The Lady With Carnations

by A. J. Cronin

  She could not understand her own weakness, an acquiescence induced by some strange evocation of the scene, yet almost before she knew it she was re-creating for herself, as much as for him, the sentimental images of her girlhood. Above, the sky held a quiet, warm glow. The afternoon was unusually mild. At their feet the pigeons pecked and strutted. The low beat of the City came from without like surf on a distant shore.

  At first her words were rather halting, but the very sympathy of his audition seemed to give them shape and colour. She had begun as a typist with the firm of Twiss and Wardrop. At home circumstances were straitened, poverty lurking beneath the thin veneer of suburban respectability, and her father, who combined the attributes of an unsuccessful house agent with those of a vehement lay preacher, had found her this post. A hard, embittered man with a stony frown and an icy smile, he had small sympathy with her and no hope, however contemptuous, of her advancement. Twiss, a fellow Congregationalist, was taking her as ‘a favour’.

  It was this, perhaps, which had first set the seal on her endeavour and steeled her young sensitiveness against the world. She would show them at home—her father, everyone. A great ambition germinated. To and from her work she hurried, in black cotton stockings and skimpy skirt, under-nourished, but eager and alert. The great throbbing pulse of London was her unfailing stimulus. She watched with wide eyes the manifestations of wealth and luxury; returning late from the poky office, she would stand outside Covent Garden in the rain to see the arrival of famous personages. And meanwhile she plugged away at her typing, her shorthand, her book-keeping. She won golden opinions from Mr Twiss and even from the exacting Mr Wardrop. Her wages were raised once, twice, until she was earning the incalculable sum of two pounds, five shillings a week. Her father received the news with scornful incredulity.

  And then, after four years, when she was only twenty-two, opportunity came. Old Eugene Hart, whose antique business lay quite near in Oxford Street, stopped her in the shop one day and asked her to become his private secretary at a salary of two hundred pounds a year. Old Eugene was a Jew, dark, benevolent and famously shrewd, who came frequently to the establishment of Twiss and Wardrop for those interesting transactions connected with the restoration, and sometimes—though this was barely whispered—the complete creation, of the antique. He had noted Katharine often from the corner of his inscrutable eye and divined, with the unerring instinct of his race, her potentialities.

  It was a wrench for her to leave the shop in Holborn, yet the avenue opened by Hart’s offer was enticing and immediate. Since her duties did not confine her entirely to her desk, she began to learn the ‘trade’, to know old furniture, its period and mark, to recognize at a glance the true patina of age. She attended sales everywhere with Hart, from Vernon’s in the West End to great country houses in the North. And soon, since her aptitude was so evident and his health on the decline, he allowed her to go alone.

  Buying for Hart was not only a responsibility—she would never forget her first trembling bid amid a multitude, it seemed, of hard-faced, hard-hatted dealers!—but it gave her also a definite cachet. She became, if not important, at least an interesting figure in the antique world. She saved money, too, for presently Hart added a commission to her salary, and this, especially when she made a fortunate purchase, reached quite a handsome total every month. But above everything, she fell in love with her profession, its glamour, possibilities and scope.

  Three years later Eugene Hart died. Katharine, to whom he had been such a marvellous friend, was desolate. When the stock was sold by order of the executors and the business finally shut down, she felt like giving up her whole career. At this point, too, when she was most vulnerable, there came an added and unsettling persuasion from without. She had become acquainted with a young solicitor named Cooper, who was rising steadily in his own profession. George Cooper was an honest, plodding, likeable young man. In upbringing and tradition he was, like herself, respectable middle class, a stratum into which he had been born and in which, with a certain professional solidity, he would undoubtedly remain. They went about together, Katharine and he, in a quiet way, and she liked him greatly. He, on his part, was in love with her. And now he proposed marriage.

  The temptation to Katharine was enormous. Twenty-five years of age, the blood pounding healthily in her veins, momentarily, at least, halted in the march of her career, and unhappy at home, where her father, now turned an old, complaining invalid, often made life unbearable. How happy she could be in her own house, with her husband, her children! Tenderness rushed over her at the thought. How hard and solitary seemed the other road and how unlikely now to lead towards success!

  The decision was a terrible one for her. And George, not without insistence, was pressing her to let him have her answer. The day came, a wintry day like this, when she must make her choice, that predestined choice between career and home. Perplexed and sad, she took her troubles to this old courtyard and sat on the bench under the tree, battling her problem out. When she arose, it was quite dark, but her mind was made up. Her career must come first. Always, always, it must be her career. That night she wrote refusing George Cooper and at the same time applied for the assistant editorship of the Collector, a monthly magazine devoted to furniture, decoration, and the fine arts.

  One week later she was on the staff of the Collector, and one year later she was its editor-in-chief. Thereafter she had stepped off into space as Antika Ltd, her own mistress in her own business. Up and up she had gone. She had made distinguished friends, had become something of a figure in London and New York. Of course she had met with difficulties; who had not? Yet she had made large sums of money. And she had spent them. She had been able to do something for her mother, for Nancy. She had been—yes, if the word meant anything, she had been a success.

  There was a long silence when she had finished. Then without looking at her, Madden deliberately took her hand, gave it a firm clasp, and relinquished it.

  “I’m glad, and honoured, you’ve told me that, Katharine. But I guess there’s just one guy I’m sorry for.”

  “Who?” she demanded.

  “George Cooper,” he answered slowly. “ I guess he knew all right what he missed.”

  She smiled a trifle sadly. “ He didn’t miss much. Besides, he’s married now, I expect, and perfectly happy on his own account.”

  Perhaps he discerned the sadness in her face, that gentle melancholy which memories always bring, for with a quick glance at his watch he rose briskly.

  “It’s well past teatime. And you’re half-frozen from sitting here. You’re coming now to that bun shop you used to go to, and you’re going to drink three cups of scalding tea.”

  Now it was he who seemed to be in command of the excursion, for he steered her through the traffic to that A.B.C. she had once known so well. Inside it was warm and bright, the big plated urn on the counter hissed and steamed, the long wall mirrors reflected the bustling waitresses and the little groups eating, laughing, chattering at the round marble-topped tables. They had immense cups of tea and hot buttered toast.

  “This,” said Katharine, “ is good.” Still munching, she glanced at herself in a mirror and tucked a strand of hair under her hat, which had as usual fallen back from her forehead. “Heavens, what a fright I look!” Her lips twitched. “I deserve it. So does any woman who tells the story of her life.”

  “I asked for it, didn’t I? Some day I’ll tell you mine.”

  Her smile widened. “Don’t tell me you sold newspapers in the streets of Cleveland.”

  He grinned. “ Sure! Only it was peanuts instead of newspapers.”

  “And you went barefoot?”

  “All the time!” He finished the last of his toast methodically. “But the only thing that worries me now is that I’ve got to hang around by myself all evening. You’ve no idea how lost I am without Nancy. I guess I’m counting the minutes till she comes down on Sunday.” He paused. “You wouldn’t—you wouldn’t care to continue to tak
e pity on me and come to a show?” Quickly he produced the evening paper which he had bought outside and ran his finger down the column. “ There are some good pieces here by the looks of them.”

  “You can’t tell by the looks of them,” said Katharine.

  She felt on the whole that her obligation towards him had, for the day at least, ceased. She did not much care to go to the theatre, yet she followed his finger down the list until it reached the Savoy Theatre, where, she observed with a pleasurable start, there was taking place a revival of Gilbert and Sullivan. The opera this evening was Iolanthe.

  “Iolanthe!” she exclaimed almost involuntarily.

  He raised his eyes. “ You’d like that?”

  She coloured slightly, and after a pause she explained. “Now I’m being naïve. But I love Gilbert and Sullivan. Perhaps all the more because when I wanted to go, I seldom could. I used to sit here in this very tea shop, longing with all my soul to cram into the pit or the gallery for Pinafore or The Mikado or Iolanthe. But there was night school, or night work to be done. I just couldn’t go.”

  “Well, you’ll go to-night,” he declared emphatically and called out to the waitress for the bill.

  They got seats easily, rather far back, which made less conspicuous the fact that they had not dressed. The orchestra tuned up, then broke into the overture. The curtain rose. Katharine surrendered herself to an immense delight.

  It was a genuine treat for her. Often she was obliged to attend the first nights of smart revues and modern musical comedies, but she had little taste for their rapid nonstop rhythms. This was different. It chimed with her mood. It was witty and tuneful. Did it date? She did not know, nor did she care. At the risk of being out-moded she had the courage to like it openly.

  Madden also liked it. She could see that. He did not say much. He had no comments to make between the scenes. He did not bother her with inane offers of coffee or ice cream during the intervals. He sat for the most part with his cheek in his palm and his elbow on the arm of the stall, his body still, his dark eyes, amused and interested, fixed steadily on the stage. But when it was all over and they came out of the auditorium and stood waiting for a taxi, he declared quickly:

  “That’s another treat I have to thank you for.” He added: “ Nancy’ll be real pleased you’ve been so good to me. I’ll tell her the minute she gets back.”

  Katharine smiled. “It’s you who have entertained me.”

  “Oh, no,” he replied quickly. “ I’m a poor hand at entertaining. And I guess I’ve had less than usual to say to-night. As a matter of fact I’ve been wondering how things are working out up in Manchester.”

  They both thought of Nancy as they drove to Curzon Street. When the taxi came to rest, she asked him to come and have a drink before returning to his hotel. He accepted. They took the lift and entered the flat. A telegram lay upon the salver in her tiny hall. She ripped it open. It said:

  show a complete flop london opening indefinitely postponed meaning altogether washed out expect me tomorrow love tears and curses nancy.

  Concern flooded his face instantly. He bit his lip and took the telegram from her hand. “Poor kid. That’s just too bad,” he muttered when he had re-read it. “I didn’t want her to quit the thing that way!”

  Almost at once, as if forgetful of the fact that he was her guest, he took a hurried good-bye of Katharine.

  Chapter Six

  It was ten o’clock on Sunday morning when Nancy appeared at Curzon Steet. She had travelled down overnight, curled up in the corner of a third-class compartment, a small, solitary, disconsolate figure. The rest of the company had remained to make the journey comfortably by day, but she had felt that she must get away at once. The failure of the play upon which she had built so high had upset her frightfully. As the train pounded through the darkness, her face, set and wan, expressed the reality of her disappointment. Her usual air of flippancy, that gay little mask she usually presented to the world, was gone. Those who judged Nancy from that brilliant, hard exterior ought really to have seen her there. She looked a very wretched little child indeed.

  And yet before she reached London she had pulled herself together. She might, in her own idiom, be completely sunk, but not for anything would she show it. She made good her face, which the journey’s grime, and perhaps a stray tear, had slightly ravaged. And later, at the flat, she made an operatic little entry, advancing with her arms outstretched to where Katharine sat in a dark silk dressing gown over a belated morning tray of coffee and hot toast.

  “Darling Katharine,” she cried, as though years had separated them. “It’s so lovely to see you again!” She touched her cheek against Katharine’s, jerked a cushion out of the way, sat down on the couch beside her, and smiled brightly. “ I’ve had such a fiend’s own time up north.”

  Katharine, with a practical gesture, drew the tray towards them. “Have some breakfast, then, and tell me all about it.”

  “Darling!” Nancy gave a histrionic little shudder. “ I couldn’t eat a single morsel. I’m too incredibly upset.”

  “What! Haven’t you had anything this morning?”

  “Nothing, nothing! Only an omelette or something, toast and orange juice—oh, I forget.” She dismissed her diet, between tragedy and petulance. “I had to fly round, simply fly round, to tell you.”

  “You’ve seen Chris, of course.”

  “Yes,” Nancy nodded. “ He’s been sweet, wonderfully sweet—met me at the station, took me to John Street. But I wanted you, Katharine. I wanted to talk to you alone.”

  “All right,” Katharine said comfortingly. In an unobtrusive fashion she poured out a fresh cup of coffee, sugared and creamed it, and placed it before the abandoned Nancy. “As a matter of fact, I expected you’d be round. But you’re not to worry yourself about the play.”

  “Play!” declared Nancy with a grimace of antipathy. “I wish it had been a play! And yet I don’t know. Perhaps it was, perhaps it would have been, a play if that Renton woman hadn’t killed it. She massacred it, laid it out on a slab dead as mutton. She’s hopless. She can’t act. She never could act. And in any case she’s far too old. Oh, if only I’d had that part, Katharine! Although I was pretty good, thank you, in my own, I’d have sailed through it. At least I’d have given the beastly show a chance. Oh, Katharine! I did so want a thumping West End run. It’s just the exact point in my career when I could do with it.” With a sudden access of vexation Nancy raised the cup of coffee and drank it.

  Suppressing a smile, Katharine studied her niece. Despite the rigours of that nocturnal train ride she had never looked more attractive than she did this morning, in this moment of emotion which owed something to reality and something, she was not too fond to admit, to artifice. Yes, there was no doubt, Katharine decided, that now Nancy was enjoying a little of her own dramatic effects. And certainly they suited her.

  “It is a pity, perhaps,” Katharine said at length. “But does it matter as much as all that?”

  “Of course it does.” Nancy sat up with indignation. “What an idiotic question, Katharine!”

  “I was just thinking,” Katharine returned mildly, “of our friend Madden.”

  “Darling,” protested Nancy. “I see what you mean and all that. I adore Chris. But I adore the theatre, too. And I owe something to myself as well, to the artist in me. You know how beautifully I’ve got on; I’ve been really quick. And now this flop at the most critical time! Oh, I know it was a stupid play. It deserved to fail. But I was in the failure, and I can’t run away from it. That would be too cowardly.” She jumped up and began to pace the room. “Oh, no, no, Katharine darling. That would be a complete anticlimax. I want to marry Chris, but I’ve got to be a success. I’ve got to justify myself, as well. Oh, I want to succeed, succeed, succeed!”

  “I see,” said Katharine.

  There was a pause. Nancy, arrested in her pacing, turned with a new expression and a sudden and appealing change of manner. “There’s only one thing we c
an do about it,” she murmured, fixing Katharine with a gaze now clear and ingenuous, and holding her pose—Duse, Terry, and Bernhardt bound into one. “ You’ve got to help me.”

  “But how, Nancy?”

  “Don’t look at me as if I were unhinged, darling. You know how.”

  “You mean you want to get into another play?”

  “Exactly!” Nancy relaxed, sighed, and, finding herself near the piano, sat down and struck a slow, persuasive chord. “ In this particular instance, Katharine,” she remarked gently, “ you can step in very neatly. You’ve got such influence—to be completely vulgar, such wonderful pull, darling—with everybody—with Sam Bertram in particular.”

  “Why Bertram?”

  “Because”—Nancy struck another chord—“because Bertram is taking Dilemma to New York—his new show, Katharine, in case you don’t know. Because Bertram hasn’t cast it yet. Because Bertram is going to give a really nice part in it to me.”

  “Oh, no, Nancy, that’s impossible,” Katharine said quickly. “ I couldn’t ask him.”

  “You must, darling,” said Nancy, using the loud pedal by way of emphasis. “ Unless you want me to be shattered and miserable for life.”

  “But really …” protested Katharine.

  “You must,” repeated Nancy. “There’s a part in Dilemma that’s just crying out for me. Not large, darling, but right, just absolutely right. I could raise the dead with that part. But that’s the least of it. I want to go to America with you. I want to go with Chris. He’s got to get back, darling, back to his business. He wants me to go with him and marry him there. Don’t you see what a wonderful thing it would be if you could get me into Bertram’s show? Simplifies everything. We all go together and have the most divine time.”

  Katharine gazed at Nancy, still taken aback, and conscious through it all that she had been skilfully played upon by this amazing contradiction of guile and ingenuousness, by this mixed-up, clever little niece of hers. In spite of herself a spark of amusement danced into her eyes.