Читать книгу The Anxious Days - Philip Gibbs - Страница 15

Table of Contents

They had lunch at an Italian restaurant in Jermyn Street which Compton knew of old. It was smartened up somewhat, but he recognized one of the waiters and was pleased when the man remembered him beamingly.

“Not been ’ere lately, sir. One year, two year?”

“It’s your empty sleeve, Father!” said Madge. “They remember you with hero worship.”

“I was hoping it was on account of my beaux yeux,” he answered lightly. “By Jove, my dear, fancy being able to sit opposite you at a little luncheon-table! It’s what I used to dream about.”

He helped her off with her coat and stood looking at her with admiration and emotion.

“They’ll think we’re lovers, Father, if you gaze at me like that!” said Madge, laughing at him. “They’ll think you’re an elderly amorist taking out a little chorus girl.”

“Here, not so much of that ‘elderly’!” said Compton. “I was hoping they would take us for brother and sister.”

He felt gay and happy in this realization of hoped-for hours. He found his way about the menu card, and ordered a nice little meal with some light wine.

“Do you know this spot?” he asked when this was done to his satisfaction.

“Yes, I’ve been here with Simon,” she told him.

He made a mental note of that. He intended to ask her later if there was anything between her and that boy Simon. Helen had hinted at something of the sort.

“Tell me things,” he said. “I want to know all about you. Five years is an awful gap between father and daughter.”

“Oh, but I wrote,” she answered. “I was a very good correspondent, Father, you must admit.”

He admitted it. But she had left out lots of things he wanted to know. She had not mentioned her friends much, or the little details of private life. And once she had left him nearly six weeks without a letter. He had been quite anxious.

“Yes,” said Madge, “I’m sorry about that. It was when I came down from Oxford. Things were rather difficult at the time.”

“In what way, my dear?”

“Oh, well, I’ll tell you about that later. Mental and moral crises, and so forth.”

She smiled at him and searched his eyes, as though wondering what sort of a man was this father she hadn’t seen for five years—five important years of her life, when she had grown from girlhood to womanhood.

He didn’t press her about that. All in good time. He wouldn’t try to invade the sanctuaries which every girl must have, until she invited him to peep inside.

She answered his questions about relations with whom he would have to get in touch again. Aunt Emily, his eldest sister, was worried about her girls, who failed to get married. One of them, Kitty, had taken a job in a hat shop. The other, Judy, was a typist in a City office.

“Pretty marvellous!” said Compton. “Their father was slightly overconscious of his ancient lineage. One of the Furnivals of Sussex. One of his ancestors was killed at Crecy—as he was at Ypres. Now one of his daughters is a shop girl!”

“There’s nothing in that,” said Madge. “Half my friends are shop girls or business girls of one sort or another. We meet after working hours in evening frocks, which disguise our daily drudgery. I know the daughter of an impoverished peer who serves in the bargain basement of a big store. There are lots like it. Why not?”

Commander Compton considered that “why not”. It meant, of course, that there had been a social revolution since the War, bloodless but relentless. The old quality, as they used to be called, were being pulled down by taxation. They had given up their big mansions for small flats or little dolls’ houses in streets which used to be beyond the pale. Anyhow, their nephews and nieces were no longer privileged, in the old sense of the word, dropping easily into soft jobs, or living on adequate allowances until they inherited wads of money from ancient aunts or benevolent uncles. All that had gone.

“Well, it ought to kill English snobbishness,” he answered, with a laugh. “All the same, I have a faint regret for the past, when English ladies just looked beautiful, and made themselves charming, and were lovely hostesses.”

Madge smiled at him with raised eyebrows.

“Good heavens, Father! That’s prehistoric. You’re not as old as all that. Early Victorian!”

He remembered what Admiral Savage had told him about being called an Early Victorian, and it made him feel uneasy.

“No,” he said, “I’m not as old as all that. All the same, things have changed a bit. Your grandmother—my dear mother—was one of the great ladies, although she married an officer in the Royal Marines with nothing but his pay.”

“I wish I remembered her,” said Madge. “But I dare say she would be horribly shocked to think that her granddaughter was travelling around in musical comedy.”

“Tell me,” said Compton, “are you wedded to that kind of life? Isn’t it rather squalid for a girl who was educated at Somerville?”

He had gone out to the Malay for five years’ exile to send her to Somerville—or partly for that purpose.

“It’s quite amusing,” said Madge. “Of course, I hope to do better than musical comedy. In fact, I told you about that part Mr. Keening has offered me. It’s a great chance, Father. I’m going into rehearsal at once. It’s going to be hard work, because we produce in a fortnight.”

“Oh, I’m afraid that means I shan’t see much of you—for a fortnight, eh? Hard luck!”

“I’m afraid it does,” she answered, looking at him with a smile. “Sorry, Father.”

“Do you mind if I hang around the stage door like an old-fashioned lover?” he asked lightly, hiding his disappointment.

“Oh, you’d get awfully bored, Father.”

She explained the tedium of rehearsals; the length of time they took; the waiting about.

“You’ll have to take up a hobby, Father,” she said later in the meal. “I should go in for golf, if I were you. Is that possible with only one arm?”

“Oh, that’s the last refuge,” said Compton. “I haven’t come to that yet.”

He waited until the coffee and cigarettes before telling her of that idea he had had in his mind for some time.

“I’ve been scheming things out,” he said presently. “A little scheme of life for you and me, Madge.”

“Yes, Father? In what way?”

She took one of his cigarettes out of his case and waited for the light he gave her.

“I’ve saved up a bit in that rubber job,” he told her. “A few thousands. Just about enough to buy a little old place in Sussex or somewhere. I might do a bit of farming in a small way. Fruit, perhaps, and a poultry farm. Perhaps a few pigs.”

“It sounds amusing, Father,” said Madge. “Only I’d leave out the pigs. They’re so smelly!”

Compton was quite inclined to leave out the pigs if she objected to them.

“I dare say some of these old places are going cheap,” he said. “I picture an old manor house, or farmhouse, with plenty of beams—Tudor or Stuart—and big chimneys and grand old fireplaces.”

“Aren’t they a bit draughty?” asked Madge teasingly.

“Oh, we’d keep out the draughts all right. Central heating, if I can run to it. Wood fires to look cheerful. Then there would be some fine old trees about, and a tennis lawn as smooth as a billiard table, and a rose garden, and a pergola. I insist on the rose garden for your sake, Madge.”

She laughed at this imaginary garden.

“It’s awfully sweet of you, Father. I love rose gardens now and then. When the roses are blooming. But won’t you be rather lonely in a place like that—when I’m working, you know?”

Yes, he admitted that. Of course, while she was working. Perhaps she would be resting now and then. Didn’t they call it resting while they were out of a part?

In his own mind he hoped she would get tired of stage life. There couldn’t be much fun really in touring round with provincial companies and putting up at theatrical lodging-houses. Even if she acted in town it would be very hard work, no doubt. He would tempt her to keep house with him. He would make a little paradise for her.

“I daresay I could run to a small car,” he told her. “In fact, it would be almost necessary, if I did a spot of farming. Then you could get your friends down. The tennis lawn would tempt them. There would be a spare bedroom or two. That girl Jean Macgregor might like a breath of country air now and then. That boy Simon might come down for a spell when he liked.”

Madge’s face flushed slightly as she smiled into her father’s eyes.

“You think of everything, Father!”

He ignored the comment, and continued his picture of the country house and its possibilities.

“There would be some interesting neighbours, I dare say. Of course, I don’t want to bury myself alive. But Surrey—or Sussex—is not exactly like a jungle in the Malay States.”

Madge was amused at that, and laughed.

“No, it’s not really wild on the south side of the Hog’s Back.”

“Well,” said Compton, “that’s what I have at the back of my mind, unless someone will give me a good job in which I might do something for poor old England. Meanwhile I think I’ll have a look round. I might find my house of dreams through a friendly estate agent somewhere in the neighbourhood of Horsham or Farnham.”

“I hope you’ll find it, Father,” said Madge. “It will give you something to do while I’m rehearsing and so on.”

“How long are you staying with that red-headed wench?” asked Compton presently. “I suppose you can’t break away and stay with me somewhere? A little furnished flat pro tem. Somewhere in the neighbourhood of South Kensington, perhaps. That would be convenient for you, wouldn’t it?”

Madge agreed that it would be delightfully convenient. And she would love to be with him. But it was a little awkward just now. She didn’t want to let Jean down, and she was paying half the rent for another six months. Besides, Jean rather looked to her as a stable companion, coming from the wild North and being rather lonesome in London.

“Oh, I understand,” said Compton. “I wouldn’t like you to let her down. But perhaps she might get hold of some other girl who would share expenses and provide companionship.”

“Yes,” said Madge. “I’ll try to fix that up, Father.”

He was grateful for that promise, and he was touched when suddenly she patted his hand as it lay on the tablecloth, fingering the crumbs, and spoke with a little anxiety in her voice.

“I’m afraid you’re going to feel rather lonely while I’m working, Father.”

“Oh, as long as I get a glimpse of you pretty often,” he answered light-heartedly.

She stubbed out her cigarette in the ash-tray and leaned her chin on clasped hands, looking at him with smiling eyes.

“You’re a darling, Father, really! But what a pity I’ve missed you so long. We’ve never been together much, have we? We’re strangers, really.”

“Hard luck, old girl!”

Madge thought her way back to a not very distant past.

“I remember dimly when you came home on leave from the China station, and other leaves afterwards when Mummie was alive. I was a brat in those days. Then you left the Navy and looked around for jobs, didn’t you?”

“I did,” agreed Compton, with a laugh at unpleasant recollections. The best job he could find was the secretaryship to a golf club in the neighbourhood of Dorking.

“I was at my beastly boarding-school then,” said Madge, “so that I didn’t see much of you, except in the holidays.”

Compton was sorry she called it a beastly boarding-school. He had stinted and scraped to send her there—one of the best in England, according to reputation and high fees.

“The only time I had you as a real father was when we went to France and Italy, before I began my ignoble career at Somerville.”

Compton had enjoyed that trip with her, and had often thought of it since as one of the bright spots in his wanderings.

“We had a great time didn’t we?” he agreed. “You were in the sweet seventeen stage; just blossoming, my dear. I was a proud father! Some of those Italian officers in Rome made eyes at you. I was a bit anxious one day when one of them took you for a walk.”

Madge laughed at this episode. Yes, her father had been rather scared.

“My first experience of the amorous male,” she remarked. “But, Father, I’ve never forgiven you for going off like that to the Malay, just when I wanted you. That’s when a girl needs a father.”

Compton raised his eyebrows comically at the challenge.

“My dear child! I had to earn a bit of brass. I couldn’t hang about doing nothing when that golf club gave me the order of the boot, after that row I had with that nasty piece of work who happened to be its managing director. Besides, you were going to Somerville for three years.”

“I know,” said Madge; “that was the absurdity. You were going to do three years hard labour in the Malay States—and then you stayed five—in order that I could waste time at Somerville pretending to absorb the higher education.”

“Pretending?” asked Compton, with raised eyebrows again, and a smile lengthening his thin lips.

“I was not good at it,” said Madge. “I just scraped through because the examiners liked the colour of my eyes. All the Somerville crowd adored me because I had ‘that schoolgirl complexion’. The Oxford men—they call them men, you know!—came round like flies to a jam-pot. It was all very ridiculous.”

Compton grinned. He could quite understand that this pretty girl of his had attracted the undergraduate crowd, if he knew anything about romantic youth. And he was glad Madge was being candid with him. It brought him nearer to her.

“Perfectly natural,” he said. “I don’t suppose it did you any harm, my dear. It’s nice to be admired.”

“Well, it leads to—complications,” she thought, answering his smile. “Anyhow, that’s why I thought of the stage as a career. People seemed to like the look of me for some reason, so why not make them pay for the privilege? I played Juliet at Somerville. The undergraduates stamped the floor down almost. I was a real hit, Father.”

“I wish I’d been there,” said Compton. “I should have been mighty proud of you, my dear.”

“Oh, I wasn’t too bad,” she admitted. “Simon said I was better than the Neilson Terry girl. But then, of course, he was prejudiced in my favour at the time.”

Compton thought he might have been right, without prejudice. Simon again! Yes, he remembered that Helen’s boy had been up at Oxford with Madge.

“But the point is,” she said, “that I’ve missed something, Father. Home life. A parent when one wants him during adolescence and all that. An elderly aunt isn’t the same thing, exactly.”

Compton hid a secret emotion. That phrase “I’ve missed something” hit him hard. All his married life he had missed the same thing—home life, family love, a daughter’s companionship. It was the penalty of a naval career and post-war poverty. So Madge had missed him as much as all that—poor darling! Of course she was perfectly right about a girl wanting a father just as she was growing into womanhood. He could understand that. He hoped he hadn’t come back too late for comradeship.

“There’s time yet, my darling,” he said, more emotionally than he had intended. “I’m back again now. I’m here to look after you. I want a bit of cherishing myself.”

He spoke the last words lightly, with a comical face, to make a joke of very deep feelings.

Madge smiled back at him, and continued her self-revelation with a charming candour.

“Yes, but, Father, you see I have my job now. I’m no longer a schoolgirl. I’m keen on making a career for myself. It keeps me busy, you know. And then, I have lots of friends who like to see me now and then. You understand, don’t you?”

Compton patted his daughter’s hand reassuringly. Of course he understood—perfectly.

“Oh, I don’t want to monopolize you, my dear. You needn’t be afraid of that. I just want to fit into your scheme of things. Naturally you have your own set, and I hope you will let me get to know them by and by. I don’t want to barge in too much—you needn’t worry about that!—but you’ll always find me in the background if you want me.”

“Thanks, Father,” said Madge.

Both of them were silent for a few moments, watching some of the other people in the restaurant. Then Compton looked up at his daughter and asked a question which had been in his mind once or twice.

“Is that young man Simon in love with you?”

Madge blushed slightly, and avoided her father’s eyes for a moment, but answered frankly.

“Deplorably!”

“Any reciprocity?” asked Compton.

“He’s quite a friend of mine.”

Compton pondered over these words. It would be pretty rough on him if Madge suddenly took flight as a married woman. He would be out of it, thrown back on to loneliness. No use buying that country place. No use making a rose garden, anyhow. Still, that was selfishness. The only thing that mattered was her happiness. Her next words relieved his sudden sense of panic.

“It’s quite absurd, of course. Simon doesn’t earn enough to buy his cigarettes. He’s in an insurance office, and hates it like poison. He hasn’t found himself yet. In fact, I think he’s rather a lost soul at the moment. Anyhow, I have to hold him off with both hands. Passion without pence is rather futile, isn’t it? Not to say dangerous for one’s peace of mind and so forth.”

She looked into her father’s eyes, as though wondering how far he understood the difficulty about Simon Lambert.

“A nuisance,” said Compton quietly. “Do you think I might help a bit, if I got to know the lad?”

Madge was amused at this offer of help.

“He’s not easy to know. Besides—there’s no cure for passion, Father. It’s a desperate business, isn’t it? The biological urge and all that. Well, I daresay you know more about it than I do!”

Compton was not so sure about that. These youngsters had delved deeper than the older generation, perhaps. Not that he was ignorant of passion. In the Malay States, Nature was primitive and powerful. But there was such a thing as self-control. It had been part of his own code since boyhood. He had lived up to it fairly well, and now at fifty-two he had not the same need of it. He mentioned this fact to Madge.

“There’s self-control,” he said. “Isn’t that the meaning of civilization? Isn’t that what we’re taught by our Public Schools and our Western code of life?”

Madge laughed again, quietly.

“Simon doesn’t believe in it much,” she told him. “He thinks it’s a denial of life. Cowardice. ‘Asceticism is death’, he says now and then. You’ll have to talk to him, Father.”

“He sounds alarming,” said Compton.

“He’s all right deep down,” said Madge. “But he finds life a bit difficult. I don’t think he’s the only one nowadays! Let’s talk of something else, shall we?”

They talked of something else until Compton mentioned that young man Edward Feldmann, Junior, whom he had met in his daughter’s rooms.

“A nice fellow,” he remarked. “May I ask if he is equally devoted to you?”

Then he was conscience-stricken by this curiosity.

“Sorry, Madge!” he said hastily. “I oughtn’t to ask.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” she answered calmly. “Yes, that’s another victim of my fatal beauty, Father. But he takes it more lightly. It won’t kill him.”

She seemed to think that the conversation was getting too intimate in a public restaurant, and made a humorous ending of it.

“It’s my schoolgirl complexion!” she said. “No artificial aids. Hadn’t you better pay the bill, Father?”

He paid the bill, and was sorry to hear that she had to hurry off to a theatrical costumier’s, to try on some frocks. In the evening she was dining with the Feldmanns—Edward’s rich parents. To-morrow she was beginning her rehearsals for the new part.

“Well,” said Compton, after a moment’s hesitation, “that’s that, and it can’t be helped. When shall I get my next glimpse of you?”

It appeared that his next chance of a glimpse was on the following evening in Church Street, Chelsea. Jean Macgregor, the red-haired girl, would provide some sausages and mashed potatoes. She did them rather well.

“I’m afraid I shall have to have a taxi, Father.”

He hailed a taxi for her, and kissed her before she jumped into it. With his left sleeve tucked into his pocket, he stood there a moment outside the restaurant—at a loose end again.