1
During the first two years after Aunt Moira’s death, then, Ivor’s only real companion was Aunt Percy: an inadequate one, how sweet and understanding soever his nature, for that purpose of “talking things out” which is essential to every young man of an inquiring mind. His school friendships had been, with one exception, severely temporal; as such friendships so often unhappily are, despite the charming traditions that beglamour them with continuous and vivid life; and Ivor Marlay had come away from Manton with no more (and no less, anyway!) than a fair taste for classical reading and a pronounced one for rackets—which last he indulged several hours a week at Prince’s, often with the pro’s and sometimes with Transome. Dear old Transome!
At school young Transome had been on the “Army Side”—Transome’s people having a theory, Transome said, that the army was indicated. So Transome was sent to Sandhurst; and from Sandhurst he would at every opportunity hurl himself on the heels of a telegram to London. “The idea being,” Transome said, “to have a lot of fun.” So Ivor and Transome had a lot of fun immediately—dear old Transome of the short straight nose and freckled face, so very much liked by every one! Short and slim this Transome was, of a very elegant habit and an incurious mind, fair hair that insisted on curling and waving no matter how much he honeyed and flowered it—see his face, never so relentless as when he was furiously brushing it!—and blue eyes that had never a thought but for what was in front of them. “My dam-fool appearance,” grinned Transome, “and the rugged grandeur of my features indicated the Navy, but they’ve made such a fuss about its being Silent that I couldn’t risk it.”
Transome, having wired, would invade London and Ivor’s chambers. There they would dress, and dine somewhere. Ivor, being much wealthier, naturally paid; and was amazed at Transome. Ivor had always rather despised Transome’s intelligence, but now he despised his own. For Transome knew something. Transome, in fact, knew about Women. How he knew so much about Women, Ivor couldn’t make out. Here was he, Ivor, living alone in London—“disgustingly free,” Transome envied him—and knowing nothing at all about Women! He had had a few “passages,” but they hadn’t been frightfully amusing, and Ivor could only think that there must be something very wrong with him, considering the fuss every one made about all “that.” To young Transome he, of course, pretended to have had great and amazing enjoyments with Women. Ivor felt that Transome expected that of him, as his partner in the Manton rackets-pair for three years; and Ivor also felt that Transome really had enjoyed himself with Women, and was not pretending about it. Transome knew a bit, obviously; he had a great and grinning knowledge of Women, this gay Transom; and Ivor thought to learn a thing or two from him.
“I don’t care what you say,” said Transome, “but Women are all right.” Transome then spoke of Women, thus and thus. Transome was twenty.
It was not long, however, before the superiority of Transome in Ivor’s mind dwindled to next to nothing and then to nothing. He soon discovered that Transome might burst with knowledge about Women and still know nothing of life. Ivor did not know anything of life, either, but he was sure you couldn’t get at life through Women like that.
“If those are Women,” said Ivor to Transome, “then I can understand the Bible being angry about fornication. So would I be if I was the Bible.”
“You talk like God as it is,” muttered Transome.
“The nearest you’ll ever get to God, old boy,” Ivor retorted, “is the top of a bus.”
After night-clubs, on Transome’s occasional visits, the former rackets-pair had been to Women’s flats. Ivor didn’t want to go from the first, but Transome said it would be all right; Ivor said he had never thought it wouldn’t, and went. After a very few visits to these Women’s flats late at night, Ivor’s opinion was that these Women weren’t Women at all, but Crashing Bores. Transome rather crossly remarked that that was jolly superior of him, and what the devil did he want anyway? Ivor said sulkily that he didn’t know, but he did know that he did not want to go messing about in a dingy flat near Bow Street with a woman who was old enough to be his mother or his charwoman.