THE THIRTEEN TRAVELLERS
AUTHOR'S NOTE
No character in this book is drawn from any person now living.
THE THIRTEEN TRAVELLERS
Somewhere in the early nineties was Absalom Jay's first period. He was so well known a figure in London at that time as to be frequently caricatured in the weekly society journals, and Spy's "Absalom," that appeared in the 1894 volume of Vanity Fair, is one of his most successful efforts. In those days were anyone so ignorant as to be compelled to ask who Jay was he would probably receive the answer: "Oh, don't you know? He's a cousin of John Beaminster's. He founded the "Warrington" with Pemmy Stevens. He's. … Oh, I don't know. … He goes everywhere. Knows more people than anyone else in London, I should imagine."
Spy's caricature of him has caught that elegant smartness that was Absalom's most marked individuality, too smart critics have been known to say; and certainly, if the ideal of correct dress is that no one should notice your clothes Absalom was not correct. Everyone always noticed his clothes. But here again one must be fair. It may not have been altogether his clothes that one noticed. From very early years his hair was snow-white, and he wore it brushed straight back from his pink forehead in wavy locks. He wore also a little white tufted Imperial. He had an eyeglass that hung on a thick black cord. His favourite colour was a dark blue, and with this he wore spats (in summer of a truly terrific whiteness), a white slip, black tie, and pearl pin. He wore wonderful boots and shoes and was said to have more of these than any other man in London. It was also said that his feet were the smallest (masculine) in the British Isles. He was made altogether on a very small scale. He was not, I should think, more than five-feet-six in height, but was all in perfect proportion. His enemies, of whom he had, like everyone else, a few, said that his wonderful pink complexion was not entirely Nature's work, but here his enemies lied. Even at the very last he did not give way to the use of cosmetics. He was the kindest-hearted little man in the world, and in the days of his prosperity was as happy as the day was long. He lived entirely for Society, and because this is intended to be a true portrait, I must admit that there was something of the snob in his character. He himself admitted it frankly. "I like to be with people of rank," he would say, "simply because I'm more comfortable with them. I know just what to say to Johnny Beaminster, and I'm tongue-tied with the wife of my barber. Que voulez-vous?"
I'm afraid, however, that it went a little further than that. In the Season his looking-glass was thronged with cards, invitations to dinner and dances and musical evenings. "I live for Society," he said, "as some men live for killing pheasants, and other men for piling up money. My fun is as good as another man's. At any rate I get good company."
It was his intention to be seen at every London function, public or private, that could be considered a first-class function; people wondered how he got about as he did. It seemed as though there must be three or four Absaloms.
His best time was during the last few years of King Edward VII.'s reign. His funny little anxious face could be frequently seen in those groups of celebrities invited to meet the King at some famous house-party. It was said that the King liked his company, but I don't know how that can have been because Absalom was never in his brightest days very amusing. He talked a good deal, but always said just what everyone else said. He was asked everywhere because he was so safe, because he was so willing to fetch and carry, and because he knew exactly what it was that ladies wanted. He entertained only a little in return, but nobody minded that because, as everyone knew, "he really hadn't a penny in the world"—which meant that he had about £1,500 a year in various safe investments.
A year before the war he was seized with a little gust of speculation. Against the advice of "Tony" Pennant, who looked after his investments for him, he ventured to buy here and sell there with rather serious results. He pulled up just in time to save disaster, but he had to give up his little house in Knightsbridge and took a flat at Hortons in Duke Street. Although this was a "service" flat he still retained his man James, who had been with him for a number of years and knew his habits to perfection.
He made his rooms at Hortons charming, and he had the dark blue curtains and the gold mirror bristling with invitations, and the old coloured prints and the big, signed photographs of Queen Alexandra and the Duchess of Wrexe in their silver frames, and the heavy silver cigarette-box that King Edward had given him, all in their accustomed places. Of course, the flat was small. His silver-topped bottles and silver-backed brushes, and rows of boots and shoes and the two big trouser-presses simply overwhelmed his bedroom.
But he was over sixty-five now (although he would have been horrified if he thought that you knew it) and he didn't need much space—moreover, he was always out.
Then came the war, and the first result of this was that James joined up! During those first August days Absalom hadn't fancied that the war would touch him at all, although he was hotly patriotic and cried out daily at the "Warrington" that he wished he were a lad again and could shoulder a gun.
James's departure frightened him; then "Tony" Pennant explained to him that his investments were not so secure as they had been and he'd be lucky if any of them brought him in anything. And of course the whole of his social world vanished—no more parties, no more balls, no more Ascots and Goodwoods, no more shooting in Scotland, no more opera. He bustled around then in a truly remarkable manner and attacked his friends with the pertinacity of a bluebottle. The war was not a month old before Bryce-Drummond secured him a job in one of the Ministries at six hundred a year. It was not a very difficult job (it consisted for the most part in interviewing eager young men, assuring them that he would do his best for them, and then sending them along to somebody else). He had a room to himself, and a lady typist who looked after him like a mother. He was quite delighted when he discovered that she was a daughter of the Bishop of Polchester and very well connected. She was most efficient and did everything for him.
He took his work very seriously indeed, and was delighted to be "doing his bit." No one knew exactly what it was that he did at the Ministry, and he himself was very vague about it, but he hinted at great things and magnificent company. During those first years when there were so many wonderful rumours, he hinted and hinted and hinted. "Well, I mustn't mention names, of course; but you can take it from me——" and people really did think he did know. He had been in the closest touch with so many great people before the war that it was only natural that he should be in touch with them still. As a matter of fact he knew nothing except what his typist told him. He led an extremely quiet life during these years, but he didn't mind that because he understood that it was the right thing to do. All the best people were absorbed in their work—even old Lady Agatha Beaminster was running a home for Serbians, and Rachel Seddon was a V.A.D. in France, and old "Plumtree" Caudle was a Special Constable. He did not therefore feel left out of things, because there was nothing really to be left out of. Moreover, he was so hard up that it was safer to be quiet. All the more would he enjoy himself when the war was over.
But as the years went on and there seemed to be no sign of the war being over, he began to be querulous. He missed James terribly, and when in the summer of 1917 he heard that James was killed in Mesopotamia it was a very serious blow. He seemed to be suddenly quite alone in the world. In Hortons now they employed only women, and the girl straight from Glebeshire who "valeted" him seemed to have but little time to listen to his special needs, being divided up between four flats and finding it all she could do, poor girl, to satisfy them all. "After the war," Mr. Nix, the manager of Hortons, assured Absalom, "we shall have men again!"
"After the war!"—those three simple little words became the very Abracadabra of Absalom's life. "After the war" everything would be as it had always been—prices would go down, Society would come up, his gold mirror would once again be stuck about with invitations, he would find a successor to James, and a little house. What would he live on? Oh, that would be all right. They would keep him at the Ministry. He was so useful there that he couldn't conceive that they would ever get on without him—there would be his work, of course, and probably they would raise his salary. He was an optimist about the future. Nothing made him so indignant as unjustified pessimism. When someone talked pessimistically it was as though he, Absalom Jay, were being personally threatened. Throughout the terrible spring of 1918 he remained optimistic. "Britain couldn't be beaten"—by which he meant that Absalom Jay must be assured of his future comforts. In spite of all that had happened he was as incapable in June, 1918, as he had been in June, 1914, of imagining a different world, a different balance of moral and ethical values. Then the tide turned. During that summer and early autumn of 1918 Absalom was as happy as he had ever been. He simply lived for the moment when "life would begin again." He began to go out a little, to pay calls, to visit an old friend or two. He found changes, of course. His own contemporaries seemed strangely old; many of them had died, many of them had shattered nerves, many were frightened of the future.
If they were frightened it was their own fault, he declared. They would talk of ridiculous things like the Russian Revolution—nothing angered him more than to hear chatter about the Russian Revolution—as though that absurd affair with its cut-throats and Bolsheviks and Jews and murderers could have anything to do with a real country like England.
It was all the fault of our idiotic government; one regiment of British soldiers and that trouble would have been over. … No, he'd no patience. …
November 11th came, and with it the Armistice; he actually rode all the way down Whitehall on a lorry and waved a flag. He was excited, it seemed as though the whole world were crying, "Hurray! Absalom Jay! You were right, after all. You shall have your reward."
He pictured to himself what was coming: 1919 would be the year; let those dirty ruffians try and imitate Russian methods. They would see what they would get. He resumed his old haughtiness of demeanour to dependents. It was necessary in these days to show them their place. Not that he was never kind. When they behaved properly he was very kind indeed. To Fanny, the portress at Hortons—a nice girl with a ready smile and an agreeable willingness to do anything, however tiresome—he was delightful, asking her about her relations and once telling her that he was grateful for what she did. He was compelled, however, to speak haughtily to Rose, the "valet." He was forced often to ring twice for her, and once when she came running and out of breath and he showed her that she had put some of his waistcoats into one drawer and some into another, thereby making it very difficult for him to find them, she actually tossed her head and muttered something. He spoke to her very kindly then, and showed her how things were done in the best houses, because, after all, poor child, she was straight up from the country. However, she did not take his kindliness in at all the right spirit, but burst out angrily that "times was different now, and one was as good as another"—a shocking thing to say, and savouring directly of Bolshevism.
He was getting into the habit of calling almost everything Bolshevism.
Then the first blow fell. He found a letter on his table at the Ministry; he opened it carelessly and read therein that as the war was in process of being "wound up," changes were taking place that would compel the Ministry, most reluctantly, to do without Mr. Jay's services. Would he mind taking a month's notice? …
He would mind very much indeed—Mind? It was as though a thunderbolt had struck him on the very top of his neat little head. He stood in front of the Ministerial fireplace, his little legs extended, the letter trembling in his hand, his eyes, if the truth must be spoken, flushed with tears. Dismissed! With a month's notice! He would speak … he would protest … he would abuse. … In the end, of course, he did nothing. Bryce-Drummond said he was so very sorry, "but really everythin' was tumblin' about one's ear's these days," and offered him a cigarette. Lord John, to whom he appealed, looked distressed and said it was "a damn shame; upon his word, he didn't know what we were all coming to. … "
Absalom Jay was left; he realised that he could do nothing; he retired into Hortons.
There was in his soul a fund of optimism, or rather, to speak more accurately, it took him time to realise the shifting sands upon which his little house was built. He made now the very most of Hortons. It is true that time began to lie heavy upon his hands. He rose very late in the morning, having his cup of tea and boiled egg at nine, his bath at ten; he read the Morning Post for an hour; then the barber, Merritt, from next door, came in to shave him and give him the news of the day. Merritt was a most amusing dark and dapper little man. In him was the very spirit of St. James's, and the Lord only knows how many businesses he carried on beside his ostensible hair-dressing one. He could buy anything for you, and sell anything, too! And his gossip! Well, really, Absalom had thought himself a good gossip in his day, but he had never been anything to Merritt! Of course, half-a-crown was a good deal for a shave, and Absalom was not sure whether in these days he ought to afford it—"my only luxury" he called it.
He did not see many of his friends this Christmas time. They were all out of London he supposed. He was a little surprised that the Beaumonts hadn't asked him to spend Christmas at Hautoix. In the old days that invitation had been as regular as the Waits. However, they had lost their eldest son in the Cambrai fighting. They were having no parties this Christmas, of course.
He had thought that the Seddons might ask him. He got on so well with Roddy and Rachel. They sent him a card "from Rollo," their baby. Kind of them to remember him! So he busied himself about the flat. He was preparing for the future—for that wonderful time when the war would be really and truly over, and the world as it had been in the old days. His life was centred in Hortons and the streets that surrounded it. He could be seen every morning walking up Duke Street into Piccadilly. He knew every shop by heart, the picture shops that seemed to be little offspring of the great "Christie's" round the corner, with their coloured plates from Ackermann's "Microcosm," and Pierce Egan, and their oils of large, full-bosomed eighteenth century ladies; and the shops with the china and the cabinets and the lacquer (everything very expensive indeed); and Bottome's, the paper shop, with Mr. Bottome's humourous comments on the day's politics chalked on to a slate near the door, and the Vie Parisienne very large in the window; then there was the shop at the corner of Jermyn Street, with the silk dressing-gowns of dazzling colours, and the latest fashions with pink silk vests, pyjamas; and the great tobacconists and the wine-windows of Fortnum and Masons—at last the familiar broad splendours of Piccadilly itself. Up and down the little old streets that had known all the famous men of their day, that had lodged Thackeray and Swift and Dryden, and now lodged Mr. Bottomley and the author of Mutt and Jeff, the motors rolled and hooted and honked, and the messenger boys whistled, and the flower-man went up and down with his barrow, and everything was as expensive and pleasant and humourous as could be. All this Absalom Jay adopted. He was in his own mind, although he did not know it, King of St. James's, and he felt that they must all be very glad to have him there, and that rents must have gone up since it was known that he had taken his residence among them.
He even went in one day and expostulated with Mr. Bottome for having the Daily Herald in his window. Mr. Bottome agreed with him that it was not a "nice" paper, but he also added that sinister sentence that Absalom was getting now so tired of hearing that "these were strange times. 'E didn't know what we were coming to."
"Nonsense, my good man," said Absalom rather tartly, "England isn't Russia."
"Looks damned like it sometimes," said Mr. Bottome.
Then as the year 1919 extended Absalom began to feel terribly lonely. This fear of loneliness was rapidly becoming a concrete and definite terror, lurking behind the curtains in his flat, ready to spring out upon him at any moment. Absalom had never in all his life been alone. There had always been people around him. Where now were they all? Men now were being demobilised, houses were opening again, hospitals were closing, dances were being given, and still his gold mirror remained innocent of invitations. He fancied, too (he was becoming very sensitive to impressions), that the men in the "Warrington" were not so eager to see him as they had been. He went to the "Warrington" a great deal now "to be cheered up." He talked to men to whom five years ago he would not have condescended to say "Good-morning"—to Isaac Monteluke, for instance, and Bandy Manners. Where were all his old friends? They did not come to the club any longer, it seemed. He could never find a bridge four now with whom he was really at home. This may have been partly because he was nervous these days of losing money—he could not afford it—and he did not seem to have his old control of his temper. Then his brain was not quite so active as it had been. He could not remember the cards. …
One day he heard some fellow say: "Well, if I'd had my way I'd chloroform everyone over sixty. We've had enough of the old duds messing all the world up."
Chloroform all the old duds! What a terrible thing to say? Why, five years ago it had been the other way. Who cared then what a young man said? What could he know? After all, it was the older men who had had the experience, who knew life, who could tell the others. …
He found himself laying down the law about things—giving ultimatums like—"They ought to be strung up on lamp-posts—pandering to the ignorant lower classes—that's what it is."
If there had been one thing above all others that Absalom had hated all his life it had been rudeness—there was the unforgivable sin. As a young man he had been deferential to his elders, and so in his turn he expected young men to be to him now. But they were not. No, they were not. He had positively to give up the "Warrington" because of the things that the young men said.
There was a new trouble now—the trouble of money. His investments were paying very badly, and the income tax was absurd. He wrote to the Times about his income tax, and they did not print his letter—did not print it when they printed the letters of every sort of nobody. Everything was so expensive that it took all his courage to look at his weekly bill. He must eat less; one ate, he read in the paper, far more than one needed. So he gave up his breakfast, having only a cup of coffee and a roll, as he had often done in France in the old days. He was aware suddenly that his clothes were beginning to look shabby. Bacon, the valet, informed him of this. He did not like Bacon; he found himself, indeed, sighing for the departed Rose. Bacon was austere and inhuman. He spoke as seldom as possible. He had no faults, he pressed clothes perfectly, kept drawers in absolute order, did not drink Absalom's claret nor smoke Absalom's cigarettes. No faults—but what an impossible man! Absalom was afraid of him. He drew his little body together under the bedclothes when Bacon called him in the morning because of Bacon's ironical eyes. Bacon gave him his Times as though he said: "How dare you take in the Times—spend threepence a day when you are as poor as you are?"
It was because of Bacon that Absalom gave up Merritt. He did not dare to have him when Bacon knew his poverty.
"I'm going to shave myself in the future, Merritt," he said; "it's only laziness having you." Merritt was politely sorry, but he was not very deeply grieved. Why should he be when he had the King's valet and Sir Edward Hawksbury, the famous K.C., and Borden Hunt, the dramatist, to shave every morning?
But Absalom missed him terribly. He was now indeed alone. No more gossip, no more laughter over other people's weaknesses, no more hearty agreement over the wicked selfishness of the lower orders.
Absalom gave up the Times because he could not bear to see the lower orders encouraged. All this talk about their not having enough to live on—wicked nonsense! It was people like Absalom who had not enough to live on. He wrote again to the Times and said so, and again they did not publish his letter.
Then he woke from sleep one night, heard the clock strike three, and was desperately frightened. He had had a dream. What dream? He could not remember. He only knew that in the course of it he had become very, very old; he had been in a room without fire and without light; he had been in prison—faces had glared at him, cruel faces, young, sneering, menacing faces. … He was going to die. … He awoke with a scream.
Next day he read himself a very serious lecture. He was becoming morbid; he was giving in; he was allowing himself to be afraid of things. He must pull himself up. He was quite severe to Bacon, and reprimanded him for bringing his breakfast at a quarter to nine instead of half-past eight. He made out then a list of houses that he would visit. They had forgotten him—he must admit that. But how natural it was! After all this time. Everyone had forgotten everybody. Why, he had forgotten all sorts of people! Could not remember their names!
For months now he had been saying, "After the war," and now here "after the war" was. It was May, and already Society was looking something like itself. Covent Garden was open again. Soon there would be Ascot and Henley and Goodwood; and the Peace Celebrations, perhaps, if only those idiots at Versailles moved a little more quickly! He felt the old familiar stir in his blood as he saw the red letters and the green pillars repainted, saw the early summer sunshine upon the glittering windows of Piccadilly, saw the green shadows of Hyde Park shift and tremble against the pale blue of the evening sky, saw, once again, the private cars quiver and tremble behind the policeman's hand in the Circus; saw Delysia's name over the Pavilion, and the posters of the evening papers, and the fountains splashing in Trafalgar Square.
He put on his best clothes and went out.
He called upon Mary, Countess of Gosport, the Duchess of Aisles, Lady Glenrobert, Mrs. Leo Torsch, and dear Rachel Seddon. At the Countess of Gosport's he found a clergyman, a companion, and a Chow; at the Duchess of Aisles' four young Guardsmen, two girls, and Isaac Monteluke, who had the insolence to patronise him; at Lady Glenrobert's a vast crowd of men and women rehearsing for a Peace pageant shortly to be given at the Albert Hall; at Mrs. Leo Torsch's an incredible company of artists, writers, and actors, people unwashed and unbrushed, at sight of whom Absalom's very soul trembled; at dear Rachel's charming young people, all of whom looked right through him as though he were an easy and undisturbing ghost.
He came back from these visits a weary, miserable, and tired little man. Even Rachel had seemed to have no time to give him. … An incredible lassitude spread through all his bones. As he entered the portals of No. 2 a boy passed him with a Pall Mall poster. "Railwaymen issue Ultimatum." In his room he read a Times leader, in which it said that the lower classes were starving and had nowhere to sleep. And they called the Times a reactionary paper! The lower classes starving! What about the upper classes? With his door closed, in his own deep privacy, surrounded by his little gods, his mirror, his silver frames, and his boot-trees, he wept—bitterly, helplessly, like a child.
From that moment he had no courage. Enemies seemed to be on every side. Everywhere he was insulted. If he went out boys pushed against him, taxi-men swore at him, in the shops they were rude to him! There was never room in the omnibuses, the taxis were too expensive, and the Tubes! After an attempt to reach Russell Square by Tube he vowed he would never enter a Tube door again. He was pushed, hustled, struck in the stomach, sworn at both by attendants and passengers, jammed between stout women, hurled off his feet, spoken to by a young soldier because he did not give up his seat to a lady who haughtily refused it when he offered … Tubes! … never again—never, oh, never again!
What then to do? Walking tired him desperately. Everywhere seemed now so far away!
So he remained in his flat; but now Hortons itself was different. Now that he was confined to it it was very small, and he was always tumbling over things. A pipe burst one morning, and his bathroom was flooded. The bathroom wall-paper began to go the strangest and most terrible colours—it was purple and pink and green, and there were splotches of white mildew that seemed to move before your eyes as you lay in your bath and watched them. Absalom went to Mr. Nix, and Mr. Nix said that it should be seen to at once, but day after day went by and nothing was done. When Mr. Nix was appealed to he said rather restively that he was very sorry but he was doing his best—labour was so difficult to get now—"You could not rely on the men."
"But they've got to come!" screamed Absalom.
Mr. Nix shrugged his shoulders; from his lips fell those fatal and now so monotonous words:
"We're living in changed times, Mr. Jay."
Changed times! Absalom should think we were. Everyone was ruder and ruder and ruder. Bills were beginning to worry him terribly—such little bills, but men would come and wait downstairs in the hall for them.
The loneliness increased and wrapped him closer and closer. His temper was becoming atrocious as he well knew. Bacon now paid no attention to his wishes, his meals were brought up at any time, his rooms were not cleaned, his silver was tarnished. All he had to do was to complain to Mr. Nix, who ruled Hortons with a rod of iron, and allowed no incivilities or slackness. But he was afraid to do that; he was afraid of the way that Bacon would treat him afterwards. Always, everywhere now he saw this increasing attention that was paid to the lower classes. Railwaymen, miners, hair-dressers, dockers, bakers, waiters, they struck, got what they wanted and then struck for more.
He hated the lower classes—hated them, hated them! The very sight of a working man threw him into a frenzy. What about the upper classes and the middle classes! Did you ever see a word in the paper about them? Never!
He was not well, his heart troubled him very much. Sometimes he lay on his sofa battling for breath. But he did not dare to go to a doctor. He could not afford a doctor.
But God is merciful. He put a period to poor Absalom's unhappiness. When it was plain that this world was no longer a place for Absalom's kind He gathered Absalom to His bosom.
And it was in this way. There arrived suddenly one day a card: "The Duchess of Aisles … Dancing." His heart beat high at the sight of it. He had to lie down on his sofa to recover himself. He stuck his card into the mirror and was compelled to say something to Bacon about it. Bacon did not seem to be greatly impressed at the sight.
He dressed on the great evening with the utmost care. The sight of his bathroom affected him; it seemed to cover him with pink spots and mildew, but he shook that off from him and boldly ventured forth to Knightsbridge. He found an immense party gathered there. Many, many people. … He didn't seem to recognise any of them. The Duchess herself had apparently forgotten him. He reminded her. He crept about; he felt strangely as though at any moment someone might shoot him in the back. Then he found Mrs. Charles Clinton, one of his hostesses of the old days. She was kind but preoccupied. Then he discovered Tom Wardour—old Tom Wardour, the stupidest man in London and the greediest. Nevertheless he was glad to see him.
"By Jove, old man, you do look seedy," Tom said; "what have you been doing to yourself?"
Tactless of Tom, that! He felt more than ever that someone was going to shoot him in the back. He crept away and hid himself in a corner. He dozed a little, then woke to hear his own name. A woman was speaking of him. He recognized Mrs. Clinton's voice.
"Whom do you think I saw just now? … Yes, old Absalom Jay. Like a visit from the dead. Yes, and so old. You know how smart he used to be. He looked quite shabby, poor old thing. Oh no, of course, he was always stupid. But now—oh, dreadful! … I assure you he gave me the creeps. Yes, of course, he belonged to that old world before the war. Doesn't it seem a long time ago? Centuries. What I say is that one can't believe one was alive then at all. … "
Gave her the creeps! Gave Mrs. Clinton the creeps! He felt as though his premonition had been true, and someone had shot him in the back. He crept away, out of the house, right away.
He crept into a Tube. The trains were crowded. He had to hang on to a strap. At Hyde Park Corner two workmen got in; they had been drinking together. Very big men they were. They stood one on each side of Absalom and lurched about. Absalom was pushed hither and thither.
"Where the 'ell are you comin' to?" one said.
The other knocked Absalom's hat off as though by an accident. Then the former elaborately picked it up and offered it with a low bow, digging Absalom in the stomach as he did so.
"'Ere y'are, my lord," he said. They roared with laughter. The whole carriage laughed. At Dover Street Absalom got out. He hurried through the streets, and the tears were pouring down his cheeks. He could not stop them; he seemed to have no control over them. They were not his tears. … He entered Hortons, and in the lift hid his face so that Fannie should not see that he was crying.
He closed his door behind him, did not turn on the lights, found the sofa, and cowered down there as though he were hiding from someone.
The tears continued to race down his cheeks. Then suddenly it seemed as though the walls of the bathroom, all blotched and purple, all stained with creeping mildew, closed in the dark about him.
He heard a voice cry—a working-man's voice—he did not hear the words, but the walls towered above him and the white mildew expanded into jeering, hideous, triumphant faces.
His heart leapt and he knew no more.
Bacon and the maid found him huddled thus on the floor dead next morning.
"Well now," said Bacon, "that's a lucky thing. Young Somerset next door's been wanting this flat. Make a nice suite if he knocks a door through—gives him seven rooms. He'll be properly pleased."
Since the second year of the war Fanny Close had been portress at Hortons. It had demanded very much resolution on the part of Mr. Nix to search for a portress. Since time immemorial the halls of Hortons had known only porters. George, the present fine specimen, had been magnificently in service there for the last ten years. However, Mr. Nix was a patriot; he sent his son aged nineteen to the war (his son was only too delighted to go), himself joined the London Air Defences, and then packed off every man and boy in the place.
The magnificent James was the last to go. He had, he said, an ancient mother dependent upon him. Mr. Nix was disappointed in him. He did not live up to his chest measurement. "You're very nearly a shirker," he said to him indignantly. Nevertheless he promised to keep his place open for him. …
He had to go out into the highways and by-ways and find women. The right ones were not easily found, and often enough they were disappointing. Mr. Nix was a tremendous disciplinarian, that was why Hortons were the best service flats in the whole of the West End. But he discovered, as many a man had discovered before him, that the discipline that does for a man will not do nine times out of ten for a woman. Woman has a way of wriggling out of the net of discipline with subtleties unknown to man.
So Mr. Nix discovered. … Only with Fanny Close Mr. Nix had no trouble at all. She became at the end of the first week a "jewel," and a jewel to the end of her time she remained.
I don't wish, in these days of stern and unrelenting realism, to draw Dickensian pictures of youth and purity, but the plain truth is that Fanny Close was as good a girl as ever was made. She was good for two reasons, one because she was plain, the other because she had a tiresome sister. The first of these reasons made her humble, the other made her enjoy everything from which her sister was absent twice as much as anyone else would have enjoyed it.
She was twenty-five years of age; the mother had died of pleurisy when the children were babies, and the father, who was something very unimportant in a post office, had struggled for twenty years to keep them all alive, and then caught a cold and died. The only brother had married, and Aggie and Fanny had remained to keep house together. Aggie had always been the beauty of the family, but it had been a beauty without "charm," so that many young men had advanced with beating hearts, gazed with eager eyes, and then walked away, relieved that for some reason or another they had been saved from "putting the question." She had had proposals, of course, but they had never been good enough. At twenty-six she was a disappointed virgin.
Fanny had always been so ready to consider herself the plainer and stupider of the two that it had not been altogether Aggie's fault that she, Aggie, should take, so naturally, the first place. Many a relation had told Fanny that she was too "submissive" and didn't stand up for herself enough, but Fanny shook her head and said that she couldn't be other than she was. The true fact was that deep down in her heart she not only admired her sister, she also hated her. How astonished Aggie would have been had she known this—and how astonished, to be truly platitudinous for a moment, we should all be if we really knew what our nearest and dearest relatives thought of us!
Fanny hated Aggie, but had quite made up her mind that she would never be free of her. How could she be? She herself was far too plain for anyone to want to marry her, and Aggie was apparently settling down inevitably into a bitter old-maidenhood. Then came the war. Fanny was most unexpectedly liberated. Aggie did, of course, try to prevent her escape, but on this occasion Fanny was resolved. She would do what she could to help—the country needed every single woman. At first she washed plates in a canteen, then she ran a lift outside some Insurance office, finally she fell into Mr. Nix's arms, and there she stayed for three years.
She knew from the very first that she would like it. She liked Mr. Nix, she liked the blue uniform provided for her, most of all she liked the "atmosphere" of Hortons, the coloured repose of St. James's, the hall of white and green, the broad staircase, the palms in the staircase windows, the grandfather's clock near Mr. Nix's office; she even liked her own little rabbit-hutch where were the little boxes for the letters, the cupboard for her own private possessions, the telephone, and a chair for her to sit upon. In a marvellously short time she was the mistress of the whole situation. Mr. Nix could not have believed that he would have missed the marvellous James so little. "Really," he said to Mrs. Nix, "a great discovery, a remarkable find."
"Well, I hope she won't disappoint you," said Mrs. Nix, who was an amiable pessimist. Fanny did not disappoint; she got better and better. Everyone liked her, and she liked everyone.
Because she had as her standard Aggie's grudging and reluctant personality, she naturally found everyone delightful. She was very happy indeed because they all wanted her assistance in one way or another. "Men are helpless," was her happy comment after a year's experience at Hortons. She stamped letters for one, delivered telephone messages for another, found addresses for a third, carried bags for a fourth, acted as confidential adviser for a fifth. She was not pretty, of course, but she was much less plain in her uniform than she had been in her private dress. The blue, peaked cap suited her, and managed somehow, in combination with her pince-nez, to give her quite a roguish complexion.
Nevertheless she was looked upon as a serious person—"quite like a man," she reflected with satisfaction. She did not wish to waste her time with flirtations, she wanted to do her job efficiently. It needed great self-control not to take too active an interest in the affairs of the ladies and gentlemen in her charge. She was, for instance, deeply sorry for poor old Mr. Jay, who was obviously poor and helpless and had no friends. He used to ask her whether "So-and-so" had called, to tell her that he was expecting Lady This, and Lord That to ring up. Of course, they never did. No one ever came to see him. Fanny's heart simply ached for him.