Читать книгу Gray youth - Oliver Onions - Страница 10

Amory liked people to be one thing or the other; that was the real reason why she loathed and abhorred Glenerne. She had had ripping times amid the naphtha-lights of the Saturday night street-markets and at Bank Holiday merry-go-rounds and cocoanut-shies; and, of course, when Van Eeden on Dreams came up for discussion, or Galton on Heredity, or Pater on the Renaissance, or the clear-eyed Weiniger on the Relation of the Sexes, she was again entirely at home. On the heights or in the depths she felt the real throb of Humanity’s heart. But those dreadful middle grades! Those terrible estate-agents and booking-clerks and bank-cashiers and brewers’ travellers of whom the world seemed to be so full! As so many phenomena in the science of vision—solid objects for colour to possess and light to fall upon—she admitted they had their uses; but she was entirely uninterested in them otherwise. Of all the fine things Cosimo had done in the past, she thought he had done nothing finer nor more full of profound meaning than when he had once given a crossing-sweeper a shilling, taken the broom from his hand, and for an hour swept the crossing himself. It took true nobility to do that. Mr. Geake could not have done it, nor Mr. Wellcome, nor the egregious young man in the green knitted waistcoat who had advised her to take care of her eyes, and had then told her that the Crystal Palace was a “funny place to go for a squeeze”—Mr. Edmondson.

All talking at once, Amory and her half-dozen guests trooped back up the narrow stairs.

“Well, here we are——” they announced themselves.

“Donkey’s years since we’ve seen you, Amory——”

“How are you?”

“How’s Life and Work?”

“This is Bielby, Amory … don’t suppose you know him … we just brought him along——”

“You should see the view from here in the day-time, Bielby … stunning!——”

“Chuck your things down … mind Laura’s guitar——”

They threw their hats and coats and cloaks into the window-seat, and filled the room as they stood talking, laughing and straightening their hair. Amory asked Cosimo for a match, and approached the two candles that stood in the brass sticks on the gate-legged table.

“Oh, don’t light up!” three or four broke out at once; “the firelight’s so jolly!”

“No?”

“Positively sinful to spoil this effect!——”

“Pull the chairs up round the fire—the floor’ll do for me——”

“Me too——”

“I’ll lean against your knees, Dorothy——”

“Oh, now I’ve left my handkerchief in my pocket! Lend me yours, Cosimo——”

“Well, Amory——!”

They settled about the hearth, Cosimo Pratt with his shoulder-blades against Dorothy’s knees, Walter Wyron propping up Laura Beamish, Katie Deedes and Mr. Bielby on chairs, Dickie Lemesurier with the firelight shining on her peacock-feather yoke at one end of the fender, Amory curled up against the coal-box at the other.

“I say—Amory’s hair!——” Walter Wyron broke rapturously out, as Amory settled into her place.

“Quite unpaintable, Walter,” said Laura Beamish, peering over the edge of her hand.

“Suppose so—but isn’t it Venetian!——”

“Just put that green plate with the oranges in her lap——”

“Oh … magnificent!”

It did indeed make an astonishing glow.

“Well,” said Cosimo Pratt presently, when each had applied his or her adjective to Amory’s appearance, “and how’s Jellies and Mrs. ’Ill, Amory?”

You would not now have known Amory for the same girl who had conversed with Mr. Edmondson on the progress of illustrated journalism and statelily inclined her head when the awful Mr. Wellcome had offered her a liqueur-glass of the famous old Spanish brandy. She gave a low rippling laugh. She snuggled contentedly up against the coal-box.

“What! hasn’t Dorothy told you?” she ejaculated. If Dorothy hadn’t told, that was really rather nice of Dorothy.

“No,” said Cosimo, turning his huge black-coffee-coloured eyes on her, all anticipation.

“Jellies is engaged!” Amory announced, with another low laugh.

Cosimo started dramatically. “No!”

Amory nodded. She could always rely on Cosimo.

“You don’t say so! Oh, do tell me! Do you think——” a short pause, “—he’s worthy of her?”

“Just look at Cosimo’s face!” bubbled Laura Beamish. It bore an expression of the deepest mock gravity.

“Do tell me!” Cosimo implored. …

Mrs. ’Ill was the woman who came in twice a week to do up the studio; Jellies (so called because she worked at the Jelly Factory across the river) was her daughter. Cosimo spoke again, in tragic tones.

“At least tell me whether he’s ‘in’ or ‘out’!” he begged.

“Bielby’s out of this; tell Bielby, Amory,” several voices said at once; and Amory’s pretty golden eyes sought Mr. Bielby. She explained.

Jellie’s fiancé (she said) was ‘in’—in prison. It had been (said Amory), oh, so killing! He had snatched a jacket from outside a second-hand clothes’ shop, and had run away with it and had put it on: but he had not had time to remove the wooden hanger—Mr. Bielby knew those wooden hangers they hang coats on?—well, he’d not had time to remove the hanger before a policeman had collared him, and there he had been, swearing the coat was his, with the wire hook sticking up at the back of his neck! Fancy—just fancy!—the psychological situation! Really, somebody ought to write to William James about it!—‘Orris (’Orris Jackman his name was—after orris-root, Amory supposed) vowing that he’d bought the coat weeks ago, and then the policeman putting his finger through the hook and hauling him away! …

“And Mrs. ’Ill——” Amory rippled on to Mr. Bielby——

“Oh yes—tell him about Mrs. ’Ill and the Creek!” they cried.

“Mrs. ’Ill, you see, Mr. Bielby, keeps what she calls a Creek—that’s a crèche! (We must all go and see it one of these days!) It’s in the World’s End Passage, next door to a fried fish shop, and there are twenty babies, and the woman at the fried fish shop keeps an eye on them when Mrs. ’Ill comes in here on Wednesdays and Saturdays, that is, unless Jellies happens to be out of work——”

“But the hens are the best, Amory—tell him about the hens——” they prompted.

With that Amory was fairly launched. Mrs. ’Ill (she said) not only took charge of other people’s babies; she kept hens also, in a sort of back scullery, and at tea-time they sat in her lap and ate winkles off her plate, and she said she felt towards them just as if they were her own! Hens and babies—Figurez vous!—And there was always a christening party or something at the Creek, to which the hens went too, and—(they must listen to this!)—at one party they’d had, last Christmas, nobody’d been to bed for two nights, and Mrs. ’Ill had explained that they’d had to cut it short because of ’Ill having been dead only a week!——

“Oh, but about ’Ill—he hasn’t heard about ’Ill——”

“Well, her name isn’t ’Ill at all, you see. That didn’t come out till her husband died. His real name was Berry, or Barry, or something, and he signed the register ‘Barry’ when he was married. But it seems he’d been in the Army and deserted, and was afraid of being caught, so he called himself Hill. But (here’s Westermarck for you!) when his first baby was going to be born his conscience seems to have been troubled (it would make a lovely psychological story, Mrs. ’Ill with the child and Mr. ’Ill with the conscience), and so he made a sort of bet with himself, that if it was a boy he’d give himself up, and if it was a girl he’d just go on being Mr. ’Ill and a deserter. And of course it was Jellies, and so Mrs. ’Ill’s Mrs. ’Ill. …”

There was nothing of the snob about Amory. These were the people among whom she had moved during her painting of Saturday night scenes and street markets, and she did not pretend that they were not. And she had an undeniable gift for such narrations. Laura Beamish, who tried to cap her with some story of a Charing Cross flower-girl and a black eye, fell by comparison quite flat; and even Katie Deedes’s tale of her mother’s entrée-cook did not gain quite the same applause. And Walter Wyron’s, about the ex-sergeant who had looked after his father’s house-boat, was an old one. Yes, Amory liked people to be one thing or the other.

But she did not tell any stories about Mr. Wellcome and Mr. Geake.

From these and similar stories to the larger issues of Democracy was but a step, and as Dorothy rose and opened the flask of Chianti, the step was taken. The Fabian Nursery and the S.D.F. came all in the stride. … The space within the fender became half full of banana-skins and orange peel; the fire-light shone up on the eager faces; and Amory, in the half-shadow by the coal-box, fed her eyes on effects.

What ripping drawing there was in Dickie Lemesurier’s neck as it issued from its square-cut, peacock’s-feather-embroidered frame! What a perfectly glorious colour Walter’s snuff-coloured corduroys took in the glow (only glaze on glaze of burnt-sienna could ever get it!) And how stunning was the shadow of Cosimo’s hand over his handsome chin as he put the cigarette into his mouth! … Cosimo’s hair clung like tendrils about his temples and over the back of his soft grey collar; Amory had made at one time and another a dozen drawings of his splendid throat; she hoped to make a dozen more. She was very proud of having Cosimo for a friend. He set down appearances at their proper value, no more. He was quite free from those stupid old-fashioned prejudices that, in so arrogantly setting apart certain subjects as undiscussable between young men and young women, had so delayed the real freedom that, for all that, was coming. She laughed as Cosimo, who had just put a lump of coal on the fire with his fingers, asked Dorothy whether he might wipe them on her stockings, and made some remark about Spring Novelties when Dorothy said that he might not. It was only Cosimo. Everybody understood. There was just that touch of gentle womanliness in Cosimo (Amory thought) that perfects and finishes a man.

In watching Cosimo and the others, but especially Cosimo, Amory had a little disregarded the conversation. She was recalled to it by a sudden exclamation from Katie Deedes—

“Oh no—carnations for Dickie, and just green leaves for Amory——”

“Late ones, slightly turning,” Laura Beamish suggested, peering critically over her hand again as she strove to compass a mental image of Amory wearing the leaves.

“Or green grapes,” Walter Wyron suggested, peering also.

“Amory, do take down your hair!” they suddenly implored.

Amory grumbled sweetly. It was such a bother to put it up again, she said. But Cosimo, starting from his seat against Dorothy’s knees, cried, “Oh yes, Amory!” and took a fresh place by her feet. “With the firelight through it it should be just unbelievable!” he cried excitedly. … So Amory’s hands went to the great red-gold fir cone; she shook down the heavy plaits; and Cosimo’s fingers parted and disposed them.

“How’s that? Wait—just a minute—it wants just one touch—there!” he said, drawing back.

Cries of admiration broke out. Amory was as hidden by it as a weeping elm is hidden by its leaves.

“Oh—green leaves, most decidedly!” cried Walter Wyron with conviction. “Amory, you really must paint yourself so—none of us could do it—what a sonnet Rossetti would have written!”

“Or Swinburne——”

“Or Baudelaire——!”

“Or Verlaine!”

Rapt they gazed for some moments longer. …

“Green leaves for Amory, then, and carnations for Dickie. … What’s Dorothy?”

“Oh, Dot’s a tea-rose——”

“Periwinkle, to go with her eyes——”

“ ‘Pervenche’ they always call it in the Catalogues, don’t they, Dot? Must have superior terms for Catalogues!”

“And amethyst earrings——”

“No, pearls——”

“I say amethyst!”

“I say pearls!”

“Pooh! Pearls are obviously Laura’s wear!”

“Laura! My dear chap! Why, what were emeralds made for if they weren’t made for Laura? …”

At this point the party split up into two cliques, Amory turning to Cosimo again, and Walter and the others continuing their semi-symbolistic pastime.

Amory had not yet told Cosimo that she intended presently to make this room her home. Cosimo was leaning against her knees now, and had tied two strands of her hair together in a loose knot on his breast; and when she spoke to him he turned up his fine face so that she saw it upside down. When Cosimo had removed into his studio near the Vestry Hall seven or eight months ago, Amory had spent whole days with him, reading aloud passages from one or other of her Association volumes while he had papered and distempered and hung his curtains, and nothing had ever been so jolly; and so she told him now of her own approaching change. He twisted half round within the loop of hair.

“Give you a hand? Rather! By Jove, with your view you ought to be able to make this place perfectly ripping! How are you thinking of doing your windows?”

Amory had known that he would be enthusiastic. She began to say something about muslin, but Cosimo shook his handsome tendrilled head peremptorily. He loosed himself from the bond of hair and faced round, cross-legged, before her.

“Oh no, you mustn’t dream of having muslin! I know something far better than that! There’s a remnant-sale at Peter Hardy’s, and they have some shop-soiled casement-cloth at one-four-three double width, all colours; that’s your stuff! Oh, decidedly! … Then stencil it—something like Dickie’s yoke there, only a broader treatment, of course—and there you are! They’ll take down and put up again in a couple of jiffs, and you have to put muslin up wet, and it catches every bit of dust, and only washes about twice—oh no: the casement-cloth by all means! … Now, what furniture have you got? …”

He entered wholeheartedly into her plans; he was so handsome and intuitive, so big and tall, yet so almost femininely sympathetic. Amory could have hugged him, there was so little of the mere superior blatant male about him. … They plunged into a discussion—or rather Cosimo plunged into a harangue—on the most satisfactory way of staining floors. …

Dorothy had been talking to Mr. Bielby, the young man who had been “just brought along,” and had discovered that he was still at the McGrath. Suddenly she gave a laugh and a call to Laura Beamish.

“I say, Laura! Mr. Jowett’s still just the same as ever, Mr. Bielby says,” she said.

Walter Wyron broke into a laugh. “Jowett? ’Pon my word, I’d almost forgotten poor old Jowett! Immortelle’s his flower, I should say! What’s Jowett’s latest, Bielby?”

Mr. Bielby related the “latest” of the Painting Professor through whose hands so many students had passed, all so different and all so exactly alike, that he had been driven to find what peace of mind he could in a saturnine resignation. Walter Wyron laughed again.

“Dear old Jowett! But he seems to be getting a bit below his game. He used to get off better ones than that. Do you remember him on the womanly woman, Dickie?”

“I remember his looking at my life-drawing and asking me if I couldn’t sew,” Dickie Lemesurier replied, bridling still at the recollection.

“And he told me my drawing was the best in the class, and that didn’t mean it was worth the time I’d spent on it,” Walter chuckled. “The joke is that poor old Jowett can say such funny things and never dream that they’re funny!”

“Why, he didn’t think tremendously of Amory herself!” said Katie Deedes indignantly.

“And still,” Laura remarked with dreamy irony, “I suppose we ought to hide our abashed heads really—but somehow or other we go on painting——”

“—still survive——”

“—bear up——”

“—quite happy in our ignorance——”

“Curiously blind all the world must be except Jowett——”

“Rather dreadful to know you’re the only wise man left——”

“Funny old stick! … But it’s only a pose really——”

“That exactly describes it——”

“Certainly the immortelle for Jowett!” …

But the party proper had not begun yet: Walter had not recited, and Laura Beamish’s guitar still lay in its case in the window-seat. Katie Deedes, who always kept a sort of tally of the good things said and awarded marks (as it were) to the sayers, had not thought of striking her balance yet.

“Give Dickie another cigarette, Cosimo, and then do let’s have a song, Laura!” Amory exclaimed; and Walter Wyron jumped up to get Laura’s instrument. It had long, many-coloured streamers of ribbon, which Walter disposed like serpentins about Laura as she sat, and Laura, turning pegs and tenderly strumming, asked what she should sing.

“Oh, ‘The Trees they do Grow High!’ ” said Amory quickly; “and then ‘The Sweet Primeroses’ and ‘The Clouded Yellow Butterfly,’ please!—Do stop wriggling against my knees, Cosimo—and oh, how exquisite!—look, the moon’s just coming in at the window!”

And Laura’s voice rose on the tender strumming as if a light and fluty sound planed over the intervals between chord and chord.

“Lovely!” Amory murmured. … “Please, that verse again, about the ribbon, Laura!”