JULIAN LEARNS MY SECRET
_(James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)_
A difficulty in the life of a literary man in London is the question of
getting systematic exercise. At school and college I had been
accustomed to play games every day, and now I felt the change acutely.
It was through this that I first became really intimate with John
Hatton, and incidentally with Sidney Price, of the Moon Assurance
Company. I happened to mention my trouble one night in Hatton’s rooms.
I had been there frequently since my first visit.
“None of my waistcoats fit,” I remarked.
“My dear fellow,” said Hatton, “I’ll give you exercise and to spare;
that is to say, if you can box.”
“I’m not a champion,” I said; “but I’m fond of it. I shouldn’t mind
taking up boxing again. There’s nothing like it for exercise.”
“Quite right, James,” he replied; “and exercise, as I often tell my
boys, is essential.”
“What boys?” I asked.
“My club boys,” said Hatton. “They belong to the most dingy quarter of
the whole of London—South Lambeth. They are not hooligans. They are not
so interesting as that. They represent the class of youth that is a
stratum or two above hooliganism. Frightful weeds. They lack the robust
animalism of the class below them, and they lack the intelligence of
the class above them. The fellows at my club are mostly hard-working
mechanics and under-paid office boys. They have nothing approaching a
sense of humour or the instinct of sport.”
“Not very encouraging,” I said.
“Nor picturesque,” said Hatton; “and that is why they’ve been so
neglected. There is romance in an out-and-out hooligan. It interests
people to reform him. But to the outsider my boys are dull. I don’t
find them so. But then I know them. Boxing lessons are just what they
want. In fact, I was telling Sidney Price, an insurance clerk who lives
in Lambeth and helps me at the club, only yesterday how much I wished
we could teach them to use the gloves.”
“I’ll take it on, then, Hatton, if you like,” I said. “It ought to keep
me in form.”
I found that it did. I ceased to be aware of my liver. That winter I
was able to work to good purpose, and the result was that I arrived. It
dawned upon me at last that the “precarious” idea was played out. One
could see too plainly the white sheet and phosphorus.
And I was happy. Happier, perhaps, than I had ever hoped to be.
Happier, in a sense, than I can hope to be again. I had congenial work,
and, what is more, I had congenial friends.
What friends they were!
Julian—I seem to see him now sprawling in his hammock, sucking his
pipe, planning an advertisement, or propounding some whimsical theory
of life; and in his eyes he bears the pain of one whose love and life
are spoilt. Julian—no longer my friend.
Kit and Malim—what evenings are suggested by those names.
Evenings alone with Malim at his flat in Vernon Place. An unimpeachable
dinner, a hand at picquet, midnight talk with the blue smoke wreathing
round our heads.
Well, Malim and I are unlikely to meet again in Vernon Place. Nor shall
we foregather at the little house in the Hampstead Road, the house
which Kit enveloped in an inimitable air of domesticity. Her past had
not been unconnected with the minor stage. She could play on the piano
from ear, and sing the songs of the street with a charming cockney
twang. But there was nothing of the stage about her now. She was born
for domesticity and, as the wife of Malim, she wished to forget all
that had gone before. She even hesitated to give us her wonderful
imitations of the customers at the fried fish shop, because in her
heart she did not think such impersonations altogether suitable for a
respectable married woman.
It was Malim who got me elected to the Barrel Club. I take it that I
shall pay few more visits there.
I have mentioned at this point the love of my old friends who made my
first years in London a period of happiness, since it was in this month
of April that I had a momentous conversation with Julian about
Margaret.
He had come to Walpole Street to use my typewriter, and seemed amazed
to find that I was still living in much the same style as I had always
done.
“Let me see,” he said. “How long is it since I was here last?”
“You came some time before Christmas.”
“Ah, yes,” he said reminiscently. “I was doing a lot of travelling just
then.” And he added, thoughtfully, “What a curious fellow you are,
Jimmy. Here are you making——” He glanced at me.
“Oh, say a thousand a year.”
“—Fifteen hundred a year, and you live in precisely the same shoddy
surroundings as you did when your manuscripts were responsible for an
extra size in waste-paper baskets. I was surprised to hear that you
were still in Walpole Street. I supposed that, at any rate, you had
taken the whole house.”
His eyes raked the little sitting-room from the sham marble mantelpiece
to the bamboo cabinet. I surveyed it, too, and suddenly it did seem
unnecessarily wretched and depressing.
Julian looked at me curiously.
“There’s some mystery here,” he said.
“Don’t be an ass, Julian,” I replied weakly.
“It’s no good denying it,” he retorted; “there’s some mystery. You’re a
materialist. You don’t live like this from choice. If you were to
follow your own inclinations, you’d do things in the best style you
could run to. You’d be in Jermyn Street; you’d have your man, a cottage
in Surrey; you’d entertain, go out a good deal. You’d certainly give up
these dingy quarters. My friendship for you deplores a mammoth skeleton
in your cupboard, James. My study of advertising tells me that this
paltry existence of yours does not adequately push your name before the
public. You’re losing money, you’re——”
“Stop, Julian,” I exclaimed.
“_Cherchez_,” he continued, “_cherchez_——”
“Stop! Confound you, stop! I tell you——”
“Come,” he said laughing. “I mustn’t force your confidence; but I can’t
help feeling it’s odd——”
“When I came to London,” I said, firmly, “I was most desperately in
love. I was to make a fortune, incidentally my name, marry, and live
happily ever after. There seemed last year nothing complex about that
programme. It seemed almost too simple. I even, like a fool, thought to
add an extra touch of piquancy to it by endeavouring to be a Bohemian.
I then discovered that what I was attempting was not so simple as I had
imagined. To begin with, Bohemians diffuse their brains in every
direction except that where bread-and-butter comes from. I found, too,
that unless one earns bread-and-butter, one has to sprint very fast to
the workhouse door to prevent oneself starving before one gets there;
so I dropped Bohemia and I dropped many other pleasant fictions as
well. I took to examining pavements, saw how hard they were, had a look
at the gutters, and saw how broad they were. I noticed the accumulation
of dirt on the house fronts, the actual proportions of industrial
buildings. I observed closely the price of food, clothes, and roofs.”
“You became a realist.”
“Yes; I read a good deal of Gissing about then, and it scared me. I
pitied myself. And after that came pity for the girl I loved. I swore
that I would never let her come to my side in the ring where the
monster Poverty and I were fighting. If you’ve been there you’ve been
in hell. And if you come out with your soul alive you can’t tell other
people what it felt like. They couldn’t understand.”
Julian nodded. “I understand, you know,” he said gravely.
“Yes, you’ve been there,” I said. “Well, you’ve seen that my little
turn-up with the monster was short and sharp. It wasn’t one of the
old-fashioned, forty-round, most-of-a-lifetime, feint-for-an-opening,
in-and-out affairs. Our pace was too fast for that. We went at it both
hands, fighting all the time. I was going for the knock-out in the
first round. Not your method, Julian.”
“No,” said Julian; “it’s not my method. I treat the monster rather as a
wild animal than as a hooligan; and hearing that wild animals won’t do
more than sniff at you if you lie perfectly still, I adopted that ruse
towards him to save myself the trouble of a conflict. But the effect of
lying perfectly still was that I used to fall asleep; and that works
satisfactorily.”
“Julian,” I said, “I detect a touch of envy in your voice. You try to
keep it out, but you can’t. Wait a bit, though. I haven’t finished.
“As you know, I had the monster down in less than no time. I said to
myself, ‘I’ve won. I’ll write to Margaret, and tell her so!’ Do you
know I had actually begun to write the letter when another thought
struck me. One that started me sweating and shaking. ‘The monster,’ I
said again to myself, ‘the monster is devilish cunning. Perhaps he’s
only shamming! It looks as if he were beaten. Suppose it’s only a feint
to get me off my guard. Suppose he just wants me to take my eyes off
him so that he may get at me again as soon as I’ve begun to look for a
comfortable chair and a mantelpiece to rest my feet on!’ I told myself
that I wouldn’t risk bringing Margaret over. I didn’t dare chance her
being with me if ever I had to go back into the ring. So I kept jumping
and stamping on the monster. The referee had given me the fight and had
gone away; and, with no one to stop me, I kicked the life out of him.”
“No, you didn’t,” interrupted Julian. “Excuse me, I’m sure you didn’t.
I often wake up and hear him prowling about.”
“Yes; but there’s a separate monster set apart for each of us. It’s
Fate who arranges the programme, and, by stress of business, Fate
postpones many contests so late that before they can take place the man
has died. Those who die before their fight comes on are called rich
men. To return, however, to my own monster: I was at last convinced
that he was dead a thousand times——”
“How long have you had this conviction?” asked Julian.
“The absolute certainty that my monster has ceased to exist came to me
this morning whilst I brushed my hair.”
“Ah,” said Julian; “and now, I suppose, you really will write to Miss
Margaret——” He paused.
“Goodwin?”
“To Miss Margaret Goodwin,” he repeated.
“Look here, Julian,” I said irritably; “it’s no use your repeating
every observation I make as though you were Massa Johnson on Margate
Sands.”
“What’s the matter?”
I was silent for a moment. Then I confessed.
“Julian,” I said, “I can’t write to her. You need neither say that I’m
a blackguard nor that you’re sorry for us both. At this present moment
I’ve no more affection for Margaret than I have for this chair. When
precisely I left off caring for her I don’t know. Why I ever thought I
loved her I don’t know, either. But ever since I came to London all the
love I did have for her has been ebbing away every day.”
“Had you met many people before you met her?” asked Julian slowly.
“No one that counted. Not a woman that counted, that’s to say. I am shy
with women. I can talk to them in a sort of way, but I never seem able
to get intimate. Margaret was different. She saved my life, and we
spent the summer in Guernsey together.”
“And you seriously expected not to fall in love?” Julian laughed “My
dear Jimmy, you ought to write a psychological novel.”
“Possibly. But, in the meantime, what am I to do?”
Julian stood up.
“She’s in love with you, I suppose?”
“Yes.”
He stood looking at me.
“Well, can’t you speak?” I said.
He turned away, shrugging his shoulders. “One’s got one’s own right and
one’s own wrong,” he grumbled, lighting his pipe.
“I know what you’re thinking,” I said.
He would not look at me.
“You’re thinking,” I went on, “what a cad I am not to have written that
letter.” I sat down resting my head on my hands. After all—love and
liberty—they’re both very sweet.
“I’m thinking,” said Julian, watching the smoke from his pipe
abstractedly, “that you will probably write tonight; and I think I know
how you’re feeling.”
“Julian,” I said, “must it be tonight? Why? The letter shall go. But
must it be tonight?”
Julian hesitated.
“No,” he said; “but you’ve made up your mind, so why put off the
inevitable?”
“I can’t,” I exclaimed; “oh, I really can’t. I must have my freedom a
little longer.”
“You must give it up some day. It’ll be all the harder when you’ve got
to face it.”
“I don’t mind that. A little more freedom, just a little; and then I’ll
tell her to come to me.”
He smoked in silence.
“Surely,” I said, “this little more freedom that I ask is a small thing
compared with the sacrifice I have promised to make?”
“You won’t let her know it’s a sacrifice?”
“Of course not. She shall think that I love her as I used to.”
“Yes, you ought to do that,” he said softly. “Poor devil,” he added.
“Am I too selfish?” I asked.
He got up to go. “No,” he said. “To my mind, you’re entitled to a
breathing space before you give up all that you love best. But there’s
a risk.”
“Of what?”
“Of her finding out by some other means than yourself and before your
letter comes, that the letter should have been written earlier. Do you
sign all your stuff with your own name?”
“Yes.”
“Well, then, she’s bound to see how you’re getting on. She’ll see your
name in the magazines, in newspapers and in books. She’ll know you
don’t write for nothing, and she’ll make calculations.”
I was staggered.
“You mean—?” I said.
“Why, it will occur to her before long that your statement of your
income doesn’t square with the rest of the evidence; and she’ll wonder
why you pose as a pauper when you’re really raking in the money with
both hands. She’ll think it over, and then she’ll see it all.”
“I see,” I said, dully. “Well, you’ve taken my last holiday from me.
I’ll write to her tonight, telling her the truth.”
“I shouldn’t, necessarily. Wait a week or two. You may quite possibly
hit on some way out of the difficulty. I’m bound to say, though, I
can’t see one myself at the moment.”
“Nor can I,” I said.