Almost, now, at the eleventh hour, Letty said “Lovell,” and spoilt everything....
“Sebastian Levi,” in a whisper.
“Sebastian——? I beg your pardon, I didn’t catch it?”
Desperately, Letty repeated “Levi,” in tones that nervousness had rendered far louder and more resonant than she had intended them.
Still showing her teeth, though the brightness had departed from her smile, the Editress added “Levi.” Then put down the pencil.
“Forgive me, but does that strike you as a very attractive pseudonym? Have you a special reason?”
“It was my mother’s name—before she married——.”Letty felt the eyes of My Girls, that terrible army of girls taking in “Silver Chimes” regularly every Tuesday, fixed upon her in scornful disapproval. Their imaginary stare quite obliterated all conscientious pangs concerning Mrs. Johnson, who, despite broadmindedness, might quite conceivably have resented being thus publicly branded an Israelite.
Miss Symes made an ineffectual effort to convert Letty to “Beryl Hope Feversham,” invented by herself for the next “Silver Chimes” contributor in search of a pleasant soundingnom-de-plume. But Letty clung to the thought of Sebastian’s ecstasy, seeing his name above the published novelette, and remained obdurate.
“To Test Her Love,” by Sebastian Levi, was to be published three weeks hence; November the twenty-second fixed as the important date.
And on Tuesday, November the twenty-second, Letty dashed down the road before breakfast, to the little newspaper shop at the corner, and bought three copies of the journal in the bright mauve cover, wreathed about with silver bells swung in diverse directions by a fantastic wind; in and out of the bells were threaded the words: “To Test Her Love,” by Sebastian Levi; in the centre of the page was inset a medallion, containing presentments of Geoffrey with blazing eyes confronting Mavice with bowed head, who was supported by a malignant Jasper; Cyril skulking on the extreme left of the picture, and Esmée de Courcy triumphant on the extreme right. Beneath this pleasing illustration stood the letter-press: “Mavice! speak! Are you indeed engaged to him, or shall I strike him down as a liar?” (see page 23).
Letty bore her treasures home, secreted in her muff; Sebastian was to be the first to see; she had arranged to meet him for a walk and tea that very afternoon. But one copy of “Silver Chimes” she slipped into anenvelope, sought a name among the h’s in the telephone book, addressed the envelope to: “Stuart Heron, Esq., Heron, Heron & Carr, High Holborn,” and posted it forthwith. She knew the beautiful friendship which existed between the two men,—“like me and Violet, before she turned so horrid—oh well, I s’pose she’s miserable, and can’t help it, but still,”—knew also that when Sebastian was shown the current issue of “Silver Chimes” his first thought would be to exhibit it to Stuart, just as his first disappointment when the book was refused, was on Stuart’s account. Letty wanted to be able to state she had forestalled him—“Mr. Heron is perhaps reading it now, this very minute,—and oh, Sebastian! what do you think he’ll say?”
Her day passed in a dreamy mauve-hued blur, with a clangour of bells in the air. At four o’clock Letty donned her new winter costume of royal-blue velveteen, her golden fox-furs, and a blue plush picture-hat; and again with something tightly clasped inside her muff, almost danced out of the house into the drizzling gloam beyond. Sebastian was waiting for her where the No. 9 ’buses stop on their way to Richmond. His plan was to walk across the Park, and have a late tea at some window overlooking the pale mist-sodden river. Letty would have preferred a cosier programme; she assented, reluctantly, to the top of the ’bus, “if you promise to keep the umbrella held over my hat, Sebastian,”—but cancelled the walk across Richmond Park: “Horrid, in the dark, with the leaves all messy and slippery, and the trees likeghosts——”
—“And the world smelling damp, and reeking damp, and dripping damp, and we the only people warm in it! Why, Letty, you’d enjoy it!”
“But we shouldn’t be warm.”
“We would, if I held you close enough; Letty....”
“But my shoes!” she showed him her footgear, to prove the impossibility of his proposals. All this under thepallid stream of light from the lamp-post, at the corner where they lingered for their ’bus.
“Will I never teach you not to wear pneumonia-soles, you little vanity-child?” sighed Sebastian. But the lifted folds of the skirt had afforded a pleasant glimpse, nevertheless; and he wished he could afford the privacy of a taxi, that he might caress her rounded slenderness at will. It was noble, but inconvenient, to be forever short of cash. However, they were the only passengers on the outside of their lurching chariot; and afterwards the only two in the snug brightly lit tea-room which formed one of a labyrinthine cluster underground, each holding four rose-tiled tables, and a rose-gowned waitress. The latter took Sebastian’s order, and vanished.
“Now...” thought Letty—and produced “Silver Chimes.” Without a word of comment, so fraught was the moment with tense expectation, she pushed the copy across the table. Sebastian picked it up, wondering, and read aloud: “‘To Test Her Love,’ bySebastian Levi...? Why, w-w-what on earth——?” he stammered. His eye fell on the illustration; then in silent bewilderment he flicked over a few of the pages. Letty watched him, her fingers curled tightly round the edge of the table. The lines of his mouth hardened. He spoke harshly:
“Is it a joke? Who put my name to this drivel?”
And the dancing joy in her eyes was quenched in a rush of tears. As before from anticipation, so now from disappointment, she remained mute.
“Answer me, Letty? Who put my name to this?”
“I did,” almost inaudibly.... But why was he so cross? Was it that his integrity recoiled from the notion of claiming credit for work not his own? Yes, it must be that. For the moment, she had forgotten his use of the term: drivel.
“But itisyours, really and truly, Sebastian. Theidea is yours, all about the Test, and pretending not to be rich, and everything. I’d never have thought of it. I only did the writing part because—because you were so busy with your book. But it’s quite, quite fair that your name should be on the cover.”
“You wrote this?”
“Yes.” A tinge of pride in her assent. Had not the Editress said the tale was good? “Yes, indeed I did. Are you surprised?”
(Or was he already beginning to think her unwomanly?)
The waitress appeared with the tea-things, which she rattled down on the table. Sebastian buried himself anew in the histories of Geoffrey and Mavice, while Letty poured out the tea, and nibbled at a cress sandwich; furtively gleaming at him from under her eyelashes.
“Aren’t you hungry, Sebastian?”
He made no reply; went on reading. He had as a boy devoured a great many “penny dreadfuls” of the blood-and-thunder type; but this was his first experience of girls’ cheap sentimental fiction. It was a revelation. Now he understood one or two curious ingredients which had hitherto always puzzled him in the composition of Letty.—But what did she mean by saying that his was the original idea of Lord Geoffrey Challoner’s utterly inane proceedings? Then, slowly, that dawned on him as well. He shoved aside “Silver Chimes,” so that it fell on the dusty floor.
“Letty, did you think it was by way of a test, a test of you, that I gave up my income?”
“Wasn’t it?”
“My God, no!”
“Thenwhy——”
“You wouldn’t understand why,” grimly; “it won’t translate into novelette terms.”
Letty stretched out her hand for a cream-cake, pinkand chocolate. It fell from her shaking fingers on to her skirt. She gazed hopelessly at the stain. It was all of a piece with this hateful afternoon, to spoil every one of her illusions, and her new costume into the bargain.
“I expect my hat’s all spotted by the rain, too,” she reflected dreamily. And he had called her story “drivel.”... With a quick spurt of anger at his lofty denunciation, Letty cried:
“The Editress said I had the sincere touch, so there!”
He saw how he had hurt her, and was sorry; but felt at the same time the futility of attempting to explain the cause of his annoyance.
“Oh, well—eat up your cakes, dear; I don’t suppose anyone who matters will ever buy this particular rag. Lord, though,” half under his breath, “if Stuart had seen it!”
“I sent him a copy this morning,” Letty threw out defiantly. She was in the naughty mood of a child, who, seeking to please most, has somehow only earned a scolding, and is in consequence rightly sore and resentful.
... In the ghastly silence which followed her announcement, another party entered the room, and noisily disposed themselves at the adjoining table. The waitress entered to take their order, and Sebastian beckoned her to bring him his bill. The homeward journey was accomplished by train, in a moist overfull compartment, where Sebastian had to give up his seat to a lady, and Letty sat huddled in a corner, frightened at the dire effect of her action, and repeating to herself again and again: “I don’t care; he’s hateful; I don’t care a bit.”
Still without a word, beyond a brief “good night,” he left her at the gate of Town House, and set out for Carlton House Terrace. He had little doubt as to what sort of a ribald reception awaited him there. Not much mercy to be expected from Stuart. All Sebastian’s mostsensitive portions were already screaming and wincing in protest. He had so desired to present Stuart with a dignified bound volume, setting forth in fervent but lucid phrasing, an abstract ideal,—and now, instead, this unspeakable novelette! The incident was grotesque; it had degraded to farce all his high aspirations. It was no good shirking his visit; the matter had to be explained. Sebastian walked ever faster, in mingled exasperation and dread. Arrived at his destination, he was shown into the drawing-room, where Mrs. Heron, Stuart, Mr. Arthur Heron, and a pretty flapper in white, whom he had met once before at the house, were assembled, before dinner. Stuart was lounging in front of the fire-place, and evidently engaged in chaffing the child, when Sebastian was announced.
—“You see, Babs, by your passionate public assertions that I was your idea of a perfect gentleman, you very definitely proved yourself no lady. One isn’t passionate, in society. I really don’t know, after this, what we can do with you! what do you think, mother?... Hullo, Levi!” he bestowed on the new-comer a slow fiendish smile that confirmed Sebastian’s worst anticipations. Babs at once enlisted his sympathies in her cause:
“Mr. Levi, I heard someone, at a party, saying a horrid thing about Stuart; and of course I stuck up for him. And now he says I’ve committed a breach of etiquette, and the Queen, when she gets to hear of it, will strike my name from the presentation lists, the year after next.Dosay it isn’t true!”
“My dear, you really ought to be accustomed by now to your cousin’s teasing.—You’ll dine with us, of course, Mr. Levi?” Mrs. Heron extended a thin ringed hand, smiling graciously. She looked very handsome, in her low-necked black gown, and her single row of wonderful pearls.
“I’m afraid it’s impossible.” Sebastian longed forthese invitations, but invariably, by some perverse twitch of the nerves, refused them when they came. He and Stuart went into the latter’s study. Conspicuous on the table lay a booklet bound in a mauve paper cover, wreathed about with silver bells.
“I haven’t quite finished your story yet,” said Stuart, caressing it lovingly; “it has made me a very happy man, Levi!”
“And me a deuced miserable one,” growled Sebastian, flinging himself into an arm-chair.
“That, my lad, is because you have caused Esmée de Courcy to appear at noon, in Regent Street, wearing adécolletéetoilet of yellow sequins. Such riotous rollicking literary excesses are bound to result in your present reaction of soul.”
“Oh, shut up!” miserably. Stuart was sitting on the table, the novelette on his knees. Leaning forward, Sebastian snatched it away, and flung it into the fire.
“There are thousands more on the market,” chortled Stuart; “I intend to forward a copy to Magdalen; for an original exploit of one of Oxford’s sons, I think it deserves to stand in the College chronicles.”
Sebastian writhed. “Don’t be indecent, Heron,” in a feeble appeal to the other’s better nature. An appeal totally unfruitful of results.
“Surely, Levi, you didn’t send me your masterpiece in the erroneous supposition that I would take it up tenderly and treat it with care?”
“I didn’t send it to you at all.”
“No, I guessed you hadn’t sufficient guts for that! Whom have I to thank, then, for my moments of rich ripe pleasure?”
“Letty.”
“God bless Letty. Did she write it, by the way?”
“You—youdidn’tthink I wrote it, did you? Heron, you didn’t?” Sebastian’s dark mournful eyes implored satisfaction on this one point, at least.
“As a matter of fact, it’s not at all unlike your style.”
“What the Hell do you mean by that?” Sebastian sprang to his feet, knocking his shins against the brass coal-box. “Mybook——”
—“Is no book, any more than Letty’s maiden effort is a book. They’re both—what shall I call ’em?—Gory Exhibitions!” And having his victim completely down and at his mercy, Stuart proceeded forthwith to pummel him; showing thereby—despite Babs’ defence—a most lamentable lack of all gentlemanly instincts. But he had not forgiven his disciple for butchering his ideas; nor for sickening him with his own creed, as had been the case ever since Sebastian’s over-enthusiastic conversion.
—“You both write in blood, instead of in ink; upon my word, your style is like a pirate’s oath. No attempt at restraint or form. Form’s everything—colour nothing. One should write from the vantage-point of a god,—at least of a judge; aloof, impersonal, detached. But you take a bath every time, in what you’re pleased to call your inspiration: wallow, and splash, and breathe heavily, and yelp in your ecstasies, and wriggle in your agonies, all over the pages. I even suspect you of putting things down for the ‘sheer joy’ of unburdening yourself. And there we have the greatest evil. A book should be thought, crystallized into truth, hard as rock, stripped of all extraneous fungus, and with some clear purpose to serve in publication, whether of good or evil. But if you must have your attacks of luxurious hysteria,—for Heaven’s sake, man, keep ’em private. Suppress them. Suppress the ‘Sprawls of Sebastian’—‘Sebastian Spills Himself,’ as the stuff shouts to be called.”
“You needn’t worry any further,” Sebastian said, with very stiff lips, and a weary battered bewilderment as to what he had done, that ever since a certain nightof August he should be exposed to these onslaughts; “because the book’s been refused.”
“Excellent!”
“And it was for you—not at all for the ‘sheer joy of unburdening,’—just for you....” But Sebastian kept these reflections to himself. And Stuart continued consolingly:
“But Letty’s story is no better than yours, for all that; it’s equally highly coloured and shapeless, but in a more marketable key.”
“Thank you.”
“Dear old man, don’t gaze at me as if I had you on the rack. I’m trying to help you. I suppose you’ve behaved like a brute to the little girl, over this business?”
“I’m going to break with her, that’s all!” suddenly Sebastian recovered from the temporary paralysis of speech, and, striding about the room, vehemently poured forth his determination: “Yes, I am. We’re not made for each other. She doesn’t understand—anything. And I get hopeless over stupidity; it numbs me. She shouldn’t have done this thing and even now she can’t see why. She doesn’t see why I gave up living at home—nor why the book meant so much to me. It won’t do—it would never do—it must end now, now!... I’m like you, Heron, I must be free of everything, especially of love, the warm, clinging, hampering fingers of love; I’m growing more and more likeyou——”
“Nonsense; you can’t possibly grow like me, because I’m not there; not permanently. You can grow like your father, or the Albert Memorial, anything fixed and solid,—but you can’t grow like the spot where I stood a minute ago before I began to run.”
“I’m going to break with Letty,” Sebastian repeated doggedly.
“And you think you’re doing a fine thing by it?”Stuart twisted round on the table, and scornfully eyed his young prototype. “It’s rather easy, isn’t it, to break off with love because just at this moment you happen to be fed up with it. There’s no merit in that,—merely self-indulgence again. But try breaking-off with love when you want it most, when it’s fairest, most devilishly alive. Try breaking off, not because you’re annoyed with the girl, childishly pettishly annoyed,—but for the sake of keeping love unsated, and the memory of love like a sword-blade. Break off with love, because self-denial maintaineth the soul lean, and whetteth desire, and—oh, because if you can do that, and also guard your tongue from overmuch cursing when directly afterwards a smug couple dog your footsteps wherever you walk, and perform for your benefit,—then there’s very little else can affect you, ever. You’re master, then. At the height is the time to break with any credit, my lad, not half-way down the slope.”
Sebastian broke in: “But that’s cruel—inhuman—as a god might behave. No man alive would do it.” His heart was beating thickly; he could not tell why.
“Think not?” Stuart rose, stood against the chimney-piece, dropping the ash of his cigarette into the fire. And he said slowly: “I never told you about Peter, did I?”...
Sebastian stormed out of the room, down the stairs, into the hall. The dinner-gong was drowning the house in sound. The postman had just thundered at the door. Sebastian wanted to get away—away from this new brutality of idea which terrified him because he knew it would ultimately overtake him. It was revolting ... revolting, he repeated, smashing behind him the iron gates of the drive,—this deliberate murder of love to which Stuart had just confessed. Revolting in the same way as would have been the sight of a monkengaged in self-laceration. There was nothing splendid about it,—no, nothing at all! between clenched teeth Sebastian thus informed the wet glittering pavements.
And he was going back to Letty, straight back, driven by the fear of what he might have been induced to do to her ... if he were not quite determined to the contrary.
Back to Letty. The Johnsons’ maid, opening the door to him, said: “Miss Letty’s just going to bed, sir, she’s not very well.”—And there she was, on the stairs, dragging her feet a little, as if tired out.
“Letty!”
She came down to him then, and laid her arms against his breast; and he bowed his head on to the soft warm skin of them, murmuring that he was sorry—sosorry——
“I hoped you’d be pleased, Sebastian. I thought you wanted to get into print. I did so hope you’d be pleased.”
“I’m a beast, Letty.—No, don’t move, darling—not for a minute—let me go on telling you—I’m a surly ungrateful brute ... but I loveyou——”
She raised her lips for his kiss.
Stuart, following Sebastian’s headlong rush from the room, reached the hall just as the heavy oak doors crashed behind his impetuous young devot. Shrugging his shoulders, the master of the house turned to enter the dining-room; the butler waylaid him, offering a letter on a silver tray:
“The post has just come in, sir.”
It seemed to Stuart that once before he had stood, as he stood now, with the echoes of the dinner-gong still vibrating through the hall, and in his hand an envelope, addressed in just this same thin pointed writing....He drew forth the white and silver of a wedding invitation:
“Madame Marcel des Essarts requests the pleasure of Mr. Stuart Heron’s company at the marriage of her granddaughter Merle with Jean Raoul Théodore, Comte de Cler, at St. George’s, Hanover Square, and afterwards at 63 Lancaster Gate.”
—So Merle was to be married. He had almost forgotten Merle; that exquisite little lady whom for a while he and Peter had taught to become a child and a pirate and a romp; whom they had crinkled out of serene composure into delicious laughter; whom they had dragged from an atmosphere of hothouse vigilance into the keen airs and fleet sweet liberty. Stuart speculated as to whether, after this lapse of time, aught remained in Merle of his influence. One spot rubbed forever bare of the polish, perhaps; one nerve that would always be restless; one memory that could just occasionally sting her from content. He would go to Merle’s wedding, if only to see what sort of a fellow was this Jean Raoul Théodore, Comte de Cler.—“Sure to be a stumor ...” it was a queer thing, but Stuart suspected most men to be stumors, who gathered up his litter of orange-peel.
“I wonder if I did her any good?”...
Mrs. Heron came out of the drawing-room, her hand on Arthur Heron’s arm; Babs following.
“Just think, Stuart: Merle des Essarts is going to be married.” They passed into the dining-room. “I’ve just had the invitation. I believe that Madame des Essarts and I are not on particularly good terms; she neither came to my last big At Home, nor answered the card, nor called afterwards. However.... This Comte de Cler is a most distinguished man. A diplomat. I know him slightly. Much older than the girl, of course; but such charming manners. Isn’t it suitable?”
She asked the question rather anxiously, not quite sure if the son of the house of Heron had not once himself deigned to cast an eye towards la maison des Essarts.
“Merle would be a delightful acquisition in the highest ambassadorial circles,” Stuart assented warmly.
But he still suspected Jean de Cler of being a stumor.
Luke was with Jinny at the cake-shop.
“Have another?” said Jinny.
He hesitated. It was her birthday, and she had been tipped, and was treating him. This would have seemed a natural proceeding a year ago, when he would have crammed himself to the utmost limits of her capital. But Luke was growing up; and though not sufficient of a man to forbid the lady to pay, was yet not sufficient of a boy unquestioningly to accept the fifth cream bun. Therefore he compromised with himself: he would ask her to state exactly her financial position; if it exceeded half a crown, he would eat that bun, and be damned to delicate considerations and social etiquette. But ifless—
“How much cash have you got, Jinny?”
“Four and six,” promptly; “half a crown from Uncle Will, and two bob from old Simmons. But of course you’ve already eaten some of that.”
“Well, and so’ve you.”
“I’ve only had three, three twopennies—that’s sixpence; you’ve had four.”
“The shortcake’s a penny.”
“Sevenpence, then. And a lemonade each. And two—three sticks of chocolate cream;” Jinny did rapid mental calculations—she was top of her form in arithmetic—and announced two and elevenpence as still remaining from her four and six, after expenses were deducted. Whereat Luke, much relieved, took hisfifth cake, satisfied that he had solved the difficulty in fashion befitting a man of the world.
“We’re going to invite you to our Christmas dinner,” he remarked, his mouth full.
“How topping! Who else?”
“The old Baker woman, and Vi. Balaam Atkins,—he’s mashed on Letty, you know. Granpa and Aunt Lou—Granpa’s good for a present, anyway. Oh, and your precious Tommy Cox!”
“Hurrah! He’s spiffing fun. Ever heard him imitate turkeys gobbling?”
“No, and I don’t want to. And I don’t suppose he’d find it difficult. He’s to be lugged in for Vi Baker; she’s supposed to have a broken heart, or some such tommy-rot——”
“And your mother thinks thatTommy’s rotwill cheer her up?” Jinny exploded into giggles at her own wit; “I say, Luke, did you hear? Isaid——”
“Oh, keep your hair on! I don’t want to hear it again.”
“Sour grapes! you wouldn’t have thought of it yourself. But won’t Letty’s fellow be there?”
“Sebastian? Oh, rather; didn’t I count him? I say,” Luke leant forward confidentially across the rickety green tin table, “you know how snarky Pater was about him? Well, two mornings ago he had a letter from old Levi—I heard him tell Mater about it—and ever since, he’s simply oiled himself all over Sebastian. And I believe he’s come to see him this afternoon.”
“Who’s come to see who, stupid?”
“Old Levi. He’s frightfully rich. Come to see Pater.”
“Then why isn’t Sebastian frightfully rich? Has he quarrelled with his dad?”
“Secret,” said Luke shortly. “Come along, let’s be off.”
“No—wait—tell me, Luke. Do. I won’t tell,honest Injun. You might, Luke, because it’s my birthday.”
“As if that was a reason,” scorning her femininity. “Besides, you’ll blab.”
“No, I won’t.” And she added: “You might tell me, Luke,—I’m paying for your tea.”
Luke was not offended; indeed, he thought she had put forth a fairly strong argument.
“Well, when he got sort of engaged to Letty, his Guv’nor was going to make him partner at the Stores, and start him on fifteen hundred quid a year.” He repeated the sum impressively. And Jinny gasped:
“My hat!”
“He’s chucked it,” finished Luke, still more impressively.
“Myhat! Whatever for?”
“Because he’s a Socialist.”
“What difference does that make?”
Luke embarked on an explanation of the first principles underlying the code of equality; threw in a few cutting sentences regarding the palpable unfairness of “one law for the rich and another for the poor”; and wound up by reading his companion a column from the current issue of “Mine and Yours.”
“But that’s all balmy bosh,” was Jinny’s comment.
“Isit?” huffily. “As it happens, I’m a Socialist myself.”
“Youare? Crumbs! Why?”
Luke fumbled in vain for words with which to express the queer gleam which had penetrated the murkiness of his schoolboy soul; soul hitherto stamped solely with football scores, surliness, and Jinny; with cheap cigarettes and brandyballs; canings, ink, and the “usual beastliness” of everything. Thereunto had lately to be added the astounding novelty of someone who sacrificed material advantages for the sake of an abstract idea; and the blended beauty and absurdityof the proceeding had uplifted Luke to a queer sense of gladness that such a miracle should actually take place within his ken; had even inspired him with an inarticulate desire to imitate ... somehow. His shyness had never permitted him to confide in Sebastian; otherwise he might have received another shock on hearing that in this case Socialism was not the motive of renunciation. Sebastian, for his part, might have found some difficulty in translating into Johnsonese the twisted asceticism of Stuart Heron.
But Luke only dogged in boorish silence his sister’s betrothed. And Sebastian thought his future brother-in-law rather an uncouth lad, with whom he could never have anything in common.
In the meantime, Luke realized the impossibility of laying before Jinny the wonder of a share-and-share-alike community, while she was very importantly calling for the bill, and clinking her coins on to the table; especially as he had absently overstepped his self-imposed limit, and eaten twopence off the half-crown.
“Come on!” cried Jinny, catching up her hockey-stick, and marching out of the shop. She had played in a match that afternoon, and won it, three goals to one. And, re-living her victory, she had forgotten all about Luke’s recent outburst. He followed her into the High Street, and thence round the corner into the quiet road running at right angles, and ending abruptly in a high wall which shut off the railway embankment. Luke slouched past the gate of Town House.
“Hi!” shouted Jinny, who had halted at the boarding establishment next door; “have you eaten so much as to forget your own address, fathead?”
“No ... walk with me as far as the wall, Jinny?”
“Why ever?”
“Oh, I dunno; needn’t if you don’t want to.”
She yielded. The constant vituperations with which she adorned her speech, were merely used in defence,as the porcupine shoots its quills. She laboured under a fifteen-year-old delusion that rudeness is the equivalent of wit. But she was very fond of Luke. In fact, in spite of her many assertions to the contrary, her inmost heart preferred him to the redoubtable Tommy Cox.
“Well, what now?” she demanded, in softer tones than usual, as they leant up against the wall.
He looked at her; her curls were tumbled about her neck; her face was a warm blur through the humid mists of a late afternoon in December. Sebastian had been especially devoted to Letty during the last fortnight, and the prevailing atmosphere of sentiment and tenderness had infected Luke. He felt now that he wanted something more of his girl than repartee.... Suddenly he plunged forward; his lips missed her mouth, but landed somewhere in the dim hollow of her throat.
... “Jinny!”
A train thundered along the bank overhead, shook the wall, passed in a rush of light, leaving in its wake a long-drawn-out plaintive whistle....
Then Jinny pulled herself away: “Oh, crumbs! don’t be sloppy!” she cried, and ran swiftly down the road, clattering her hockey-stick along the pavement.
Luke, for very shame, remained rooted to the spot long after he had heard the door of number twenty-seven bang behind her.
Mr. Johnson saw his guest off at the front door. Then, with the air of a man completely satisfied, went into the parlour to report to his wife.
“Did you ask him if he wanted tea, Matthew?”
Her husband smiled broadly. “He had a drink and a cigar, my dear.”
“One of your good cigars?”
Mr. Johnson nodded; and she knew therefore that all was well, and that she might safely ask questions. “What did he say about Sebastian? Did he tell you the reason——?”
“That he did.”
“Well?”
“Ned Levi told me in confidence, Frances.”
“Well?” brushing aside this trifling objection.
“There is nothing to prevent a public engagement as soon as ever you like,” said Mr. Johnson with dignity; “and nothing to prevent ’em getting married as soon astheylike.Idon’t know what we’ve been waiting for.”
“We’ve been waiting for your consent, Mat,” gently.
“They have it; oh, they have it.” Mr. Johnson’s voice blessed the absent pair.
“And what does Sebastian’s father say about Sebastian not taking his money?” asked Mrs. Johnson, returning to the charge.
And having let five minutes elapse since his promise of secrecy, Mr. Johnson felt he might now with honour let the cat out of the bag:
“The cub got it into his head, at Oxford or some such place, that he wouldn’t take money that had been made in trade. It may be that some other young snob told him that the Stores swindled pence out of people’s pockets. Comes of sending your son to Oxford. And you wanted Luke to go there.”
“I believe it’s a good place in its way, Mat,” Mrs. Johnson said, tolerating Oxford.
“Ned Levi thinks the boy can’t fail to come round all right when he’s married to a sensible girl. That’s why he’s anxious to hurry on the wedding.”
“But meanwhile they can’t live on nothing, Mat. They can’t live on Sebastian’s hundred a year.”
“I’m allowing ’em four hundred a year, just to keep ’em going.”
“But—Matthew——” Mrs. Johnson was completely astounded at her husband’s sudden magnificent disposal of half his income.
He winked at her; a slow and prodigious wink: “Ned Levi’s money, my dear; every cent of it. But not a word to Sebastian.”
Thus the plot stood revealed.
“I’m a great one for argerment,” continued Mr. Johnson; “and I said to him: ‘Levi’ I said, him and me being old pals, ‘Levi’ I said, ‘trade’s as good as any profession if we in trade like to consider any profession as good as us; and that’s logic. But since your jackanapes seems set against takin’ trade-money, what’s to prevent him refusing mine?’ Eh? That’s what I said.”
“And what is, Mat?”
“What is what?”
“To prevent him refusing yours?”
“It won’t be mine. It’ll be Ned Levi’s.”
“Yes, but what’s to prevent Sebastian refusing it, whoever of you it comes from?”
But Mr. Johnson seemed to think Sebastian was already “coming round.”
“I’ve noticed him different since a couple of weeks. More easy-like and anxious to please. Only he’s too proud to go galloping straight back to the Stores and say: ‘Please, sir, I was an ass, give me my partnership and fifteen hundred per annum.’ He’ll say it by degrees. And half of the whole boiling is his when Ned dies. Not but that Ned’s as young as I am, but he looks tired and worn, poor fellow; sort of wistful round the eyes when he said: ‘Johnson, it isn’t your dowry to your daughter he’ll object to; it’s only my help he won’t take; so it must reach him through a back door.’ But Sebastian Levi’s a good match for our girl, Frances, even if he’s gone temporary mad; now that I know his father’s not set against him, as I was afraid.”
Mrs. Johnson began: “I was wondering——” and relapsed into silence.
He encouraged her: “Speak up, old lady.”
“Whether we mightn’t announce the wedding officially at our Christmas dinner. Half the people don’t even know Letty’s engaged.”
“Have it your own way.”
“Yes, but I waswondering——”
“You’ll hurt yourself with wondering so much,” remarked Mr. Johnson facetiously.
“About inviting Mr. Levi. You see, he’s a Jew.”
“What of it?Idon’t mind.”
“Nor do I. Butdoesone, to a Christmas dinner?”
“Why not?... Oh! Ah!...” slowly in Mr. Johnson’s brain, an atmosphere of holly, plum-pudding, gifts, and jocularity, cleared away, to reveal for an instant the event for which the festival stood as symbol.
“Ah. Um.”
Mrs. Johnson folded up her work. “I’m going over to consult Millicent Baker; she knows more about Jews than we. I shouldn’t like to do the wrong thing about it, and hurt his feelings.”
Mrs. Baker, when the problem was formally laid before her, delivered judgment against. “He might not be able to eat the food. If it isn’t cooked Kosher. Of course, if you want to put yourselfout——”
“I couldn’t possibly ask that much of Cook. When we’re twelve sitting down as it is. And I don’t think my father would care about a—what do you call it?—Kosher plum-pudding. It doesn’t sound convivial, does it?” doubtfully.
“And yet, Sebastian’s father has a right to be present, hasn’t he? Even if it makes extra trouble.” Mrs. Baker hovered uncertainly; the rich Ned Levi, she knew, was a widower; Mr. Baker had been in his grave since fourteen years.
“What I’m most afraid of,” Mrs. Johnson confessed,“is that he’ll feel bound to ask us back to one ofhisreligious festivals,—that funny one where the Jews go up on the roof and eat pineapple.”
“Dear things,” murmured Mrs. Baker.
“I approve highly of all these picturesque customs,” explained the other lady, painstakingly. “But not for myself. Pineapple in large quantities disagrees with me. Especially the tinned kind. And I believe they have to sit cross-legged.”
Then Mrs. Baker, who on questions of etiquette was really invaluable, suggested the brilliant compromise that Mr. Levi, senior, should be invited to dine at Town House on Boxing Day.—“Or on the day after Boxing Day, to make it quite safe.”
“That wouldn’t be Christmas, really Christmas, at all any more, would it?” Considerably easier in her mind, now that the vexed question was settled, Mrs. Johnson returned home again; having first arranged that on the occasion of Mr. Levi’s visit, Mrs. Baker should “just drop in,” and aid in his entertainment, on the strength of her experience at Laura Silberstein’s wedding.
Letty stopped in front of a giant notice-board, which signified: “To Be Let Or Sold.”
“Want to shee inside dat house,” she announced, in coaxing baby language. “Oo, please, Sebastian, want to shee inside.” She tugged imperiously at his hand.
Behind the murky strip of garden, black windows glimmered faintly in a spectral building.
“Darling baby,” Sebastian replied, responding to her whim, “don’t you know that a big bogey-man lives behind that door, and you’ll hear his bones rattle through the letter-box?”
But Letty only tugged the harder, up the damp gravel path. “One can never tell,” stopping andfacing him, her blue eyes very serious, her soft curls clinging to cheek and forehead, in little wet tendrils, “how soon we may want a house, now that father has grown nice to you.”
She might equally well have said: “Now that you’ve grown nice to me.” For never had she and Sebastian been so happy together, not even in their first days of courtship, as since their quarrel and reconciliation a fortnight ago. He no longer oppressed her with his moody fits, nor snubbed her when she strove to intrude on his remoteness; he even let her minister to one of his headaches, to her great content; moreover, he seemed possessed by a real lover’s craving for her constant companionship; and the note in his voice when he spoke her name, filled her with a tremulous wish to cry and laugh, both at the same time.
—How could she know he was being hounded day and night by an idea, and that he was striving to place her between the idea and himself? striving to stifle his eyes and ears with her, to cram himself with her, to the exclusion of all else. How should she guess that he dared not love her little, lest her presence should prove too feeble for its purpose; dared not love her much, because of the hard bite in a man’s voice saying: “At the height is the time to cut with any credit, my lad!”... Why, then the more he loaded Letty with his tenderness, the nearer he brought their passion to the height where——But he dared not love her less, nor yet more.
Sebastian had not been near Stuart, since the latter had, hornet-wise, stung his brain to a veritable madness of thought. Stung, and stung again, and left the sting within. Sebastian hated Stuart,—and Lord! how onecouldhate a man who was capable of such ruthless brutality as to treat love like some luxuriant but dangerous growth; cut it away for the sake of ... of what? This was where Sebastian always lost the idea;could sense it, indeed, far-off, taunting him for his lack of understanding:
“You’re not big enough. Not big enough.”
“He’s not human. Not human,” the boy would shout in reply.
He had perpetual nightmares of killing Stuart; actually hacking at him with a knife; searching for some vulnerable spot. But the blade would rebound against a hard invisible resistance.... The nightmare recurred again and again, tiring Sebastian, wearing him to tatters, with its frenzied futility.
—“Ooo! light a match, Sebastian; it’s so dark,” cried Letty, as the front door yielded to her timid pressure.
The blue flicker betrayed the interior of the house as quite new, smelling strongly of paint, completely devoid of furniture; the walls unpapered; the floors sonorous to the tramp of feet. Some boards and pails lying about, and a candle-end stuck into a bottle on the chimney-piece, betokened that the workmen were still employed there during the daytime.
“Well?” said Sebastian, watching with considerable amusement, as Letty, candle in hand, peeped into all the bare echoing apartments, evidently seeing in them far more than was apparent to the male eye. “Will it do for us? Which is to be my study?”
Solemnly she led him into what might have been a fair-sized cupboard.
“I protest!” cried Sebastian wrathfully. “You’re just a tyrant.Thisshall be my study.” And he planted himself firmly in the very largest room of all.
“The drawing-room, of course,” Letty contradicted, her voice holding vistas of many ‘At Home days.’ “And I can’t have your dirty boots all over the pink carpet. Oh, Sebastian, let’s pretend, a bit in each room, that we’re already living here; just to see what you’re like in a house of your own.”
They began their game in a phantom-ridden dining-room; at an imaginary breakfast-table.
“Lettice,” angrily, “this is the fifth bill I’ve had for rose chintz. You’ve had enough rose chintz to make a canopy for Hampstead Heath.”
“Oh, Sebastian, and I’ve only covered three tiny little cushions for your study. I do think you’re ungrateful.”
“I’ve told you sixty times I won’t have cushions in my study.”
“I’m only trying to make you comfortable.”
... A Vision, fading into the cold blue frosts that lay beyond comfort or cushions.... He had chosen. Not for him, the Vision. Another man had been stronger, pursued it and held it....
“Now you’re working hard at your desk,” commanded Letty, passing into the room behind. “And I come in and disturb you. I want to test your temper.”
“Seek not to know what the gods have in their mercy hidden,” laughed Sebastian, giving her the candle; she went into the passage, and shut the door on him; for an instant he was alone in the thick blackness.
... But he liked these stark naked rooms with their wide wash of window. What sort of an appearance would they present when furnished in a blend of Johnsonese and his own æstheticism? Letty, he knew, liked cheerful colours and a litter of knick-knacks—hateful word, knick-knacks—one would fall over them—they stood on rickety tables. He was beginning also to dislike his own previous notions about schemes and harmonies of decoration. They spread a cloying smoothness over his mind, fretting for harsher salter relief.... The idea was catching him again, here in the draughty dark.... In a panic he stumbled to the door, calling out her name: “Letty! Letty!”...
She entered with the candle:
“Darling, I’m so sorry to disturb you, but dinner isgetting cold on the table. Sarah rang the gong three times,” reproachfully.
He remembered the game, then; and with an affectation of irritability, consigned Sarah and the gong both to the devil.
“Sebastian, you really must not use such language, even if you are busy.” She came up behind him, and put her arms round his neck. “Say you’re sorry!”
“You’ve smudged the page.”
“Say you’re sorry!”
—The game led them upstairs, to the bedrooms.
“Now it’s my turn to be inside,” suggested Letty. “You’ve come home late, oh, horribly late; and I’ve been waiting up for you.”
“I seem to have a pretty rotten character altogether in this show,” Sebastian objected. “What about you coming home late?”
“Wives don’t,” said Letty and a lovely colour flooded her face at the word she had unwittingly let slip.
He smiled. “Don’t they? All right, then we’ll both be coming home late; I refuse to be a prodigal, for you to bully me. We’ve been out together, Letty darling, and you’re dead tired; I think I have to carry you upstairs.” He strode ahead, and placed the candle on the window-sill of the front first-floor room. Then, his hands free, returned for his burden.
“Sebastian, you’re crushing me....”
“Let me undress you, you sleepy baby. Sit down while I pull the combs out of your hair ... what soft light masses ... like burying one’s hands in a snow-drift only it’s warm ... warm. Did you enjoy yourself, dancing with me to-night?”
“It was glorious; I’d rather waltz with you than anyone, Sebastian.”
“Even though I’m only your husband?”
A hush. While the spearhead of flame spun fantastic humped shadows over the ceiling.
... “What are you doing?” her voice was low as a lullaby.
“Taking off your absurd shoes, sweet. No, you’re not to do a thing for yourself; what am I here for?”
“To love me,” she murmured.
“To love you, Letty? Oh, Letty, it’s good to come home like this, to our own house. Drowsy little girl, you can shut your eyes now—now——”
—And now the room had miraculously furnished itself; long mirrors reflecting the silver on the toilet-table; great dark flowers patterned on the walls; in a recess, the shadowy blue gleam of a satin quilt, the twinkle of brass knobs.... The whole drear abode seemed suddenly astir with movement, as though their duet had quickened to life each chamber as they passed through. Somebody was singing overhead—empty hearths had burst into a glow—footsteps ran up and down the litstairs—
“Letty!”
... Gone, that bleak vision which had tormented him. Vision which sometimes took the shape of a lean figure running, always running, against the wind. Triumphantly Sebastian recognized that it had lost its power with him; he had succeeded in shutting it out—shutting it out, please God, for always....
“Letty! Letty!”
Her name was the talisman; and her fragrance....
—“Sebastian dear, it’s time to go home, isn’t it? I’m just a wee bit cold.”
So they left behind them the empty house; and very close together, walked back to Turnham Green. As they drew near the gate of Town House, a familiar figure loomed in sight from the opposite direction.
“Hullo, Luke; been climbing the railway bank again?”
“No,” disgustedly; he had forsworn these childish pastimes fully two years ago. “I was just hangingabout. Mater’s gone over to the Baker woman; I saw her cross the road.”
“Here she is,” cried Letty, as Mrs. Johnson joined them, with a cheery: “Well, children, had a nice afternoon, all of you? Coming in to have a bit of supper with us, Sebastian?”
He hesitated. “Mr.Johnson——”
“He’ll be delighted,” his wife promised. And indeed, Mr. Johnson’s amiability over the roast mutton was a thing to be remembered. The visit of Mr. Levi, senior, was not mentioned; but the marvelling lovers were informed they might fix their wedding-day for the near future, and formally announce the date at dinner on Christmas Day.
“Four o’clock,” Mrs. Johnson reminded Sebastian. “We always start dinner at four on Christmas day, and go on just as long as ever we like.”
“And don’t you take much breakfast, my boy,” put in Mr. Johnson; “just nibble at a bit o’ dry toast. For I warn you, you’ll need every bit of your appetite later on.”