“Never, never tamper with vitality,” begged Mr. Cassela. “Vitality is my religion — my only creed.”
He turned towards Lydia.
“You, who are young and wonderful,” he said matter-of-factly, “I do pray and trust that you are an ardent disciple of vitality? It is what we need so terribly just now.”
Never before had Lydia conceived of a conversation wherein personalities of the kind just addressed to her should be admitted. But these people were not mad, although Aunt Beryl would undoubtedly have thought them so, and even although Miss Forster wore an air of being brightly determined not to think them so.
They were, on the contrary, people who counted for something in a world that was totally unknown to Lydia, and towards which she aspired.
Miss Forster was gazing at her rather anxiously, as though doubtful whether she would be able to answer Mr. Cassela suitably, and a sudden impish inspiration seized upon Lydia.
“I adore vitality,” she said, as nearly as possible in Lady Honoret’s own manner.
She was astonished at herself when she had said it, but Mr. Cassela appeared merely to be deeply gratified.
“Then I have indeed found another kindred spirit, dear lady!” said he. And he added calmly to Lady Honoret: “Is this your discovery? But how young! how exquisitely, adorably young!” Lydia could hardly believe that he was referring to her, and was relieved when her hostess, for once disregarding the element of personality in the conversation, answered in a vague manner: “Discoveries are so wonderful, aren’t they? You know it was I who really discovered that marvellous, marvellous c’eature, the plumber who published a book of verses last year — the author of the ‘Lyrics addressed to the Inanimate’?”
“Ah, yes, yes! I congratulate you indeed. But let me tell you a secret, deaf lady. I have a discovery of my own — a novel that will appear this autumn — a colossal production! And by whom do you think?” Lydia thought that Lady Honoret looked annoyed, but she nevertheless gazed inquiringly at Mr. Cassela.
“By a fifteen-year-old school-girl!” he hissed.
There was a death-like silence.
Lydia wanted to laugh, partly from the sheer sense of anti-climax, and partly from nervousness.
“The vitality, the grip, the passion, that child has put into her work! It’s incredible — it defies description.
Wait — wait and see the storm that book will raise. I’m going to advertise it everywhere — with the girl’s portrait. A wild-looking creature, with an underhung jaw and sunken eyes — there’s Red Indian blood in her.
And I found her behind a bar in Liverpool — in Liverpool!” His voice rose with horror.
“The author of ‘Lyrics to the Inanimate’ was starving when I met him,” returned Lady Honoret sombrely— “starving in a London gutter.”
“Quite romantic,” Miss Forster suddenly and loudly declared, as though she felt that she had been left out of the conversation long enough.
Lydia heard the interruption with a shock at its inappositeness, so thoroughly had she already assimilated the atmosphere of her new surroundings. She felt positive! relieved when the door opened at the same moment, and other visitors were announced.
This time Lydia was not made known to any of them, and she watched with curiosity Lady Honoret dropping the intensity of her manner and resuming the light, tinkling cordiality with which she herself had been greeted.
Miss Forster also appeared to be relieved, and began to talk eagerly about such topics as a sale taking place at one of the big shops in Kensington High Street, and the prospect of warm weather at last.
Lydia finished the cold dregs of tea in her cup — which her hostess had not offered to replenish — and reflected that any of Aunt Beryl’s or Aunt Evelyn’s friends would have considered it very poor hospitality to allow a guest to remain sitting so long before an empty plate. She had not summoned enough courage to help herself from the nearest dish of thin bread-and-butter before there was a general movement, and she saw that a card-table had been prepared.
The two ladies whom Lydia did not know were already arranging themselves above the little baizecovered tables, their jewelled fingers and hooked noses hovering over the packs of cards.
“Miss Forster — Mr. Cassela? Do smoke — there are ciga’ettes on the table....”
“But aren’t you playing, dear Lady Honoret?” Miss Forster said solicitously, at the same time fingering her silver-net purse eagerly.
“Not this’ time,” said the hostess, and laid her hand with an engaging smile on Lydia’s arm. “I’m going to have a lovely, heart-to-heart talk with my new discovery.”
XV
LADY HONORET’S new discovery had sufficient shrewdness to find out for herself in a very little while the origin of that lady’s rapidly-acquired enthusiasm.
Mr. Cassela’s talk of the fifteen-year-old novelist who was to astonish the reading public that autumn, in the sequel glaringly illuminated the aspect of her own immediate success with Lady Honoret for Lydia.
It was evidently essential that a counter-discovery should mitigate the publisher’s complacency, and sustain Lady Honoret’s reputation as a connaisseuse in the literary world.
Even although the explanation did not flatter Lydia’s vanity, it did not prevent her from appraising very justly and acutely the full value to herself of the little Jewess’s patronage. She did not regret, in spite of Lady Honoret’s lamentations, that she had not taken the manuscript of her novel to Lexham Gardens that first Saturday afternoon, since she received an immediate invitation to bring it with her one afternoon the following week.
“But I only have Saturday afternoons free,” Lydia said serenely. “I work as accountant in a West End place of business all the week.”
She could not have imagined beforehand that she would ever make such an announcement during the course of an afternoon call upon Lady Honoret, but the mention of starving plumbers and Liverpool bar-maids had convinced her that such candour would prove merely an additional asset in her favour.
She was not in the least surprised when Lady Honoret said reverently: “In a shop! Oh, how wonderful! And you find you can write? But I needn’t ask. It must find exp’ession somehow, mustn’t it — and one so often has to rise above uncongenial surroundings — unsympathetic atmosphere.... I myself... Sir Rupert, you know — cares nothing for literature, or indeed any of the artistic side of life, and so... and so I play B’idge,” said Lady Honoret, her mouth and eyebrows assuming angles expressive of pathos, and her small hands making a fluttering gesture of vague resignation, that embraced alike the Bridge table and the drawing-room crowded with expensive furniture.
It was a little difficult to explain to Miss Forster that Lady Honoret had actually invited Lydia by herself to lunch on Sunday week, when she was to bring the typescript of her book; but Lydia did it with all the tact that she was able to command on their way home.
“I wish you were coming too,” she said, not altogether truthfully. “I shall feel nervous without you, and of course you know them both so well.”
“Oh, very well indeed,” said Miss Forster with emphasis. “In fact, it’s what I may call an intimate friendship — I am in and out almost as though it were my own home. Sir Rupert — you don’t know him, of course — and I are tremendous pals — he always says: Now run in and out quite freely, at any hour.”
As Miss Forster illustrated Sir Rupert’s hospitable dictum with half a dozen hasty little steps, indicative of one running in and out quite freely, Lydia allowed her to join the omnibus that was to take them up Cromwell Road, and herself followed sedately, so that the interior, always favoured by Miss Forster’s large feathered hats, was filled when she came up, and she was obliged to exchange nods and waves with Miss Forster from the footboard and go outside, whence the conversation could naturally not be resumed.
During the week she brought Miss Forster a bunch of violets, and took pains not to appear as though she were avoiding her.
B
ut when Sunday came, Lydia, decked in the threecornered velvet hat, stole discreetly down the stairs and out of the front door at a moment when she knew that Miss Forster was in her own room.
She had no wish to make a parade of her success, and thereby risk exciting Miss Forster’s vexation or jealousy. Nothing was more inconvenient than such an enmity, as Lydia had long ago told herself, thinking of the “sides” taken at school by Miss Glover’s girls, or the quarrels between Gina Ryott and Marguerite Saxon at the shop, that had led to so many minor disputes and discussions.
She carried her novel in a brown-paper parcel.
Lady Honoret had assured Lydia that she would be quite, quite alone, and although at the moment Lydia had felt slightly disappointed by the announcement, it now saved her from nervousness.
“Miss Raymond!” She had never heard her own entry into a room so announced before, and the novelty of the experience was occupying her mind as she came round the screen that guarded the drawing-room door.
With a complete shock, she discovered that quite a number of people were assembled there, dressed in such clothes as she had hitherto only associated with a few of Madame Elena’s most cherished clients.
Lady Honoret herself looked thoroughly unfamiliar as she came towards Lydia in a large, flowery picture hat and fluffy feather boa, manipulating a long-handled double eye-glass, which she had certainly not used during Lydia’s former visit. The unfortunate Lydia even surmised, from a certain vagueness of greeting, that her hostess had completely forgotten her identity.
“You told me to come — to bring my writing,” she stammered courageously enough. “I hope it’s the right day.”
“Oh,” said Lady Honoret, on a high, lisping note of pleased surprise, “it’s my wonderful little seamstress, who writes! Of course! I’m so glad you’ve come, dear — of course I hadn’t forgotten you.”
Little seamstress who writes! Was this the description that Lady Honoret had by this time probably persuaded herself and her friends to be applicable to her “wonderful new discovery”? Lydia tried to make herself think that the term, by Lady Honoret’s peculiar standard of values, denoted a compliment. Nevertheless, she was inwardly both angry and mortified.
The long, elaborate luncheon was an ordeal that reminded her of that puzzling meal taken long ago at the hotel with Nathalie Palmer and her father. It was almost a relief, even while it humiliated her, that neither of her neighbours should address more than a few perfunctory words to her.
For the most part the conversation was general, several people all talking at once across the table — which Lydia had always been taught was Bad Manners — and most of the ladies interlarding their discourse with French words, or even whole sentences in French.
It annoyed Lydia afresh that she could not understand these, but indeed almost everything they said was to her a veritable jargon of incomprehensibility.
She only gathered that they were all very clever and artistic, and had read all the books, and seen all the plays, and heard all the music, in the world, and formed critical and discerning opinions about everything.
As for Grandpapa’s Golden Rule — always to let the other people talk about themselves — nothing could be more evident than its total lack of prevalence in these cultured circles.
“You see, Wagner’s message to me is almost a personal one....”
“I must say, in my own case, the effect that he has on me is...”
“That’s exactly what I felt myself. I must tell you how it strikes me....”
Whenever any lady with a stronger voice or greater powers of determination than the others contrived to monopolize the conversation for a few minutes with personal reminiscences of her own, whatever she said was quite certain to remind each of her listeners of something very interesting about herself, about which she immediately began to tell anyone whom she could compel to keep silent.
The party consisted entirely of women.
Lydia felt thoroughly out of place and wished that she had never come.
Her only consolation was in watching another girl, younger than herself and even more unfashionably dressed, who sat silent at the other side of the table, and looked as though she felt strongly inclined to burst into tears.
Lydia wondered whether this was another “wonderful discovery.”
When lunch was at last over and they had gone into the drawing-room, which, to Lydia’s horror, they filled with the smoke of their cigarettes, and two of the most eloquent ladies had snatched up their gloves and purses and fur wraps, and declared that they must fly for the Albert Hall, and had accordingly flown, Lydia saw her unhappy-looking vis-à-vis approached by Lady Honoret.
“It seems a great shame to ask you to sing now, but if you could manage it — I do want some of these friends of mine to hear you....”
“Oh, certainly, Lady Honoret,” said the girl, turning first red and then white.
It struck Lydia that she was much too frightened to refuse.
“I think it’s a nightingale,” lisped the hostess, turning to her other guests; and dropping her voice very slightly she added, for the benefit of those nearest to her: “Straight, straight from the heart of Stepney. Artifis’al flowers, I believe.”
“And did you find her, you wonderful thing?” inquired a guest with a deep, ardent voice.
Lady Honoret nodded her head several times, pursing up her mouth, after the fashion of a little girl.
Suddenly she struck her ringed hands together in a gesture of dismay.
“Accompaniments! Oh, Tottie, dear, will you?”
“I will,” sacramentally replied “Tottie,” who was tall and gaunt-looking.
“Then you must all come upstairs. It’s not nearly such a good room for sound as this is, but my p’ecious, p’ecious Bechstein is there.”
They all flocked out of the room and up to the first floor, where Lydia was amazed to see an even larger and more elaborately furnished room than the one downstairs, which she had supposed to be the drawingroom.
A heavy blue drapery worked in gold and scarlet with scaly dragons was reverently taken from the top of a grand piano and put on the back of a sofa, where several ladies stood transfixed with admiration in front of it, and “Tottie” took off all her rings and bracelet and a watch, and sat down upon the music-stool and got up again and altered its height, and struck three chords upon the piano, and then demanded of the pallid and bewildered-looking songstress: “Where is your music?”
“I haven’t got any music.”
“But what about the accompaniment?”
“I always sing without anything at all,” said the girl, whiter than ever.
“Without a piano?”
“Oh, yes,” said the inhabitant of Stepney.
“Tottie” once more rose from the piano-stool, and resumed possession of her jewellery.
“Then we must all come downstairs,” said Lady Honoret cheerfully. “It’s so much better for sound downstairs.”
Lydia was astonished that nobody seemed to be angry with the poor, foolish girl who had given them all this trouble for nothing, but they all trooped downstairs again, talking as complacently as ever.
When at last they were all seated and silent, the girl, sending at the end of the room with her arms hanging straight down against her sides, began to sing in a high, clear voice a song which Lydia had never heard before and which seemed to her to have no tune whatever.
She very soon stopped listening to it.
Instead, she began to think of the singer’s evident terror of her surroundings and lack of presence of mind.
Why had she been foolish enough to let them all come up to the room where the piano was, just now, when she must have known all the time that no piano would be necessary? Lydia supposed that it was from sheer fright.
And the girl had sat with a scared, white face all through lunch, and had hardly answered the very few words occasionally addressed to her.
Lydia did not feel much pity for her fellow-vic
tim.
She was merely engaged in criticizing her very evident short-comings, and in firmly resolving to avoid them herself.
When the girl had ceased to sing, she caught up her jacket with a nervous movement and declared that she must go, without waiting for any words of thanks or praise for her song. She almost scuttled out of the room, making a sort of agitated bow from the doorway that comprised everyone in the room.
What a fool, thought Lydia impatiently.
The sight gave her a sudden, new self-confidence.
After all, learning through the mistakes of other people was an easy form of education.
When Lady Honoret came and sat down beside her Lydia looked up with a new self-possession.
“One can’t, can’t talk in a c’owd,” said the hostess plaintively, “but you must come some day when I’m quite alone. Have you brought your work?” For an instant Lydia hesitated, giving the word its feminine connection with a needle and thimble, but she rightly concluded that Lady Honoret was referring to the typescript hidden in brown paper.
Lydia had been endeavouring to conceal the parcel all through the afternoon, not having had sufficient presence of mind to leave it with her umbrella in the hall. It was therefore with positive relief that she handed it to Lady Honoret.
“Oh, don’t look at it now!” But her hostess was recklessly tearing at the good brown paper— “what waste of a wrapping for some future parcel” involuntarily murmured the spirit of Uncle George within Lydia — and in another moment she had pulled out Nathalie’s neat typescript.
“I think I’ll go now,” said Lydia. For the first time she felt a certain sympathy for the girl with the voice, who had rushed away after her song was over.
She stood up nervously. The eyes of Lady Honoret were glued on the pages which she was rapidly fluttering and turning, and she did not get up, although she pressed two of Lydia’s fingers with an absent sort of gesture.
“Come again — ve’y, ve’y soon, dear child. We must talk about this,” she murmured.
Collected Works of E M Delafield Page 164