by Hugh Walpole
“I’m a fright,” she had thought as she looked at herself in the glass. For a moment she thought she would wear one of her old less-revealing evening frocks. But no; she was worrying absurdly. All the women wore these dresses now. She would look a frump in that old dress. In colour the frock was a bright mauve. She was aware that all eyes followed her as she came into the grill room. She carried herself superbly, remembering how many girls — yes, and men too — had called her a queen. She saw at once that “Tubby” Grenfell was uneasy, and not his cheerful, innocent self. He seemed to have something that dragged his thoughts away from her. They both drank a good deal; soon they were laughing uproariously....
They started off in a taxi for Olympia. The wine that she had drunk, the sense of the crisis that this night must bring to her, the beautiful air of this May evening, through which in their open taxi they were gliding, the whisper and the murmur of the Knightsbridge crowd — all these things excited her as she had never in all her life been excited before. Had she looked at herself she would have realised, from this excitement, the child that she really was.
She put her hand on “Tubby’s” broad knee and drew a little closer to him. He talked to her eagerly, himself excited by the great event. He explained something of the fighting to her.
“There’ll be a lot of fin-fighting,’” he said; “there always is nowadays, they’ve caught it from America. You’ll find that rather boring. But it isn’t boring really. There’s heaps of science in it; more than there used to be in the old boxing. They say that that’s where Beckett will be beaten — that he can’t in-fight. I don’t believe they’re right, but we’ll see.... That’s what makes to-night so exciting. No one knows really what Beckett can do. He knocked out Wells too quickly, and he’s improved so much that he’s hardly the same man as he was before.”
He chattered on, apparently now quite happy. What a dear he was! What a boy! How natural and good and simple! She felt maternal to him, as though he were her child. How happy they would be when they were married! how happy she would make him!
They drew near to Olympia. They were now in a great stream of cars and taxis. Crowds thronged the road. They got out and pushed their way along. The presence of the crowd thrilled Lois so that her eyes shone and her heart hammered. She clung to “Tubby’s” strong arm. Soon they were through the gates, pushing up the Olympia steps, passing the turnstiles. What strange faces there were on all sides of her! She could not see another woman anywhere. She gathered her cloak more closely about her. They passed into the arena. For a moment she was dazzled by the light. The tiers of seats rose on every side of her, higher and higher. She followed “Tubby” meekly, feeling very small and insignificant. Soon they were seated close to the ring. Already men were boxing, but no one seemed to look at them. Everyone hurried to and fro; people were finding their seats. Around her, above her, beyond her, was a curious electrical hum of excitement, like the buzz of swarming bees. She herself felt so deeply moved that she was not far from tears. She grew more accustomed to the place. She sat back in her chair, throwing her cloak behind her. “Tubby” talked to her in a low voice, explaining where everything was, who various celebrities were. There was Cochran; that was Eugene Corn; there was a famous actor; and so on. She began to be confident. She knew that men were looking at her. She liked them to look at her. She asked “Tubby” for a cigarette. Her eyes moved to the ring; she watched the boxing. She felt a renewed thrill at the sight of the men’s splendid condition; and then, as she looked about her and saw the black cloud of men rising above and around her on every side, she could have clapped her hands with joy. Soon she was impatient of the boxing. She wanted the great event of the evening to begin. She felt as though she could not wait any longer, as though she must get up in her seat and call to them to come. She was aware then that “Tubby” was again uncomfortable. Was he distressed because men looked at her? Why should they not? Perhaps he did not think that she should smoke. Well, she would smoke. He was not her keeper.
The heat, the smoke, the stir, confused and bewildered her, but she liked the bewilderment. She was drunk with it — only this intense impatience for Beckett and Goddard to come was more than she could bear. “Oh, I do wish they’d come.... I do wish they’d come!” she sighed. Then, turning to “Tubby,” she said: “Cheer up! What’s the matter?”
“Oh, I’m all right.” He moved uneasily. She fancied that he glanced with anger at a fat, black-haired, be-ringed man near him who, as she already noticed, stared at her.
“Oh, I do wish they’d come!” she cried, speaking more loudly than she had intended. Some man near her heard her and laughed.
They came at last. The tall fellow was Goddard. The shorter man in the dull-coloured dressing-gown was Beckett. They walked about inside the ring; then they sat down and were hidden by a cloud of men with towels. A little man walked about the ring shouting something through a megaphone.
Lois could not hear what he said because of her own excitement. The ring was cleared; the fight had begun. The breathless silence that followed was almost more than she could bear. From the first moment she wanted Beckett to win. His grim seriousness fascinated her. The way that he stood crouching forward, his magnificent condition, the brown healthiness of his skin, appealed to her desperately. “I want him to win! I want him to win!” she repeated again and again to herself. He seemed to be having the best of it. Men shouted his name. The first round was over. In the pause of the interval she realised for a moment, as though she had come down from a great height, that the men near her were looking at her and smiling. She did not care; if only Beckett would win she cared for nothing. “The first round’s Beckett’s on points, anyway,” she heard à man say near her. The ring was cleared again, the men moved cautiously, watching one another. Suddenly Beckett had sprung in. Before she could account to herself for what was happening Goddard was on the floor. Men rose in their seats, shouting. The referee could he seen counting the seconds. Goddard was up. Then Beckett was in to him again — right, left, tuned like a piece of music. Goddard was down again, and this time he lay his full length without moving. The vast building seemed to rise like the personification of one exultant man and shout. Lois herself had risen; she was crying she knew not what, waving her programme. A man had leaped forward and kissed Beckett. Goddard was dragged by his seconds like a sack to his chair. The roar continued; men shouted and yelled and cheered. Lois sat down. It was over; Beckett had won. She had had her desire. She felt as though she had walked for miles and miles through thick, difficult country.
She could only see, over and over again those quick blows — right, left, like a piece of music....
They sat there quietly for a little; then she said, “Let’s go. I don’t want to see any more after that.”
Grenfell agreed.
Outside there was a strange peace and quiet. A large crowd waited, but it was silent. It was watching for Beckett.
The street was deliciously cool, and in the broad space beyond Olympia there was only a rumbling sibilant rustle that threaded the dusky trees. The stars shone in a sky of velvet. They found a taxi.
“I’ll see you to your door,”
“Tubby” said.
During the drive very few words were spoken. Lois was concentrating now all her effort on the scene that was to come. She was quite certain of her victory; she felt strong and sure with the confidence that the thrill of the fight had just given her. Above all, she loved Grenfell. It was the first time in her life that she had known love, and now that it had come she was wrapped in the wonder of it, stripped of all her artifices and conceits, as simply and naturally caught by it as any ignorant girl of her grandmother’s day.
They were in Duke Street; the car stopped before Hortons.
Grenfell got out.
“Good-night,” he said. “I’m so awfully glad you enjoyed it.”
“No, you’ve got to come in. You have, really, ‘Tubby.’ It’s very early — not ten yet. I’ll make you some c
offee.”
He looked for a moment as though he would refuse. Then he nodded his head.
“All right,” he said; “just for a bit.” They went up in the lift superintended by young William, one of the Hortons officials, in age about fourteen, but dressed, with his oiled hair, high collar, and uniform, to be anything over twenty.
“Oh, sir, who won the fight?” he asked in a husky voice when he heard Lois make some allusion to Olympia.
“Beckett,” said Grenfell.
“Gawd bless Joe,” said young William piously.
The “attic” looked very comfortable and cosy. Grenfell sank into the long sofa. Lois made the coffee. It was as though Beckett’s victory had also been hers. She felt as though she could not be defeated. When she saw him sitting there so comfortably she felt as though they were already married.
She knew that there was something on his mind. She had seen, ever since they left Olympia, that there was something that he wanted to say to her. She could not doubt what it was.... She stood there smiling at him as he drank his coffee. How she loved him! Every hair of his round bullet-shaped head, his rosy cheeks, his strength and cleanliness, his shyness and honesty.
“Oh, I’ve just loved to-night!”
“I’m so glad you have,” he answered.
Another long silence followed. He smoked, blowing rings and then breaking them with his finger. At last she spoke, smiling:
“‘Tubby,’ you want to say something to me.”
“Well—”
“Yes, you do, and I know what it is.”
“You know?” He stared at her, confused and shy.
“Yes,” she laughed. “Of course I do. I’ve known for weeks.”
“For weeks? But you can’t—”
“Oh, you think you can hide things — you can’t!” She suddenly came over to him, knelt down by the sofa, putting her hand on his arm.
“You ridiculous baby! You’re shy. You’re afraid to tell me. But, thank Heaven, all that old-fashioned nonsense is over. I can tell you what you want to say without either of us being ashamed... ‘Tubby,’ darling... I know. I’ve known for weeks, and it’s all right. I’ll marry you to-morrow if you want me.
I’ve loved you since first I set eyes on you. Oh, ‘Tubby,’ we’ll be so happy! We—”
But she was stopped by the look in his eyes. He had moved away; his face was crimson; his eyes wide with dismay. She knew at once that she had made a horrible mistake. He didn’t love her. She rose; shame, misery, anger, self-contempt, all struggling together in her heart. She would have liked to speak. No words would come.
“Lois!” he said at last. “I’m awfully sorry. I didn’t know you were going to say that, or I’d have stopped you. We’re the greatest pals in the world, of course, but—”
“You don’t want to marry me,” Lois interrupted. “Of course. It’s quite natural. I’ve made a bit of a fool of myself, ‘Tubby.’ You’d better say good-night and go.”
He got up.
“Oh, Lois, I’m so sorry.... But I couldn’t tell. I’ve had something else on my mind all these weeks — something that for the last three days I’ve been trying to tell you. Margery and I are engaged to be married.”
That took the colour from her face. She stepped back, putting one hand on the mantelpiece to steady herself.
“Margery!... You! That stupid little idiot!”
There she made a mistake. He took her retort as a dog takes a douse of water, shaking his head resentfully.
“You mustn’t say that, Lois. And after all, it was you that brought us together.”
“I!” Her indignation as she turned on him was red-hot.
“Yes. I was sorry for her when you turned her off. I went to see her. We agreed about you from the beginning, and that was a bond.”
“Agreed about me?”
“Yes. We thought it was such a pity that you went about with all these men. She told me how splendid you were in France. She had thought that I was in love with you, but I told her of course that I’d always thought of you as a man almost. Love was a different sort of thing.... Although to-night at the boxing you weren’t a man, either. Anyway—”
She cut short his halting, confused explanation with contempt “You’d better go. You and Margery have treated me pretty badly between you. Good-night.”
He tried to say something, but the sight of her furious eyes checked him. Without another word he went The door closed; the room was suddenly intensely silent, as though it were waiting to hear the echo of his step.
She stood, fury, contempt, working in her face. Suddenly her eyes flooded with tears. Her brow puckered. She flung herself down on the floor beside the sofa, and burying her face in it cried, with complete abandonment, from her breaking heart.
MR. NIX
MR. NIX, the manager of Hortons, had never been an analyser of the human character: it startled him, therefore, considerably, somewhere about March or April of 1919, to find himself deep in introspection.
What is deep to one may not be deep to another, and Mr. Nix’s introspection amounted to little more than that he felt, as he found himself confiding to a friend one evening, as though he “were nothing more or less than a blooming juggler — one of those fellows, Joe, that tosses eight or ten balls in the air at a time. That’s what I’m doing, positively.”
“If you ask me,” said his friend, “what you’re doing, Sam, is thinking too much about yourself — being morbidly introspective, that’s what you’re being. I should drop it That kind of thing grows.”
“No, am I really?” said Mr. Nix, anxiously. “Upon my word, Joe, I believe you’re right.”
What Mr. Nix meant, however, when he said that he felt like a trick juggler, was literally true. He not only felt like it, he dreamt it. This dream was recurrent; he saw himself, dressed in purple tights, one foot on a rope, the other in mid-air, and tossing a dozen golden balls. Beneath him, far, far beneath him, was the saw-
dust ring, tiers of people rising to either side of it The balls glittered and winked and tumbled in the fierce electric light Always they returned to him as though drawn towards his stomach by a magnet, but always present with him was the desperate fear lest one should avoid and escape him. The sweat stood in beads on his forehead; the leg upon which everything depended began to tremble. The balls seemed to develop a wild individuality of their own: they winked at him, they sniggered. They danced and mocked and dazzled. He missed one, he missed two, three... the crowd beneath him began to shout... he swerved, he jolted, he was over, he was falling, the balls swinging in laughing derision about him... falling, falling.... He was awake.
This dream came to him so often that he consulted a doctor. The doctor consoled him, telling him that everyone was having bad dreams just now, that it was the natural reaction after the four years of stress and turmoil through which we have passed. “You yourself, Mr. Nix, have had your troubles I don’t doubt?”
Yes, Mr. Nix had lost his only son.
“Ah, well, that is quite enough to account for it. Don’t eat a heavy meal at night. Sleep lightly covered... plenty of fresh air.”
This interview only confirmed Mr. Nix in his already deep conviction that all doctors were humbugs.
“The matter with me,” he said to himself, “is just this, that I’ve got too much to do.”
Nineteen hundred and nineteen was a very difficult year for anyone engaged in such business as Hortons.
That spontaneous hour or two of mirth and happiness on the morning of the Armistice had its origin in the general human belief that the troubles of those nightmare years were now over. At once, as though the Fairy Firkin had waved her wand, the world would be changed. The world was changed, but only because a new set of difficulties and problems had taken the place of the old ones, and these new troubles were in many ways harder to fight. That was a year of bafflement, bewilderment, disappointment, suspicion. Quite rightly so — but the justice of it could not be seen by the actors in it.
Mr. Nix was making a brave fight of it, just as throughout the war he had made a brave fight. He was a little man with a buoyant temperament, and no touch of morbidity. His boy’s death had shocked him as an incredible event, but he had forbidden it to change the course of his life, and it remained deep down, unseen, a wound that never healed and was never examined.
His embarrassments — the balls with which he was forever a-juggling — were in the main four. First, the Directors in whose power the fate of Hortons and several other service flats lay. Secondly, Hortons itself, its servants, its tenants, the furniture, its food, its finances, its marriages, births, and deaths. Thirdly, his own private speculations, his little private business enterprises, his pals, his games, his vices, and his ambitions. Fourth, his wife, Nancy.
Those four “elements” had all been complicated enough before the war; it would take a man all his time, he used to say, to deal with the Board — nice enough men, but peremptory in many ways, not understanding, and always in a hurry.
He had spent the best years of his life in persuading those men that Hortons was the best service flat in London; they did at length believe that; they were satisfied; but having brought them to such a height they must be maintained there. The war brought discontent, of course. Only the old men were active on the board, and the old men had always been the trying ones to deal with. The war, as it dragged its weary coils along, brought nerves and melodrama with it. Only Mr. Nix, it seemed, in all the world, was allowed to be neither nervous nor melodramatic. He must never show anger nor disappointment nor a sense of injustice... there were days he honestly confessed to Nancy, his wife, when he longed to pull some of those old white beards....
But worse than those old men were the tenants of Hortons themselves. Here was a golden ball of truly stupendous heaviness and eccentricity. The things they had demanded, the wild, unnatural, impossible things! And the things that Hortons itself demanded! To Hortons the war was as nothing. It must be fed, clothed, cleaned, just as it had always been! You might shout to it about the prices, the laziness of workmen, the heaviness of taxation. It did not care. The spirit of Hortons must be maintained: it might as well not exist as be less than the fine creation it had always been.