by Unknown
“You mean, adopt a nom de ploom?”
“That’s the sort of idea; but I’m going to vary it a little.”
And I explained my plan.
“But why me?” he asked, when he had understood the scheme. “What made you think of me?”
“The fact is, my dear fellow,” I said, “this writing is a game where personality counts to an enormous extent. The man who signs my Society dialogues will probably come into personal contact with the editors of the papers in which they appear. He will be asked to call at their offices. So you see I must have a man who looks as if he had written the stuff.”
“I see,” he said complacently. “Dressy sort of chap. Chap who looks as if he knew a thing or two.”
“Yes. I couldn’t get Alf Joblin, for instance.”
We laughed together at the notion.
“Poor old Alf!” said Sidney Price.
“Now you probably know a good deal about Society?”
“Rath_er_” said Sidney. “They’re a hot lot. My word! Saw The Walls of Jericho three times. Gives it ‘em pretty straight, that does. Visits of Elizabeth, too. Chase me! Used to think some of us chaps in the ‘Moon’ were a bit O.T., but we aren’t in it—not in the same street. Chaps, I mean, who’d call a girl behind the bar by her Christian name as soon as look at you. One chap I knew used to give the girl at the cash-desk of the ‘Mecca’ he went to bottles of scent. Bottles of it—regular! ‘Here you are, Tottie,’ he used to say, ‘here’s another little donation from yours truly.’ Kissed her once. Slap in front of everybody. Saw him do it. But, bless you, they’d think nothing of that in the Smart Set. Ever read ‘God’s Good Man’? There’s a book! My stars! Lets you see what goes on. Scorchers they are.”
“That’s just what my dialogues point out. I can count on you, then?”
He said I could. He was an intelligent young man, and he gave me to understand that all would be well. He would carry the job through on the strict Q.T. He closely willingly with my offer of ten per cent, thus affording a striking contrast to the grasping Hatton. He assured me he had found literary chaps not half bad. Had occasionally had an idea of writing a bit himself.
We parted on good terms, and I was pleased to think that I was placing my “Dialogues of Mayfair” and my “London and Country House Tales” in really competent and appreciative hands.
Chapter 14
THE THIRD GHOST (James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)
There only remained now my serious verse, of which I turned out an enormous quantity. It won a ready acceptance in many quarters, notably the St. Stephen’s Gazette. Already I was beginning to oust from their positions on that excellent journal the old crusted poetesses who had supplied it from its foundation with verse. The prices they paid on the St. Stephen’s were in excellent taste. In the musical world, too, I was making way rapidly. Lyrics of the tea-and-muffin type streamed from my pen. “Sleep whilst I Sing, Love,” had brought me in an astonishing amount of money, in spite of the music-pirates. It was on the barrel-organs. Adults hummed it. Infants crooned it in their cots. Comic men at music-halls opened their turns by remarking soothingly to the conductor of the orchestra, “I’m going to sing now, so you go to sleep, love.” In a word, while the boom lasted, it was a little gold-mine to me.
Thomas Blake was as obviously the man for me here as Sidney Price had been in the case of my Society dialogues. The public would find something infinitely piquant in the thought that its most sentimental ditties were given to it by the horny-handed steerer of a canal barge. He would be greeted as the modern Burns. People would ask him how he thought of his poems, and he would say, “Oo-er!” and they would hail him as delightfully original. In the case of Thomas Blake I saw my earnings going up with a bound. His personality would be a noble advertisement.
He was aboard the Ashlade or Lechton on the Cut, so I was informed by Kit. Which information was not luminous to me. Further inquiries, however, led me to the bridge at Brentford, whence starts that almost unknown system of inland navigation which extends to Manchester and Birmingham.
Here I accosted at a venture a ruminative bargee. “Tom Blake?” he repeated, reflectively. “Oh! ‘e’s been off this three hours on a trip to Braunston. He’ll tie up tonight at the Shovel.”
“Where’s the Shovel?”
“Past Cowley, the Shovel is.” This was spoken in a tired drawl which was evidently meant to preclude further chit-chat. To clinch things, he slouched away, waving me in an abstracted manner to the towpath.
I took the hint. It was now three o’clock in the afternoon. Judging by the pace of the barges I had seen, I should catch Blake easily before nightfall. I set out briskly. An hour’s walking brought me to Hanwell, and I was glad to see a regular chain of locks which must have considerably delayed the Ashlade and Lechton.
The afternoon wore on. I went steadily forward, making inquiries as to Thomas’s whereabouts from the boats which met me, and always hearing that he was still ahead.
Footsore and hungry, I overtook him at Cowley. The two boats were in the lock. Thomas and a lady, presumably his wife, were ashore. On the Ashlade‘s raised cabin cover was a baby. Two patriarchal-looking boys were respectively at the Ashlade‘s and Lechton‘s tillers. The lady was attending to the horse.
The water in the lock rose gradually to a higher level.
“Hold them tillers straight!” yelled Thomas. At which point I saluted him. He was a little blank at first, but when I reminded him of our last meeting his face lit up at once. “Why, you’re the mister wot–-“
“Nuppie!” came in a shrill scream from the lady with the horse. “Nuppie!”
“Yes, Ada!” answered the boy on the Ashlade.
“Liz ain’t tied to the can. D’you want ‘er to be drownded? Didn’t I tell you to be sure and tie her up tight?”
“So I did, Ada. She’s untied herself again. Yes, she ‘as. ‘Asn’t she, Albert?”
This appeal for corroboration was directed to the other small boy on the Lechton. It failed signally.
“No, you did not tie Liz to the chimney. You know you never, Nuppie.”
“Wait till we get out of this lock!” said Nuppie, earnestly.
The water pouring in from the northern sluice was forcing the tillers violently against the southern sluice gates.
“If them boys,” said Tom Blake in an overwrought voice, “lets them tillers go round, it’s all up with my pair o’ boats. Lemme do it, you–-” The rest of the sentence was mercifully lost in the thump with which Thomas’s feet bounded on the Ashlade‘s cabin-top. He made Liz fast to the circular foot of iron chimney projecting from the boards; then, jumping back to the land, he said, more in sorrow than in anger: “Lazy little brats! an’ they’ve ‘ad their tea, too.”
Clear of the locks, I walked with Thomas and his ancient horse, trying to explain what I wanted done. But it was not until we had tied up for the night, had had beer at the Shovel, and (Nuppie and Albert being safely asleep in the second cabin) had met at supper that my instructions had been fully grasped. Thomas himself was inclined to be diffident, and had it not been for Ada would, I think, have let my offer slide. She was enthusiastic. It was she who told me of the cottage they had at Fenny Stratford, which they used as headquarters whilst waiting for a cargo.
“That can be used as a permanent address,” I said. “All you have to do is to write your name at the end of each typewritten sheet, enclose it in the stamped envelope which I will send you, and send it by post. When the cheques come, sign them on the back and forward them to me. For every ten pounds you forward me, I’ll give you one for yourself. In any difficulty, simply write to me—here’s my own address—and I’ll see you through it.”
“We can’t go to prison for it, can we, mister?” asked Ada suddenly, after a pause.
“No,” I said; “there’s nothing dishonest in what I propose.”
“Oh, she didn’t so much mean that,” said Thomas, thoughtfully.
They g
ave me a shakedown for the night in the cargo.
Just before turning in, I said casually, “If anyone except me cashed the cheques by mistake, he’d go to prison quick.”
“Yes, mister,” came back Thomas’s voice, again a shade thoughtfully modulated.
CHAPTER 15
EVA EVERSLEIGH (James Orlebar Cloyster’s narrative continued)
With my system thus in full swing I experienced the intoxication of assured freedom. To say I was elated does not describe it. I walked on air. This was my state of mind when I determined to pay a visit to the Gunton-Cresswells. I had known them in my college days, but since I had been engaged in literature I had sedulously avoided them because I remembered that Margaret had once told me they were her friends.
But now there was no need for me to fear them on that account, and thinking that the solid comfort of their house in Kensington would be far from disagreeable, thither, one afternoon in spring, I made my way. It is wonderful how friendly Convention is to Art when Art does not appear to want to borrow money.
No. 5, Kensington Lane, W., is the stronghold of British respectability. It is more respectable than the most respectable suburb. Its attitude to Mayfair is that of a mother to a daughter who has gone on the stage and made a success. Kensington Lane is almost tolerant of Mayfair. But not quite. It admits the success, but shakes its head.
Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell took an early opportunity of drawing me aside, and began gently to pump me. After I had responded with sufficient docility to her leads, she reiterated her delight at seeing me again. I had concluded my replies with the words, “I am a struggling journalist, Mrs. Cresswell.” I accompanied the phrase with a half-smile which she took to mean—as I intended she should—that I was amusing myself by dabbling in literature, backed by a small, but adequate, private income.
“Oh, come, James,” she said, smiling approvingly, “you know you will make a quite too dreadfully clever success. How dare you try to deceive me like that? A struggling journalist, indeed.”
But I knew she liked that “struggling journalist” immensely. She would couple me and my own epithet together before her friends. She would enjoy unconsciously an imperceptible, but exquisite, sensation of patronage by having me at her house. Even if she discussed me with Margaret I was safe. For Margaret would give an altogether different interpretation of the smile with which I described myself as struggling. My smile would be mentally catalogued by her as “brave”; for it must not be forgotten that as suddenly as my name had achieved a little publicity, just so suddenly had it utterly disappeared.
Towards the end of May, it happened that Julian dropped into my rooms about three o’clock, and found me gazing critically at a top-hat.
“I’ve seen you,” he remarked, “rather often in that get-up lately.”
“It is, perhaps, losing its first gloss,” I answered, inspecting my hat closely. I cared not a bit for Julian’s sneers; for the smell of the flesh-pots of Kensington had laid hold of my soul, and I was resolved to make the most of the respite which my system gave me.
“What salon is to have the honour today?” he asked, spreading himself on my sofa.
“I’m going to the Gunton-Cresswells,” I replied.
Julian slowly sat up.
“Ah?” he said conversationally.
“I’ve been asked to meet their niece, a Miss Eversleigh, whom they’ve invited to stop with them. Funny, by the way, that her name should be the same as yours.”
“Not particularly,” said Julian shortly; “she’s my cousin. My cousin Eva.”
This was startling. There was a pause. Presently Julian said, “Do you know, Jimmy, that if I were not the philosopher I am, I’d curse this awful indolence of mine.”
I saw it in a flash, and went up to him holding out my hand in sympathy. “Thanks,” he said, gripping it; “but don’t speak of it. I couldn’t endure that, even from you, James. It’s too hard for talking. If it was only myself whose life I’d spoilt—if it was only myself–-“
He broke off. And then, “Hers too. She’s true as steel.”
I had heard no more bitter cry than that.
I began to busy myself amongst some manuscripts to give Julian time to compose himself. And so an hour passed. At a quarter past four I got up to go out. Julian lay recumbent. It seemed terrible to leave him brooding alone over his misery.
A closer inspection, however, showed me he was asleep.
Meanwhile, Eva Eversleigh and I became firm friends. Of her person I need simply say that it was the most beautiful that Nature ever created. Pressed as to details, I should add that she was petite, dark, had brown hair, very big blue eyes, a retroussé nose, and a rather wide mouth.
Julian had said she was “true as steel.” Therefore, I felt no diffidence in manoeuvring myself into her society on every conceivable occasion. Sometimes she spoke to me of Julian, whom I admitted I knew, and, with feminine courage, she hid her hopeless, all-devouring affection for her cousin under the cloak of ingenuous levity. She laughed nearly every time his name was mentioned.
About this time the Gunton-Cresswells gave a dance.
I looked forward to it with almost painful pleasure. I had not been to a dance since my last May-week at Cambridge. Also No. 5, Kensington Lane had completely usurped the position I had previously assigned to Paradise. To waltz with Julian’s cousin—that was the ambition which now dwarfed my former hankering for the fame of authorship or a habitation in Bohemia.
Mrs. Goodwin once said that happiness consists in anticipating an impossible future. Be that as it may, I certainly thought my sensations were pleasant enough when at length my hansom pulled up jerkily beside the red-carpeted steps of No. 5, Kensington Lane. As I paid the fare, I could hear the murmur from within of a waltz tune—and I kept repeating to myself that Eva had promised me the privilege of taking her in to supper, and had given me the last two waltzes and the first two extras.
I went to pay my devoirs to my hostess. She was supinely gamesome. “Ah,” she said, showing her excellent teeth, “Genius attendant at the revels of Terpsichore.”
“Where Beauty, Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell,” I responded, cutting it, as though mutton, thick, “teaches e’en the humblest visitor the reigning Muse’s art.”
“You may have this one, if you like,” said Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell simply.
Supper came at last, and, with supper, Eva.
I must now write it down that she was not a type of English beauty. She was not, I mean, queenly, impassive, never-anything-but-her-cool-calm- self. Tonight, for instance, her eyes were as I had never seen them. There danced in them the merriest glitter, which was more than a mere glorification of the ordinary merry glitter—which scores of girls possess at every ball. To begin with, there was a diabolical abandon in Eva’s glitter, which raised it instantly above the common herd’s. And behind it all was that very misty mist. I don’t know whether all men have seen that mist; but I am sure that no man has seen it more than once; and, from what I’ve seen of the average man, I doubt if most of them have ever seen it at all. Well, there it was for me to see in Eva Eversleigh’s eyes that night at supper. It made me think of things unspeakable. I felt a rush of classic aestheticism: Arcadia, Helen of Troy, the happy valleys of the early Greeks. Supper: I believe I gave her oyster pâtés. But I was far away. Deep, deep, deep in Eva’s eyes I saw a craft sighting, ‘neath a cloudless azure sky, the dark blue Symplegades; heard in my ears the jargon, loud and near me, of the sailors; and faintly o’er the distance of the dead-calm sea rose intermittently the sound of brine-foam at the clashing rocks….
As we sat there tęte-ŕ-tęte, she smiled across the table at me with such perfect friendliness, it seemed as though a magic barrier separated our two selves from all the chattering, rustling crowd around us. When she spoke, a little quiver of feeling blended adorably with the low, sweet tones of her voice. We talked, indeed, of trifles, but with just that charming hint of intimacy which men friends have who may have known one anothe
r from birth, and may know one another for a lifetime, but never become bores, never change. Only when it comes between a woman and a man, it is incomparably finer. It is the talk, of course, of lovers who have not realised they are in love.
“The two last waltzes,” I murmured, when parting with her. She nodded. I roamed the Gunton-Cresswells’s rooms awaiting them.
She danced those two last waltzes with strangers.
The thing was utterly beyond me at the time. Looking back, I am still amazed to what lengths deliberate coquetry can go.
She actually took pains to elude me, and gave those waltzes to strangers.
From being comfortably rocked in the dark blue waters of a Grecian sea, I was suddenly transported to the realities of the ballroom. My theoretical love for Eva was now a substantial truth. I was in an agony of desire, in a frenzy of jealousy. I wanted to hurl the two strangers to opposite corners of the ballroom, but civilisation forbade it.
I was now in an altogether indescribable state of nerves and suspense. Had she definitely and for some unfathomable reason decided to cut me? The first extra drew languorously to a close, couples swept from the room to the grounds, the gallery or the conservatory. I tried to steady my whirling head with a cigarette and a whisky-and-soda in the smoking-room.
The orchestra, like a train starting tentatively on a long run, launched itself mildly into the preliminary bars of Tout Passe. I sought the ballroom blinded by my feelings. Pulling myself together with an effort, I saw her standing alone. It struck me for the first time that she was clothed in cream. Her skin gleamed shining white. She stood erect, her arms by her sides. Behind her was a huge, black velvet portičre of many folds, supported by two dull brazen columns.
As I advanced towards her, two or three men bowed and spoke to her. She smiled and dismissed them, and, still smiling pleasantly, her glance traversed the crowd and rested upon me. I was drawing now quite near. Her eyes met mine; nor did she avert them, and stooping a little to address her, I heard her sigh.