The man to whom he gave his ticket at the station of Balham and Upper
Tooting told him that he could walk to Hyperion Terrace in about ten
minutes. He perceived that he would reach the house too early if he
proceeded there at once, so he strolled awhile in the opposite
direction. The pavements were dry, and he was thankful, for he had
seen no cab when he came down the station stairs, and he would have
been chagrined to present himself in muddy boots.
When he estimated that he would arrive at Beau Séjour none too soon to
be welcome, he retraced his steps, and now anticipation warmed his
blood once more. After all, she was the woman who had been Mary
Page--it was a piece of his boyhood that awaited him. Indeed he was
repentant that he had cavilled at minor defects. By dint of inquiries
he found the way to Hyperion Terrace. It was new, and red, and all
that a man who could call a street "Hyperion Terrace" would naturally
create.
A very small servant, wearing a very pretentious cap, showed him at
once to the drawing-room, where "The Soul's Awakening" met his
distressed view, on a pink and gold wall-paper. He heard flying
footsteps overhead, sounds of discomposure; there are houses at which a
visitor always arrives too early. His nerves were tremulous while he
sat alone. But Mary's home would have pleased him better if it had
been no more than a single room, with a decent etching over a bed
masquerading as a sideboard, and half-a-dozen shilling classics on a
shelf.
"Mr. Warrener? How d' ye do?"
She advanced towards him with a wide smile, a large and masculine woman
wearing a vivid silk blouse, and an air of having dressed herself in a
hurry. She wore also--with a droll effort at deception--a string of
"pearls" which, if it had been real, would have been worth more than
the street. For an instant his heart seemed to drop into his stomach;
and in the next an overwhelming compassion for her swept him. He could
have shed tears for her, as he took her hand, and remembered that she
had once been a dainty child.
"Mrs. Barchester-Bailey--so good of you to let me call."
"Oh, I'm sure it was very kind of you to come!" she said. "Won't you
sit down? ... How very odd that you should have been living in Mowbray
Lodge, isn't it? Quite a coincidence."
"Yes," he said, "yes. I wanted a place there, and Mowbray Lodge
happened to be to let for a few months. It was the first time I had
been to Sweetbay since that summer.... Your old house looks just the
same--the outside at least; I've not been in it."
"Really?" she said. "Yes--does it?"
"Yes.... And the lane looks just the same too, until you get to the
field; and then--then there isn't one. But perhaps that had vanished
before you left?"
"No, there was no change when I was down there last, but that's a long
while ago! Horrid old place! I'm very glad there's nothing to take me
there any more."
"Didn't you like it?" he asked, pained.
"Oh, it was so slow! I wonder how I put up with it as long as I did.
Didn't you find it slow? I must have gaiety. People tell me I'm a
regular gadabout, but--" She laughed--"one's only young once, Mr.
Warrener; I believe in having a good time while I can. I say I shall
have plenty of time to be on the shelf by-and-by."
She was very, very plain. It was while he was thinking how plain she
was, how ruthless the years had been to her, that the sudden pity for
himself engulfed him--the pathetic consciousness that she must be
reflecting how hard the years had been on _him_.
"It can't be difficult for you to have a good time," he returned,
labouredly light.
"Well, I don't think it is," she declared; she tossed her large head,
and rolled colourless eyes at him archly. "People tell me I've quite
woke Tooting up since I've been here, and I must say I've done my best.
I must _lead_. I mean to say if I'd been a man I should have liked to
be a great politician, or a great general, you know."
"You could be nothing more potent than Mrs. Barchester-Bailey."
"Oh now that's very sweet of you!" she said. "But I mean to say I must
_lead_. I started the Tooting 'Thursdays.' You mustn't think I'm just
a frivolous little woman who cares for nothing but pleasure--I'm--I'm
very interested in literature too. At the 'Thursdays' we have literary
discussions. Next week the subject is Miss Verbena's novels. Now
which do you think is Miss Verbena's greatest novel?"
He could only assume that she never saw a comic paper. "I--I'm afraid
I haven't read any of them," he owned.
"Oh! Oh, you surprise me. Oh, but you must: they're enormously
clever. Ettie Verbena is quite my favourite novelist, excepting
perhaps that _dear_ man who writes those immensely clever books that
never offend in any way. So pure they are, such a true religious
spirit in them! You know, Mr. Warrener, I'm a curious mixture. People
tell me that I seem to enjoy myself just as much talking to a very
clever man as when I'm romping through a barn-dance. And it's true you
know; that is me. But I suppose you're more interested in stocks and
shares, and things like that, than in books?"
"Well, I--I shouldn't describe myself as widely-read," answered Conrad;
"still books do interest me."
"Oh well, then, you must come on one of my At-Home days next time," she
said graciously; "one of the ladies you'll meet writes for 'Winsome
Words,' and you'll meet several people you'll like."
"I should be charmed," he said.
The servant bustled in, and carried a bamboo table to the hearth. As
she threw the teacloth over it, a cold wind blew through his hair.
"Do your cousins live in London?" inquired Mrs. Barchester-Bailey, with
the tail of a worried eye on the maid's blunders.
"Yes," he said, "yes, they do. But I haven't seen them since I came
back. I'm not sure whether they're in town."
"Are they married?"
"Yes," he said again. "Oh yes, they're married--both of them."
"Where are they?" she asked; "anywhere this way?"
"No; unfortunately they're a long way off. That's the drawback to
town, isn't it? Everybody lives at such a distance from everybody
else."
"Oh, I don't know," she said; "one can get about so quickly nowadays.
What part are they in?"
"Nina lives in Regent's Park," he replied, "where the mists are."
"Oh, really? Regent's Park?" She seemed impressed. "I was wondering
whether she would care to join our Thursday debates--we want to get as
many members as we can. Two of the ladies come over from Wandsworth,
but from Regent's Park it would be a drag certainly. Shall I put in
sugar and milk?"
"Please." He took the cup, and sat down again--and knew that he had
entered on that grade of society where there are no more men and women,
and they all become "ladies" and "gentlemen."
"And the other one--'Gina?" she continued.
He felt very uncomfortable; he wouldn't say "Mayfair."
"'Gina lives further west," he murmured. "No, I won't have any cake,
thank you."
"Then your cousins are quite high up?" she exclaimed.
"'High up?'"
"They're quite swells?"
"Oh!" he shrugged his shoulders. "No, I don't think I should call them
that. Too swell for me, rather, but then I'm half a Colonial, and the
other half a bohemian. I haven't been Home long--it's all strange to
me; until I came out here to-day I had no idea London could be so
picturesque. How glorious your Common must be in the summer!"
"So healthy!" she said promptly; "the air is so fine. We moved here
from the West-end for the children's sake."
"You have children?"
"Oh!" she rolled her eyes again. "Four, Mr. Warrener. My eldest boy
is getting quite big--people tell me they wouldn't believe he was mine
at all, but it makes me feel quite old sometimes, to look at him. I
think it's cruel of children to grow up, don't you?"
He stifled a sad assent. "Sometimes they grow up still more charming,"
he said.
"Oh, now, that's very sweet of you! Now really that's very pretty.
But I mean to say I think it's cruel to us when they shoot up so fast.
You're not married yourself yet, eh?"
"No, I hate asking favours."
"What a modest way of putting it! But you should. A good wife would
be the making of you, and give you something to think about. Don't you
know that?"
"I'm sure of it. A man can have no greater blessing than a good
wife--excepting none," he concluded mentally. "Shall I be allowed to
see them before I go?"
"The children? Would you like to? Dudley is out, but the others are
just going to have tea in the next room. My husband isn't back from
the city yet, of course. Oh, the city! What a hold it does get on you
men. As if it really mattered whether you made an extra thousand
pounds one month or not!" A trayful of crockery rattled, and the
footsteps of the little servant thudded through the passage.
"You're quite right," said Conrad. "What does it matter, when one
comes to think of it?"
"Not but what Herbert's the best of boys," she added. "If it weren't
that----" She hesitated, she endeavoured to look confused. "The fact
is, he's--he's jealous, he's a very jealous man. Not that he has any
reason to be--not exactly. Of course I'm awfully fond of him; he's a
dear old silly! But I mean to say I can't help it when men want to
talk to me--now can I? If I get half-a-dozen men round me, even though
we're only talking about the simplest thing, he doesn't like it. Of
course it makes it awfully awkward for me socially."
"It must," responded Conrad; "yes, I can understand that."
"I tell him he should have married a different woman." She giggled.
"Ah, but how unreasonable of you!" he said. "Then--if they won't mind
being disturbed--I am really to see your children?"
"Oh, they won't mind at all, but I'm afraid you'll find them very
untidy--they've just been having high jinks."
She led him to them presently, and slammed the door behind her. It
shook his thoughts to the clergyman's description of Mrs. Page.
Heredity again, perhaps. Two girls of about twelve or fourteen years
of age and a boy in a pinafore were sitting at a table. At their
mother and the visitor's entrance, they all took their hands off the
cloth and stared.
"And so this is the family?" cried Conrad, trying to sound
enthusiastic. "How do you do? And will you say 'how do you do' to me,
my little man?"
Three limp hands flopped to him in turn, and he stood contemplating the
group, while the lady cooed silly questions to them, and elicited dull,
constrained replies. They were not attractive children; they were
indeed singularly uninteresting children--even for other people's,
whose virtues seldom strike us vividly. To Conrad, who failed to allow
sufficiently for their shyness, they appeared stupidity personified.
"Yes," and "No," they answered; and their eyes were round, and their
mouths ajar. Like all children, from the lower to the middle classes
inclusive, they proclaimed instantaneously the social stratum of their
parents. With a monosyllable a child will do this. It is by no means
impossible for a man to exchange remarks with a girl from a show-room,
and at the end of five minutes to be still uncertain to what class she
belongs. But when the intrusive little cub in the sailor suit romps up
to her, he betrays the listless beauty's entourage with the first
slovenly words he drops.
"Have your cousins any children, Mr. Warrener?"
"Yes," he said, "oh yes, they have three or four each." He was
speculating what individuality lay concealed behind the vacant fronts.
Their mother had been no older than the eldest when he was sick with
romance for her--oh, positively "romance," although its expression had
been ludicrous in that period. Was it possible that these meaningless
little girls also had precocity and sweethearts? Appalling
thought--had Mary been so unpleasant? Had he idealised a dirty mouth?
"I should like to see them. I wish Nina and--er--'Gina would come over
one morning to lunch." Her tone was painfully eager. "Or I might look
them up. Do you know their 'days'?"
"No," he murmured, "I can't say I do. I----"
"Perhaps they'll come with you next time?"
"I hope you'll see them sooner; it's more than likely I go back to
Paris in a day or two--I only left a few weeks ago. I may remain there
through the year."
"Oh, really?" she exclaimed. "Then you have no business in London?
Mary," she broke off impatiently, "what is it? What is Ferdie
fidgeting about for--what does he want?"
"Jam, ma," said the plainer of the girls in a whisper.
"What do you say? Do speak up, dear."
"Jam, ma," repeated her daughter; "he wants jam on the first piece."
"Well, give him it then. Only this once, now, darling. You shouldn't
tease him so, Mary--remember he's a very little boy."
Mary _minor_ leant towards him, and Conrad thought she muttered "Little
pig!"
"Then you have nothing to do in London?" resumed the lady, as he
followed her from the room.
"Quite all that I hoped to do in London I have done this afternoon," he
smiled. "As a matter of fact, I don't suppose I shall call on anybody
else before I leave." But he saw clearly that she wanted to know the
women who were "high up," and he was self-reproachful. Distressed, he
wished that he had made no reference to them in his letter.
"Sha'n't you even go to see your cousins?" she persisted. "But you say
you're not sure if they're in town? If they are, any day would suit
me. If they would drop me a line----"
"No," he said, "I'm not sure; I haven't heard from either of them since
they left Sweetbay." He was at the point of mentioning Nina's address;
he reminded himself that he had a duty to Nina too.
Yet a moment later he succumbed. The remembrance of what he had
written, even civility itself, prevented his parrying so keen an aim as
Mrs. Barchester-Bailey's. He mentioned the address, and he said how
pretty the plain children were, and regretted that her husband was not
in. He sat smiling at boredom for five minutes longer, and when he
escaped at last he had the reward of knowing that she thought he
admired her very much. He had owed her that.
As he felt the air in his lungs he thanked heaven. Well, he would
explain the occurrence to Nina, who would consider him an idiot, and
tell her to expect a speedy visit. The rest lay with the visitor
herself--with her powers to please. For his own part, never, never did
he want to see her again. He walked fast, her image still pursuing
him. What an exhausting woman!
He dined at his club and wondered if it would be bad taste for so new a
member to make a complaint to the committee. Afterwards he drifted
into a music-hall, where quailing brutes who had been created to
scamper on four legs were distorted to maintain a smirking brute who
was unworthy to walk on two. The animals' sufferings diverted the
audience vastly, and the applause sickened Conrad more than the club
dinner.
And though his disappointment at Tooting may sound a very trivial
matter, it continued to depress him. He was sad, not because one woman
was different from what he had hoped to find her, but because the
difference in the one woman typified so much that seemed pathetic to
him in life. And to sneer at him as a sentimentalist absorbed by
opal-tinted sorrows blown of indolence, would not be conclusive. It
is, of course, natural that those of us who have to struggle should set
up the Man of Leisure as a figure to be pelted with precepts--indeed,
we pelt so hard at the silver spoon in his mouth that between the shies
we might well reflect that Ethics is often an _alias_ of Envy--but with
Conrad the leisure was quite recent and the sentiment had ached for
years. In his case wealth had not formed a temperament, wealth had
simply freed it.
Let us accept him as he was. My business is to present, not to defend.
Were tales tellable only when the "hero" fulfilled both definitions of
the word, reviewers would have less to do. If I could draw, a
frontispiece should enlist your sympathies for him: "Conrad and the
Coquette;" for that is Youth--a laughing jilt showing us her heels, and
tempting over her dimpled shoulder as she flies.
This is where you begin to think me insufferably dull. I see your fair
brow clouding, I can see your beautiful lips shaping to say, "Oh,
bother!" Be patient with me; we have arrived at a brief interval in
which nothing particular happened. It is true that soon afterwards
Conrad went to Monte Carlo, but details would not interest you in the
least. Be gracious to me; yield to the book another finger-tip--I feel
it slipping. Say, "Poor drivel as it is, a man has written it in the
hope of pleasing me." For he has indeed. On many a fine morning I
have plodded when I would rather have sunned myself where the band
played; on many an evening I have wound my feet round the legs of the
table and budged not, when the next room and a new novel--paid for and
unopened--wooed me as with a siren song. And all to win a smile from
You.
I have thought of you so often, and wanted to know you; you don't
realise how I have longed to meet you--to listen to you, to have you
lift the veil that hides your mind from me. Sometimes in a crowd I
have fancied I caught a glimpse of you; I can't explain--the poise of
the head, a look in the eyes, there was something that hinted it was
You. And in a whirlwind of an instant it almost seemed that you would
recognise me; but you said no word--you passed, a secret from me still.
To yourself where you are sitting you are just a charming woman, with
"a local habitation and a name;" but to me you are not Miss or Madam,
not M. or N., you are a Power, and I have sought you by a name you have
not heard--you are my Public.
And O my Lady, I am speaking to you! I feel your presence in my
senses, though you are far away, and I can't hear your answer. I do
wrong to speak like this; I may be arraigned for speaking; I have
broken laws for the honour of addressing you--among all the men who
have worshipped you, has one done more?--and I will never offend again.
But in this breathless minute while I dare, I would say: "Remember that
overleaf, and in every line unto the end I shall be picturing _you_,
working for you, trembling lest _you_ frown." Unto the End. Forgive
me. I have sinned, but I exult--it is as if I had touched your hand
across the page.