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Aunt Gerty says George is going to be a ’vert, and that I shall have to be baptized over again, and not buried in consecrated ground when I die. She said I need not bother to go on with preparing for my confirmation, as all that would be stopped. I was hemming my veil and I went on, for I believed she was teasing. And as for Father Mack, he is quite a nice man, and George doesn’t swear half so badly since he came under his influence.
One of these nights, when Mother had gone off to dine at some restaurant or other, with a merry party, Aunt Gerty said, I had a talk with Ben. George, as usual now, dined in his study alone. Ben told me some things Mother had been saying to him, about better times coming, and darkest before dawn, and so on. He wanted me to explain her, but I couldn’t, for the only fact I knew, viz. her going to Boulogne with Mr. Aix, would not do Ben any good that I could see? It is really no use trying to find out what grown-up people mean, sometimes, it is like trying to imagine eternity; one has nothing to go on.
We went to bed early, but I couldn’t sleep; after what Ben had said I felt I must see Mother again that night. I kept awake with great difficulty till I heard the swish of her dress on the stairs, and then I slipped out of bed and faced her. She was too tired to scold, she had trodden twice in the hem of her dress going up-stairs. When we got into her own room, she let her cloak slide off on to the floor, and came out of it like a flower, and looked awfully nice in her low neck and bare arms.
“Oh, my pretty little Mother,” I said. “I do love you.”
“You are just like every one else,” she answered me pettishly.
“I’m not,” I said, but of course there is no doubt about it, one does love people more in evening dress and less in a nightgown.
“Did George ever see you like this?” I asked.
“Often. Is he gone to bed?”
“Yes, with a headache.”
She took a candle and we went on tiptoe to his room, Mother first taking off her high-heeled shoes, for they would tap on the parquet and make a noise. George was asleep. He had eaten one of his bananas, and the other was still by the side of his bed.
“Hold the candle, Tempe!” Mother said quickly. It was that she might go down on her knees beside George. She then buried her head in the quilt and cried.
“Oh, George, I am doing it for the best—I am, I am! For my poor neglected boy—my poor Ben.”
She upset and puzzled me so by alluding to Ben, after my conversation with him that very evening, that I dropped a blob of candle-grease on the sheet near George’s arm, and I was so afraid I had awakened him, that I at once shut the stable-door—I mean blew out the candle and made a horrible smell. Mother jumped off her knees as frightened as I was—Father Mack hasn’t cured George quite of swearing!—and we made a clean bolt of it back to her room, where she re-lit the candle and began to get out of her dress as quickly as she could, while I sat in a honeypot on the floor, and kept my nightgown well round my legs not to catch cold, and talked to her nicely, so as not to startle her.
“Of course, Mother dear, you are doing it for the best, even if it is to run away.”
“Run away! Who says I am going to run away?”
“George.”
“He told you?”
“He told Lady Scilly.”
“Did he, then? He deserves that I should make it true.” She laughed, a laugh I did not like at all. It wasn’t her laugh, but I have said she was quite changed.
“Oh, Mother, don’t laugh like that!”
“You are like the good little girl in the play, who preaches down a wicked mother’s heart! Well, my dear, I’ll promise you one thing. I will never run away without you. Will that be all right?”
“That will be all right,” I answered, much relieved. For although I am so much more “pally” with George and sorry for him, I don’t want to be left with him. Perhaps I shall be allowed to run over in the Marguerite from Boulogne sometimes on a visit? Then I could darn and mend for him, as Mr. Aix would not be able to spare Mother from doing for him. I did not mention Mr. Aix to her. I thought she would rather tell me all in her own time.
I often wonder if we three will be happy in Boulogne, or wherever it is social ostracism takes you to? I fancy the inconvenience of running away is chiefly the want of society.
That is the only want Mother will not feel after all those years buried away in Isleworth. Ariadne is now happily married, so it won’t affect her, though I suppose that if this had happened a year ago, a mother-in-law spending her days in social ostracism would not have suited Simon’s stiff relations. It might have prevented him from proposing. I see it all; Mother unselfishly waited.
One thing really troubles me. Why does not Mother do some packing? I hope that she is not going to run away in that uncomfortable style when you only throw two or three things into a bag? A couple of bottles of eau-de-cologne, and some hair-pins, like Laura in To Leeward? I, at any rate, have some personal property, and I shall do very badly without it in a dull, dead-alive place like Boulogne. But I will be patient. Whatever Mother does is sure to be right, even running away, which gets so dreadfully condemned in novels.
George’s new secretary is quite utilitarian and devoted to him, she is not so farouche as Christina, Mr. Aix says, or so charming. George keeps her hard at work typing his autobiography, and doesn’t go to see Father Mack any more. I asked him why he was “off” dear Father Mack, and he says last time he went to see him it was the Father’s supper-time, and he saw a horrid sight. He could not think, he says, of entrusting his salvation to a man whom he had seen supping with the utmost relish off a plateful of bullock’s eyes. Just like George to be put off his salvation by a little thing like that! Though I always felt myself as if Father Mack was not quite ascetic enough for a real right-down sinner like George.
Tickets have come to George for the first night of Mr. Aix’s play. George calls it Ingomar, which vexes Aix, because Ingomar is a certain old-fashioned kind of play that only needs a pretty woman who can’t act, as “lead.”
“Who’s your Parthenia?” he asked him.
Mr. Aix answered, “Oh, a little woman I unearthed for myself from the suburban drama—the usual way.”
“Any good?” asked George casually.
“I am telling her exactly what I want her to do, and she looks upon me as Shakespeare and the Angel Gabriel in one,” said Mr. Aix, glancing across at Mother, who pursed up her lips and laughed.
“I will take Tempe to your first night,” said George suddenly.
“A play of Jim Aix’s for the child’s first play!” cried Mother in a fright. “I shouldn’t think of it.”
“Children never see impropriety, or ought not to,” George said. “But if you don’t wish it, I will take Lady Scilly and the Fylingdales instead. It will do the play good.”
“It’s a fond delusion,” said Aix, “that the aristocracy can even damn a play.”
Of course I understood the impropriety blind. Mother wanted me to be free to go away with her, and the twenty-sixth was to be the night, after all. I thought of the crossing by the nine o’clock mail that we should have to do, and that I only know of from hearsay, and wondered why they must choose such an awkward time? Perhaps we should not after all cross that night, for surely Mr. Aix would want to come before the curtain if called, and that wouldn’t possibly be till about ten o’clock, too late for the train?
Perhaps we should stay the night at an hotel? I should simply love that.
CHAPTER XXI
“SHALL I type your Good-bye to George?” I asked Mother. She said, “What do you mean?” I said, “The one you will leave pinned to your pincushion in the usual place?”
She laughed, and I again thought her most fearfully casual. There was no packing done, although one would have thought she would have liked her clothes nice and fresh and lots of them, so that she shouldn’t feel shabby at Boulogne, and let Mr. Aix and herself down. As for my clothes—I really only had one—one dress I mean—and it was hanging loose where it shouldn’t, and with a large ink-spot in front nobody had troubled to take out with salts of lemon or anything.
But I began to think some things had been sent on beforehand, as advance luggage or so forth, for Mr. Aix came in one evening, and when Aunt Gerty raised her eyebrows at him, he said “A 1!” That I fancied was the ticket number for the luggage, so I felt more at ease.
One eventful evening, after Mother had been lying down all day, I was told to put on my sun-ray pleated, and to mend it if it wanted it. I did mend it and I put a toothbrush in the pocket of it, and I kissed all the cats until they hated me. Cats don’t like kissing, but then I didn’t know when I should see them again? I supposed some time, for running away never is a permanent thing. People always come back and take up housekeeping again, in the long run.
The funny thing was, they had chosen the day of Mr. Aix’s first night to run away on. I suppose it was in case he was boo-ed. Then the manager could come on and say, “The author is not in the house, having gone to Boulogne with a lady and little girl, by the nine o’clock mail!” That, of course, was the train we were to catch. I looked it out, I am good at trains.
George took Lady Scilly to dine at the Paxton that night, and on to the theatre where some others were to meet them. I have never been to a theatre myself, only music halls. At six o’clock George went off, all grin and gardenia. The grin was as forced as the gardenia. I observed that.
Aunt Gerty badly wanted to go with Mr. Aix and hold his hand, as he was as nervous as a cat. But he wouldn’t have her with him, and I don’t wonder. It would have been impossible to shake her off by nine o’clock, and he would have missed the boat-train, and Mother and me.
After our dinner, Mother went up to her room and put on her hat, and told me to go to mine and to put on my Shanter. I didn’t intrude on her privacy. I daresay she was saying a long good-bye to her old home, as I was. I filled my pockets with mementoes. I took Ernie Fynes’ list of horses—for after all he is the only boy I ever loved, and it is my only love-letter. I wondered what Mother would take? However, she came out of her room smiling, and her pockets didn’t stick out a bit. She is calm in the face of danger; just as she was that awful day when I supplied a fresh lot of methylated to a dying flame under our tea-kettle straight from the bottle, and she had to put out the large fire I had started unconsciously.
“Goodness, child, how you do bulge! Empty your pocket at once!”
I did as I was told. We must buy pencils over there, I suppose, but I held on to the toothbrush.
“Now you are not to talk all the way there and tire me!” Mother said, as we got into a hansom.
“I won’t; but do tell me where we are to meet Mr. Aix?”
“Mr. Aix? I am sure I don’t know. He will be about, I suppose, unless they sit on his head to keep him quiet! Don’t talk.”
She put her hand up to her head, not because she had a headache, but to keep her hair in place, as it was a windy night, and I couldn’t help thinking of the crossing that I had never crossed, only heard what Ariadne said about it, when she came back from her wedding-tour. Ariadne tried seven cures, and none of them saved her.
It was ridiculously early, only seven o’clock. As we drove on and on I began to hope that we were going to lose Mr. Aix and go alone. But it was no good. We stopped at a door that certainly wasn’t the door of a station, and Mr. Aix came out to meet us. He squeezed our hands, and his hand was hot, while his face was as white as a table-cloth. We went in, up a dirty passage, and into a great cellar where there seemed to be building constructions going on, for I noticed lots of scaffolding and that sort of thing. There were also great pieces of canvas stretched on wood, and one very big bit lying there propped against the wall had a landscape of an orchard on it.
“What is it?” I asked one of the people standing about—a man in a white jacket.
“That, Missie—that’s the back cloth to the first scene,” and then he mumbled something, about flies and their wings, that I did not chose to show I didn’t understand.
“Oh, yes, quite so,” I said to the dirty man in the white (it had once been) jacket, and got hold of Mr. Aix, who was mooning about in evening dress, quite unsuitable for a journey. But he was always an untidy sort of inappropriate man.
“Where’s my mother?”
“Oh, your mother! Yes, she’s gone to her room. I’ll take you to her.”
“But are you going to make us live here?” I asked; but bless the man! he was too nervous to take any more notice of me and my remarks. We muddled along; I tumbled over a lump in the middle of the floor with grass sown on it, and caught my foot in a carpet, made of the same. Mr. Aix quite forgot me and I lost him.
“Mind! Mind!” everybody kept saying, and shouldering past me with bits of the very walls in their arms. They left the brick perfectly bare, as bare as our old coal-cellar at Isleworth. (The one in Cinque Cento House is panelled.) I saw an ordinary tree, as I thought, but I was quite upset to find it was flat, like a free-hand drawing. My eyes were dazzled with electric lights, mounted on strings, like a necklace, only stiff, that they pushed about everywhere they liked. There were things like our nursery fire-guard all round the gas, that was there as well as electric. I noticed a girl go and look through a hole in a bit of canvas or tapestry that took up all one side of the wall, and went near her.
“Pretty fair house!” she said. She was a funny-looking little thing, with hardly enough on, and what there was was dirty, or dyed a dirty colour. In fact no two persons there were dressed alike; it was like a fancy-dress party, such as the Hitchings have at their Christmas-tree. The noise was deafening, they were shoving heavy weights about here and there, without knowing particularly or caring where they were going. My new friend had an American accent, and was as gentle as a cat. She went a little way back from the curtain with me and stood by a man she seemed rather to like, though he didn’t seem to like her. He was very tall and big, and when she had been talking to him a little while, she said suddenly—
“Excuse me! I must not let myself get stiff!” and took hold of a great leather belt he wore, and propped herself up by it and began to dip up and down, opening her knees wide. The man didn’t seem to like it much, but he was kind and chaffed her, till I got tired of her see-sawing up and down, and talking of her Greekness, and asked one or the other of them to be kind enough to take me to my mother.
“Certainly, little ’un,” said the man; “kindly point the young lady out to me. There’s so many in the Greek chorus!”
“It is Miss Lucy Jennings’ daughter,” said somebody near.
“I’ll take you to her after my dance,” said the girl. “Wait. Watch me! I go on!”
It was a sort of hop-skip-and-a-jump, like a little spring lamb capering about the fields and running races with the others as they do, but not more than that. They made a ring for her, and we all stood round and watched her, and somebody sang while she was dancing. She had no stockings at all on her clean manicured feet, but a kind of open-work boot of fancy leather. She came back as cool as a cucumber, and no wonder, for she had nearly stayed still, not so much exercise as an ordinary game of blindman’s-buff, and said to me, “Now, pussy, I will escort you to your mommer.”
She took me to the edge of the wall where a little stairs came down, and on the way we passed a boy with one side of him blue and the other green, and another man with wattles like a turkey hanging down his cheeks and a baby’s rattle in his hand. I hated them all, they were streaky and hot, like a nightmare, and simply longed for my nice, clean, natural mother.
But when we got to a door and knocked, a woman like a nurse came and answered it, and through her arm I could see my mother, standing in front of a looking-glass, under a gas globe with a fender over it, and she was streakier than anybody. She had a queer dress on too, with a waistband much too low, and a skirt, shortish, and her hair was yellow!
That finished me, and I screamed, “Oh, Mother, where have you put your black hair?”
Aunt Gerty, who was sitting on a large cane dress-basket, told me to shut my mouth, and Mother turned round and said—
“It is only a wig, dear, and the paint will wash off, and then I will kiss you. Meantime, sit down and keep still!”
So I did, and watched the nurse arranging Mother as if she was a child, nothing more or less. I turned this way and that, trying to get the effect, but it was no use, I still thought she looked horrid.
The others didn’t think so. Aunt Gerty kept saying, “Really, Lucy, I wouldn’t have believed it! A little make-up goes a long way with us poor women, I see. More on the left-hand corner of the cheek, Kate. The lighting is rather unkind here, I happen to know.”
So Kate put more on, and Mother kept taking more off with a shabby bit of an animal’s foot she kept in her hand. She never looked at me at all, she was much too busy. Then suddenly a little scrubby boy came and said something at the door—“Garden scene on!” and went away. The nurse called Kate threw a coat over Mother, and we all three went out and down the stairs.
Then for the first time I twigged what it was—a Theatre! The people were acting all round us. I knew acting well enough when I saw it, but what I didn’t know was behind the scenes, and goodness me, I have heard Aunt Gerty talk about it enough! I was ashamed of having been so stupid, and terribly disillusioned as well.
The play was all the running away there was to be! Mother was going to be no more to Mr. Aix than taking a leading part in his play amounted to. My toothbrush literally burned in my pocket. I had been made a fool of.
But when I came to think it over quietly, I did not know but what I was not rather glad. It would have been a horrid upset, this running-away idea, and I believe George secretly felt it very much, though he did swagger so and pretend he didn’t care. The only thing was, perhaps he would mind Mother going on the stage even worse than running away? I longed to see him and hear what he had to say about it.
Mr. Aix was standing quite near us, between a flat green tree and the wall of a temple. He looked almost handsome; I suppose it was the aroma of success, for certainly this was a success. The audience seemed delighted with Mr. Bell, a great fat actor in boots, with frilled tops like an ancient Roman, who stood in the very middle of the stage raging away at Mother about something or other she had done.
“Bell’s in capital form to-night,” said Mr. Aix, quite loud. “I’m pleased with him.”
“I hope I shall content you too,” said Mother, who was shivering all over, and I don’t wonder, for the draughts in this place were terrific. Kate handed her a bottle of smelling-salts.
“Better by far have a B. and S.,” said Mr. Aix.
“No Dutch courage for me, thank you!” said Mother. “Tell me at once, is George and the cat in the box?”
“They are, and Mr. Sidney Robinson and the Countess of Fylingdales. You must buck up, little woman, and show them what you can do!”
“And what you can do!” she answered politely. “I shan’t forget you have entrusted me with your play.”
“And, by Jove! you’ll bring it out as no other woman could. You can–”
“I’m on!” said Mother, suddenly, and shunted the shawl, and pushed forward and began to act.
They clapped her at first and nearly drowned her voice, but she went right on and abused Mr. Bell in blank verse. I was glad Mr. Aix hadn’t made her a laundress or a serio, but something nice and Greek and respectable.
I stood there with Kate and Mother’s shawl and Aunt Gerty, and never knew what it was to be so excited before! The Greek girl came up to me and said—
“Say, your mommer’ll knock them!”
Then they seemed to come to a sort of proper place to stop, and the curtain began to rattle down, and Mother and Mr. Bell were holding each other tight, like lovers, only I heard her say in a whisper, “Mind my hair!”
They stayed there a long time looking stupid, even while the curtain was down and people were clapping all round. Then I saw why they did it, for it went up again, and again, and then they parted and took hands the last time, and looked straight in front of them and panted, while people shouted their names. Then the curtain came down again and Mr. Bell limped off, for, as he said, politely, Mother had been standing all the while on his best corn. She was so sorry, and he said it didn’t matter, and he hoped he hadn’t disarranged her hair.
Oddly enough the clapping began again. Aunt Gerty jogged Mother, who stood near me looking quite giddy, and said “Take your call, silly!”
Mr. Bell took her by the hand and made her walk along in front of the curtain that a man held back for her by main force, and then we heard the people roaring again, till it seemed more as if they thirsted for their blood than wanted to praise them. This happened twice. When they didn’t seem inclined to clap any more she went off to her room with Kate, while Mr. Aix thanked her for making his play.
“Come and look at them!” said Aunt Gerty to me, and we went and looked through the rent in the curtain, for that was the hole in the wall the girl looked through. There was George and Lady Scilly talking away as if Mother and her triumph hadn’t existed. I think George was cross, but I really couldn’t tell.
Mother wouldn’t have me in her room at all this time, and I lounged about with Aunt Gerty till it all began again. Mother didn’t do this next act so well, at least Aunt Gerty said not, and scolded her.
“I can’t help it, Gertrude,” Mother said. “I thought George would have–”
“Never fear! He’ll hold out till the end of the play. Then he’ll be round here bothering as sure as my name is Gertrude Jenynge!”
And her name is Gertrude Jennings, which is pretty near, and in the third piece of acting, when Mother was not on much, I heard George’s voice asking to be taken to her.
“Miss Jennings left word she was not to be disturbed this wait.”
“I’m her husband.”
“Very likely, sir!” The man sneered.
He didn’t get in, and he stood there neglected by the staircase till the beginning of the next and last act, as they said it was. I dared not go and speak to him, for he looked so cross, and I was also afraid he would carry me away to the box with Lady Scilly, so I just slipped behind a bit of scenery and observed.
Presently Mother came softly out of her room and passed George leaning on the rail of the staircase leading to her dressing-room.
She nodded and laughed.
“Wait for me, George, please. Kate, take this gentleman to my room–”
And she went gaily on to the stage.
I followed George and Kate to Mother’s room, and discovered myself to him. He made no fuss, simply looked right through me, and began walking up and down while Kate sewed a button on to something.
We heard the clapping from the front quite distinctly. George ground his teeth. Then Kate slipped out and Mother came in alone, panting, and took hold of the dressing-table as if she was drowning.
“I’ve saved the piece!” said she almost to herself, and then to George, “I’m an artist. Oh, George, why weren’t you in front to see me in the best moment of my life?”
“When I married you, Lucy–” George stuttered.
“Yes, but that wasn’t nearly such an occasion! Oh, George, forgive me, and don’t spoil all my pleasure.”
“Pleasure!” said George, as if he was disgusted.
“Here comes Jim Aix to congratulate me. Poor Aix, he is so pleased....”
She burst into tears as Mr. Aix came in. He took absolutely no notice of George, but just caught hold of Mother’s hands and said several times over—
“Thank you! Thank you! Bless you! Bless you! Good God! You are crying–”
“It is my husband there, who grudges me my success! He does, he does! Oh, George, for shame! I did it for Ben—for our son—to be able to send him to college. I have made a hit—quite by accident—and you grudge it me!”
“He doesn’t, he doesn’t grudge you your artistic expansion!” said Mr. Aix, and went to George and put his hand on his shoulder. “Old George is the best sort in the world at the bottom. Pull yourself together, dear old man, and be thankful you have a clever wife, as well as a good one. She’s a genius—she’s better, she’s a brick. I can tell you she’s a heaven-born actress, and you know what sort of a wife she has been to you. Speak to her, man, don’t let her cry her heart out now, in the hour of her triumph. What’s a triumph? At the best but short-lived! Don’t grudge it her! Congratulate her–”
George came out of his corner and took Mother’s hand and kissed it nicely, as I have seen him kiss Lady Scilly’s hand, but Mother’s never.
“One can only beg your pardon, Lucy, for this, and everything else. Can you forgive me?”
I re-open my MS. to add a few facts of interest.
1. Ariadne got a baby in June; his name is Almeric Peter Frederick.
2. Aunt Gerty got her brewer, and Mrs. Bowser has left the stage.
3. Ben was sent to school, and they say he is clever, though I never could see it.
4. Lady Scilly has run away with the chauffeur and, so far, hasn’t come back.
5. I am going to stay with Ernie Fynes’ mother, Lady Fynes, at Barsom. Ernie will be away at Eton, but he loves me.
