The Thirteen Travellers

by Hugh Walpole

His best time was during the last few years of King Edward VII.'s reign. His funny little anxious face could be frequently seen in those groups of celebrities invited to meet the King at some famous house-party. It was said that the King liked his company, but I don't know how that can have been because Absalom was never in his brightest days very amusing. He talked a good deal, but always said just what everyone else said. He was asked everywhere because he was so safe, because he was so willing to fetch and carry, and because he knew exactly what it was that ladies wanted. He entertained only a little in return, but nobody minded that because, as everyone knew, "he really hadn't a penny in the world"—which meant that he had about £1,500 a year in various safe investments.

A year before the war he was seized with a little gust of speculation. Against the advice of "Tony" Pennant, who looked after his investments for him, he ventured to buy here and sell there with rather serious results. He pulled up just in time to save disaster, but he had to give up his little house in Knightsbridge and took a flat at Hortons in Duke Street. Although this was a "service" flat he still retained his man James, who had been with him for a number of years and knew his habits to perfection.

He made his rooms at Hortons charming, and he had the dark blue curtains and the gold mirror bristling with invitations, and the old coloured prints and the big, signed photographs of Queen Alexandra and the Duchess of Wrexe in their silver frames, and the heavy silver cigarette-box that King Edward had given him, all in their accustomed places. Of course, the flat was small. His silver-topped bottles and silver-backed brushes, and rows of boots and shoes and the two big trouser-presses simply overwhelmed his bedroom.

But he was over sixty-five now (although he would have been horrified if he thought that you knew it) and he didn't need much space—moreover, he was always out.

Then came the war, and the first result of this was that James joined up! During those first August days Absalom hadn't fancied that the war would touch him at all, although he was hotly patriotic and cried out daily at the "Warrington" that he wished he were a lad again and could shoulder a gun.

James's departure frightened him; then "Tony" Pennant explained to him that his investments were not so secure as they had been and he'd be lucky if any of them brought him in anything. And of course the whole of his social world vanished—no more parties, no more balls, no more Ascots and Goodwoods, no more shooting in Scotland, no more opera. He bustled around then in a truly remarkable manner and attacked his friends with the pertinacity of a bluebottle. The war was not a month old before Bryce-Drummond secured him a job in one of the Ministries at six hundred a year. It was not a very difficult job (it consisted for the most part in interviewing eager young men, assuring them that he would do his best for them, and then sending them along to somebody else). He had a room to himself, and a lady typist who looked after him like a mother. He was quite delighted when he discovered that she was a daughter of the Bishop of Polchester and very well connected. She was most efficient and did everything for him.

He took his work very seriously indeed, and was delighted to be "doing his bit." No one knew exactly what it was that he did at the Ministry, and he himself was very vague about it, but he hinted at great things and magnificent company. During those first years when there were so many wonderful rumours, he hinted and hinted and hinted. "Well, I mustn't mention names, of course; but you can take it from me——" and people really did think he did know. He had been in the closest touch with so many great people before the war that it was only natural that he should be in touch with them still. As a matter of fact he knew nothing except what his typist told him. He led an extremely quiet life during these years, but he didn't mind that because he understood that it was the right thing to do. All the best people were absorbed in their work—even old Lady Agatha Beaminster was running a home for Serbians, and Rachel Seddon was a V.A.D. in France, and old "Plumtree" Caudle was a Special Constable. He did not therefore feel left out of things, because there was nothing really to be left out of. Moreover, he was so hard up that it was safer to be quiet. All the more would he enjoy himself when the war was over.

But as the years went on and there seemed to be no sign of the war being over, he began to be querulous. He missed James terribly, and when in the summer of 1917 he heard that James was killed in Mesopotamia it was a very serious blow. He seemed to be suddenly quite alone in the world. In Hortons now they employed only women, and the girl straight from Glebeshire who "valeted" him seemed to have but little time to listen to his special needs, being divided up between four flats and finding it all she could do, poor girl, to satisfy them all. "After the war," Mr. Nix, the manager of Hortons, assured Absalom, "we shall have men again!"

"After the war!"—those three simple little words became the very Abracadabra of Absalom's life. "After the war" everything would be as it had always been—prices would go down, Society would come up, his gold mirror would once again be stuck about with invitations, he would find a successor to James, and a little house. What would he live on? Oh, that would be all right. They would keep him at the Ministry. He was so useful there that he couldn't conceive that they would ever get on without him—there would be his work, of course, and probably they would raise his salary. He was an optimist about the future. Nothing made him so indignant as unjustified pessimism. When someone talked pessimistically it was as though he, Absalom Jay, were being personally threatened. Throughout the terrible spring of 1918 he remained optimistic. "Britain couldn't be beaten"—by which he meant that Absalom Jay must be assured of his future comforts. In spite of all that had happened he was as incapable in June, 1918, as he had been in June, 1914, of imagining a different world, a different balance of moral and ethical values. Then the tide turned. During that summer and early autumn of 1918 Absalom was as happy as he had ever been. He simply lived for the moment when "life would begin again." He began to go out a little, to pay calls, to visit an old friend or two. He found changes, of course. His own contemporaries seemed strangely old; many of them had died, many of them had shattered nerves, many were frightened of the future.

If they were frightened it was their own fault, he declared. They would talk of ridiculous things like the Russian Revolution—nothing angered him more than to hear chatter about the Russian Revolution—as though that absurd affair with its cut-throats and Bolsheviks and Jews and murderers could have anything to do with a real country like England.