Conrad in Quest of His Youth: An Extravagance of Temperament

by Leonard Merrick

CHAPTER XVIII

He found the evening very long. He was restless. The memory of her kiss was exquisite, but it did not make for repose. It seemed to him intolerably stupid that he was boring himself in the billiard-room of the Grand when Corporation Road was so near. Still she had taken leave of him—if he went he might be unwelcome to her, she might be disappointing to him.

Early next afternoon he received the line she had promised. It arrived with letters from the Company. They were such deeply grateful letters that they hurt him a little when he read them, but he guessed which was hers, and he opened that one first. Mixed with the pleasure with which he opened it there was the curiosity, even the—he would have refused to acknowledge it—even the slight touch of apprehension with which a man who likes a woman better than he knows her always opens her first letter.

He smiled—he heard her speaking.

"If you ever write, the address is 'Miss Tattie Lascelles, c/o Madame Hermiance, 42 bis Great Titchfield Street, W.' You understand? You aren't to put my name on the outside envelope at all. Blithepoint is blessing you.—R.D."

If he ever wrote, did she say? By his halidom he was going to write immediately! His impulse was to beg her to dine with him, but probably she would find it easier to meet him during the day. Luncheon then. But where? The choice of a restaurant bothered him—she might be afraid of acquaintances seeing her. He bethought himself of the Café Anonyme in Soho, and entreated her to lunch with him on Thursday at two o'clock. As a postscript he scribbled, "You won't say you can't, will you? If I don't hear from you, I shall be waiting for you at the door." To enable her to reply, though he prayed that no reply would come, he added that he should stay at the Carlton.

He was glad to leave Blithepoint; when the woman one liked there has gone, a place is always distressing. In the train it was agreeable to reflect that she had read his note by this time. Again he imagined her as she read it—looking down, looking up, putting it in her pocket. The little Café Anonyme had been a good idea. They would do their best for him there, and their soles à la Marguery were unequalled in London. The private rooms, too, were not unhomely, they hit the happy medium—there was no riot of red velvet and gilding, nor were there rag roses hanging askew in dusty glass epergnes. It would have been unappreciative—it would have been an insult—to ask Rosalind to be made love to in a vulgar room.

He wandered about the Carlton after dinner until the last post was delivered, and was relieved to find there was nothing for him. He was sure that if she hadn't meant to go, she would have declined at once. She wouldn't raise his hopes only to dash them to the parquetry as the clock was preparing to strike; she wouldn't be thoughtless, unfeeling. Oh no, she wasn't like that!

And there was no letter on Thursday either, and he sallied to Soho with delight.

The exterior of the Café Anonyme when he reached it looked to him a shade less ingenuous than it had been, but upstairs all was well. The view of the grim houses opposite was screened by lace, firelight flashed on the Dutch hearth cheerfully, and the little white table, set for tête-à-tête, invited confidences. He forced his attention upon the menu, and lounged back into the street. It was a fine day for London. The sky was funereal, and the pavements were muddy, but there was no rain falling. He loitered before the restaurant happily, and glanced at his watch. At five minutes to two, expectation began to swell.

At two o'clock he couldn't hold back a smile—at any instant now her face might irradiate the blank. He wondered which way she would come, and if she would drive, or walk. He could see for some distance, both to right and left, and his only regret was that he couldn't see both ways at once. He kept turning his head, fearful that he might miss a second's joy.

There was a leaping moment in which a figure suggested her as it hove in sight. The girl proved offensively plain, and he was furious with her as she passed. Somehow he did not rebound from the mistake—it was the first fall in the temperature; the girl had killed his elation. He watched now eagerly, but he repressed no smile.

She was late. Oh, of course she would come, but the fish would be spoilt. Rather stupid of her! There was nothing more irritating than to have a careful luncheon ruined because a woman took twenty minutes to tie her veil. A melancholy church clock boomed the quarter. He began to feel that he was looking a fool, traversing these twelve paving-stones. He was annoyed with her—he should be at no pains to conceal it!

Constantly hansoms rattled into view, with disappointing people in them. There appeared to him discouragement in the gaze of the portier now, and a pair of loafers outside the public-house at the corner were taking interest in him.... He supposed she would come? Into the tension of his mood there entered the first sick qualm of doubt.

And the church clock boomed again. Hope was breathing its last in him. Annoyance had melted into despair—he longed for her too intensely to be reproachful if she came. He would rejoice over her, he would unbutton her gloves, he would say how pretty her frock was, and that the chef was delighted to have been given more time!

Five-and-twenty minutes to three! ... Well, he had better see what he had to pay; it was no use hoping any longer. Well, just five minutes!—the last stake. If she weren't here then, she wouldn't come at all; she wouldn't expect him to wait at the door all day.... "At the door!"—his heart stopped—the words bore suddenly a new significance. In Blithepoint "at the door" might have meant at the door of her lodgings. Could it be possible she had misunderstood—had she thought he would be on the doorstep in Great Titchfield Street? No! how could she? she had told him she was married. But the address was Tattie's—yes, she might have thought so! Good heavens! had she been waiting there for him? Perspiration broke out on him. What was he to do? Look at the time!—she had given him up long ago, she had gone away! ... Oh, how could she have thought it? he had named the restaurant! ... Still it was very odd she hadn't come. He must find her, he must explain! But—but—but she was a married woman, he couldn't go and peal the bell and ask for her. Wait a moment, what had she said? Was she to stay with Tattie, or was Tattie to stay with her? ... Anyhow Tattie was there. Yes, he could go—he could go there and ask for Tattie! His head was spinning. What the devil had become of all the cabs?

Two minutes later the portier had blown his whistle, and Soho was behind.

The pace was reckless, but to Conrad's fevered stare even the omnibuses seemed to mock his hansom. Alternately he threw bribes and objurgations through the trap. Where was Great Titchfield Street hidden? Were they making a tour of the West End slums? The cab jerked to a stoppage at last, and he leapt out, and hesitated. Nothing but shops confronted him. Had he forgotten the number—wasn't it "42 bis?" The next moment he saw the name, painted over a window—"Madame Hermiance, French Laundress."

It was very warm inside. Three girls, and a moist loosely clothed woman, whose opulent bosom was partially concealed, stood at work behind a long table. It fluttered with aerial frills and scraps of pink tissue paper; one of the girls was folding things up, and making them look pretty. He said, "Bonjour, madame," and the woman said, "Good afternoon, sare."

"Miss Lascelles, is she staying here? Is she in?"

"Oh no, sare, she is gone."

"Gone?" ejaculated Conrad.

"She did lodge 'ere," added the laundress; "I let 'er a room upstairs; but she go away—she get an engagement. You mean an actress, isn't it?"

"Yes, yes," he said, "I know all about the engagement, but she came back. She came back the day before yesterday, didn't she?"

"Mais non, monsieur." She shook her head. "She is not come back."

"Damn," he faltered. "Er—but there was a letter sent here for her—it must have been delivered yesterday morning. What has become of the letter?"

"Ah, letters?" She banged an iron about a shirt with double cuffs; perturbed as he was, he shuddered to see the havoc she was wreaking.

"Mees Lascelles 'as writ me a post carte—she ask if 'er letters come, I send 'em on. I zink she gives up ze théâtre, I zink she takes a situation wiz a lady of title. Julie!" she called; "zat letter zat come yesterday for Mees Lascelles, it go to ze post, hein?"

"J'-n'-sais-pas!" called Julie. She sent a button flying off a waistcoat without turning a hair.

"Ameliarran?"

"Yes'm?"

"Ze letter for Mees Lascelles, where ees it?"

"There yer are!" replied "Ameliar Ann." She was sewing a red cotton hieroglyphic into a customer's "tying bow"—near one of the ends. Her nod indicated a shelf piled with packages, and Conrad perceived his letter lying neglected among the washing.

"Ah," said Madame Hermiance. "Alors, I post it to-night myself."

"But this is no trifling matter," exclaimed Conrad, trembling with rage. "Miss Lascelles may lose a very large salary through this. That's a business letter—from an impresario. It should have been forwarded without delay."

"Tiens!" said Madame Hermiance calmly. "Julie! pack up ze collars."

He tramped across the shop, and the three girls' heads turned to the left. This much was certain: Rosalind had said that she and Tattie would be together. Sheer babble, that about the situation! If the note reached Tattie at once, there was hope yet. He strode back, and the three girls' heads turned to the right.

"Madame!"

"Monsieur?"

"I must apologise for occupying your time, but——"

"Ça ne fait rien," said the laundress. "Julie! pack up ze shirts."

"But I want you to do me a kindness—I want you to be good enough to send the letter to Miss Lascelles now, by a messenger. I suppose it won't take very long?"

"Mais, monsieur, I 'ave nobody to send."

"Well, but my dear lady," he said—and talked to her persuasively of paying for the service and the hansom that was outside.

"Alors!" said Madame Hermiance.

Expectancy bubbled in him anew. He would scrawl a line explaining what he had suffered, beseeching Rosalind to meet him still! Would Madame have the kindness to provide him with an envelope?

It was provided.

And a sheet of note-paper? he was abased by the trouble he was causing her.

Alas! her note-paper was not in the shop, but she could offer him a price-list—it was very long, and the back was blank.

This was no moment to finick; the case was urgent. He put his foot on a laundry basket, and the price-list on his knee; and at the back of "Blouses," "Bodices" and "White petticoats from 6d," he pencilled his appeal.

When "Ameliarran" had cast off her apron, he promised her a sovereign to buy feathers. She was given the post-card bearing the address, and he let her depart without a question. It was evident now that Rosalind had withheld her address very deliberately; to ascertain where she lived wouldn't be playing the game! But would the appeal find her at home? She might be shopping, visiting, taking an aimless, fatal walk! Hope tottered in him again. The girls who remained eyed him sympathetically; he was conscious that they placed no credence in his narrative of the impresario, and he withdrew to wait where he would be less interesting.

The street was not picturesque; for the scene of a lover's impatience it might be called "preposterous." The narrow pavements were so busy that he was forced to choose the narrow road; and the road was made narrower by stalls of vegetables and tin pots. "Ameliarran," he had heard, might accomplish her mission in half an hour. He escaped from the marketing, and lit a cigar in a grey thoroughfare of comparative seclusion.

"Would she be at home?" When he turned back he braced himself to meet the crisis. He had consulted his watch frequently, but he had not returned before "Ameliarran" might be expected. Nevertheless he was too soon. He withdrew again, and fumed once more among the cabbages and pans.

The next time he was not too soon. He found her in the shop, and she had a note for him. From Rosalind, or Tattie? Rosalind! he knew the writing. Let the girls gape! he wasn't going outside to read it among the vegetables. He opened it with elaborate listlessness. She had not protracted his pain while she framed graceful messages. Her response consisted of eight words; but they sufficed:

"Wait at the laundry. Throwing on my hat."

He doubled the girl's sovereign, and drove no bargain with her mistress. But the laundry cooped him now. He closed the door, and loitered gratefully on the step. Yes, indeed, he would wait; in the sweetness of relief he was scarcely impatient. A little drizzle was in the air, but he did not heed it. The day, and the morrow, and a hundred days broke into smiles before him. And while he lingered there—on the laundress's step, in the squalid street, under the rain—Conrad suddenly awoke to the exhilaration that sparkled in him, was startled by its freshness. He realised that fizzing in his pulses and his mind was the zest, the buoyancy that he had mourned as dead. It was here, alive! He reviewed with gusto his emotions of the afternoon, the hope, the suspense, the desperation—the quiver of rejoicing. It had been good! he had lived and felt this afternoon; he would not have abated those emotions by a jot! The immoral truth was clear to him, he had made his great discovery—that a man is young as often as he falls in love. That Rosalind had beauty, was an irrelevance. Again, to her lover a woman is what she makes him feel. Whether she is fair or ill-favoured, whether she is worthy or worthless, whether she is formed like Venus, or clasps him in arms as thin as penholders, to him she is supreme, and while he adores her he is Young.

The rain was pattering more smartly, and he waited under his umbrella. Exultation was in his heart, her promise was in his pocket, ten years of his age had been shed behind the door. And at this point it may be discreet of us to take leave of Conrad—as Rosalind's cab comes jingling round the corner.

THE END

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BY LEONARD MERRICK

THE POSITION OF PEGGY
CONRAD IN QUEST OF HIS YOUTH
THE MAN WHO UNDERSTOOD WOMEN: STORIES
WHISPERS ABOUT WOMEN: STORIES
LYNCH'S DAUGHTER
THE MAN WHO WAS GOOD
THIS STAGE OF FOOLS
CYNTHIA
ONE MAN'S VIEW
THE ACTOR MANAGER
THE WORLDLINGS
WHEN LOVE FLIES OUT O' THE WINDOW
THE QUAINT COMPANIONS

Several of Mr. Merrick's books are at
present unpublished in America. Mitchell
Kennerley will publish new volumes from
time to time.