_A Pail_
Sticking out of the pocket of Leek's light overcoat was a folded copy of
the _Daily Telegraph_. Priam Farll was something of a dandy, and like
all right-thinking dandies and all tailors, he objected to the suave
line of a garment being spoilt by a free utilization of pockets. The
overcoat itself, and the suit beneath, were quite good; for, though they
were the property of the late Henry Leek, they perfectly fitted Priam
Farll and had recently belonged to him, Leek having been accustomed to
clothe himself entirely from his master's wardrobe. The dandy absently
drew forth the _Telegraph_, and the first thing that caught his eye was
this: "A beautiful private hotel of the highest class. Luxuriously
furnished. Visitor's comfort studied. Finest position in London. Cuisine
a speciality. Quiet. Suitable for persons of superior rank. Bathroom.
Electric light. Separate tables. No irritating extras. Single rooms from
2-1/2 guineas, double from 4 guineas weekly. 250 Queen's Gate." And
below this he saw another piece of news: "Not a boarding-house. A
magnificent mansion. Forty bedrooms by Waring. Superb public saloons by
Maple. Parisian chef. Separate tables. Four bathrooms. Card-room,
billiard-room, vast lounge. Young, cheerful, musical society. Bridge
(small). Special sanitation. Finest position in London. No irritating
extras. Single rooms from 2-1/2 guineas, double from 4 guineas weekly.
Phone 10,073 Western. Trefusis Mansion, W."
At that moment a hansom cab came ambling down Selwood Terrace.
Impulsively he hailed it.
"'Ere, guv'nor," said the cabman, seeing with an expert eye that Priam
Farll was unaccustomed to the manipulation of luggage. "Give this 'ere
Hackenschmidt a copper to lend ye a hand. You're only a light weight."
A small and emaciated boy, with the historic remains of a cigarette in
his mouth, sprang like a monkey up the steps, and, not waiting to be
asked, snatched the trunk from Priam's hands. Priam gave him one of
Leek's sixpences for his feats of strength, and the boy spat generously
on the coin, at the same time, by a strange skill, clinging to the
cigarette with his lower lip. Then the driver lifted the reins with a
noble gesture, and Priam had to be decisive and get into the cab.
"250 Queen's Gate," said he.
As, keeping his head to one side to avoid the reins, he gave the
direction across the roof of the cab to the attentive cocked ear of the
cabman, he felt suddenly that he had regained his nationality, that he
was utterly English, in an atmosphere utterly English. The hansom was
like home after the wilderness.
He had chosen 250 Queen's Gate because it appeared the abode of
tranquillity and discretion. He felt that he might sink into 250 Queen's
Gate as into a feather bed. The other palace intimidated him. It
recalled the terrors of a continental hotel. In his wanderings he had
suffered much from the young, cheerful and musical society of bright
hotels, and bridge (small) had no attraction for him.
As the cab tinkled through canyons of familiar stucco, he looked further
at the _Telegraph_. He was rather surprised to find more than a column
of enticing palaces, each in the finest position in London; London, in
fact, seemed to be one unique, glorious position. And it was so welcome,
so receptive, so wishful to make a speciality of your comfort, your
food, your bath, your sanitation! He remembered the old boarding-houses
of the eighties. Now all was changed, for the better. The _Telegraph_
was full of the better, crammed and packed with tight columns of it. The
better burst aspiringly from the tops of columns on the first page and
outsoared the very title of the paper. He saw there, for instance, to
the left of the title, a new, refined tea-house in Piccadilly Circus,
owned and managed by gentlewomen, where you had real tea and real
bread-and butter and real cakes in a real drawing-room. It was
astounding.
The cab stopped.
"Is this it?" he asked the driver.
"This is 250, sir."
And it was. But it did not resemble even a private hotel. It exactly
resembled a private house, narrow and tall and squeezed in between its
sister and its brother. Priam Farll was puzzled, till the solution
occurred to him. "Of course," he said to himself. "This is the quietude,
the discretion. I shall like this." He jumped down.
"I'll keep you," he threw to the cabman, in the proper phrase (which he
was proud to recall from his youth), as though the cabman had been
something which he had ordered on approval.
There were two bell-knobs. He pulled one, and waited for the portals to
open on discreet vistas of luxurious furniture. No response! Just as he
was consulting the _Telegraph_ to make sure of the number, the door
silently swung back, and disclosed the figure of a middle-aged woman in
black silk, who regarded him with a stern astonishment.
"Is this----?" he began, nervous and abashed by her formidable stare.
"Were you wanting rooms?" she asked.
"Yes," said he. "I was. If I could just see----"
"Will you come in?" she said. And her morose face, under stringent
commands from her brain, began an imitation of a smile which, as an
imitation, was wonderful. It made you wonder how she had ever taught her
face to do it.
Priam Farll found himself blushing on a Turkey carpet, and a sort of
cathedral gloom around him. He was disconcerted, but the Turkey carpet
assured him somewhat. As his eyes grew habituated to the light he saw
that the cathedral was very narrow, and that instead of the choir was a
staircase, also clothed in Turkey carpet. On the lowest step reposed an
object whose nature he could not at first determine.
"Would it be for long?" the lips opposite him muttered cautiously.
His reply--the reply of an impulsive, shy nature--was to rush out of the
palace. He had identified the object on the stairs. It was a slop-pail
with a wrung cloth on its head.
He felt profoundly discouraged and pessimistic. All his energy had left
him. London had become hard, hostile, cruel, impossible. He longed for
Leek with a great longing.
_Tea_
An hour later, having at the kind suggestion of the cabman deposited
Leek's goods at the cloak-room of South Kensington Station, he was
wandering on foot out of old London into the central ring of new London,
where people never do anything except take the air in parks, lounge in
club-windows, roll to and fro in peculiar vehicles that have ventured
out without horses and are making the best of it, buy flowers and
Egyptian cigarettes, look at pictures, and eat and drink. Nearly all the
buildings were higher than they used to be, and the street wider; and at
intervals of a hundred yards or so cranes that rent the clouds and
defied the law of gravity were continually swinging bricks and marble
into the upper layers of the air. Violets were on sale at every corner,
and the atmosphere was impregnated with an intoxicating perfume of
methylated spirits. Presently he arrived at an immense arched façade
bearing principally the legend 'Tea,' and he saw within hundreds of
persons sipping tea; and next to that was another arched façade bearing
principally the word 'Tea,' and he saw within more hundreds sipping tea;
and then another; and then another; and then suddenly he came to an open
circular place that seemed vaguely familiar.
"By Jove!" he said. "This is Piccadilly Circus!"
And just at that moment, over a narrow doorway, he perceived the image
of a green tree, and the words, 'The Elm Tree.' It was the entrance to
the Elm Tree Tea Rooms, so well spoken of in the _Telegraph_. In certain
ways he was a man of advanced and humane ideas, and the thought of
delicately nurtured needy gentlewomen bravely battling with the world
instead of starving as they used to starve in the past, appealed to his
chivalry. He determined to assist them by taking tea in the advertised
drawing-room. Gathering together his courage, he penetrated into a
corridor lighted by pink electricity, and then up pink stairs. A pink
door stopped him at last. It might have hid mysterious and questionable
things, but it said laconically 'Push,' and he courageously pushed... He
was in a kind of boudoir thickly populated with tables and chairs. The
swift transmigration from the blatant street to a drawing-room had a
startling effect on him: it caused him to whip off his hat as though his
hat had been red hot. Except for two tall elegant creatures who stood
together at the other end of the boudoir, the chairs and tables had the
place to themselves. He was about to stammer an excuse and fly, when one
of the gentlewomen turned her eye on him for a moment, and so he sat
down. The gentlewomen then resumed their conversation. He glanced
cautiously about him. Elm-trees, firmly rooted in a border of Indian
matting, grew round all the walls in exotic profusion, and their topmost
branches splashed over on to the ceiling. A card on the trunk of a tree,
announcing curtly, "Dogs not allowed," seemed to enhearten him. After a
pause one of the gentlewomen swam haughtily towards him and looked him
between the eyes. She spoke no word, but her firm, austere glance said:
"Now, out with it, and see you behave yourself!"
He had been ready to smile chivalrously. But the smile was put to sudden
death.
"Some tea, please," he said faintly, and his intimidated tone said, "If
it isn't troubling you too much."
"What do you want with it?" asked the gentlewoman abruptly, and as he
was plainly at a loss she added, "Crumpets or tea-cake?"
"Tea-cake," he replied, though he hated tea-cake. But he was afraid.
"You've escaped this time," said the drapery of her muslins as she swam
from his sight. "But no nonsense while I'm away!"
When she sternly and mutely thrust the refection before him, he found
that everything on the table except the tea-cakes and the spoon was
growing elm-trees.
After one cup and one slice, when the tea had become stewed and
undrinkable, and the tea-cake a material suitable for the manufacture of
shooting boots, he resumed, at any rate partially, his presence of mind,
and remembered that he had done nothing positively criminal in entering
the boudoir or drawing-room and requesting food in return for money.
Besides, the gentlewomen were now pretending to each other that he did
not exist, and no other rash persons had been driven by hunger into the
virgin forest of elm-trees. He began to meditate, and his meditations
taking--for him--an unusual turn, caused him surreptitiously to examine
Henry Leek's pocket-book (previously only known to him by sight). He had
not for many years troubled himself concerning money, but the discovery
that, when he had paid for the deposit of luggage at the cloak-room, a
solitary sovereign rested in the pocket of Leek's trousers, had
suggested to him that it would be advisable sooner or later to consider
the financial aspect of existence.
There were two banknotes for ten pounds each in Leek's pocket-book; also
five French banknotes of a thousand francs each, and a number of Italian
banknotes of small denominations: the equivalent of two hundred and
thirty pounds altogether, not counting a folded inch-rule, some postage
stamps, and a photograph of a pleasant-faced woman of forty or so. This
sum seemed neither vast nor insignificant to Priam Farll. It seemed to
him merely a tangible something which would enable him to banish the
fiscal question from his mind for an indefinite period. He scarcely even
troubled to wonder what Leek was doing with over two years of Leek's
income in his pocket-book. He knew, or at least he with certainty
guessed, that Leek had been a rascal. Still, he had had a sort of grim,
cynical affection for Leek. And the thought that Leek would never again
shave him, nor tell him in accents that brooked no delay that his hair
must be cut, nor register his luggage and secure his seat on
long-distance expresses, filled him with very real melancholy. He did
not feel sorry for Leek, nor say to himself "Poor Leek!" Nobody who had
had the advantage of Leek's acquaintance would have said "Poor Leek!"
For Leek's greatest speciality had always been the speciality of looking
after Leek, and wherever Leek might be it was a surety that Leek's
interests would not suffer. Therefore Priam Farll's pity was mainly
self-centred.
And though his dignity had been considerably damaged during the final
moments at Selwood Terrace, there was matter for congratulation. The
doctor, for instance, had shaken hands with him at parting; had shaken
hands openly, in the presence of Duncan Farll: a flattering tribute to
his personality. But the chief of Priam Farll's satisfactions in that
desolate hour was that he had suppressed himself, that for the world he
existed no more. I shall admit frankly that this satisfaction nearly
outweighed his grief. He sighed--and it was a sigh of tremendous relief.
For now, by a miracle, he would be free from the menace of Lady Sophia
Entwistle. Looking back in calmness at the still recent Entwistle
episode in Paris--the real originating cause of his sudden flight to
London--he was staggered by his latent capacity for downright, impulsive
foolishness. Like all shy people he had fits of amazing audacity--and
his recklessness usually took the form of making himself agreeable to
women whom he encountered in travel (he was much less shy with women
than with men). But to propose marriage to a weather-beaten haunter of
hotels like Lady Sophia Entwistle, and to reveal his identity to her,
and to allow her to accept his proposal--the thing had been unimaginably
inept!
And now he was free, for he was dead.
He was conscious of a chill in the spine as he dwelt on the awful fate
which he had escaped. He, a man of fifty, a man of set habits, a man
habituated to the liberty of the wild stag, to bow his proud neck under
the solid footwear of Lady Sophia Entwistle!
Yes, there was most decidedly a silver lining to the dark cloud of
Leek's translation to another sphere of activity.
In replacing the pocket-book his hand encountered the letter which had
arrived for Leek in the morning. Arguing with himself whether he ought
to open it, he opened it. It ran: "Dear Mr. Leek, I am so glad to have
your letter, and I think the photograph is most gentlemanly. But I do
wish you would not write with a typewriter. You don't know how this
affects a woman, or you wouldn't do it. However, I shall be so glad to
meet you now, as you suggest. Suppose we go to Maskelyne and Cook's
together to-morrow afternoon (Saturday). You know it isn't the Egyptian
Hall any more. It is in St. George's Hall, I think. But you will see it
in the _Telegraph_; also the time. I will be there when the doors open.
You will recognize me from my photograph; but I shall wear red roses in
my hat. So _au revoir_ for the present. Yours sincerely, Alice Challice.
P.S.--There are always a lot of dark parts at Maskelyne and Cook's. I
must ask you to behave as a gentleman should. Excuse me. I merely
mention it in case.--A. C."
Infamous Leek! Here was at any rate one explanation of a mysterious
little typewriter which the valet had always carried, but which Priam
had left at Selwood Terrace.
Priam glanced at the photograph in the pocket-book; and also, strange to
say, at the _Telegraph_.
A lady with three children burst into the drawing-room, and instantly
occupied the whole of it; the children cried "Mathaw!" "Mathah!"
"Mathaw!" in shrill tones of varied joy. As one of the gentlewomen
passed near him, he asked modestly--
"How much, please?"
She dropped a flake of paper on to his table without arresting her
course, and said warningly:
"You pay at the desk."
When he hit on the desk, which was hidden behind a screen of elm-trees,
he had to face a true aristocrat--and not in muslins, either. If the
others were the daughters of earls, this was the authentic countess in a
tea-gown.
He put down Leek's sovereign.
"Haven't you anything smaller?" snapped the countess.
"I'm sorry I haven't," he replied.
She picked up the sovereign scornfully, and turned it over.
"It's very awkward," she muttered.
Then she unlocked two drawers, and unwillingly gave him eighteen and
sixpence in silver and copper, without another word and without looking
at him.
"Thank you," said he, pocketing it nervously.
And, amid reiterated cries of "Mathah!" "Mathaw!" "Mathah!" he hurried
away, unregarded, unregretted, splendidly repudiated by these delicate
refined creatures who were struggling for a livelihood in a great city.
_Alice Challice_
"I suppose you are Mr. Leek, aren't you?" a woman greeted him as he
stood vaguely hesitant outside St. George's Hall, watching the afternoon
audience emerge. He started back, as though the woman with her trace of
Cockney accent had presented a revolver at his head. He was very much
afraid. It may reasonably be asked what he was doing up at St. George's
Hall. The answer to this most natural question touches the deepest
springs of human conduct. There were two men in Priam Farll. One was the
shy man, who had long ago persuaded himself that he actually preferred
not to mix with his kind, and had made a virtue of his cowardice. The
other was a doggish, devil-may-care fellow who loved dashing adventures
and had a perfect passion for free intercourse with the entire human
race. No. 2 would often lead No. 1 unsuspectingly forward to a difficult
situation from which No. 1, though angry and uncomfortable, could not
retire.
Thus it was No. 2 who with the most casual air had wandered up Regent
Street, drawn by the slender chance of meeting a woman with red roses in
her hat; and it was No. 1 who had to pay the penalty. Nobody could have
been more astonished than No. 2 at the fulfillment of No. 2's secret
yearning for novelty. But the innocent sincerity of No. 2's astonishment
gave no aid to No. 1.
Farll raised his hat, and at the same moment perceived the roses. He
might have denied the name of Leek and fled, but he did not. Though his
left leg was ready to run, his right leg would not stir.
Then he was shaking hands with her. But how had she identified him?
"I didn't really expect you," said the lady, always with a slight
Cockney accent. "But I thought how silly it would be for me to miss the
vanishing trick just because you couldn't come. So in I went, by
myself."
"Why didn't you expect me?" he asked diffidently.
"Well," she said, "Mr. Farll being dead, I knew you'd have a lot to do,
besides being upset like."
"Oh yes," he said quickly, feeling that he must be more careful; for he
had quite forgotten that Mr. Farll was dead. "How did you know?"
"How did I know!" she cried. "Well, I like that! Look anywhere! It's all
over London, has been these six hours." She pointed to a ragged man who
was wearing an orange-coloured placard by way of apron. On the placard
was printed in large black letters: "Sudden death of Priam Farll in
London. Special Memoir." Other ragged men, also wearing aprons, but of
different colours, similarly proclaimed by their attire that Priam Farll
was dead. And people crowding out of St. George's Hall were continually
buying newspapers from these middlemen of tidings.
He blushed. It was singular that he could have walked even half-an-hour
in Central London without noticing that his own name flew in the summer
breeze of every street. But so it had been. He was that sort of man. Now
he understood how Duncan Farll had descended upon Selwood Terrace.
"You don't mean to say you didn't _see_ those posters?" she demanded.
"I didn't," he said simply.
"That shows how you must have been thinking!" said she. "Was he a good
master?"
"Yes, very good," said Priam Farll with conviction.
"I see you're not in mourning."
"No. That is----"
"I don't hold with mourning myself," she proceeded. "They say it's to
show respect. But it seems to me that if you can't show your respect
without a pair of black gloves that the dye's always coming off... I
don't know what you think, but I never did hold with mourning. It's
grumbling against Providence, too! Not but what I think there's a good
deal too much talk about Providence. I don't know what you think,
but----"
"I quite agree with you," he said, with a warm generous smile which
sometimes rushed up and transformed his face before he was aware of the
occurrence.
And she smiled also, gazing at him half confidentially. She was a little
woman, stoutish--indeed, stout; puffy red cheeks; a too remarkable white
cotton blouse; and a crimson skirt that hung unevenly; grey cotton
gloves; a green sunshade; on the top of all this the black hat with red
roses. The photograph in Leek's pocket-book must have been taken in the
past. She looked quite forty-five, whereas the photograph indicated
thirty-nine and a fraction. He gazed down at her protectively, with a
good-natured appreciative condescension.
"I suppose you'll have to be going back again soon, to arrange things
like," she said. It was always she who kept the conversation afloat.
"No," he said. "I've finished there. They've dismissed me."
"Who have?"
"The relatives."
"Why?"
He shook his head.
"I hope you made them pay you your month," said she firmly.
He was glad to be able to give a satisfactory answer.
After a pause she resumed bravely:
"So Mr. Farll was one of these artists? At least so I see according to
the paper."
He nodded.
"It's a very funny business," she said. "But I suppose there's some of
them make quite a nice income out of it. _You_ ought to know about that,
being in it, as it were."
Never in his life had he conversed on such terms with such a person as
Mrs. Alice Challice. She was in every way a novelty for him--in clothes,
manners, accent, deportment, outlook on the world and on paint. He had
heard and read of such beings as Mrs. Alice Challice, and now he was in
direct contact with one of them. The whole affair struck him as
excessively odd, as a mad escapade on his part. Wisdom in him deemed it
ridiculous to prolong the encounter, but shy folly could not break
loose. Moreover she possessed the charm of her novelty; and there was
that in her which challenged the male in him.
"Well," she said, "I suppose we can't stand here for ever!"
The crowd had frittered itself away, and an attendant was closing and
locking the doors of St. George's Hall. He coughed.
"It's a pity it's Saturday and all the shops closed. But anyhow suppose
we walk along Oxford Street all the same? Shall we?" This from her.
"By all means."
"Now there's one thing I should like to say," she murmured with a calm
smile as they moved off. "You've no occasion to be shy with me. There's
no call for it. I'm just as you see me."
"Shy!" he exclaimed, genuinely surprised. "Do I seem shy to you?" He
thought he had been magnificently doggish.
"Oh, well," she said. "That's all right, then, if you _aren't._ I should
take it as a poor compliment, being shy with me. Where do you think we
can have a good talk? I'm free for the evening. I don't know about you."
Her eyes questioned his.
_No Gratuities_
At a late hour, they were entering, side by side, a glittering
establishment whose interior seemed to be walled chiefly in bevelled
glass, so that everywhere the curious observer saw himself and twisted
fractions of himself. The glass was relieved at frequent intervals by
elaborate enamelled signs which repeated, 'No gratuities.' It seemed
that the directors of the establishment wished to make perfectly clear
to visitors that, whatever else they might find, they must on no account
expect gratuities.
"I've always wanted to come here," said Mrs. Alice Challice vivaciously,
glancing up at Priam Farll's modest, middle-aged face.
Then, after they had successfully passed through a preliminary pair of
bevelled portals, a huge man dressed like a policeman, and achieving a
very successful imitation of a policeman, stretched out his hand, and
stopped them.
"In line, please," he said.
"I thought it was a restaurant, not a theatre," Priam whispered to Mrs.
Challice.
"So it is a restaurant," said his companion. "But I hear they're obliged
to do like this because there's always such a crowd. It's very 'andsome,
isn't it?"
He agreed that it was. He felt that London had got a long way in front
of him and that he would have to hurry a great deal before he could
catch it up.
At length another imitation of a policeman opened more doors and, with
other sinners, they were released from purgatory into a clattering
paradise, which again offered everything save gratuities. They were
conducted to a small table full of dirty plates and empty glasses in a
corner of the vast and lofty saloon. A man in evening dress whose eye
said, "Now mind, no insulting gratuities!" rushed past the table and in
one deft amazing gesture swept off the whole of its contents and was
gone with them. It was an astounding feat, and when Priam recovered from
his amazement he fell into another amazement on discovering that by some
magic means the man in evening dress had insinuated a gold-charactered
menu into his hands. This menu was exceedingly long--it comprised
everything except gratuities--and, evidently knowing from experience
that it was not a document to be perused and exhausted in five minutes,
the man in evening dress took care not to interrupt the studies of Priam
Farll and Alice Challice during a full quarter of an hour. Then he
returned like a bolt, put them through an examination in the menu, and
fled, and when he was gone they saw that the table was set with a clean
cloth and instruments and empty glasses. A band thereupon burst into gay
strains, like the band at a music-hall after something very difficult on
the horizontal bar. And it played louder and louder; and as it played
louder, so the people talked louder. And the crash of cymbals mingled
with the crash of plates, and the altercations of knives and forks with
the shrill accents of chatterers determined to be heard. And men in
evening dress (a costume which seemed to be forbidden to sitters at
tables) flitted to and fro with inconceivable rapidity, austere,
preoccupied conjurers. And from every marble wall, bevelled mirror, and
Doric column, there spoke silently but insistently the haunting legend,
'No gratuities.'
Thus Priam Farll began his first public meal in modern London. He knew
the hotels; he knew the restaurants, of half-a-dozen countries, but he
had never been so overwhelmed as he was here. Remembering London as a
city of wooden chop-houses, he could scarcely eat for the thoughts that
surged through his brain.
"Isn't it amusing?" said Mrs. Challice benignantly, over a glass of
lager. "I'm so glad you brought me here. I've always wanted to come."
And then, a few minutes afterwards, she was saying, against the immense
din--
"You know, I've been thinking for years of getting married again. And if
you really _are_ thinking of getting married, what are you to do? You
may sit in a chair and wait till eggs are sixpence a dozen, and you'll
be no nearer. You must do something. And what is there except a
matrimonial agency? I say--what's the matter with a matrimonial agency,
anyhow? If you want to get married, you want to get married, and it's no
use pretending you don't. I do hate pretending, I do. No shame in
wanting to get married, is there? I think a matrimonial agency is a very
good, useful thing. They say you're swindled. Well, those that are
deserve to be. You can be swindled without a matrimonial agency, seems
to me. Not that I've ever been. Plain common-sense people never are. No,
if you ask me, matrimonial agencies are the most sensible things--after
dress-shields--that's ever been invented. And I'm sure if anything comes
of this, I shall pay the fees with the greatest pleasure. Now don't you
agree with me?"
The whole mystery stood explained.
"Absolutely!" he said.
And felt the skin creeping in the small of his back.
* * * * *