FIRST IMPRESSIONS
It was an indication of the changed character of the business that the
big block in Buckingham Palace Road closed early on Saturdays,
surrendering the hours in which the branches continued to do their most
roaring trade. The day after the party was a Saturday; Sir James and his
son were making their way back through the Park, timed to arrive at home
for a two o'clock luncheon. The custom was that Lady Muddock and Alice
should meet them at or about the entrance of Kensington Gardens, and the
four walk together to the house. There existed in the family close
union, modified by special adorations. Sir James walked with his
daughter, Bob with his stepmother; this order never varied, being
the natural outcome of the old man's clinging to Alice, and of
Lady Muddock's pathetic fidelity to Bob. She had no child of her
own; she looked up to Alice, but was conscious of an almost cruel
clear-sightedness in her which made demonstrations of affection seem
like the proffer of excuses. There are people so sensible that one
caresses them with an apology. Bob, on the other hand, was easy to
please; you had to look after his tastes, admire his wardrobe, and not
bother about the business out of hours; he asked no more, his stepmother
did no less. Thus while they crossed the Gardens Lady Muddock talked of
yesterday's party, while Sir James consulted his daughter as to the
affairs of the firm. Alice detected here and there in what he said an
undercurrent of discontent with Bob, on the score of a lack not of
diligence but of power, not of the willingness to buckle to, but of that
instinct for the true game--the right move, the best purchase, the
moment to stand for your price, the moment to throw all on the
market--whence spring riches. Sir James expressed his meaning clumsily,
but he ended clearly enough by wishing that there were another head in
the business; for he grew old, and, although he was now relieved from
Parliament, found the work heavy on him. Nothing of all this was new to
the listener; the tale was an old one and led always to the same climax,
the desire to get Ashley Mead back into the business. If Alice objected
that he was ignorant and untrained in commercial pursuits, Sir James
pushed the difficulty aside. "He's got the stuff in him," he would
persist, and then look at his daughter in a questioning way. With this
look also she was familiar; the question which the glance put was
whether she would be willing to do what Lady Kilnorton called "going
with selling the ribbons."
Such was the suggestion; Alice's mood (she treated herself with the
candour which she bestowed on others) towards it was that she would be
willing to go--to go to Ashley Mead, but not to go with selling the
ribbons. The point was not one of pride; it was partly that she seemed
to herself to be weary of the ribbons, not ashamed (she was free from
that little weakness, which beset Bob and made him sensitive to jokes
about his waistcoats being acquired at cost price), but secretly and
rather urgently desirous of a new setting and background for her life,
and of an escape from surroundings grown too habitual. But it was more
perhaps that she did not wish Ashley to sell ribbons or to make money.
She was touched with a culture of which Sir James did not dream; the
culture was in danger of producing fastidiousness. Ashley was precious
in her life because he did not sell ribbons, because he thought nothing
or too little of money, because he was poor. The children of the
amassers are often squanderers. Alice was no squanderer, but she felt
that enough money had been made, enough ribbons sold. With a new aim and
a new outlook life would turn sweet again. And she hated the thought
that to Ashley she meant ribbons. She did not fear that he would make
love to her merely for her money's sake; but the money would chink in
her pocket and the ribbons festoon about her gown; if she went to him,
she would like to leave all that behind and start a new existence. Yet
the instinct in her made the business sacred; a reverence of habit hung
about it, causing these dreams to seem unholy rebels which must not shew
their heads, and certainly could not be mentioned in answer to her
father's look. Moreover she wished Ashley to shew himself a man who, if
he took to ribbon-selling, would sell ribbons well; the qualities
remained great in her eyes though the pursuit had lost its charms.
At lunch they talked of their guests. Lady Kilnorton had pleased them
all; Lord Bowdon's presence was flattering to Lady Muddock and seemed
very friendly to her husband. Minna Soames, who had come to sing to the
party, was declared charming: hard if she had not been, since she spent
her life trying after that verdict! Lady Muddock added that she was very
nice, and sang only at concerts because of the atmosphere of the stage.
Ora Pinsent excited more discussion and difference of opinion, but here
also there was a solid foundation of agreement. They had all felt the
gulf between them and her; she might not be bad--Bob pretended that he
would have heard all about any scandal had there been one--but she was
hopelessly alien from them. They were not sorry that Lady Kilnorton had
brought her, for she had added to the _éclat_, but they could not feel
sure (nor perhaps eager to be sure) that they had secured a permanent
acquaintance, much less a possible friend. And then she had told her
hostess, quite casually, that Lord Bowdon (whom she had never met
before) was going to drive her home. Lord Bowdon was not an old man,
Miss Pinsent was quite a young woman; he was a lord and she was an
actress; of suspected classes, both of them. Every tenet and
preconception of the Middle Period combined to raise grave apprehension
in Lady Muddock's mind. Sir James nodded assent over his rice pudding.
The son and daughter shared the feeling, but with self-questioning; was
it not narrow, asked Alice, was it not unbecoming to a man of the world,
asked Bob. But there it was--in brother and sister both.
"Ashley knows her, I think," Alice remarked.
"That doesn't prove anything," said Bob with a laugh. Lady Muddock
looked a little frightened. "I mean, Ashley knows everybody," he added
rather enviously.
"Ashley can take care of himself," the old man decided, as he pushed his
plate away.
"Anyhow I don't suppose we shall see much of her," said Alice. Her tone
had some regret in it; Ora Pinsent was at least far removed from the
making of money and the selling of ribbons; she was of another world.
With this the subject passed; nobody made mention of Mr. Jack Fenning
because nobody (not even well-informed Bob) had heard of him, and gloves
had hidden the unobtrusive wedding ring on Miss Pinsent's finger. Indeed
at all times it lay in the shadow of a very fine sapphire; the fanciful
might be pardoned for finding an allegory here.
The still recent fatigues of entertaining made Lady Muddock disinclined
to drive, and Alice went alone to the Park in the afternoon. The place
was very full, and motion slow and interrupted. Getting fast-set in a
block, she leant back resignedly, wondering why in the world she had
chosen this mode of spending a summer afternoon. Suddenly she heard her
name called and, turning round, found a small and unpretentious victoria
wedged close to the carriage. A lady sat in the victoria; Alice was
conscious of little more than a large hat, eyes, and a smile; when she
thought of the meeting later on, she was surprised to find herself
ignorant of what Ora Pinsent was wearing. But the smile she remembered;
it was so cordial and radiant, a smile quite without reserve, seeming to
express what was, for the instant at least, the whole and unclouded
happiness of a human being. Thus to smile is in itself a talent.
"Miss Pinsent!" she exclaimed in a flutter for which she had not time to
rebuke herself.
"I wasn't quite sure it was you," Ora explained. "But I thought I'd risk
it. Isn't it dull?" Her eloquent hands accused the whole surroundings.
"This block's so tiresome," observed Alice; she felt the obviousness of
the remark.
"Oh, I don't mind whether we move or not. I mean driving alone. But
perhaps you do it from choice. I don't. But he didn't come."
Alice looked at her and laughed.
"I should have thought he would," she said. She began to be amused.
"Yes, wouldn't you?" asked Ora. "But he didn't."
"I'm very sorry."
"Oh, I've stopped wanting him now. It's quite unsafe not to keep
appointments with me. You miss the time when you're wanted! Have you
seen Irene Kilnorton anywhere?"
"Not since yesterday."
There was a pause. Some way ahead a carriage crawled a few paces on; the
pack was going to break up. Ora's victoria got a start first; as it
moved she turned her head over her shoulder, saying:
"I suppose you wouldn't like to come and see me some day?"
Alice said that she would be delighted, but she felt that her expression
of pleasure in the prospect sounded purely conventional. In reality she
was amazed, inclined to be apprehensively gratified, and certainly
interested.
"Then do," smiled Miss Pinsent as she was borne away.
"I wonder who didn't come!" said Alice to herself, smiling; but the next
moment criticism revived. "How curious she should tell me about it!" she
reflected. "She doesn't know me a bit." Frown and smile stood on her
face together.
The way was cleared. Alice accomplished another round at a fairly quick
trot. Then she saw Miss Pinsent's victoria again. This time Miss Pinsent
was not alone; the victoria stood by the path and Lord Bowdon's foot was
on the step. He was talking to Ora; Ora leant back, looking past him
with an expression of utter inattention. Was he the man who didn't come?
Or was she inattentive because he was not? Alice gave up the riddle;
she had a sudden consciousness that generalisations which had hitherto
seemed tolerably trustworthy might prove most fallacious if applied to
Ora Pinsent. But there was a distinct regret in her mind when she lost
sight of the little victoria with the big man by its step. She had her
invitation; but in retrospect her invitation seemed woefully vague.
Ashley dropped in to dinner that evening, pleasant and talkative as
usual, but rather less alert and a trifle absent in manner. However he
had good news; he was to be secretary to Lord Bowdon's Commission; it
would last a long while, was probably meant to last as long as the
Government did (the grounds for this impression would be tedious to
relate, and open to controversy), and would enable him to pay bills.
"I suppose," he said to Alice, "you don't know what it is not to be able
to pay a bill?"
"I hardly ever have one," she said; "they're just sent in to father."
"It must be rather slow never to be hard-up," he remarked; he hardly
meant what he said, and was quite unaware how true his remark seemed to
Alice Muddock. "Then you never write cheques?" he went on.
"For charity I do."
"Good heavens, what a base use of a cheque book!"
Lady Muddock happened to hear this observation. She had failed to
accustom herself to remarks not meant for literal acceptance; the Middle
Period treats language seriously.
"We all ought to give a certain proportion," she remarked. "Oughtn't we,
James?" But Sir James had gone to sleep.
As Ashley sat and talked lightly about the secretaryship, his shifts to
live comfortably beyond his means, and the welcome help Lord Bowdon had
afforded, Alice felt a surprise at him growing in her. Had she been
placed as he was, she might not have married for money, but she would
inevitably have thought of such a step, probably have had a severe
struggle about it, and certainly have enjoyed a sense of victory in
putting it on one side. The money-taint had bitten so far into her; she
could disregard wealth but could not forget it. She hardly understood
Ashley; she felt curious to know what he would say if she stood before
him and offered herself and her thousands freely, unconditionally, the
money without the ribbons. Did he know that she was ready to do it? Did
he want her? There was an only half-occupied look in his eyes. She never
expected to see admiration gleam in the eyes of men, but she often,
indeed generally, excited interest and chained attention. To-night there
was hardly attention, certainly not whole-hearted engrossed interest.
All at once, for the first time in her simple sincere life, there came
over her a bitter regret that she was not pretty. It was a small thing
to be; small in itself, very small in the little changes of shape and
colour that made it. But how rich in consequences! Yes, she meditated,
how unfairly rich!
Pressed by thought, she found herself lapsing into long silences. She
started another line of talk, but the new topic sprang from the previous
meditation.
"I met Miss Pinsent in the Park to-day," she said. "She was looking so
beautiful. And what do you think, she asked me to go and see her! I was
very flattered."
Ashley smiled as he observed:
"She's asked me to go and see her too."
"Shall you go?" asked Alice, with a grave interest.
She was puzzled at the heartiness of his laugh over her question.
"Great heavens, of course I shall go," he said, laughing still.
"What are you laughing at?"
"Why, my dear Alice, there isn't a man in London who wouldn't go."
"Oh, I see," she said in a disappointed, almost irritable tone. She had
somehow expected a better explanation than lay in that, something that
might apply to herself, to a girl. She was even sure that there ought to
be something more about Miss Pinsent, that it was a man's fault if he
saw only what all men must see. Her tone did not escape the quick wit of
her companion.
"You must see that she's tremendously interesting?" he said. "Lady
Kilnorton says that Ora Pinsent's the most interesting person in the
world--except one."
"Except who?"
"Her husband," he answered, laughing again. "You look surprised. Oh,
yes, he exists. His name's Fenning."
"She--she's married?" Alice was leaning forward now; here was another
problem.
"Incredible, but true. You may let Bob meet her without the least danger
of spoiling that great match he's going to make."
"I'd no idea she was married."
Ashley was obviously amused at her wonder, perhaps at the importance she
attached to the circumstance which he had brought to her knowledge.
"Lady Kilnorton will have it that he must be a remarkable man," he went
on. "But it doesn't follow in the least, you know, rather the contrary.
Some women have unimpeachable taste in everything except marriage; or
perhaps we must all have our share of the ordinary, and they take theirs
out in their husbands. Anyhow, he's at the other end of the world
somewhere."
They talked a little while longer about Ora, Alice incidentally
mentioning Bowdon's appearance by the step of the victoria. Then Ashley
said good-night, and started to walk home to his rooms in one of the
streets which run down from the Strand to the Thames Embankment. Here he
dwelt humbly, commanding modest comforts and, if he craned his neck, a
sidelong view of a bit of the river by Charing Cross bridge. As he
walked, he was pleasantly and discursively thoughtful. His evening had
disposed him to reflexion on the very various types of people who
inhabited the world and flocked, one and all, to London. He knew many
sorts; yet within the limits of his acquaintance the Muddocks were
peculiar. And now, right at the other end of the scale, came this Miss
Pinsent. He thought about Miss Pinsent for a little while, and then
drifted idly into a trivial classification of women according to their
external advantages. Perhaps he had dimly discerned and caught something
of Alice Muddock's train of ideas. There were those beautiful to all,
those pretty to some, those plain to most. Miss Pinsent, Lady Kilnorton,
Alice Muddock, were the instances on which his generalities depended.
Superficial as the dividing principle was, he gained a hint of what had
come home to Alice while he talked to her, of the immense difference it
made to the persons divided. (That it made an immense difference to him
was in no way such a discovery as needed midnight meditation.) To them
the difference would surely become more than a source of greater or
less homage, attention, pleasure, or excitement. These immediate
results must so influence and affect life as to make the woman in the
end really a different being, a different inner as well as a different
outer creature, from what she would have been had she occupied a place
in another class than her own. It would be curious to take twin souls
(he allowed himself the hypothesis of souls), put them into diverse
kinds of bodies, leave them there ten years, from eighteen to
twenty-eight, say, then take them out and record the observed
variations. But that was hopeless; the experimental method, admirable
for all sorts of dull subjects, broke down just where it would become of
absorbing interest.
In Pall Mall he met Lord Bowdon coming out of the Reform Club. Bowdon's
family had always been Whigs; people might argue that historical parties
had changed their policies and their principles; Bowdon was not to be
caught by any such specious reasoning. The Liberals were heirs to the
Whigs; he was heir to his fathers; his conservative temperament
preserved his Liberal principles. But he did not seem to be occupied by
such matters to-night. He caught Ashley by the arm, turned him round the
Athenæum corner, and began to stroll gently along towards the steps.
Ashley thanked him again for procuring him the Secretaryship; Bowdon's
only answer was to nod absently. What Alice Muddock had told him
recurred to Ashley's mind.
"I hear you had an audience in the Park to-day," he said, laughing. "Her
Majesty distinguished you?"
"I did a most curious thing," said Bowdon slowly. "I had an appointment
to drive with her. I didn't go. Half-an-hour later I walked up to the
Park and looked for her till I found her. Doesn't that strike you as a
very silly proceeding?"
"Very," said Ashley with a laugh.
"In a man of forty-three?" pursued Bowdon with a whimsical gravity.
"Worse and worse. But where do you put the folly, in missing the
appointment or--?"
"Oh, in the combination! The combination makes it hopeless. You said you
knew her, didn't you?"
"Yes. I shouldn't miss the appointment."
Ashley had long been aware of his companion's kindness for him, one of
those partialities that arise without much apparent reason but are of
unquestionable genuineness. But Bowdon was considered reserved, and this
little outbreak of self-exposure was a surprise. It shewed that the man
was at least playing with a new emotion; if the emotion grew strong the
play might turn to earnest. Moreover Bowdon must know that his confidant
was a frequent visitor at Lady Kilnorton's. Bowdon stopped suddenly,
standing still on the pavement, and looking full in Ashley's face.
"Don't think I'm going to make a fool of myself, my boy," he said with
remarkable emphasis and energy. "Good-night;" and, hailing a cab, he was
off in an instant.
Ashley properly considered his friend's last remark an indication that
he was feeling rather inclined to, and just possibly might, make or try
to make (for often failure is salvation) a fool of himself. The man of
unshaken sobriety of purpose needs no such protests. Ashley strolled on
to his rooms, decidedly amused, somehow also a little vexed. Nothing had
happened except a further and needless proof that he had been right in
putting Ora in the first division of his classification. The vexation,
then, remained unaccounted for, and it was not until he had reached
home, lit his pipe, mixed his whiskey and water, and settled in his
arm-chair, that he discovered that he was a little annoyed just because
Lord Bowdon was apparently afraid of making a fool of himself. It was a
thing that Bowdon or any other man had a perfect right to do, so far as
the rest of the world was concerned. This sounded like a platitude;
Ashley was surprised to find in his own soul an indefinite but not weak
opposition to it. The instinct of exclusive possession was stirring in
him, that resentment of intrusion which is the forerunner of a claim to
property. Well, he was not forty-three but just thirty. His theory of
life did not forbid a certain amount of making a fool of himself; his
practice had included a rather larger quantity. Perturbation had been
the ruling factor in Bowdon, in Ashley a pleasurable anticipation was
predominant. In his case there were no very obvious reasons why he
should not make a fool of himself again, if he were so disposed; for,
dealing dispassionately with the situation and with his own standards,
he could not treat this Jack Fenning as a very obvious reason. He went
to bed with a vague sense of satisfaction; the last few days had brought
to birth a new element in life, or at least a new feature of this
season. It was altogether too soon to set about measuring the dimensions
of the fresh arrival or settling to what it might or might not grow.
His anticipation would have been much heightened and the development of
his interest quickened had he been able to see what was at this time
happening to the lady who had made so abrupt and resolute an entry into
his thoughts as well as into Lord Bowdon's. Her distress would have been
sun and water to the growth of his feelings. For Mr. Sidney Hazlewood,
an accomplished comedian and Ora Pinsent's Manager, had urged that she
should try, and indeed must force herself, to regard a certain business
arrangement from a purely business point of view. To Ora, still charged
with the emotions of her performance in addition to her own natural and
large stock of emotions, this suggestion seemed mere brutality,
oblivious of humanity, and dictated solely by a ruthless and unhallowed
pursuit of gain. So she burst into tears, and a weary wrinkle knitted
itself on Mr. Hazlewood's brow. Lady Kilnorton had been blaming herself
for judging genius from the stand of common-sense; Mr. Hazlewood did not
theorise about the matter; that eloquent wrinkle was his sole protest
against the existence and the ways of genius. The wrinkle having failed
of effect, he observed that an agreement was an agreement and spoke, as
a man who contemplates regrettable necessities, of his solicitor. Ora
defied Mr. Hazlewood, the law, and the world, and went home still in
tears. She was not really happy again until she had got into her
dressing-gown, when quite suddenly she chanced on the idea that Mr.
Hazlewood had a good deal to say for himself. Then she began to laugh
merrily at the scene which had passed between them.
"He's very stupid, but he likes me and he's a good old creature," she
ended in a charitable way.