Lover's Leap (14 page)

My voice sounded ridiculously weak when I thanked him.

‘You'd like it wide open?'

‘Yes, wide, please,' I said, ‘if you won't mind the draught.'

‘O I like draughts. Do you mind if I smoke?'

‘Not at all,' I said. ‘In fact I sometimes smoke myself.'

He took out a cigarette case and opened it. ‘May I offer you one?'

I never smoke in the train; in fact I don't really approve of women smoking in trains, but with him standing there, looking down at me and offering me his cigarette case, I simply couldn't refuse and I took a cigarette. He turned, as if he were going back to his place, then, remembering that he hadn't lighted the cigarette for me, he hesitated, sat down opposite me and got out a box of matches. That was how we got into conversation, and soon we were quite on friendly terms.

The draught from the open window blew his hair about, giving him a wild, romantic look, like Shelley or perhaps Byron.

‘Are you by any chance an actor?' I asked him.

The corners of his mouth turned up into an adorable smile. ‘Not I,' he said. ‘Are you?'

I nodded.

He seemed surprised. ‘In London?'

‘Well,' I said, ‘I'm going on to the London stage. In fact that's why I'm on my way to London now. I have introductions from Mr. Seaton-McPherson. I expect you've heard of him. The well-known producer. When I get a part, will you come to the play and see me?'

He smiled again. ‘Most certainly I will, if you let me know.'

‘Then,' I said, ‘you must give me your address.'

He searched in his pocket, brought out some letters and gave me the envelope of one of them. ‘That's it,' he said.

I was disappointed that he hadn't written it for me himself. Then I should have had a bit of his own hand-writing. It would have been a little keepsake. But even the strange envelope was better than nothing: it had been in his pocket.

A week later. Mr. Seaton-McPherson was right. Acting is very uphill work. I've been here a week now and have found no opening. Fortunately I have my four hundred a year or it might have been very inconvenient. Neither of the producers to whom Mr. Seaton-McPherson gave me introductions could offer me even the smallest part, although I told them I was ready to work for nothing for the sake of the experience. It is very disheartening, especially as I had relied on being in a play soon so as to be able to write to Philip Marling and send him a ticket.

But it was fated, as I felt sure it must be, that we should meet again, and this is how it happened. I was walking down Bond Street yesterday when I caught sight of his name on a poster. The poster was fastened to a board on which was painted in gold letters The something or other
Gallery, I've forgotten what. The poster was headed: Exhibition of Modern English Paintings: under that came a list of names and the third was his. It was a wonder I saw it. But then, how could I have missed it, that name which has been in my mind so much ever since we met in the train? So he was an artist. I might have known. Of course I went straight into the gallery.

All the pictures were very peculiar. I wonder if these modern artists paint things wrong on purpose. There were some by Paul Nash, and three by John Armstrong. I made a note of the names so as to ask Philip Marling about them. But his, of course, were the first I looked at.They too seemed very strange at first. It was only after looking at them for some time that I saw how wonderful they really were. They were certainly much better than the others. By the time I had got back to my flat I was so thrilled about them that I determined to go and see them again several times, and I sat down at once and wrote to tell him how marvellous I thought they were.

It was wonderful to be writing to him: it was almost like talking to him again. My hand trembled so much that my writing was entirely different from what it generally is.

And now I have received this perfectly adorable reply, asking me to go to tea with him on Thursday. ‘I have several pictures here,' he writes, ‘painted since the ones you saw at the show. I shall be delighted to show them to you if you would care to see them.'

But how ever am I going to wait till Thursday? I keep reading his letter over. What fascinating writing.

What a funny little creature she is, more like an eager, excitable child than a grown-up married woman. Actually, I suspect, she is several years older than me; yet beside her I feel middle-aged, a kind of amused and beneficent uncle. I never met such a curious mixture of primness and audacity, silliness and natural intelligence, romanticism and common sense. You never know where you have her, and that makes her even more amusing and attractive. She's attractive to look at, too, with her dark hair, her earnest hazel eyes, the austere little aquiline nose and her healthy, weather-beaten colour. Her moods and feelings are as patent as sunshine and shadow flying over a field. She gives one the impression that she has just discovered life and is tremendously thrilled by it. What can have put it into her head to take up acting? She could never, I'm sure, be the slightest good at it, except in the one part that is herself; for from that one part she is obviously incapable of detaching herself. Besides, as far as I can gather, she has had no training. The one case of theatricals in the Parochial Hall, produced by the mysterious Mr. Seaton-McPherson, seems to be the beginning and ending of her dramatic experience.

‘Do tell me, Mr. Marling,' she said when she came to see me to-day, ‘how one gets on to the London stage. It's so difficult, it seems, to get in touch with the right people.'

Of course I couldn't help her. I know nothing whatever about the stage except from the point of view of the spectator. But I suggested that one might improve one's style by going to the play and carefully watching the actors.

‘Yes,' she said, ‘yes, that's a splendid idea. Will you come with me sometimes?'

When she arrived this afternoon she was all breathless and confused and could hardly speak. I made her sit down
and rest, saying that many people found the stairs to this top story rather severe.

‘Yes, yes, it must be the stairs,' she said. And yet, if the stairs can affect her to that extent she must have rather a weak heart, poor little creature. But she had soon recovered and was chattering as she did when we met in the train and examining my room with delighted curiosity. She enquired about Paul Nash and John Armstrong whose work she had seen at the picture show, and asked me if they painted like that on purpose. I didn't understand what she was driving at till she went on to explain that their pictures were ‘so unlike things in real life'.

‘And so are yours, of course,' she added.

I apologized and pleaded that I hadn't yet discovered what real life was. At that she looked at me very seriously.

‘That's true,' she said; ‘that's very true. Neither have I.' And as she said that, she seemed to me suddenly very pathetic, very defenceless. But in a moment her vivacity had returned. ‘But of course yours are much better than theirs. Yours are
wonderful
'; and when I brought out some of the pictures I had painted at Saltdyke, she stood before each in turn, gazing at it, entranced and mystified it seemed, and repeating with bated breath: ‘Wonderful! Wonderful!'

She glanced several times at the piano and at last asked me if I played. ‘O but I think you do,' she replied archly when I told her I didn't; ‘otherwise why should you have a piano?'

‘I have friends who do.'

She gazed abstractedly in front of her. ‘I suppose you have lots and lots of friends.'

‘Not lots and lots, but a few.'

‘And they play on it?'

‘One or two of them.' It wasn't true. Nobody had played on it but Rose. That was why I hadn't brought myself to sell it yet, I was going to ask Mrs. Filmer if she
played, when Rose's ghost stopped my mouth, urged me not to let another touch profane the keys. In vain, for Mrs. Filmer had opened the lid.

‘May I try it?' she said.

I went over and raised the top. ‘Please do,' I said, and, as I said it, it seemed that another of the threads that bound me to Rose snapped.

Mrs. Filmer played one or two of Chopin's Preludes. Chopin would have been surprised to hear what she made of them, for she played with the earnest perseverance of a promising child.

‘Do you like Chopin?' I said.

‘Yes, especially the sad ones,' she replied. ‘And, in any case the cheerful ones are far too difficult.'

When she left she made me promise to go to tea at her flat next Wednesday.

Six days later. When I arrived at her flat in Powis Square this afternoon I thought at first, when I saw the spread of cakes and biscuits and bread and butter, and the vases of red roses on the table and mantelpiece, and Meriel herself (she has asked me to call her Meriel) rigged out in green silk, that it was to be a tea-party. Then I noticed that there were only two cups on the tray. After all, then, we were to be alone. I felt a little embarrassed by all this preparation. Meriel herself seemed a little self-conscious at first, but not for long. Soon she was chattering gaily and making tea with a kettle that was boiling on a gasring on the hearth.

‘You see, I do for myself here,' she explained, ‘except when Mrs. Tappitt comes in the middle of the morning to wash up and do a little cleaning. I hope you're feeling hungry.'

I generally eat nothing at tea, but it would have been cruel not to show appreciation of that royal spread and I asserted that I was ravenous and proceeded to gorge myself.
I admired the roses and asked her if they came from her home in the country.

‘O no,' she said, ‘I bought them this morning. I wish you would make a picture of them.'

I shook my head. ‘Flowers aren't in my line.'

‘You don't like them?' her voice was almost tragic.

‘Rather. Especially roses, and especially red ones. I only mean as a subject for painting.'

‘What a good thing I chose red ones,' she said seriously, as though a mistake might have been fatal. Then, after a moment's thought, she asked: ‘Do you know that poem called “A White Rose”?'

‘No. How does it go?'

‘It begins

The red rose whispers of passion,

And the white rose breathes of love.'

‘That sounds rather like Ella Wheeler Wilcox,' I said.

For a moment she looked abashed, so that I felt remorseful, but next minute she laughed. ‘What a thing to say when a lady quotes poetry to you.'

‘But isn't it?'

‘Certainly not.'

‘Then who
is
it by?'

‘It's by … er … I don't know who it's by, but it's in the Oxford Book of Verse.'

I must have looked incredulous, because she jumped from her chair. ‘You don't believe me? Very well, I'll prove it to you.'

She went to a book-shelf, got a book and found the place. ‘Here you are,' she said. ‘You see, I was quite right.'

I read the poem. It was by John Boyle O'Reilly. Who the devil was he? ‘I wonder how it sneaked into the Oxford Book,' I said.

‘You don't think it good?'

‘Not a bit. In fact I think it very bad, don't you? It
seems to me to be trying, and failing, to say something that isn't worth saying.'

‘You're too severe,' she said. ‘You take a sledge-hammer to crack a … well, a hazel nut.'

‘A nut which turns out to have no kernel. Listen, and I'll tell you exactly, line by line, what's wrong with it. “The red rose whispers …”'

She snatched the book from me, laughing a little nervously. ‘No, no, no,' she cried, ‘I won't have it. You shan't tear the poor thing to pieces'; and she put the book back on the shelf.

When I was leaving her she went to the table. ‘Look,' she said, ‘I want you to take these roses.'

‘Take them?'

‘Yes, take them to your flat.' With both hands she lifted them dripping from the bowl. ‘I'll wrap some paper round the stems.'

‘No, really no. You're awfully kind, but I couldn't.'

She turned dismayed eyes upon me. ‘Why not?'

‘They suit you and your room so well.'

‘Do,' she said. ‘Please do.'

‘No, I wouldn't dream of it. Besides,' I said, searching for some excuse, ‘I should look like a bridesmaid, carrying them home.'

‘Ah,' she said, offended, ‘that's why you won't have them.'

‘No,' I replied quite truthfully, ‘that's not why. I refuse them, with many thanks for such a beautiful present, because I would much rather they stayed with you.'

She looked at me suspiciously. ‘Then have one, at least,' she said. ‘Here! Here's a bud.' Her hands were trembling. ‘Won't you let me …? Won't you wear it?'

I put it in my buttonhole and thanked her.

‘If you put it in water when you get home,' she called after me, ‘perhaps it will come out.'

But when I got home, after strap-hanging in a crowded
tube, there was nothing left in my buttonhole but a headless stalk. Now I see her standing with the wet roses in her hands and I feel a twinge of remorse for having refused them.

Next day. By this evening's post I received the following note scrawled in pencil in Meriel's schoolgirl hand. No date, no signature, only her address carefully printed in capitals at the top.

‘The red roses have all fallen, not a petal left on the stems. But is it to be wondered at, when
a certain person
had refused to accept them yesterday? So now they neither
breathe
nor
whisper
nor do any of the silly things mentioned in that
extremely
bad poem, and the
donor
, the
would-be
donor, whose gift was refused, is left in solitude.'

Good God, what an exhibition of cheap symbolism and romantic nonsense! Could anything be sillier? And the absurd mock-modesty of those references to the ‘certain person' and the ‘would-be donor' make it worse. I feel ashamed for her. What an astonishing little baggage she is. And to think that those blessed roses were on the table not as a decoration but so that they should ‘whisper of passion,' and that dreadful poem was not quoted on the spur of the moment but dragged in deliberately with laborious childish diplomacy. W'hat ridiculous antics, to be sure.