THE BROWN MAN’S APOLOGY
As I went down the stairs, dressed--if you could call it dressed--at
last, how hideously conscious I was that I presented a spectacle of
all that was least desirable in womanhood. Long familiarity with the
fact had hardened me. I take it that no feminine thing becomes
completely reconciled to the accident that she is not physically
prepossessing. Women who are plain sometimes do not realise their
plainness. I daresay that is true. Or they may cherish a hope that, in
the eyes of someone, some day, they may not be plain. If, fatherless,
brotherless, they live with five lovely sisters, and a still
good-looking mother--who esteems beauty the only thing which is worth
a woman’s having--both these consolations will be denied them. Long
before they have reached years of maturity, they will have learnt,
with that absolute certainty of conviction which leaves no room
whatever for doubt, that they are ugly ducklings, and that, for such
as they, this world has no good things; that, indeed, it is as sure as
that the sky is above the earth, that none but idiots, or worse, will
ever esteem them for themselves alone. And, though they become
accustomed to this knowledge, and so pachydermatous, in a sense, there
are occasions when the actualities of their position are as pin-pricks
to make them wince as eagerly as if their skins had never been tanned,
by the laying on of innumerable stripes, into hide at all.
The descent of the stairs which divided my bedroom from the
drawing-room was one of those occasions. Worse luck for me. In the
drawing-room were the men who had been the worshippers of the girl who
was--last night; come, at that matutinal hour, to render her the
proofs of their devotion. Going to them was the girl who was to-day;
that grotesque caricature of the being they had known, and of whom
they apparently still dreamed. Clearly, it was doubtful if this was a
case in which they would perceive that it was “better to have loved
and lost, than never to have loved at all.” No man cherishes a
sentimental pang when he discovers that he has been deluded into
loving a female Bottom in an ass’s head. The humour of the situation
would probably appeal to them so much more strongly than to me.
Half-way down I encountered Jane, who, I rather suspect, had been
keeping herself handy in the possible expectation of such an
encounter. At sight of me she gave a jump.
“Lor’! Miss Norah, whatever has come to you! I shouldn’t hardly ever
have known you; you look so different--really, I shouldn’t.”
“Do I look different? How?”
I was curious to learn how the matter appeared to her. Her way of
seeing it might be as a straw to guide me as to the quarter from which
I might expect the wind to blow in the interview to which I was
advancing. Her eyes travelled over my features in stolid, observant
fashion, as if she were searching out the peculiarities of a wooden
figurehead.
“Really, miss, I couldn’t hardly say--I really couldn’t; though such
a difference I never see. It’s more than a difference; you don’t seem
as if you was the same person--that you don’t.”
“But I assure you that I am.”
“Excuse me, Miss Norah, but that you aren’t--you are not, really.
Leastways, not so far as looks is concerned. If you could see yourself
as you looked last night, and as you looks now, you yourself wouldn’t
say you was the same--I don’t believe you would, really.”
It was encouraging to receive such a testimonial from Jane, especially
as on her countenance sincerity was written large, and surprise, and,
I rather fancied--it might have been only fancy, but I doubt
it--disappointment too. If the alteration were so apparent to Jane,
the not inhumanly critical, with what appalling obviousness would they
not strike the keen-sighted gentlemen who awaited me in the
drawing-room, and whose voices I already heard. The same reflection
actually occurred to the handmaid of the crimson slippers--at the
recollection of their splendours they still seemed to pinch me.
“Whatever them there gentlemen will say when they see you looking like
that, Miss Norah, I can’t think; and there is a few of ’em. There’s a
bald-headed old party what give me a sovereign to show him in without
announcing him.”
“A bald-headed old party?”
“‘Never mind my name,’ he says. ‘You show me straight in without
announcing me, and here’s a sovereign for you.’ So I showed him in,
because sovereigns aren’t lying about all over the place, not in this
house they aren’t. Though I should like to know what he thinks he’s
after, with no more hair on his head than a yellow Bramah egg.”
I felt that I also should like to know. Was it possible that that
hoary reprobate had not yet repented of his last night’s misdoings.
Jane went on to say something which nearly caused me to tumble down
the remainder of the stairs.
“But the one that takes my fancy is him with the moustaches. Now, he
is something like a man. If he’d been took clean out of a picture he
couldn’t have been more what he ought to be.”
“With the moustaches?”
My thoughts recurred to the Duke of Chelmsford. Was he, in Jane’s
estimation, something like a man? But it seemed that I was on the
wrong scent.
“Him with the moustaches what turns up at the ends like as if they was
ramrods. If he isn’t a soldier it ain’t for want of looking it.
Splendid, I call him. Then look at the height of him--regular
monument, as you might say. And that straight! Then them there eyes of
his!--ain’t they eyes? I never! When they looked at me they made me go
all over--really they did. And I’ve not got over the feeling now--that
I haven’t. It’s my opinion, and always has been, that some of them
foreign men is better grown than some of our English.”
“Foreign men?”
A premonitory something was beginning to chill me about the centre of
the back.
“He speaks with a foreign accent--lovely accent, I call it--that
musical. And he’s got a way about him which makes you think, for all
his being such a great big giant of a man, that if he was to take you
in his arms he would be tender.”
“Jane! You shouldn’t say such things!”
“Well, miss, I am but human, as the saying is; and if I was going into
the drawing-room to see a man like him, rather than look a fright I’d
put something on my face, or do something to myself somehow, for look
different to what you’re looking now that I would--no matter how I
done it.”
With those last words of cheering advice Jane passed up the stairs,
presumably to pursue her professional avocations. She would never have
dared to say such a thing to one of the girls, but to me it always
seems that everyone says just anything. That splendid person, with the
moustaches turned up at the ends like ramrods, and the eyes, and the
foreign accent--could he be that imposing dignitary of the Imperial
Hotel? Had he had the audacity to trace me to my own home--and call on
me? A waiter! What a cosmopolitan assembly appeared to be gathered
together in the drawing-room.
The voices within seemed raised. Walter Hammond’s and Basil Carter’s
voices were very audible. I fancied I heard also the “lovely” accent
of which Jane had spoken. Mamma was unmistakable. It appeared that an
argument was taking place inside, which was growing warmer by rapid
degrees, with the promise of becoming, at an early moment, absolutely
hot. Just as I reached the door, and was about to turn the handle, it
was opened from within, with something of a flourish. I chose to take
it as having been opened for me, and walked straight in.
My appearance created a sensation, that I needed no one to tell me.
Still less did I need to be told that it was a sensation of a curious
kind. An argument had been taking place which bore a tolerable
imitation to something else. That was plain. It seemed probable that
pressure had been brought to bear upon the dignitary of the Imperial
Hotel to induce him to take himself away, and that that pressure had
been applied in vain. Basil Carter had his hand upon the door-knob,
his air suggesting something more than command, while there was
something in Walter Hammond’s attitude which hinted at measures of a
distinctly vigorous kind. Had I not arrived just then, I am inclined
to think that steps would very shortly have been taken to bring that
dignitary of the Imperial Hotel to a proper sense of his position.
Considering his physique, it is tolerably certain that those who
undertook the task of persuasion might have found that there were
difficulties in the way. So far as I could judge--and I had pretty
good opportunities--he was not the least collected person present.
When I entered, he stood about the centre of the room, his hat and
stick in one hand, a bunch of flowers in the other. Even in height he
towered above Walter Hammond, who was no dwarf, while, so far as girth
went, he would easily have made two of any of the others. He was
smiling on his company, and I am afraid even on mamma, in a manner
which was hardly deferential; but when he saw me he commenced to
salute me with a bow of the deepest deference.
I say commenced, because he actually got no farther than what I should
call the impulse. He began, but in the very act of beginning, as it
were, stopped short, as if something which he saw in me had stricken
him with temporary paralysis--paralysis which was decidedly not the
result of a flattering cause. He was, possibly by profession--for a
waiter must know how to control his countenance--a master of the art
of keeping his feelings out of his face. That he was surprised, I was
uncomfortably convinced--surprised almost to the verge of being
dumfounded. Yet he managed to prevent that fact being betrayed by his
features. His expression, so to speak, was held in suspense. But
presently it became eloquent enough.
I have heard something about the insolence of foreigners. I know a
girl who has lived most of her life abroad, and I have heard her say
that while foreigners are the politest creatures on earth, they are
the most insolent too. I had an example of it then. That sublimated
person of the waiter class had evidently expected to see one kind of a
girl, and actually saw another. For a moment or two he was still,
looking me, all the while, full in the face. Then he smiled, not only
at me, but also at the others, and he said, his slightly foreign
accent emphasising his sneering intention:
“What a difference between the night and the morning!”
Swinging the flowers which he held in his hand, which had certainly
been intended for me, he marched past me, straight out of the room,
without another word, still smiling. As he opened the hall-door to let
himself out, he laughed--such a laugh!
I knew, as well as if I had seen him do it, that as soon as he was
down the steps, he threw the flowers which had been meant for me out
into the street.
Had he struck me across the face with his stick, he could not have
branded me with a more distinctive mark of ignominy--he, a waiter! The
charm of it was, that no one showed the slightest sign of resenting
his behaviour. I was speechless. I had anticipated some difficulty
with my tongue, but in the presence of that sublimity of insult, it
refused to do its office altogether. My confusion was rendered worse
confounded by the horrible embarrassment of the men by whom I found
myself confronted. Their astonishment at the personality which my
entrance had discovered--in such bewildering contrast to the glorious
being of whom they had dreamed--was evidently so great as to be beyond
their capacity of concealment. It not only robbed them of their
senses, but also of their manners. They offered me no sort of
greeting, not acknowledging my presence by a word or movement, but
could only stand and stare and gasp, probably anathematising
themselves internally for the crassness of their folly.
Those well-bred gentlemen!
The continued silence became so hideous that it had to be broken, even
though I had to break it myself. I could not stay there and petrify
before their stony gaze. It cost me a severe muscular spasm to break
loose from the trammels of the sort of tetanus by which I was
afflicted. And when I did the result was ludicrously inadequate. My
intention was to be garrulous, a lava stream of words. All I could say
was this:
“You don’t want me. I needn’t stay.”
It was true, the concentrated essence of truth. But as an illustration
of the resources of the English language, it seemed hardly equal to
the occasion. It was such a stupid, such an uncouth, thing to say--so
utterly in character. The consciousness that this was so--that I was,
by the decree of nature, a stupid, uncouth, gawky idiot--was the last
straw. I turned to make my way out of the room as best I could.
My turning woke, at least, one of the gentlemen to some sense of the
requirements of his position--the brown man. He had shown himself,
last night, to be the owner of considerable stores of presence of
mind; he proved, now, that he possessed some remnants still--even
though they were, as remnants are apt to be, of somewhat dubious
quality. Advancing a half-step towards where I was, he checked me in
my retreat.
“Pardon me, one moment, Miss O’Brady.” I was not Miss O’Brady. I
longed, even then, to tell him so. But, fortunately, I did manage to
refrain. “I am here to offer you my apologies.” I was perfectly sure
that he had come there with no intention of the kind. “I fear that
last night I behaved with scant discretion. I frightened you. I think
I must have been a little off my head. I beg that it is in that light
that you will regard the singularity of my conduct; and can now only
assure you that I am ready to lay at your feet my excuses, my regrets,
my confession of misbehaviour, in any form you may command.”
He did not seem to see that his words, which were more than a little
artificial, were not so much an apology as a fresh offence. He had
made love to me because he was a little off his head, had he? What a
compliment, under the circumstances, the idea conveyed. I should have
liked to have pinched him, or done something more emphatic still, and,
perhaps, something more undignified. Instead of which I merely
replied, with an awkward clumsiness of which I was only too keenly
sensitive:
“Pray, don’t apologise! It doesn’t matter in the least.”
I gave no one else an opportunity to utter a syllable. The sight of
their continued dumbness was more than flesh and blood could endure;
and, above all, what the brown man had the audacity to call his
apology. I strode out into the hall, and I am afraid I banged the door
after me as I went.