by Hugh Walpole
His face was red and shining, his hair was plastered down with water; it was a pity that there were three red pimples on his forehead, but there had been four yesterday. His ears, too, were dreadfully red, but that was from excitement.
He had an opera hat and a black greatcoat with a velvet collar, so that he felt very smart indeed as he slipped out of the house. He was glad that he had escaped the family, although he fancied that Aunt Aggie watched him from the top of the stairs. He would have liked to have seen Katherine for a moment, and had he spoken his heart out, he would have assured her that, for her sake, he would do his best to love Philip. It was for her sake, after all, that he had dressed so carefully, for her sake that he wanted to be a fine figure in the world. If he had seen her, all that he would have said would have been: “So long, Katherine. Dining with Philip, you know. See you in the morning....”
He rode on an omnibus from Whitehall to Piccadilly Circus, and walked then to Jules’. The clocks were striking half-past seven, the appointed hour, as he entered. A stout man like an emperor insisted on disrobing him of his greatcoat, and he felt suddenly naked. He peeped into the room, which was very empty, and all the waiters, like figures in Mme. Tussaud’s, stared at him together. He was sure that his tie had mounted above his collar; he put up his hand, found that this was so, and thought that the emperor was laughing at him. He bent down to tie his shoe, and then, just as a large party entered the restaurant, there was a little pop, and the head of his pearl stud was gone. He was on his knees in a second.
“Beg pardon, sir,” said the Emperor. “Allow me.”
“No,” said Henry, whose face was purple, whose heart was beating like a hammer, and through whose chasm in his shirt a little wind was blowing against his vest.
“It’s my stud. I can — I beg your — Oh, there — No, it isn’t—”
He was conscious of towering forms above him, of a lady’s black silk stockings, of someone saying: “Why, dammit”; of a sudden vision of the pearl and a large masculine boot thundering towards it.
From his position on the floor he cried in agony: “Oh, do look out, you’re stepping on it!... I say ... Please!”
He heard a sharp little cry, then, just as he seized it, Philip’s voice:
“Why, Henry!”
He staggered up from his knees, which were white with dust: his purple face, his disordered hair, a piece of pink vest that protruded from his shirt made an unusual picture. Someone began to laugh.
“I say,” said Philip quickly, “come in here.” He led the way into the lavatory. “Now, what’s the matter?”
Henry stared at him. Why couldn’t the silly fool see?
“It’s my stud ... the head came off ... might have happened to anyone.”
“That’s all right,” said Philip cheerfully. “Got it now? That’s good. Look here, I’ll screw it in for you.”
“The other piece ...” said Henry, who was near tears ... “It’s slipped down — inside.”
“I’m afraid you’ll have to take your trousers off,” said Philip gravely. “Just let ’em down. It’s all right. There’s no one here who matters.”
Henry undressed. A smart man with hair like a looking-glass came in, stared and went out again. Two attendants watched sympathetically. After some time the stud was arranged, and Henry was dressed again.
“You’d better just let me tie your tie,” said Philip. “It’s so difficult in here. One can’t see to do it oneself.”
Henry said nothing. He brushed his hair again, suffered himself to be dusted and patted by the attendant, and followed Philip into the restaurant. He was so miserable that suicide was the only alternative to a disgraced and dishonoured life. He was sure that everyone in the restaurant was laughing at him; the grave waiter who brought him his soup, the fat, round button of a waiter who brought the champagne in a bucket of ice, the party opposite, two men and two women (beasts!), all these were laughing at him! His forehead was burning, his heart deadly cold. He glared at Philip, gulped down his food without knowing at all what it was that he was eating, said “yes” and “no”; never looked at Philip, but stared, fiercely, round him as though he were looking for someone.
Philip persisted, very bravely, in a succession of bright and interesting anecdotes, but at last he flagged. He was afraid that he had a terrible evening before him ... never again....
“He’s thinking,” said Henry to himself, “that I’m impossible. He’s wondering what on earth he asked me for. Why did he if he didn’t want to? Conceited ass ... that about the stud might have happened to anyone. He’ll tell Katherine....”
“Coffee?” said Philip.
“No, thank you,” said Henry.
“All right. We’ll have it later. We’d better be getting on to the show. Ready?”
They moved away; they were in a cab; they were caught into the heart of some kaleidoscope. Lights flashed, men shouted, someone cried in a high treble. Lights flashed again, and they were sitting in the stalls at the “Empire” music-hall. Henry hailed the darkness with relief; he felt as though his body were bruised all over, and when he looked up and saw a stout man upside down on a tight-rope he thought to himself: “Well, he can’t see me anyhow.... He doesn’t know that the top of my stud came off.”
There followed then a number of incredible people. (It must be remembered that he had never been to a music-hall before.) There was a man with two black eyes and a red nose who sang a song about the wives he had had (seven verses — one wife to every verse), there was a stout lady who sang about porter, and there were two small children who danced the Tango — finally a gentleman in evening dress and a large white button-hole who recited poems whilst his friends in the background arranged themselves in illustrative groups. In this strange world Henry’s soul gradually found peace. It was a world, after all, in which it was not absurd to grope on one’s knees for the top of one’s stud — it was the natural and clever thing to do. When the lady who sang about the porter kissed her hand to the audience, Henry, clapping enthusiastically, felt a throb of sympathy. “I’m so glad she’s been a success to-night,” he thought to himself, as though she had been his cousin or his aunt. “She’ll feel pleased.” He wanted, by this time, everyone to be happy.... When, at the last, the fat man in evening clothes recited his tale of “the good old British Flag,” and was surrounded instantly by a fluttering cloud of Union Jacks, Henry was very near to tears. “I’ll make them send me to Oxford,” he said to himself. “At once ... I’ll work like anything.”
The lights went up — ten minutes’ interval — whilst the band played tunes out of “Riogletta”, and behind the curtain they prepared for that immensely popular ballet “The Pirate”.
“Let’s walk about a bit, shall we?” said Philip.
Henry, humbly, with a timid smile agreed. He tumbled over a lady as he passed out of his row, but he did not mind now, his eyes were shining and his head was up. He followed Philip, admiring his broad shoulders, the back of his head, his sturdy carriage and defiant movement of his body. He glared haughtily at young men lolling over the bar, and the young men glared back haughtily at him. He followed Philip upstairs, and they turned into the Promenade (Henry did not know that it was the Promenade). With his head in the air he stepped forward and plunged instantly into something that flung powder down his throat, a strange and acrid scent up his nose: his fingers scraped against silk.
“There! clumsy!” said a voice.
A lady wearing a large hat and (as it appeared to Henry) tissue of gold, smiled at him.
“It doesn’t matter,” she said, putting some fat fingers on his hand for a moment. “It doesn’t, dear, really. Hot, isn’t it?”
He was utterly at a loss, scarlet in the face, his eyes staring wildly. Philip had come to his rescue.
“Hot, it is,” said Philip.
“What about a drink, dear?” said the lady.
“Not just now,” said Philip, smiling at her as though he’d known her all his life. “Jol
ly good scrum up here, isn’t there?”
“Everyone bangin’ about so,” said the lady. “What about a drink now? Rot waitin’.”
“Sorry,” said Philip. “Got an engagement. Very important—” The lady, however, had suddenly recognised an old friend. “Why, Charlie!” Henry heard her say: “Who ever ...”
They sat down on a sofa near the bar and watched the group. Henry was thinking: “He spoke to her as though he had known her all his life....” He was suddenly aware that he and his father and mother and aunts, yes, and Katherine too were babies compared with Philip. “Why, they don’t know anything about him. Katherine doesn’t know anything really....” He watched the women who passed him; he watched their confidential whispers with gentlemen who all seemed to have red faces and bulging necks. He watched two old men with their hats cocked to one side; they had faces like dusty strawberries, and they wore white gloves and carried silver-topped canes. They didn’t speak, and nothing moved in their faces except their eyes. He watched a woman who was angry and a man who was apologetic. He watched a girl in a simple black dress who stood with grave, waiting eyes. She suddenly smiled a welcome to someone, but the smile was hard, practised, artificial, as though she had fastened it on like a mask. Philip belonged to these people; he knew their ways, their talk, their etiquette, their tragedies and comedies. Henry stared at him, at his gaze, rather uninterested and tired. (Philip, at that moment, was thinking of Katherine, of the bore that her young brother was: he was remembering the last time that she had kissed him, of her warm cheek against his, of a little laugh that she had given, a laugh of sheer happiness, of trusting, confident delight.) Henry sat there, frightened, thrilled, shocked, proud, indignant and terribly inquisitive. “I’m beginning to know about life. Already I know more than they do at home.”
Two boys who must have been younger than he passed him; they were smart, shining, scornful. They had the derisive, incurious gaze of old men, and also the self-assertive swagger of very young ones. Henry, as he looked at them, knew that he was a babe in arms compared with them; but it seemed to him to-night that all his family was still in the cradle. “Why, even father,” he thought, “if you brought him here I don’t believe he’d know what to say or do.”
They went downstairs, then found their seats, and the curtain rose on the ballet. The ballet was concerned with pirates and Venice in the good Old Days. The first scene was on an island in the Adriatic: there were any number of pirates and ladies who loved them, and the sun slowly set and the dancers on the golden sand sank, exhausted, at the feet of their lovers, and the moon rose and the stars came out in a purple sky. Then the Pirate Chief, an enormous Byronic figure with hair jet black and tremendous eyebrows, explained through his hands, that there was a lady in Venice whom he loved, whom he must seize and convey to his island. Would his brave fellows follow him in his raid? His brave fellows would! One last dance and one last drink, then death and glory! The curtain came down upon figures whirling madly beneath the moon.
There followed then the Doge’s Palace, a feast with much gold plate, aged senators with white beards, who watched the dancing with critical gaze, finally a lovely lady who danced mysteriously beneath many veils. She was, it appeared, a Princess, sought in marriage by the Doge, her heart, however, lost utterly to a noble Stranger whom she had once seen but never forgotten. The Doge, mad with love for her, orders her to be seized. She is carried off, wildly protesting, and the golden scene is filled with white dancers, then with fantastic masked figures, at last with dancers in black, who float like shadows through the mazes of the music.
The third scene is the Piazza. The country people have a holiday — drinking and dancing. Then enters a magnificent procession, the Doge leading his reluctant bride. Suddenly shouts are heard. It is the Pirates! A furious fight follows, the Pirates, headed by their chief, who wears a black mask, are, of course, victorious. The Princess is carried, screaming, to the Pirates’ ship, treasure is looted, pretty village maidens are captured. The Pirates sail away. Last scene is the Island again. The ladies are expecting their heroes, the vessel is sighted, the Pirates land. There are dances of triumph, the spoil, golden goblets, rich tapestries, gleaming jewels are piled high, finally the captive lady Princess, who weeps bitterly, is led by the Chieftain, still masked, into the middle of the stage. She, upon her knees, begs for pity. He is stern (a fine melancholy figure). At last he removes the mask. Behold, it is the noble Stranger! With what rapture does she fall into his arms, with what dances are the triumphant Pirates made happy, upon what feasting does the sun again set. The moon rises and the stars appear. Finally, when the night-sky is sheeted with dazzling lights and the moon is orange-red, the Pirates and their ladies creep away. Only the Chieftain and his Princess, locked in one another’s arms, are left. Someone, in the distance, pipes a little tune ... the curtain descends.
Impossible to describe the effect that this had upon Henry. The nearest approach to its splendour in all his life before had been the Procession of Nations at the end of the Drury Lane pantomime, and, although he had found that very beautiful, he had nevertheless been disturbed by a certain sense of incongruity, Aladdin and his Princess having little to do with Canada and Australia represented, as those fine countries were, by two stout ladies of the Lane chorus. I think that this “Pirate” ballet may be said to be the Third Crisis in this critical development of Henry, the first being the novel about the Forest, the second his vision of Katherine and Philip.
It will be, perhaps, remembered that at Jules’ restaurant Henry had drunk champagne and, because of his misery and confusion there, had had no consciousness of flavour, quantity or consequences. It was certainly the champagne that lent “The Pirate” an added colour and splendour.
As the boy followed Philip into Leicester Square he felt that any achievement would be now possible to him, any summit was to be climbed by him. The lights of Leicester Square circled him with fire — at the flame’s heart were dark trees soft and mysterious against the night sky — beneath these trees, guarded by the flame, the Pirate and the Princess slept.
It seemed to him that now he understood all the world, that he could be astonished and shocked by nothing, that every man, be he never so degraded, was his brother.... He was unaware that his tie was again above his collar and his shoe lace unfastened. He strode along, thinking to himself: “How glorious!... How splendid!... How glorious!”
Philip, too, although the Empire ballet had once been commonplace enough, although, moreover, he had come so little a time ago from the country where the ballet was in all the world supreme, had been plunged by the Pirate into a most sentimental attitude of mind. He was to-night terribly in love with Katherine, and, when the lights had been turned down and the easy, trifling music had floated out to him, caught him, soothed and whispered to him, he had held Katherine in his arms, her cheek touching his, her heart beating with his, his hand against her hair.
Her confidence in him that, at other times, frightened him, to-night thrilled him with a delicious pleasure. His old distrust of himself yielded, to-night, to a fine, determined assurance. “I will be all that she thinks I am. She shall see how I love her. They shall all see.”
“I think we’ll go down into the Grill Room,” said Philip, when they arrived at the Carlton. “We can talk better there.”
It was all the same to Henry, who was busy feasting with the Pirate upon the Adriatic Island, with the Princess dancing for them on the golden sand. They found a quiet little table in that corner which is one of the pleasantest places in London, so retired from the world are you and yet so easy is it to see all that goes on amongst your friends, enemies and neighbours.
“Oysters?... Must have oysters, Henry.... Then grilled bones ... then we’ll see. Whisky and soda — split soda, waiter, please....”
Henry had never eaten oysters before, and he would have drunk his whisky with them had Philip not stopped him. “Never drink whisky with oysters — you’d die — you would really.”
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Henry did not like oysters very much, but he would have suffered the worst kind of torture rather than say so. The bones came, and the whisky with them. Henry drank his first glass very quickly in order to show that he was quite used to it. He thought, as he looked across the table, that Philip was the finest fellow in the world; no one had ever been so kind to him as Philip — How could he ever have disliked Philip? Philip was going to marry Katherine, and was the only man in all the world who was worthy of her. Henry felt a burning desire to confide in Philip, to tell him all his most secret thoughts, his ambitions, his troubles....
He drank his second glass of whisky, and began a long, rather stumbling narration.
“You know, I shall never be able to tell you how grateful I am to you for giving me such a ripping evening. All this time ... I’ve been very rude sometimes, I expect ... you must have thought me a dreadful ass, and I’ve wanted so much to show you that I’m not.”
“That’s all right,” said Philip, who was thinking of Katherine.
“No, it isn’t all right,” said Henry, striking the table with his fist. “I must tell you, now that you’ve been so kind to me. You see I’m shy really, I wouldn’t like most people to know that, but I am. I’m shy because I’m so unfortunate about little things. You must have noticed long ago how unlucky I am. Nothing ever goes right with me at home. I’m always untidy and my clothes go to pieces and I break things. People seem to think I want to ...” His voice was fierce for a moment.