PAUL, ESCAPING FROM HIS SOLITUDE, FALLS INTO STRANGE COMPANY. AND
BECOMES CAPTIVE TO ONE OF HAUGHTY MIEN.
All things pass, even the self-inflicted sufferings of shy young men,
condemned by temperament to solitude. Came the winter evenings, I took
to work: in it one may drown much sorrow for oneself. With its handful
of fire, its two candles lighted, my “apartment” was more inviting.
I bought myself paper, pens and ink. Great or small, what more can a
writer do? He is but the would-be medium: will the spirit voices employ
him or reject him?
London, with its million characters, grave and gay; its ten thousand
romances, its mysteries, its pathos, and its humour, lay to my hand. It
stretched before me, asking only intelligent observation, more or less
truthful report. But that I could make a story out of the things I
really knew never occurred to me. My tales were of cottage maidens, of
bucolic yeomen. My scenes were laid in windmills, among mountains, or in
moated granges. I fancy this phase of folly is common to most youthful
fictionists.
A trail of gentle melancholy lay over them. Sentiment was more popular
then than it is now, and, as do all beginners, I scrupulously followed
fashion. Generally speaking, to be a heroine of mine was fatal. However
naturally her hair might curl--and curly hair, I believe, is the
hall-mark of vitality; whatever other indications of vigorous health she
might exhibit in the first chapter, such as “dancing eyes,” “colour
that came and went,” “ringing laughter,” “fawn-like agility,” she was
tolerably certain, poor girl, to end in an untimely grave. Snowdrops and
early primroses (my botany I worked up from a useful little volume, “Our
Garden Favourites, Illustrated”) grew there as in a forcing house; and
if in the neighbourhood of the coast, the sea-breezes would choose
that particular churchyard, somewhat irreverently, for their favourite
playground. Years later a white-haired man would come there leading
little children by the hand, and to them he would tell the tale anew,
which must have been a dismal entertainment for them.
Now and then, by way of change, it would be the gentleman who would
fall a victim of the deadly atmosphere of my literature. It was of
no particular consequence, so he himself would conclude in his last
soliloquy; “it was better so.” Snowdrops and primroses, for whatever
consolation they might have been to him, it was hopeless for him to
expect; his grave, marked by a rude cross, being as a rule situate in an
exceptionally unfrequented portion of the African veldt or amid burning
sands. For description of final scenery on these occasions a visit to
the British Museum reading-room would be necessary.
Dismal little fledgelings! And again and again would I drive them from
the nest; again and again they fluttered back to me, soiled, crumpled,
physically damaged. Yet one person had admired them, cried over
them--myself.
All methods I tried. Sometimes I would send them forth accompanied by
a curt business note of the take-it-or-leave-it order. At other times I
would attach to it pathetic appeals for its consideration. Sometimes
I would give value to it, stating that the price was five guineas and
requesting that the cheque should be crossed; at other times seek to
tickle editorial cupidity by offering this, my first contribution to
their pages, for nothing--my sample packet, so to speak, sent gratis,
one trial surely sufficient. Now I would write sarcastically, enclosing
together with the stamped envelope for return a brutally penned note of
rejection. Or I would write frankly, explaining elaborately that I was a
beginner, and asking to be told my faults--if any.
Not one found a resting place for its feet. A month, a week, a couple of
days, they would remain away from me, then return. I never lost a single
one. I wished I had. It would have varied the monotony.
I hated the poor little slavey who, bursting joyously into the room,
would hold them out to me from between her apron-hidden thumb and
finger; her chronic sniff I translated into contempt. If flying down the
stairs at the sound of the postman's knock I secured it from his hands,
it seemed to me he smiled. Tearing them from their envelopes, I would
curse them, abuse them, fling them into the fire sometimes; but before
they were more than scorched I would snatch them out, smooth them,
reread them. The editor himself could never have seen them; it was
impossible; some jealous underling had done this thing. I had sent them
to the wrong paper. They had arrived at the inopportune moment. Their
triumph would come. Rewriting the first and last sheets, I would send
them forth again with fresh hope.
Meanwhile, understanding that the would-be happy warrior must shine in
camp as well as field, I sought to fit myself also for the social side
of life. Smoking and drinking were the twin sins I found most difficulty
in acquiring. I am not claiming a mental excellence so much as
confessing a bodily infirmity. The spirit had always been willing, but
my flesh was weak. Fired by emulation, I had at school occasionally
essayed a cigarette. The result had been distinctly unsatisfactory, and
after some two or three attempts, I had abandoned, for the time being,
all further endeavour; excusing my faint-heartedness by telling myself
with sanctimonious air that smoking was bad for growing boys; attempting
to delude myself by assuming, in presence of contemporaries of stronger
stomach, fine pose of disapproval; yet in my heart knowing myself a
young hypocrite, disguising physical cowardice in the robes of moral
courage: a self-deception to which human nature is prone.
So likewise now and again I had tasted the wine that was red, and that
stood year in, year out, decanted on our sideboard. The true
inwardness of St. Paul's prescription had been revealed to me; the
attitude--sometimes sneered at--of those who drink it under doctor's
orders, regarding it purely as a medicine, appeared to me reasonable.
I had noticed also that others, some of them grown men even, making wry
faces, when drinking my mother's claret, and had concluded therefrom
that taste for strong liquor was an accomplishment less easily acquired
than is generally supposed. The lack of it in a young man could be no
disgrace, and accordingly effort in that direction also had I weakly
postponed.
But now, a gentleman at large, my education could no longer be delayed.
To the artist in particular was training--and severe training--an
absolute necessity. Recently fashion has changed somewhat, but a quarter
of a century ago a genius who did not smoke and drink--and that more
than was good for him--would have been dismissed without further
evidence as an impostor. About the genius I was hopeful, but at no time
positively certain. As regarded the smoking and drinking, so much at
least I could make sure of. I set to work methodically, conscientiously.
Smoking, experience taught me, was better practised on Saturday nights,
Sunday affording me the opportunity of walking off the effects. Patience
and determination were eventually crowned with success: I learned to
smoke a cigarette to all appearance as though I were enjoying it. Young
men of less character might here have rested content, but attainment
of the highest has always been with me a motive force. The cigarette
conquered, I next proceeded to attack the cigar. My first one I remember
well: most men do. It was at a smoking concert held in the Islington
Drill Hall, to which Minikin had invited me. Not feeling sure whether my
growing dizziness were due solely to the cigar, or in part to the hot,
over-crowded room, I made my excuses and slipped out. I found myself in
a small courtyard, divided from a neighbouring garden by a low wall. The
cause of my trouble was clearly the cigar. My inclination was to take it
from my mouth and see how far I could throw it. Conscience, on the other
hand, urged me to persevere. It occurred to me that if climbing on to
the wall I could walk along it from end to end, there would be no excuse
for my not heeding the counsels of perfection. If, on the contrary, try
as I might, the wall proved not wide enough for my footsteps, then I
should be entitled to lose the beastly thing, and, as best I could,
make my way home to bed. I attained the wall with some difficulty and
commenced my self-inflicted ordeal. Two yards further I found
myself lying across the wall, my legs hanging down one side, my head
overhanging the other. The position proving suitable to my requirements,
I maintained it. Inclination, again seizing its opportunity, urged me
then and there to take a solemn vow never to smoke again. I am proud
to write that through that hour of temptation I remained firm;
strengthening myself by whispering to myself: “Never despair. What
others can do, so can you. Is not all victory won through suffering?”
A liking for drink I had found, if possible, even yet more difficult of
achievement. Spirits I almost despaired of. Once, confusing bottles, I
drank some hair oil in mistake for whiskey, and found it decidedly less
nauseous. But twice a week I would force myself to swallow a glass of
beer, standing over myself insisting on my draining it to the bitter
dregs. As reward afterwards, to take the taste out of my mouth, I
would treat myself to chocolates; at the same time comforting myself
by assuring myself that it was for my good, that there would come a day
when I should really like it, and be grateful to myself for having been
severe with myself.
In other and more sensible directions I sought also to progress.
Gradually I was overcoming my shyness. It was a slow process. I found
the best plan was not to mind being shy, to accept it as part of my
temperament, and with others laugh at it. The coldness of an indifferent
world is of service in hardening a too sensitive skin. The gradual
rubbings of existence were rounding off my many corners. I became
possible to my fellow creatures, and they to me. I began to take
pleasure in their company.
By directing me to this particular house in Nelson Square, Fate had
done to me a kindness. I flatter myself we were an interesting menagerie
gathered together under its leaky roof. Mrs. Peedles, our landlady, who
slept in the basement with the slavey, had been an actress in Charles
Keane's company at the old Princess's. There, it is true, she had played
only insignificant parts. London, as she would explain to us was even
then but a poor judge of art, with prejudices. Besides an actor-manager,
hampered by a wife--we understood. But previously in the Provinces there
had been a career of glory: Juliet, Amy Robsart, Mrs. Haller in “The
Stranger”--almost the entire roll of the “Legitimates”. Showed we any
signs of disbelief, proof was forthcoming: handbills a yard long, rich
in notes of exclamation: “On Tuesday Evening! By Special Desire!!!
Blessington's Theatre! In the Meadow, adjoining the Falcon Arms!”--“On
Saturday! Under the Patronage of Col. Sir William and the Officers of
the 74th!!!! In the Corn Exchange!” Maybe it would convince us further
were she to run through a passage here and there, say Lady Macbeth's
sleep-walking scene, or from Ophelia's entrance in the fourth act? It
would be no trouble; her memory was excellent. We would hasten to assure
her of our perfect faith.
Listening to her, it was difficult, as she herself would frankly admit,
to imagine her the once “arch Miss Lucretia Barry;” looking at her, to
remember there had been an evening when she had been “the cynosure of
every eye.” One found it necessary to fortify oneself with perusal of
underlined extracts from ancient journals, much thumbed and creased,
thoughtfully lent to one for the purpose. Since those days Fate had
woven round her a mantle of depression. She was now a faded, watery-eyed
little woman, prone on the slightest provocation to sit down suddenly on
the nearest chair and at once commence a history of her troubles. Quite
unconscious of this failing, it was an idea of hers that she was an
exceptionally cheerful person.
“But there, fretting's no good. We must grin and bear things in this
world,” she would conclude, wiping her eyes upon her apron. “It's better
to laugh than to cry, I always say.” And to prove that this was no mere
idle sentiment, she would laugh then and there upon the spot.
Much stair-climbing had bestowed upon her a shortness of breath, which
no amount of panting in her resting moments was able to make good.
“You don't know 'ow to breathe,” explained our second floor front to
her on one occasion, a kindly young man; “you don't swallow it, you
only gargle with it. Take a good draught and shut your mouth; don't
be frightened of it; don't let it out again till it's done something:
that's what it's 'ere for.”
He stood over her with his handkerchief pressed against her mouth to
assist her; but it was of no use.
“There don't seem any room for it inside me,” she explained.
Bells had become to her the business of life; she lived listening
for them. Converse to her was a filling in of time while waiting for
interruptions.
A bottle of whiskey fell into my hands that Christmas time, a present
from a commercial traveller in the way of business. Not liking whiskey
myself, it was no sacrifice for me to reserve it for the occasional
comfort of Mrs. Peedles, when, breathless, with her hands to her side,
she would sink upon the chair nearest to my door. Her poor, washed-out
face would lighten at the suggestion.
“Ah, well,” she would reply, “I don't mind if I do. It's a poor heart
that never rejoices.”
And then, her tongue unloosened, she would sit there and tell me stories
of my predecessors, young men lodgers who like myself had taken her
bed-sitting-rooms, and of the woes and misfortunes that had overtaken
them. I gathered that a more unlucky house I could not have selected.
A former tenant of my own room, of whom I strangely reminded her, had
written poetry on my very table. He was now in Portland doing five years
for forgery. Mrs. Peedles appeared to regard the two accomplishments as
merely different expressions of the same art. Another of her young men,
as she affectionately called us, had been of studious ambition. His
career up to a point appeared to have been brilliant. “What he mightn't
have been,” according to Mrs. Peedles, there was practically no saying;
what he happened to be at the moment of conversation was an unpromising
inmate of the Hanwell lunatic asylum.
“I've always noticed it,” Mrs. Peedles would explain; “it's always the
most deserving, those that try hardest, to whom trouble comes. I'm sure
I don't know why.”
I was glad on the whole when that bottle of whiskey was finished. A
second might have driven me to suicide.
There was no Mr. Peedles--at least, not for Mrs. Peedles, though as an
individual he continued to exist. He had been “general utility” at
the Princess's--the old terms were still in vogue at that time--a fine
figure of a man in his day, so I was given to understand, but one easily
led away, especially by minxes. Mrs. Peedles spoke bitterly of general
utilities as people of not much use.
For working days Mrs. Peedles had one dress and one cap, both black
and void of ostentation; but on Sundays and holidays she would appear
metamorphosed. She had carefully preserved the bulk of her stage
wardrobe, even to the paste-decked shoes and tinsel jewelry. Shapeless
in classic garb as Hermia, or bulgy in brocade and velvet as Lady
Teazle, she would receive her few visitors on Sunday evenings, discarded
puppets like herself, with whom the conversation was of gayer nights
before their wires had been cut; or, her glory hid from the ribald
street beneath a mackintosh, pay her few calls. Maybe it was the unusual
excitement that then brought colour into her furrowed cheeks, that
straightened and darkened her eyebrows, at other times so singularly
unobtrusive. Be this how it may, the change was remarkable, only
the thin grey hair and the work-worn hands remaining for purposes of
identification. Nor was the transformation merely one of surface.
Mrs. Peedles hung on her hook behind the kitchen door, dingy, limp,
discarded; out of the wardrobe with the silks and satins was lifted down
to be put on as an undergarment Miss Lucretia Barry, like her costumes
somewhat aged, somewhat withered, but still distinctly “arch.”
In the room next to me lived a law-writer and his wife. They were very
old and miserably poor. The fault was none of theirs. Despite copy-books
maxims, there is in this world such a thing as ill-luck-persistent,
monotonous, that gradually wears away all power of resistance. I
learned from them their history: it was hopelessly simple, hopelessly
uninstructive. He had been a schoolmaster, she a pupil teacher; they had
married young, and for a while the world had smiled upon them. Then came
illness, attacking them both: nothing out of which any moral could be
deduced, a mere case of bad drains resulting in typhoid fever. They had
started again, saddled by debt, and after years of effort had succeeded
in clearing themselves, only to fall again, this time in helping a
friend. Nor was it even a case of folly: a poor man who had helped them
in their trouble, hardly could they have done otherwise without proving
themselves ungrateful. And so on, a tedious tale, commonplace, trivial.
Now listless, patient, hard working, they had arrived at an animal-like
indifference to their fate, content so long as they could obtain the
bare necessities of existence, passive when these were not forthcoming,
their interest in life limited to the one luxury of the poor--an
occasional glass of beer or spirits. Often days would go by without
his obtaining any work, and then they would more or less starve. Law
documents are generally given out to such men in the evening, to be
returned finished the next morning. Waking in the night, I would hear
through the thin wooden partition that divided our rooms the even
scratching of his pen.
Thus cheek by jowl we worked, I my side of the screen, he his: youth and
age, hope and realisation.
Out of him my fears fashioned a vision of the future. Past his door I
would slink on tiptoe, dread meeting him upon the stairs. Once had not
he said to himself: “The world's mine oyster?” May not the voices of the
night have proclaimed him also king? Might I not be but an idle dreamer,
mistaking desire for power? Would not the world prove stronger than I?
At such times I would see my life before me: the clerkship at thirty
shillings a week rising by slow instalments, it may be, to one hundred
and fifty a year; the four-roomed house at Brixton; the girl wife,
pretty, perhaps, but sinking so soon into the slatternly woman; the
squalling children. How could I, unaided, expect to raise myself from
the ruck? Was not this the more likely picture?
Our second floor front was a young fellow in the commercial line. Jarman
was Young London personified--blatant yet kind-hearted; aggressively
self-assertive, generous to a fault; cunning, yet at the same time
frank; shrewd, cheery, and full of pluck. “Never say die” was his motto,
and anything less dead it would be difficult to imagine. All day long
he was noisy, and all night long he snored. He woke with a start, bathed
like a porpoise, sang while dressing, roared for his boots, and
whistled during his breakfast. His entrance and exit were always to an
orchestration of banging doors, directions concerning his meals shouted
at the top of his voice as he plunged up or down the stairs, the
clattering and rattling of brooms and pails flying before his feet. His
departure always left behind it the suggestion that the house was now to
let; it came almost as a shock to meet a human being on the landing. He
would have conveyed an atmosphere of bustle to the Egyptian pyramids.
Sometimes carrying his own supper-tray, arranged for two, he would march
into my room. At first, resenting his familiarity, I would hint at my
desire to be alone, would explain that I was busy.
“You fire away, Shakespeare Redivivus,” he would reply. “Don't delay the
tragedy. Why should London wait? I'll keep quiet.”
But his notion of keeping quiet was to retire into a corner and there
amuse himself by enacting a tragedy of his own in a hoarse whisper,
accompanied by appropriate gesture.
“Ah, ah!” I would hear him muttering to himself, “I 'ave killed 'er good
old father; I 'ave falsely accused 'er young man of all the crimes that
I 'ave myself committed; I 'ave robbed 'er of 'er ancestral estates. Yet
she loves me not! It is streeange!” Then changing his bass to a shrill
falsetto: “It is a cold and dismal night: the snow falls fast. I will
leave me 'at and umbrella be'ind the door and go out for a walk with the
chee-ild. Aha! who is this? 'E also 'as forgotten 'is umbrella. Ah, now
I know 'im in the pitch dark by 'is cigarette! Villain, murderer, silly
josser! it is you!” Then with lightning change of voice and gesture:
“Mary, I love yer!” “Sir Jasper Murgatroyd, let me avail myself of this
opportunity to tell you what I think of you--” “No, no; the 'ouses close
in 'alf an hour; there is not tee-ime. Fly with me instead!” “Never!
Un'and me!” “'Ear me! Ah, what 'ave I done? I 'ave slipped upon a piece
of orange peel and broke me 'ead! If you will kindly ask them to turn
off the snow and give me a little moonlight, I will confess all.”
Finding it (much to Jarman's surprise) impossible to renew the thread of
my work, I would abandon my attempts at literature, and instead listen
to his talk, which was always interesting. His conversation was, it is
true, generally about himself, but it was none the less attractive on
that account. His love affairs, which appeared to be numerous, formed
his chief topic. There was no reserve about Jarman: his life contained
no secret chambers. What he “told her straight,” what she “up and said
to him” in reply was for all the world that cared to hear. So far his
search after the ideal had met with but ill success.
“Girls,” he would say, “they're all alike, till you know 'em. So long as
they're trying to palm themselves off on yer, they'll persuade you
there isn't such another article in all the market. When they've got yer
order--ah, then yer find out what they're really made of. And you take
it from me, 'Omer Junior, most of 'em are put together cheap. Bah!
it sickens me sometimes to read the way you paper-stainers talk about 'em
--angels, goddesses, fairies! They've just been getting at yer. You're
giving 'em just the price they're asking without examining the article.
Girls ain't a special make, like what you seem to think 'em. We're all
turned out of the same old slop shop.”
“Not that I say, mind yer,” he would continue, “that there are none of
the right sort. They're to be 'ad--real good 'uns. All I say is, taking
'em at their own valuation ain't the way to do business with 'em.”
What he was on the look out for--to quote his own description--was a
really first class article, not something from which the paint would
come off almost before you got it home.
“They're to be found,” he would cheerfully affirm, “but you've got to
look for 'em. They're not the sort that advertises.”
Behind Jarman in the second floor back resided one whom Jarman had
nicknamed “The Lady 'Ortensia.” I believe before my arrival there had
been love passages between the two; but neither of them, so I gathered,
had upon closer inspection satisfied the other's standard. Their present
attitude towards each other was that of insult thinly veiled under
exaggerated politeness. Miss Rosina Sellars was, in her own language,
a “lady assistant,” in common parlance, a barmaid at the Ludgate Hill
Station refreshment room. She was a large, flabby young woman. With less
powder, her complexion might by admirers have been termed creamy; as it
was, it presented the appearance rather of underdone pastry. To be on
all occasions “quite the lady” was her pride. There were those who held
the angle of her dignity to be exaggerated. Jarman would beg her for her
own sake to be more careful lest one day she should fall down backwards
and hurt herself. On the other hand, her bearing was certainly
calculated to check familiarity. Even stockbrokers' clerks--young men
as a class with the bump of reverence but poorly developed--would in her
presence falter and grow hesitating. She had cultivated the art of
not noticing to something approaching perfection. She could draw the
noisiest customer a glass of beer, which he had never ordered; exchange
it for three of whiskey, which he had; take his money and return him his
change without ever seeing him, hearing him, or knowing he was there. It
shattered the self-assertion of the youngest of commercial travellers.
Her tone and manner, outside rare moments of excitement, were suggestive
of an offended but forgiving iceberg. Jarman invariably passed her with
his coat collar turned up to his ears, and even thus protected might
have been observed to shiver. Her stare, in conjunction with her “I beg
your pardon!” was a moral douche that would have rendered apologetic and
explanatory Don Juan himself.
To me she was always gracious, which by contrast to her general attitude
towards my sex of studied disdain, I confess flattered me. She was good
enough to observe to Mrs. Peedles, who repeated it to me, that I was the
only gentleman in the house who knew how to behave himself.
The entire first floor was occupied by an Irishman and--they never
minced the matter themselves, so hardly is there need for me to do so.
She was a charming little dark-eyed woman, an ex-tight-rope dancer, and
always greatly offended Mrs. Peedles by claiming Miss Lucretia Barry as
a sister artiste.
“Of course I don't know how it may be now,” would reply Mrs. Peedles,
with some slight asperity; “but in my time we ladies of the legitimate
stage used to look down upon dancers and such sort. Of course, no
offence to you, Mrs. O'Kelly.”
Neither of them was in the least offended.
“Sure, Mrs. Peedles, ye could never have looked down upon the Signora,”
the O'Kelly would answer laughing. “Ye had to lie back and look up to
her. Why, I've got the crick in me neck to this day!”
“Ah! my dear, and you don't know how nervous I was when glancing down
I'd see his handsome face just underneath me, thinking that with one
false step I might spoil it for ever,” would reply the Signora.
“Me darling! I'd have died happy, just smothered in loveliness!” would
return the O'Kelly; and he and the Signora would rush into each other's
arms, and the sound of their kisses would quite excite the little slavey
sweeping down the stairs outside.
He was a barrister attached in theory to the Western Circuit; in
practice, somewhat indifferent to it, much more attached to the lower
strata of Bohemia and the Signora. At the present he was earning all
sufficient for the simple needs of himself and the Signora as a teacher
of music and singing. His method was simple and suited admirably the
locality. Unless specially requested, he never troubled his pupils with
such tiresome things as scales and exercises. His plan was to discover
the song the young man fancied himself singing, the particular jingle
the young lady yearned to knock out of the piano, and to teach it to
them. Was it “Tom Bowling?” Well and good. Come on; follow your leader.
The O'Kelly would sing the first line.
“Now then, try that. Don't be afraid. Just open yer mouth and gave it
tongue. That's all right. Everything has a beginning. Sure, later on,
we'll get the time and tune, maybe a little expression.”
Whether the system had any merit in it, I cannot answer. Certain it was
that as often as not it achieved success. Gradually--say, by the end
of twelve eighteen-penny lessons--out of storm and chaos “Tom Bowling”
would emerge, recognisable for all men to hear. Had the pupil any voice
to start with, the O'Kelly improved it; had he none, the O'Kelly would
help him to disguise the fact.
“Take it easy, now; take it easy,” the O'Kelly would counsel. “Sure,
it's a delicate organ, yer voice. Don't ye strain it now. Ye're at yer
best when ye're just low and sweet.”
So also with the blushing pianiste. At the end of a month a tune was
distinctly discernible; she could hear it herself, and was happy. His
repute spread.
Twice already had he eloped with the Signora (and twice again was he
to repeat the operation, before I finally lost sight of him: to break
oneself of habit is always difficult) and once by well-meaning friends
had he been induced to return to home, if not to beauty. His wife, who
was considerably older than himself, possessed, so he would inform
me with tears in his eyes, every moral excellence that should attract
mankind. Upon her goodness and virtue, her piety and conscientiousness
he would descant to me by the half hour. His sincerity it was impossible
to question. It was beyond doubt that he respected her, admired her,
honoured her. She was a saint, an angel--a wretch, a villain such as he,
was not fit to breathe the same pure air. To do him justice, it must
be admitted he showed no particular desire to do so. As an aunt or
grandmother, I believe he would have suffered her gladly. He had nothing
to say against her, except that he found himself unable to live with
her.
That she must have been a lady of exceptional merit one felt convinced.
The Signora, who had met her only once, and then under somewhat trying
conditions, spoke her praises with equal enthusiasm. Had she, the
Signora, enjoyed the advantage of meeting such a model earlier, she,
the Signora, might have been a better woman. It seemed a pity the
introduction could not have taken place sooner and under different
circumstances. Could they both have adopted her as a sort of mutual
mother-in-law, it would have given them, I am positive, the greatest
satisfaction. On her occasional visits they would have vied with each
other in showing her affectionate attention. For the deserted lady I
tried to feel sorry, but could not avoid the reflection that it
would have been better for all parties had she been less patient and
forgiving. Her husband was evidently much more suited to the Signora.
Indeed, the relationship between these two was more a true marriage than
one generally meets with. No pair of love-birds could have been more
snug together. In their virtues and failings alike they fitted each
other. When sober the immorality of their behaviour never troubled them;
in fact, when sober nothing ever troubled them. They laughed, joked,
played through life, two happy children. To be shocked at them was
impossible. I tried it and failed.
But now and again there came an evening when they were not sober. It
happened when funds were high. On such occasion the O'Kelly would return
laden with bottles of a certain sweet champagne, of which they were both
extremely fond; and a friend or two would be invited to share in the
festivity. Whether any exceptional quality resided in this particular
brand of champagne I am not prepared to argue; my own personal
experience of it has prompted me to avoid it for the rest of my life.
Its effect upon them was certainly unique. Instead of intoxicating them,
it sobered them: there is no other way of explaining it. With the third
or fourth glass they began to take serious views of life. Before the end
of the second bottle they would be staring at each other, appalled
at contemplation of their own transgression. The Signora, the tears
streaming down her pretty face, would declare herself a wicked, wicked
woman; she had dragged down into shame the most blameless, the most
virtuous of men. Emptying her glass, she would bury her face in her
hands, and with her elbows on her knees, in an agony of remorse, sit
rocking to and fro. The O'Kelly, throwing himself at her feet, would
passionately abjure her to “look up.” She had, it appeared, got hold of
the thing at the wrong end; it was he who had dragged her down.
At this point metaphor would become confused. Each had been dragged
down by the other one and ruined; also each one was the other one's good
angel. All that was commendable in the Signora, she owed to the O'Kelly.
Whatever was not discreditable about the O'Kelly was in the nature of a
loan from the Signora. With the help of more champagne the right course
would grow plain to them. She would go back broken-hearted but repentant
to the tight-rope; he would return a better but a blighted man to
Mrs. O'Kelly and the Western Circuit. This would be their last evening
together on earth. A fresh bottle would be broached, and the guest or
guests called upon to assist in the ceremony of renunciation; glasses
full to the brim this time.
So much tragedy did they continue to instil into the scene that on the
first occasion of my witnessing it I was unable to refrain from mingling
my tears with theirs. As, however, the next morning they had forgotten
all about it, and as nothing came of it, nor of several subsequent
repetitions, I should have believed a separation between them impossible
but that even while I was an inmate of the house the thing actually
happened.
It came about in this wise. His friends, having discovered him, had
pointed out to him again his duty. The Signora--a really excellent
little woman so far as intention was concerned--had seconded their
endeavours, with the result that on a certain evening in autumn we of
the house assembled all of us on the first floor to support them on the
occasion of their final--so we all deemed it then--leave-taking. For
eleven o'clock two four-wheeled cabs had been ordered, one to transport
the O'Kelly with his belongings to Hampstead and respectability; in the
other the Signora would journey sorrowfully to the Tower Basin, there to
join a circus company sailing for the Continent.
I knocked at the door some quarter of an hour before the appointed hour
of the party. I fancy the idea had originated with the Signora.
“Dear Willie has something to say to you,” she had informed me that
morning on the stairs. “He has taken a sincere liking to you, and it is
something very important.”
They were sitting one each side the fireplace, looking very serious; a
bottle of the sobering champagne stood upon the table. The Signora rose
and kissed me gravely on the brow; the O'Kelly laid both hands upon my
shoulders, and sat me down on a chair between them.
“Mr. Kelver,” said the Signora, “you are very young.”
I hinted--it was one of those rare occasions upon which gallantry can be
combined with truth--that I found myself in company.
The Signora smiled sadly, and shook her head.
“Age,” said the O'Kelly, “is a matter of feeling. Kelver, may ye never
be as old as I am feeling now.”
“As _we_ are feeling,” corrected the Signora. “Kelver,” said the
O'Kelly, pouring out a third glass of champagne, “we want ye to promise
us something.”
“It will make us both happier,” added the Signora.
“That ye will take warning,” continued the O'Kelly, “by our wretched
example. Paul, in this world there is only one path to possible
happiness. The path of strict--” he paused.
“Propriety,” suggested the Signora.
“Of strict propriety,” agreed the O'Kelly. “Deviate from it,” continued
the O'Kelly, impressively, “and what is the result?”
“Unutterable misery,” supplied the Signora.
“Ye think we two have been happy here together,” said the O'Kelly.
I replied that such was the conclusion to which observation had directed
me.
“We tried to appear so,” explained the Signora; “it was merely on the
outside. In reality all the time we hated each other. Tell him, Willie,
dear, how we have hated each other.”
“It is impossible,” said the O'Kelly, finishing and putting down his
glass, “to give ye any idea, Kelver, how we have hated each other.”
“How we have quarrelled!” said the Signora. “Tell him, dear, how we have
quarrelled.”
“All day long and half the night,” concluded the O'Kelly.
“Fought,” added the Signora. “You see, Mr. Kelver, people in--in our
position always do. If it had been otherwise, if--if everything had been
proper, then of course we should have loved each other. As it is, it has
been a cat and dog existence. Hasn't it been a cat and dog existence,
Willie?”
“It's been just hell upon earth,” murmured the O'Kelly, with his eyes
fixed gloomily upon the fire-stove ornament. Deadly in earnest though
they both were, I could not repress a laugh, their excellent intention
was so obvious. The Signora burst into tears.
“He doesn't believe us,” she wailed.
“Me dear,” replied the O'Kelly, throwing up his part with promptness and
satisfaction, “how could ye expect it? How could he believe that any man
could look at ye and hate ye?”
“It's all my fault,” cried the little woman; “I am such a wicked
creature. I cannot even be miserable when I am doing wrong. A decent
woman in my place would have been wretched and unhappy, and made
everybody about her wretched and unhappy, and so have set a good example
and have been a warning. I don't seem to have any conscience, and I do
try.” The poor little lady was sobbing her heart out.
When not shy I could be sensible, and of the O'Kelly and the Signora one
could be no more shy than of a pair of robin redbreasts. Besides, I was
really fond of them; they had been very good to me.
“Dear Miss Beltoni,” I answered, “I am going to take warning by you
both.”
She pressed my hand. “Oh, do, please do,” she murmured. “We really have
been miserable--now and then.”
“I am never going to be content,” I assured her, “until I find a lady
as charming and as amiable as you, and if ever I get her I'll take good
care never to run any risk of losing her.”
It sounded well and pleased us all. The O'Kelly shook me warmly by the
hand, and this time spoke his real feelings.
“Me boy,” he said, “all women are good--for somebody. But the woman that
is good for yerself is better for ye than a better woman who's the best
for somebody else. Ye understand?”
I said I did.
At eight o'clock precisely Mrs. Peedles arrived--as Flora MacDonald, in
green velvet jacket and twelve to fifteen inches of plaid stocking. As
a topic fitting the occasion we discussed the absent Mr. Peedles and the
subject of deserted wives in general.
“A fine-looking man,” allowed Mrs. Peedles, “but weak--weak as water.”
The Signora agreed that unfortunately there did exist such men: 'twas
pitiful but true.
“My dear,” continued Mrs. Peedles, “she wasn't even a lady.”
The Signora expressed astonishment at the deterioration in Mr. Peedles'
taste thus implied.
“I won't go so far as to say we never had a difference,” continued Mrs.
Peedles, whose object appeared to be an impartial statement of the whole
case. “There may have been incompatability of temperament, as they say.
Myself, I have always been of a playful disposition--frivolous, some
might call me.”
The Signora protested; the O'Kelly declined to listen to such aspersion
on her character even from Mrs. Peedles herself.
Mrs. Peedles, thus corrected, allowed that maybe frivolous was too
sweeping an accusation: say sportive.
“But a good wife to him I always was,” asserted Mrs. Peedles, with a
fine sense of justice; “never flighty, like some of them. I challenge
any one to accuse me of having been flighty.”
We felt we should not believe any one who did, and told her so.
Mrs. Peedles, drawing her chair closer to the Signora, assumed a
confidential attitude. “If they want to go, let 'em go, I always say,”
she whispered loudly into the Signora's ear. “Ten to one they'll find
they've only jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire. One can always
comfort oneself with that.”
There seemed to be confusion in the mind of Mrs. Peedles. Her virtuous
sympathies, I gathered, were with the Signora. Mr. O'Kelly's return
to Mrs. O'Kelly evidently manifested itself in the light of a shameful
desertion. Having regard to the fact, patent to all who knew him, that
the poor fellow was sacrificing every inclination to stern sense of
duty, such view of the matter was rough on him. But philosophers from
all ages have agreed that our good deeds are the whips with which Fate
punishes us for our bad.
“My dear,” continued Mrs. Peedles, “when Mr. Peedles left me I thought
that I should never smile again. Yet here you see me laughing away
through life, just as ever. You'll get over it all right.” And Mrs.
Peedles wiped away her tears and smiled upon the Signora; upon which the
Signora commenced to cry again.
Happily, timely diversion was made at this point by the bursting into
the room of Jarman, who upon perceiving Mrs. Peedles, at once gave vent
to a hoot, supposed to be expressive of Scottish joy, and without a
moment's hesitation commenced to dance a reel.
My neighbours of the first floor knocked at the door a little while
afterwards; and genteelly late arrived Miss Rosina Sellars, coldly
gleaming in a decollete but awe-inspiring costume of mingled black
and scarlet, out of which her fair, if fleshy, neck and arms shone
luxuriant.
We did not go into supper; instead, supper came into us from the
restaurant at the corner of the Blackfriars Road. I cannot say that at
first it was a festive meal. The O'Kelly and the Signora made effort,
as in duty bound, to be cheerful, but for awhile were somewhat
unsuccessful. The third floor front wasted no time in speech, but ate
and drank copiously. Miss Sellars, retaining her gloves--which was
perhaps wise, her hands being her weak point--signalled me out, much to
my embarrassment, as the recipient of her most polite conversation. Mrs.
Peedles became reminiscent of parties generally. Seeing that most of
Mrs. Peedles' former friends and acquaintances were either dead or in
more or less trouble, her efforts did not tend to enliven the table. One
gathering, of which the present strangely reminded her, was a funeral,
chiefly remarkable from discovery of the romantic fact, late in the
proceedings, that the gentleman in whose honour the whole affair had
been organised was not dead at all; but instead, having taken advantage
of an error arising out of a railway accident, was at the moment eloping
with the wife of his own chief mourner. As Mrs. Peedles explained,
and as one could well credit, it had been an awkward position for all
present. Nobody had quite known whether to feel glad or sorry--with the
exception of the chief mourner, upon whose personal undertaking that the
company might regard the ceremony as merely postponed, festivities came
to an end.
Our prop and stay from a convivial point of view was Jarman. As
a delicate attention to Mrs. Peedles and her costume he sunk
his nationality and became for the evening, according to his own
declaration, “a braw laddie.” With her--his “sonsie lassie,” so he
termed her--he flirted in the broadest, if not purest, Scotch. The
O'Kelly for him became “the Laird;” the third floor “Jamie o' the Ilk;”
Miss Sellars, “the bonnie wee rose;” myself, “the chiel.” Periods of
silence were dispersed by suggestions that we should “hoot awa',” Jarman
himself setting us the example.
With the clearance away of the eatables, making room for the production
of a more varied supply of bottles, matters began to mend. Mrs. Peedles
became more arch, Jarman's Scotch more striking and extensive, the
Lady 'Ortensia's remarks less depressingly genteel, her aitches less
accentuated.
Jarman rose to propose the health of the O'Kelly, coupled with that of
the Signora. To the O'Kelly, in a burst of generosity, Jarman promised
our united patronage. To Jarman it appeared that by employing the
O'Kelly to defend us whenever we got into trouble with the police, and
by recommending him to our friends, a steady income should be assured to
him.
The O'Kelly replied feelingly to the effect that Nelson Square,
Blackfriars, would ever remain engraved upon his memory as the fairest
and brightest spot on earth. Personally, nothing would have given him
greater pleasure than to die among the dear friends who now surrounded
him. But there was such a thing as duty, and he and the Signora had come
to the conclusion that true happiness could only be obtained by acting
according to one's conscience, even if it made one miserable.
Jarman, warming to his work, then proposed the health of Mrs. Peedles,
as true-hearted and hard-breathing a lady as ever it had been his
privilege to know. Her talent for cheery conversation was familiar to us
all, upon it he need not enlarge; all he would say was that personally
never did she go out of his room without leaving him more cheerful than
when she entered it.
After that--I forget in what--we drank the health of the Lady 'Ortensia.
Persons there were--Jarman would not attempt to disguise the fact--who
complained that the Lady 'Ortensia was too distant, “too stand-offish.”
With such complaint he himself had no sympathy; but tastes differed. If
the Lady 'Ortensia were inclined to be exclusive, who should blame her?
Everybody knew their own business best. For use in a second floor front
he could not honestly recommend the Lady 'Ortensia; it would not be
giving her a fair chance, and it would not be giving the second floor a
fair chance. But for any gentleman fitting up marble halls, for any one
on the lookout for a really “toney article,” Jarman would say: Inquire
for Miss Rosina Sellars, and see that you get her.
There followed my turn. There had been literary chaps in the past,
Jarman admitted so much. Against them he had nothing to say. They had no
doubt done their best. But the gentleman whose health Jarman wished the
company now to drink had this advantage over them: that they were
dead, and he wasn't. Some of this gentleman's work Jarman had read--in
manuscript; but that was a distinction purely temporary. He, Jarman,
claimed to be no judge of literature, but this he could and would say,
it took a good deal to make him miserable, yet this the literary efforts
of Mr. Kelver invariably accomplished.
Mrs. Peedles, speaking without rising, from personal observation in the
daytime--which she hoped would not be deemed a liberty; literature, even
in manuscript, being, so to speak, public property--found herself in a
position to confirm all that Mr. Jarman had remarked. Speaking as one
not entirely without authority on the subject of literature and the
drama, Mrs. Peedles could say that passages she had read had struck her
as distinctly not half bad. Some of the love-scenes, in particular, had
made her to feel quite a girl again. How he had acquired such knowledge
was not for her to say. Cries of “Naughty!” from Jarman, and “Oh, Mr.
Kelver, I shall be quite afraid of you,” roguishly from Miss Sellars.
The O'Kelly, who, having abandoned his favourite champagne for less
sobering liquor, had since supper-time become rapidly more cheerful,
felt sure there was a future before me. That he had not seen any of my
work, so he assured me, in no way lessened his opinion of it. One thing
only would he impress upon me: that the best work was the result of
strict attention to virtue. His advice to me was to marry young and be
happy.
My persevering efforts of the last few months towards the acquisition of
convivial habits appeared this evening to be receiving their reward. The
O'Kelly's sweet champagne I had drunk with less dislike than hitherto; a
white, syrupy sort of stuff, out of a fat and artistic-looking bottle,
I had found distinctly grateful to the palate. Dimly the quotation about
taking things at the flood, and so getting on quickly, floated through
my brain, coupled with another one about fortune favouring the bold. It
had seemed to me a good occasion to try for the second time in my life
a full flavoured cigar. I had selected with the caution of a connoisseur
one of mottled green complexion from the O'Kelly's largest box. And so
far all had gone well. An easy self-confidence, delightful by reason of
its novelty, had replaced my customary shyness; a sense of lightness--of
positive airiness, emanating from myself, pervaded all things. Tossing
off another glass of the champagne, I rose to reply.
Modesty in my present mood would have been affectation. To such dear and
well-beloved friends I had no hesitation in admitting the truth, that I
was a clever fellow--a damned clever fellow. I knew it, they knew it, in
a short time everybody would know it. But they need not fear that in
the hour of my pride, when it arrived, I should prove ungrateful. Never
should I forget their kindness to me, a lonely young man, alone in a
lonely--Here the pathos of my own situation overcame me; words seemed
weak. “Jarman--” I meant, putting my hand upon his head, to have blessed
him for his goodness to me; but he being not exactly where he looked to
be, I just missed him, and sat down on the edge of my chair, which was a
hard one. I had not intended this to be the end of my speech, by a long
one; but Jarman, whispering to me: “Ended at exactly the right moment;
shows the born orator,” strong inclination to remain seated, now that I
was down seconding his counsel, and the company being clearly satisfied,
I decided to leave things where they were.
A delightful dreaminess was stealing over me. Everything and everybody
appeared to be a long way off, but, whether because of this or in
spite of it, exceedingly attractive. Never had I noticed the Signora
so bewitching; in a motherly sort of way even the third floor front was
good to look upon; Mrs. Peedles I could almost have believed to be the
real Flora MacDonald sitting in front of me. But the vision of Miss
Rosina Sellars made literally my head to swim. Never before had I dared
to cast upon female loveliness the satisfying gaze with which I now
boldly regarded her every movement. Evidently she noticed it, for she
turned away her eyes. I had heard that exceptionally strong-minded
people merely by concentrating their will could make other, ordinary
people, do just whatever they, the exceptionally strong-minded people,
wished. I willed that Miss Rosina Sellars should turn her eyes again
towards me. Victory crowned my efforts. Evidently I was one of these
exceptionally strong-minded persons. Slowly her eyes came round and met
mine with a smile--a helpless, pathetic smile that said, so I read it:
“You know no woman can resist you: be merciful!”
Inflamed by the brutal lust of conquest, I suppose I must have willed
still further, for the next thing I remember is sitting with Miss
Sellars on the sofa, holding her hand, the while the O'Kelly sang a
sentimental ballad, only one line of which comes back to me: “For the
angels must have told him, and he knows I love him now,” much stress
upon the “now.” The others had their backs towards us. Miss Sellars,
with a look that pierced my heart, dropped her somewhat large head upon
my shoulder, leaving, as I observed the next day, a patch of powder on
my coat.
Miss Sellars observed that one of the saddest things in the world was
unrequited love.
I replied gallantly, “Whateryou know about it?”
“Ah, you men, you men,” murmured Miss Sellars; “you're all alike.”
This suggested a personal aspersion on my character. “Not allus,” I
murmured.
“You don't know what love is,” said Miss Sellars. “You're not old
enough.”
The O'Kelly had passed on to Sullivan's “Sweethearts,” then in its first
popularity.
“Oh, love for a year--a week--a day!
But oh for the love that loves al-wa-ays!”
Miss Sellars' languishing eyes were fixed upon me; Miss Sellars' red
lips pouted and twitched; Miss Sellars' white bosom rose and fell.
Never, so it seemed to me, had so large an amount of beauty been
concentrated in one being.
“Yeserdo,” I said. “I love you.”
I stooped to kiss the red lips, but something was in my way. It turned
out to be a cold cigar. Miss Sellars thoughtfully removed it, and threw
it away. Our lips met. Her large arms closed about my neck and held me
tight.
“Well, I'm sure!” came the voice of Mrs. Peedles, as from afar. “Nice
goings on!”
I have vague remembrance of a somewhat heated discussion, in which
everybody but myself appeared to be taking extreme interest--of Miss
Sellars in her most ladylike and chilling tones defending me against the
charge of “being no gentleman,” which Mrs. Peedles was explaining nobody
had said I wasn't. The argument seemed to be of the circular order. No
gentleman had ever kissed Miss Sellars who had not every right to do so,
nor ever would. To kiss Miss Sellars without such right was to declare
oneself no gentleman. Miss Sellars appealed to me to clear my character
from the aspersion of being no gentleman. I was trying to understand
the situation, when Jarman, seizing me somewhat roughly by the arm,
suggested my going to bed. Miss Sellars, seizing my other arm, suggested
my refusing to go to bed. So far I was with Miss Sellars. I didn't want
to go to bed, and said so. My desire to sit up longer was proof positive
to Miss Sellars that I was a gentleman, but to no one else. The argument
shifted, the question being now as to whether Miss Sellars were a lady.
To prove the point it was, according to Miss Sellars, necessary that
I should repeat I loved her. I did repeat it, adding, with faint
remembrance of my own fiction, that if a life's devotion was likely to
be of the slightest further proof, my heart's blood was at her
service. This cleared the air, Mrs. Peedles observing that under such
circumstances it only remained for her to withdraw everything she had
said; to which Miss Sellars replied graciously that she had always known
Mrs. Peedles to be a good sort at the bottom.
Nevertheless, gaiety was gone from among us, and for this, in some way
I could not understand, I appeared to be responsible. Jarman was
distinctly sulky. The O'Kelly, suddenly thinking of the time, went to
the door and discovered that the two cabs were waiting. The third floor
recollected that work had to be finished. I myself felt sleepy.
Our host and hostess departed; Jarman again suggested bed, and this
time I agreed with him. After a slight misunderstanding with the door, I
found myself upon the stairs. I had never noticed before that they
were quite perpendicular. Adapting myself to the changed conditions, I
climbed them with the help of my hands. I accomplished the last flight
somewhat quickly, and feeling tired, sat down the moment I was within
my own room. Jarman knocked at the door. I told him to come in; but he
didn't. It occurred to me that the reason was I was sitting on the floor
with my back against the door. The discovery amused me exceedingly and
I laughed; and Jarman, baffled, descended to his own floor. I found
getting into bed a difficulty, owing to the strange behaviour of the
room. It spun round and round. Now the bed was just in front of me, now
it was behind me. I managed at last to catch it before it could get past
me, and holding on by the ironwork, frustrated its efforts to throw me
out again on to the floor.
But it was some time before I went to sleep, and over my intervening
experiences I draw a veil.