Paul Kelver

by Jerome Klapka Jerome

  “I hope you haven't hurt yourself,” I said.

  The next moment I didn't care whether she had or whether she hadn't. She did not reply to my kindly meant enquiry. Instead, her hand swept through the air in the form of an ample semi-circle. It terminated on my ear. It was not a small hand; it was not a soft hand; it was not that sort of hand. The sound of the contact rang through the room like a pistol shot; I beard it with my other ear. I sprang at her, and catching her before she had recovered her equilibrium, kissed her. I did not kiss her because I wanted to. I kissed her because I could not box her ears back in return, which I should have preferred doing. I kissed her, hoping it would make her mad. It did. If a look could have killed me, such would have been the tragic ending of this story. It did not kill me; it did me good.

  “You horrid boy!” she cried. “You horrid, horrid boy!”

  There, I admit, she scored. I did not in the least object to her thinking me horrid, but at nineteen one does object to being mistaken for a boy.

  “I am not a boy,” I explained.

  “Yes, you are,” she retorted; “a beast of a boy!”

  “If you do it again,” I warned her—a sudden movement on her part hinting to me the possibility—“I'll kiss you again! I mean it.”

  “Leave the room!” she commanded, pointing with her angular arm towards the door.

  I did not wish to remain. I was about to retire with as much dignity as circumstances permitted.

  “Boy!” she added.

  At that I turned. “Now I won't go!” I replied. “See if I do.”

  We stood glaring at each other.

  “What right have you in here?” she demanded.

  “I came to see Mr. Deleglise,” I answered. “I suppose you are Miss Deleglise. It doesn't seem to me that you know how to treat a visitor.”

  “Who are you?” she asked.

  “Mr. Horace Moncrieff,” I replied. I was using at the period both my names indiscriminately, but for this occasion Horace Moncrieff I judged the more awe-inspiring.

  She snorted. “I know. You're the house-maid. You sweep all the crumbs under the mats.”

  Now this was a subject about which at the time I was feeling somewhat sore. “Needs must when the Devil drives;” but as matters were, Dan and I could well have afforded domestic assistance. It rankled in my mind that to fit in with the foolish fad of old Deleglise, I the future Dickens, Thackeray and George Eliot, Kean, Macready and Phelps rolled into one, should be compelled to the performance of menial duties. On this morning of all others, my brilliant literary career just commenced, the anomaly of the thing appeared naturally more glaring.

  Besides, how came she to know I swept the crumbs under the mat—that it was my method? Had she and Dan been discussing me, ridiculing me behind my back? What right had Dan to reveal the secrets of our menage to this chit of a school-girl? Had he done so? or had she been prying, poking her tilted nose into matters that did not concern her? Pity it was she had no mother to occasionally spank her, teach her proper behaviour.

  “Where I sweep our crumbs is nothing to do with you,” I replied with some spirit. “That I have to sweep them at all is the fault of your father. A sensible girl—”

  “How dare you speak against my father!” she interrupted me with blazing eyes.

  “We will not discuss the question further,” I answered, with sense and dignity.

  “I think you had better not!” she retorted.

  Turning her back on me, she commenced to gather up her hairpins—there must have been about a hundred of them. I assisted her to the extent of picking up about twenty, which I handed to her with a bow: it may have been a little stiff, but that was only to be expected. I wished to show her that her bad example had not affected my own manners.

  “I am sorry my presence should have annoyed you,” I said. “It was quite an accident. I entered the room thinking your father was here.”

  “When you saw he wasn't, you might have gone out again,” she replied, “instead of hiding yourself behind a picture.”

  “I didn't hide myself,” I explained. “The easel happened to be in the way.”

  “And you stopped there and watched me.”

  “I couldn't help it.”

  She looked round and our eyes met. They were frank, grey eyes. An expression of merriment shot into them. I laughed.

  Then she laughed: it was a delightful laugh, the laugh one would have expected from her.

  “You might at least have coughed,” she suggested.

  “It was so amusing,” I pleaded.

  “I suppose it was,” she agreed, and held out her hand. “Did I hurt you?” she asked.

  “Yes, you did,” I answered, taking it.

  “Well, it was enough to annoy me, wasn't it?” she suggested.

  “Evidently,” I agreed.

  “I am going to a ball next week,” she explained, “a grown-up ball, and I've got to wear a skirt. I wanted to see if I could manage a train.”

  “Well, to be candid, you can't,” I assured her.

  “It does seem difficult.”

  “Shall I show you?” I asked.

  “What do you know about it?”

  “Well, I see it done every night.”

  “Oh, yes; of course, you're on the stage. Yes, do.”

  We readjusted the torn skirt, accommodating it better to her figure by the help of hairpins. I showed her how to hold the train, and, I humming a tune, we commenced to waltz.

  “I shouldn't count my steps,” I suggested to her. “It takes your mind away from the music.”

  “I don't waltz well,” she admitted meekly. “I know I don't do anything well—except play hockey.”

  “And try not to tread on your partner's feet. That's a very bad fault.”

  “I do try not to,” she explained.

  “It comes with practice,” I assured her.

  “I'll get Tom to give me half an hour every evening,” she said. “He dances beautifully.”

  “Who's Tom?”

  “Oh, father.”

  “Why do you call your father Tom? It doesn't sound respectful.”

  “Oh, he likes it; and it suits him so much better than father. Besides, he isn't like a real father. He does everything I want him to.”

  “Is that good for you?”

  “No; it's very bad for me—everybody says so. When you come to think of it, of course it isn't the way to bring up a girl. I tell him, but he merely laughs—says it's the only way he knows. I do hope I turn out all right. Am I doing it better now?”

  “A little. Don't be too anxious about it. Don't look at your feet.”

  “But if I don't they go all wrong. It was you who trod on mine that time.”

  “I know. I'm sorry. It's a little difficult not to.”

  “Am I holding my train all right?”

  “Well, there's no need to grip it as if you were afraid it would run away. It will follow all right. Hold it gracefully.”

  “I wish I wasn't a girl.”

  “Oh, you'll get used to it.” We concluded our dance.

  “What do I do—say 'Thank you'?”

  “Yes, prettily.”

  “What does he do?”

  “Oh, he takes you back to your chaperon, or suggests refreshment, or you sit and talk.”

  “I hate talking. I never know what to say.”

  “Oh, that's his duty. He'll try and amuse you, then you must laugh. You have a nice laugh.”

  “But I never know when to laugh. If I laugh when I want to it always offends people. What do you do if somebody asks you to dance and you don't want to dance with them?”

  “Oh, you say your programme is full.”

  “But if it isn't?”

  “Well, you tell a lie.”

  “Couldn't I say I don't dance well, and that I'm sure they'd get on better with somebody else?”

  “It would be the truth, but they might not believe it.”

  “I hope nobody asks me that I don't wa
nt.”

  “Well, he won't a second time, anyhow.”

  “You are rude.”

  “You are only a school-girl.”

  “I look a woman in my new frock, I really do.”

  “I should doubt it.”

  “You shall see me, then you'll be polite. It is because you are a boy you are rude. Men are much nicer.”

  “Oh, are they?”

  “Yes. You will be, when you are a man.”

  The sound of voices rose suddenly in the hall.

  “Tom!” cried Miss Deleglise; and collecting her skirt in both hands, bolted down the corkscrew staircase leading to the kitchen, leaving me standing in the centre of the studio.

  The door opened and old Deleglise entered, accompanied by a small, slight man with red hair and beard and somewhat watery eyes.

  Deleglise himself was a handsome old fellow, then a man of about fifty-five. His massive, mobile face, illuminated by bright, restless eyes, was crowned with a lion-like mane of iron-grey hair. Till a few years ago he had been a painter of considerable note. But in questions of art his temper was short. Pre-Raphaelism had gone out of fashion for the time being; the tendency of the new age was towards impressionism, and in disgust old Deleglise had broken his palette across his knee, and swore never to paint again. Artistic work of some sort being necessary to his temperament, he contented himself now with engraving. At the moment he was engaged upon the reproduction of Memlinc's Shrine of St. Ursula, with photographs of which he had just returned from Bruges.

  At sight of me his face lighted with a smile, and he advanced with outstretched hand.

  “Ah; my lad, so you have got over your shyness and come to visit the old bear in his den. Good boy. I like young faces.”

  He had a clear, musical voice, ever with the suggestion of a laugh behind it. He laid his hand upon my shoulder.

  “Why, you are looking as if you had come into a fortune,” he added, “and didn't know what a piece of bad luck that can be to a young fellow like yourself.”

  “How could it be bad luck?” I asked, laughing.

  “Takes all the sauce out of life, young man,” answered Deleglise. “What interest is there in running a race with the prize already in your possession, tell me that?”

  “It is not that kind of fortune,” I answered, “it is another. I have had my first story accepted. It is in print. Look.”

  I handed him the paper. He spread it out upon the engraving board before him.

  “Ah, that's better,” he said, “that's better. Charlie,” he turned to the red-headed man, who had seated himself listlessly in the one easy-chair the room contained, “come here.”

  The red-headed man rose and wandered towards us. “Let me introduce you to Mr. Paul Kelver, our new fellow servant. Our lady has accepted him. He has just been elected; his first story is in print.”

  The red-haired man stretched out his long thin hand. “I have thirty years of fame,” said the red-haired man—“could I say world-wide?”

  He turned for confirmation to old Deleglise, who laughed. “I think you can.”

  “If I could give it you would you exchange with me—at this moment?”

  “You would be a fool if you did,” he went on. “One's first success, one's first victory! It is the lover's first kiss. Fortune grows old and wrinkled, frowns more often than she smiles. We become indifferent to her, quarrel with her, make it up again. But the joy of her first kiss after the long wooing! Burn it into your memory, my young friend, that it may live with you always!”

  He strolled away. Old Deleglise took up the parable.

  “Ah, yes; one's first success, Paul! Laugh, my boy, cry! Shut yourself up in your room, shout, dance! Throw your hat into the air and cry hurrah! Make the most of it, Paul. Hug it to your heart, think of it, dream of it. This is the finest hour of your life, my boy. There will never come another like it—never!”

  He crossed the studio, and taking from its nail a small oil painting, brought it over and laid it on the board beside my paper. It was a fascinating little picture, painted with that exquisite minutiae and development of detail that a newer school was then ridiculing: as though Art had but one note to her voice. The dead figure of an old man lay upon a bed. A child had crept into the darkened room, and supporting itself by clutching tightly at the sheet, was gazing with solemn curiosity upon the white, still face.

  “That was mine,” said old Deleglise. “It was hung in the Academy thirty-six years ago, and bought for ten guineas by a dentist at Bury St. Edmunds. He went mad a few years later and died in a lunatic asylum. I had never lost sight of it, and the executors were quite agreeable to my having it back again for the same ten guineas. I used to go every morning to the Academy to look at it. I thought it the cleverest bit of work in the whole gallery, and I'm not at all sure that it wasn't. I saw myself a second Teniers, another Millet. Look how that light coming through the open door is treated; isn't it good? Somebody will pay a thousand guineas for it before I have been dead a dozen years, and it is worth it. But I wouldn't sell it myself now for five thousand. One's first success; it is worth all the rest of life!”

  “All?” queried the red-haired man from his easy-chair. We looked round. The lady of the skirt had entered, now her own proper self: a young girl of about fifteen, angular, awkward-looking, but bringing into the room with her that atmosphere of life, of hope, that is the eternal message of youth. She was not beautiful, not then—plain one might almost have called her but for her frank, grey eyes, her mass of dark-brown hair now gathered into a long thick plait. A light came into old Deleglise's eyes.

  “You are right, not all,” he murmured to the red-haired man.

  She came forward shyly. I found it difficult to recognise in her the flaming Fury that a few minutes before had sprung at me from the billows of her torn blue skirt. She shook hands with the red-haired man and kissed her father.

  “My daughter,” said old Deleglise, introducing me to her. “Mr. Paul Kelver, a literary gent.”

  “Mr. Kelver and I have met already,” she explained. “He has been waiting for you here in the studio.”

  “And have you been entertaining him?” asked Deleglise. “Oh, yes, I entertained him,” she replied. Her voice was singularly like her father's, with just the same suggestion of ever a laugh behind it.

  “We entertained each other,” I said.

  “That's all right,” said old Deleglise. “Stop and lunch with us. We will make ourselves a curry.”

  Chapter VI.

  Of the Glory and Goodness and the Evil that go to the Making of Love.

  During my time of struggle I had avoided all communication with old Hasluck. He was not a man to sympathise with feelings he did not understand. With boisterous good humour he would have insisted upon helping me. Why I preferred half starving with Lott and Co. to selling my labour for a fair wage to good-natured old Hasluck, merely because I knew him, I cannot explain. Though the profits may not have been so large, Lott and Co.'s dealings were not one whit more honest: I do not believe it was that which decided me. Nor do I think it was because he was Barbara's father. I never connected him, nor that good old soul, his vulgar, homely wife, in any way with Barbara. To me she was a being apart from all the world. Her true Parents! I should have sought them rather amid the sacred groves of vanished lands, within the sky-domed shrines of banished gods. There are instincts in us not easily analysed, not to be explained by reason. I have always preferred the finding—sometimes the losing—of my way according to the map, to the surer and simpler method of vocal enquiry; working out a complicated journey, and running the risk of never arriving at my destination, by aid of a Continental Bradshaw, to putting myself into the hands of courteous officials maintained and paid to assist the perplexed traveller. Possibly a far-off progenitor of mine may have been some morose “rogue” savage with untribal inclinations, living in his cave apart, fashioning his own stone hammer, shaping his own flint arrow-heads, shunning the merry war-dance, preferri
ng to caper by himself.

  But now, having gained my own foothold, I could stretch out my hand without fear of the movement being mistaken for appeal. I wrote to old Hasluck; and almost by the next post received from him the friendliest of notes. He told me Barbara had just returned from abroad, took it upon himself to add that she also would be delighted to see me, and, as I knew he would, threw his doors open to me.

  Of my boyish passion for Barbara never had I spoken to a living soul, nor do I think, excepting Barbara herself, had any ever guessed it. To my mother, though she was very fond of her, Barbara was only a girl, with charms but also with faults, concerning which my mother would speak freely; hurting me, as one unwittingly might hurt a neophyte by philosophical discussion of his newly embraced religion. Often, choosing by preference late evening or the night, I would wander round and round the huge red-brick house standing in its ancient garden on the top of Stamford Hill; descending again into the noisome streets as one returning to the world from praying at a shrine, purified, filled with peace, all noble endeavour, all unselfish aims seeming within my grasp.

  During Barbara's four years' absence my adoration had grown and strengthened. Out of my memory of her my desire had evolved its ideal; a being of my imagination, but by reason of that, to me the more real, the more present. I looked forward to seeing her again, but with no impatience, revelling rather in the anticipation than eager for the realisation. As a creature of flesh and blood, the child I had played with, talked with, touched, she had faded further and further into the distance; as the vision of my dreams she stood out clearer day by day. I knew that when next I saw her there would be a gulf between us I had no wish to bridge. To worship her from afar was a sweeter thought to me than would have been the hope of a passionate embrace. To live with her, sit opposite to her while she ate and drank, see her, perhaps, with her hair in curl-papers, know possibly that she had a corn upon her foot, hear her speak maybe of a decayed tooth, or of a chilblain, would have been torture to me. Into such abyss of the commonplace there was no fear of my dragging her, and for this I was glad. In the future she would be yet more removed from me. She was older than I was; she must be now a woman. Instinctively I felt that in spite of years I was not yet a man. She would marry. The thought gave me no pain, my feeling for her was utterly devoid of appetite. No one but myself could close the temple I had built about her, none deny to me the right of entry there. No jealous priest could hide her from my eyes, her altar I had reared too high. Since I have come to know myself better, I perceive that she stood to me not as a living woman, but as a symbol; not a fellow human being to be walked with through life, helping and to be helped, but that impalpable religion of sex to which we raise up idols of poor human clay, alas, not always to our satisfaction, so that foolishly we fall into anger against them, forgetting they were but the work of our own hands; not the body, but the spirit of love.