Leonard accepted the invitation to tea next Saturday. But he was
right; the visit proved a conspicuous failure.
"Sugar?" said Margaret.
"Cake?" said Helen. "The big cake or the little deadlies? I'm
afraid you thought my letter rather odd, but we'll explain--we
aren't odd, really--nor affected, really. We're over-expressive--
that's all."
As a lady's lap-dog Leonard did not excel. He was not an Italian,
still less a Frenchman, in whose blood there runs the very spirit
of persiflage and of gracious repartee. His wit was the
Cockney's; it opened no doors into imagination, and Helen was
drawn up short by "The more a lady has to say, the better,"
administered waggishly.
"Oh yes," she said.
"Ladies brighten--"
"Yes, I know. The darlings are regular sunbeams. Let me give you
a plate."
"How do you like your work?" interposed Margaret.
He, too, was drawn up short. He would not have these women prying
into his work. They were Romance, and so was the room to which he
had at last penetrated, with the queer sketches of people bathing
upon its walls, and so were the very tea-cups, with their
delicate borders of wild strawberries. But he would not let
romance interfere with his life. There is the devil to pay then.
"Oh, well enough," he answered.
"Your company is the Porphyrion, isn't it?"
"Yes, that's so."--becoming rather offended. "It's funny how
things get round."
"Why funny?" asked Helen, who did not follow the workings of his
mind. "It was written as large as life on your card, and
considering we wrote to you there, and that you replied on the
stamped paper--"
"Would you call the Porphyrion one of the big Insurance
Companies?" pursued Margaret.
"It depends on what you call big."
"I mean by big, a solid, well-established concern, that offers a
reasonably good career to its employes."
"I couldn't say--some would tell you one thing and others
another," said the employe uneasily. "For my own part"--he shook
his head--" I only believe half I hear. Not that even; it's
safer. Those clever ones come to the worse grief, I've often
noticed. Ah, you can't be too careful."
He drank, and wiped his moustache, which was going to be one of
those moustaches that always droop into tea-cups--more bother
than they're worth, surely, and not fashionable either.
"I quite agree, and that's why I was curious to know; is it a
solid, well-established concern?"
Leonard had no idea. He understood his own corner of the machine,
but nothing beyond it. He desired to confess neither knowledge
nor ignorance, and under these circumstances, another motion of
the head seemed safest. To him, as to the British public, the
Porphyrion was the Porphyrion of the advertisement--a giant, in
the classical style, but draped sufficiently, who held in one
hand a burning torch, and pointed with the other to St. Paul's
and Windsor Castle. A large sum of money was inscribed below, and
you drew your own conclusions. This giant caused Leonard to do
arithmetic and write letters, to explain the regulations to new
clients, and re-explain them to old ones. A giant was of an
impulsive morality--one knew that much. He would pay for Mrs.
Munt's hearthrug with ostentatious haste, a large claim he would
repudiate quietly, and fight court by court. But his true
fighting weight, his antecedents, his amours with other members
of the commercial Pantheon--all these were as uncertain to
ordinary mortals as were the escapades of Zeus. While the gods
are powerful, we learn little about them. It is only in the days
of their decadence that a strong light beats into heaven.
"We were told the Porphyrion's no go," blurted Helen. "We wanted
to tell you; that's why we wrote."
"A friend of ours did think that it is insufficiently reinsured,"
said Margaret.
Now Leonard had his clue.
He must praise the Porphyrion. "You can tell your friend," he
said, "that he's quite wrong."
"Oh, good!"
The young man coloured a little. In his circle to be wrong was
fatal. The Miss Schlegels did not mind being wrong. They were
genuinely glad that they had been misinformed. To them nothing
was fatal but evil.
"Wrong, so to speak," he added.
"How 'so to speak'?"
"I mean I wouldn't say he's right altogether."
But this was a blunder. "Then he is right partly," said the elder
woman, quick as lightning.
Leonard replied that every one was right partly, if it came to
that.
"Mr. Bast, I don't understand business, and I dare say my
questions are stupid, but can you tell me what makes a concern
'right' or 'wrong'?"
Leonard sat back with a sigh.
"Our friend, who is also a business man, was so positive. He said
before Christmas--"
"And advised you to clear out of it," concluded Helen. "But I
don't see why he should know better than you do. "
Leonard rubbed his hands. He was tempted to say that he knew
nothing about the thing at all. But a commercial training was too
strong for him. Nor could he say it was a bad thing, for this
would be giving it away; nor yet that it was good, for this would
be giving it away equally. He attempted to suggest that it was
something between the two, with vast possibilities in either
direction, but broke down under the gaze of four sincere eyes.
And yet he scarcely distinguished between the two sisters. One
was more beautiful and more lively, but "the Miss Schlegels"
still remained a composite Indian god, whose waving arms and
contradictory speeches were the product of a single mind.
"One can but see," he remarked, adding, "as Ibsen says, 'things
happen.'" He was itching to talk about books and make the most of
his romantic hour. Minute after minute slipped away, while the
ladies, with imperfect skill, discussed the subject of
reinsurance or praised their anonymous friend. Leonard grew
annoyed--perhaps rightly. He made vague remarks about not being
one of those who minded their affairs being talked over by
others, but they did not take the hint. Men might have shown more
tact. Women, however tactful elsewhere, are heavy-handed here.
They cannot see why we should shroud our incomes and our
prospects in a veil. "How much exactly have you, and how much do
you expect to have next June?" And these were women with a
theory, who held that reticence about money matters is absurd,
and that life would be truer if each would state the exact size
of the golden island upon which he stands, the exact stretch of
warp over which he throws the woof that is not money. How can we
do justice to the pattern otherwise?
And the precious minutes slipped away, and Jacky and squalor came
nearer. At last he could bear it no longer, and broke in,
reciting the names of books feverishly. There was a moment of
piercing joy when Margaret said, "So YOU like Carlyle" and then
the door opened, and "Mr. Wilcox, Miss Wilcox" entered, preceded
by two prancing puppies.
"Oh, the dears! Oh, Evie, how too impossibly sweet!" screamed
Helen, falling on her hands and knees.
"We brought the little fellows round," said Mr. Wilcox.
"I bred 'em myself."
"Oh, really! Mr. Bast, come and play with puppies."
"I've got to be going now," said Leonard sourly.
"But play with puppies a little first."
"This is Ahab, that's Jezebel," said Evie, who was one of those
who name animals after the less successful characters of Old
Testament history.
"I've got to be going."
Helen was too much occupied with puppies to notice him.
"Mr. Wilcox, Mr. Ba-- Must you be really?
"Good-bye!"
"Come again," said Helen from the floor.
Then Leonard's gorge arose. Why should he come again? What was
the good of it? He said roundly: "No, I shan't; I knew it would
be a failure."
Most people would have let him go. "A little mistake. We tried
knowing another class--impossible."
But the Schlegels had never played with life. They had attempted
friendship, and they would take the consequences. Helen retorted,
"I call that a very rude remark. What do you want to turn on me
like that for?" and suddenly the drawing-room re-echoed to a
vulgar row.
"You ask me why I turn on you?"
"Yes."
"What do you want to have me here for?'
"To help you, you silly boy!" cried Helen. "And don't shout."
"I don't want your patronage. I don't want your tea. I was quite
happy. What do you want to unsettle me for?" He turned to Mr.
Wilcox. "I put it to this gentleman. I ask you, sir, am I to have
my brain picked?"
Mr. Wilcox turned to Margaret with the air of humorous strength
that he could so well command. "Are we intruding, Miss Schlegel?
Can we be of any use, or shall we go?"
But Margaret ignored him.
"I'm connected with a leading insurance company, sir. I receive
what I take to be an invitation from these--ladies" (he drawled
the word). "I come, and it's to have my brain picked. I ask you,
is it fair?"
"Highly unfair," said Mr. Wilcox, drawing a gasp from Evie, who
knew that her father was becoming dangerous.
"There, you hear that? Most unfair, the gentleman says. There!
Not content with"--pointing at Margaret--"you can't deny it." His
voice rose; he was falling into the rhythm of a scene with Jacky.
"But as soon as I'm useful it's a very different thing. 'Oh yes,
send for him. Cross-question him. Pick his brains.' Oh yes. Now,
take me on the whole, I'm a quiet fellow: I'm law-abiding, I
don't wish any unpleasantness; but I--I--"
"You," said Margaret--"you--you--"
Laughter from Evie as at a repartee.
"You are the man who tried to walk by the Pole Star."
More laughter.
"You saw the sunrise."
Laughter.
"You tried to get away from the fogs that are stifling us all--
away past books and houses to the truth. You were looking for a
real home."
"I fail to see the connection," said Leonard, hot with stupid
anger.
"So do I." There was a pause. "You were that last Sunday--you are
this to-day. Mr. Bast! I and my sister have talked you over. We
wanted to help you; we also supposed you might help us. We did
not have you here out of charity--which bores us--but because we
hoped there would be a connection between last Sunday and other
days. What is the good of your stars and trees, your sunrise and
the wind, if they do not enter into our daily lives? They have
never entered into mine, but into yours, we thought-- Haven't we
all to struggle against life's daily greyness, against pettiness,
against mechanical cheerfulness, against suspicion? I struggle by
remembering my friends; others I have known by remembering some
place--some beloved place or tree--we thought you one of these."
"Of course, if there's been any misunderstanding," mumbled
Leonard, "all I can do is to go. But I beg to state--" He paused.
Ahab and Jezebel danced at his boots and made him look
ridiculous. "You were picking my brain for official information--
I can prove it--I--" He blew his nose and left them.
"Can I help you now?" said Mr. Wilcox, turning to Margaret. "May
I have one quiet word with him in the hall?"
"Helen, go after him--do anything--anything--to make the noodle
understand."
Helen hesitated.
"But really--"said their visitor. "Ought she to?"
At once she went.
He resumed. "I would have chimed in, but I felt that you could
polish him off for yourselves--I didn't interfere. You were
splendid, Miss Schlegel--absolutely splendid. You can take my
word for it, but there are very few women who could have managed
him."
"Oh yes," said Margaret distractedly.
"Bowling him over with those long sentences was what fetched me,"
cried Evie.
"Yes, indeed," chuckled her father; "all that part about
'mechanical cheerfulness'--oh, fine!"
"I'm very sorry," said Margaret, collecting herself. "He's a nice
creature really. I cannot think what set him off. It has been
most unpleasant for you."
"Oh, I didn't mind." Then he changed his mood. He asked if he
might speak as an old friend, and, permission given, said:
"Oughtn't you really to be more careful?"
Margaret laughed, though her thoughts still strayed after Helen.
"Do you realise that it's all your fault?" she said. "You're
responsible."
"I?"
"This is the young man whom we were to warn against the
Porphyrion. We warn him, and--look!"
Mr. Wilcox was annoyed. "I hardly consider that a fair
deduction," he said.
"Obviously unfair," said Margaret. "I was only thinking how
tangled things are. It's our fault mostly--neither yours nor
his."
"Not his?"
"No."
"Miss Schlegel, you are too kind."
"Yes, indeed," nodded Evie, a little contemptuously.
"You behave much too well to people, and then they impose on you.
I know the world and that type of man, and as soon as I entered
the room I saw you had not been treating him properly. You must
keep that type at a distance. Otherwise they forget themselves.
Sad, but true. They aren't our sort, and one must face the fact."
"Ye--es."
"Do admit that we should never have had the outburst if he was a
gentleman. "
"I admit it willingly," said Margaret, who was pacing up and down
the room. "A gentleman would have kept his suspicions to
himself."
Mr. Wilcox watched her with a vague uneasiness.
"What did he suspect you of?"
"Of wanting to make money out of him."
"Intolerable brute! But how were you to benefit?"
"Exactly. How indeed! Just horrible, corroding suspicion. One
touch of thought or of goodwill would have brushed it away. Just
the senseless fear that does make men intolerable brutes."
"I come back to my original point. You ought to be more careful,
Miss Schlegel. Your servants ought to have orders not to let such
people in."
She turned to him frankly. "Let me explain exactly why we like
this man, and want to see him again."
"That's your clever way of talking. I shall never believe you
like him."
"I do. Firstly, because he cares for physical adventure, just as
you do. Yes, you go motoring and shooting; he would like to go
camping out. Secondly, he cares for something special IN
adventure. It is quickest to call that special something
poetry--"
"Oh, he's one of that writer sort."
"No--oh no! I mean he may be, but it would be loathsome stuff.
His brain is filled with the husks of books, culture--horrible;
we want him to wash out his brain and go to the real thing. We
want to show him how he may get upsides with life. As I said,
either friends or the country, some"--she hesitated--"either some
very dear person or some very dear place seems necessary to
relieve life's daily grey, and to show that it is grey. If
possible, one should have both."
Some of her words ran past Mr. Wilcox. He let them run past.
Others he caught and criticised with admirable lucidity.
"Your mistake is this, and it is a very common mistake. This
young bounder has a life of his own. What right have you to
conclude it is an unsuccessful life, or, as you call it, 'grey'?"
"Because--"
"One minute. You know nothing about him. He probably has his own
joys and interests--wife, children, snug little home. That's
where we practical fellows" he smiled--"are more tolerant than
you intellectuals. We live and let live, and assume that things
are jogging on fairly well elsewhere, and that the ordinary plain
man may be trusted to look after his own affairs. I quite grant--
I look at the faces of the clerks in my own office, and observe
them to be dull, but I don't know what's going on beneath. So, by
the way, with London. I have heard you rail against London, Miss
Schlegel, and it seems a funny thing to say but I was very angry
with you. What do you know about London? You only see
civilisation from the outside. I don't say in your case, but in
too many cases that attitude leads to morbidity, discontent, and
Socialism."
She admitted the strength of his position, though it undermined
imagination. As he spoke, some outposts of poetry and perhaps of
sympathy fell ruining, and she retreated to what she called her
"second line"--to the special facts of the case.
"His wife is an old bore," she said simply. "He never came home
last Saturday night because he wanted to be alone, and she
thought he was with us."
"With YOU?"
"Yes." Evie tittered. "He hasn't got the cosy home that you
assumed. He needs outside interests."
"Naughty young man!" cried the girl.
"Naughty?" said Margaret, who hated naughtiness more than sin.
"When you're married Miss Wilcox, won't you want outside
interests?"
"He has apparently got them," put in Mr. Wilcox slyly.
"Yes, indeed, father. "
"He was tramping in Surrey, if you mean that," said Margaret,
pacing away rather crossly.
"Oh, I dare say!"
"Miss Wilcox, he was!"
"M--m--m--m!" from Mr. Wilcox, who thought the episode amusing,
if risque. With most ladies he would not have discussed it, but
he was trading on Margaret's reputation as an emancipated woman.
"He said so, and about such a thing he wouldn't lie."
They both began to laugh.
"That's where I differ from you. Men lie about their positions
and prospects, but not about a thing of that sort."
He shook his head. "Miss Schlegel, excuse me, but I know the
type."
"I said before--he isn't a type. He cares about adventures
rightly. He 's certain that our smug existence isn't all. He's
vulgar and hysterical and bookish, but don't think that sums him
up. There's manhood in him as well. Yes, that's what I'm trying
to say. He's a real man."
As she spoke their eyes met, and it was as if Mr. Wilcox's
defences fell. She saw back to the real man in him. Unwittingly
she had touched his emotions.
A woman and two men--they had formed the magic triangle of sex,
and the male was thrilled to jealousy, in case the female was
attracted by another male. Love, say the ascetics, reveals our
shameful kinship with the beasts. Be it so: one can bear that;
jealousy is the real shame. It is jealousy, not love, that
connects us with the farmyard intolerably, and calls up visions
of two angry cocks and a complacent hen. Margaret crushed
complacency down because she was civilised. Mr. Wilcox,
uncivilised, continued to feel anger long after he had rebuilt
his defences, and was again presenting a bastion to the world.
"Miss Schlegel, you're a pair of dear creatures, but you really
MUST be careful in this uncharitable world. What does your
brother say?"
"I forget."
"Surely he has some opinion?"
"He laughs, if I remember correctly."
"He's very clever, isn't he?" said Evie, who had met and
detested Tibby at Oxford.
"Yes, pretty well--but I wonder what Helen's doing."
"She is very young to undertake this sort of thing," said Mr.
Wilcox.
Margaret went out to the landing. She heard no sound, and Mr.
Bast's topper was missing from the hall.
"Helen!" she called.
"Yes!" replied a voice from the library.
"You in there?"
"Yes--he's gone some time."
Margaret went to her. "Why, you're all alone," she said.
"Yes--it's all right, Meg. Poor, poor creature--"
"Come back to the Wilcoxes and tell me later--Mr. W much
concerned, and slightly titillated."
"0h, I've no patience with him. I hate him. Poor dear Mr. Bast!
he wanted to talk literature, and we would talk business. Such a
muddle of a man, and yet so worth pulling through. I like him
extraordinarily."
"Well done," said Margaret, kissing her, "but come into the
drawing-room now, and don't talk about him to the Wilcoxes. Make
light of the whole thing."
Helen came and behaved with a cheerfulness that reassured their
visitor--this hen at all events was fancy-free.
"He's gone with my blessing," she cried, "and now for puppies."
As they drove away, Mr. Wilcox said to his daughter:
"I am really concerned at the way those girls go on. They are as
clever as you make 'em, but unpractical--God bless me! One of
these days they'll go too far. Girls like that oughtn't to live
alone in London. Until they marry, they ought to have some one
to look after them. We must look in more often--we're better than
no one. You like them, don't you, Evie?"
Evie replied: "Helen's right enough, but I can't stand the toothy
one. And I shouldn't have called either of them girls."
Evie had grown up handsome. Dark-eyed, with the glow of youth
under sunburn, built firmly and firm-lipped, she was the best the
Wilcoxes could do in the way of feminine beauty. For the present,
puppies and her father were the only things she loved, but the
net of matrimony was being prepared for her, and a few days later
she was attracted to a Mr. Percy Cahill, an uncle of Mrs.
Charles's, and he was attracted to her.
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