Old Wine and New

by Warwick Deeping

  Taggart was in his shirt-sleeves, and perspiring.

  “O, writing a novel, are you? Most damned fools do that before they die.”

  That was all he had to say, but inwardly he claimed an added grievance against a man who went mooning off into fiction when he was paid to give his soul to the salvation of the Sabbath.

  2

  Scarsdale might be most strangely blind to Taggart’s surliness, but in the presence of Julia Marwood he was troubled water. Taggart, even in the old days, had been a gloomy person, but the gloom of a girl’s dark hair held other mysteries.

  “I am keeping my eyes open, you know.”

  He had been keeping them open for more than a month, and as yet he had not sighted the inevitable niche for Harry, and his lack of success was making him feel apologetic.

  “I want just the right thing for your brother.”

  Her gratitude was calm and discriminating. She appeared to wait patiently upon his activities; she talked to him intimately about Harry and about that young blackguard of a Bob who was employed in a West End garage, and who lived a life of his own. She did not mention her mother. She and Scarsdale were mutually perplexing, but upon different levels. He looked up, and she looked slightly down, for Julia Marwood did not understand a devotion that was apologetic. She stood squarely upon her well-braced young feet, and with a masterful head well set on her strong white neck she gazed squarely at life. She expected a man to be confident, especially a man who was supposed to have some influence in the world, and she would not have quarrelled with a young and passionate abruptness. But Scarsdale, bewitched by the youth of her, and conscious of a feeling of inadequacy in the presence of her youth, was the over-fond and over-gentle man of the forties. Almost, without realizing it, he apologized to her for being over forty, and in the subconscious soul of each, youth and middle-age struggled together. Marwood’s daughter was new wine, Scarsdale the old.

  He so much wanted to impress her, and he succeeded in puzzling her, for his vague gentleness and chivalries seemed to fade away under the stare of her steady eyes. Her face, with its youthful firmness and its fresh white skin, was like the face of the full moon when no clouds are moving. She had youth’s unshaded surface, its soft glare. She was not flexible. That which she did not understand she either despised or ignored, and there was so much that she did not understand.

  He called her “Julia”, but never yet had she called him anything but “Mr. Scarsdale”. She kept her dignity; she was watchful and self-contained. She waited.

  She would say, “Of course, it is only a matter of time. But with your influence—I’m not worrying.”

  She sat serenely rather like a young queen of the tournament waiting for her middle-aged knight to produce the trophy.

  For, like Mr. Jimson, Scarsdale was a little afraid of Julia Marwood, though for different reasons and toward other ends. He was afraid of the temper of her youth, of her newness, and of all the exquisite young texture of her. She both provoked and made him tremble as a man may tremble in the presence of a desire that dare not contemplate satisfaction. He would look at her firm young mouth, and into the velvet of her eyes, and wonder. Was it possible, or was he dreaming? Would a day come when he would touch her with intimate, passionate hands?

  He had moments of doubt, moods of self-mockery. He could remember a night in June when he had bought roses, and had taken a bus to Chelsea, and walked in the warm dusk to Spellthorn Terrace. He had come to the gate of her house, and had hesitated. Something had seemed to fail in him, and he had walked on and returned, and again his courage had failed him.

  “Julia Marwood, Julia Marwood.”

  He had gone all the way back to Canonbury carrying those roses, and the scent of them, sad and sweet, had reproached him.

  “Idiot,—why did you flinch?”

  And he had let himself into Miss Gall’s house with his latchkey, and seeing Miss Gall suddenly before him, he had presented her with the roses. She had looked quite flustered.

  “O, Mr. Scarsdale, how kind of you! And don’t they smell sweet?”

  It is probable that nobody had ever given Miss Gall roses.

  3

  Upon Mr. Jimson, Julia Marwood exerted the steady pressure of her youth, for as a self-willed child she had discovered the potency of such pressure.

  “Go on doing the thing and they’ll get tired of saying don’t.”

  She had watched and worked with Mr. Jimson for four years, and she knew him as a man who would begin an argument with spluttering vivacity, sustain it for awhile, and then surrender. He was circuitous; he could not stick things out when he was driven into a corner and kept in it. Also, during the war Mr. Jimson had grown more excitable, and less resistant; he had aged; his concentration had slackened; he made mistakes, and was surprised at them, and twiddled his little cross of gold, and said, “Dear me, it’s because I’m so overworked.” Julia knew instinctively that she had only to go on pressing her strong young purpose upon Mr. Jimson, and that he would grow weary of opposing her. She had known him to accept a suggestion after days of saying no, and to accept it with an air of relief and resignation. Almost the child was his. He acknowledged the paternity.

  She did not worry Mr. Jimson, but she allowed him to understand that she was the potential partner. Possibly she was more kind to him, and used upon him the persuasions of her capable and worldly shrewdness. She even mothered him a little, and suggested that he should not overwork himself, and that he could leave some of the office worries in her hands. She gave him every chance to make his ultimate surrender appear both logical and comforting.

  But on the question of capital her employer would not give way. He was obstinate about money; like the good little bourgeois that he was he was ready to die in the last ditch for property.

  “No. I can assure you, Miss Marwood, my terms are final. Business is business.”

  She accepted the ultimatum. Her pragmatism approved it. She respected Mr. Jimson’s stubbornness in the face of any attempt to get something for nothing.

  One evening in June, Scarsdale’s courage did not fail him. He found Julia alone at No. 53, for Harry was on late duty at the Ponsonby Hotel, and with the sun setting beyond the trees of Spellthorn Square Scarsdale felt the spell of mysteries. Julia might sit in the garden, but the garden had walls less than five feet high, and other heads would become visible. Sitting with her in the garden made him mute and self-conscious.

  He said, “Do you ever go and look at the river?”

  She did not, but something in her consented.

  “Let’s go.”

  She went up and put on her hat and returned to find Scarsdale walking up and down the small grass plot. He had the air of a man dreaming incredible dreams. He smiled at her, and she gave him back a smile that was the glimmer of a secret impulse.

  “Shall we go?”

  He stood and looked at her.

  “That hat just suits you, something in your skin.”

  And then he looked shy, and she laughed.

  “I have one of those nice thick skins that don’t burn.”

  “White vellum.”

  After that venture he was mute for fully a minute. The streets were either vividly sun splashed or in deep shadow. They walked to King’s Road, and turned into Church Street, and Scarsdale felt his own silence growing restless upon his lips. He glanced at houses, and noticed names. There was Mulberry Walk. Yes, some lips had the redness of fruit. Also there was newness here mingled with the old, new concepts of beauty, the creations of men who sought self-expression in brick and tile and stone, in the placing of a window, or the set of a roof or a cornice.

  He glanced down at his companion.

  “How do you like this new stuff?”

  “Which?”

  “The houses? You should be an expert.”

  She considered.

  “O, yes, they’re all right. I like things bright and new.”

  He was puzzled. Was it beauty or newness that attrac
ted her, the blurred softness of old brickwork, or the brilliancy of blue paint on a new door?

  “They let better, you know.”

  “Which?”

  “The new ones.”

  He had to be content with that financial suggestion. He found himself looking up at the dark, brick tower of old Chelsea Church, and it was warming itself in the sunset. It gave him a sense of warmth and of pleasure. He did not remember having noticed it before, or having felt moved to wonder what the church was like inside. It might be rather like Julia Marwood, full of hidden beauties and human quaintnesses. His unformulated belief was that a woman should be like a church, enclosing mysteries and shadowy, half-seen things.

  “Ever been in there?”

  His question was abrupt, and her glance went from him to the church.

  “There? No.”

  “Nor have I.”

  “One doesn’t, does one, these days?”

  He supposed that one did not, but he rather wished that she had.

  They came to the river and the sunlight was lying like a golden patina over the slow glide of it. On the Surrey bank Hovis stood embattled, and barges piled with debris lay off Phillip’s paper mills. The trees of Battersea Park seemed to swell against the tumescence of the dusk. Westward, four great chimneys trailed smoke.

  They crossed the road and the pavement and leaned against the embankment wall, and Scarsdale, suddenly smiling, pointed toward the barges loaded with waste paper.

  “Funny, isn’t it. I think journalists and all scribblers ought to come and stand here and reflect upon that.”

  “Hovis?”

  “No, those waste-paper works. Think of all the Daily Wails. Whoever sees a dead Daily Wail?”

  “One lights the fires with them.”

  “The daily yell,—and then smoke. Funny, isn’t it! The power of the press! Which way shall we go?”

  She turned her face toward the sunset.

  “You do think of funny things. I don’t do much thinking, except about the business and Harry. Suppose that’s why I read the Daily Wail.”

  He smiled as he took his place beside her.

  “O, yes, waste paper. But I’m rather worried about Harry. It’s not such a simple business as I thought.”

  She said quite softly, “Don’t worry. I’m grateful. Things will come right.”

  They wandered. The west deepened to a smoky redness, and behind them the night seemed to float up stream. The sudden softness of her voice had roused in Scarsdale a kind of wondering expectancy, and in the pause he seemed to wait and listen for other music, a nocturne after the ballade of the day. He glanced at her face as he walked beside her, and thought that it had gathered a new and mysterious beauty. She seemed to gaze past the sunset toward the hills beyond the hills.

  He thought, “How beautiful she is, how splendid.”

  And she, being well aware of his infatuation, and while accepting it with the cool conceit of youth, yet felt kindly toward him. It was not necessary to spurn the adoring dog. Also, even for her unmysterious, young mind the evening and the river had a magic, though her magician would be some sort of super-capitalist with a golden wand. The setting of the piece was sensational; she belonged to the cinema age in which delicate and exquisite shades of colour ceases to be, and the screen displays exaggerated movements, restlessness, and the illusion of noise. The sea had always to be rough, trees swaying in the wind, cars rushing at forty miles an hour. Her urge was toward speed, sensationalism, money.

  For even while they were strolling like lovers she was thinking how awfully ripping it would be to speed along that broad roadway in a machine that went “woosh” when you trod arrogantly upon the accelerator. And how Harry would enjoy it! She could hear him shouting, “Faster, Ju. Isn’t this simply topping!”

  They strolled, and Scarsdale was conscious of the exquisite half-tones of that London night, the pale greens and yellows, the swelling silver of the river, and of the face of this girl. She had a rapt look, his young Madonna of the Pear Blossom.

  They turned at last and faced the hollow night, and presently some muted whim brought him to a pause against the embankment wall. A tug was coming up stream towing a string of barges, and on the tug one green light and two white lights shone. There was a troubling of the waters, a splashing against the embankment wall.

  Scarsdale smiled.

  “Wonderful, isn’t it?”

  She nodded her casual head. She was thinking that this middle-aged lover of hers was a funny old thing. He did not try to touch her. He behaved as though she was the sleeping princess in a glass case.

  Chapter Eleven

  Miss Gall had noticed long fat envelopes arriving by post for Mr. Scarsdale, and she had observed that the name and the address upon them were in Scarsdale’s handwriting, but being innocent upon such matters she thought these envelopes had the appearance of prosperity and importance. Whereas Scarsdale was always eagerly looking for an envelope of less-imposing dimensions, and one morning that particular kind of letter arrived. An editor had accepted a short story, under the provision that the author would be satisfied with the sum of three guineas.

  Scarsdale was quite flushed and excited. He forgot to put sugar in his tea. He was thinking, “I must tell Taggart about this. He seems rather sceptical.” And he went on to reflect that even this minor success deserved a celebration, and that there could be no celebration without Julia sharing it. He would give his Madonna of the Pear Blossom a surprise. He would turn up at No. 53 Spellthorn Terrace without worrying her, and ask her to choose a restaurant, a theatre, and the night.

  Accordingly he told Taggart about the short story.

  “The editor of the Regent has taken a little thing of mine.”

  Taggart’s face wore a sombre grin. The account was piling up against Scarsdale, and in due course it would be delivered.

  “Very gratifying to you, Scarsdale. I suppose you will soon be employing an agent.”

  Yes, Taggart had a sarcastic and a grudging soul, but Taggart had to be lived with, and Scarsdale went to his own poky little room, and allowed himself to transfigure the day’s routine with thoughts of No. 53 and Julia Marwood. Should he take her to Jules’ or to the Trocadero? And what kind of play would she choose? Not musical comedy. He hoped it would not be musical comedy.

  As the afternoon wore away Scarsdale felt like a boy in a hurry to get off. Mr. Taggart might have divined the lover’s ardour, and out of cussedness set out to thwart it, for he sent for Scarsdale twice between three and five, and thrust typescripts upon him. “Get these read to-night, will you.” He was abrupt. He pushed the stuff at Scarsdale and went on with his work, and till nearly seven o’clock Scarsdale sat reading tales of an unimaginable dulness. It was amazing that people should write such tales, futile, flabby, undistinguished nonsense. He heard Taggart go off at ten minutes to seven, and after a wash and a brush up in the lavatory with its cracked basin and noisome old nail-brush, he hurried out upon the adventure. A bus was too ordinary, and he took a taxi, and half-way up the Strand he bent forward suddenly and rapped on the glass partition.

  “Pull up a moment, will you. Flowers.”

  The driver, with a tolerant leer, drew into the kerb, for Scarsdale had sighted a woman with a basket seated against a hoarding behind which excavators were creating a chasm for the foundations of some huge new building. Scarsdale skipped out and across the road to the flower seller.

  “You have some roses left.”

  Too much of her stock was left, and that was why she was still sitting there.

  “Red or white, sir.”

  “Red. Give me a dozen.”

  He dodged back across the road to the taxi.

  “You can drop me in the King’s Road at the end of Church Street. Know it?”

  The driver crinkled up the creases round his humorous, blue eyes. Here was a gentleman in a hurry, and obviously rather excited about it, and clutching a bunch of roses! Did he know Church Street? Lord—lumme, but the
gentleman was going that way inevitably and in great haste, quite unnecessary haste. It was easier to get into Church Street than out of it. The driver chose to travel by way of Pall Mall, St. James’ Street, Piccadilly, and the Brompton Road, and at Prince’s Gate the summer evening crowd moved to and from, casual and restless. Two young things dodged across in front of the taxi’s nose. Scarsdale saw one of them throw an irresponsible, impish smile at the driver, and the driver waggled a fatherly and admonitory finger at her. Girls, flappers! Going into the Park. One of them was wearing a red hat, and Scarsdale watched the hat for a moment. It was like some importunate flaunting flower. Yes, that was the word, flaunting. Youth flaunted itself upon the pavements with a light-hearted arrogance. The taxi-driver’s lips were puckered up, and he whistled a ditty that had belonged to an earlier generation. “Soldiers in the Park.” But the refrain had changed itself, and middle-age at the wheel of the taxi indulged in adaptations. Lovers in the Park. Flappers. Yes, it was a new generation, a short-skirted, feverish crowd perking along on the legs of the new freedom. The driver was a philosopher, but he marvelled. “Girls, nothing but girls, bless ’em. Where do they all come from? Where do they all go to? Dashed if I know. Like Sarthend pier, but without any parson. It’s marvellous.”

  They passed Pelham Crescent, the white curve of these debonair, sleek little houses attracted Scarsdale. The foliage of the trees and bushes in the garden was a green veil through which the eyes of Pelham Crescent glimmered like the eyes of women met strolling in the dusk. Yes, a house in Pelham Crescent would suit him admirably. It would be the very house for a literary man married to Julia Marwood. He was still contemplating Paradise and Pelham Crescent when the taxi driver turned into Church Street, Chelsea, and pulled up.

  Scarsdale, carefully carrying his red roses, got out and paid him. He made the tip a shilling.

  “Thank you, sir.”

  He smiled a jocund benediction upon the gentleman and his roses. Might Eros be merciful to the poor fellow.