CLOUDS
It was an abnormally hot summer; all London lay at the mercy of a
fierce and fiery sun; grass in the parks was brown, plants drooped in
window boxes, and there was not even a little breeze to stir the soft
dust under foot, nor one hopeful cloud in the blue vault overhead. But
in the sky of Douglas Shafto’s existence dark and threatening clouds
were gathering; the largest of these was a haunting fear that his
mother intended to marry her admirer, Manasseh Levison—the prosperous
dealer in furniture and antiquities, a wealthy man, who owned, besides
his business, a fine mansion at Tooting; this he had closed after the
death of Mrs. Levison, when he had repaired to “Malahide” for society
and distraction—bidden there by his lively old friend, Mrs. Moses
Galli. The shrivelled little miserly widow was his confidante, and, for
the illumination of Mrs. Shafto, she had drawn glowing pictures of
Khartoum House, and outlined an imposing sketch of the luxuries
awaiting its future mistress. It was noticed as a significant fact that
when Mrs. Shafto and Madame Galli went to Eastbourne for a week (at
Mrs. Shafto’s expense), they had been joined at the Grand Hotel by
Manasseh Levison, who treated them to a special banquet, enlivened by
the finest brands of champagne—and had subsequently motored them back
to town.
The idea that Levison should usurp his father’s place overwhelmed
Douglas with horror and shame; the prospect was intolerable; so were
other matters; for instance, his monotonous office life, the want of
variety and fresh air. For exercise, he belonged to a neighbouring
gymnasium, but this was not sufficient for a country-bred, energetic
young man, in his twenty-fourth year. As for the variety of amusements
that satisfied and delighted his brother clerks, they left him cold. He
was sensible of a tormenting thirst for a far-away different life—and
its chances, sick of this existence, of continually going round and
round, like a squirrel in a cage. A change of surroundings and scene,
or a spice of adventure, was what he longed for—as eagerly and as
hopelessly as some fallen wayfarer in a desert land. His mother’s
flinty attitude and hostile nagging had frozen a naturally affectionate
disposition, and Shafto passed several years of his youth without one
single ray of woman’s love, until generous Mrs. Malone had come forward
and installed him in her heart. His usual routine was breakfast at
eight, office at nine, lunch twelve-thirty, freedom at six, dinner at
seven-thirty. On Saturday afternoons he was expected at “Monte
Carlo”—to join the family at tennis and high tea—and here, over the
little red villa, brooded yet another cloud! Cossie, the gushing and
good-natured, had been given what her brother brutally termed “the
chuck” by her young man; he had taken on another girl, and his
repentance and return were hopeless.
Shafto listened to Cossie’s hysterical lamentations and outpourings
with what patience he could assume; until by degrees the dreadful truth
began to dawn on him, that _he_ was selected to replace the faithless
Lothario! Of late Cossie’s manner had become jealously possessive, She
seemed to hold him by a nipping tenacious clutch, and pattered out to
meet him at the gate, sat next to him at table, and was invariably his
partner at tennis. Once, arriving unseen, he had overheard her
declaiming to another girl:
“No, no, no, I won’t have it; Douglas is my boy—and my joy! Douglas
belongs to _me_!”
“There will be two opinions about that,” he muttered to himself, as he
flung down his hat and entered the tawdry little drawing-room; but, in
spite of his stern resolutions, he found himself borne along by a
strong and irresistible current of family goodwill. Sandy gave him
cigars, Delia declared over and over again that he was a “darling,” his
aunt became extra-motherly, and Cossie endowed him with button-holes,
pairs of ill-knit shapeless socks, and sent him many notes. She seemed
to appropriate him as a matter of course, and once when they parted at
the gate, had held up her face to be kissed—but this undesired favour
he affected not to see. He noted, too, that when Cossie accompanied him
to the same little gate, Delia and Sandy lingered behind with alarming
significance. He began to hate Cossie and to revolt against the
slap-dash untidy _ménage_, Delia and her train of rowdy boys, the
shouting, the practical jokes, and the slang. Then suddenly the Levison
cloud burst! One night, when he was flying upstairs to his sky parlour,
his mother waylaid him on the landing and, with an imperative gesture,
beckoned him into her room.
“Shut the door, Douglas!” she commanded in her usual frigid manner, “I
have something to tell you. Come over here and sit down.”
“Yes, mother, all right,” but nevertheless he remained standing; “what
is it?”
She cleared her throat and replied in her sharp metallic voice, “Mr.
Levison and I have at last made up our minds to be married; you see, we
have no one to consider but ourselves.” This announcement was followed
by a blank and paralysed silence.
“He is absolutely devoted to me,” resumed Mrs. Shafto, “and is a
wealthy man and, as you know, _I_ was never accustomed to poverty. The
wedding will take place in six weeks. Well, why do you stand glowering
there?” she demanded impatiently. “What have you got to say?”
“I have got to say,” replied Douglas, then his voice broke a little,
“that I don’t see how you can do it, or put that fat Jew tradesman into
my father’s place!”
“Your father!” she screamed passionately, and a scar on her chin showed
white against a suffused complexion; “don’t talk to me of your father.
Before we were married, he often came to my uncle’s shop, and talked to
me about books—I got up Haydn’s Dictionary of Dates, bits of Browning,
and Lamb’s Essays, and Omar Khayyam. I had to study them in my own room
at night, so as to make him think I was well educated and shared his
tastes; but I did not; no,” she cried, with a stamp of her foot, “I
_hated_ his tastes! Aristotle and Plato, yes, and Shakespeare—dull to
the last degree, but I liked him: he was so handsome, so thoughtful,
such a gentleman. And I believed that as he was madly in love I could
easily twist him round to my way of thinking—but I was mistaken!” She
paused, momentarily out of breath, then resumed: “He soon found me out
and was sick of me in three weeks. He disliked dances, theatres, and
smart society, and buried me alive in the country. We had nothing in
common; he was just a bookworm, with a sarcastic tongue, who left me a
beggar! Now I am free, I am going to be a rich woman, marry a man who
understands me—and lead a new life.”
“I see you are easily satisfied,” remarked her son.
“I am; and although Mr. Levison is a Jew tradesman, as you have
remarked in your nasty sneering way, he has been generous enough to
offer you an opening as his assistant. He will take you into the shop
and pay you two hundred a year.”
“No, thank you,” replied Douglas stiffly; “I know nothing about old
furniture.”
“Only old family, I suppose! Well, you might do worse; and when you
marry Cossie, as is probable, I will make you a small allowance.”
(Shafto had relinquished his income of a hundred and fifty a year, and
made it over to his mother legally, immediately he had come of age.)
“I haven’t the smallest idea of marrying Cossie, or anyone else,” he
answered, with white-faced decision.
“Well, she, and indeed they _all_, expect it.”
“I’ve never given them any reason to do so.”
“Yes, you have,” she contradicted sharply; “you go there, sit by her,
and take her into the garden.”
“There is nothing in that,” he rejoined, too chivalrous to add that it
was his cousin who sat by, escorted him, and clung to him like the
traditional limpet.
“She is five years older than you, I know, but very sweet-tempered, and
not a bad manager—she runs ‘Monte Carlo’!”
“Cossie is absolutely nothing to me beyond a cousin; nor have I ever
given her reason to think otherwise—or ever shall.”
“Oh, you are wonderfully bold and courageous here with _me_; I should
like to hear you telling them this at ‘Monte Carlo’! I know my sister
has set her heart on the match; she has been talking to me about the
trousseau, and intends to give you table linen, and a silver
tea-pot—she has two.”
“Even the silver tea-pot would not bribe me!” declared Douglas with an
angry laugh.
“Well, I can assure you that it’s an understood thing,” persisted his
parent, with spiteful emphasis.
“How can it be understood, when I have never asked the girl to marry me
and never shall? Cossie is straight enough and can tell you that
herself.”
“Oh, she has told me lots of things!” said her aunt mysteriously.
“Well, to turn to another subject, am I to inform Mr. Levison that you
refuse his offer of two hundred a year? You may come to us for
week-ends if you like; he is doing up the house at Tooting and giving
me a fine car.”
“No, thank you, I prefer to remain where I am; and now if you’ve told
me everything you wished to say, I think I’ll go to bed,” and with a
brief “Good night” he departed.
But he did not go to bed when he found himself in his bare fourth-floor
room, but sat on the side of his lumpy mattress, and smoked cigarettes
for a couple of hours. He must squash this Cossie question at all
costs; even if it led to a disagreeable interview with his relations
and made a complete breach between them. In one sense this breach would
mean freedom and relief, and yet he was rather fond of his dowdy old
Aunt Emma, and he also liked that slangy slacker Sandy; he could not
bear to give anyone pain, or to appear shabby or ungrateful. Of course
he ought to have taken a firm stand weeks ago, and repelled advances
that had stolen upon him so insidiously. He saw this now; yet how can
you refuse to accept a flower from a girl, or be such a brute as to
leave her notes and telephones unanswered, or rise and desert her when
she nestles down beside you on the sofa? He felt as if he was on the
edge of a precipice; and must make a desperate, a life or death
struggle; be firm and show no weakness. To be weak would establish him
with a wife, house-linen, and the tea-pot, in some dingy little flat
near his office, where, plodding monotonous round like a horse in a
mill, he would probably end his days. Always too anxious to please and
to be liked, he had enjoyed lounging about at “Monte Carlo” and
chaffing his cousin, but the price now demanded was exorbitant. He
recalled Cossie, stout and smiling, with rather pretty eyes and a
ceaseless flow of chatter. She had ugly hands and thick red lips, her
hair was coarse, but abundant, and she frequently borrowed her sister’s
rouge. Cossie was immensely good-natured and affectionate, and he would
be sorry to hurt her feelings, poor little thing.
Then as to his mother and her marriage to Levison, he hated to think of
it. He could not endure his future stepfather; between them there
existed a bottomless chasm of dislike and distrust. Levison considered
Shafto a conceited young cub, “but a clever cub”; and Shafto looked on
Levison as a purse-proud tradesman, ever bragging of his “finds,” his
sales, and his titled customers.
Douglas had never felt so abjectly miserable since the time of his
father’s death; his depression was such that he wished he was dead too;
but fate was in a kindly mood and, although he was unconscious of the
fact, the clouds were lifting.