In the early afternoon of Sunday I set out upon the visit I had
originally intended to pay on the previous day.
Three o'clock found me rather nervously ringing a bell at the door of
Filson House in Macquarie Street. Under the brightly polished bell-pull
was the name C. F. Rawlence, and the legend: 'Do not ring unless
an answer is required.' It was my first experience of such a notice,
and I felt uncertain how it was intended to apply. Neither for the
moment could I understand why in the world any sane person should ring
a bell unless desirous of eliciting a response of some kind. Finally,
I decided that it must be a plaintive and exceedingly trustful appeal
to the good nature of urchins who might be tempted to ring and run
away.
A smiling young Chinaman presently opened the door to me, and said:
'You come top-side alonga me, pease; Mr. Lollance he's in.'
So I walked upstairs behind the silent, felt-shod Asiatic, and
wondered what was coming next. I had hitherto associated Chinamen in
Australia exclusively with market-gardening and laundry work. The
house was not a very high one, but it really was its 'top-side' we
walked to, and, arrived there, I was shown into what I thought must
certainly be the largest and most magnificent apartment in Sydney.
I dare say the room was thirty feet long by twenty feet wide, without
counting the huge fireplace at one end, which formed a room in itself,
and did actually accommodate several easy chairs, though I cannot
think the weather was ever cold enough in Sydney to admit of people
sitting so close to a log fire as these chairs were placed. There were
suits of armour, skins of beasts, strange weapons, curious tapestries,
and other stock properties of artists' studios, all conventional
enough, and yet to me most startling. I had never before visited a
studio, and did not know that artists affected these things. The
magnificence of it all impressed me enormously. It almost oppressed me
with a sense of my own temerity in venturing to visit any one who
maintained such state.
'This is what it means to be a famous artist,' I told myself, well
assured now, in my innocence, that Mr. Rawlence must be very famous.
'Every one else probably knew it before,' I thought. And just then the
great man himself appeared, not at the door behind me, but between
heavy curtains which hid some other entrance. He came forward with a
welcoming smile. Then, for a moment this gave place to rather blank
inquiry. And then the smile returned and broadened.
'Why, it's-- No, it can't be. But it is--my young friend of St.
Peter's. I'm delighted. Welcome to Sydney. Sit down, sit down, and let
me have your news.'
He reclined in a sidelong way upon a sort of ottoman, and gracefully
waved me to an enormous chair facing him.
'There are always a few charitable souls who drop in upon me of a
Sunday afternoon, but I'd no idea you would be the first of them to-day.'
Here was a disturbing announcement for me!
'Perhaps it would be more convenient if I came one evening, Mr.
Rawlence,' I said awkwardly, half rising from the chair.
'Tut, tut, my dear lad! Sit down, sit down. Why should other visitors
disturb you? There will only be good fellows like yourself. Ladies are
rarities here on a Sunday. And in any case-- Why, you are quite the man
of the world now.' This with kindly admiration. Then he screwed up his
eyes, moved his head backward and from side to side, as though to
correct his view of a picture. 'Just one point out of the picture.
Dare I alter it? May I?' And, stepping forward, he thrust well down in
my breast coat pocket Mrs. Gabbitas's gorgeous silk handkerchief.
'Yes,' as he moved backward again, 'that's better. One never can see
these things for oneself. But let me make sure of your important news
before we are interrupted.'
So I told my story as well as I could, and Mr. Rawlence was in the act
of expressing his kindly interest therein, when I heard steps and
voices on the stairs below.
'If you're not otherwise engaged you must stay till these fellows go,
Nick,' said my host. 'We haven't half finished our talk, you know.
And--er--if you should be talking to any one here of--er--your present
situation, I should leave it quite vague, if I were you; secretarial
work you know--something of that sort. We may have some newspaper men
here who might be useful to you one day--you follow me?'
'Ah! Hail! Good of you to have come, Landon. Ah, Foster! Jones! Good
men! Do find seats. Oh, let me introduce a new arrival--Mr. Nicholas
Freydon; Mr. Landon, the disgracefully well-known painter, Mr. Foster
and Mr. Jones, both of the Fourth Estate, though frequently taken for
quite respectable members of society. We may not have a Fleet Street
here, you know, Freydon, but we have one or two rather decent
newspapers, as you may have noticed.'
He turned to the still smiling young Chinaman. 'Let's have cigars and
cigarettes, Ah Lun.'
I gathered that I had been presented as a new arrival from England. It
was rather startling; but so far I found that an occasional smile was
all that seemed expected of me, and I was of course anxious to do my
best. 'Good thing I've started smoking,' I thought, as Ah Lun began
passing round two massive silver boxes, with cigars and cigarettes.
The visitors were mostly young, rather noticeably young, I thought, in
view of the greying hair over Mr. Rawlence's temples; and I felt less
and less alarmed as I listened to their talk. In fact, shamelessly
disrespectful though the idea was, I found myself, after a while,
wondering whether Mr. Smith might not have called some of the
conversation 'cackle.' And then some technicalities, journalistic and
artistic, began to star the talk, and I meekly rebuked my own
presumption. But I have no doubt whatever that Mr. Smith would have
called most of it 'cackle,' and it is possible he would have been
tolerably near the truth.
Within an hour I had been introduced to perhaps a score of visitors,
and Ah Lun was just as busy as he could be, serving tea, whisky, wine,
soda-water, cigars, cigarettes, sandwiches, and so forth. It was all
tremendously exciting to me. The mere sound of so many voices, apart
from anything else, I found wonderfully stimulating, if a trifle
bewildering.
'This,' I told myself, in a highly impressive, though necessarily
inarticulate stage-whisper of thought, 'This is Society; this is
what's called the Social Vortex; and I am right in the bubbling centre
of it.' And then I thought how wonderful it would have been if Mr.
Jokram, of Dursley's School of Arts Committee, and one or two
others--say, Sister Agatha, for example--could have been permitted to
take a peep between the magnificent curtains, and have a glimpse of me,
engaged in brilliant conversation with a celebrity of some kind, whose
neck-tie would have made an ample sash for little Nelly Fane--of me,
the St. Peter's orphan, in Society!
Truly, I was an innocent and unlicked cub. But I believe I managed to
pull through the afternoon without notably disgracing my distinguished
host and patron; and, too, without referring even to 'secretarial
work.' I might have been heir to a dukedom, a distinguished remittance
man, or even a congenital idiot, for all the company was allowed to
gather from me as to my means of livelihood.