Portland Place, and its high-walled garden--the stables that were
afterwards to become a garage--and Michael Rossiter's long,
glass-roofed studio-laboratory--abutted on one of those quiet,
deadly-respectable streets at the back that are called after Devon
or Dorset place names.
The house is now a good deal altered and differently numbered, a
portion of it having been destroyed in one of the 1917 air-raids,
when the Marylebone Road was strewn with its broken glass for twenty
yards. But in the winter of 1901-2 and onwards till 1914 it was a
noted centre of social intercourse between Society and Science. The
Rossiters were well enough off--he made quite two thousand a year
out of his professorial work and his books, and her income which was
£5,000 when she first married had risen to £9,000 after they had
been married ten years; through the increase in value of Leeds town
property. Mrs. Rossiter had had two children, but were both dead,
her facile tears were dried, she satisfied her maternal instinct by
the keeping of three pug dogs which her husband secretly detested.
She also had a scarlet-and-blue macaw and two cockatoos and a
Persian cat; but these last her husband liked or tolerated for their
colour or their biological interest; only, as in the case of the
dogs, he objected (though seldom angrily, out of consideration for
his wife's feelings) to their being so messily and inopportunely
fed.
Linda Rossiter was liable to lose her pets as she had lost her two
children by alternating days of forgetfulness with weeks of lavish
over-attention. But as she readily gave way to tears on the least
remonstrance, Michael in the course of eleven years of married life
remonstrated as little as possible. A clever, tactful parlour-maid
and two good housemaids, a manservant who was devoted to the
"professor" and a taxidermist who assisted him in his experiments
did the rest in keeping the big house tolerably tidy and
presentable. Rossiter himself was too intent on the stars, the gases
of decomposition, the hidden processes of life, miscegenation in
star-fish, microbic diseases in man, beasts, birds and bees, the
glands of the throat, the suprarenal capsules and the chemical
origin of life to care much for æsthetics, for furniture and house
decoration. He was the third son of an impoverished Northumbrian
squire who on his part cared only for the more barbarous
field-sports, and when he could take his mind off them believed that
at some time and place unspecified Almighty God had dictated the
English bible word for word, had established the English Church and
had scrupulously prescribed the functions and limitations of woman.
His wife--Michael Rossiter's tenderly-loved mother--had died from a
neglected prolapsus of the womb, and the old rambling house in
Northumberland situated in superb scenery, had in its furniture
grown more and more hideous to the eye as early and mid-Victorian
fashions and ideals receded and modern taste shook itself free from
what was tawdry, fluffy, stuffy, floppy, messy, cheaply imitative,
fringed and tasselled and secretive.
Michael himself from sheer detestation of the surroundings under
which he had grown to manhood favoured the uncovered, the naked wood
or stone or slate, the bare floor, the wooden settee or
cane-bottomed chair, the massive side-board, the bare mantelpiece
and distempered wall. On the whole, their house in Portland Place
satisfied tolerably well the advanced taste in domestic scenery of
1901. But your eye was caught at once by the additions made by Mrs.
Rossiter. Linda conceived it was her womanly mission to lighten the
severity of Michael's choice in furniture and decorations. She
introduced rickety and expensive screens that were easily knocked
over; photographs in frames which toppled at a breath; covers on
every flat surface that could be covered--occasional tables, tops of
grand pianos. If she did not put frills round piano legs, she placed
tasselled poufs about the drawing-room that every short-sighted
visitor fell over, and used large bows of slightly discoloured
ribbon to mask unneeded brackets. In the reception rooms
food-bestrewn parrot stands were left where they ought never to be
seen; and there were gilt-wired parrot cages; baskets for the pugs
lined with soiled shawls; absurd ornaments, china cats with
exaggerated necks, alabaster figures of stereotyped female beauty
and flowerpot stands of ornate bamboo. She loved portières, and she
would fain have mitigated the bareness of the panelled or
distempered walls; only that here her husband was firm. She
unconsciously mocked the few well-chosen, well-placed pictures on
the walls (which she itched to cover with a "flock" paper) by
placing in the same room on bamboo easels that matched the
be-ribboned flower-stands pastel, crayon, or _gouache_ studies of
the worst possible taste.
Michael's library alone was free from her improvements, though it
was sometimes littered with her work-bags or her work. She had long
ago developed the dreadful mistake that it "helped" Michael at his
work if she brought hers (perfectly futile as a rule) there too. "I
just sit silently in his room, my dear, and stitch or knit something
for poor people in Marrybone--I'm told you mayn't say Mary-le-bone.
I feel it _helps_ Michael to know I'm there, but of course I don't
interrupt him at his _work_."
As a matter of fact she did, confoundedly. But fortunately she soon
grew sleepy or restless. She would yawn, as she believed "prettily,"
but certainly noisily; or she would wonder "how time was going," and
of course her twenty-guinea watch never went, or if it was going was
seldom within one hour of the actual time. Or she would sneeze six
times in succession--little cat-like sneezes that were infinitely
disturbing to a brain on the point of grasping the solution of a
problem. Throughout the winter months she had a little cough. Oh no,
you needn't think I'm preparing the way for decease through
phthisis--it was one of those "kiffy" coughs due in the main to
acidity--too many sweet things in her diet, too little exercise. She
_thought_ she coughed with the greatest discretion but to the jarred
nerves of her husband a few hearty bellows or an asthmatic wheeze
would have been preferable to the fidgety, marmoset-like sounds that
came from under a lace handkerchief. Sometimes he would raise his
eyes to speak sharply; but at the sight of the mild gaze that met
his, the perfect belief that she was a soothing presence in this
room of hard thinking and close writing--this superb room with its
unrivalled library that he owed to the use of her wealth, his angry
look would soften and he would return smile for smile.
Linda though a trifle fretful on occasion, especially with servants,
a little petulant and huffy with a sense of her own dignity and
importance as a rich woman, was completely happy in her marriage.
She had never regretted it for one hour, never swerved from the
conviction that she and Michael were a perfect match--he, tall,
stalwart, black-haired and strong; she "petite"--she loved the
French adjective ever since it had been applied to her at
Scarborough by a sycophantic governess--petite--she would repeat,
blonde, plump, or better still "potelée" (the governess had later
suggested, when she came to tea and hoped to be asked to stay)
_potelée_, blue-eyed and pink-cheeked. Dresden china and all the
stale similes applied to a type of little woman of whom the modern
world has grown intolerant.
It was therefore into this _milieu_ that David found himself
introduced one Thursday at the end of November, 1901. He had walked
the short distance from Great Portland Street station. It was a fine
day with a red sunset, and a lemon-coloured, thin moon-crescent
above the sunset. The trees and bushes of Park Crescent were a
background of dull blue haze. The surface of the broad roads was dry
and polished, so his neat, patent-leather boots would still be fit
for drawing-room carpets.
A footman in a very plain livery--here Michael was firm--opened the
massive door. David passed between some statuary of too frank a
style for Linda's modest taste and was taken over by a butler of
severe aspect who announced him into the great drawing-room as Mr.
David Williams.
He recognized Rossiter at once, standing up with a tea-cup and
saucer, and presumed that a fluffy, much be-furbelowed little lady
at the main tea-table was Mrs. Rossiter, since she wore no hat.
There was besides a rather alarming concourse of men and women of
the world as he kept his eyes firmly fixed on Mrs. Rossiter for his
immediate goal.
Rossiter met him half-way, shook hands cordially and introduced him
to his wife who bowed with one of her "sweet" looks. For the moment
David did not interest her. She was much more interested in trying
to give an impression of profundity to Lady Feenix who was
commenting on the professor's discoveries of the strange properties
of the thyroid gland. A few introductions were effected--Lady
Towcester, Lady Flower, Miss Knipper-Totes, Lady Dombey, Mr.
Lacrevy, Professor Ray Lankester, Mr. and Mrs. Gosse--and naturally
for the most part David only half caught their names while they,
without masking their indifference, closed their ears to his ("Some
student or other from his classes, I suppose--rather nicely dressed,
rather too good-looking for a young man"); and Rossiter, who had
been interrupted first by Mrs. Rossiter asking him to observe that
Lady Dombey had nothing on her plate, and secondly by David's
entrance, resumed his discourse. Goodness knew that he didn't _want_
to discourse on these occasions, but Society expected it of him.
There were quite twenty--twenty-two--people present and most of
them--all the women--wanted to go away and say four hours
afterwards:
"We were (I was) at the Rossiters this afternoon, and the Professor
was fascinating" ("great," "profoundly interesting," "shocking, my
dear," "scandalous," "disturbing," "illuminating," "more-than-usually-
enthralling-only-she-_would_-keep-interrupting-why-_is_-she-such-a-fool?")
according to the idiosyncrasy of the diner-out. "He talked to us
about the thyroid gland--I don't believe poor Bob's got one, between
ourselves--and how if you enlarged it or reduced it you'd adjust
people's characters to suit the needs of Society; and all about
chimpanzi's blood--I believe he _vivisects_ half through the night
in that studio behind the house--being the same as ours; and then
Ray Lankester and Chalmers Mitchell argued about the cæca--cæcums,
you know--something to do with appendicitis--of the mammalia, and
altogether we had a high old time--I _always_ learn something on
their Thursdays."
Well: Rossiter resumed his description of an experiment he was
making--quite an everyday one, of course, for there were at least
three men present to whom he wasn't going to give away clues
prematurely. An experiment on the motor biallaxis of dormice.
[Mrs. Rossiter had six months previously bought a dormouse in a cage
at a bazaar, and after idolizing it for a week had forgotten all
about it. Her husband had rescued it half starved; his assistant had
fed it up in the laboratory, and they had tried a few experiments on
it with painless drugs with astonishing results.]
The recital really was interesting and entirely outside the
priggishness of Science, but it was marred in consecutiveness and
simplicity by Mrs. Rossiter's interruptions. "Michael dear, Lady
Dombey's cup!" Or: "Mike, could you cut that cake and hand it
round?" Or, if she didn't interrupt her husband she started stories
and side-issues of her own in a voice that was quite distinctly
heard, about a new stitch in crochet she had seen in the _Queen_, or
her inspection of the East Marrybone soup kitchen.
However when all had taken as much tea and cakes and _marrons
glacés_ as they cared for--David was so shy that he had only one cup
of tea and one piece of tea-cake--the large group broke up into five
smaller ones. The few gradually converged, and dropping all nonsense
discussed biology like good 'uns, David listening eager-eyed and
enthralled at the marvels just beginning to peep out of the
dissecting and vivisecting rooms and chemical laboratories in the
opening years of the Twentieth century. Then one by one they all
departed; but as David was going too Rossiter detained him by a
kindly pressure on the arm--a contact which sent a half-pleasant,
half-disagreeable thrill through his nerves.
"Don't hurry away unless you really _are_ pressed for time. I want
to show you some of my specimens and the place where I work."
David followed him--after taking his leave of Mrs. Rossiter who
accepted his polite sentences--a little stammered--with a slightly
pompous acquiescence--followed him to the library and then through a
curtained door down some steps into a great studio-laboratory,
provided (behind screens) with washing places, and full of
mysteries, with cupboards and shelves and further rooms beyond and a
smell of chloride of lime combined with alcoholic preservatives and
undefined chemicals. After a tour round this domain in which David
was only slightly interested--for lack of the right education
and imagination--so far he--or--she had only the mind of a
mathematician--Rossiter led him back into the library, drew out
chairs, indicated cigarettes--even whiskey and soda if he wanted
it--David declined--and then began to say what was at the back of
his mind:--
"We met first in the train, the South Wales Express, you remember? I
fancy you told me then that you had been in South Africa, in this
bungled war, and had been either wounded or ill in some way. In fact
you went so far as to say you had had 'necrosis of the jaw,' a thing
I politely doubted because whatever it was it has left no
perceptible scar. Of course it's damned impertinent of me to
cross-examine you at all, or to ask _why_ you went to and why you
left South Africa. But I don't mind confessing you inspire me with a
good deal of interest.
"Now the other day--as you know--I made the acquaintance of your
father in Wales--at Pontystrad. I told him I had shown a young
fellow some of those Gower caves and how his name was--like your
father's, 'Williams.' Of course we soon came to an understanding.
Then your father spoke of you in _high_ praise. What a delightful
nature was yours, how considerate and kind you were--don't blush,
though I admit it becomes you--Well you can pretty well guess how he
went on. But what interested me particularly was his next
admission: how different you were as a lad--rather more than the
ordinary wild oats--eh? And how completely an absence in South
Africa had changed you. You must forgive my cheek in dissecting your
character like this. My excuse is that you yourself had rather
vaguely referred to some wound or blood poisoning or operation, on
the jaw or the throat. Not to beat about the bush any more, the idea
came into my mind that _if_ in some way the knife or the enemy's
bullet had interfered with your thyroid gland--Twig what I mean? I
mean, that if your old man has not been exaggerating and that the
difference between the naughty boy whom he sent up to London
in--what was it? 1896?--and the perfectly behaved, good sort of chap
that you are _now_ is no more than what usually happens when young
men lose their cubbishness, _why_--_why_--do you take me?--I ask
myself whether the change had come about through some interference
with the thyroid gland. Do you understand? And I thought, seeing how
intensely interesting this research has become, you might have told
me more about it. Just what _did_ happen to you; where you were
wounded, who attended to you, what operation was performed on the
throat--only the rum thing is there seems to be no scar--well: now
_you_ help me out, that is unless you feel more inclined to say,
'What the _hell_ does it matter to _you_?'"...
David by this time has grown scarlet with embarrassment and
confusion. But he endeavoured to meet the situation.
"My character _has_ changed during the last five years, and
especially so since I came back from South Africa. But I am quite
sure it was not due to any operation, on the throat or anywhere
else. I really don't know _why_ I told you that silly falsehood in
the train--about necrosis of the jaw. The fact is that when I was in
hospital--at--Colesberg, a friend of mine in the same ward used--to
chaff me--and say I was going to have necrosis. I had got knocked
over one day--by--the--wind of a shell and thought I was done for,
but it really was next to nothing. P'raps I had a dose of fever on
top. At any rate they kept me in hospital, and one morning the
doctors disappeared and the Boers marched in and when I got well
enough I managed to escape and get away to--er--Cape Town and so
returned--with some money--my friend Frank Gardner lent me." (At
this stage the sick-at-heart Vivie was saying to herself, "_What_ an
account I'm laying up for Frank to honour when he comes back--if he
_does_ come back.") "I don't know _why_ I tell you all this, except
that I ought never to have misled you at the start. But _if_ you are
a kind and good man"--David's voice broke here--"You will forget all
about it and not upset my father, I can _assure_ you I haven't done
_anything_ really wrong. I haven't deserted--some day--perhaps--I
can tell you all about it. But at present all that South African
episode is just a horrid dream--I was more sinned against than
sinning" (tears were rather in the voice at this stage). "I want to
forget all about it--and settle down and vex my father no more. I
want to read for the Bar--a soldier's life is the very _opposite_ to
what I should choose if I were a free agent. But you will trust me,
won't you? You will believe me when I say I've done _nothing_ wrong,
nothing that you, if you knew all the facts, would call wrong...?"
Speech here trailed off into emotion. Despite the severest
self-restraint the bosom rose and fell. A few tears trickled down
the smooth cheeks--it was an ingratiating boy on the verge of
manhood that Rossiter saw before him. He hastened to say:
"My _dear_ chap! Don't say another word, unless you like to
blackguard me for my impertinence in putting these questions. I
_quite_ understand. We'll consider the whole thing erased from our
memories. Go on studying for the Bar with all your might, if you
must take up so barren a profession and won't become my pupil in
biology--Great openings, I can tell you, coming now in that
direction." (A pause.)
"But if it's of any interest to you, just come here as often as you
like in your spare time--either to tea with Mrs. Rossiter or to see
me at work on my experiments. I've taken a great liking to you, if
you'll allow me to say so. I think there's good stuff in you. A
young man reading for the Bar in London is none the worse for a few
friends. He must often feel pretty lonely on a Sunday, for example.
And he may also--now I'm going to be impertinent and paternal
again--he may also pick up undesirable acquaintances, male--and
female. Don't you get feeling lonely, with your home far away in
Wales. Consider yourself free of this place at any rate, and my wife
and I can introduce you to some other people you might like to know.
I might introduce you to Mark Stansfield the Q.C. Do you know any
one in London, by the bye?"
"Oh yes," said David, smiling with all but one tear dried on a still
coloured cheek. "I know Honoria Fraser--I know Mr. Praed the
architect--"
"The A.R.A.? Of course; you or your father said you had
been his pupil. H'm. Praed. Yes, I visualize him. Rather a
dilettante--whimsical--I didn't like what I heard of him at one
time. However it's no affair of mine. And Honoria Fraser! She's
simply one of the best women I know. It's curious she wasn't
here--At least I didn't see her--this afternoon. She's a friend of
my wife's. I knew her when she was at Newnham. She had a great
friend--what was it? Violet? No, Vera? Vivien--yes that was it,
_Vivien_ Warren. Of course! Why that business she started for women
in the City somewhere is called _Fraser and Warren_. She was always
wanting to bring this Vivien Warren here. Said she had such a pretty
colouring. I own I rather like to see a pretty woman. But she didn't
come" (pulls at his pipe and thrusts another cigarette on David).
"Went abroad. Seemed rather morose. Some one who came with Honoria
said she had a bad mother, and Honoria very rightly shut him up. By
the bye, _where_ and _how_ did you come to meet Honoria first?"
(David was on the point of saying--he was so unstrung--"Why we were
at Newnham together." Then resolved to tell another whopper--Indeed
I am told there is a fascination in certain circumstances about
lying--and replied): "Vivien Warren was my cousin. She was a
Vavasour on her mother's side--from South Wales--and my mother was a
Vavasour too--" And as the disguised Vivie said this, some inkling
came into her mind that there _was_ a real relationship between
Catharine Warren _née_ Vavasour and the Mary Vavasour who was
David's mother. A spasm of joy flashed through her at the
possibility of her story being in some slight degree true.
"I see," said Rossiter, satisfied, and feeling now that the
interview had lasted long enough and that there would be just time
to glance at his assistant's afternoon work before he dressed for
dinner....
"Well, old chap. Good-bye for the present. Come often and see us and
look upon me--I must be fifteen years older than you are--What,
_twenty-four_? Impossible! You don't look a day older than
twenty--in fact, if you hadn't told me you'd been in South
Africa--However as I was saying, look on me as _in loco parentis_
while you _are_ in London. I'll show you the way out into the hall.
Shall they call you a cab? No? You're quite right. It's a splendid
night for January. Where do you live? Here, write it down in my
address book.... '7 Fig Tree Court, Temple'--What a jolly address!
Are there fig trees in the Temple ... still? P'raps descended from
cuttings or layers the poor Templars brought from the Holy Land."
David returned to Fig Tree Court and his studies of criminology. But
his body and mind thrilled with the experiences of the afternoon;
and the musty records in works of repellent binding and close,
unsympathetic print of nineteenth century forgery, poisoning,
assaults-on-the-person, and cruelty-to-children cases for once
failed to hold his close attention. He sat all through the evening
after a supper of bread and cheese and ginger beer in his snug,
small room, furnished principally with well-filled book-shelves. The
room had a glowing fire and a green-shaded reading lamp. He sat
staring beyond his law books at visions, waking dreams that came and
went. The dangers of exposure that opened before him were in these
dreams, but there were other mind-pictures that filled his life with
a glow of colour. How different from the drab horizons that
encircled poor Vivie Warren less than a year ago! Poor Vivie, whom
even FitzJohn's Avenue at Hampstead had rejected, who had long since
been dropped--no doubt on account of rumours concerning her
mother--by the few acquaintances she had made at Cambridge, who had
parents living in South Kensington, Bayswater, and Bloomsbury. Here
was Portland Place receiving her in her guise as David Williams with
open arms. Men and women looked at her kindly, interestedly, and she
could look back at them without that protective frown. At night she
could walk about the town, go to the theatre, stroll along the
Embankment and attract no man's offensive attentions. She could
enter where she liked for a meal, a cup of tea, frequent the museum
of the Royal College of Surgeons when she would without waiting for
a "ladies" day; stop to look at a street fight, cause no sour looks
if she entered a smoking compartment on the train, mingle with the
man-world unquestioned, unhindered, unnoticed, exciting at most a
pleasant off-hand camaraderie due to her youth and good looks.
Should she go on with the bold adventure? A thousand times yes!
David should break no law in Vivie's code of honour, do real wrong
to no one; but Vivie should see the life best worth living in London
from a man's standpoint.
David however must be armed at every point and have his course
clearly marked out before his contemplation. He must steep himself
in the geography of South Africa--Why not get Rossiter to propose
him as a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society? That _would_ be a
lark because they wouldn't admit women as members: they had refused
Honoria Fraser. David must read up--somewhere--the history of the
South African War as far as it went. He had better find out
something about the Bechuanaland Police Force; how as a member of
such a force he could have drifted as far south as the vicinity of
Colesberg; how thereabouts he could have got sick enough--he
certainly would say nothing more about a wound--to have been put
into hospital. He must find out how he could have escaped from the
Boers and come back to England without getting into difficulties
with the military or the Colonial Office or whoever had any kind of
control over the members of the Bechuanaland Border Police....
But the whole South African episode had better be dropped. Rossiter,
after his appeal, would set himself to forget and ignore it. It must
be damped down in the poor old father's mind as of relative
unimportance--after all, his father was a recluse who did not have
many visitors ... by the bye, he must remember to write on the
morrow and explain why he could not come down for Christmas or the
New Year ... would promise a good long visit in the Easter holidays
instead--Must remember that resolution to learn up some Welsh. What
a nuisance it was that you couldn't buy anywhere in London or in
South Wales any book about modern conversation in Welsh. The sort of
Welsh you learnt in the old-fashioned books, which were all that
could be got, was Biblical language--Some one had told David that if
you went into Smithfield Market in the early morning you might meet
the Welsh farmers and stock-drivers who had come up from Wales
during the night and who held forth in the Cymric tongue over their
beasts. But probably their language was such as would shock
Nannie.... Supposing Frank Gardner did come to England? In that case
it might be safer to confide in Frank. He was harum-scarum, but he
was chivalrous and he pitied Vivie. Besides he was a prime
appreciator of a lark. Should she even tell Rossiter? No, of
_course_ not. That was just one of the advantages of being "David."
As "David" she could form a sincere and inspiring friendship with
Rossiter which would be utterly beyond her reach as "Vivie." How
pale beside the comradeship of Honoria now appeared the hand-grips,
the hearty male free-masonry of a man like Rossiter. How ungrateful
however even to make such an admission to herself....
At present the only people who knew of her prank and guessed or knew
her purpose were Honoria and Bertie Adams. Honoria! what a noble
woman, what a true friend. Somehow, now she was David, she saw
Honoria in a different light. Poor Norie! She too had her wistful
leanings, her sorrows and disappointments. What a good thing it
would be if her mother decided to die--of course she would, could,
never say any such thing to Norie--to die and set free Honoria to
marry Major Petworth Armstrong! She felt Norie still hankered after
him, but perhaps kept him at bay partly because of her mother's
molluscous clingings--No! she wouldn't even sneer at Lady Fraser.
Lady Fraser had been one of the early champions of Woman's rights.
Very likely it was a dread of Vivie's sneers and disappointment that
had mainly kept back Norie from accepting Major Armstrong's
advances. Well, when next they met she--Vivie--or better still
David--would set that right.