Roll-Call — Part 1, Chapter 2, part 2
III
With no clear plan as to his dinner he took her back to Alexandra Grove.
The dusk was far advanced.
Mounting the steps quickly Marguerite rang the bell.
There was no answer.
She pushed up the flap of the letter-aperture and looked within.
"Have you got your latchkey?"
she asked, turning round on George.
"Father's not come home--his hat's not hanging up.
He promised me certain that he would be here at six-thirty at the latest.
Otherwise I should have taken the big key."
She did not show resentment against her father; nor was there impatience in her voice.
But she seemed to be firmly and impassively judging her father, as his equal, possibly even as somewhat his superior.
And George admired the force of her individuality.
It flattered him that a being so independent and so strong should have been so meltingly responsive to him in the cathedral.
An adventurous idea occurred to him in a flash and he impulsively adopted it.
His latchkey was in his pocket, but if the house door was once opened he would lose her--he would have to go forth and seek his dinner and she would remain in the house; whereas, barred out of the house, she would be bound to him--they would be thrust together into exquisite contingencies, into all the deep potentialities of dark London.
"Dash it!"
he said, first fumbling in one waistcoat pocket, and then ledging the portfolio against a step and fumbling in both waistcoat pockets simultaneously.
"I must have left it in my other clothes."
It is doubtful whether his conscience troubled him.
But he had a very exciting sense of risk and of romance and of rapture, as though he had done something wonderful and irremediable.
"Ah!
Well!"
she murmured, instantly acquiescent, and without the least hesitation descended the steps.
How many girls (he demanded) would or could have made up their minds and faced the situation like that?
Her faculty of decision was simply masculine!
He looked at her in the twilight and she was inimitable, unparalleled.
And yet by virtue of the wet glistening of her eyes in the cathedral she had somehow become mystically his!
He.
permitted himself the suspicion: "Perhaps she guesses that I'm only pretending about the latchkey."
The suspicion which made her an accessory to his crime did not lower her in his eyes.
On the contrary, the enchanting naughtiness with which it invested her only made her variety more intoxicant and perfection more perfect.
His regret was that the suspicion was not a certainty.
Before a word could be said as to the next move, a figure in a grey suit and silk hat, and both arms filled with packages, passed in front of the gate and then halted.
"Oh!
It's Mr. Buckingham Smith!"
exclaimed Marguerite.
"Mr. Buckingham Smith, we're locked out till father comes."
She completed the tale of the mishap, to George's equal surprise and mortification.
Mr. Buckingham Smith, with Mr. Alfred Prince, was tenant of the studio at the back of No. 8. He raised his hat as well as an occupied arm would allow.
"Come and wait in the studio, then," he suggested bluntly.
"You know Mr. Cannon, don't you?"
said Marguerite, embarrassed.
George and Mr. Buckingham Smith had in fact been introduced to one another weeks earlier in the Grove by Mr. Haim.
Thereafter Mr. Buckingham Smith had, as George imagined, saluted George with a kind of jealous defiance and mistrust, and the acquaintance had not progressed.
Nor, by the way, had George's dreams been realized of entering deeply into the artistic life of Chelsea.
Chelsea had been no more welcoming than Mr. Buckingham Smith.
But now Mr. Buckingham Smith grew affable and neighbourly.
Behind the man's inevitable insistence that George should accompany Miss Haim into the studio was a genuine, eager hospitality.
The studio was lofty and large, occupying most of the garden space of No. 8. Crimson rep curtains, hung on a thick, blackened brass rod, divided it into two unequal parts.
By the wall nearest the house a staircase ran up to a door high in the gable, which door communicated by a covered bridge with the second floor of No. 8, where the artists had bedrooms.
The arrangement was a characteristic example of the manner in which building was added to building in London contrary to the intention of the original laying-out, and George in his expert capacity wondered how the plans had been kept within the by-laws of the borough, and by what chicane the consent of the ground-landlord had been obtained.
Mr. Alfred Prince, whom also George knew slightly, was trimming a huge oil-lamp which depended by a wire from the scarcely visible apex of the roof.
When at length the natural perversity of the lamp had been mastered and the metal shade replaced, George got a general view of the immense and complex disorder of the studio.
It was obviously very dirty--even in the lamplight the dust could be seen in drifts on the moveless folds of the curtains--it was a pigsty; but it was romantic with shadowed spaces, and gleams of copper and of the pale arms of the etching-press, and glimpses of pictures; and the fellow desired a studio of his own!
He was glad, now, that Mr. Buckingham Smith had invited them in.
He had wanted to keep Marguerite Haim to himself; but it was worth while to visit the studio, and it was especially worth while to watch her under the illumination of the lamp.
"Lucky we have a clean tablecloth," said Mr. Buckingham Smith, opening his packages and setting a table.
"Brawn, Miss Haim!
And beer, Miss Haim!
That is to say, Pilsener.
From the only place in Chelsea where you can get it."
And his packages really did contain brawn and beer (four bottles of the Pilsener); also bread and a slice of butter.
The visitors learnt that they had happened on a feast, a feast which Mr. Buckingham Smith had conceived and ordained, a feast to celebrate the triumph of Mr. Alfred Prince.
An etching by Mr. Prince had been bought by Vienna.
Mr. Buckingham Smith did not say that the etching had been bought by any particular gallery in Vienna.
He said 'by Vienna,' giving the idea that all Vienna, every man, woman, and child in that distant and enlightened city where etchings were truly understood, had combined for the possession of a work by Mr. Prince.
Mr. Buckingham Smith opined that soon every gallery in Europe would be purchasing examples of Alfred Prince.
He snatched from a side-table and showed the identical authentic letter from Vienna to Mr. Alfred Prince, with its official heading, foreign calligraphy, and stilted English.
The letter was very complimentary.
In George's estimation Mr. Prince did not look the part of an etcher of continental renown.
He was a small, pale man, with a small brown beard, very shabby, and he was full of small nervous gestures.
He had the innocently-red nose which pertains to indigestion.
His trousers bagged horribly at the knees, and he wore indescribable slippers.
He said little, in an extremely quiet, weak voice.
His eyes, however, were lively and attractive.
He was old, probably at least thirty-five.
Mr. Buckingham Smith made a marked contrast to him.
Tall, with newish clothes, a powerful voice and decisive gestures, Mr. Buckingham Smith dominated, though he was younger than his friend.
He tried to please, and he mingled the grand seigneurial style with the abrupt.
It was he who played both the parlourmaid and the host.
He forced Marguerite to have some brawn, serving her with a vast portion; but he could not force her to take Pilsener.
"Now, Mr. Cannon," he said, pouring beer into a glass with an up-and-down motion of the bottle so as to put a sparkling head on the beer.
"No, thank you," said George decidedly.
"I won't have beer."
Mr. Buckingham Smith gazed at him challengingly out of his black eyes.
"Oh!
But you've got to," he said.
It was as if he had said: "I am generous.
I love to be hospitable, but I am not going to have my hospitality thwarted, and you needn't think it."
George accepted the beer and joined in the toasting of Mr. Alfred Prince's health.
"Old chap!"
Mr. Buckingham Smith greeted his chum, and then to George and Marguerite, informingly and seriously: "One of the best."
It was during the snack that Mr. Buckingham Smith began to display the etchings of Mr. Alfred Prince, massed in a portfolio.
He extolled them with his mouth half-full of brawn, or between two gulps of Pilsener.
They impressed George deeply--they were so rich and dark and austere.
"Old Princey boy's one of the finest etchers in Europe to-day, if you ask me," said Mr. Buckingham Smith off-handedly, and with the air of stating the obvious.
And George thought that Mr. Prince was.
The etchings were not signed 'Alfred Prince,' but just 'Prince,' which was quietly imposing.
Everybody agreed that Vienna had chosen the best one.
"It's a dry-point, isn't it?"
Marguerite asked, peering into it.
George started.
This single remark convinced him that she knew all about etching, whereas he himself knew nothing.
He did not even know exactly what a dry-point was.
"Mostly," said Mr. Prince.
"You can only get that peculiar quality of line in dry-point."
George perceived that etching was an entrancing subject, and he determined to learn something about it--everything about it.
Then came the turn of Mr. Buckingham Smith's paintings.
These were not signed 'Smith' as the etchings were signed 'Prince.'
By no means!
They were signed 'Buckingham Smith.'
George much admired them, though less than he admired the etchings.
They were very striking and ingenious, in particular the portraits and the still-life subjects.
He had to admit that these fellows to whom he had scarcely given a thought, these fellows who existed darkly behind the house, were prodigiously accomplished.
"Of course," said Mr. Buckingham Smith negligently, "you can't get any idea of them by this light--though," he added warningly, "it's the finest artificial light going.
Better than all your electricity."
There was a pause, and Mr. Prince sighed and said: "I was thinking of going up to the Promenades to-night, but Buck won't go."
George took fire at once.
"The Glazounov ballet music?"
"Glazounov?"
repeated Mr. Prince uncertainly.
"No. I rather wanted to hear the new Elgar."
George was disappointed, for he had derived from Mr. Enwright positive opinions about the relative importance of Elgar and Glazounov.
"Go often?"
he asked.
"No," said Mr. Prince.
"I haven't been this season yet, but I'm always meaning to."
He smiled apologetically.
"And I thought to-night----" Despite appearances, he was not indifferent after all to his great Viennese triumph; he had had some mild notion of his own of celebrating the affair.
"I suppose this is what etchings are printed with," said George to Mr. Buckingham Smith, for the sake of conversation, and he moved towards the press.
The reception given to the wonderful name of Glazounov in that studio was more than a disappointment for George; he felt obscurely that it amounted to a snub.
Mr. Buckingham Smith instantly became the urbane and alert showman.
He explained how the pressure was regulated.
He pulled the capstan-like arms of the motive wheel and the blanketed steel bed slid smoothly under the glittering cylinder.
Although George had often been in his stepfather's printing works he now felt for the first time the fascination of manual work, of artisanship, in art, and he regretted that the architect had no such labour.
He could indistinctly hear Mr. Prince talking to Marguerite.
"This is a monotype," said Mr. Buckingham Smith, picking up a dusty print off the window-sill.
"I do one occasionally."
"Did you do this?"
asked George, who had no idea what a monotype was and dared not inquire.
"Yes.
They're rather amusing to do.
You just use a match or your finger or anything."
"It's jolly good," said George.
"D'you know, it reminds me a bit of Cézanne."
Of course it was in Paris that he had heard of the great original, the martyr and saviour of modern painting.
Equally of course it was Mr. Enwright who had inducted him into the esoteric cult of Cézanne, and magically made him see marvels in what at the first view had struck him as a wilful and clumsy absurdity.
"Oh!"
murmured Buck, stiffening.
"What do you think of Cézanne?"
"Rule it out!"
said Buck, with a warning cantankerous inflection, firmly and almost brutally reproving this conversational delinquency of George's. "Rule it out, young man!
We don't want any of that sort of mountebanking in England.
We know what it's worth."
George was cowed.
More, his faith in Cézanne was shaken.
He smiled sheepishly and was angry with himself.
Then he heard Mr. Prince saying calmly and easily to Miss Haim--the little old man could not in fact be so nervous as he seemed: "I suppose _you_ wouldn't come with me to the Prom?"
George was staggered and indignant.
It was inconceivable, monstrous, that those two should be on such terms as would warrant Mr. Prince's astounding proposal.
He felt that he simply could not endure them marching off together for the evening.
Her acceptance of the proposal would be an outrage.
He trembled.
However, she declined, and he was lifted from the rack.
"I must really go," she said.
"Father's sure to be home by now."
"May I?"
demanded Mr. Buckingham Smith, stooping over Marguerite's portfolio of designs, and glancing round at her for permission to open it.
Already his hand was on the tape.
"On no account!"
she cried.
"No!
No!...
Mr. Cannon, please take it from him!"
She was serious.
"Oh!
All right!
All right!"
Mr. Buckingham Smith rose to the erect good-humouredly.
After a decent interval George took the portfolio under his arm.
Marguerite was giving thanks for hospitality.
They left.
George was singularly uplifted by the fact that she never concealed from him those designs upon which Mr. Buckingham Smith had not been allowed to gaze.
And, certain contretemps and disappointments notwithstanding, he was impressed by the entity of the studio.
It had made a desirable picture in his mind: the romantic paraphernalia, the etchings, the canvases, the lights and shadows, the informality, the warm odours of the lamp and of the Pilsener, the dazzling white of the tablecloth, the quick, positive tones of Buckingham Smith, who had always to be convincing not only others but himself that he was a strong man whose views were unassailable, the eyes of Buckingham Smith like black holes in his handsome face, the stylish gestures and coarse petulance of Buckingham Smith, the shy assurance of little old Prince.
He envied the pair.
Their existence had a cloistral quality which appealed to something in him.
They were continually in the studio, morning, afternoon, evening.
They were independent.
They had not to go forth to catch omnibuses and trains, to sit in offices, to utilize the services of clerks, to take orders, to consider the idiosyncrasies of superiors.
They were self-contained, they were consecrated, and they were free.
No open competitions for them!
No struggles with committees and with contractors!
And no waiting for the realization of an idea!
They sat down and worked, and the idea came at once to life, complete, without the necessity of other human co-operation!
They did not sit in front of a painting or etching and say, as architects had too often to say in front of their designs: "That is wasted!
That will never come into being."
Architecture might be the art of arts, and indeed it was, but there were terrible drawbacks to it....
And next he was outside in the dark with Marguerite Haim, and new, intensified sensations thrilled him.
She was very marvellous in the dark.
Mr. Haim had not returned.
"Well!"
she muttered; and then dreamily: "What a funny little man Mr. Prince is, isn't he?"
She spoke condescendingly.
"Anyhow," said George, who had been respecting Mr. Alfred Prince, "anyhow, I'm glad you didn't go to the concert with him."
"Why?"
she asked, with apparent simplicity.
"I adore the Proms.
Don't you?"
"Let's go, then," he suggested.
"We shan't be very late, and what else is there for you to do?"
His audacity frightened him.
There she stood with him in the porch, silent, reflective.
She would never go.
For sundry practical and other reasons she would refuse.
She must refuse.
"I'll go," she said, as if announcing a well-meditated decision.
He could scarcely believe it.
This could not be London that he was in.
They deposited the portfolio under the mat in the porch.
IV
When they got into the hall the band was sending forth a tremendous volume of brilliant exhilarating sound.
A vast melody seemed to ride on waves of brass.
The conductor was very excited, and his dark locks shook with the violence of his gestures as he urged onward the fingers and arms of the executants flying madly through the maze of the music to a climax.
There were flags; there was a bank of flowers; there was a fountain; there were the huge crimson-domed lamps that poured down their radiance; and there was the packed crowd of straw-hatted and floral-hatted erect figures gazing with upturned, intent faces at the immense orchestral machine.
Then came a final crash, and for an instant the thin, silvery tinkle of the fountain supervened in an enchanted hush; and then terrific applause, with yells and thuds above and below the hand-clapping, filled and inflamed the whole interior.
The conductor, recovering from a collapse, turned round and bowed low with his hand on his shirt-front; his hair fell over his forehead; he straightened himself and threw the hair back again, and so he kept on, time after time casting those plumes to and fro.
At last, sated with homage, he thought of justice, and pointed to the band and smiled with an unconvincing air of humility, as if saying: "I am naught.
Here are the true heroes."
And on the end of his stick he lifted to their feet eighty men, whose rising drew invigorated shouts.
Enthusiasm reigned;
triumph was accomplished.
Even when the applause had expired, enthusiasm still reigned; and every person present had the illusion of a share in the triumph.
It was a great night at the Promenades.
George and Marguerite looked at each other happily.
They both were inspired by the feeling that life was a grand thing, and that they had reached suddenly one of the summits of existence.
George, observing the excitement in her eyes, thought how wonderful it was that she too should be excited.
"What was that piece?"
she asked.
"I don't quite know," he said.
"There don't appear to be any programmes about."
He wished he had been able to identify the piece, but he was too content to be ashamed of his ignorance.
Moreover, his ignorance was hers also, and he liked that.
The music resumed.
He listened, ready to put himself into the mood of admiration if it was the Glazounov item.
Was it Glazounov?
He could not be certain.
It sounded fine.
Surely it sounded Russian.
Then he had a glimpse of a programme held by a man standing near, and he peered at it.
"No. 4. Elgar--Sea-Pictures."
No. 5 was the Glazounov.
"It's only the Elgar," he said, with careless condescension, perceiving at once, by the mere virtue of a label, that the music was not fine and not Russian.
He really loved music, but he happened to be at that age, from which some people never emerge, at which the judgment depends almost completely on extraneous suggestion.
"Oh!"
murmured Marguerite indifferently, responding to his tone.
"Glazounov's next," he said.
"I suppose we couldn't sit down," she suggested.
Yet it was she who had preferred the Promenade to the Grand Circle or the Balcony.
"We'll find something," he said, with his usual assurance.
And in the corridor that surrounded the hemicycle they climbed up on to a narrow ledge in the wall and sat side by side in perfect luxury, not dreaming that they were doing anything unusual or undignified.
As a fact, they were not.
Other couples were perched on other ledges, and still others on the cold steam-pipes.
A girl with a big face and heavy red lips sat alone, lounging, her head aslant.
She had an open copy of _Home Notes_ in one hand.
Elgar had sent the simple creature into an ecstasy, and she never stirred; probably she did not know anyone named Enwright.
Promenaders promenaded in and out of the corridor, and up and down the corridor, and nobody troubled to glance twice either at the heavy-lipped, solitary girl or at the ledged couples.
Through an arched doorway could be seen the orchestra and half the auditorium.
"This is the best seat in the hall," George observed proudly.
Marguerite smiled at him.
When the "Sea-Pictures" were finished she gave a sigh of appreciation, having forgotten, it seemed, that persons who had come to admire Glazounov ought not to relish Elgar.
And George, too, reflecting upon the sensations produced within him by Elgar, was ready to admit that, though Elgar could of course not be classed with the foreigner, there might be something to be said for him after all.
"This is just what I needed," she murmured.
"Oh?"
"I was very depressed this afternoon," she said.
"Were you?"
He had not noticed it.
"Yes.
They've cut down my price from a pound to seventeen and six."
'They' were the employing bookbinders, and the price was the fixed price for a design--side and back.
He was shocked, and he felt guilty.
How was it that he had noticed nothing in her demeanour?
He had been full of the misfortune of the firm, and she had made the misfortune her own, keeping silence about the grinding harshness of bookbinders.
He was an insensible egotist, and girls were wondrous.
At any rate this girl was wondrous.
He had an intense desire to atone for his insensibility and his egotism by protecting her, spoiling her, soothing her into forgetfulness of her trouble....
Ah!
He understood now what she meant when she had replied to his suggestion as to visiting the cathedral: "It might do me good."
"How rotten!"
he exclaimed, expressing his sympathy by means of disgust.
"Couldn't you tell them to go to the dickens?"
"You have to take what they'll give," she answered.
"Especially when they begin to talk about bad trade and that sort of thing."
"Well, it's absolutely rotten!"
It was not the arbitrary reduction of her earnings that he resented, but the fact of her victimhood.
Scandalous, infamous, that this rare and delicate creature should be defenceless against commercial brutes!
The Glazounov ballet music, "The Seasons," started.
Knowing himself justified, he surrendered himself to it, to its exoticism, to its Russianism, to its wilful and disconcerting beauty.
