The Short Stories of Warwick Deeping

by Warwick Deeping

  “Now—what on earth are you doing here?” thought Mr. Smith.

  Aloud he remarked: “Very smart here to-night.”

  She gave him a round and appealing glance. Mr. Smith looked a nobody, a very ordinary sort of man, and she was ready to throw her poor flustered arms round the neck of any ordinary person.

  “Ain’t you dancing?”

  “I can’t dance.”

  “Dear, dear.”

  They surveyed the dancers walking gorgeously to music in the centre of a vastness surrounded by a milky-way of little tables.

  “The fine flowering of our civilization,” said Mr. Smith; “for these—the brown spiders spin. It’s very hot in here.”

  “Very hot,” said she, daring to fan herself with a handkerchief.

  Mr. Smith brought out a cigarette case.

  “Do you mind?”

  “Not me. Wish you’d smoke a pipe.”

  “Mine’s upstairs. They’d throw me out—you know—if I smoked a pipe in here.”

  She breathed heavily.

  “I’d find Buckingham Palace more ’omely. Sure I should.”

  “No doubt about it. My name’s Smith.”

  She seemed to inhale the plain perfume of his name, to breathe it in with infinite pleasure and satisfaction. Smith. Blessed Smith. Surbiton and Highbury! The Civil Service Stores! A Bayswater bus!

  “Mine’s Jenkins.”

  “Thank you,” said he; “everybody’s so celebrated here.”

  “Awful. Then you ain’t anybody.”

  “No.”

  “Like me.”

  “Yes.”

  He could feel her expand until he could imagine her good simple corsage creaking with relief.

  “You never know where you are. Dukes and actresses—and bishops.”

  “I haven’t seen a bishop.”

  “And the waiters, and the feller in the red coat who brings the shoes, and the chambermaids! I have two of them. Feel I’m choking.”

  “Same here,” said Mr. Smith. “How many courses did you get through at dinner? Oh, for suet pudding and treacle! Lovely!”

  She began to glow.

  “I wouldn’t ’ave come here——”

  “What made you come?” he asked.

  “My girl. She’s upstairs laid up with ’flu. When Jenkins was alive we went to Brighton. Jenkins & Snodhouse we were. Grocery. Twenty shops. There—but I’m swanking.”

  Mr. Smith smiled.

  “That’s what this place is for, Mrs. Jenkins. The Swank House. Peacocks! Just—look.”

  She began to regard the pageant of life with the air of a good lady at a Lord Mayor’s show.

  “Do you know any of them?”

  “Lots—by sight. I used to be a newspaper man. That tall man there with the flat nose. Now—who do you think——?”

  “Don’t know—I’m sure.”

  “Mr. Billy Crinch—the boxer.”

  “Bless us!”

  “And that fair woman with eyes like saucers.”

  “Yes.”

  “Madge Varsity—the actress.”

  “Dear—dear.”

  “And that tall, very thin man with the red face and the Roman nose, Duncan York—the tennis player.”

  Mr. Smith liked the looks of Duncan York; he was one of the few easy and unaffected figures, moving to its own music, and not troubling himself about syncopated swank. Mrs. Jenkins agreed with Smith in liking the looks of Mr. Duncan York.

  “He’s a nice feller.”

  She managed the aspirate that time, and went on to say that her daughter had a great admiration for Mr. York, and that Doris had collected his autograph at Wimbledon, and that she was raging to get downstairs and meet the expert on the Golden Palace tennis courts.

  “And very glad I shall be, Mr. Smith. Doris isn’t pushed off her perch—like I am. I’m an old woman. Things frighten me.”

  “What things? Celebrities? All these expensive people?”

  “Yes. Do you know I have to clench my hands, and make myself walk into that dining-room, and when once I’m in a chair in that lounge—I feel I daren’t move out of it. Simply daren’t, sir. I suppose you think that’s silly.”

  “Not silly—exactly—but unnecessary. Look here, I’ll let you into a secret if you’ll promise——”

  “I’ll promise—you—anything.”

  “Not even to Doris?”

  “Not even to Doris.”

  “Well—a lot of these celebrities are paid to be here; no, not exactly paid. They are given a month’s free board and lodging just for us to look at. Us—you and I. We pay. It’s our Zoo. All you have to think of when you see Mr. Zwanker the novelist or Sir Richard Tempest the actor or Mr. Gall the playwright is—‘There’s my Mr. Zwanker, or my Mr. Gall, just brought down here to show off for me in public.’ That’s all. It’s nothing more or less than a Zoo.”

  She crooned like a delighted baby.

  “There, now! Well I never!”

  “Besides”—and he pointed a cigarette at the crowd—“do you think all these expensive people came down here to look at us. Not a bit of it. They came to be looked at. Peacocks and peahens. Hundred guinea frocks. They came down here to swank, to impress the Smiths and the Jenkins. Mr. Zwanker doesn’t want to see Sir Percival Hackett; he went sick at the very sight of him. They don’t want to look at each other; they want to be looked at. Just you stare as though you were at the Zoo. I’m going to.”

  She patted Mr. Smith’s sleeve.

  “You are a comfortable man. I’ve been fair miserable here. I tell you I’ve cried myself to sleep. Doris won’t even let me make a cup of tea in my own bedroom, though I have got a nice little spirit-stove. She says it’s not done.”

  “Well, I’m going to do it,” said Mr. Smith. “I’ve got a little suite. I’ll invite you to bring your tea-basket along, and we’ll make tea.”

  Mrs. Jenkins regarded him as though he were the angel Michael who had come to earth and assumed the attributes of a complete and admirable Smith.

  It did not take the little novelist long to discover that the syndicate had behaved with too much precipitation in the distribution of its invitations to the world of fame. There should be no more than two members of each species in the ark, male and female, lion and lioness. Half a dozen lions, six bears, three or four trumpety elephants and half a score hyenas made for discord. They met and glowered and snarled, or passed by with airs of savage disdain.

  It was amusing to Mr. Smith.

  Also, it seemed a pity. It was not fair on Miss Madge Varsity that Miss Cherry Merrow—a star of equal magnitude, and ten years younger—should be placed to shine at the very next table. It might be amusing to watch Zwanker and Sir Percival Hackett squabbling over a disputed point on a tennis court during an American tournament, but the incident lacked the subtlety of a Piccadilly perfume. And two rival actor-managers did not desire to lie down together like lambs.

  Meanwhile, he had made himself responsible for Mrs. Jenkins and her holiday, and for the acute mortal discomforts suffered by that admirable old lady. To Mr. Smith she was admirable because she liked him, and because she desired to be herself, and because she was possessed of a delightful shrewdness, and a love of flowers. He found her pottering about the gardens of the Golden Palace, caressing with the point of a sunshade the faces of the violas and the marigolds.

  “The pretty dears! If it wasn’t for the stooping, Mr. Smith. Stooping beats me.”

  She had a garden at Ealing.

  “Mr. Jenkins—he did love his roses. Dwarfs. But give me standards. I can get my nose to a standard.”

  “I have a garden in Surrey,” said Mr. Smith. “I get up at six in the morning.”

  “Do you now. Before you go up to your business. That’s what Jenkins used to do.”

  He asked after her daughter, and became aware of a clouding of her plump and beneficent countenance.

  “Oh, Doris is getting up to-day. She has got determination, Doris has. It’s the
tennis.”

  Mr. Smith was quick to feel that Doris threw some sort of shadow across Mrs. Jenkins’s bland soul.

  “Keen on tennis—is she?”

  “Played at Wimbledon last year. And then—of course——”

  “Singles or doubles?” asked Mr. Smith.

  “I’m thinking,” said her mother, “that Doris is keener on doubles—just now. Unusual—of course—in these days. But if you ask me——”

  “You don’t object?”

  “I’ll settle a thousand a year on her, sir, just as I did on Flo and Bertie. Children don’t all grow on lavender bushes, Mr. Smith.”

  “I suppose not,” said the shy man. “Give me a good old-fashioned cabbage rose.”

  “Oh—you’re right. I can’t get used to all these new young fiery things.”

  Miss Doris Jenkins came down to dinner that evening, and Mr. Smith, by inclining his head a little to the left and looking between the heads of a Bradford City Father and an American oil magnate, was able to investigate her. She was just like the hundreds of other young women who passed through the doors of The Golden Palace: tall, thin, flat, shingled, fair, with the blue eyes of the huntress whether the quarry happened to be tennis balls or men. She smoked cigarettes between the courses. She had very thin lips tinted a coral-scarlet. She was rather silent; she watched her mother.

  And John Smith pitied Mrs. Jenkins. He could almost hear Miss Jenkins’s sharp and reproving whisper:

  “Mother, don’t do that.”

  Doris had the old lady in her pocket, or like a bewildered old dog on the end of a string. She was in control. She was youth—greedy and dominant.

  Afterwards in the lounge Mr. Smith strolled across to where Miss Jenkins was enjoying a liqueur and her coffee, while she watched for the appearance of a certain person. Her mother gave him a glance that was apologetic, alarmed, appealing.

  “Doris—this is Mr. Smith.”

  Miss Jenkins said “Oh,” looked in another direction, and then scrutinized the knees of Mr. Smith’s dress trousers. They were not so well pressed as they might have been.

  “Good of you to look after mother.”

  “Not at all—your mother——”

  But Miss Jenkins had not finished.

  “Now I’m down—you need not suffer from a sense of duty. I shall be around.”

  She was quite the rudest young woman that Mr. Smith had ever met, and while he was recovering his breath and trying not to look at her mother’s discomfited face, she lit a cigarette.

  “Doris,” said her mother, “I——”

  “That’s all right, mater. Nothing like hitting a clean ball.”

  Mr. Smith bowed and disappeared, but only behind one of the massive white piers close to the chairs of the Jenkins mother and daughter. He was able to hear what was said.

  “My dear, I won’t be spoken to——”

  “Tut, tut!” said the girl; “a place like this is full of spongers. Has he tried to borrow——?”

  “Doris!”

  “Or to get you to play bridge?”

  “Monstrous!”

  “Well, what is he? Everybody who matters here is labelled. Fellow of the name of Smith; shabby trousers. On the look out——”

  “Doris!”

  Mr. Smith strolled away, and took a chair near the grand staircase. He felt a little hot, a little amused, a little angry. Evidently the daughter objected to the old lady picking up a plain bone of her own; the bone might be tainted; foolish old women had to be protected. And evidently Mrs. Jenkins had received a scolding; she had been talking about her Mr. Smith; and the daughter, armed and alert, had answered—“I’ll Mr. Smith him.” But how delicious and suburban and absurd.

  Did Miss Doris believe that he had matrimonial schemes?

  It was possible. Nothing is impossible to people who live in this Palace of Gold. Was there not an old painted grandmother in a wig, sitting at the very next table to him, with a husband who looked less than thirty?

  But he felt rather sick. He agreed with Mrs. Jenkins that children did not all grow on lavender bushes. Miss Doris had the head of a white teazle.

  Then he observed something else.

  Duncan York came down the grand staircase and, before he could move ten paces across the carpet of blue and gold, Miss Jenkins had him. She was there before any other women.

  “Hallo, Duncan; heard you were here.”

  She stared him straight in the eyes, unflinchingly. Her red mouth was predatory and smiling.

  “Let’s go and dance; I’m a bit off colour. Suppose I look it. This damned ’flu.”

  “Yes, it’s a great noosance, isn’t it,” said the tall man in his gentle voice. “Got a partner for the mixed doubles?”

  “Well, what about it?”

  Brazenly she carried him off.

  Mr. Smith had the hardihood to return to the old lady and to take the empty chair beside her, nor did he refer in any way to the snubbing that he had received. Mrs. Jenkins looked very unhappy. To be made—at the age of sixty-five—to feel yourself your daughter’s social inferior was not conducive to happiness.

  “I wish I were at home. I’d like to see my daffodils and hyacinths coming up.”

  “Well, why not?”

  Mrs. Jenkins had her sense of duty to Doris, but Mr. Smith explained to her that this anxiety with respect to Doris was both superfluous and exhausting.

  “These young women——Why——? Well, if Doris were a boy—you might be justified in feeling anxious. I think Miss Jenkins is quite capable of looking after herself. Why not go home?”

  “All by myself? My dear sir—I get so flustered.”

  “I’m going home next week. I should be delighted to act as your courier.”

  Mrs. Jenkins looked both eager and frightened.

  “But—there’s Doris—you see——”

  “Doris wouldn’t approve?”

  Mrs. Jenkins nodded.

  “She has got such queer notions. She might be the mother, Mr. Smith, and I—the daughter.”

  “The fact is—your daughter would not approve of me——Quite natural. A mere Smith. Smith conjures up suspicion. By the way—didn’t I lend you a book by a chap named Norman Gage?”

  The digression puzzled Mrs. Jenkins.

  “I ought to have returned it. Doris has it—I’ll ask her——”

  “So Doris reads?”

  “She has had every one of Gage’s books out of our circulating library. All except the one——”

  “Ah, that was his last. So—she likes the stuff?”

  “The man’s her pet author.”

  “That’s rather interesting,” said Mr. Smith, “for I happen to be Norman Gage.”

  He smiled, and his smile was so deep and rich that it spread itself through the whole of Mrs. Jenkins’s being until she saw the joke and warmed to it, and her pink face became suffused with mischievous delight.

  “There—now! Who would have thought it——? Oh, begging your pardon, Mr. Smith. But don’t anybody know?”

  “Not a soul. It’s my secret and—yours. You have got to keep it—you know.”

  She swayed with comfortable exultation in her chair. For she, Mary Jenkins, had captured a real celebrity, caught him on her own hook, and unaided. He was hers. He was a secret—her secret.

  “Can’t I tell Doris?”

  “Don’t you think we might wait a little?”

  Hugging the proud humour of the thing she agreed.

  Before going to bed Mr. Smith added a delicate touch of colour to the conspiracy. He asked Mrs. Jenkins to return him the copy of his latest book while her daughter was away dancing with Duncan York. He promised to return it to her in the morning.

  “Your daughter has not finished it, I suppose?”

  “Not yet.”

  “Good.”

  A page-boy brought the copy of “A Summer Silence” to Mrs. Jenkins’s door while she was breakfasting, and on examining the volume she found on the fly leaf an i
nscription to herself. “To my friend Mary Jenkins from Norman Gage.” She sat and stared at it; she held the volume to a broad plump nose as though the book were a bouquet; she was tremendously and comfortably elated. A real, live celebrity had presented her with a trophy. Now, what would Miss Doris make of that?

  Undoubtedly, Mrs. Jenkins did present a very different front to her daughter when Mrs. Jenkins was discovered in the garden sitting under a white and orange umbrella, and listening to the hotel orchestra. She had a pink, snug, comfortable look, almost suggesting a big and hearty baby that was ready to crow. In fact, from the exchange of the first few words the daughter discovered in the mother a mental resiliency that in any other person she would have described as “cockiness.” Mrs. Jenkins appeared to be much more surely seated on her perch.

  Doris had missed the copy of “A Summer Silence.”

  “What have you done with that book of Gage’s?”

  “It’s in my room. I wanted to read part of it—again.”

  “Dash it, I wish you would leave my things alone.”

  “Well, it is my book, my dear,” said her mother with complacent serenity: “if you look on the table in my window.”

  Doris disappeared. The hour was ten o’clock. At eleven she had arranged to play a practice single with Duncan York, and she had proposed to spend the intervening hour in finishing Norman Gage’s book. Having ascended in the gilded cage to the first floor and recovered “A Summer Silence” she chose a sunny corner on the terrace where Duncan would be able to find her.

  She opened the book casually in her lap. The binding of it was still somewhat stiff and new, and the leaves—turning of themselves—left the fly leaf partly exposed. Her eyes detected the handwriting, and with astonishment she read: “To my friend Mary Jenkins from Norman Gage.”

  It was not easy to surprise Miss Jenkins, very rarely did a ball catch her on the wrong foot, but on this particular occasion she went in search of an immediate explanation. Her mother a friend of Norman Gage’s! It sounded preposterous, incredible.

  “What’s this?”

  Again she was made to think of a pink and confident infant preparing to crow.

  “What’s what, my dear?”

  “This. You don’t know Norman Gage.”