A MORNING IN NOVEMBER.
I.
Austin Selwyn rose from his bed and looked at Berners Street glistening
in a sunlight that must have warmed the heart of Madame Carlotti
herself. With a lazy pleasure in the process, he recalled the picture
of Elise Durwent sitting in the dim shadows of the firelit room; he
felt again the fragrance of her person as he leaned over her with the
lighted match. On the canvas of his brain was thrown the rich
colouring of the English girl, with the copper-hued luxury of hair and
the eyes that seemed to steal some magic from the fire; and he saw
again those warring lips, the crimson upper one chiding the passionate
scarlet of its twin.
Idly, while enjoying the unusual dissipation of a pre-breakfast
cigarette, he tried to imagine the course of incident and heredity that
had produced her strange personality. That there was a bitterness
somewhere in her disposition was obvious; but it certainly could not
have come from the mother, who was the soul of contentment. He found
himself speculating on the peculiar quality of personality, that
strange thing which makes an individual something apart from others of
his kind, that gift which singles out a girl of ordinary appearance and
leaves one of flawless beauty still wagging her pretty head in the
front row of the chorus. From that point he began to speculate on the
loneliness of personality, which so often robs its owner of the cheery
companionship of commonplace people.
On the whole, he regretted that he was going to see her again so soon.
Her pertness, which had seemed fairly clever the previous night, would
probably descend to triteness in the morning; he could even see her
endeavouring to keep up the same exchange of short sentences. Bah! It
was like a duel with toothpicks. The stolid respectability of Berners
Street lent its aid to the conviction that the morning would hold
nothing but anti-climax.
And he was poet enough to prefer an unfinished sonnet to one with an
inartistic ending.
II.
Austin Selwyn was twenty-six--an age which has something in common with
almost every one of the seven celebrated by Shakespeare. Like most men
in their twenties, he had the character of a chameleon, and adapted
himself to his surroundings with almost uncanny facility. At college
he had been an ardent member of a dozen cliques, even falling under the
egotism of the men who dabbled in Spiritualism, but a clarity of
thought and a strain of Dutch ancestry kept his feet on the earth when
the rest of him showed signs of soaring.
Some moderate wit had said of him at college that he was himself only
twice a day--when he got up in the morning and when he went to bed at
night. This Stevensonian theory was not quite true, for a chameleon
does not cease to be a chameleon because it changes its colour.
It was perhaps his susceptibility to the many vintages of existence
that had impelled him to write, authors being more or less a natural
result of the economic law of intake and output. As is the habit of
most young writers, he wrote on various subjects, put enough material
for a two-volume novel into a short story, and generally revelled in
the prodigality of literary youth. He was prepared to be a social
satirist, a chronicler of the Smart Set, a champion of the down-trodden
masses, or a commercial essayist, according to the first public that
showed appreciation of his work.
Although he had lived in Boston, that city which claims so close an
affinity to ancient Athens (as a matter of fact, has it not been said
that Athens is the Boston of Europe?), he was drawn to the great vortex
of New York, that mighty capital of modernism which sucks the best
brains of an entire continent. For some time he wrote beneath his own
standard and with considerable success. Following the example of
several successful New York authors, he plunged into a hectic portrayal
of 'high' society, a set of people that makes one wonder as to the
exact meaning of the adjective. For a short space he came under the
influence of the studied Bohemianism of 'Greenwich Village,' and wrote
deucedly clever things for the applause of the villagers, then sneered
at American taste because people in Arkansas did not like his work.
Still retaining his love of Greenwichery, he next succumbed to the
money lure of the motion-picture industry, which offered to buy the
picture-rights of his stories, provided he would introduce into them
the elements which go to make up successful American films.
With the prospect of a bank president's income before him, he succeeded
in writing his share of that form of American literature which has a
certain love interest, almost obscured by a nasty sexual diagnosis, an
element of comedy relief, and, above all, a passionate adherence to the
craze of the moment--a work that fades from the mind with the closing
of the book, as the memory of the author's name vanishes almost before
the last sound of the earth dropped upon his coffin.
He knew that there were sincere _literati_ writing of the abiding
things that do not die with the passing of a season, but the clamour of
commercialism drowned their voices. As though they were stocks upon an
exchange, he heard the cries: 'Brown's getting five thousand dollars a
month writing serials for Hitch's;' 'Smith sold two novels on synopsis
for thirty thousand dollars;' 'Green's signed up with Tagwicks for four
years at two thousand dollars a month writing problem novels.' Into
the maelstrom of 'Dollars, Dollars, Dollars,' the sensitive brains of
all America were drifting, throwing overboard ideals and aspirations in
order to keep afloat in the swirling foam.
And then--the Fates stooped and touched his destiny with a star.
A New York publisher (one of that little group which has for its motto,
'Art for Art's sake,' not 'Art, for God's sake!') noticed him, and
spoke of literature as an expression of the soul, a thing not of a
season or a decade, but as ageless as a painting.
His ear caught the new song of attainment just as readily as it had
received the chorus of 'Dollars.' He wrote a novel of New England
life, full of faults, but vibrant with promise; and having gathered
together quite a nice sum of money, he went to England, at the advice
of the before-mentioned publisher, there and elsewhere in Europe to
absorb the less oxygenic atmosphere of older civilisations, which still
gives birth to the beginnings of things.
Twice he had visited Paris. The first time, with the instinct of the
tourist, he had discovered the vileness of the place--a discovery
fairly easy of accomplishment. The second time he had ignored the
tourist-stimulated aspect of Paris life, and had allowed his senses to
absorb the soul of the Capital of all the Latins, the laboratory of
civilisation. And he who has done that is never the same man again.
Germany had ministered to his reason, and Italy to his emotions; but he
found his greatest interest in London, which offered to him an endless
inspiration of changing moods, of vagrant smells, and the effect of a
stupendous drama of humanity.
Under the spell of Europe's ageless artistry and the rich-hued meadows
of England's literary past he had grown humble. The song of 'Dollars'
was less clamorous than the echo of the ocean in the heart of a
sea-shell. When he wrote, which was seldom, he approached his
paper-littered desk as an artist does his canvas. It was the medium by
which he might gain a modest niche in the Hall of the Immortals--or,
failing that, his soul at least would be enriched by the sincerity of
his endeavour.
In that highly artistic frame of mind he suddenly secured the _entrée_
into London Society. For some reason, as unaccountable as the reverse,
a wave of popularity for Americans was breaking against the oak doors,
and he was carried in on the crest. The result was not ennobling. The
dormant instinct of satire leaped to life and the idealist became the
jester.
But then he was twenty-six and most agreeably susceptible to hap-hazard
influence. Being a Bostonian, he acquitted himself with creditable
_savoir faire_; and being an American, his appreciation of the
ridiculous saved him from the quagmire of snobbery, though he made many
friends and dined regularly with august people, whose family trees were
so rich in growth that they lived in perpetual gloom from the foliage.
Lady Durwent's dinner-party had been an expedition into the artistic
fakery of London, and he would have dismissed the whole affair as a
stimulating and amusing diversion from the ultra-aristocratic rut if
the personality of Elise Durwent had not remained with him like a
haunting melody.
He looked at his watch. 'By Jove!' he muttered; 'it's nine o'clock;'
and hurriedly completing his ablutions, he dressed and descended to
breakfast.
III.
Into the row of splendidly inert houses known as Chelmsford Gardens,
Austin Selwyn turned his course. A couple of saddle-horses were
standing outside No. 8, held by a groom of expressionless countenance.
From No. 3 a butler emerged, looked at the morning, and retired.
Elsewhere inaction reigned.
Ringing the bell, Selwyn was admitted into the music-room of the
previous night's scene. The portrait of a famous Elizabethan beauty
looked at him with plump and saucy arrogance. In place of the
crackling fire a new one was laid, all orderly and proper, like a set
of new resolutions. The genial disorder of the chairs, moved at the
whim of the Olympians, had all been put straight, and the whole room
possessed an air of studied correctness, as though it were anxious to
forget the previous evening's laxity with the least possible delay.
'Good-morning.'
Elise Durwent swept into the room with an impression of boundless
vitality. She was dressed in a black riding-habit with a divided
skirt, from beneath which a pair of glistening riding-boots shone with
a Cossack touch. Her copper hair, which was arranged to lie rather low
at the back, was guarded by a sailor-hat that enhanced to the full the
finely formed features and arched eyebrows. There was an extraordinary
sense of youthfulness about her--not the youthfulness of immaturity,
but the stimulating quality of the spirit.
'I came here this morning,' began Selwyn vaguely, 'expecting'----
'Expecting a frumpy, red-haired girl with a black derby hat down to her
nose.'
He bowed solemnly. 'Instead of which, I find--a Russian princess.'
'You are a dear. You can't imagine how much thought I expended on this
hat.'
'It was worth it. You look absolutely'----
'Just a minute, Mr. Selwyn. You are not going to tell me I look
charming?'
'That was my intention.'
She sighed, with a pretty pretence at disappointment. 'That will cost
me half-a-crown,' she said.
'I beg your'----
'Yes; I wagered myself two-and-six to a "bob" that you wouldn't use
that word.'
'It is really your fault that I did,' he said seriously.
She curtsied daintily. 'I make money on Englishmen and lose it on
Americans,' she said. 'I have a regular scale of bets. I give ten to
one that an Englishman will say in the first ten minutes that I look
"topping," five to one on "absolutely ripping" in the first thirty, and
even money on "stunning" in the first hour.'
His face, which had been portraying an amusing mixture of perplexity
and admiration, broke into a smile which encompassed all his features.
'Do all bets cease at the end of the first hour?' he asked.
'Yes, ra-_ther_. An Englishman never pays compliments then, because he
is used to you. Isn't it awful seeing people getting used to you?'
'Do they ever?'
'Umph'm. The only chance of bagging one of the nobility as a husband
is to limit interviews to half-an-hour and never wear the same clothes
twice. Startle him! Keep him startled! Save your most daring gown
for the night you're going to make him propose, then wear white until
the wedding. An Englishman will fall in love with a woman in scarlet,
but he likes to think he's marrying one who wears white. Costume, my
dear Americano--costume does it. Hence the close alliance between the
nobility and the chorus. But come along; we're snubbing the sunlight.'
With something like intoxication in his blood, he followed his
imperious, high-spirited companion from the house. He hurried forward
to help her to mount, but she had her foot in the stirrup and had swung
herself into the saddle before he could reach her side. With less
ease, but with creditable horse-management, Selwyn mounted the chestnut
and drew alongside the bay, who was cavorting airily, as if to taunt
the larger horse with the superior charm of the creature that bestrode
him.
'We'll be back, Smith, at twelve-thirty,' she called; and with the
tossing of the horses' heads, resentful of the restraining reins, and
the clattering of hoofs that struck sparks from the roadway, they made
for the Park.
IV.
London is a stage that is always set. The youthful Dickens watching
the murky Thames found the setting for his moments of horror, just as
surely as cheery coach-houses, many of them but little changed to this
day, bespoke the entrance of Wellers senior and junior. London gave to
Wilde's exotic genius the scenes wherein his brilliantly futile
characters played their wordy dramas; then, turning on the author,
London's own vileness called to his. Thackeray the satirist needed no
further inspiration than the nicely drawn distinction between Belgravia
and Mayfair. Generous London refused nothing to the seeking mind. Nor
is it more sparing to-day than it was in the past; it yields its
inspiration to the gloom of Galsworthy, the pedagogic utterances of Mr.
Wells, the brilliant restlessness of Arnold Bennett, and the
ever-delightful humour of Punch.
On this morning in November London was in a gracious mood, and Hyde
Park, coloured with autumn's pensive melancholy, sparkled in the
sunlight. Snowy bits of cloud raced across the sky, like sails against
the blue of the ocean. November leaves, lying thick upon the grass,
stirred into life, and for an hour imagined the fickle wind to be a
harbinger of spring. Children, with laughter that knew no other cause
than the exhilaration of the morning, played and romped, weaving dreams
into their lives and their lives into dreams. Invalids in chairs
leaned back upon their pillows and smiled. Something in the laughter
of the children or the spirit of the wind had recalled their own
careless moments of full-lived youth.
Paris, despite your Bois de Boulogne; New York, for all the beauties of
your Central Park and Riverside Drive--what have you to compare with
London's parks on a sun-strewn morning in November?
Reaching the tan-bark surface of Rotten Row, Selwyn and the English
girl eased the reins and let the horses into a canter. With the motion
of the strong-limbed chestnut the American felt a wave of exultation,
and chuckled from no better cause than sheer enjoyment in the morning's
mood of emancipation. He glanced at Elise Durwent, and saw that her
eyes were sparkling like diamonds, and that the self-conscious bay was
shaking his head and cantering so lightly that he seemed to be borne on
the wings of the wind. Selwyn wished that he were a sculptor that he
might make her image in bronze: he would call it 'Recalcitrant Autumn.'
He even felt that he could burst into poetry. He wished----
But then he was in the glorious twenties; and, after all, what has the
gorged millionaire, rolling along in his beflowered, bewarmed,
becushioned limousine, that can give one-tenth the pleasure of the grip
on the withers of a spirited horse?
Sometimes they walked their beasts, and chatted on such subjects as
young people choose when spirits are high and care is on a vacation.
They were experiencing that keenest of pleasures--joy in the _present_.
They watched London Society equestrianising for the admiration of the
less washed, who were gazing from chairs and benches, trying to tell
from their appearance which was a duke and which merely 'mister'--and
usually guessing quite wrongly. Ladies of title, some of them riding
so badly that their steeds were goaded into foam by the incessant pull
of the curb bit, trotted past young ladies and gentlemen with
note-books, who had been sent by an eager Press to record the
activities of the truly great. Handsome women rode in the Row with
their children mounted on wiry ponies (always a charming sight); and
middle-aged, angular females, wearing the customary riding-hat which
reduces beauty to plainness and plainness to caricature, rode
melancholy quadrupeds, determined to do that which is done by those who
are of consequence in the world.
But pleasures born of the passing hour, unlike those of the past or of
anticipation, end with the striking of the clock. It seemed to Austin
Selwyn that they had been riding only for the space of minutes, when
Elise asked him the time.
'It is twenty minutes to one,' he said. 'I had no idea time had passed
so quickly.'
'Nor I,' she answered. 'Just one more canter, and then we'll go.'
The eager horses chafed at their bits, and pleaded, after the manner of
their kind, to be allowed one mad gallop with heaving flanks and
snorting triumph at the end; but decorum forbade, and contenting
themselves with the agreeable counterfeit, Selwyn and the girl
reluctantly turned from the Park towards home.
The expressionless Smith was waiting for them, and looked at the two
horses with that peculiar intolerance towards their riders which the
very best groom in the world cannot refrain from showing.
'Won't you come in and take the chance of what there is for lunch?' she
said as Selwyn helped her to dismount.
'N-no, thanks,' he said.
She pouted, or pretended to. 'Now, why?' she said as Smith mounted the
chestnut, and touching his hat, walked the horses away.
'There is no reason,' he said, smiling, 'except---- Look here; will
you come downtown and have dinner with me to-night?'
'You Americans are refreshing,' she said, burrowing the toe of her
riding-boot with the point of the crop, 'As a matter of fact, I have to
go to dinner to-night at Lady Chisworth's.'
'Then have a headache,' he persisted.
'Please,' as her lips proceeded to form a negative.
'Some one would see us, and Lady Chisworth would declare war.'
'Then let us dine in some obscure restaurant in Soho.'
'There's no such thing, old dear. Soho is always full of the best
people dining incog. Almost the only place where you are free from
your friends is Claridge's.'
'Well'--his nose crinkled at her remark--'then let us go to Claridge's.
Miss Durwent, I know I'm too persistent, but it would be a wonderful
ending to a bully day. You know you'll be bored at Lady Chisworth's,
and I shall be if you don't come.'
'Humph!' She stood on the first of the stone steps, her agile
gracefulness lending itself to the picture of healthy, roseate youth.
'Where could we meet?'
'Let me call for you.'
'N-no. That wouldn't do.'
'Would your mother object?'
'Heavens, no!--but the servants would. You see, English morality is
largely living up to your servants--and we met only last night.'
'But you will come?' He crossed his hands behind his back and swung
the crop against his boots.
'Mr. Selwyn,' she said, 'your books should be very interesting.'
'From now on they will be,' he said, 'if'----
'All right,' she interrupted him with something of the staccato
mannerism of the evening before. 'I'll motor down in my little car,
and we'll go to the Café Rouge.'
'Good--wherever that may be.'
'No one has discovered it yet but me,' she said. 'Then I shall have a
headache at four, and meet you outside Oxford Circus Tube at seven.'
'You're a real sport, Miss Durwent.'
'Ah, monsieur'--she smiled with a roguishness that completely unsettled
him for the remainder of the day--'have you no sympathy for my
headache?'