The Cruise of the Make-Believes Read online

  CHAPTER IV

  THE PRINCESS GOES TO DINNER

  THAT absurd business of climbing the wall again had to be got over, andwas safely accomplished; to do him justice, Mr. Simon Quarle refrainedfrom watching Gilbert's departure, and so took away one pang at least.The last vision Gilbert had of him was as he dropped over into theother garden, and, looking back, saw the old man standing with hishands clasped behind his back, and his bent shoulders turned towardswhere Gilbert had disappeared, and his eyes fixed upon the oppositewall.

  But whatever resolution Gilbert Byfield may have formed to help thegirl, and to lift her out from the sordid life in which he had foundher, for the present he did nothing. Indeed, for the moment he decidedafter a restless night to abandon Arcadia Street altogether, and totouch again that life to which he most properly belonged. He would goback into that artificial existence, and, looking on this picture andon that, would decide clearly which was the most worthy. Which is tosay in other words that the old life still drew him, and that thisquixotic thing about which he had concerned himself could be easilylaid aside, for a time at least.

  Thus it happened that Mr. Jordan Tant, in his extremely neat and trimchambers, was informed by his extremely neat and trim man-servantone morning that Mr. Byfield had arrived. At the same moment theman-servant was thrust aside, and Gilbert strode in.

  "Now, I don't want a lot of fuss, or a lot of talk," said Gilbert, alittle impatiently; "you've just got to accept me as I am, and not talkabout what I have been, or what I have done. You should know by thistime that I cut up my life into slices; and when one slice is done withI go on to the next with a new appetite. Arcadia Street is gone--lostsomewhere in the wilds of Islington. I am back again in civilization.What's the news?"

  "There's no news that I'm aware of," said Mr. Tant, a little sulkily."What news should there be?"

  "Something's upset you, Tant," said Gilbert, with a laugh. "Come,now--I'm sure to hear about it sooner or later; why not tell me now?"

  Jordan Tant stood with his arms folded, and his head a little on oneside, and with an aggressive shoulder turned towards the other man.When he began to speak he shook himself almost in the fashion of aspoilt child that resents an injury.

  "It isn't fair," he said, in his thin voice; "it really isn't fair. Yougo away for an unlimited time, and in a sense you leave the field tome. I cultivate that field; I'm careful about it; I am attentive andanxious--in fact, I work very hard. Then suddenly you step in, and if Imay use such a term in so delicate a matter--you gather the crop."

  "My dear Tant, you are really more Tant-like than ever," said Gilbert."Why won't you tell me what you really mean in half a dozen words?"

  "One word will suffice," said Jordan, turning upon him, and speakingwith a sort of mild fierceness. "And that one word is--'Enid.' Whileyou've been living in your blessed Arcadia Street, on bread and cheeseand moonshine, I've been seeing much of Miss Ewart-Crane; and therehas been a gradually increasing respect for me in the family. You haveshamefully neglected the lady; I have given her companionship. Now youturn up again, and will doubtless be welcomed with open arms, as havingreturned to the fold. For you will the fatted calf be prepared; I shallbe lucky if I'm invited to the feast at all."

  "My dear Tant," said Gilbert, laughing, "you are jumping atconclusions. Because I walk out of Arcadia Street, and come back here,is it to be said that I am about to take up the old life again in theold way? Am I going to call on the fair Enid, and stay to lunch--orperhaps drop in, in immaculate garments, for afternoon tea; or dinewith her and her esteemed mother in a state of hopeless boredom; andtake them afterwards to a theatre where the play's something I don'twant to see? Perish the thought! I'm going to leave all that sort ofthing to you."

  Mr. Jordan Tant shook his head sadly. "It's quite impossible," he said."I'm a useful man when there's no one else about; there you have me ina nutshell. If you had persisted in your folly, and had remained inArcadia Street, it might have happened that some fine morning, or somefine evening, when Enid was more bored than usual, she would have saidthat she would put up with me for the rest of her life; and we shouldhave got on very well. But about you always," he went on petulantly,"is a species of storm-cloud--a very whirlwind of romantic excitement.Now there's no whirlwind about me--and it's really the whirlwindfellows that attract the girls. One never knows what you're going todo; while, on the other hand, everyone knows what I'm going to do everyhour of the day. I'm a sort of damp squib, that just fizzles about onits bit of ground, and does no harm to anybody; you're a gorgeous sortof rocket, that might even set fire to a town if you felt that wayinclined. At all events, while I'm fizzing about down below, you'll beilluminating your bit of sky."

  "You're really most complimentary," said Gilbert Byfield. "But supposeI tell you that I've no intention of stepping into the place you haveso laboriously made for yourself--what then?"

  "It wouldn't make the least difference," said Tant, shaking his head."Mrs. Ewart-Crane is all for you; she never ceases to speak of you. Ithink she knows that one of these days you'll go back and settle downcomfortably with Enid. You see, the thing is really arranged."

  "Oh--nonsense!" exclaimed Gilbert impatiently. "That was a boy and girlaffair--a sort of arrangement made between our people, years and yearsago. Besides, suppose I don't want to settle down--what then?"

  "They'll make you; they'll persuade you," said Mr. Tant gloomily."Mrs. Ewart-Crane is a mother, and has one thought in her mind, andone only--Enid's future. You'll simply be told that you've got to getmarried. After that, perhaps, they'll let you run about as much as youlike--that is, within limits."

  "We shall see about that," said his friend. "By the way, what are youdoing to-night? We might dine together."

  "I am taking Enid and her mother to dinner and to the theatre," saidMr. Tant with dignity. "Perhaps you'd like to suggest that you will gotoo?"

  "Certainly," said Gilbert, with alacrity. "Most kind of you; I'll joinyou with pleasure."

  "I knew it!" Mr. Jordan Tant threw up his hands in a sort of comicaldespair. "I can see myself escorting Mrs. Ewart-Crane all the evening,and compelled to be polite while inwardly boiling. It's a very unfairworld."

  Just as Gilbert was going Mr. Tant called him back, to deliver a wordof warning. "Understand me clearly, Byfield," he said, "I will nothave you springing in suddenly in any dramatic fashion. You shall beannounced in a commonplace way--your return referred to as somethingquite of an ordinary kind. I will fetch the ladies this evening, but Ishall tell them that you await us at the restaurant. There shall be nosurprises."

  "I don't want any surprises," said Gilbert, laughing.

  Despite all his precautions, Mr. Tant found himself as usual very muchin the background when it came to that moment of meeting between thegentleman from Arcadia Street and Mrs. Ewart-Crane and her daughter.Mr. Tant had made all arrangements for a very excellent dinner; and heendeavoured, with what dignity he might, to take the head of affairs.But Enid was anxious to know everything concerning a certain ArcadiaStreet that had been spoken of, and she leaned eagerly towards Gilbert,demanding to know what he had been doing, and if it was really truethat he had lived among people who were a sort of savages--and what hehad had to eat, and how he had managed to live at all.

  "There's nothing remarkable about it at all," said Mr. Tant savagely."Anyone would think that he had been exploring some wild region wherethe foot of man had never trod; instead of which, he's simply beenliving in a very thickly populated part of London, within a cab fare ofhis own home--and all for a whim! Besides, slumming's out of date."

  "It wasn't exactly slumming--and besides, he really went to study thepeople--didn't you, Gilbert?" asked Enid, in her high voice. She wasa tall, handsome girl, with a good carriage, and an abundance of goodhealth and spirits; this evening she was particularly glad to see herold friend back again in his place among men.

  "What I never can understand," said Mrs. Ewart-Crane, adjusting abracelet on a very well-formed arm, "is why
we need study men atall--or women, for the matter of that. I grant you that in your ownsphere you are naturally interested in the people about you; but beyondthat I decline to go."

  "Exactly, my dear Mrs. Ewart-Crane," broke in Tant. "Just what Ialways say: let us remember always the dividing line, and stick to it.We should get jumbled up in the most horrible way if we didn't rememberthe dividing line always, and above all, if we didn't remember that thepeople who live in the Arcadia Streets of the world are very right andproper in their own places, and very wrong and improper elsewhere. Thepeople of position in this world are those who have come by right tothe top; it's fellows like Byfield that put wrong notions into theirheads, by mixing with 'em, and coming down, in a sense, to their level.I assure you that when I discovered him he was living in a perfectlyshocking place."

  Mrs. Ewart-Crane closed her eyes, and shivered. "Then I'm very gladto think that he's left it," she said. "For my part, I wish to hearno more about it; let us regard it as something happily done with andforgotten."

  "But I want to hear about it, mamma," persisted Enid, laughinggood-humouredly. "I'm quite sure there was an attraction downthere--wasn't there?" She turned to Gilbert with a smile.

  "Many attractions," he replied evasively. "All sorts of poor people,toiling cheerfully, and having rather a good time in their own way, inspite of poverty."

  "Don't let him put you off, Miss Enid," said Tant, a littlemaliciously. "There was an attraction--I saw her, and I heard abouther. And I don't mind saying that she was very pretty."

  "Gilbert!" The girl was looking at him quizzically. "I want to hear allabout this. What was she like? Big and rather brazen--quite a child ofnature, with what they call a heart of gold--eh? I know the sort."

  "I beg again, Enid, that the subject may be dropped," said Mrs.Ewart-Crane icily. But no one took the least notice of her.

  "I'm afraid you don't know the sort," said Gilbert. He was annoyed atthe turn the conversation had taken--annoyed, too, at Jordan Tant forhis breach of faith. He hated the thought of discussing the girl withthese people; he knew that the more he tried to explain his feelingabout the matter, the less they would be able to understand. But therather haughty eyes of Enid were upon him, and he had to go on, againsthis will. "The girl Tant is talking about is a little hard-workingthing, who lived in the next house to that in which I stayed; and shekeeps a drunken father and a reprobate brother by the simple process ofletting lodgings. Now you know all about it."

  "How touching--and how romantic!" exclaimed the girl. "And the greatman from the great world took a deep interest in her, and stayedperhaps a little longer in his slum on her account--eh?"

  "For my part," said Mrs. Ewart-Crane stiffly, "since the subject mustbe discussed, I have never been able to understand what people letlodgings for. If they've got a house, why not live in it, and not giveover bits of it to other people?"

  Gilbert Byfield glanced at his watch. "We shall be late for the firstact," he said.

  "Which of course puts an end to the discussion," Enid said, as she rosefrom the table. "Of course, if you'd like me to send her anything thatwould be useful, I should be only too pleased. Mother likes me to becharitable."

  The play proved to be dull (at least to Gilbert Byfield), and theevening seemed to stretch on interminably. For the man was haunted bythe miserable feeling that this child, in her common back-yard--thisgirl he had understood, as he thought, so perfectly--could never byany chance be understood by those who had not intimately touched herlife. He was puzzled to think what he could do to carry out that bravedetermination of his to help her--to lift her out of her surroundings.If he remained where he was, among his own people, and in his ownsphere, he deserted the child; if he went back to her, he desertedthem, and took up his life in surroundings uncongenial, except so faras she was concerned. And he saw that it was utterly impossible to gohalf-way about one matter or the other; Arcadia Street was not to bebrought into the West End and dumped down there.

  It happened that between the acts he went out to smoke a cigarette,and found himself, with a dozen other men, near the open doors ofthe theatre. A few people were strolling listlessly outside in thestreet--pausing now and then to stare in at the well-dressed men, andto whisper. And once a girl went past--a thin shabby girl in black; andhe was reminded so forcibly of Bessie Meggison that, without knowingwhat he did, he hurried out of the place, and went after her. Fiftyyards down the street she stopped to look in at a shop window; and itwas not Bessie at all, but someone quite different. Yet the thoughtassailed him, as he went back to the theatre, that just in that fashionthe girl might be wandering alone in this horrible London--poorly clad,and not too well fed. He hated the thought of his own prosperity; quiteunnecessarily called himself a brute, because he had had a good dinner,and was supposed to be out in search of enjoyment.

  Never for a moment, of course, did it occur to him that his point ofview was wrong; never for a moment did he understand that properly hislife could not touch the girl's, and could have nothing in common withit. He accused himself unnecessarily, when the only mistake that hadbeen made in the whole matter was in going to Arcadia Street at all,and above all going there under false colours. That point of view hedid not regard in the least.

  But he walked home that night, after leaving his friends, feelingmiserably that it would have been better if he had buried himselffor ever in Arcadia Street; if in some impossible way, he could haveforgotten this selfish purposeless life he had always lived, and couldhave flung himself into some real work that would have brought himnearer in thought and feeling to the girl. Not for the first time hecried out against artificiality; metaphorically speaking, he wanted toput on rough clothing and thick boots, and plunge into the real fiercework of the world.

  Some sense of the injustice of the world in meting out such differentlots to such different women urged him, after a lapse of days duringwhich he had been at the beck and call of Enid, to go back to ArcadiaStreet. He told himself that it would be merely an experimental visit;he meant to see if something could not be done to shake old Meggisoninto an understanding of his responsibilities, and perhaps even to urgethe derelict brother into an attempt to earn a living. That was whathe told himself; in the end, of course, it amounted to his going withthe prospect of seeing the girl, and of doing something, in a whollyindefinite way, for her personally.

  "'I MAY GO AWAY AGAIN AT A MOMENT'S NOTICE.'" _Page 66_]

  He was a little shy about meeting her; so many ridiculous suggestionshad been thrown to him by Jordan Tant, and by Enid and her mother,concerning this girl, that the old freedom between them, so far atleast as he was concerned, seemed a thing of the past. Even when thatsummer evening arrived when, leaning over the wall, he saw her seatedin her garden, and called to her, it was with a new constraint.

  "I've come back, you see," he said.

  She was genuinely very glad to see him; he found himself wondering ifthe eyes of Enid could by any chance ever light up at his coming as didthe eyes of this child. Things were different in Arcadia Street, heknew; almost he wished that they were not--almost he wished that thishappy familiarity might obtain in other places with which he was morenaturally in touch.

  "I thought--thought you were not coming back," said the girl. "And yetI hoped----"

  "Hoped that I was--eh?" he supplemented. "Even now, I don't know howlong I may be able to stop here; I may go away again at a moment'snotice--and never come back at all. Don't look so grave about it;you can go on making-believe, you know, just as well as ever."

  "It won't be quite the same," she said. "You see, in that you've helpedme--because, as I told you, you understood."

  "And how have you been getting on?" he asked. "I mean, of course--thehouse?"

  She stood against the wall over which he leaned; she did not look up athim when she replied. "Oh, pretty well, thank you," she said in a lowvoice. "Nothing ever happens, you know, in Arcadia Street--except thething you don't want to happen."

  "Your father?"

>   "Father is quite established again at his club; they think a lot ofhim at his club," she said. "And Aubrey is positive he will hear ofsomething to do very shortly."

  "That's good news," said Gilbert. "By the way--that Mr. Quarle I metwhen I was here last--the night I came over into your garden--do youknow him very well?"

  "Oh, yes; he's been a great friend of mine for nearly two years. Butfor him I think we couldn't keep the house going; he is the only lodgerI have ever had who pays money without being asked for it. He's simplywonderful. Not that he's well off; he's only retired from something,and I don't think the something was very much before he retired fromit. But his payments--oh--they're beautifully regular!"

  "He's a valuable man," said Gilbert, not without a curious littlefeeling of jealousy that anyone else should be good to the girl excepthimself. Then the thought of what he had meant to do--the remembranceof the girl, shabby and forlorn, who had walked past the theatre thatnight, and had been something like Bessie Meggison--urged him to saysomething else.

  "Bessie--(you don't mind my calling you Bessie--do you?)--have you everhad a holiday? I mean, have you ever got away from this dull house forone long evening--and seen bright lights, and happy faces--and heardmusic? Have you ever done that?"

  Still leaning against the wall, she shook her head slowly, withoutlooking up. "There hasn't been time--or money," she said simply.

  "If you found the time--and I found the money?" he suggested. "Whatthen?"

  She looked up at him wonderingly; did not seem for a moment tounderstand what he meant. At last she said slowly--"I'm afraid itwouldn't do, you know; it really wouldn't do at all. Someone would bewanting me--someone would be calling for me."

  "I should let them call for once," said Gilbert. "Just suppose foronce, little Make-Believe, that we went out of Arcadia Street--and farbeyond Islington--just our two selves. There are certain places calledtheatres, you know."

  She nodded, with a sigh. "I know," she said. "That is, of course,I don't know much about what they're like inside; the outsides arewonderful. But I expect they're very expensive."

  "We might manage it--just for once," he urged. "I could save up, youknow--go without something."

  It needed a lot of persuasion before she would consent at all; but atlast she named a night when it was probable that father would be morein requisition at his club even than usual, and when Aubrey would beengrossed in the mysteries of a billiard handicap. She would go then;and, the better to preserve the proprieties (for Arcadia Street wasgiven to gossip), would meet him at a certain spot not a hundred yardsfrom the Arcadia Arms.

  He began to understand, almost at the last moment, that the expeditionmust be conducted in her own fashion; he had the delicacy to understandthat he must be shabby to match her poor shabbiness. So that it isprobable very few of his friends would have recognized Mr. GilbertByfield, had they seen him waiting about at the corner of a certainstreet in Islington, in a well-worn tweed suit and a billycock hat.At that time he did not like the idea at all; he would have liked towhirl her away in a hansom, and do the thing properly at a first-classrestaurant, with stalls at a theatre to follow. He wondered a littlehow the evening was going to pass.

  And yet, after all, it proved to be rather pleasant--viewed as a newexperience. Pleasant, to begin with, to see that little thin figurecoming towards him; to hold for a moment the little hand in the wornglove, and to notice with satisfaction how neat she was, and howtastefully dressed, despite the poor things she had on. He had thegrace to forget that a swift hansom might be hailed with the raisingof a hand; found an omnibus almost comfortable--quite delightful,in fact, with the girl seated beside him, wearing upon her face thatextraordinary look of complete happiness. He forgot even to think whathis friends would have said had they seen him riding in such a vehicle,dressed in such fashion, and with such a companion.

  The choosing of a restaurant was a difficulty, because he scarcely knewthe cheaper or more dingy ones. She drew back in alarm at the prospectof entering a place gay with electric light; became reconciled at lastto a little place of few tables and fewer waiters; sat open-eyed andbreathless at the glory of a fifth-rate place, with a decided smell ofthe kitchen about it every time a creaking door was opened near her.She did not talk much; only occasionally she glanced at him, and whenshe did she smiled that slow grave smile of gratitude and friendliness.

  Afterwards he found himself, for the first time in his life, in theupper circle at a theatre; congratulated himself on the fact that afriend he saw in a box below would not be likely to raise his eyes tothe third row of that particular part of the building. He contentedhimself, not with looking at a play he had already seen, but withwatching the thin face of the girl beside him--the bright eyes and thehalf-parted lips. Once, at a moment that was thrilling, she grippedhis arm; and for quite a long time kept her hand there, holding to himwhile she watched the stage.

  Coming out of the theatre, in the whirl and rush of people homewardbound, he got her into the hansom almost before she knew what hadhappened; it was only after the horse had started for Arcadia Streetthat she looked up at him reproachfully--shocked and awed by thisfriend who could spend so much money in a single evening. She voicedthat thought as they drove along.

  "You'll have to go without quite a lot for this, Mr. Byfield--won'tyou?" she asked wistfully. "I mean--it has been a frightfully expensiveevening."

  "I don't mind--for once," said Gilbert. "The only question in my mindis--have you really had a good time?"

  She heaved a big sigh. "I should like to do it all over again," shesaid softly--"but to do it much more slowly. It has been wonderful!"

  This was the one man in all the world that had ever thought abouther, or had ever done her a kindness. Small wonder then that her eyesspoke more than gratitude when she put that little hand into his againin Arcadia Street, before the shabby house swallowed her up, and thedoor closed upon her. No one saw her, because Arcadia Street, save onSaturday nights, goes early to bed.