“Yes! — It might! — It might — !” pondered Julia. Suddenly she gave herself a shake. Then she laughed hurriedly, as if breaking from her line of thought.
“And wouldn’t Robert be an AWFULLY nice lover for Josephine! Oh, wouldn’t that be splendid!” she cried, with her high laugh.
Josephine, who had been gazing down into the orchestra, turned now, flushing darkly.
“But I don’t want a lover, Julia,” she said, hurt.
“Josephine dear! Dear old Josephine! Don’t you really! Oh, yes, you do. — I want one so BADLY,” cried Julia, with her shaking laugh. “Robert’s awfully good to me. But we’ve been married six years. And it does make a difference, doesn’t it, Tanny dear?”
“A great difference,” said Tanny.
“Yes, it makes a difference, it makes a difference,” mused Julia. “Dear old Rob-ert — I wouldn’t hurt him for worlds. I wouldn’t. Do you think it would hurt Robert?”
She screwed up her eyes, looking at Tanny.
“Perhaps it would do Robert good to be hurt a little,” said Tanny. “He’s so well-nourished.”
“Yes! — Yes! — I see what you mean, Tanny! — Poor old ROB-ert! Oh, poor old Rob-ert, he’s so young!”
“He DOES seem young,” said Tanny. “One doesn’t forgive it.”
“He is young,” said Julia. “I’m five years older than he. He’s only twenty-seven. Poor Old Robert.”
“Robert is young, and inexperienced,” said Josephine, suddenly turning with anger. “But I don’t know why you talk about him.”
“Is he inexperienced, Josephine dear? IS he?” sang Julia. Josephine flushed darkly, and turned away.
“Ah, he’s not so innocent as all that,” said Tanny roughly. “Those young young men, who seem so fresh, they’re deep enough, really. They’re far less innocent really than men who are experienced.”
“They are, aren’t they, Tanny,” repeated Julia softly. “They’re old — older than the Old Man of the Seas, sometimes, aren’t they? Incredibly old, like little boys who know too much — aren’t they? Yes!” She spoke quietly, seriously, as if it had struck her.
Below, the orchestra was coming in. Josephine was watching closely. Julia became aware of this.
“Do you see anybody we know, Josephine?” she asked.
Josephine started.
“No,” she said, looking at her friends quickly and furtively.
“Dear old Josephine, she knows all sorts of people,” sang Julia.
At that moment the men returned.
“Have you actually come back!” exclaimed Tanny to them. They sat down without answering. Jim spread himself as far as he could, in the narrow space. He stared upwards, wrinkling his ugly, queer face. It was evident he was in one of his moods.
“If only somebody loved me!” he complained. “If only somebody loved me I should be all right. I’m going to pieces.” He sat up and peered into the faces of the women.
“But we ALL love you,” said Josephine, laughing uneasily. “Why aren’t you satisfied?”
“I’m not satisfied. I’m not satisfied,” murmured Jim.
“Would you like to be wrapped in swaddling bands and laid at the breast?” asked Lilly, disagreeably.
Jim opened his mouth in a grin, and gazed long and malevolently at his questioner.
“Yes,” he said. Then he sprawled his long six foot of limb and body across the box again.
“You should try loving somebody, for a change,” said Tanny. “You’ve been loved too often. Why not try and love somebody?”
Jim eyed her narrowly.
“I couldn’t love YOU,” he said, in vicious tones.
“A la bonne heure!” said Tanny.
But Jim sank his chin on his chest, and repeated obstinately:
“I want to be loved.”
“How many times have you been loved?” Robert asked him. “It would be rather interesting to know.”
Jim looked at Robert long and slow, but did not answer.
“Did you ever keep count?” Tanny persisted.
Jim looked up at her, malevolent.
“I believe I did,” he replied.
“Forty is the age when a man should begin to reckon up,” said Lilly.
Jim suddenly sprang to his feet, and brandished his fists.
“I’ll pitch the lot of you over the bloody rail,” he said.
He glared at them, from under his bald, wrinkled forehead. Josephine glanced round. She had become a dusky white colour. She was afraid of him, and she disliked him intensely nowadays.
“Do you recognise anyone in the orchestra?” she asked.
The party in the box had become dead silent. They looked down. The conductor was at his stand. The music began. They all remained silent and motionless during the next scene, each thinking his own thoughts. Jim was uncomfortable. He wanted to make good. He sat with his elbows on his knees, grinning slightly, looking down. At the next interval he stood up suddenly.
“It IS the chap — What?” he exclaimed excitedly, looking round at his friends.
“Who?” said Tanny.
“It IS he?” said Josephine quietly, meeting Jim’s eye.
“Sure!” he barked.
He was leaning forward over the ledge, rattling a programme in his hand, as if trying to attract attention. Then he made signals.
“There you are!” he exclaimed triumphantly. “That’s the chap.”
“Who? Who?” they cried.
But neither Jim nor Josephine would vouchsafe an answer.
The next was the long interval. Jim and Josephine gazed down at the orchestra. The musicians were laying aside their instruments and rising. The ugly fire-curtain began slowly to descend. Jim suddenly bolted out.
“Is it that man Aaron Sisson?” asked Robert.
“Where? Where?” cried Julia. “It can’t be.”
But Josephine’s face was closed and silent. She did not answer.
The whole party moved out on to the crimson-carpeted gangway. Groups of people stood about chatting, men and women were passing along, to pay visits or to find drinks. Josephine’s party stared around, talking desultorily. And at length they perceived Jim stalking along, leading Aaron Sisson by the arm. Jim was grinning, the flautist looked unwilling. He had a comely appearance, in his white shirt — a certain comely blondness and repose. And as much a gentleman as anybody.
“Well!” cried Josephine to him. “How do you come here?”
“I play the flute,” he answered, as he shook hands.
The little crowd stood in the gangway and talked.
“How wonderful of you to be here!” cried Julia.
He laughed.
“Do you think so?” he answered.
“Yes, I do. — It seems so FAR from Shottle House and Christmas Eve. — Oh, wasn’t it exciting!” cried Julia.
Aaron looked at her, but did not answer.
“We’ve heard all about you,” said Tanny playfully.
“Oh, yes,” he replied.
“Come!” said Josephine, rather irritated. “We crowd up the gangway.” And she led the way inside the box.
Aaron stood and looked down at the dishevelled theatre.
“You get all the view,” he said.
“We do, don’t we!” cried Julia.
“More than’s good for us,” said Lilly.
“Tell us what you are doing. You’ve got a permanent job?” asked Josephine.
“Yes — at present.”
“Ah! It’s more interesting for you than at Beldover.”
She had taken her seat. He looked down at her dusky young face. Her voice was always clear and measured.
“It’s a change,” he said, smiling.
“Oh, it must be more than that,” she said. “Why, you must feel a whole difference. It’s a whole new life.”
He smiled, as if he were laughing at her silently. She flushed.
“But isn’t it?” she persisted.
“Yes. It can be,” he
replied.
He looked as if he were quietly amused, but dissociated. None of the people in the box were quite real to him. He was not really amused. Julia found him dull, stupid. Tanny also was offended that he could not perceive her. The men remained practically silent.
“You’re a chap I always hoped would turn up again,” said Jim.
“Oh, yes!” replied Aaron, smiling as if amused.
“But perhaps he doesn’t like us! Perhaps he’s not glad that we turned up,” said Julia, leaving her sting.
The flautist turned and looked at her.
“You can’t REMEMBER us, can you?” she asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I can remember you.”
“Oh,” she laughed. “You are unflattering.”
He was annoyed. He did not know what she was getting at.
“How are your wife and children?” she asked spitefully.
“All right, I think.”
“But you’ve been back to them?” cried Josephine in dismay.
He looked at her, a slow, half smiling look, but did not speak.
“Come and have a drink. Damn the women,” said Jim uncouthly, seizing Aaron by the arm and dragging him off.
CHAPTER VI. TALK
The party stayed to the end of the interminable opera. They had agreed to wait for Aaron. He was to come around to the vestibule for them, after the show. They trooped slowly down-stairs into the crush of the entrance hall. Chattering, swirling people, red carpet, palms green against cream-and-gilt walls, small whirlpools of life at the open, dark doorways, men in opera hats steering decisively about-it was the old scene. But there were no taxis — absolutely no taxis. And it was raining. Fortunately the women had brought shoes. They slipped these on. Jim rocked through the crowd, in his tall hat, looking for the flautist.
At last Aaron was found — wearing a bowler hat. Julia groaned in spirit. Josephine’s brow knitted. Not that anybody cared, really. But as one must frown at something, why not at the bowler hat? Acquaintances and elegant young men in uniforms insisted on rushing up and bowing and exchanging a few words, either with Josephine, or Jim, or Julia, or Lilly. They were coldly received. The party veered out into the night.
The women hugged their wraps about them, and set off sharply, feeling some repugnance for the wet pavements and the crowd. They had not far to go — only to Jim’s rooms in Adelphi. Jim was leading Aaron, holding him by the arm and slightly pinching his muscles. It gave him great satisfaction to have between his fingers the arm-muscles of a working-man, one of the common people, the fons et origo of modern life. Jim was talking rather vaguely about Labour and Robert Smillie, and Bolshevism. He was all for revolution and the triumph of labour.
So they arrived, mounted a dark stair, and entered a large, handsome room, one of the Adams rooms. Jim had furnished it from Heale’s with striped hangings, green and white and yellow and dark purple, and with a green-and-black checked carpet, and great stripe-covered chairs and Chesterfield. A big gas-fire was soon glowing in the handsome old fire-place, the panelled room seemed cosy.
While Jim was handing round drinks and sandwiches, and Josephine was making tea, Robert played Bach on the piano — the pianola, rather. The chairs and lounge were in a half-circle round the fire. The party threw off their wraps and sank deep into this expensive comfort of modern bohemia. They needed the Bach to take away the bad taste that Aida had left in their mouths. They needed the whiskey and curacao to rouse their spirits. They needed the profound comfort in which to sink away from the world. All the men, except Aaron, had been through the war in some way or other. But here they were, in the old setting exactly, the old bohemian routine.
The bell rang, Jim went downstairs. He returned shortly with a frail, elegant woman — fashionable rather than bohemian. She was cream and auburn, Irish, with a slightly-lifted upper lip that gave her a pathetic look. She dropped her wrap and sat down by Julia, taking her hand delicately.
“How are you, darling?” she asked.
“Yes — I’m happy,” said Julia, giving her odd, screwed-up smile.
The pianola stopped, they all chatted indiscriminately. Jim was watching the new-comer — Mrs. Browning — with a concentrated wolfish grin.
“I like her,” he said at last. “I’ve seen her before, haven’t I? — I like her awfully.”
“Yes,” said Josephine, with a slight grunt of a laugh. “He wants to be loved.”
“Oh,” cried Clariss. “So do I!”
“Then there you are!” cried Tanny.
“Alas, no, there we aren’t,” cried Clariss. She was beautiful too, with her lifted upper-lip. “We both want to be loved, and so we miss each other entirely. We run on in two parallel lines, that can never meet.” She laughed low and half sad.
“Doesn’t SHE love you?” said Aaron to Jim amused, indicating Josephine. “I thought you were engaged.”
“HER!” leered Jim vindictively, glancing at Josephine. “She doesn’t love me.”
“Is that true?” asked Robert hastily, of Josephine.
“Why,” she said, “yes. Why should he make me say out here that I don’t love him!”
“Got you my girl,” said Jim.
“Then it’s no engagement?” said Robert.
“Listen to the row fools make, rushing in,” said Jim maliciously.
“No, the engagement is broken,” said Josephine.
“World coming to pieces bit by bit,” said Lilly. Jim was twisting in his chair, and looking like a Chinese dragon, diabolical. The room was uneasy.
“What gives you such a belly-ache for love, Jim?” said Lilly, “or for being loved? Why do you want so badly to be loved?”
“Because I like it, damn you,” barked Jim. “Because I’m in need of it.”
None of them quite knew whether they ought to take it as a joke. It was just a bit too real to be quite pleasant.
“Why are you such a baby?” said Lilly. “There you are, six foot in length, have been a cavalry officer and fought in two wars, and you spend your time crying for somebody to love you. You’re a comic.”
“Am I though?” said Jim. “I’m losing life. I’m getting thin.”
“You don’t look as if you were losing life,” said Lilly.
“Don’t I? I am, though. I’m dying.”
“What of? Lack of life?”
“That’s about it, my young cock. Life’s leaving me.”
“Better sing Tosti’s Farewell to it.”
Jim who had been sprawling full length in his arm-chair, the centre of interest of all the company, suddenly sprang forward and pushed his face, grinning, in the face of Lilly.
“You’re a funny customer, you are,” he said.
Then he turned round in his chair, and saw Clariss sitting at the feet of Julia, with one white arm over her friend’s knee. Jim immediately stuck forward his muzzle and gazed at her. Clariss had loosened her masses of thick, auburn hair, so that it hung half free. Her face was creamy pale, her upper lip lifted with odd pathos! She had rose-rubies in her ears.
“I like HER,” said Jim. “What’s her name?”
“Mrs. Browning. Don’t be so rude,” said Josephine.
“Browning for gravies. Any relation of Robert?”
“Oh, yes! You ask my husband,” came the slow, plangent voice of Clariss.
“You’ve got a husband, have you?”
“Rather! Haven’t I, Juley?”
“Yes,” said Julia, vaguely and wispily. “Yes, dear, you have.”
“And two fine children,” put in Robert.
“No! You don’t mean it!” said Jim. “Who’s your husband? Anybody?”
“Rather!” came the deep voice of Clariss. “He sees to that.”
Jim stared, grinning, showing his pointed teeth, reaching nearer and nearer to Clariss who, in her frail scrap of an evening dress, amethyst and silver, was sitting still in the deep black hearth-rug, her arm over Julia’s knee, taking very little notice of Jim, although he amused her.
“Thanks, I’m sure,” she said.
The others were laughing, sprawling in their chairs, and sipping curacao and taking a sandwich or a cigarette. Aaron Sisson alone sat upright, smiling flickeringly. Josephine watched him, and her pointed tongue went from time to time over her lips.
“But I’m sure,” she broke in, “this isn’t very interesting for the others. Awfully boring! Don’t be silly all the time, Jim, or we must go home.”
Jim looked at her with narrowed eyes. He hated her voice. She let her eye rest on his for a moment. Then she put her cigarette to her lips. Robert was watching them both.
Josephine took her cigarette from her lips again.
“Tell us about yourself, Mr. Sisson,” she said. “How do you like being in London?”
“I like London,” said Aaron.
Where did he live? Bloomsbury. Did he know many people? No — nobody except a man in the orchestra. How had he got his job? Through an agent. Etc. Etc.
“What do you make of the miners?” said Jim, suddenly taking a new line.
“Me?” said Sisson. “I don’t make anything of them.”
“Do you think they’ll make a stand against the government?”
“What for?”
“Nationalisation.”
“They might, one day.”
“Think they’d fight?”
“Fight?”
“Yes.”
Aaron sat laughing.
“What have they to fight for?”
“Why, everything! What haven’t they to fight for?” cried Josephine fiercely. “Freedom, liberty, and escape from this vile system. Won’t they fight for that?”
Aaron sat smiling, slowly shaking his head.
“Nay,” he said, “you mustn’t ask me what they’ll do — I’ve only just left them, for good. They’ll do a lot of cavilling.”
“But won’t they ACT?” cried Josephine.
“Act?” said Aaron. “How, act?”
“Why, defy the government, and take things in their own hands,” said Josephine.
“They might, some time,” said Aaron, rather indifferent.
“I wish they would!” cried Josephine. “My, wouldn’t I love it if they’d make a bloody revolution!”
They were all looking now at her. Her black brows were twitching, in her black and silver dress she looked like a symbol of young disaster.
Complete Works of D.H. Lawrence Page 309