Britannia Mews

by Margery Sharp

  The morning was bright and sunny, but even in that favourable light it was obvious that the Mews had reached its nadir. Anxious and hurried as she was, Adelaide could not fail to notice it; the respectable portion had shrunk, only two windows showed clean curtains: the brick enclosure round the lime-tree had become a sort of communal dust-bin, from which refuse of all sorts, much of it organic, overflowed and was blown about the cobbles. Dirty clouts hung here and there over the balcony railings, in one place bedding; such was the general squalor that the Cock at the far end no longer repelled but drew the eye. It looked at least solid, in good repair; the glass in the side-door was clean, the brass rim of the step moderately bright. Britannia Mews, re-orienting itself, now found its bulwark of respectability in a public-house.

  Without giving herself time to think, Adelaide walked under the arch, to the stable where Benson had once groomed his horses. The great doors were shut. She ran up the steep iron staircase and knocked sharply on the door above. She had to knock several times before it was cautiously opened; then she pushed at it and almost fell through, into Mr. Lambert’s arms.

  “Adelaide!” he exclaimed. “Adelaide—good God!—what are you doing here?”

  “I had to see you. We’ve got to talk.”

  “But I was just coming to meet you, in the Gardens!”

  “We’ve got to talk,” repeated Adelaide stubbornly. “Not in the Gardens. This is the only place.…”

  But looking round, she gave an involuntary gasp. She had seen the room before, in the days of the Bensons; Mrs. Benson had kept it like a new pin; Adelaide distinctly remembered a clean red-and-white tablecloth, a row of plants in the window, and an extraordinarily brilliant array of brass. Now it matched the scene without. Old canvases, originally stacked against the wall, had collapsed upon the floor; the hearth was stuffed with oil- and paint-rags; dirty brushes protruded from among the unwashed crockery in the sink. An enormous wicker basket cumbered the floor, one of the two chairs was broken and the other heaped with old newspapers. Everywhere there were empty bottles. Through the inner door, wedged ajar by a soiled towel, she glimpsed an equally chaotic bedroom. Adelaide looked at it all, and parenthetically felt a great longing to clean it up.

  “Sit down,” said Mr. Lambert, pushing the papers from the sound chair. “Adelaide, my dearest girl, you shouldn’t have come here.”

  “I know. But what does it matter? I’ve got to talk to you,” repeated Adelaide. She sat down and pulled off her gloves. “Henry, the most dreadful thing has happened. We’re leaving town.”

  “You mean you’re going to move? When?”

  “Next month. Papa’s had an offer for the rest of the lease, and Mamma’s found a house in Farnham. But I won’t go. I can’t! Henry, you’ll simply have to speak to Papa.”

  Mr. Lambert sat down opposite her, on the wicker basket.

  “Of course I will, if you think it’ll do any good. But it won’t, my darling. We’ve been into all that before. I’ve no money and no prospects—”

  “You have prospects! You’re going to be a great artist!”

  “Do you think your father will believe that? He’ll just throw me out.”

  In spite of all her dreams, Adelaide knew this to be true. Of all professions, that of art was least calculated to inspire confidence in Mr. Culver. Show him a struggling barrister and a wealthy Q.C., and he could at least perceive a connection between them, they stood at different points on a well-defined road; but show him Mr. Lambert and Sir John Millais, and he would see no connection at all, simply because the latter had never been his daughter’s drawing-master.

  “It’s no use,” said Mr. Lambert abruptly. “Adelaide: I must give you up.”

  Adelaide looked at him fondly. She was not surprised, she had expected him to say this; but of course she wasn’t going to accept it.

  “Don’t you love me, Henry?”

  “You know I do.”

  “Then that’s all that matters. We’ll be married.”

  “Your parents will never consent.”

  “I don’t care. And it can’t be wrong, Henry; doesn’t it say in the Bible that a woman must leave her parents and cleave to her husband?”

  For a moment Mr. Lambert met her earnest, loving gaze; then he stood up and walked to the window, and spoke to her over his shoulder.

  “I don’t like telling you this, dear, but I must. I’m not a fit husband for you. Apart from having no income—”

  “I’ve a hundred a year,” said Adelaide.

  “Have you?” asked Mr. Lambert, momentarily distracted. “Have you control of it?”

  “Yes, now I’m twenty-one. My grandmother left it me.”

  “That doesn’t make any difference,” said Mr. Lambert resolutely. “I’m not talking about money now. You don’t know me, Adelaide: you bring out the best in me and never see the worst. I’ve … vices you’ve never dreamed of.”

  “I’m sure you haven’t!” cried Adelaide. She looked round the room and laughed. “I can see you’re dreadfully untidy—”

  “Exactly. And you think that’s the worst that can be said of me. Go down into the Mews, Adelaide, and see what they’ll tell you there. They’ll tell you I drink like a fish.”

  3

  For a minute she hardly understood him. The vice of drunkenness was not only outside her experience, but also outside her comprehension. Her mental picture of a drunkard was taken from Punch: an uncouth trampish navvy, a half-gorilla—unchecked against reality, for though there was drunkenness in the London streets, a well-bred woman averted her eyes from it. Adelaide looked at Mr. Lambert therefore with perplexity, but without real alarm.

  “I don’t know what you mean,” she said blankly.

  “I mean that I drink too much wine—or gin, or spirits, or anything I can get hold of—and become intoxicated. I can’t walk properly—as your young cousins have observed. I can’t speak properly. I become maudlin and quarrelsome. I have no control over my actions. That’s what being drunk is.”

  “But you’d never be like that!”

  “I have been, frequently. And I shall be drunk again. Look here, Adelaide,” said Mr. Lambert roughly, “I’m trying to play straight with you. I’m no good. If you can’t get that into your innocent mind, you’ll just have to take my word for it.”

  Adelaide stood up. His roughness, which to her was exciting masculinity, did not repel but drew her. With great plainness she said:—

  “You don’t have to get drunk. There’s nothing to make you. Why don’t you stop?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Then I’ll stop you,” said Adelaide confidently.

  For now she breathed confidence; and energy, and resolution. Instead of alarming or disgusting, Mr. Lambert’s unfortunate weakness simply made her all the more eager to marry and save him. The love of a good woman was notoriously omnipotent. Home influences, too, refining society, regular meals—how Adelaide yearned to deploy one after the other in a brief victorious campaign over Mr. Lambert’s thirst!

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about,” said he gloomily.

  “Yes, I do.” Adelaide took his hand between her own and held it fast. “I quite understand, my dearest, I’m not a bit narrow-minded, I do see how sometimes when you’re all alone in the evenings you sometimes take a glass too much. I’m sure many bachelors do. But when you have me with you all the time, it just won’t happen. Why should it?”

  “Because the dog,” said Mr. Lambert slowly, “returns to its vomit.”

  Adelaide let his hand drop. The brutality of the words momentarily shocked her. But almost at once she saw why he had used them: out of the tenderness of his heart, fighting against his great desire, he was trying to frighten her away. Adelaide smiled.

  “You don’t know what a very strong character I have,” she told him.

  Mr. Lambert looked at her uneasily. Her youth and vigour, the unused force of her will, made her at that moment almost formidable. His artist’s eye marked the
extreme erectness of her back and shoulders, the confident lift of her chin. She looked like a moral principle made flesh, beautiful with the beauty of righteousness: she looked in fact rather like an angel; and as Mr. Lambert’s thoughts found issue in this most conventional simile, he too smiled.

  “There!” cried Adelaide. “Now you’re happy again!”

  Softening, melted, laughing, she threw her arms round his neck and kissed him, for the first time with passion. Her smooth unpowdered cheek pressed close against his, he breathed the clean youthful scent of her hair. Adelaide had won.

  “We’ll be married,” she murmured.

  “We’ll be married,” echoed Mr. Lambert.

  “By special licence,” added Adelaide.

  “Is that the best way?”

  “Much,” said Adelaide practically. “I’ve looked it up in Whitaker. You get it at the Vicar-General’s Office, in Doctor’s Commons, between ten and four.”

  Mr. Lambert, now completely subjugated, released her in order to give these particulars his full attention; he felt Adelaide would not expect him to need telling twice. She continued.

  “Then we can be married one clear day after, any time within the next three months, at the Registrar’s Office in either of our districts. It costs three pounds seven and six. Oh, Henry, doesn’t it seem little?”

  As a matter of fact it did not, at that moment, seem little to Henry Lambert; but he could hardly tell her so. He was too fascinated, too touched, by her absolute confidence; yet it was this second emotion that made him suddenly take her by the shoulders and turn her round to face the squalid room.

  “Look at it, Adelaide,” he adjured her, almost desperately. “Could you stand living in a place like this? Look at it. Here, or anywhere else, this is how I live. I’ve found my level. Neither you nor any one else is going to be able to raise me. Can you stand it?”

  “Why, of course, my darling,” said Adelaide, with great eagerness. “I’ve been longing, ever since I came in, to clear it all up.”

  4

  They agreed, before she left, to an elopement, its exact date to be fixed by Adelaide; but Mr. Lambert was to procure the licence immediately. They would get married, and tell the Culvers afterwards. This decision, however, and the knowledge that her parents could by no means prevent her carrying it out, calmed Adelaide’s spirits to such an extent, and filled her with such confidence, that she began to reconsider the position. Her recent behaviour notwithstanding, she had no love of deceit for deceit’s sake. She still desired her parents’ approval. Was it so certain, after all, that they would refuse it? Was not Henry Lambert’s diffidence perhaps exaggerated? “He thinks so little of himself!” mused Adelaide fondly; for she had soon discounted the bulk of his confession; the self-portrait he had drawn was too unlike all she knew of him to convince. After reflecting on all these points for a couple of days Adelaide decided to tell the truth and give her parents a chance to display magnanimity and understanding. If they did not, her conscience would be clear; if they did—“We can be married in church!” thought Adelaide.

  She waited till they were all together, in the drawing-room after dinner. Rose had taken away the coffee-cups, Mr. and Mrs. Culver were reading, Adelaide sat with embroidery in her hands; they made a family group such as might have been found, at that hour, in half the drawing-rooms of Kensington. But in how many young female breasts surged the emotion that filled Adelaide’s? Others might be as loving, few so resolute. The clock struck nine; Adelaide put aside her work and stood up.

  “Mamma, Papa, I’ve something to tell you.”

  Mr. Culver hardly lowered his book; but Adelaide saw instantly that her mother, by some sort of telepathic communication, already knew part at least of what she was about to say. Adelaide rushed at it.

  “I want to get married,” she stated baldly.

  That brought Mr. Culver’s book down with a bang. He looked, however, not at his daughter but at his wife; he naturally expected her to know all about it. Mrs. Culver smiled at him reassuringly: she was indeed as ignorant as himself, but she did not doubt her ability to handle the situation. She began first of all by re-establishing his male supremacy.

  “Adelaide, my dear!” she said smoothly. “Is a young man coming to see Papa?”

  “Yes,” said Adelaide. “At least he will if it’s necessary.… It’s Mr. Lambert.”

  “Good God!” exclaimed Mr. Culver.

  Again his wife’s glance reassured and restrained him. With rising anger Adelaide saw that her mother did not even consider it worth while to release Mr. Culver’s wrath.

  “If you mean that Mr. Lambert has made you an offer, Adelaide, then it was a piece of impertinence which I hope you were not silly enough to allow. You are quite right to tell us—”

  Adelaide perceived vaguely that she was being given a chance to rat; to gloss over her original statement, to slide from an impossible position, rejoin as it were her proper party. The blood beat in her cheeks.

  “But I didn’t consider it impertinent, Mamma. Why should I?”

  “Because he is a young man without means, and probably without character. No young man of good character would dream of such a thing. I’m afraid you must have been a little foolish; but as of course he won’t come here any more, and indeed we shall very soon have left town, the best thing we can do is to forget all about it.”

  This was unendurable. Adelaide’s hands shook as she deliberately turned her back on her mother and addressed herself to Mr. Culver.

  “Papa!” she said loudly.

  “And don’t bother your father, dear; he has quite enough on his mind as it is.”

  “Papa,” repeated Adelaide, “I am twenty-one, and I love Mr. Lambert, and I am going to marry him.”

  For the third time Mr. Culver looked at his wife, and for the third time received the assurance that he need not lose his temper.

  “Nonsense,” said Mr. Culver firmly.

  He picked up his book and began looking for his place. Mrs. Culver swiftly rose, passed her arm through Adelaide’s, and led her from the room. Outside, in the hall, she said coldly:—

  “You will not see Mr. Lambert again, Adelaide, and you will not mention him again. Your father’s heart won’t stand it. But you had better tell me at once how far this has gone.”

  Adelaide released herself. Nothing in all her life had made her angrier than this contemptuous ease with which her mother thought to dominate her.

  “You treat me like a child,” she said bitterly.

  “Because you behave like a child. Most girls have these fits of silliness—and the drawing-master is the usual object.”

  “But this is different!” cried Adelaide.

  Mrs. Culver uttered a short, harsh laugh.

  “My dear, in a year or two’s time, when, we’ll hope, you are properly married, you’ll see that it’s extraordinarily commonplace. One might almost say vulgar.… And you’ll be very grateful to me for not allowing you to give it undue importance by making sentimental scenes.”

  Adelaide looked at her steadily. Over the wound to her pride, to her love, there was already forming a defensive scar: the barrier between herself and her mother which nothing would ever break down.

  “Very well,” she said steadily. “I’ll tell you nothing, except that I love Mr. Lambert, and he loves me, and we’re going to be married. Good night, Mamma.”

  Such was the force of habit that she instinctively put up her cheek for her mother’s kiss; Mrs. Culver as automatically gave it. Immediately after this display of affection they drew away from each other.

  “You have heard what your father and I say. I hope we shall not have to mention the matter again.”

  Adelaide said nothing.

  5

  The next day was Thursday; neither Mr. Lambert nor the twins appeared. Adelaide still said nothing. She had expected this. Nor was she able to go out in the morning, for her mother kept her to make an inventory of linen. It was evidently Mrs. Culver’s design t
o leave Adelaide no moment to herself (except when sleeping) until the move to Farnham had taken place. True to her word, she never mentioned Mr. Lambert’s name; it seemed she was not even going to punish her daughter. And Adelaide, her plans laid, her name already on a marriage licence, could afford to accept the situation with ironical meekness. She could afford to appear obedient, and help with the move.

  For it was the peculiar fact that Adelaide still saw this as duty. She was about to wound her parents to the heart, and leave them, possibly for ever; but she couldn’t leave in the middle of packing. Her mother genuinely needed her at every moment; it was Adelaide who supervised the crating of the glass, Adelaide who saw to all Treff’s clothes, Adelaide who accompanied Mrs. Culver to Platt’s End and took measurements for the curtains. Some of the old ones would do, some would not: Adelaide sat in the schoolroom and machined yards of casement-cloth. She advised, assisted, with as much energy as if Platt’s End were to be her own future home.

  On the one occasion when she saw Mr. Lambert during this period—Adelaide had slipped a letter into the box conjuring him to be by the second lamp-post at nine P.M.—this attitude rather astonished him.

  “But, my dearest girl, what are we waiting for? Wherever your people are won’t make any difference—”

  “I’ve got to get this house clear,” said Adelaide. “If you could see it, Henry, you’d understand.”

  Henry Lambert did not understand at all. There was no orderliness in him—certainly none of that feminine sense of order which would attempt to leave a house clean in the path of an invasion. Adelaide had it very strongly. When she thought of the dwelling in Britannia Mews, she thought of a spring-cleaning. Standing under the lamp-post, in the circle of his arm—like a maid-servant run out to meet her sweetheart—she was still ruled by the instinct of order.