LIKE the inexplicable run on a particular number at the roulette-table,
there often seems to be a run on some particular phenomenon thrown up
by the wheel of daily life. Such a recurrent incident was the meeting of
Norma and Jimmie Padgate during the next few weeks. She met him at Mrs.
Deering's, she ran across him in the streets. Going to spend a weekend
out of town, she found him on the platform of Paddington Station.
The series of sheer coincidences established between them a certain
familiarity. When next they met, it was in the crush of an emptying
theatre. They found themselves blocked side by side, and they laughed as
their eyes met.
“This seems to have got out of the domain of vulgar chance and become
Destiny,” she said lightly.
“I am indeed favoured by the gods,” he replied.
“You don't deserve their good will because you have never come to see
me.”
Jimmie replied that he was an old bear who loved to growl selfishly in
his den. Norma retorted with a reference to Constance Deering. In her
house he could growl altruistically.
“She pampers me with honey,” he explained.
“I am afraid you'll get nothing so Arcadian with us,” she replied, “but
I can provide you with some excellent glucose.”
They were moved a few feet forward by the crowd, and then came to a halt
again.
“This is my ward, Miss Aline Marden,” he said, presenting a pretty
slip of a girl of seventeen, who had hung back shyly during the short
dialogue, and looked with open-eyed admiration at Jimmie's new friend.
“That is how she would be described in a court of law, but I don't mind
telling you that really she is my nurse and foster-mother.”
The girl blushed at the introduction, and gave him an imperceptible
twitch of the arm. Norma smiled at her graciously and asked her how she
had liked the play.
“It was heavenly,” she said with a little sigh. “Did n't you think so?”
Norma, who had characterised the piece as the most dismal performance
outside a little Bethel, was preparing a mendacious answer, when a
sudden thinning in the crush brought to her side Mrs. Hardacre, from
whom she had been separated. Mrs. Hardacre inquired querulously for
Morland King, who had gone in search of the carriage. Norma reassured
her as to his ability to find it, and introduced Jimmie and Aline.
Mr. Padgate was Mr. King's oldest friend. Mrs. Hardacre bowed
disapprovingly, took in with a hard glance the details of Aline's cheap,
homemade evening frock, and the ready-made cape over her shoulders, and
turned her head away with a sniff. She had been put out of temper the
whole evening by Norma's glacial treatment of King, and was not disposed
to smile at the nobodies whom it happened to please Norma to patronise.
At last King beckoned to them from the door, and they crushed through
the still waiting crowd to join him. By the time Jimmie Padgate and his
ward had reached the pavement they had driven off.
“Wonder if we can get a cab,” said Jimmie.
“Cab!” cried the girl, taking his arm affectionately. “One would think
you were a millionaire. You can go in a cab if you like, but I'm going
home in a 'bus. Come along. We'll get one at Piccadilly Circus.”
She hurried him on girlishly, talking of the play they had just seen. It
was heavenly, she repeated. She had never been in the stalls before.
She wished kind-hearted managers would send them seats every night. Then
suddenly:
“Why did n't you tell me how beautiful she was?”
“Who, dear?”
“Why, Miss Hardacre. I think she is the loveliest thing I have ever
seen. I could sit and look at her all day long. Why don't you paint her
portrait--in that wonderful ivory-satin dress she was wearing to-night?
And the diamond star in her hair that made her look like a queen--did
you notice it? Why, Jimmie, you are not paying the slightest attention!”
“My dear, I could repeat verbatim every word you have said,” he replied
soberly. “She is indeed one of the most beautiful of God's creatures.”
“Then you'll paint her portrait?”
“Perhaps, deary,” said Jimmie, “perhaps.”
Meanwhile in the brougham King was giving Norma an account of Jimmie's
guardianship. She had asked him partly out of curiosity, partly to
provide him with a subject of conversation, and partly to annoy her
mother, whose disapproving sniff she had noted with some resentment. And
this in brief is the tale that King told.
Some ten years ago, John Marden, a brother artist of Jimmie Padgate's,
died penniless, leaving his little girl of seven with the alternative of
fighting her way alone through an unsympathetic world, or of depending
on the charity of his only sister, a drunken shrew of a woman, the wife
of a small apothecary, and the casual mother of a vague and unwashed
family. Common decency made the first alternative impossible. On their
return to the house after the funeral, the aunt announced her intention
of caring for the orphan as her own flesh and blood. Jimmie, who had
taken upon himself the functions of the intestate's temporary executor,
acquiesced dubiously. The lady, by no means sober, shed copious tears
and a rich perfume of whisky. She called Aline to her motherly
bosom. The child, who had held Jimmie's hand throughout the mournful
proceedings, for he had been her slave and playfellow for the whole of
her little life, advanced shyly. Her aunt took her in her arms. But the
child, with instinctive repugnance to the smell of spirits, shrank from
her kisses. The shrew arose in the woman; she shook her vindictively,
and gave her three or four resounding slaps on face and shoulders.
Jimmie leaped from his chair, tore the scared little girl from the
vixen's clutches, and taking her bodily in his arms, strode with her
out of the house, leaving the apothecary and his wife to settle matters
between them. It was only when he had walked down the street and hailed
a cab that he began to consider the situation.
“What on earth am I to do with you?” he asked whimsically.
The small arms tightened round his neck. “Take me to live with you,”
sobbed the child.
“Out of the mouths of babes and sucklings we learn wisdom. So be it,”
said Jimmie, and he drove home with his charge.
As neither aunt nor uncle nor any human being in the wide world claimed
the child, she became mistress of Jimmie's home from that hour. Her
father's pictures and household effects were sold off to pay his
creditors, and a little bundle of torn frocks and linen was Aline's sole
legacy.
“I happened to look in upon him the evening of her arrival,” said King,
by way of conclusion to his story. “In those days he managed with a
charwoman who came only in the mornings, so he was quite alone in
the place with the kid. What do you think I found him doing? Sitting
cross-legged on the model-platform with a great pair of scissors and
needles and thread, cutting down one of his own night garments so as to
fit her, while the kid in a surprising state of _déshabillé_ was
seated on a table, kicking her bare legs and giving him directions. His
explanation was that Miss Marden's luggage had not yet arrived and she
must be made comfortable for the night! But you never saw anything so
comic in your life.”
He leaned back and laughed at the reminiscence, not unkindly. Mrs.
Hardacre, bored by the unprofitable tale, stared at the dim streets out
of the brougham window. Norma, on friendlier terms with King, the little
human story having perhaps drawn them together, joined in the laugh.
“And now, I suppose, when she grows a bit older, Mr. Padgate will marry
her and she will be a dutiful little wife and they will live happy and
humdrum ever after.”
“I hope he will provide her with some decent rags to put on,” said Mrs.
Hardacre. “Those the child was wearing to-night were fit for a servant
maid.”
“Jimmie would give her his skin if she could wear it,” said Morland,
somewhat tartly.
This expression of feeling gave him, for the first time, a special place
in Norma's esteem. After all, a woman desires to like the man who in a
few months' time may be her husband, and hitherto Morland had presented
a negativity of character which had baffled and irritated her. The
positive trait of loyalty to a friend she welcomed instinctively,
although if charged with the emotion she would have repudiated the
accusation. When the carriage stopped at the awning and red strip of
carpet before the house in Eaton Square where a dance awaited her, and
she took leave of him, she returned his handshake with almost a warm
pressure and sent him away, a sanguine lover, to his club.
The next morning Constance Deering, taking her on a round of shopping,
enquired how the romance was proceeding.
“He has had me on probation,” replied Norma, “and has been examining all
my points. I rather think he finds me satisfactory, and is about to make
an offer.”
“What an idyllic pair you are!” laughed her friend.
Norma took the matter seriously.
“The man is perfectly right. He is on the lookout for a woman who can
keep up or perhaps add to his social prestige, who can conduct the
affairs of a large establishment when he enters political life, who
can possibly give him a son to inherit his estate, and who can wear
his family diamonds with distinction--and it does require a woman of
presence to do justice to family diamonds, you know. He looks round
society and sees a girl that may suit him. Naturally he takes his time
and sizes her up. I have learned patience and so I let him size to his
heart's content. On the other hand, what he can give me falls above the
lower limit of my requirements, and personally I don't dislike him.”
“Mercy on us!” cried Constance Deering, “the man is head over ears in
love with you!”
“Then I like him all the better for dissembling it so effectually,” said
Norma, “and I hope he'll go on dissembling to the end of the chapter. I
hate sentiment.”
They were walking slowly down Bond Street, and happened to pause before
a picture-dealer's window, where a print of a couple of lovers bidding
farewell caught Mrs. Deering's attention.
“I call that pretty,” she said. “Do you hate love too?”
Norma twirled her parasol and moved away, waiting for the other.
“Love, my dear Connie, is an appetite of the lower middle classes.”
“My dear Norma!” the other exclaimed, “I do wish Jimmie Padgate could
hear you!”
Norma started at the name. “What has he got to do with the matter?”
“That's one of his pictures.”
“Oh, is it?” said Norma, indifferently. But feminine curiosity compelled
a swift parting glance at the print.
“I imagine our guileless friend has a lot to learn,” she added. “A few
truths about the ways of this wicked world would do him good.”
“I promised to go and look round his studio to-morrow morning; will you
come and give him his first lesson?” asked Mrs. Deering, mischievously.
“Certainly not,” replied Norma.
But the destiny she had previously remarked upon seemed to be fulfilling
itself. A day or two afterwards his familiar figure burst upon her at
a Private View in a small picture-gallery. His eyes brightened as she
withdrew from her mother, who was accompanying her, and extended her
hand.
“Dear me, who would have thought of seeing you here? Do you care for
pictures? Why have n't you told me? I am so glad.”
“Love of Art did n't bring me here, I assure you,” replied Norma.
“Then what did?”
Jimmie in his guilelessness had an uncomfortable way of posing
fundamental questions. In that respect he was like a child. Norma smiled
in silent contemplation of the real object of their visit. At first her
mother had tossed the cards of invitation into the waste-paper basket.
It was advertising impudence on the part of the painter man, whom she
had met but once, to take her name in vain on the back of an envelope.
Then hearing accidentally that the painter man had painted the portraits
of many high-born ladies, including that of the Duchess of Wiltshire,
and that the Duchess of Wiltshire herself--their own duchess, who gave
Mrs. Hardacre the tip of her finger to shake and sometimes the tip of a
rasping tongue to meditate upon, whom Mrs. Hardacre had tried any time
these ten years to net for Heddon Court, their place in the country--had
graciously promised to attend the Private View, in her character of Lady
Patroness-in-Chief of the painter man, Mrs. Hardacre had hurried home
and had set the servants' hall agog in search of the cards. Eventually
they had been discovered in the dust-bin, and she had spent half an hour
in cleansing them with bread-crumbs, much to Norma's sardonic amusement.
The duchess not having yet arrived, Mrs. Hardacre had fallen back upon
the deaf Dowager Countess of Solway, who was discoursing to her in a
loud voice on her late husband's method of breeding prize pigs. Norma
had broken away from this exhilarating lecture to greet Jimmie.
He kept his eager eyes upon her, still waiting for an answer to his
question:
“What did?”
Norma, fairly quick-witted, indicated the walls with a little
comprehensive gesture.
“Do you call this simpering, uninspired stuff Art?” she said, begging
the question.
“Oh, it's not that,” cried Jimmie, falling into the trap. “It's really
very good of its kind. Amazingly clever. Of course it's not highly
finished. It's impressionistic. Look at that sweeping line from the
throat all the way down to the hem of the skirt,” indicating the
picture in front of them and following the curve, painter fashion, with
bent-back thumb; “how many of your fellows in the Academy could get that
so clean and true?”
“I have just met Mr. Porteous, who said he could n't stay any longer
because such quackery made him sick,” said Norma.
Jimmie glanced round the walls. Porteous, the Royal Academician, was
right. The colour was thin, the modelling flat, the drawing tricky, the
invention poor. A dull soullessness ran through the range of full-length
portraits of women. He realised, with some distress, the clever
insincerity of the painting; but he had known Foljambe, the author of
these coloured crimes, as a fellow-student at the Beaux-Arts in Paris,
and having come to see his work for the first time, could not bear to
judge harshly. It was characteristic of him to expatiate on the only
merit the work possessed.
“Mr. Porteous even said,” continued Norma, “that it was scandalous
such a man should be making thousands when men of genius were making
hundreds. It was taking the bread out of their mouths.”
“I am sorry he said that,” said Jimmie. “I think we ought rather to be
glad that a man of poor talent has been so successful. So many of them
go to the wall.”
“Do you always find the success of your inferior rivals so comforting?”
asked Norma. “I don't.” She thought of the depredatory American.
Jimmie pushed his hat to the back of his head--a discoloured Homburg hat
that had seen much wear--and rammed his hands in his pockets.
“It's horrible to regard oneself and one's fellow-creatures as so many
ghastly fishes tearing one another to pieces so as to get at the same
piece of offal. That's what it all comes to, does n't it?”
The picture of the rapt duke as garbage floating on the tide of London
Society brought with it a certain humourous consolation. That of her own
part in the metaphor did not appear so soothing. Jimmie's proposition
being, however, incontrovertible, she changed the subject and enquired
after Aline. Why had n't he brought her?
“I am afraid we should have argued about Foljambe's painting,” said
Jimmie, with innocent malice.
“And we should have agreed about it,” replied Norma. She talked about
Aline. Morland King had been tale-bearing. It was refreshing, she
confessed, once in a way to hear good of one's fellow-creatures: like
getting up at six in the morning in the country and drinking milk fresh
from the cow. It conferred a sense of unaccustomed virtue. The mention
of milk reminded her that she was dying for tea. Was it procurable?
“There's a roomful of it. Can I take you?” asked Jimmie, eagerly.
She assented. Jimmie piloted her through the chattering crowd. On the
way they passed by Mrs. Hardacre, still devoting the pearls of her
attention to the pigs. She acknowledged his bow distantly and summoned
her daughter to her side.
“What are you _affiché_-ing yourself with that nondescript man for?” she
asked in a cross whisper.
Norma moved away with a shrug, and went with Jimmie into the crowded
tea-room. There, while he was fighting for tea at the buffet, she
fell into a nest of acquaintances. Presently he emerged from the
crush victorious, and, as he poured out the cream for her, became the
unconscious target of sharp feminine glances.
“Who is your friend?” asked one lady, as Jimmie retired with the
cream-jug.
“I will introduce him if you like,” she replied. He reappeared and was
introduced vaguely. Then he stood silent, listening to a jargon he was
at a loss to comprehend. The women spoke in high, hard voices, with
impure vowel sounds and a clipping of final consonants. The conversation
gave him a confused impression of Ascot, a horse, a foreign prince, and
a lady of fashion who was characterised as a “rotter.” Allusion was also
made to a princely restaurant, which Jimmie, taken thither one evening
by King, regarded as a fairy-land of rare and exquisite flavours, and
the opinion was roundly expressed that you could not get anything fit to
eat in the place and that the wines were poison.
Jimmie listened wonderingly. No one seemed disposed to controvert the
statement, which was made by quite a young girl. Indeed one of her
friends murmured that she had had awful filth there a few nights before.
A smartly dressed woman of forty who had drawn away from the general
conversation asked Jimmie if he had been to Cynthia yet. He replied that
he very seldom went to theatres. The lady burst out laughing, and then
seeing the genuine enquiry on his face, checked herself.
“I thought you were trying to pull my leg,” she explained. “I mean
Cynthia, the psychic, the crystal gazer. Why, every one is going crazy
over her. Do you mean to say you have n't been?”
“Heaven forbid!” said Jimmie.
“You may scoff, but she's wonderful. Do you know she actually gave me
the straight tip for the Derby? She did n't mean to, for she does n't
lay herself out for that sort of thing--but she said, after telling me
a lot of things about myself--things that had really happened--she was
getting tired, I must tell you--'I see something in your near future--it
is a horse with a white star on its forehead--it has gone--I don't know
what it means.' I went to the Derby. I had n't put a cent on, as I had
been cleaned out at Cairo during the winter and had to retrench. The
first horse that was led out had a white star on his forehead. None of
the others had. It was St. Damien--a thirty to one chance. I backed him
outright for £300. And now I have £9000 to play with. Don't tell me
there's nothing in Cynthia after that.”
The knot of ladies dissolved. Jimmie put Norma's teacup down and went
slowly back with her to the main room. He was feeling depressed, having
lost his bearings in this unfamiliar world. Suddenly he halted.
“I wish you could pinch me,” he said.
“Why?”
“To test whether I am awake. Have I really heard a sane and educated
lady expressing her belief in the visions of a crystal-gazing
adventuress?”
“You have. She believes firmly. So do heaps of women.”
“I hope to heaven you don't!” he cried with a sudden intensity.
“What concern can my faith be to you?” she asked.
“I beg your pardon. No concern at all,” he said apologetically. “But I
generally blurt out what is in my mind.”
“And what is in your mind? I am a person you can be quite frank with.”
“I could n't bear the poem of your life to be sullied by all these
vulgarities,” said Jimmie.
“As I remarked to you the first evening I met you, Mr. Padgate,” she
said, holding out her hand by way of dismissal, “you are an astonishing
person!”
The poem of her life! The phrase worried her before she slept that
night. She shook the buzzing thing away from her impatiently. The poem
of her life! The man was a fool.