Chapter II (2)

“I dare say I _was_ a fool,” he muttered, “but I did think you’d understand how I felt when I saw her cry. Suppose it had been you!” From the toss of her head, he knew he had said something pretty fatal.

“Oh! So that’s what you think of me!”

He grasped her shoulder.

“Of course I don’t, Alice; don’t be so silly!”

She shook off his hand.

“Whose money was it? Now baby and me’ll get no holiday. And all because you see a slut crying.”

Before he could answer she was gone. He had an awful sense of having outraged justice. Given away her holiday--given his wife’s holiday to a girl of the streets! Still, it was his own holiday, too; besides, he earned the money! He’d never wanted to give it to the girl; hadn’t got anything for it! Suppose he’d put it into the offertory bag, would Alice have been in such a temper even if it was their holiday? He didn’t see much difference. He sat down with knees apart, and elbows planted on them, staring at the peonies on the Brussels carpet paid for on the hire system. And all those feelings that rise in people living together, when they don’t agree, swirled in his curly head, and troubled his candid eyes. If only the girl hadn’t cried! She hadn’t meant to cry; he could tell that by the sound of it. And who was the magistrate--he didn’t look too like a saint; who was any man to treat her like that? Alice oughtn’t--No! But suddenly, he saw Alice again bending over his socks--pale and tired with the heat--doing things for him or baby--and he had given away her holiday! No denying that! Compunction flooded him. He must go up and find her and try and make his peace--he would pawn his bicycle--she should have her holiday--she should!

He opened the door and listened. The little house was ominously quiet--only the outside evening sounds from buses passing in the main road, from children playing on the doorsteps of the side street, from a man with a barrow of bananas. She must be up in the bedroom with baby! He mounted the steep whitewashed stairway. It wanted a carpet, and fresh paint; ah! and a lot of other things Alice wanted--you couldn’t have everything at once on four pound ten a week--with the price of living what it was. But she ought to have remembered there were things he wanted too--yes, precious bad, and never thought of getting. The door of their bedroom was locked; he rattled the handle. She opened suddenly, and stood facing him on the little landing.

“I don’t want you up here.”

“Look here, Alice--this is rotten.”

She closed the door behind her.

“It is! You go down again, I don’t want you. Think I believe that about crying? I’d be ashamed, if I were you!”

Ashamed! He might have been too soft, but why ashamed?

“Think I don’t know what men are like? You can just go to your street girl, if she’s so pretty!” She stood hard and stiff against the door, with red spots in her cheeks. She almost made him feel a villain--such conviction in her body.

“Alice! Good Lord! You must be crazy! I’ve done nothing!”

“But you’d like to. Go along! I don’t want you!”

The stabbing stare of her blue eyes, the muffled energy of her voice, the bitterness about her mouth all made a fellow feel--well, that he knew nothing about anything--coming from one’s wife like that! He leaned back against the wall.

“Well, I’m damned!” was all he could get out.

“D’you mean to say she didn’t ask you?”

The insides of his hands grew wet. The girl’s card in his pocket!

“Well, if you like to be a cat I can’t help it. What d’you take me for?”

“Giving your own child’s money to a dirty slut! You owed it--that’s what it was--or will be. Go on with you; don’t stand there!”

He had a nasty longing to smite her on the mouth--it looked so bitter. “Well,” he said slowly, “now I understand.”

Yes, that was it--she was all of a piece with something, with that police court, with the tone of the men’s voices, with something unsparing, hard and righteous, which came down sharp on people.

“I thought--I think you might----” he stammered.

“Ugh!” The sound exasperated him so, that he turned to go downstairs.

“You whited sepulchre!”

The door clicked before he could answer the odd insult; he heard the key turned. Idiotic! The little landing seemed too small to hold his feelings. Would he ever have been such an ass as to say a word to Alice, if he _had_ done it? Why! He had never even thought of doing anything!

Giddy from chagrin he ran downstairs, and, clawing his straw hat from the rack, went out. The streets were malodorous from London fug--fried fish, petrol, hot dirty people; he strode along troubled, his eyes very rueful. So this was what he was really married to--this--this! It was like being married to that police court! It wasn’t human--no, it wasn’t--to be so suspicious and virtuous as all that! What was the use of being decent and straight, if this was all you got for it? Someone touched him on the shoulder.

“Mister, you’ve been standing against something; you’re all white behind--let me give you a brush.”

He stood confused, while a stout fair man smote his back up and down with a large flat hand. Whited sepulchre! A bubble of rage rose to his lips. All right! She should see! He felt for the girl’s card, and was suddenly amazed to find that he had no need to look at it--he remembered the address! Not far off, on the other side of the Euston Road! That was funny--had he been looking at it without realising? They said you had a subconscious mind. Well, what about it? No, it was his conscious mind that was going to serve Alice out! He had reached the Euston Road. Crossing it, he began to feel a queer pleasurable weakness in the legs. By this he knew that he was going to do wrong. He was not going to visit the girl just to serve his wife out, but because the prospect was----! That was bad--bad; it would put Alice in the right! He stood still at the corner of a narrow square, with a strip of garden, and railings round it. He leaned against those railings, his eyes searching the trees. He had always been quite straight with his wife--it was she who had put the idea into his head. And yet his legs being pleasurably weak seemed in an odd way to excuse her. It was like his doubt whether they hadn’t to do something about it at the police court. Barring Alice--barring the police court--where would he--would any man be? Without virtue, entirely without virtue. A pigeon in the garden cooed. “Any time you’re passing, I’ll be glad to see you.” It had sounded genuine--really grateful. And the girl had looked--not worse than anybody else! If Alice had been sympathetic about it he would never have thought of her again; that is--well----! The doubt set his legs in motion. He was a married man, and that was all about it! But he looked across at the numbers on the houses. Twenty-seven! Yes, there it was! A bloom of lilac brushed his face. The scent jerked him suddenly back to the farm in Somerset, and he and Alice courting. Alice--not the Alice on the landing! He scrutinised the shabby house, and suddenly went hot all over. Suppose he went in there--what would that girl think? That he had paid her fine because----! But that wasn’t it at all--oh! no--he wasn’t a squirt like that! He turned his face away, and walked on fast and far.

The signs were lit above the theatres; traffic was scanty, the streets a long dawdle of what vehicles and humans were about. He came to Leicester Square and sat down on a bench. The lights all round him brightened slowly under the dusk--theatre lights, street lamps. And the pity of things smote him, sitting there. So much of everything; and one got so little of anything! Adding figures up all day, going home to Alice--that was life! Well, it wasn’t so bad when Alice was nice to him. But--crikey!--what one missed! That book about the South Sea Islands--places, peoples, sights, sounds, scents, all over the world! Four pound ten a week, a wife, a baby! Well, you couldn’t have things both ways--but had he got them either way? Not with the Alice on the landing!

Ah! Well! Poor Alice; jolly hard on her to miss her holiday! But she might have given him the chance to tell her that he would pawn his bicycle. Or was it all a bad dream? Had he ever really been in the police court, seen them herding those girls to prison--girls who did what they did because--well, like himself, they had missed too much. They’d catch a fresh lot to-night. What a fool he’d been to pay that fine!

‘Glad I didn’t go into that girl’s house, anyway,’ he thought. ‘I would have felt a scum!’ The only decent thing about it all had been her look when she said: “Ow! thank you!” That gave him a little feeling of warmth even now; and then--it, too, chilled away. Nothing for it! When he had done sitting there, he must go home! If Alice had thought him a wrong-un before, what would she think when he returned? Well, there it was! The milk was spilt! But he did wish she hadn’t got such a virtue on her.

The sky deepened and darkened, the lights stared white; the square garden with its flower-beds seemed all cut out and stiff--like scenery on a stage. Must go back and ‘stick’ it! No good to worry!

He got up from the bench, and gave himself a shake. His eyes, turned towards the lights of the Alhambra, were round, candid, decent, like the eyes of a baby.

1922.

CONSCIENCE

Taggart sat up. The scoop under the ranger’s fence, cannily selected for his sleeping place, was overhung by branches, and the birds of Hyde Park were at matins already. His watch had gone the way of his other belongings during the last three months, and he could only assume from the meagre light that it was but little after dawn. He was not grateful to the birds; he would be hungry long before a breakfast coming from he hardly knew where. But he listened to them with interest. This was the first night he had passed in the open, and, like all amateurs, he felt a kind of triumph at having achieved vagrancy in spite of the law, the ranger, and the dew. He was a Northumbrian, too, and his ‘tail still up,’ as he expressed it. Born in a town, Taggart had not much country lore--at sparrows, blackbirds, thrushes, his knowledge stopped; but he enjoyed the bobbery the little beggars were kicking up, and, though a trifle stiff perhaps, he felt ‘fine.’

He lit his pipe, and almost at once his brain began to revolve the daily problem of how to get a job, and of why he had lost the one he had.

Walking, three months ago, burly, upright, secure and jolly, into the room of his chief at the offices of ‘Conglomerated Journals, Ltd.,’ he had been greeted with:

“Morning, Taggart. Georgie Grebe is to give us an article for the _Lighthouse_. He won’t be able to write it, of course. Just do me a column he could sign--something Grebeish. I want a feature of that sort every week now in the _Lighthouse_; got half a dozen really good names. We simply must get it on its legs with the big Public.”

Taggart smiled. Georgie Grebe! The name was a household word--tophole idea to get him!

“Did he ever write a line in his life, sir?”

“Don’t suppose so--but you know the sort of thing he _would_ write; he gets nothing for it but the Ad. The week after I’ve got Sir Cutman Kane--you’ll want to be a bit careful there; but you can get his manner from that book of his on murder trials. He hasn’t got a minute--must have it devilled; but he’ll sign anything decently done. I’m going to _make_ ’em buy the _Lighthouse_, Taggart. Get on to the Grebe article at once, will you.”

Taggart nodded, and, drawing from his pocket some typewritten sheets of paper, laid them on the bureau.

“Here’s your signed leader, sir; I’ve gingered it a bit too much, perhaps.”

“Haven’t time to look at it; got to catch a train.”

“Shall I tone it down a little?”

“Better perhaps; use your judgment. Sit here, and do it now. Good-bye; back on Friday.”

Reaching for his soft hat, assisted into his coat by Taggart, the chief was gone.

Taggart sat down to pencil the signed leader.

‘Good leader,’ he thought; ‘pity nobody knows I write ’em!’

This devilling was quite an art, and, not unlike art, poorly enough paid. Still, not bad fun feeling you were the pea and the chief only the shell--the chief, with his great name and controlling influence. He finished pencilling, O.K.’d the sheets, thought, ‘Georgie Grebe! what the deuce shall I write about?’ and went back to his room.

It was not much of a room, and there was not much in it except Jimmy Counter, smoking a pipe and writing furiously.

Taggart sat down too, lit his own pipe, took a sheet of paper and scrawled the words ‘Georgie Grebe Article’ across the top.

Georgie Grebe! It _was_ a scoop! The chief had a wonderful flair for just the names that got the Public. There was something rather beautifully simple about writing an article for a man who had never written a line--something virginal in the conception. And when you came to think of it, something virginal in the Public’s buying of the article to read the thoughts of their idol, Georgie Grebe. Yes, and what were their idol’s thoughts? If he, Taggart, didn’t know, nobody would, not even the idol! Taggart smiled, then felt a little nervous. Georgie Grebe--celebrated clown--probably he hadn’t any thoughts! Really, there was something very trustful about the Public! He dipped his pen in ink and sat staring at the nib. Trustful! The word had disturbed the transparency of his mental process, as a crystal of peroxide will disturb and colour a basinful of water. Trustful! The Public would pay their pennies to read what they thought were the thoughts of Georgie Grebe. But----! Taggart bit into the pipe stem. Steady! He was getting on too fast. Of course Georgie Grebe had thoughts if he signed them--hadn’t he? His name would be reproduced in autograph, with the indispensable portrait. People would see by his features that he must have had them. Was the Public so very trustful then? The evidence was there all right. Fraudulent? This was just devilling, there was nothing fraudulent about ‘devilling’--everybody did it. You might as well say those signed leaders written for the chief were fraudulent. Of course they weren’t--only devilled! The Public paid for the thoughts of the chief, and there they were since he signed them. Devilled thoughts! And yet! Would the public pay if those leaders were signed A. P. Taggart? The thoughts would be the same--and very good. They ought to pay--but--would they? He struck another match, and wrote:

“I am no writer, ladies and gentlemen. I am--believe me--a simple
clown. In balancing this new pole upon my nose I am conscious of a
certain sense of fraud----”

He crossed out the paragraph. That word again--must keep it from buzzing senselessly round his brain like this! He was only devilling; hold on to ‘devilling’; it was his living to devil--more or less--just earning his living--getting nothing out of it! Neither was Georgie Grebe--only the Ad.! Then who was getting something out of it? ‘Conglomerated Journals’! Out of Georgie Grebe’s name; out of the chief’s name below the devilled leaders--a pretty penny! Well, what harm in making the most of a big name? Taggart frowned. Suppose a man went into a shop and bought a box of pills, marked ‘Holloway,’ made up from a recipe of ‘Tompkins’--did it matter that the man thought they were Holloway’s, if they were just as good pills, perhaps better? Taggart laid down his pen and took his pipe out of his mouth. ‘Gosh!’ he thought, ‘never looked at it this way before! I believe it does matter. A man ought to get the exact article he pays for. If not, any fraud is possible. New Zealand mutton can be sold as English. Jaeger stuffs can have cotton in them. This Grebe article’s a fraud.’ He relit his pipe. With the first puff his English hatred of a moral attitude or ‘swank’ of any sort beset him. Who was he to take stand against a custom? Didn’t secretaries write the speeches of Parliamentary ‘big-bugs’? Weren’t the opinions of eminent lawyers often written by their juniors, read over and signed? Weren’t briefs and pleadings devilled? Yes; but all that was different. In such cases the Public weren’t paying for expression, they were paying for knowledge; the big lawyer put his imprimatur on the knowledge, not on the expression of it; the Cabinet Minister endorsed his views, whether he had written them out or not, and it was his views the Public paid for, not the expression of them. But in this Grebe article the Public would not be paying for any knowledge it contained, nor for any serious views; it would pay for a peep into the mind of their idol. ‘And his mind will be mine!’ thought Taggart; ‘but who’d pay a penny to peep into that?’ He got up, and sat down again.

With a Public so gullible--what did it matter? They lapped up anything and asked for more. Yes! But weren’t the gullible the very people who oughtn’t to be gulled? He rose again, and toured the dishevelled room. The man at the other table raised his head.

“You seem a bit on your toes.”

Taggart stared down at him.

“I’ve got to write some drivel in the _Lighthouse_ for Georgie Grebe to sign. It’s just struck me that it’s a fraud on the Public. What do you say, Jimmy?”

“In a way. What about it?”

“If it is, I don’t want to do it--that’s all.”

His colleague whistled.

“My dear chap, here am I writing a racing article ‘From the Man in the Paddock’--I haven’t been on a racecourse for years.”

“Oh! well--that’s venial.”

“All’s venial in our game. Shut your eyes, and swallow. You’re only devilling.”

“Ga!” said Taggart. “Give a thing a decent label, and it is decent.”

“I say, old man, what did you have for breakfast?”

“Look here, Jimmy, I’m inclined to think I’ve struck a snag. It never occurred to me before.”

“Well, don’t let it occur to you again. Think of old Dumas; I’ve heard he put his name to sixty volumes in one year. Has that done him any harm?”

Taggart rumpled his hair, reddish and rather stiff.

“Damn!” he said.

Counter laughed.

“You get a fixed screw for doing what you’re told. Why worry? Papers must be sold. Georgie Grebe--that’s some stunt.”

“Blast Georgie Grebe!”

He took his hat and went out; a prolonged whistle followed him. All next day he spent doing other jobs, trying to persuade himself that he was a crank, and gingerly feeling the mouths of journalists. All he got was: Fuss about nothing! What was the matter with devilling? With life at such pressure, what else could you have? But with the best intentions he could not persuade himself to go on with the thoughts of Georgie Grebe. And he remembered suddenly that his father had changed the dogmas of his religion at forty-five, and thereby lost a cure of souls. He was very unhappy; it was like discovering that he had inherited tuberculosis. On Friday he was sent for by the chief.

“Morning, Taggart; I’m just back. Look here, this leader for to-morrow--it’s nothing but a string of statements. Where’s my style?”

Taggart shifted his considerable weight from foot to foot.

“Well, sir,” he said, “I thought perhaps you’d like to put that in yourself, for a change. The facts are all right.”

The chief stared.

“My good fellow, do you suppose I’ve got time for that? Anybody could have written this; I can’t sign it as it stands. Tone it up.”

Taggart took the article from the chief’s hand.

“I don’t know that I can,” he said; “I’m----” and stopped.

The chief said kindly:

“Ill?”

Taggart disclaimed.

“Private trouble?”

“No.”

“Well, get on with it, then. How’s the Grebe article turned out?”

“It hasn’t.”

“How do you mean?”

Taggart felt his body stiffening.

“Fact is, I can’t write it.”

“Good gracious, man, any drivel will do, so long as it’s got a flavour of some sort to carry the name.”

Taggart swallowed.

“That’s it. Is it quite playing the game with the Public, sir?”

The chief seemed to loom larger suddenly.

“I don’t follow you, Taggart.”

Taggart blurted out: “I don’t want to write anyone else’s stuff in future, unless it’s just news or facts.”

The chief’s face grew very red.

“I pay you to do certain work. If you don’t care to carry out instructions, we can dispense with your services. What’s the matter with you, Taggart?”

Taggart replied with a wry smile:

“Suffering from a fit of conscience, sir. Isn’t it a matter of commercial honesty?”

The chief sat back in his swivel chair and gazed at him for quite twenty seconds.

“Well,” he said at last in an icy voice, “I have never been so insulted. Good-morning! You are at liberty.”

Taggart laid down the sheets of paper, walked stiffly to the door, and turned.

“Awfully sorry, sir, can’t help it.”

The chief bowed distantly, and Taggart went out.

For three months he had enjoyed liberty. Journalism was overstocked; his name not well known. Too shy and proud to ask for recommendation from ‘Conglomerated Journals,’ he could never bring himself to explain why he had ‘got the hoof.’ Claim a higher standard of morality than his fellows--not he! For two months he had carried on pretty well, but the last few weeks had brought him low indeed. Yet the more he brooded, the more he felt that he had been right, and the less inclined he was to speak of it. Loyalty to the chief he had insulted by taking such an attitude, dislike of being thought a fool, beyond all, dread of ‘swanking’ kept him silent. When asked why he had left ‘Conglomerated Journals’ he returned the answer always: “Disagreement on a point of principle,” and refused to enter into details. But a feeling had got about that he was a bit of a crank; for, though no one at ‘Conglomerated Journals’ knew exactly why he had vanished, Counter had spread the news that he had blasted Georgie Grebe, and refused to write his article. Someone else had done it. Taggart read the production with irritation. It was jolly bad. Inefficient devilling still hurt one who had devilled long and efficiently without a qualm. When the article which had not been written by Sir Cutman Kane appeared--he swore aloud. It was no more like the one Sir Cutman would have signed if Taggart had written it than the boots of Taggart were like the boots of the chief, who seemed to wear a fresh pair every day, with cloth tops. He read the chief’s new leaders with melancholy, spotting the many deficiencies of style supplied to the chief by the poor devil who now wrote them. His square, red, cheerful face had a bitter look while he was reading; and when he had finished, he would rumple his stiff hair. He was sturdy, and never got so far as calling himself a fool for his pains; but, week by week, he felt more certain that his protest had been in vain.

Sitting against the ranger’s palings, listening to the birds, he had a dreamy feeling about it all. Queer creatures, human beings! So damned uncritical! Had he not been like that himself for years and years? The power of a label--that was what struck him, sitting there. Label a thing decently, and it _was_ decent! Ah! but, ‘Rue by any other name would smell as sour!’ Conscience!--it was the deuce!

1922.

SALTA PRO NOBIS

(_A Variation_)

“The dancer, my Mother, is very sad. She sits with her head on her hands. She looks into the emptiness. It is frightful to watch. I have tried to make her pray, my Mother, but the poor girl does not know how; she has no belief. She refuses even to confess herself. She is pagan--but quite pagan. What could one do for her, my Mother--to cheer her a little during these hours? I have tried to make her tell me of her life. She does not answer. She sits and looks always into the emptiness. It does me harm in the heart to see her. Is there nothing one can do to comfort her a little before she dies? To die so young--so full of life; for her who has no faith! To be shot--so young, so beautiful; but it is frightful, my Mother!”

The little elderly Sister raised her hands and crossed them on her grey-clothed breast. Her eyes, brown and mild, looked up, questioning the face before her, wax-pale under its coif and smooth grey hair. Straight, thin, as it were bodiless, beneath her grey and white garb, the Mother Superior stood pondering. The spy-woman in her charge, a dancer with gipsy blood they said--or was it Moorish?--who had wormed secrets from her French naval lover and sold them to the Germans in Spain. At the trial they said there was no doubt. And they had brought her to the convent saying: “Keep her for us till the fifteenth. She will be better with you than in prison.” To be shot--a woman! It made one shiver! And yet--it was war! It was for France!

And, looking down at the little elderly Sister, the Mother Superior answered:

“One must see, my daughter. Take me to her cell.”

They went in gently. The dancer was sitting on her bed. There was no colour in her skin save the saffron sprinkled into it by eastern blood. The face was oval, the eyebrows slanted a little up; black hair formed on her forehead a V reversed; her lips, sensuous but fine, showed a gleam of teeth. Her arms were crossed as though compressing the fire within her supple body. Her eyes, colour of Malaga wine, looked through and beyond the whitened walls, through and beyond her visitors, like the eyes of a caged leopard.

The Mother Superior spoke:

“What can we do for you, my daughter?”

The dancer shrugged.

“You suffer, my daughter. They tell me you do not pray. It is a pity.”

The dancer’s passing smile had the sweetness of something tasted, of a rich tune, a long kiss; she shook her head.

“One would not say anything to trouble you, my daughter; one feels pity for your suffering. One comprehends. Is there a book you would read; some wine you would like; in a word, anything which could distract you a little?”

The dancer clasped her hands behind her neck. The movement was beautiful, sinuous--all her body beautiful. A faint colour came into the Mother Superior’s waxen cheeks.

“Would you wish to dance for us, my daughter?”

On the dancer’s face the smile came again and did not pass.

“Willingly. It will give me pleasure, madame!”

“That is well! Your dresses shall be brought. This evening in the refectory after the meal. If you wish music--one can place a piano. Sister Mathilde is a good musician.”

“Music--some simple dances. Madame, could I smoke?”

“Certainly, my daughter. I will have cigarettes brought to you.”

The dancer stretched out her hand. Between her own thin hands the Mother Superior felt its supple warmth. To-morrow it would be cold and stiff!

“_Au revoir_! then, my daughter....”

“The dancer will dance for us!” This was the word. One waited, expectant, as for a miracle. One placed the piano; procured music; sat eating the evening meal--whispering. The strangeness of it! The intrusion! The little gay ghosts of memories! Ah! the dramatic, the marvellous event! Soon the meal was finished; the tables cleared, removed; against the wall on the long benches sixty grey white-coifed figures waited--in the centre the Mother Superior, at the piano Sister Mathilde.

The little elderly Sister came first; then, down the long whitened refectory, the dancer swaying slowly over the dark-oak floor. Every head was turned--alone the Mother Superior sat motionless. If only it did not put notions into some light heads!

The dancer wore a full skirt of black silk, she had silvery shoes and stockings, round her waist was a broad tight network of gold, over her bust tight silvery tissue, with black lace draped; her arms were bare; a red flower was set to one side of her black hair; she held a black and ivory fan. Her lips were just touched with red, her eyes just touched with black; her powdered face was like a mask. She stood in the very centre, with eyes cast down. Sister Mathilde began to play. The dancer lifted her fan. In that dance of Spain she hardly moved from where she stood, swaying, shivering, spinning, poised; but her eyes darted from this face to that of the long row of faces, where so many feelings were expressed--curiosity and doubt, pleasure, timidity, horror, sympathy. Sister Mathilde ceased playing. A little murmur broke along the line of nuns, and the dancer smiled. Sister Mathilde began again to play. For a moment the dancer listened as if to catch the rhythm of music strange to her; then her feet moved, her lips parted, sweet and gay she was, like a butterfly, without a care; and on the lips of the watching faces smiles came, and little murmurs of pleasure escaped.

The Mother Superior sat without moving, her lips pressed together, her fingers interlaced. Images from the past kept starting out, and falling back, like figures from some curious old musical box. She was remembering her lover killed in the Franco-Prussian war, her entrance into religion all that time ago. This figure from the heathen world, with the red flower in her black hair, the whitened face, the sweetened eyes, stirred a yearning for her own gay pulses, before they had seemed to die, and she brought them to the church to bury them.

The music ceased; began again. Now it was a Habañera, awakening remembrance of those pulses after they were buried--secret, throbbing, dark. The Mother Superior turned her face to left and right. Had she been wise? So many light heads, so many young hearts! And yet how not soothe the last dark hours of this poor heathen girl--the hours so few! She was happy dancing. Yes, she was happy! What power! And what abandonment! It was frightening. She was holding every eye--the eyes even of Sister Louise--holding them as a snake holds a rabbit’s eyes. The Mother Superior nearly smiled. That poor Sister Louise! And then, just beyond that face of fascinated horror, she saw young Sister Marie. How the child stared--what eyes, what lips! Sister Marie--so young--just twenty--her lover killed in the war--but one year dead! Sister Marie--prettiest in all the convent! Her hands--how tightly they seemed pressed together on her lap! And--but, yes--it was at Sister Marie that the dancer looked; at Sister Marie she was twirling and writhing those supple limbs! For Sister Marie the strange sweet smile came and went on those enticing lips. In dance after dance--like a bee on a favourite flower--to Sister Marie the dancer seemed to cling. And the Mother Superior thought: ‘Have I done a work of mercy, or--the Devil’s?’

Close along the line of nuns the dancer swept; her eyes were glowing, her face proud. On Sister Marie a look alighted, a touch with the fan, a blown kiss, “_Gracias, Señoras! Adios!_”

And swaying, as she had come, she glided away over the dark floor; and the little old Sister followed.

A sighing sound rose from the long row of nuns; and--yes--one sob!

“Go to your rooms, my daughters! Sister Marie!”

The young nun came forward; tears were in her eyes.

“Sister Marie, pray that the sins of that poor soul be forgiven. But, yes, my child, it is sad. Go to your room, and pray!”

With what grace the child walked! She, too, had the limbs of beauty, and the Mother Superior sighed....

Morning, cold and grey, a sprinkle of snow on the ground. They came for the dancer during Mass. Later a sound of firing! With trembling lips the Mother Superior prayed for the soul dancing before her God....

That evening they searched for Sister Marie, and could not find her. After two days a letter came.

“Forgive me, my Mother. I have gone back to life.

“MARIE.”

Life out of death! The Mother Superior sat quite still. Figures from the past were stealing out again; and the dancer’s face with the red flower in her hair, the dark sweetened eyes, the lips, touched with a flying finger, parted in a kiss!

1922.

PHILANTHROPY

Mist enwrapped Restington-on-Sea; not very thick, but exceedingly clammy. It decked the autumn trees in weirdness, cobwebbed the tamarisks, and compelled Henry Ivor to shut his window, excluding the faint hiss and rustle from the beach. He seldom wrote after tea without the accompaniment of fresh air, and was drowsing over his pen when his housekeeper entered.

“A couple to see you, sir; they came once before, when you was away.”

Ivor blinked. “Well, show them in.”

When the door was again opened a scent of whisky came in first, then a man, a woman, and a dog.

Ivor laid down his pen, and rose; he had never seen any of them before, and immediately doubted whether he wanted to see any of them again. Never able, however, to be disagreeable at a moment’s notice, he waited defensively. The man, who might have been thirty-five, pale, warped, and thin, seemed to extract his face from the grip of nerves.

“Hearing you were down here, sir, and being in the printing trade, if you understand my meaning----”

Ivor nodded; he did not want to nod, but it seemed unavoidable; and he looked at the woman. Her face was buttoned, the most expressionless he had ever seen.

“Well?” he said.

The man’s lips, thin and down at one corner, writhed again.

“You being a well-known writer,” he said, and the scent of whisky deepened.

Ivor thought: ‘It wants courage to beg; it’s damp too. Perhaps he’s only primed himself.’

“Well?” he said again.

“If you understand me,” said the man, “I’m in a very delicate position. I expect you know Mr. Gloy--Charles Gloy--editor of _Cribbage_----”

“No,” said Ivor. “But will you sit down?” And he placed two chairs.

The man and the woman sat down on their edges, the dog, too, sat on its edge! Ivor regarded it--a Schipperke--thinking:

‘Did they bring their dog to undermine me?’ As to that, it was the only kind of dog he did not like, but it looked damp and woeful.

“My brother works for Mr. Gloy,” said the man; “so, being at Beachhampton--out of a job, if you understand my meaning--I brought my wife--you being a well-known philanthropist----”

Ivor nervously took out a cigarette, and nervously put it back.

“I don’t know what I can do for you,” he murmured.

“I’m one to speak the truth,” resumed the man, “if you follow me----” And Ivor did--he followed on and on behind a wandering tale of printing, the war, ill-health. At last he said in despair:

“I really can’t recommend people I know nothing about. What exactly do you want me to do?”

The woman’s face seemed suddenly to lose a button, as if she were going to cry, but just then the dog whimpered; she took it up on her lap. Ivor thought:

‘How much have I got on me?’

“The fact is, Mr. Ivor,” said the man, “I’m broke to the world, if you understand my meaning. If once I could get back to London----”

“What do you say, madam?”

The woman’s mouth quivered and mumbled; Ivor stopped her with his hand.

“Well,” he said, “I can give you enough to get up to London with, and a little over. But that’s all, I’m afraid. And, forgive me, I’m very busy.” He stood up. The man rose also.

“I don’t want to say anything about my wife; you’ll forgive my mentioning it, but there’s not a lady in England that’s her equal at makin’ babies’ slippers.”

“Indeed!” said Ivor. “Well, here you are!” And he held out some pound notes. The man took the notes; one of his trouser-legs was pitiably patched.

“I’m sure I’m more than grateful----” he said; and looking at Ivor as if he expected to be contradicted, added: “I can’t say better than that, can I?”

“No,” said Ivor, and opened the door.

“I’ll be ready to repay you as soon as ever I can--if you understand my meaning.”

“Yes,” said Ivor. “Good-day! Good-day, Mrs. ----! Good-bye, little dog!”

One by one the three passed him and went out into the mist. Ivor saw them trailing down the road, shut the outer door, returned to his chair, sighed profoundly, and took up his pen.

When he had written three pages, and it was getting too dusk to see, his housekeeper came in.

“There’s a boy from the Black Cow, sir, come to say they want you down there.”

“Want _me_?”

“Yes, sir. That couple--the boy says they don’t know what to do with them. They gave your name as being a friend.”

“Good Lord!”

“Yes, sir; and the landlord says they don’t seem to know where they come from like.”

“Heavens!” said Ivor. He got up, however, put on his overcoat, and went out.

In the lighted doorway of the Black Cow stood the landlord.

“Sorry to have troubled you, sir, but really I can’t tell how to deal with these friends of yours.”

Ivor frowned. “I only saw them for the first time this afternoon. I just gave them money to go up to London with. Are they drunk?”

“Drunk!” said the landlord. “Well, if I’d known the man was half gone when he came in--of course I’d never---- As to the woman, she sits and smiles. I can’t get them to budge, and it’s early closin’----”

“Well,” muttered Ivor, “let’s look at them!” And he followed the landlord in.

On the window-seat in the bar parlour those two were sitting, with mugs beside them, and the dog asleep on the feet of the woman, whose lips were unbuttoned in a foolish smile. Ivor looked at the man; his face was blank and beatific. Specimens of a damp and doleful world, they now seemed almost blissful.

“Mist’ Ivor?” said the man suddenly.

“Yes,” said Ivor, “but I thought you wanted to go up to London. The station’s not half a mile.”

“Cert’nly--go up to London.”

“Come along, then; I’ll show you the way.”

“Ve’y good, we can walk, if you understand my meaning.” And the man stood up, the dog and the woman also. All three passed unsteadily out.

The man walked first, then the woman, then the dog, wavering into the dusky mist. Ivor followed, praying that they might meet no traffic. The man’s voice broke the silence in front.

“Hen’y Ivor!” Ivor closed up nervously.

“Hen’y Ivor! I see ’m sayin’ to ’mself: ‘What’ll they move on for!’ I see him, if y’ understand my meaning. Wha’sh he good for--Hen’y Ivor--only writer o’ books. Is he any better than me--no! Not ’s good, if you f-follow me. I see ’m thinkin’: ‘How can I get rid of ’m?’” He stood still suddenly, almost on Ivor’s toes. “Where’s dog--carry th’ dog--get ’is feet wet.”

The woman stooped unsteadily, picked up the dog, and they both wavered on again. Ivor walked alongside now, grim and apprehensive. The man seemed to have become aware of him.

“Mist’ Ivor,” he said. “Thought so--I’m not tight--can’t say better than that, can I?--I’m not writer of books like you--not plutocrat, if you understand my meaning. Want to ask you question: What would you do if you was me?”

There was silence, but for the slip-slippering of the woman’s feet behind.

“I don’ blame you,” said the man, whose speech was getting thicker; “you can’t help being a plutothrist. But whash the good of anything for me, except ob-oblivion, if you follow me?”

A faint radiance shone through the mist. The station building loomed suddenly quite close. Ivor steered towards it.

“Goin’ up t’ London,” said the man. “Qui’ right!”

He lurched past into the lighted entry, and the woman followed with the dog. Ivor saw them waver through the doorway. And, spinning round, he ran into the mist. ‘Perfectly true!’ he thought while he was running. Perfectly true! Why had he helped them? What did he care so long as he got rid of man, woman, and dog?

1922.

A LONG-AGO AFFAIR

Hubert Marsland, the landscape painter, returning from a day’s sketching on the river in the summer of 1921, had occasion to stay the progress of his two-seater about ten miles from London for a minor repair, and while his car was being seen to, strolled away from the garage to have a look at a house where he had often spent his holidays as a boy. Walking through a gateway and passing a large gravel-pit on his left, he was soon opposite the house, which stood back a little in its grounds. Very much changed! More pretentious, not so homely as when his uncle and aunt lived there, and he used to play cricket on this warren opposite, where the cricket ground, it seemed, had been turned into a golf course. It was late--the dinner hour, nobody playing, and passing on to the links he stood digesting the geography. Here must have been where the old pavilion was. And there--still turfed--where he had made that particularly nice stroke to leg, when he went in last and carried his bat for thirteen. Thirty-nine years ago--his sixteenth birthday. How vividly he remembered his new pads! A. P. Lucas had played against them and only made thirty-two. One founded one’s style on A. P. Lucas in those days--feet in front of the bat, and pointed a little forward, elegant; you never saw it now, and a good thing too--one could sacrifice too much to style! Still, the tendency was all the other way; style was too much ‘off,’ perhaps!

He stepped back into the sun and sat down on the grass. Peaceful--very still! The haze of the distant downs was visible between his uncle’s old house and the next; and there was the clump of elms on the far side behind which the sun would be going down just as it used to then. He pressed the palms of his hands to the turf. A glorious summer--something like that summer of long ago. And warmth from the turf, or perhaps from the past, crept into his heart, and made it ache a little. Just here he must have sat, after his innings, at Mrs. Monteith’s feet peeping out of a flounced dress. Lord! The fools boys were! How headlong and uncalculating their devotions! A softness in voice and eyes, a smile, a touch or two--and they were slaves! Young fools, but good young fools. And, standing behind her chair--he could see him now--that other idol, Captain MacKay, with his face of browned ivory--just the colour of that elephant’s tusk his uncle had, which had gone so yellow--and his perfect black moustache, his white tie, check suit, carnation, spats, Malacca cane--all so fascinating! Mrs. Monteith, ‘the grass widow’ they had called her! He remembered the look in people’s eyes, the tone in their voices. Such a pretty woman! He had ‘fallen for her’ at first sight, as the Yanks put it--her special scent, her daintiness, her voice! And that day on the river, when she made much of him, and Captain MacKay attended Evelyn Curtiss so assiduously that he was expected to propose. Quaint period! They used the word courting then, wore full skirts, high stays; and himself a blue elastic belt round his white-flannelled waist. And in the evening afterwards, his aunt had said with an arch smile: “Good-night, _silly_ boy!” Silly boy, indeed, with a flower the grass widow had dropped pressed by his cheek into his pillow! What folly! And that next Sunday--looking forward to church--passionately brushing his top hat; all through the service spying at her creamy profile, two pews in front on the left, between goat-bearded old Hallgrave, her uncle, and her pink, broad, white-haired aunt; scheming to get near her when she came out, lingering, lurking, getting just a smile and the rustle of her flounces. Ah, ha! A little went a long way then! And the last day of his holidays and its night with the first introduction to reality. Who said the Victorian Age was innocent?

Marsland put his palm up to his cheek. No! the dew was not yet falling! And his mind lightly turned and tossed his memories of women, as a man turns and tosses hay to air it; but nothing remembered gave him quite the feeling of that first experience.

His aunt’s dance! His first white waistcoat, bought _ad hoc_, from the local tailor, his tie laboriously imitating the hero--Captain MacKay’s. All came back with such freshness in the quiet of the warren--the expectancy, the humble shy excitement, the breathless asking for a dance, the writing ‘Mrs. Monteith’ twice on his little gilt-edged programme with its tiny tasselled white pencil; her slow-moving fan, her smile. And the first dance when it came; what infinite care not to tread on her white satin toes; what a thrill when her arm pressed his in the crush--such holy rapture, about all the first part of that evening, with yet another dance to come! If only he could have twirled her and ‘reversed’ like his pattern, Captain MacKay! Then delirium growing as the second dance came near, making him cut his partner--the cool grass-scented air out on the dark terrace, with the chafers booming by, and in the starshine the poplars wondrously tall, the careful adjustment of his tie and waistcoat, the careful polishing of his hot face! A long breath then, and into the house to find her! Ballroom, supper-room, stairs, library, billiard-room, all drawn blank--‘Estudiantina’ going on and on, and he a wandering, white-waistcoated young ghost. Ah! The conservatory--and the hurrying there! And then the moment which had always been, was even now, such a blurred, confused impression. Smothered voices from between a clump of flowers: “I saw her.” “Who was the man?” A glimpse, gone past in a flash, of an ivory face, a black moustache! And then her voice: “Hubert;” and her hot hand clasping his, drawing him to her; her scent, her face smiling, very set! A rustling behind the flowers, those people spying; and suddenly her lips on his cheek, the kiss sounding in his ears, her voice saying, very softly: “Hubert, dear boy!” The rustle receded, ceased. What a long, silent minute, then, among the ferns and blossoms in the dusk with her face close to his, pale, perturbed, before she led him out into the light, while he was slowly realising that she had made use of him to shelter her. A boy--not old enough to be her lover, but old enough to save her name and that of Captain Mackay! Her kiss--the last of many. Oh, no! not upon _his_ lips, _his_ cheeks! Hard work realising that! A boy--of no account--a boy, who in a day would be at school again, kissed that _he_ and _she_ might renew their intrigue unsuspected!

How had he behaved the rest of that evening of romance bedrabbled? He hardly knew. Betrayed with a kiss! Two idols in the dust! And did they care what he was feeling? Not they! All they cared for was to cover up their tracks with him! But somehow--somehow--he had never shown her that he knew. Only, when their dance was over, and someone came and took her for the next, he escaped up to his little room, tore off his gloves, his waistcoat; lay on his bed, thought bitter thoughts. A boy! There he had stayed, with the thrum of the music in his ears, till at last it died away for good and the carriages were gone, and the night was quiet.

Squatting on the warren grass, still warm and dewless, Marsland rubbed his knees. Nothing like boys for generosity! And, with a little smile, he thought of his aunt next morning, half-arch and half-concerned: “It isn’t nice, dear, to sit out in dark corners, and--well, perhaps, it wasn’t your fault, but still, it isn’t nice--not--quite----” and of how suddenly she had stopped, looking in his face, where his lips were curling in his first ironic laugh. She had never forgiven him that laugh--thinking him a cynical young Lothario? And Marsland thought: ‘Live and learn! Wonder what became of those two? Victorian Age! Hatches were battened down in those days! But, innocent--my hat!’

Ah! The sun was off, dew falling! He got up, rubbing his knees to take the stiffness out of them. Pigeons in the wood beyond were calling. A window in his uncle’s old home blazed like a jewel in the sun’s last rays between the poplar trees. Heh! dear--a little long-ago affair!

1922.

ACME

In these days no man of genius need starve. The following story of my friend Bruce may be taken as proof of this assertion. Nearly sixty when I first knew him, he must have written already some fifteen books, which had earned him the reputation of ‘a genius’ with the few who know. He used to live in York Street, Adelphi, where he had two rooms up the very shaky staircase of a house chiefly remarkable for the fact that its front door seemed always open. I suppose there never was a writer more indifferent to what people thought of him. He profoundly neglected the Press--not with one of those neglects which grow on writers from reading reviews of their own works--he seemed never to read criticism, but with the basic neglect of ‘an original,’ a nomadic spirit, a stranger in modern civilisation, who would leave his attics for long months of wandering and come back there to hibernate and write a book. He was a tall, thin man, with a face rather like Mark Twain’s, black eyebrows which bristled and shot up, a bitten, drooping grey moustache, and fuzzy grey hair; but his eyes were like owl’s eyes, piercing, melancholy, dark brown, and gave to his rugged face the extraordinary expression of a spirit remote from the flesh which had captured it. He was a bachelor, who seemed to avoid women; perhaps they had ‘learned’ him that; for he must have been very attractive to them.

The year of which I write had been to my friend Bruce the devil, monetarily speaking. With his passion for writing that for which his age had no taste--what could he expect? His last book had been a complete frost. He had undergone, too, an operation which had cost him much money and left him very weak. When I went to see him that October I found him stretched out on two chairs, smoking the Brazilian cigarettes which he affected--and which always affected me, so black and strong they were, in their yellow maize-leaf coverings. He had a writing-pad on his knee, and sheets of paper scattered all around. The room had a very meagre look. I had not seen him for a year and more, but he looked up at me as if I’d been in yesterday.

“Hallo!” he said. “I went into a thing they call a cinema last night. Have you ever been?”

“Ever been? Do you know how long the cinema has been going? Since about 1900.”

“Well! What a _thing_! I’m writing a skit on it!”

“How--a skit?”

“Parody--wildest yarn you ever read.”

He took up a sheet of paper and began chuckling to himself.

“My heroine,” he said, “is an Octoroon. Her eyes swim, and her lovely bosom heaves. Everybody wants her, and she’s more virtuous than words can say. The situations she doesn’t succumb to would freeze your blood; they’d roast your marrow. She has a perfect devil of a brother, with whom she was brought up, and who knows her deep dark secret and wants to trade her off to a millionaire who also has a deep dark secret. Altogether there are four deep dark secrets in my yarn. It’s a corker.”

“What a waste of your time!” I said.

“My time!” he answered fiercely. “What’s the use of my time? Nobody buys my books.”

“Who’s attending you?”

“Doctors! They take your money, that’s all. I’ve got no money. Don’t talk about me!” Again he took up a sheet of manuscript; and chuckled.

“Last night--at that place--they had--good God!--a race between a train and a motor-car. Well, I’ve got one between a train, a motor-car, a flying machine, and a horse.”

I sat up.