Mummery: A Tale of Three Idealists

by Gilbert Cannan

XV

IN BLOOMSBURY

At the same time, in his attic, Rodd was pacing up and down his empty room, surveying the impotence to which he had reduced both his life and his work by his refusal to accept the social system of his time. His work was consciously subversive, and therefore unprofitable: his life was nothing. He was a solitary in London, as though he spoke a language which no one understood. So indeed he did. His words had meanings for him to which no one else had the smallest clue, for they referred rather to his imagined world than to any actuality.

Hitherto that had troubled him not at all. Spinoza, Kant, Galileo had all talked a language unintelligible to their contemporaries, and with how many had Nietzsche been able to converse? The stories had it that there was one butcher and he was mad.

Groping with his imagination into the vitals of the society into which he had been born, Rodd had consoled himself with the assurance that a cataclysm would come to smash the odious system by which the old enslaved the young, and that then there would be a cleaner atmosphere in which his ideas could live, and his words would be intelligible to all, because in it that deeper consciousness which was released in his imagined world would come into play to sweep away all falsehoods and stale ideas.... But now the cataclysm had come within himself, and he was brought to doubt and self-examination. Had he not denied too much? Had he not carried abnegation too far? Had he not thwarted powers in himself which were essential even to his impersonal purpose? Was it paradoxically true that a man must be a person before he can be impersonal? His empty room, his books, his pile of manuscript! What a life! Had he after all been only a coward? Had he only shrunk into this silence to avoid the pain and boredom of reiteration?

At first his concern was all with the havoc wrought in his work from the moment when Clara swept into his imagination, but he was soon compelled to brush that aside and to grapple with the more serious fact that she had crept into his heart, which for the first time was active and demanding its share in his being. Then arose the horror that it was repelled by what it found in his imagination, cold, solitary, tortured souls, creatures who should be left to eke out their misery in private solitude, who had nothing to justify their exhibition to the world, who shamelessly reproached their fellows for the results of their own weakness, wretched clinging women, men hard as iron in their egoism.... His heart could not endure it, but until his heart had flooded his vision with its warmth he could not move, could come to no decision, except that he must leave the marvellous girl unmolested.

The furious will that had animated him through all his solitary years resented this intrusion, and was in revolt against the reason and the logic of his heart. That will in him had reduced the social system to its logical end, the destruction of the young by the old, and would allow his creative faculty no other material. It must have nothing but a bleak world of bitterness, and this it had imposed upon both his happy temperament and his generous heart, so that even in life he had been able to exercise nothing but a rather feeble kindness. His will had been to hold up to the world a picture of the end to which it must come, since splendour wrung from desolation must end in desolation.

And suddenly his will was defied by this amazing girl, all youth, all joy, revealing the eternal loveliness of the human spirit that endures though Empires fade away and societies come to chaos.

Very, very slowly, his will, which drew its force from the hypnotic influence of horror, was thrust back, and light crept into his imagined world, flowers blossomed in it, trees swayed in the wind, larks went soaring above green hills blazing with yellow gorse, birds hopped to their nests and sang, dogs barked and gambolled with delight—all his frozen memories slowly melted, and sweet and simple pleasures came to view to make a setting meet for Clara Day. And he remembered simple people with a steady kindness, people like the little bookseller who knew their world but believed in its redeeming goodness, people like a woman who had once nursed him through a terrible illness and had never ceased to pray for him, families where in his lonely youth in London he had been welcome—all these he remembered and grouped round Clara to make a better and a simpler world.

When his agony had run its course, and his old hypnotic will was broken, he told himself that he must be content that Clara should be the mistress of his imagination, since he had wrecked his own life and had nothing to offer her. Obviously she had found the world good. Nothing in her was theatrical, nothing baffled. He must reconcile himself to the acceptance of those two days with her as in themselves perfect, sufficient, and fruitful. Indeed, what need was there of more? They had met as profoundly as they could ever hope to meet. She would marry her lord, and gather about herself all the good and pleasant things of the earth, and he could return to his work and build it up anew.

With his rather absurd tendency to generalise from his personal experience he told himself that as youth and joy had been liberated from his imagined world, so also would they be in the world of actuality. His drooping hopes revived and a new ambition was kindled in him. He paced less rapidly to and fro in his empty room, slowed down day by day until he stopped, sat at his table and plunged once more into work. His arrogance reasserted itself, and he told himself—as was indeed the case—that he could extract more from a hint of experience than the ordinary man could from an overwhelming tragedy.

As he worked, he came more and more to regard his encounter with Clara as a holiday adventure. The Charing Cross Road was to him what Paris or the seaside was to the ordinary worker. The episode belonged to his holiday. It was nothing more, and must be treated as though it had happened to some other man: it must be smiled at, treasured for its fragrance, blessed for its fertility.... With the new weapon it had given him he would return to tobacco and paper, the materials of his existence.

He saw her name in the papers, her photograph here and there. Oh, well, she belonged to that world. No doubt she would amuse herself with theatrical success before she fell back upon the title and wealth which were laid at her feet.

However, convinced though he was of his renunciation, he could not stay away from the bookshop and went there almost every day in the hope of meeting her.

One evening as he returned home he met Verschoyle on the doorstep of his house, and could not refrain from speaking to him.

'Excuse me,' he said, 'I have seen you sometimes in the bookshop in Charing Cross Road.'

'Indeed?' replied Verschoyle, who was looking anxious and worried.

'Yes. I have seen you there with Miss Day.'

Verschoyle was alert and suspicious at once. He scanned this strange individual but was rather puzzled.

'Do you live here?' he asked.

'On the top floor,' replied Rodd, 'on the top floor—alone—I thought you might have been to see me.'

'No, no. I don't know you.'

'My name is Rodd.'

That conveyed nothing to Verschoyle.

'I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Day at the bookshop. I thought she might have mentioned it.'

'No.... I have been to see a Miss Messenger on the third floor. Do you know her?'

'Slightly.'

'You know nothing about her?'

'Nothing, except that she had a child that died.... I'm afraid I didn't even know her name. I don't bother myself much about my neighbours.'

'Thank you,' said Verschoyle. 'Good-night.'

Rodd let himself in, his curiosity working furiously at this strange combination of persons. What on earth could be the link between Verschoyle and the shabby, disreputable ménage on the third floor?... His heart answered ominously: 'Clara.'

He walked slowly up the dark, uncarpeted stairs, and, as he was at the bend below the third floor, he heard a shrill scream—a horrid scream, full of terror, loathing, contempt. He rushed up to the door of the third floor flat and found it open, stood for a moment, and heard a man's voice saying,—

'You shall, you sly cat. Give it me and you shall do as I tell you.'

'No, no, no!' screamed the woman. 'Mother!'

And another woman's voice, cruel, and harsh, said,—

'Do as he tells you, and don't be a fool!'

There was a scuffle, a fall, a man's heavy breathing, a gurgling sound of terror and suffocation. Rodd walked into the flat, and found the woman who waited for him on the stairs lying on the ground, clutching a bundle of bank-notes, while a little, mean-looking man was kneeling on her chest, half throttling her, and trying to force the notes out of her hand. The woman's mother was standing by shrieking aloud and crying,—

'Do as he tells you, you b—— fool! He knows what's what. He's got these blighters in a corner, and he'll make them pay.'

Rodd flung himself on the man, whom he recognised as the creature he and Clara had met on the stairs. He picked him up and threw him into a corner, where he lay, too terrified to move. The woman lay back moaning and rolling her eyes, almost foaming at the mouth. Her bosom heaved and she clutched the notes in her hand more tightly to her.... Rodd turned to the other two, and said,—

'Get out....'

They obeyed him, and he knelt by the woman and reassured her.

'Come now,' he said, 'out with the whole story before you've begun to lie to yourself about it.'

'It's my own money,' she gasped; 'I don't want to do any more. It's all fair and square, if he's paid. If a feller pays, it's all fair and square.'

Rodd accepted the soundness of this rudimentary ethic.

'He wanted half and half, but it's my own money. I signed a paper for it, and I'm not going back on my word. He wants me to. He wants me to go into the Imperium so that he can get on to some of the swells....'

The Imperium? Rodd determined that he would have the whole story out. He left her for a moment and locked the door. Then he lifted her into a chair—it was a flashy furniture-on-the-hire-system room—gave her a dose of brandy and began to ply her with questions,—

'Do you feel better?'

'Much better. I like being with you. You're so quiet. You'd understand a girl, you would. I've often wanted to come and tell you.... It fair knocked me silly when I saw you with her.'

'With whom?'

'Charley's girl.'

'Whose?'

'Charley's. Charley Mann's. He's my husband.'

Rodd was silent for some moments while he took this in.

'Who is this other—man?' asked Rodd kindly, beginning slowly to piece the story together.

'That's Claude.... He was a lodger of mother's before she went broke and had to come to live with me. He never let me alone. I wanted to go straight, I did really.... Charley's not bad, and I thought I should never see him again. I never thought he would make money. I never thought we should see him swanking it in the papers, or I'd never have had a word to say to Claude. I wouldn't really. Only Charley getting married to the other girl——'

It struck Rodd like a blow in the face. Kitty did not mark the effect of her story, and was not concerned with it. All she felt was relief in the telling.

'I wanted money to send mother out of England. I couldn't stand it any more. If it hadn't been for her there wouldn't have been Claude, and a girl at the theatre can have a good time on her own nowadays even with a kiddie. I've often wanted to tell you.'

'Does she know?'

'Charley's girl? Yes. She knows. It's a nice mix-up. Isn't it? And Charley's not bad. He'll just lose you same as he would his hat. No offence meant.'

She laughed hysterically.

'Who gave you the money?'

'A swell.'

'To keep your mouth shut?'

'Yes. Charley would have to go to prison. Claude's been in prison. That's why he'd like Charley to go. Everybody who's been to prison is like that. It makes them sly and hard.... But I say that Charley's paid: six hundred. I'd never have got that out of him if I'd stayed with him, would I?'

'I suppose not.... If there's any more trouble will you come to me?'

'I'd love to,' she said, perking up and casting at him the sorrowful languishing glances with which she had pursued him for so long. 'Claude says he's pushed her on so quick and he ought to have done the same for me.... Claude was at their wedding. I didn't know him then. He's a friend of mother's. We thought he had money but he hasn't got a bean.'

'I'll deal with Claude,' said Rodd. 'And if there is any more trouble, mind you come to me.'

'It was all after my baby died,' said Kitty, as if to excuse herself, but Rodd had accepted the story, and had no thought of excuse or forgiveness. His thought was all for Clara.

How comic it was that he should have given her Mann's book! Did she love Mann? She must have done. She could not have married him else.... But then what was Verschoyle to her, that he should have paid so large a sum in hush-money? A furious jealousy swept away what was left of Rodd's intellectual world and released at last his passions. His mind worked swiftly through the story, picking it up in time with every thread.

Was she only an actress? Was the perfection which he had worshipped a figment, a projection of herself in the character most pleasing to his idealism? Impossible! There can be no feigning of purity, honesty, joy. That is where the pretences of humanity collapse. In such a pretence as that simulated passion—the ultimate baseness, breaks down, creates no illusion, and is foiled.

But on the face of it, what an appalling story! It brought him violently to earth. He could not move, but sat staring at the woman, wanting to tell her that she lied, but knowing that she had spoken according to the truth of the letter. Of the truth of the spirit she could most patently know nothing. Her world was composed of dull facts and smouldering emotions. She could know nothing of the world where emotions flamed into passion to burn the facts into golden emblems of truth. And that was Clara's world: the world in which for two days he had been privileged to dwell, a world in which soul could speak to soul and laugh at all the confusion of fact and detail in which they must otherwise be ensnared.... Mann, Verschoyle, a swift success in the theatre—the facts were of the kind that had induced the horror in which until he met her he had lived. His meeting with her had dispelled his horror, but the facts remained. He in his solitude might ignore them and dream on, but could she? Surely he owed it to her to offer her what through her he had won.... And then—to buy off the wretched woman, surely she could never have submitted to that!

He began to think of Charles Mann with a blistering, jealous hatred.

'I think I'd have killed myself,' said Kitty, 'if it had gone on. I don't wish them any harm now that he's paid up.... I wouldn't have said a word about it to any one, only she's so young. It did give me a bit of a shock, and Charles getting on, too. He's quite gray and has a bit of a stomach. I never thought he'd be the one to get fat. I'm all skin and bone. Look at my arms.'

Rodd left her. When he opened the door he was relieved to find that the unpleasant Claude had gone. Mrs Messenger was sitting by the fire in the front room, her skirts tucked up about her knees, and a glass of port on the mantelpiece. She turned her head with a leer and said,—

'Good luck! I always thought she was keen on you.... It's time she settled down. She was born to be respectable, and to look after a man. That's all most girls are fit for. But in the theatre a girl's got to look after number one or go down and out.'

The old woman with the painted face and dyed hair made Rodd's flesh creep. She seemed to him a symbol of all the evil in the world, decay, disruption, corruption, and with a flash of inspiration he discerned in her the source of all this pitiful tangle of lies. A tender sympathy entirely new to him took possession of his faculties and armed with this he determined that he would not fail in whatever part he was called upon to play in the drama of Clara's life.

He said to the old woman,—

'We have been talking it over. We have decided to book you a passage to Canada and to give you a hundred pounds with which to keep yourself alive until you find work to do.'

'What?' she said, 'me leave London? Dear old London, dear old Leicester Square and the theatres? And leave you to do what you like with my daughter, you dirty dog? I've seen her nosing round on the stairs after you, a feller that lives on bread-and-cheese and grape-nuts. I know your sort, you dirty, interfering blackguard. You've never given a girl as much as a drink in your life.'

'All the same,' said Rodd, 'your passage will be booked, and if Mr Claude What's-his-name shows his face here there'll be a neck broken on the stairs.'

He walked out and heard the old woman gulp down a glass of port and say,—

'Well, I'm damned!'

Then, as he moved upstairs to his own room he heard her screaming,—

'Kitty, you filthy little claw-hammer——'

The door was slammed to, and he heard only their voices in bitter argument, tears, reproaches, curses; but at last, as he paced to and fro in his lonely room, the tumult died down and he could wrestle with the new turbulent thoughts awakened in him.... Work was out of the question. He had been clawed back into life. If he did not want to be destroyed he must be profoundly, passionately, and scrupulously honest with himself. He must face his emotions as he had never done.

At first he thought of wildly heroic solutions. He would seize his opportunity with Kitty, take advantage of her soft gratitude and sweep her out of harm's way..... But what was the good of that? It settled nothing, solved nothing. To act without Clara's knowledge would be to betray her. That he was sure was what Verschoyle had done.

Already he had interfered and there was no knowing what Claude's spite might lead to.... O God, what a tangle! What should be done, what could be done, for Clara? No one mattered but she. Mann, Verschoyle, himself, what did any of them matter? She was the unique, irreplaceable personality. Of that he was sure. It was through her glorious innocence that all these strange things had happened to her. A less generous, a more experienced and calculating woman would have known instinctively that there was some queer story behind Charles Mann.... She could leap into a man's heart through his mind. That was where she was so dangerous to herself. The history of his purely physical emotions would concern her not at all. Her own emotions in their purity could recognise no separation between body and spirit, nor in others could they suspect any division.... Of that he was sure. Without that the whole embroglio was fantastic and incredible. She could never in so short a time have achieved what she had done through calculation and intrigue. That kind of success took years of patience under checks, rebuffs, and insults.... Everywhere she offered her superb youth, and it was taken and used, used for purposes which she could not even suspect. Her youth would be taken, she would be given no room, no time in which to develop her talent or her personality.

The way of the world? It had been the way of the world too long, but the strong of heart and the worthy of soul had always resisted or ignored it.

Sometimes Rodd thought the only thing to do was to wait, to leave the situation to develop naturally. It would do Mann no great harm to get into trouble, but then—Clara would be marked. All her life she would have to fight against misunderstanding.... No, no. There could be no misunderstanding where she was concerned. Her personality answered everything. It would be fine, it would be splendid, to see her overriding all obstacles in her bounteous gift of the treasure that was in her to a world that in its worship of self-help and material power had forgotten youth, courage, and the supreme power of joy.