Progress of Stories

by Laura (Riding) Jackson

  He felt more and more responsible for her. Judith herself made no opposition. She looked forward to new experiences. They got married because he could not think of any other way of arranging things. They were not in love with each other and had no intention of keeping house together, but he could not introduce her in England as the girl whose nose he had broken.

  In England they first made a tour because Judith wanted to see things. She laughed at everything and called it typically English. He felt awkward travelling with her. He was a schoolmaster and she was only a schoolgirl.

  He decided to send her to an English school. He himself got an appointment at a boys' school in Cornwall. The school he put her to was also in Cornwall. It was a school for exceptional older girls and had liberal traditions. He explained to the Head Mistress that she was his wife, but that she was very young. The Head Mistress agreed that she was very young. But as a married woman she would have certain privileges. She must be made to feel herself older than the other girls. She was allowed a car. She had permission to use it on week-ends to visit her husband. She had a room in the Mistresses' wing.

  The other girls were not supposed to know that she was married. She was presented to them as a special student who might not be staying long. But she soon told them, as a secret, that she was married. This made them suspicious of her, though she talked freely with them and was very entertaining. They felt uncomfortably older than her. To be married at her age was no better than playing with dolls. She understood their hostility and tried to appease it by making fun of her husband to them. But no one but herself thought the situation amusing. To other people it was embarrassing, to her husband painful. For example, he lived in a house by himself instead of with the unmarried masters, as he would have preferred, in case she should suddenly decide to leave school and play at being his wife for a while. But she did not even visit him. When he visited her she would walk with him in the school grounds, giggling whenever he tried to talk to her seriously. Finally he gave up visiting her.

  On Saturday afternoons Judith generally drove in her car to

  Penzance with two or three other girls. One Saturday, on their way to the cinema, Judith suddenly cried, "There's my husband!" She ran across the street and brought him back to the other girls. They all went to the cinema together. He did not sit next to her, but to Mary Vaughan. After that she met her husband every Saturday afternoon in Penzance, taking two or three other girls along as usual. Mary Vaughan was always among them. She was not a good-looking girl, but she had social talents. She could talk well and be interested in things that were not really interesting. She and Judith's husband fell in love with each other.

  This made a difference in the other girls' feeling towards Judith. It disconnected her from her husband and made her seem one of them. They all co-operated with her in promoting romance between Mary and her husband. They did not think of him as a married man. Judith made Mary her best friend. Her husband often visited her now. They would have tea with the Head Mistress, and Mary, as her best friend, would always be there. It was decided that at the end of the school year Judith should go to live with her husband and that Mary should go with her. Judith could not do without Mary. Mary was an orphan. Her aunt and guardian, the Literature Mistress, approved of the arrangement. Mary was rather poor, and would receive a generous monthly salary from Judith as companion and housekeeper.

  The girls also approved of the arrangement. They regarded it as a satisfactory outcome of the romance. Mary gave the household a sane tone, artfully softening Judith's girlish un- conventionalities. She made friends with the wives of the other masters on Judith's behalf. She taught them to say, "Of course, she is very young." Judith was happy. Mary took care of everything. Mary and her husband were in love with each other: that made the monotony bearable. Nothing was ever said between any of them about it, it was Judith's secret. As the years passed Judith kept up a running intimacy with the successive courses of girls at her old school. She drove them to Penzance on Saturday afternoons and told them the secret about Mary and her husband. She took them to her house to see Mary and her husband. The girls felt noble and understanding about them. "They are so quiet and well-behaved," they said, "that it must be real love." They envied Judith her secret.

  Things went on with automatic serenity year after year until Judith's husband died. Judith could not help crying a lot, thinking about how much Mary would miss him. Several of the girls from the school came to stay with Judith and console her while Mary saw to the funeral and wound up their affairs. In his will Judith's husband had expressed the wish that Mary would never leave Judith. This was the only expression of his love for Mary that he allowed himself.

  "Isn't Mary wonderful?" Judith said. "They loved each other. It was real love." The girls' sympathy kept Judith from thinking about her future life. She did not need to think. Mary looked after everything. When their affairs were settled, Mary took her aunt's post at the school as Literature Mistress, her aunt being very old and glad to retire. Judith was by now a full-grown woman but still very girlish in her ways.

  "My parents do not want me in Los Angeles with them," she told the other girls. "They have always been afraid of my becoming a film-actress. And I must stay with Mary. It was my husband's wish. They loved each other deeply."

  Judith had a room again in the Mistresses' wing. She gave the school a new sitting-room and they called her jokingly the Sitting-room Mistress because she spent most of her time there. She had a good effect on the girls. She made a link between them and the mistresses. There were some things the mistresses were too old to understand. She told the girls about Mary and her husband. An atmosphere of soft excitement escaped from the sitting-room and delicately pervaded the whole building. Girls liked being at the school. It became very popular.

  THE SECRET

  'ATHENS' FOGARTY was a young man with white hair, a thin face, dark skin, bright, nervous eyes, and the manner of an influential newspaper critic. He was, however, only the outdoor man of a group of unprofessional criminals. He was known as 'Athens' because he gave an impression of culture and foreign birth. He came of an ambitious Dublin slum- family. Athens was the only one of them who had a fixed address. His rooms in Great James Street were soberly and even tastefully furnished. Athens knew exactly what not to buy, do or say; he knew how to give the impression that he was a gentleman. He enjoyed his life. He never wasted time on a prospective victim who was not first of all a distinguished and interesting acquaintance. As he never participated actively in the victimization itself, the gentlemanly charm of his life was not poisoned by the consciousness that he had an ulterior motive in getting to know people; he never allowed himself to feel that he had. He brought the victim and his partners together, but knew nothing of the sequel except that on some occasions he was given more money than on others.

  As he handed over the prospective victim to his partners in a spirit of friendship, so were the crimes committed crimes of friendship: their criminal object was always achieved by betrayal of trust. They were men of ordinary occupations and respectability who in their spare time made friends with people presented to them by Athens. If they got no other advantage from some friendships than the pleasure of having to do with new people, this was something, for they led otherwise dull lives. In such cases it was a rule that Athens should at any rate have his pocket-money. Athens had to live. The stranger, for his part, had the benefit of their homely company up to the moment of victimization, or attempted victimization. He was generally a lonely fellow, with indulgent standards, therefore, of conversation and social intercourse.

  Athens had not made any finds for over a month. He had his pocket-money, for he had to live. But the partners were not only getting bored, they were on the point of losing confidence in him. He made up his mind to provide them with several finds at once. He sat alone at the Café Long at the same table every night, grandly reviewing his thoughts and now and then staring hard into his notebook. It was only a miscellany of addresse
s, expense-entries, and apt remarks; but his studied handling of it transfigured it into something mysteriously private.

  He sat on the red plush bench against the wall, facing into the café. A distinguished-looking elderly dancer dropped gaily but exhaustedly on the bench beside him, at the next table. Athens had been watching him—he had been giving the band money to play his favourite music.

  "An old bird like me," he said to Athens in a tone of friendly apology, "can't go trotting around to new tunes." Athens nodded without smiling, consulting his notebook abstractedly. Mr. Sweet, as his name proved to be, slipped nearer to him.

  "You look like a man of sense and feeling. I need advice. I am drunk but absolutely in earnest. Here's my card. My brother is the diplomat of that name. You're a writer or something aren't you?" Athens nodded non-committally.

  "I have a young friend, my adopted son. I adopted him from idealistic motives. You're an idealist, aren't you? But you have a practical nose. I have always been a student of physiognomy, that's what made me speak to you. You can help me with my young friend. My brother won't have anything to do with me because of him, nor any of my friends. So we travel about together, but lately he's been getting tired of me. So I spend my evenings playing the fool with heartless young women. Those two I came here with have found some men of their own age. I know when I am in the way. My young friend has made friends with a man from Bermuda who is trying to persuade him to go back with him to live. He has a mental sanatorium there called Nebuchadnezzar House, where people assume the different historical characters they believe themselves to be and live up to them. They've had a murder and a suicide already and he wants my young friend Bob to go as Buddha. What I say to Bob is, how can a blond like him be Buddha? But Nebuchadnezzar says that physical characteristics do not count in reincarnations. He's a bad man. He gets rich crazy American Jews to work on his tobacco plantations as Babylonian slaves. Oh, poor Bob. He was always interested in the sky. I wanted him to be an astronomer. We used to talk a lot about the stars."

  Athens was by now listening to Mr. Sweet's story with discreet sympathy. Suddenly Mr. Sweet grew alarmed. "You won't write an article about this?" he cried. "It would disgrace my brother."

  "Indeed, sir," answered Athens coldly, "I was just wondering whether, considering the condition you were in, it was honourable in me to listen to you at all."

  This answer sobered Mr. Sweet considerably. "You make me recollect myself," he said, straightening up against the back of the bench. "My instinct in opening my heart to you of all these people here was a correct one. It is difficult for a man in my position not to open his heart sometimes." He ordered drinks for both and sat watching the dancers glumly, while Athens returned to his previous pose. Suddenly Mr. Sweet stood up, shouting against the music, "Bob! Bob!"

  Bob, Nebuchadnezzar, another man and a girl came over to their tables. Bob was nineteen or twenty. He was very fair, with that look of perfect happiness common to young people who are indifferent about what they may do, or have to do, next. He greeted Mr. Sweet with affectionate disrespect as 'Old Kettle'. Mr. Sweet shook hands with Nebuchadnezzar in a ceremonious manner, like a man anxious not to fail in courtesy towards his greatest enemy. Apart from several strings of coloured beads glistening against his white shirt-front, Nebuchadnezzar's appearance was not peculiar, except as any large black-haired man with a red beard is, at the least, striking-looking. His conversation consisted of sudden loud, unrelated pronouncements, followed by frantic tossings of phlegm in his throat. The other man was a young American university professor on his vacation. His name was Archibald Root, and he had fallen in love with the girl, who was older than himself and whom he admired for her knowledge of life.

  Athens was not introduced at all, as a mark of respect. Mr. Sweet referred to him as 'our worthy friend'. The girl, who seemed to know Mr. Sweet well, teased him for money for a fur coat. He refused to give her the money because he felt ashamed before Athens. "No," he said, "it is not becoming. You will marry Root and be the wife of a poor man."

  "I will not marry Root," replied the girl, "and he is not a poor man. His father is a Methodist minister. He has a large wealthy congregation. Archibald is a professor at a Methodist university. He teaches public speaking and is well paid. He dances beautifully. But I will not marry him."

  The girl got up and made Archibald dance with her. He came back alone, saying miserably, "She met some friends. It makes me feel awfully inferior. I'm too simple for her. Yet to go back to America without her would be like death for me."

  Athens smiled cautiously. "It is only the first taste of death that is bitter, the angels say. After that, it's a great relief to be no longer alive."

  Nebuchadnezzar glared at him. "A Jewish rabbi once told me that Christ was only an idea. Everyone famous is only an idea until he's born again in some insignificant person. No one is real unless he's insignificant and unknown. Bob is Buddha. No one knows it. He doesn't know it himself. That makes it all the more certain. He takes my word for it because I'm a convincing talker. When I say a thing I mean it." He coughed stormily and Bob grinned at the other three. "Yes, he means it," Bob said. "I know nothing about it. He has it all worked out. I'm to go to Bermuda with him and help him calm down a lot of people he has there who are different things in the past. Apparently if you know about it it's very bad for the head—unless you're a business-man like Nebuchadnezzar. He says he was always a good business-man, that's why he managed the Jews so well in the old days. You will let me go to Bermuda, won't you?" Bob said, addressing Mr. Sweet. "It won't cost much."

  "And what about the stars?" Mr. Sweet asked wistfully.

  "Nebuchadnezzar says that astronomy is amateur religion— heavenly bodies and all that, but no money in it," Bob answered. "You never let me think of money. Nebuchadnezzar's going to show me how to make money. I'm to have a share."

  Nebuchadnezzar here interposed, "Greek gods and goddesses never pay their bills. But they never go away. It raises the tone. Mortals, however ancient, are so vulgar." He choked, inscrutably. Archibald and Mr. Sweet were brooding. Bob grinned at Athens, in careless optimism.

  "Well, gentlemen," said Athens, rising at this point, "it does not matter what happens, so long as something happens. I personally am going home to bed and I advise you to do the same. Come to my rooms to-morrow evening. Perhaps I can be of use to you. A stranger often makes a good sedative—or a good stimulant. In any case, you might like a change from café-haunting." He spoke these words in a severe but not unfriendly manner, in keeping with the gentlemanly eccentricity of his assumed character. Athens was not really eccentric, only painfully aware that he was not a man of genius. This was what made him different from the rest of his family. They didn't mind what they were. He minded what he was not. It made him fastidious. It made him able to impress people, externally, while inside he was full of harsh disappointment with himself.

  He gave them his name and address and left them. They sat drinking for a little while in a softened mood. Nebuchadnezzar left first, saying, "Achilles had his heel, Siegfried a weak spot between the shoulders, but I have my own troubles. It's all got to be kept going. Good-night." He went off in a spasm to his suite in London's most expensive hotel. It was difficult to tell during these spasms whether he was laughing or not.

  Archibald went next. He lodged in a house near the British Museum. But all London, it seemed to him, stood in the shadow of the British Museum. He had written to his father, "Living in London makes you feel that the present doesn't exist. Even the most modern features seem antiquated. It is rather as if the world had come to an end and people went on living just the same, like historical puppets." Mr. Sweet and Bob had a flat in Ebury Street. People who had flats in Ebury Street were always people that other people knew. But this was not the case with Mr. Sweet. He lived there in memory of the time when people had known him. He persuaded himself that they had dropped him because of Bob, but Bob had come afterwards. They had never really dropped him, it had just s
o happened. Bob did not go back with him that night. He took a room in a pub somewhere between the flat and Chelsea. "I want to be left alone," he said. Bob's mother had been a charwoman in a workhouse. His father's second wife had left him alone. Bob had always been used to having people leave him alone. Mr. Sweet had left him magnificently alone. But Mr. Sweet was now getting to the age when people fall to pieces unless they are treated nicely. Bob didn't know how to treat people nicely; it took a lot of pretending—pretending interest. He had liked astronomy because it did not involve pretending interest; only the coldest curiosity was required. He felt the same about Nebuchadnezzar.

  On the first floor of the house in Great James Street where Athens Fogarty had his rooms were the offices of a swimming association. On the second floor lived a medium called Beatrice. Athens was on the third floor. When the four strangers arrived the next night six of his partners were present. Four were playing cards, one was talking, one was reading. He introduced them. They were Mr. Atkinson, Mr. Hervey, Mr. Gordon, Mr. Slade, Mr. Schiller and Mr. Gainsbury. They behaved diffidently towards the strangers. Mr. Gordon ran an employment bureau. He told humorous stories about the applicants. From this they went on to talk about making love to servant-girls. Mr. Root said a servant-girl had poisoned his mind when he was a boy. Nebuchadnezzar asserted that servant-girls made the best mothers; in ancient times all the mothers were slaves. He had many children and was glad to say that their mothers were not ladies. Mr. Sweet said that he had never had a child. Bob said that if people would stop having children the world would go on just the same. Athens remarked that no one would ever see the end of the world. If the world ended, people would die first, and it was nothing new to die. "So long as we have death, gentlemen, we are safe."