Chapter 7
I MEET MR. THOMAS BLAKE_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_
Someone had told me that, the glory of Covent Garden Ball had departed.It may be so. Yet the floor, with its strange conglomeration ofmusic-hall artists, callow university men, shady horse-dealers, andraucous military infants, had an atmosphere of more than meretriciousgaiety. The close of an old year and the birth of a new one touch thetoughest.
The band was working away with a strident brassiness which filled theroom with noise. The women's dresses were a shriek of colour. Thevulgarity of the scene was so immense as to be almost admirable. It wascertainly interesting.
Watching his opportunity, Julian presently drew me aside into thesmoking-room.
"Malim," he said, "has paid you a great compliment."
"Really," I said, rather surprised, for Julian's acquaintance had donenothing more, to my knowledge, than give me a cigar and awhiskey-and-soda.
"He's introduced you to his wife."
"Very good of him, I'm sure."
"You don't understand. You see Kit for what she is: a pretty,good-natured creature bred in the gutter. But Malim--well, he's in theForeign Office and is secretary to Sir George Grant."
"Then what in Heaven's name," I cried, "induced him to marry----"
"My dear Jimmy," said Julian, adroitly avoiding the arm of an exuberantlady impersonating Winter, and making fair practice with her detachableicicles, "it was Kit or no one. Just consider Malim's position, whichwas that of thousands of other men of his type. They are the cleverestmen of their schools; they are the intellectual stars of theirVarsities. I was at Oxford with Malim. He was a sort of tin god.Double-first and all that. Just like all the rest of them. They getwhat is looked upon as a splendid appointment under Government. Theycome to London, hire comfortable chambers or a flat, go off to theiroffice in the morning, leave it in the evening, and are given a salarywhich increases by regular gradations from an initial two hundred ayear. Say that a man begins this kind of work at twenty-four. What arehis matrimonial prospects? His office work occupies his entireattention (the idea that Government clerks don't work is a fictionpreserved merely for the writers of burlesque) from the moment he wakesin the morning until dinner. His leisure extends, roughly speaking,from eight-thirty until twelve. The man whom I am discussing, and ofwhom Malim is a type, is, as I have already proved, intellectual. Hehas, therefore, ambitions. The more intellectual he is the more heloathes the stupid routine of his daily task. Thus his leisure is hismost valuable possession. There are books he wants to read--thosewhich he liked in the days previous to his slavery--and new ones whichhe sees published every day. There are plays he wants to see performed.And there are subjects on which he would like to write--would give hisleft hand to write, if the loss of that limb wouldn't disqualify himfor his post. Where is his social chance? It surely exists only in theutter abandonment of his personal projects. And to go out when one istied to the clock is a poor sort of game. But suppose he _does_seek the society of what friends he can muster in London. Is he mademuch of, fussed over? Not a bit of it. Brainless subalterns, ridiculousmidshipmen, have, in the eyes of the girl whom he has come to see, areputation that he can never win. They're in the Service; they're sodashing; they're so charmingly extravagant; they're so tremendous inface of an emergency that their conversational limitations of "Yes" and"No" are hailed as brilliant flights of genius. Their inane anecdotes,their pointless observations are positively courted. It is they whoretire to the conservatory with the divine Violet, whose face is likethe Venus of Milo's, whose hair (one hears) reaches to her knees, whoseeyes are like blue saucers, and whose complexion is a pink poem. It isJane, the stumpy, the flat-footed--Jane, who wears glasses and has allthe virtues which are supposed to go with indigestion: big hands and anenormous waist--Jane, I repeat, who is told off to talk to a man likeMalim. If, on the other hand, he and his fellows refuse to put onevening clothes and be bored to death of an evening, who can blamethem? If they deliberately find enough satisfaction for their needs inthe company of a circle of men friends and the casual pleasures of thetown, selfishness is the last epithet with which their behaviour can becharged. Unselfishness has been their curse. No sane person would, ofhis own accord, become the automaton that a Government office requires.Pressure on the part of relations, of parents, has been brought to bearon them. The steady employment, the graduated income, the pension--thatfatal pension--has been danced by their fathers and their mothers andtheir Uncle Johns before their eyes. Appeals have been made to them onfilial, not to say religious, grounds. Threats would have availednothing; but appeals--downright tearful appeals from mamma, husky,hand-gripping appeals from papa--that is what has made escapeimpossible. A huge act of unselfishness has been compelled; a lifetimeof reactionary egotism is inevitable and legitimate. I was wrong when Isaid Malim was typical. He has to the good an ingenuity which assistsnaturally in the solution of the problem of self and circumstance. Ayear or two ago chance brought him in contact with Kit. They struck upa friendship. He became an habitue at the Fried Fish Shop in TottenhamCourt Road. Whenever we questioned his taste he said that a physicianrecommended fish as a tonic for the brain. But it was not his brainthat took Malim to the fried fish shop. It was his heart. He loved Kit,and presently he married her. One would have said this was animpossible step. Misery for Malim's people, his friends, himself, andafterwards for Kit. But Nature has endowed both Malim and Kit withextraordinary commonsense. He kept to his flat; she kept to her job inthe fried fish shop. Only, instead of living in, she was able to retireafter her day's work to a little house which he hired for her in theHampstead Road. Her work, for which she is eminently fitted, keeps herout of mischief. His flat gives the impression to his family and thehead of his department that he is still a bachelor. Thus, all goeswell."
"I've often read in the police reports," I said, "of persons who leaddouble lives, and I'm much interested in----"
Malim and Kit bore down upon us. We rose.
"It's the march past," observed the former. "Come upstairs."
"Kiddie," said Kit, "give me your arm."
At half-past four we were in Wellington Street. It was a fine, mildmorning, and in the queer light of the false dawn we betook ourselvesto the Old Hummums for breakfast. Other couples had done the same. Thesteps of the Hummums facing the market harboured already a waitingcrowd. The doors were to be opened at five. We also found places on thestone steps. The market was alive with porters, who hailed ourappearance with every profession of delight. Early hours would seem tolend a certain acidity to their badinage. By-and-by a more personalnote crept into their facetious comments. Two guardsmen on the top stepsuddenly displayed, in return, a very creditable gift of repartee.Covent Garden market was delighted. It felt the stern joy whichwarriors feel with foemen worthy of their steel. It suspended itsjuggling feats with vegetable baskets, and devoted itself exclusivelyto the task of silencing our guns. Porters, costers, and the riff-raffof the streets crowded in a semicircle around us. Just then it wasborne in on us how small our number was. A solid phalanx of thetoughest customers in London faced us. Behind this semicircle a line ofcarts had been drawn up. Unseen enemies from behind this laager nowbegan to amuse themselves by bombarding us with the product of themarket garden. Tomatoes, cauliflowers, and potatoes came hurtling intoour midst. I saw Julian consulting his watch. "Five minutes more," hesaid. I had noticed some minutes back that the ardour of the attackseemed to centre round one man in particular--a short, very burly manin a costume that seemed somehow vaguely nautical. His face wore theexpression of one cheerfully conscious of being well on the road tointoxication. He was the ringleader. It was he who threw the largestcabbage, the most _passe_ tomato. I don't suppose he had everenjoyed himself so much in his life. He was standing now on a cart fullof potatoes, and firing them in with tremendous force.
Kit saw him too.
"Why, there's that blackguard Tom!" she cried.
She had been told to sit down behi
nd Malim for safety. Before anyonecould stop her, or had guessed her intention, she had pushed her waythrough us and stepped out into the road.
It was so unexpected that there was an involuntary lull in theproceedings.
"Tom!"
She pointed an accusing finger at the man, who gaped beerily.
"Tom, who pinched farver's best trousers, and popped them?"
There was a roar of laughter. A moment before, and Tom had been the petof the market, the energetic leader, the champion potato-slinger. Nowhe was a thing of derision. His friends took up the question. Keenanxiety was expressed on all sides as to the fate of father's trousers.He was requested to be a man and speak up.
The uproar died away as it was seen that Kit had not yet finished.
"Cheese it, some of yer," shouted a voice. "The lady wants to orsk himsomefin' else."
"Tom," said Kit, "who was sent with tuppence to buy postage-stamps andspent it on beer?"
The question was well received by the audience. Tom was beaten. Apotato, vast and nobbly, fell from his palsied hand. He was speechless.Then he began to stammer.
"Just you stop it, Tom," shouted Kit triumphantly. "Just you stop it,d'you 'ear, you stop it."
She turned towards us on the steps, and, taking us all into herconfidence, added: "'E's a nice thing to 'ave for a bruvver, anyway."
Then she rejoined Malim, amid peals of laughter from both armies. Itwas a Homeric incident.
Only a half-hearted attempt was made to renew the attack. And when thedoor of the Hummums at last opened, Malim observed to Julian and me, aswe squashed our way in, that if a man's wife's relations were always asopportune as Kit's, the greatest objection to them would be removed.
Not George Washington — an Autobiographical Novel Page 10