The Short Stories of Warwick Deeping

by Warwick Deeping

  He questioned Old Tom the head-waiter, who invariably had a table-napkin over his left arm. It was said that Old Tom would appear in heaven carrying it.

  “Whereabouts is Prospect Terrace?”

  “Just here, sir. Turn to the right when you get outside.”

  The gentleman had lunch and half a bottle of claret. He lit a cigar, and wandered out and about, and surveyed Prospect Terrace, and the green door and green balcony of No. 17. He was interested in No. 17, and in the whole atmosphere of Prospect Terrace. But he was in no hurry; he idled to the cliffs and sat down on a seat and finished his cigar, and realized Barham-on-Sea as being not all Prospect Terrace. It had the sea and the sky and the shipping, and a certain, quiet, catholic flavour. It had produced a famous sea-dog, and now it had produced something else.

  It was about a quarter to three when the gentleman strolled back to Prospect Terrace. Mr. Fishenden had emerged somewhat prematurely from his white handkerchief and his slumber in order to stand on the doorstep and overlook the activities of the jobbing gardener who was filling the front garden with pelargoniums. Mr. Fishenden knew nothing about gardening, but he flattered himself that he did know all that was to be known about jobbing gardeners.

  So the gentleman with the eye-glass met Mary’s father on the doorstep of No. 17 Prospect Terrace, and they observed each other. Mr. Fishenden detested monocles; they produced in his Liberal opinions and prejudices the redness of an extreme Radicalism.

  The gentleman with the monocle raised his hat to Mr. Fishenden. It was a gesture.

  “Excuse me, I believe Miss Fishenden lives here.”

  Paterfamilias stared. His little waspish plume of sandy-grey hair seemed to erect itself.

  He said:

  “I’m Mr. Fishenden.”

  Obviously he considered the announcement to be final and sufficient. And who was this fellow with the glass eye and his air of damned self-assurance who was asking for Mary? Paterfamilias bristled.

  Said the man with the monocle:

  “My name’s Burnside. I have come down from town to see Miss Fishenden.”

  Possibly, Mr. Burnside considered that the information would act as an “Open Sesame,” but he did not know Mr. Fishenden or the amount that Mary’s father did not know. Anyway, this little cock-sparrow of a man remained on the doorstep, with his hands in the pockets of his tight trousers, and his Pickwickian tummy stuck out.

  “My daughter’s busy.”

  Mr. Burnside began to appreciate his curmudgeon.

  “Is that so. When will she be at liberty to see me?”

  “When I choose, I think, sir. What’s your business?”

  “My business is with your daughter, Mr. Fishenden.”

  Mr. Fishenden was nonplussed. Who the devil was this fellow, a flash bagman, a super-tout? Or was it possible that the fellow was matrimonially inclined, and that Mary had been concealing some romance?

  He said:

  “My daughter does not see strangers, sir, without my knowledge and permission.”

  Mr. Burnside began to smile.

  “I think I told you that my name is Burnside.”

  “It might be Smith, sir, or Jones, or Robinson.”

  “It is neither Smith, nor Jones, nor Robinson. I belong to the firm of Lovell & Burnside.”

  Mr. Fishenden had a lapse. He remembered the hypothetical new curtains, and the parcel of patterns. But then—the eye-glass?

  “Ah, you’ve come about the curtains?”

  Mr. Burnside’s monocle twinkled.

  “Not exactly. We are a firm of publishers. Possibly you may have seen our name. It has been known for some seventy years.”

  Mr. Fishenden was both surprised and annoyed.

  “Ha, of course. I do know the name. But I fail to see—what my daughter——We get our books from the local library.”

  “I dare say you do, sir. But I have come down from town to see your daughter about a book.”

  “What book, sir?”

  “Her book.”

  “My daughter’s book? I fail to understand you, sir.”

  “The book, Mr. Fishenden, written by your daughter, and sent to us about a month ago.”

  For the moment Mr. Fishenden’s prim little mouth hung open. He looked rather like a fish with sandy-grey spines on its head.

  “A book, sir! My daughter—written a book! I have had nothing to do with it.”

  Said Mr. Burnside sardonically:

  “I don’t suppose you have.”

  But, obviously, something had to be done about it; even Mr. Fishenden realized the inevitableness of the situation. Incensed and astonished he might be. His daughter and a book! Incredible! And she had said nothing about it; she had maintained a most undaughterly silence; she had not even availed herself of his acumen as a critic. Incredible! Most unwomanly! And the member of an eminent firm of publishers standing on his doorstep!

  But the book! What sort of trash? A novel—of course.

  He moistened his lips. He became aware of the jobbing gardener kneeling there doing nothing, listening, with a trowel and a flower-pot idle in his hands—wasting Mr. Fishenden’s time.

  He said:

  “What is this book? A novel?”

  “Yes, a novel, sir.”

  “Fiction, of course. May I say, sir, that my daughter never asked my permission——”

  “Is that so? You surprise me. Possibly you will be surprised, Mr. Fishenden.”

  “Probably not, sir. Sentimental trash, sir; probably, sir. How could my daughter——?”

  “I admit—the miracle. No doubt—from your point of view——”

  Mr. Fishenden’s face seemed to narrow to an edge. Was this fellow being ironical? Was he poking fun at an ex-member of Her Majesty’s Civil Service? Confound him!

  He said:

  “You had better come in, sir. We will discuss the matter in my dining-room.”

  Mr. Burnside grew more bland in response to Mr. Fishenden’s pomposity.

  “Really, you must excuse me, but I have come to discuss the matter with your daughter. It is her book, Mr. Fishenden.”

  “Granted, sir. I have had nothing to do with it.”

  “Let me assure you that I do not hold you responsible. My opinion of the book is—that it is a piece of genius.”

  “Genius, sir?”

  “Yes, genius. Believe me, I absolve you from all responsibility.”

  Mr. Fishenden became to feel quite sure that this publisher fellow was indulging in irony, and Mr. Fishenden did not approve of irony save when he used it himself heavily and with emphasis.

  He said:

  “You’d better come in,” and he let Burnside into the hall and, going to the foot of the stairs, shouted peremptorily: “Mary, Mary, come downstairs at once.”

  She came. She was aware of a stranger standing in the hall, who was gazing with an air of ironic joy at the back of her father’s head. His monocled glance raised itself to her. He looked at her with curiosity, interest. He held his hat in his left hand.

  “Miss Mary Fishenden, I presume?”

  “Yes.”

  He held out a hand.

  “My name is Burnside. I have come down to see you about ‘Martin Hume.’ May I congratulate you on that book?”

  She coloured up, and her grey eyes looked coy.

  “You are Mr. Burnside, the publisher?”

  “I am.”

  “I’m very glad.”

  And then she became aware of her father posed in the dining-room doorway rather like a dog who had sat up to beg and was not being noticed. He sniffed. She knew from his expression that he was about to exert authority.

  “Mr. Burnside, am I to understand that you have come to interview my daughter on business?”

  Burnside looked first at Mary, and then at her father.

  “I may say—pleasure and business. We should like to publish Miss Fishenden’s book.”

  Her father raised a hand as though he were signalling to traffic a
nd ordering it to abate its pace or to stop.

  “One moment, sir, I have not seen this book; I expect to read this book before I allow it to be published.”

  He tightened his tummy. He was the little, paternal censor guarding the morals and the autocracies of Prospect Terrace. And Mr. Burnside fixed him with his monocle and looked amused.

  “Indeed! But surely, sir, you have read some of your daughter’s work?”

  “Never.”

  He turned an accusing glance upon his daughter.

  “Scribbling in secret. Must be ashamed of it. I won’t allow my daughter to rush into print without my—approval.”

  “I can assure you, sir, there is no need for alarm. Besides, I think it is Miss Fishenden’s authority that we need. If she says—‘Publish,’ we publish. It is a question of terms. I am here to discuss terms.”

  His ironic and friendly monocle glimmered at Mary.

  “Do you say—‘Publish,’ Miss Fishenden, provided we agree——?”

  She stood on the last step, and ignored her father.

  “Of course, publish, Mr. Burnside. Would you care to come up to my study and discuss details.”

  She turned and climbed the stairs, and Burnside followed her, carrying his hat with a certain jauntiness. He expected paterfamilias to protest, but he had a glimpse of Mr. Fishenden left on one leg, with his face screwed up, and most illiberally inarticulate.

  Closing the door of Mary’s study he gave her a little bow and a quizzical look.

  “Remarkable man—your father, Miss Fishenden; nearly as remarkable as your book.”

  Messrs. Lovell & Burnside were men of business, but on this occasion Mary and her book appeared to appeal to other worldliness. Mr. Burnside had come down to Barham-on-Sea with the idea of proposing to buy Mary’s book outright, but instead of doing so he advised her to accept a royalty agreement. Mr. Fishenden had performed one service. He had made of Burnside a cavalier and a partizan, and had pushed authoress and publisher into a conspiracy of understanding.

  “I suppose you are of legal age, Miss Fishenden?”

  “Yes, I’m twenty-nine.”

  So Mr. Burnside departed; and Mary met her father at tea, and poured out his tea for him, and he was portentously solemn. He had received a shock; he did not like to confess it even to himself, but his daughter was different; it is possible that he was just a little shy and afraid of her. He asked her no more questions about the book, or about Mr. Burnside, or the terms of publication. He cultivated an official and departmental silence.

  Actually this silence continued for three months. Life went on much as before, though Mr. Fishenden was a little less peremptory, and his daughter more a person.

  A week before the publication of “Martin Hume” she came down to tea and presented her father with a copy of the book.

  “Perhaps you would like to read it.”

  Mr. Fishenden read “Martin Hume.” He sat up till eleven o’clock reading it. He was astonished, shocked, and a little bewildered. He could not understand how a daughter of his could have written such a book. Things happened in it which were not supposed to happen in a respectable English household. And the language in places! And the hero was nothing less than an infidel!

  The little authoritative soul of Mary’s father gibbered and protested. And yet, in a sense, the book overwhelmed him; it was beyond and over and around him; it had the bewildering bigness of a strange city in which Mr. Fishenden’s conventions and opinions were lost. He wanted to shout at the book, to write an official letter beginning with a peremptory and protesting—“Sir.”

  At breakfast, Mary found “Martin Hume” lying beside her plate. Her father’s face wore the expression it assumed just before going to church.

  She poured out his tea for him. There was silence. The presence of “Martin Hume” was ignored.

  She knew that her father did not approve.

  She had not expected him to approve.

  And yet, three years later, when Mary had a little house of her own in town, and had visited America, and was very much a figure in the great world, Mr. Fishenden was walking up and down the parade of Barham-on-Sea with his top hat more at an angle, and looking more of a cock-sparrow than ever. He had assimilated and digested his daughter’s fame. He had pinned it in his buttonhole. He wore it, too, as he wore his trousers.

  He had the air of assuming himself to be a celebrity.

  “Yes; that’s Frederick Fishenden—the father of Mary Fishenden. Very exceptional man, obviously, to have produced such a daughter.”

  Obviously.

  THE STRANGE CASE OF SYBIL CARBERRY

  I

  People who knew Ignatius Carberry’s business better than their own had agreed to call him an amiable old fool.

  Old indeed he was, in his seventy-seventh year, and he had to be pushed about the Vine Court garden in a wheeled chair, but his deep set eyes, bright as a bird’s, were not the eyes of a fool. He had a face of extraordinary happiness, a luminous face.

  “God forgive us our uglinesses!”

  That was his particular prayer, and to some people it had been a source of offence; for to insinuate that your neighbours are ugly is more unflattering than to call them sinful. And old Carberry’s whole life had been a protest against ugliness, human ugliness.

  “An obsession.”

  Mrs. Soutar of “Scarlets” had always called it an obsession.

  “Not complimentary to us, my dear! But to carry a prejudice to such absurd lengths! And then—there’s the girl.”

  Someone, breaking in upon the conversation, had asserted that old Carberry had somehow succeeded in producing an attractive daughter.

  “The girl’s beautiful. One can’t deny it.”

  “I don’t deny it. Jeremy sees to that. But for a man to give up his whole life to beauty——! Rather selfish and impracticable, don’t you think?”

  “Well, my dear, he has produced two beautiful things—Vine Court and Sybil. And I rather agree with your son.”

  Mrs. Soutar had nothing to say against her son’s taste. Jeremy was so full of life, such a superabundant and masterful young man, and he was the one person on the earth whom Mrs. Soutar confessed that she could not manage. Jeremy managed his mother, and she clucked over it like a proud hen. Jeremy would manage Sybil when old Carberry went to his last rest.

  “With his imagination—I can’t think how he gets over that,” she said; “the last ugliness—you know, a skeleton. Skeletons—are ugly. Seems to me death has the last word.”

  “Perhaps he means to be cremated?”

  “I should call that shirking the issue.”

  It was October, and the little summer of the Gods lay upon the country, and Ignatius Carberry, propped up in his wheeled chair on the paved terrace above the moat and close to the sundial, saw both water and green grass. The water in the moat was very still, and lily leaves floated upon it.

  To the right, through the squared opening in the yew hedge, Carberry saw a flagged path, statues, a great stretch of sward with fallen leaves scattered upon it, purple and red and gold. The great trees from which these leaves had fallen, oaks, beeches, limes and planes, stood spaced beyond the grass, and the sunlight playing through them was like a net of gold through which the falling leaves trickled. In the distance a low cloud of purple and blue and lilac showed between the trunks—asters in an immense herbaceous border.

  Old Carberry looked from the fallen leaves into the yellow eyes of the spaniel lying at his feet.

  “Boggis has learnt not to meddle.”

  The spaniel blinked.

  “Meddlesome gardeners are the devil.”

  Yes; Boggis the head gardener had learnt his lesson, or as much of it as mattered to the gentle autocrat in the chair. Not to fuss, not to be fulsomely tidy, not to sweep away the crisped beauty of the autumn leaves until Mr. Carberry’s eyes had blessed them, and the worms had had their share. Boggis might go about saying: “He—likes it like that.” Ignatius Carbe
rry knew that to nine hundred and ninety nine people out of a thousand a man is no more than “He.”

  The spaniel arose and sat on the stump of a tail. He crinkled his nose. The woman creature—also Thomas the black cat—were approaching along the paved path between the statues.

  Carberry’s face seemed to grow more luminous.

  “I have given her beauty,” he thought, “beauty within and without. It has been worth it.”

  And then, Ignatius Carberry looked at his daughter as a man sometimes looks at that stranger—himself. He saw the great dark eyes set well apart, eyes that had the quality of deep and partly-shaded water, the broad, low forehead with the very black hair smoothed over it, the short and sensitive nose, and that most expressive mouth. She was not too tall, and she had the long, straight legs of a boy. Moreover, she was as beautiful in movement as she was in shape, a light, drifting thing, deliberate, sinuous.

  “Surely, surely,” he thought, “souls must differ as bodies differ. Those people made of butcher’s meat, with hocks and buttocks! And she—she looks no heavier than a blown leaf, and she moves like one.”

  Aloud he said:

  “Who taught you to wear amber in October?”

  He was a tease, and she came and kissed him, not cloyingly like the sentimental and devoted daughter, but like one spirit bending over a fellow spirit that is greatly loved.

  “Well, you.”

  “Oh, no, Pixie.”

  “The leaves—there, and Tom’s eyes, and Pedro’s dear, silly old eyes, too. You woossy woossy thing——”

  She bent over the spaniel and cuddled his soft, floppy head, while the black cat jumped upon Carberry’s knees, and with one black paw on the man’s chest, deftly and with solemnity placed the other paw upon Ignatius’s nose.

  “Salaams, Thomas.”