CHAPTER VI

WE are not concerned with the very poor. They are unthinkable and only

to be approached by the statistician or the poet. This story deals

with gentlefolk, or with those who are obliged to pretend that they are

gentlefolk.

The boy, Leonard Bast, stood at the extreme verge of gentility. He was

not in the abyss, but he could see it, and at times people whom he knew

had dropped in, and counted no more. He knew that he was poor, and would

admit it; he would have died sooner than confess any inferiority to

the rich. This may be splendid of him. But he was inferior to most rich

people, there is not the least doubt of it. He was not as courteous

as the average rich man, nor as intelligent, nor as healthy, nor as

lovable. His mind and his body had been alike underfed, because he was

poor, and because he was modern they were always craving better food.

Had he lived some centuries ago, in the brightly coloured civilisations

of the past, he would have had a definite status, his rank and his

income would have corresponded. But in his day the angel of Democracy

had arisen, enshadowing the classes with leathern wings, and

proclaiming, “All men are equal--all men, that is to say, who possess

umbrellas,” and so he was obliged to assert gentility, lest he slip

into the abyss where nothing counts, and the statements of Democracy are

inaudible.

As he walked away from Wickham Place, his first care was to prove that

he was as good as the Miss Schlegels. Obscurely wounded in his pride, he

tried to wound them in return. They were probably not ladies. Would real

ladies have asked him to tea? They were certainly ill-natured and cold.

At each step his feeling of superiority increased. Would a real lady

have talked about stealing an umbrella? Perhaps they were thieves

after all, and if he had gone into the house they would have clapped a

chloroformed handkerchief over his face. He walked on complacently as

far as the Houses of Parliament. There an empty stomach asserted itself,

and told him that he was a fool.

“Evening, Mr. Bast.”

“Evening, Mr. Dealtry.”

“Nice evening.”

“Evening.”

Mr. Dealtry, a fellow clerk, passed on, and Leonard stood wondering

whether he would take the tram as far as a penny would take him, or

whether he would walk. He decided to walk--it is no good giving in,

and he had spent money enough at Queen’s Hall--and he walked over

Westminster Bridge, in front of St. Thomas’s Hospital, and through

the immense tunnel that passes under the South-Western main line at

Vauxhall. In the tunnel he paused and listened to the roar of the

trains. A sharp pain darted through his head, and he was conscious of

the exact form of his eye sockets. He pushed on for another mile, and

did not slacken speed until he stood at the entrance of a road called

Camelia Road which was at present his home.

Here he stopped again, and glanced suspiciously to right and left,

like a rabbit that is going to bolt into its hole. A block of flats,

constructed with extreme cheapness, towered on either hand. Farther down

the road two more blocks were being built, and beyond these an old house

was being demolished to accommodate another pair. It was the kind

of scene that may be observed all over London, whatever the

locality--bricks and mortar rising and falling with the restlessness of

the water in a fountain as the city receives more and more men upon her

soil. Camelia Road would soon stand out like a fortress, and command,

for a little, an extensive view. Only for a little. Plans were out for

the erection of flats in Magnolia Road also. And again a few years, and

all the flats in either road might be pulled down, and new buildings, of

a vastness at present unimaginable, might arise where they had fallen.

“Evening, Mr. Bast.”

“Evening, Mr. Cunningham.”

“Very serious thing this decline of the birth-rate in Manchester.”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Very serious thing this decline of the birth-rate in Manchester,”

repeated Mr. Cunningham, tapping the Sunday paper, in which the calamity

in question had just been announced to him.

“Ah, yes,” said Leonard, who was not going to let on that he had not

bought a Sunday paper.

“If this kind of thing goes on the population of England will be

stationary in 1960.”

“You don’t say so.”

“I call it a very serious thing, eh?”

“Good-evening, Mr. Cunningham.”

“Good-evening, Mr. Bast.”

Then Leonard entered Block B of the flats, and turned, not upstairs,

but down, into what is known to house agents as a semi-basement, and to

other men as a cellar. He opened the door, and cried, “Hullo!” with

the pseudo geniality of the Cockney. There was no reply. “Hullo!” he

repeated. The sitting-room was empty, though the electric light had been

left burning. A look of relief came over his face, and he flung himself

into the armchair.

The sitting-room contained, besides the armchair, two other chairs, a

piano, a three-legged table, and a cosy corner. Of the walls, one was

occupied by the window, the other by a draped mantelshelf bristling

with Cupids. Opposite the window was the door, and beside the door a

bookcase, while over the piano there extended one of the masterpieces of

Maud Goodman. It was an amorous and not unpleasant little hole when the

curtains were drawn, and the lights turned on, and the gas-stove unlit.

But it struck that shallow makeshift note that is so often heard in the

dwelling-place. It had been too easily gained, and could be relinquished

too easily.

As Leonard was kicking off his boots he jarred the three-legged table,

and a photograph frame, honourably poised upon it, slid sideways, fell

off into the fireplace, and smashed. He swore in a colourless sort of

way, and picked the photograph up. It represented a young lady called

Jacky, and had been taken at the time when young ladies called Jacky

were often photographed with their mouths open. Teeth of dazzling

whiteness extended along either of Jacky’s jaws, and positively weighed

her head sideways, so large were they and so numerous. Take my word for

it, that smile was simply stunning, and it is only you and I who will be

fastidious, and complain that true joy begins in the eyes, and that

the eyes of Jacky did not accord with her smile, but were anxious and

hungry.

Leonard tried to pull out the fragments of glass, and cut his fingers

and swore again. A drop of blood fell on the frame, another followed,

spilling over on to the exposed photograph. He swore more vigorously,

and dashed into the kitchen, where he bathed his hands. The kitchen

was the same size as the sitting-room; beyond it was a bedroom. This

completed his home. He was renting the flat furnished; of all the

objects that encumbered it none were his own except the photograph

frame, the Cupids, and the books.

“Damn, damn, damnation!” he murmured, together with such other words as

he had learnt from older men. Then he raised his hand to his forehead

and said, “Oh, damn it all--” which meant something different. He pulled

himself together. He drank a little tea, black and silent, that still

survived upon an upper shelf. He swallowed some dusty crumbs of a cake.

Then he went back to the sitting-room, settled himself anew, and began

to read a volume of Ruskin.

“Seven miles to the north of Venice--”

How perfectly the famous chapter opens! How supreme its command of

admonition and of poetry! The rich man is speaking to us from his

gondola.

“Seven miles to the north of Venice the banks of sand which nearer the

city rise little above low-water mark attain by degrees a higher level,

and knit themselves at last into fields of salt morass, raised here and

there into shapeless mounds, and intercepted by narrow creeks of sea.”

Leonard was trying to form his style on Ruskin; he understood him to

be the greatest master of English Prose. He read forward steadily,

occasionally making a few notes.

“Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession, and

first (for of the shafts enough has been said already), what is very

peculiar to this church--its luminousness.”

Was there anything to be learnt from this fine sentence? Could he

adapt it to the needs of daily life? Could he introduce it, with

modifications, when he next wrote a letter to his brother, the

lay-reader? For example:

“Let us consider a little each of these characters in succession, and

first (for of the absence of ventilation enough has been said already),

what is very peculiar to this flat--its obscurity.”

Something told him that the modifications would not do; and that

something, had he known it, was the spirit of English Prose. “My flat is

dark as well as stuffy.” Those were the words for him.

And the voice in the gondola rolled on, piping melodiously of Effort

and Self-Sacrifice, full of high purpose, full of beauty, full even of

sympathy and the love of men, yet somehow eluding all that was actual

and insistent in Leonard’s life. For it was the voice of one who had

never been dirty or hungry, and had not guessed successfully what dirt

and hunger are.

Leonard listened to it with reverence. He felt that he was being done

good to, and that if he kept on with Ruskin, and the Queen’s Hall

Concerts, and some pictures by Watts, he would one day push his head

out of the grey waters and see the universe. He believed in sudden

conversion, a belief which may be right, but which is peculiarly

attractive to a half-baked mind. It is the basis of much popular

religion; in the domain of business it dominates the Stock Exchange,

and becomes that “bit of luck” by which all successes and failures are

explained. “If only I had a bit of luck, the whole thing would come

straight... He’s got a most magnificent place down at Streatham and a 20

h.p. Fiat, but then, mind you, he’s had luck... I’m sorry the wife’s

so late, but she never has any luck over catching trains.” Leonard

was superior to these people; he did believe in effort and in a steady

preparation for the change that he desired. But of a heritage that may

expand gradually, he had no conception; he hoped to come to Culture

suddenly, much as the Revivalist hopes to come to Jesus. Those Miss

Schlegels had come to it; they had done the trick; their hands were upon

the ropes, once and for all. And meanwhile, his flat was dark, as well

as stuffy.

Presently there was a noise on the staircase. He shut up Margaret’s card

in the pages of Ruskin, and opened the door. A woman entered, of whom

it is simplest to say that she was not respectable. Her appearance was

awesome. She seemed all strings and bell-pulls--ribbons, chains, bead

necklaces that clinked and caught and a boa of azure feathers hung round

her neck, with the ends uneven. Her throat was bare, wound with a double

row of pearls, her arms were bare to the elbows, and might again

be detected at the shoulder, through cheap lace. Her hat, which was

flowery, resembled those punnets, covered with flannel, which we sowed

with mustard and cress in our childhood, and which germinated here yes,

and there no. She wore it on the back of her head. As for her hair, or

rather hairs, they are too complicated to describe, but one system went

down her back, lying in a thick pad there, while another, created for

a lighter destiny, rippled around her forehead. The face--the face does

not signify. It was the face of the photograph, but older, and the teeth

were not so numerous as the photographer had suggested, and certainly

not so white. Yes, Jacky was past her prime, whatever that prime

may have been. She was descending quicker than most women into the

colourless years, and the look in her eyes confessed it.

“What ho!” said Leonard, greeting the apparition with much spirit, and

helping it off with its boa.

Jacky, in husky tones, replied, “What ho!”

“Been out?” he asked. The question sounds superfluous, but it cannot

have been really, for the lady answered, “No,” adding, “Oh, I am so

tired.”

“You tired?”

“Eh?”

“I’m tired,” said he, hanging the boa up.

“Oh, Len, I am so tired.”

“I’ve been to that classical concert I told you about,” said Leonard.

“What’s that?”

“I came back as soon as it was over.”

“Any one been round to our place?” asked Jacky.

“Not that I’ve seen. I met Mr. Cunningham outside, and we passed a few

remarks.”

“What, not Mr. Cunningham?”

“Yes.”

“Oh, you mean Mr. Cunningham.”

“Yes. Mr. Cunningham.”

“I’ve been out to tea at a lady friend’s.”

Her secret being at last given--to the world, and the name of the lady

friend being even adumbrated, Jacky made no further experiments in the

difficult and tiring art of conversation. She never had been a great

talker. Even in her photographic days she had relied upon her smile and

her figure to attract, and now that she was

“On the shelf,

On the shelf,

Boys, boys, I’m on the shelf,”

she was not likely to find her tongue. Occasional bursts of song (of

which the above is an example) still issued from her lips, but the

spoken word was rare.

She sat down on Leonard’s knee, and began to fondle him. She was now a

massive woman of thirty-three, and her weight hurt him, but he could not

very well say anything. Then she said, “Is that a book you’re reading?”

and he said, “That’s a book,” and drew it from her unreluctant grasp.

Margaret’s card fell out of it. It fell face downwards, and he murmured,

“Bookmarker.”

“Len--”

“What is it?” he asked, a little wearily, for she only had one topic of

conversation when she sat upon his knee.

“You do love me?”

“Jacky, you know that I do. How can you ask such questions!”

“But you do love me, Len, don’t you?”

“Of course I do.”

A pause. The other remark was still due.

“Len--”

“Well? What is it?”

“Len, you will make it all right?”

“I can’t have you ask me that again,” said the boy, flaring up into a

sudden passion. “I’ve promised to marry you when I’m of age, and that’s

enough. My word’s my word. I’ve promised to marry you as soon as ever

I’m twenty-one, and I can’t keep on being worried. I’ve worries enough.

It isn’t likely I’d throw you over, let alone my word, when I’ve spent

all this money. Besides, I’m an Englishman, and I never go back on my

word. Jacky, do be reasonable. Of course I’ll marry you. Only do stop

badgering me.”

“When’s your birthday, Len?”

“I’ve told you again and again, the eleventh of November next. Now get

off my knee a bit; some one must get supper, I suppose.”

Jacky went through to the bedroom, and began to see to her hat. This

meant blowing at it with short sharp puffs. Leonard tidied up the

sitting-room, and began to prepare their evening meal. He put a penny

into the slot of the gas-meter, and soon the flat was reeking with

metallic fumes. Somehow he could not recover his temper, and all the

time he was cooking he continued to complain bitterly.

“It really is too bad when a fellow isn’t trusted. It makes one feel so

wild, when I’ve pretended to the people here that you’re my wife--all

right, all right, you SHALL be my wife--and I’ve bought you the ring to

wear, and I’ve taken this flat furnished, and it’s far more than I can

afford, and yet you aren’t content, and I’ve also not told the truth

when I’ve written home.” He lowered his voice. “He’d stop it.” In a tone

of horror, that was a little luxurious, he repeated: “My brother’d stop

it. I’m going against the whole world, Jacky.

“That’s what I am, Jacky. I don’t take any heed of what any one says. I

just go straight forward, I do. That’s always been my way. I’m not one

of your weak knock-kneed chaps. If a woman’s in trouble, I don’t leave

her in the lurch. That’s not my street. No, thank you.

“I’ll tell you another thing too. I care a good deal about improving

myself by means of Literature and Art, and so getting a wider outlook.

For instance, when you came in I was reading Ruskin’s Stones of Venice.

I don’t say this to boast, but just to show you the kind of man I am. I

can tell you, I enjoyed that classical concert this afternoon.”

To all his moods Jacky remained equally indifferent. When supper was

ready--and not before--she emerged from the bedroom, saying: “But you do

love me, don’t you?”

They began with a soup square, which Leonard had just dissolved in some

hot water. It was followed by the tongue--a freckled cylinder of meat,

with a little jelly at the top, and a great deal of yellow fat at

the bottom--ending with another square dissolved in water (jelly:

pineapple), which Leonard had prepared earlier in the day. Jacky ate

contentedly enough, occasionally looking at her man with those anxious

eyes, to which nothing else in her appearance corresponded, and which

yet seemed to mirror her soul. And Leonard managed to convince his

stomach that it was having a nourishing meal.

After supper they smoked cigarettes and exchanged a few statements.

She observed that her “likeness” had been broken. He found occasion to

remark, for the second time, that he had come straight back home after

the concert at Queen’s Hall. Presently she sat upon his knee. The

inhabitants of Camelia Road tramped to and fro outside the window,

just on a level with their heads, and the family in the flat on the

ground-floor began to sing, “Hark, my soul, it is the Lord.”

“That tune fairly gives me the hump,” said Leonard.

Jacky followed this, and said that, for her part, she thought it a

lovely tune.

“No; I’ll play you something lovely. Get up, dear, for a minute.”

He went to the piano and jingled out a little Grieg. He played badly and

vulgarly, but the performance was not without its effect, for Jacky

said she thought she’d be going to bed. As she receded, a new set of

interests possessed the boy, and he began to think of what had been said

about music by that odd Miss Schlegel--the one that twisted her face

about so when she spoke. Then the thoughts grew sad and envious. There

was the girl named Helen, who had pinched his umbrella, and the German

girl who had smiled at him pleasantly, and Herr some one, and Aunt some

one, and the brother--all, all with their hands on the ropes. They had

all passed up that narrow, rich staircase at Wickham Place to some ample

room, whither he could never follow them, not if he read for ten hours

a day. Oh, it was no good, this continual aspiration. Some are born

cultured; the rest had better go in for whatever comes easy. To see life

steadily and to see it whole was not for the likes of him.

From the darkness beyond the kitchen a voice called, “Len?”

“You in bed?” he asked, his forehead twitching.

“All right.”

Presently she called him again.

“I must clean my boots ready for the morning,” he answered.

Presently she called him again.

“I rather want to get this chapter done.”

“What?”

He closed his ears against her.

“What’s that?”

“All right, Jacky, nothing; I’m reading a book.”

“What?”

“What?” he answered, catching her degraded deafness.

Presently she called him again.

Ruskin had visited Torcello by this time, and was ordering his

gondoliers to take him to Murano. It occurred to him, as he glided over

the whispering lagoons, that the power of Nature could not be shortened

by the folly, nor her beauty altogether saddened by the misery of such

as Leonard.