CHAPTER IV
“Why didn’t you turn up last night?” demanded Zoe Dene-Cresswell, stepping in and out of her tiny kitchen in a whirlwind effort to prepare dinner for Pinto, keep “Quelle Vie,” the King Charles spaniel, from the sitting-room cushions, entertain Antonia Verity with an account of her latest incredible adventure, and illustrate how she would play her new part for the Andrea Film Co. There was some reason—connected with the King Charles, or perhaps with keeping the draught from the stove, or was it an amorous Italian gas-fitter who was not to know she was at home?—which rendered it imperative that doors should be perpetually opened and shut as she dashed from room to room; and as there were more doors than sanity could find reason for in the fourth floor flat in Soho, Deb was inhospitably received by a gale of three separate slams, and was compelled to make an informal entrance through the bedroom. All the rooms led into one another, like a flat in farce; and, like a flat in farce, the frequent cupboard doors were constructed sufficiently like the others to trap a headlong fugitive into enforced concealment; and most parts of the wall disconcertingly flew open at a touch.
“It’s all right, Zoe—only Deb,” Antonia called into the kitchen.
“What did you do with Cliffe last night?” Zoe piped shrilly. “Such a perfectly awful thing happened here—I must tell you——”
“We stayed on at Seaview, and only came up this morning—down, Quelle Vie!—Zoe, she’s eating the radishes!”
“Shove her into the bathroom,” indistinctly from Zoe, enveloped in a cloud of steam. “My dear, a simply awful thing—I was just telling Antonia——”
“Here, you bulgy-eyed little brute——”
With a squeal Zoe darted out of the kitchen mists and stopped Deb and the spaniel at the very threshold of the bathroom.
“Come away—I forgot. Benvenuto’s in there—little Carlo from the ‘Napoli’—you know. He’s having a bath.”
“Why?”
“How should I know why?—he looked fairly all right from the top—but the poor little fellow begged me with the tears in his eyes—he hasn’t got one in his flat—and they’re so particular at the Napoli—I couldn’t refuse him, could I, Deb? He might lose his job. Besides, he’s such a little gentleman at heart—listen to him splashing so that he shouldn’t have to hear what I’m saying? I like that, don’t you, Deb? It shows nice feeling. And of course, he couldn’t lock the door because it doesn’t lock. You might have walked right in and how would he have felt then? The landlord never left me the key, and I can’t ask him for special favours because he’s so crazy about me he might take advantage—common little sand-worm—I was just telling Antonia——”
“I would hardly call it a special favour to ask for the key of your bathroom door.” Antonia’s voice, soft and amused, dropped like cool respite into Zoe’s loud insistent gabble.
Zoe’s conversational ability was a Juggernaut to her friends; it rolled on and on, destroying in its eternal passage those rash victims who hurled themselves beneath the wheels. Nothing could stop its course, not night nor anguish, nor the kettle boiling over, nor the tailor’s family doing murder on the landing below. It could not be ignored, nor suffered as accompaniment to other deeds. It claimed hypnotized attention, and by a perpetual insertion of “didn’t I?” “well, don’t you agree?” “What do you think?” exacted response, and exacting, passed over and crushed it.
And yet she was such a jolly little person, with a wide-eyed tip-tilted air of a seraphim just introduced into the Café Royal and anxious to get the hang of the place; tumbled silvery curls; and sleeves now rolled up to show a plump allure of forearm and elbow.
“Pinto is coming to supper, we’ve got to make up a quarrel, which means that he’ll throw the furniture about, especially if his crab salad isn’t just right, so I simply can’t come in and talk to you, girls, but I can hear you quite well, so do go on telling about Cliffe, Deb; was he almost human? I mean, did he make love to you? don’t say he did ... I like having Cliffe about the flat to remind myself that a man exists who can walk, breathe and eat and wash himself quite nicely, likeother men—and yet not want to kiss me. He doesn’t, you know—it’s so funny, isn’t it, Antonia? It never seems to strike him. I’ve sat on the arm of his chair and pouted at him, and stroked his head, and told him how lonely and miserable I was, and how Pinto had left me for good and it’s so hard for a girl alone, and I’ve rubbed off all the lip salve because he doesn’t like it, and drawn his attention to the fact—and still it doesn’t seem to strike him. Sometimes I wonder if something is broken inside him—No, I don’t mean ‘Wear one of Our Belts and lift the Grand Piano’ sort of thing—I meant a kind of moral spring. Because even the post-office man round the corner—it’s perfectly awful—he’s simply crazy about me, and I don’t know what to do, because one must have stamps, mustn’t one? I never dreamt he felt like that about me till yesterday when I went in to phone, and he pretended the penny-box was out of order, and came in to help me, and—well, there I was in the dark alone with him, and he was whispering in one ear about every part of me separately—really appreciative, I must say—and Timothy Fawcett bawling ‘Hello’ from the other end into my right ear—What was I to do? I didn’t know men were like that, did you, Deb?”
“There was no marked change for the worse in Cliffe’s behaviour,” Deb replied to Zoe’s question of ten minutes ago. “In fact, it was depressingly like spending the night with one’s great-aunt. He sent me up to bed at a quarter to ten, and then went for a short walk in the rain——”
“Wrestling with his evil passions, I hope—oh, Deb, do say he was wrestling, and that his better self prevailed in the end.”
“It must have, because I saw no more of him till he banged at my door with a morning carol, and no hot water. And I didn’t know men were likethat, did you, Zoe?...”
Antonia said: “Cliffe will revise the episode, bind it, and illustrate it, with a preface, and additional notes, and alterations in the original text——”
“Oh, I’m prepared to meet it again, looking like Ophelia dressed by Paquin for the mad-scene. He’ll boom it for a fortnight, and then forget it. Cliffe never bothers to prop up his lies, once he’s tired of them; he lets them crawl about and go bad.”
“And then sometimes he remembers, and picks them up again in a very enfeebled condition, and coaxes them to take a little nourishment.”
“What I want to know,” Zoe clattered in with an assortment of plates, knives and forks, “is how much he believes in them himself?”
Antonia expressed her opinion that he believed in them altogether; was possessed of an illimitable imagination which did not timidly boggle at fact or possibility, but soared in ascending spirals of ecstasy to a heaven wherein as he spoke them all thingswere.
“Well, what I say is that it’s all very well when he’s just creating people that don’t exist, to fill a gap in the conversation, or to point a moral, or draw attention to himself. But he’s dangerous when he prods about for material about his friends. The things he’s said aboutme....”
“Oh,you, Zoe!” Antonia affectionately ruffled the other girl’s hair. “You outstep even Cliffe’s genius! Have the good people on these premises been warned about the curse you bring?”
For Zoe carried about with her an atmosphere of sensational happenings—police-court happenings. When she moved into new quarters, they were bound presently to be the scene of a murder with some novel attendant features; or a burglary on a particularly large scale; or a police-raid would reveal the premises to be a house of lurid ill-fame; or a criminal would be found taking refuge.... And in all these violent happenings, Zoe, wide-eyed as ever and volubly innocent, somehow contrived to take the stage as a central figure; she it was who all unsuspecting had inspired the Polish barrow-vendor with the passion which had aroused his wife’s homicidal frenzy; she who had detained the master-burglar—God only knows how!—while the police were being stealthily summoned; she whom the procureuse on the first floor had essayed to tempt into white slavery.... “My dear, she thought I was only seventeen and knewnothing!” and afterwards testified the same to a genial and admiring magistrate; she in whose flat the criminal was discovered in hiding—“poor fellow—you simply should have seen how he looked at me!”
So, like a Banshee visiting a parvenu Irish family who didn’t even know they had one, Zoe was now dwelling above a gradation of Jewish tailors—a tailor and his family to each floor—all in feud with one another. Cliffe Kennedy foretold an imminent pogrom as being novel and appropriate to her present surroundings. Zoe’s subsequent description of eventswere always a delight to her audiences—and to herself; for though she pretended to extreme indignation at her victimage, yet no doubt but that her vanity was elated at being so conspicuously selected for the limelight.
It was during these narratives, animated by a complete pantomime of imitation, that a quality in Zoe which usually puzzled by its intangibility was washed broadly to the surface—a quality of eighteenth-century coarse heartiness, a fleshy stridency recalling the pictures of Hogarth....
Zoe read mostly of the Smollett, Fielding, Richardson and Sterne period. She had an odd liking for Dr Johnson and also for Dan Chaucer. The latter’s robust sensuality appealed to her. Though she often aped the loveable baby, she was a shrewd little body, well qualified to look after herself and to deal with her swarming adorers, of whom at least half as many existed in reality as in her rollicking fancy. Competent, too, at cooking and housekeeping—Pinto had seen to that.
Pinto was a bad-tempered and highly respectable Portuguese gentleman of means, who was engaged to marry Zoe. They had been engaged four years already, and although Zoe did not allow his formal proprietorship to interfere with her more enjoyable activities, yet the inexplicable freak of her love for Pinto admitted of no contradiction. He bullied her, and she was abject; he sulked, and she wooed him with succulent dishes; he shouted at her, and she was silent; he had toothache, and she wept. Her life was a perpetual scamper to clear her premises of their illegitimate riff-raff before the arrival of Pinto; for she was essentially “bonne gosse,” and could no more have refused one man her kiss, and another her company, than now her bathroom to Benvenuto the oboe-player.
Pinto was not a favourite among Zoe’s friends; and hearing that he was momentarily expected, Deb and Antonia rose to go.
“Come any time you like to spend a night here, Deb, to make up for yesterday. I love to have you, and you know the sofa is comfy enough. Antonia, you look such a darling in your khaki, I’ve half a mind to throw up the movies and become a General’s chauffeuse myself. I’m sure the dear old doddery thing would simply adore me, don’t you think he would? I could perch on his knee and pull his whiskers when I wasn’t driving him to Headquarters. I’ve really thought lately ofdoing war-work, haven’t you, Deb? I know someone who said he could get me a job at the Admiralty.”
“Heaven forbid!” Antonia cried in horror; “Do remember that as a nation we rely above all on our command of the seas. To have the Admiralty demoralized into Palais Royale burlesque of banging doors and everybody helter-skelter after everybody else.... Prove your patriotism and stop where you are, Zoe! it’s safer. And I won’t have my Major-General tampered with either,” she added demurely; “He’s not much over forty and very good-looking.”
Zoe sighed: “You are lucky; there’s nothing you couldn’t do with that irresistible peak to your cap.... But I really should be sorry to chuck up the part I’m rehearsing; it’s a tremendously fascinating plot, and so simple. I must tell you: The boyish hero Jim falls in love with Dolores, a wild Spanish-gipsy sort of woman much older than he is, and marries her. She gets tired of him, and runs away with something débonair called Raoul, and they have a child, and Dolores dies. Seventeen years later Jim meets the child and adopts her and loves her and marries her—andshegets tired of him, and runs away with something débonair called Réné, andtheyhave a child, and then get killed in a circus. Years later Jim meets the child and adopts her, loves her and marries her, andshegets tired of him, ... it goes on like that for generations, until dear old Jim gets a little silver-powdery at the temples, but even that doesn’t seem to stop him. I play the child each time.”
“And always the same Jim? The film ought to be called ‘The Recurring Decimal,’” laughed Deb. “We must go and see it when it comes on. ’Bye, Zoe, I hear Pinto’s step on the ground-floor, and Benvenuto’s bath-water running away.”
Zoe flew to smother the incriminating oboe-player; and Deb, and Antonia departed. On the dark stairs they encountered Pinto, puffing noisily, and carrying a large jar of olives.
“She will be pleased with the olives,” Pinto complacently informed himself. Then he tripped over a basin of some peculiarly odorous fish soaking in water, which the First Tailor’s children had left on the landing. His temper changed.
“She will be overjoyed—it may be she thought I had lefther for always. Now I return and I bring her olives. It is good of me....”
Zoe did not care for olives, but Pinto had overlooked this fact. He happened to have a taste for them himself....
A black figure shot past him and downstairs as though discharged from a catapult. It was Benvenuto the oboe-player.
On the next landing, the children of the Second Tailor came out and drove a hoop at Pinto’s legs, under the impression that he was a kind gentleman. He disabused them of the notion, and scowling heavily and panting more than ever, toiled on. It was deepest ingratitude on the part of Zoe to live on the fourth floor.
The children of the Third Tailor merely blocked his way, snuffling heavily. Their sombre eyes and unspoken speech was that of Maeterlinckian drama: “We have seen him before....” “We have seen him a great many times....” “He is seeking the princess in the tower-room....” “What is that he holds in his hand—I cannot tell—it is so dark....” “Hush—draw closer....”
Pinto had now reached the topmost flat, and handing Zoe the olives, coldly awaited her answering burst of enthusiasm. Unfortunately he had so often reprimanded her for displays of undue effervescence, that Zoe limited her gratitude to a meek “Thank you very much, Pinto.”
Pinto was aggrieved. He shrugged his shoulders—demanded his dinner; reproved Zoe for having her sleeves tucked up—(“You look like an ill-bred cook!”)—commented unfavourably on the sort of household which lacked a corkscrew—(“When I take trouble to bring you a jar of olives!”)—and finally broke the news that he was going to Paris on business for a month.
Zoe, smarting under the charge of a lack of feeling, flung herself into Pinto’s arms, wailing aloud her grief; he was horribly jarred by her piteous want of control, but shutting his eyes, suffered it uncomplainingly for a moment; then condescendingly pulled her ear, and remarked that he expected her behaviour during his absence to be circumspect, discreet and loyal.
Zoe promised.
“Coming home with me for dinner, Deb?”
“Yes. Antonia——”
“Well?” They had walked along in silence for a little while, after quitting Zoe’s flat.
“You’re thinking that I ought not to have stayed down at Seaview with Cliffe.”
“Why should you suppose I’m a prig who can’t mind her own business, Deb?”
“There was no harm in it,” Deb pleaded, as though Antonia had condemned her.
“That’s just it”—slowly. Then: “No, Deb, don’t make me—please——”
“I know. I know. The same whatever I do. No harm in it, but you wouldn’t have done it yourself.”
“Not with Cliffe.”
Deb assented in anxious self-defence: “One might as well be staying under the roof of a nice old lady.”
“Then—is it worth breaking the rules for—that?”
“You believe in rules. I don’t. I’m a rebel.”
“Half a rebel. Or you wouldn’t be justifying yourself quite so hotly.”
“And you’re wholly a saint!” Deb flared, rather unreasonably, as she had pushed the other girl to attack.
“Because I don’t stay under the roof of nice old ladies? It’s futile. When two people care like Gillian and Theo——” she stopped short, as though she had not meant to let slip the names.
“I’m always hearing of Gillian and Theo. Are they married?”
“No. Theo Pandos has got a wife somewhere. He’s a Greek. Clever—but a cad.”
“And Gillian Sherwood is a celebrity, isn’t she?”
“In her own line she’s supposed to be unique. Bacteriology.... She did a rather wonderful piece of research, and all the hoary professors of science and medicine bent before her and kowtowed. It’s a shame she should squander herself on Theo, just as it’s a shame——” Passionately she renewed her attack on Deb: “You’ve betrayed us all.... Cliffe will suppose that any girl—I—Ihatehim to think so. Why can’t you run away from them—instead of towards them?”
“I don’t,” whispered Deb piteously. “I stop where I am.”
“Then—run!” with an imperious stamp of the strapped and booted foot. “You little Oriental!”
“As if they were our natural enemies? perpetual hunters? It seems so silly and self-conscious.” Nevertheless she recognized Antonia’s spirit poised for flight, and applauded it—the spirit of a juvenile athlete.... It really had been a proceeding rather without purpose, to remain at Seaview. Antonia never did things without purpose. “I love you in gauntlets and puttees, Antonia.”
The General’s chaffeuse laughed at the flattery. “By the way, did Zoe say Timothy had been ’phoning her?”
“Little Tim Fawcett? Yes, I believe she mentioned him—it was rather swamped in a lurid story about a post-office clerk.”
“Take on Timothy—yes, you. I’m not keen on Zoe’s influence there. He’s such a serious baby, and he’ll idealize her.”
“He might also idealize me. Besides, I’m not going to ‘take on’ anybody. You’ve just been bullying me about it. My soul henceforth shall pace apart among narrow aisles of lilies——”
“Tiger-lilies?”
They were at the door of the house in St John’s Wood now. The maid admitted them, and Antonia, passing her, called out: “Come straight through into the studio, Deb.”
“Please, Miss Antonia, Miss Sherwood is there, waiting for you.”
“Gillian!” Antonia stopped short. She looked at the maid—then at Deb. A variety of baffling expressions flitted across her face.... “Has she been there long?”
“Oh yes, Miss, nearly an hour.” The maid disappeared.
“I’m so glad—I wanted to meet her.” Deb was frankly eager for the long-deferred encounter ... but Antonia was behaving strangely; standing rigid and immobile, her slender eyebrows contracted as in some desperate effort to rally a final expedient against fate. With a little sigh she let her clenched hands fall open in surrender....
“Come along,” and moved towards the passage which led down the garden towards the studio.
The large sky-lit spaces were empty. A scrawled note lay on the box of oil-tubes: “Sorry—couldn’t wait any longer. Come on Tuesday evening if you can. G.M.S.” Antonia readaloud. The suspended colour had flooded back to her face drowning it in carmine. She crumpled the paper into a ball and flung it towards the waste-paper basket. Her aim just missed.
“Take off your hat, Deb,” she cried cheerfully.
“Let’s see the celebrity’s handwriting.” Deb picked up Gillian’s note and read: “Sorry, couldn’t wait any longer. Come on Tuesday evening if you can, and bring Deb Marcus. Cliffe says I’d like her. G.M.S.”
“Antonia!”
“Yes?” Antonia’s back was turned. She was apparently absorbed in scraping a palette.
“Why did you—Antonia, I want to know Gillian Sherwood. Why won’t you let me?”
“And the good angel and the bad shall fight together for this man’s soul,” murmured Antonia. Then she dropped the palette, and faced round, all her delicate pearliness broken up to passion—the passion of the earnest priestess for a convert in danger: “Yes, you’re right, Deb—Ihavebeen working to keep you and Gillian apart, now, and before now, and I’ve not given in yet. Accident has backed me up this time.”
“But why? Antonia—why? Not just jealousy?”
“No, child—not just jealousy. But Gillian Sherwood is on her way to do what you must be prevented from doing. And I don’t trust her influence. If Jill cares for Theo, and gives herself to Theo—it’s a splendid person thrown away, but not frittered away. But you,” scornfully, “you’d be all over the place—once you started. You shan’t start.”
Again Deb asked “Why?”
Antonia flashed her a smile which was a radiant appeal to good comradeship: “Because ... you’re such a little goose!”