Part 6

Two other visitors appeared in the doorway and Mr. Lambone turned from Mr. Preemby to greet them as soon as Fay had done her welcome, a fierce-looking young man with an immense head of black hair and a little lady like a china doll dressed to remind one of Watteau.

Conversation became general and Mr. Preemby receded into the background of events.

He found himself side by side with his friend with the silver hair, against his bookcase. “I didn’t expect a party,” he said.

“I thought so too.”

“I only got here this afternoon. The vans came late and lots of my things are still to be unpacked.”

The silver-haired man nodded sympathetically. “Often the case,” he murmured.

Every one was talking loudly. It was difficult to hear. It was confused sort of talking, and whenever two or three seemed to be interested in what they were saying, Fay Crumb went and interrupted them as a good hostess should. Other people, only vaguely apprehended by Mr. Preemby, got into the studio somehow. There was a red-haired young lady with a tremendous decolletage; behind you could see almost to her waist. He h’rrmp’d at it and thought of saying something about it, something cold and quiet, to the silver-haired man. But he didn’t. He couldn’t think of anything sufficiently cold and quiet to say.

Fay Crumb came and asked whether he would like some whisky or beer. “Not on the top of that nice Chianti, thank you,” said Mr. Preemby.

The conversation seemed to get noisier and noisier. In one corner Harold Crumb could be heard quoting the poems of Vachel Lindsay. Then Mr. Lambone came up and seemed to want to talk about the Lost Atlantis, but Mr. Preemby was shy of talking about the Lost Atlantis with Mr. Lambone. “Getting on all right, Daddy?” said Christina Alberta, drifting by and not waiting for any answer but an “h’rrmp.”

There appeared three young people with a gramophone they explained they had just bought, and Fay discovered that the beer had been forgotten and sent Harold out to borrow some from a neighbour. These new-comers made no very profound impression on Mr. Preemby’s now jaded mind, except that one of them, the owner of the gramophone, a very fair young man with a long, intelligent nose, was wearing the big horn of the gramophone as a headdress, and that he meant to have that gramophone going whatever else might occur.

The music was dance-music, jazz for the most part and a few waltzes, and it revived Mr. Preemby considerably. He sat up and beat time with the leg-bones of a roc, and presently two or three couples were dancing on the studio floor. Curious dancing, Mr. Preemby thought; almost like walking--jiggety walking with sudden terrific back-swipes of the legs. There was an interruption when Harold returned with the borrowed beer--bringing its lenders with it. Then there was a general clamour for Christina Alberta and Teddy to “do” their dance. Teddy was quite willing but Christina Alberta seemed reluctant, and when Mr. Preemby saw the dance he was not surprised.

“H’rrmp,” he said, and stroked his moustache and looked at the silver-haired man.

It really was too familiar altogether; for some moments the principals vanished upstairs, and came back altered. For some reason Teddy had adopted a cloth cap and a red neck-wrap; he was, in fact, being an Apache, and the bearing of Christina Alberta had become very proud and spirited with her arms akimbo.

Every one backed against the walls to clear a dancing floor. At the beginning it wasn’t so bad. But presently this Mr. Teddy was pitching Christina Alberta about, throwing her over his shoulder, taking hold of her, bending her backward, holding her almost upside down, both legs in the air and her hands dragging on the ground. And she was red and excited and seemed to like these violent familiarities. There was a kind of undesirable suitability between them for such purposes. She and Teddy looked into each other’s eyes with a sort of intimacy and yet with a sort of fierce defiance. At one point in the extraordinary dance she had to smack his face, a good hard smack, nicely timed. She did it with a spirit that made every one applaud. Whereupon he smiled and took her nice little neck in his hands and strangled her with great realism.

Then the gramophone had its death rattle and the dance was over.

Mr. Preemby’s throat had not troubled him much since dinner, but now he said “h’rrmp” repeatedly.

They wanted Christina Alberta, bright and panting and shock-headed, to repeat the performance, but she wouldn’t. She had had a glimpse of the solemn dismay and perplexity upon her Daddy’s face.

The people from the studio next door were the next to give a display: they obliged with an imitation of a Russian imitation of a peasant dance from Saratoff. There was a gramophone record that was not quite the proper music, but it would do. That dance really amused Mr. Preemby. The young man went down quite close to the floor and kicked out his feet with the greatest agility and the girl was as wooden as a doll. Every one clapped hands in time to the music, and so did Mr. Preemby.

And then came a further irruption. Five people in fancy dress demanding beer. They impressed Mr. Preemby as strange and bright-coloured, but totally uninteresting. One wore a red coxcomb and was dressed as a jester in cap and bells. The others just wore tights and bright things that signified nothing at all. They had been at some party given by somebody or other for the “Young people.” They announced with shouts, “They shut down at midnight. Yes, they shut down at midnight. When the young people go to bed.”

It was only too manifest that No. 8 Lonsdale Mews meant to do nothing of the sort.

Beer. Mr. Preemby declined. The last of the beer. Cigarettes. Much smoke. The last of the whisky. More gramophone, more dancing and Harold Crumb’s voice loose again in recitation. Beer or whisky had thickened it. But there were countervailing noises. Movement. A circle was cleared. Not more dancing! No. Feats of strength and dexterity with chairs, performed chiefly by Teddy Winterton, the gramophone owner, and Harold. This stunting stopped presently and the company flowed back towards the middle of the room. Talk Mr. Preemby could not follow; phrases he could not understand. Nobody taking the slightest notice of him.

A sense of weariness and futility and desolation came upon him. How differently were the evenings of the past spent by the good wise people of the lost Atlantis! Philosophical discourse they had, the lute, the lyre. Elevated thoughts.

He caught sight of Mrs. Crumb yawning furtively. Suddenly, stupendously he yawned. And yawned again.

“Yaaw,” he said to Paul Lambone who was at his side.

“Proyawaw--Prolly thiswe sitting on my beawawd.”

“You live here?” said Mr. Lambone.

“Come to-day. Christina Albyawawawter arranged it.”

“The devil she did!” said Mr. Lambone, and looked across the studio at her. For some moments he seemed lost in thought.

“Very remarkable young woman that daughter of yours,” he said. “Makes me feel old-fashioned.”

He looked at the wrist-watch he wore, “Half-past one,” he said. “I’ll start the Go....”

§ 7

Mr. Preemby heard a few sentences of the parting between Teddy Winterton and Christina Alberta. “Yes or no?” said Teddy.

“_No_,” said Christina Alberta with emphasis.

“Not a bit of it,” said Teddy.

“I don’t want to,” she said.

“But you _do_.”

“Oh, go to the devil!”

“Not as if there were risks.”

“I shan’t come. It’s preposterous.”

“I shall wait all the same.”

“You may wait.”

“Little Chrissy Hesitation. Anything to please you.”

§ 8

It took until past two o’clock for the Go Paul Lambone had started to remove the last of the company.

“All hands to the bedmaking,” cried Fay. “It isn’t always like this, Mr. Preemby.”

“Confess I feel tired,” said Mr. Preemby. “Had a long day of it.”

Christina Alberta regarded him with belated compunction. “It just happened like this,” she said.

“Not used to such late hours,” said Mr. Preemby, sitting on his bed when at last it was made, and he did a yawn that almost dislocated his jaw.

“Night,” said Fay, yawning also.

“We’ll turn in,” said Harold. “So long, Mr. Preemby.” The yawning seized upon Harold also. What a face he had!

“Goo-i.”

“Gawooi-i.”

The door closed upon them.

There was much to say to Christina Alberta, but it was too late and Mr. Preemby was too weary to say it now And also he had no idea what it was he ought to say.

A casual remark fell out, “I liked that man with the white hair,” he said.

“Did you?” said Christina Alberta absently.

“He was intelligent. He took a great interest in the Lost Atlantis.”

“He’s stone deaf,” said Christina Alberta, “and he’s ashamed of it--poor dear.”

“Oh!” said Mr. Preemby.

“All this is going to be rather noisy for you, Daddy,” she said, coming to what she had in mind.

“It _is_ a bit ramshackle,” said Mr. Preemby.

“We ought to go to Tunbridge Wells quite soon and look round there.”

“To-morrow,” said Mr. Preemby.

“Not to-morrow.”

“Why not?”

“The next day,” said Christina Alberta. “I’m not quite sure about to-morrow. I’d sort of half promised to go somewhere else--. But it doesn’t matter very much really.”

“I’d like to go to Tumbridge Wells to-morrow,” said Mr. Preemby.

“Why not?” said Christina Alberta as if to herself, and hesitated.

Se walked to the door and came back. “Good night, little Daddy,” she said.

“Are we going then? To-morrow?”

“No.... Yes.... I don’t know. I _had_ planned to do something to-morrow. Important in a kind of way.... We’ll go to-morrow, Daddy.”

She walked away from him with her arms akimbo and stared at those queer pictures.

She spun round on her feet. “I can’t go to-morrow,” she said.

“Yes, I will,” she contradicted.

“Oh, hell!” she cried, in a most unaccountable and unladylike way. “I don’t know what to _do_!”

Mr. Preemby looked at her with grave and weary eyes. This was a new Christina Alberta to him. She ought not to swear. She did _not_ ought to swear. She’d caught it up from these people. She didn’t know what it meant. He must talk to her--to-morrow. About that and one or two other things. But Heavens! how tired he was!

“You--” He yawned. “You must take care of yourself, Christina Alberta,” he said.

“I’ll do that all right, Daddy. Trust me.”

She came and sat down beside him on his little half-fictitious bed. “We can’t decide to-night, Daddy. We’re too tired. We’ll settle to-morrow. Have to see what the weather’s like for one thing. Wouldn’t do to walk about Tunbridge if it was wet. We’ll decide about everything to-morrow--when our heads are cool. Why! you dear little Daddy! It’s just upon half-past two.”

She put her arm round his shoulders and kissed him on the top of his head and the lobe of his ear. He loved her to touch him and kiss him. He did not understand in the least how much he loved her to kiss him.

“Dear _tired_ little Daddy,” she said in her softest voice: “You are ever so kind to me. Good night.”

She had gone.

For some time Mr. Preemby sat quite motionless in a state of almost immobile thought.

The floor of the studio was littered with burnt matches and cigarette ends and the air smelt of stale smoke and beer. On the blue-painted table stood an empty beer-bottle and two or three glasses containing dregs of beer and cigarette ash.

It was all very different from Woodford Wells,--very different indeed.

But it was Experience.

Mr. Preemby bestirred himself to undress.

That night-shirt of Saxony flannel had still to be unpacked.

§ 9

In the morning Christina Alberta was still restless and quite undecided about going to Tunbridge Wells, though the weather was perfectly fine. About half-past eleven she disappeared, and after a light lunch with Fay--Harold was out also--it became evident to Mr. Preemby that the visit to Tunbridge Wells was postponed for the day. So he went to South Kensington to look at the Museums there. He did not go into them actually, he just looked at them and at the colleges and buildings generally. It was a preliminary reconnaissance.

The Museums were quite good to look at. Larger, more extensive, than the British Museum. Probably they contained--all sorts of things.

Christina Alberta reappeared in the studio about half-past six looking very bright and exalted. There was something about her subtly triumphant.

She offered no explanation of her disappearance. She was full of the visit to Tunbridge on the morrow. They must catch a train soon after nine and have a good long day. She was unusually affectionate to her Daddy.

Harold was out for the evening and Fay had some reviewing to do, so they had quite a quiet and domestic evening. Mr. Preemby read with a varying attention a nice deep confusing book he had found in the room upstairs called _Fantasia of the Unconscious_ about the Lost Atlantis and similar things.

CHAPTER THE FOURTH

_The Petunia Boarding House_

§ 1

Most places in the world have sister cities and twins and parallels, but Tunbridge Wells is Tunbridge Wells, and there is nothing really like it upon our planet. Not that it is in any way strange or fantastic, but because of its brightly delicate distinction. It is clean and open, and just pleasantly absurd. It is not more than thirty miles from London, as the crow flies, but the North Downs six miles away dismiss with a serene and gracious gesture all thoughts of London from the mind. It is away from the main line out of London, inconvenient for season-ticket holders; there is no direct route for the hurrying motorist over those saving Downs; to Dover and Kent generally he goes to the east of it, and to Brighton he goes to the west--if he survive the hills of Westerham and Sevenoaks. Rich men’s estates encircle it with accessible parks. Eridge, Bayham, Penshurst Park, Knole and the like protect it from overmuch breeding of little villa residences. There it lies, on a rare piece of rocky soil, dry underfoot, airy and wholesome, with its friendly Common in the midst of it; its Spa of evil-tasting beneficent waters as the Stuart princesses drank them, its Pantiles and its Pump Room, much as Dr. Johnson knew the place. Mount Sion and Mount Ephraim, Beulah Road and something evangelical in the air, remind the light-minded visitor that London in the past was a Puritan city. Many a serious liver has been touched and found grace at Tunbridge Wells. Many a light liver has found fresh strength there. And thither came Mr. Preemby and Christina Alberta seeking a boarding house--and they could have sought it in no more favourable locality.

They set about the search in a systematic way as became a couple, one of whom had been partially trained for sociological research at the London School of Economics and partially trained for business at the Tomlinson School. Mr. Preemby had been for beginning with a general look-round, just walking round and looking quietly at things for a bit, but Christina Alberta consulted all the agents in order, and bought a map and guide to the town and sat down on a seat on the Common and planned the operations that led quite readily and easily to the Petunia Boarding House.

In the guide Mr. Preemby read with approval some very promising words. “Listen to this, my dear,” he said. “H’rrmp. ‘General Characteristics. Emphasis might very well be laid on the character enjoyed by Tunbridge Wells as a magnet for high-class residents and visitors. The town is never overrun with trippers, nor are its streets ever defiled by the vulgar or the inane. Its inhabitants are composed, for the most part, of well-to-do people who naturally create a social atmosphere tinged by culture and refinement.’”

“_Tinged_ is a jolly good word for it, I expect,” said Christina Alberta.

“I think my instinct has guided me aright to this place,” said Mr. Preemby.

The Petunia Boarding House looks obliquely upon the Common from where Petunia Road runs into the quaint and pleasant High Street. It has not the towering magnificence of the Wellington, the Royal Mount Ephraim, the Marlborough, or their fellows, which face the sun so bravely from the hill-crest above the Common, but it is a house of dignified comfort. The steps, the portico, the ample hall, the name in letters of gold on black, made Mr. Preemby say h’rrmp several times. An excessively chubby maid in a very, very tight black dress and a cap and apron, came and looked at Mr. and Miss Preemby with a distraught evasive expression, answered some preliminary questions incoherently, and said she would call Miss Emily Rewster--Miss Margaret was out. Thereupon Miss Emily Rewster, who had been hovering attentively behind a bead curtain, thrust it aside and came ingratiatingly into the foreground. She was a little high-coloured old lady, with an air of genteel _savoir-faire_; she had a lace cap and wore a great deal of lace and several flounces, and she had the most frankly dyed chestnut hair that Christina Alberta had ever seen. “Was it just for a week or so Mr. Preemby wanted to come, or something--perheps--more permanent?”

Explanations were exchanged. Mr. Preemby was to be “more permanent”; Christina Alberta intermittent--and rather a difficulty. The existence of headquarters in Chelsea was revealed discreetly, but not the fact that they were in a Mews.

Miss Emily Rewster thought Christina Alberta could be fitted in if she wasn’t too particular about having the same room, or exactly the same sort of room every time she came. “We have to menage,” said Miss Emily Rewster.

“So long as the window opens,” said Christina Alberta.

The rooms exhibited were very satisfactory, (h’rrmp) very satisfactory. A glimpse of a bathroom was given. “You say when you want one,” said Miss Emily Rewster. There was a dining-room with separate tables, and there were flowers on every table, very refined and pleasant, and there was a large drawing-room with a piano and a great number of arm-chairs and sofas wearing flounces so like the flounces of Miss Emily Rewster, and antimacassars so like her cap, and with so entirely her air of accommodating receptiveness that it seemed as though they must be at least her cousins who had joined her in the enterprise. The piano wore a sort of lace bed-spread, and there were polished tables bearing majolica pots of aspidistra on mats and little less serious tables for use, and there was a low bookcase with books in it and a great heap of illustrated papers on the top. The hall expanded at the back into a rather modernish lounge where two ladies were having tea; and there was also a smoking-room, where, said Miss Emily Rewster to Christina Alberta rather coyly, “the gentlemen smoke.”

“We’ve been very full this season,” said Miss Emily Rewster, “very full. We’ve had nearly thirty sitting at dinner. But of course the season is drawing in now. Just at present we’re down to nine at breakfast and seven at dinner; two gentlemen in business here. But people come and people go. I’ve had two inquiries by post to-day. One an invalid lady and her sister. They think of drinking the waters. And there are Birds of Passage as well as Regulars. Just for a night or so. Motor families. They take us _en route_. That’s where we have an advantage in being so close to the shops.”

She beamed intimately at Mr. Preemby. “Often my sister or I pop out at the last moment and get in things ourselves. When every one else is busy. We don’t mind any little trouble if it makes people comfortable.”

“We’ve been on the separate table system ever since the war,” said Miss Emily Rewster. “So much more pleasant. You can keep yourself Quate to yourself if you wish, or you can be Friendly. People often Speak in the Drawing-room or in the Smoking-room. And they bow. Sometimes people get Quate friendly. Play Games. Get up Excursions together. Quate Pleasant.”

Christina Alberta asked an obvious question.

“Very pleasant people indeed,” said Miss Emily. “Very pleasant people. A retired gentleman and his wife and her stepdaughter and two retired maiden ladies and a gentleman and his lady who has been in a forest in Burmah and so on.”

Christina Alberta restrained a ribald impulse to ask what a “retired gentleman” or a “retired maiden lady” really meant.

“I’ve always been attracted to Tumbridge Wells,” said Mr. Preemby.

“_Royal_ Tunbridge Wells _if_ you please,” said Miss Emily radiantly. “The ‘Royal’ was added in nineteen nine, you know, by gracious command of his Majesty.”

“I didn’t know,” said Mr. Preemby with profound respect, and tried it over; “_Royal_ Tumbridge Wells.”

“Makes it rather a mouthful,” said Christina Alberta.

“A very pleasant mouthful for Us, I can assure you,” said Miss Emily loyally.

The Petunia Boarding House seemed so satisfactory to Mr. Preemby that it was arranged that he should return the next day but one, bringing with him some clothes and other luggage, and that Christina Alberta was to come and stay with him for a few days--there was a little room upstairs she could have--and then she would go back to London and her studies and take her chance of coming again when there was a room for her.

§ 2

In the train back to London Mr. Preemby rehearsed these arrangements and made his plans.

“I shall come down here the day after to-morrow, after I have put my collections in order at the Mew. I shall put the best things so that they can be seen through the glass of the cabinet, but I think I shall lock them up, and I shall bring down a few necessary books, and then when I have quite settled in I shall go and have a good look at these celebrated Rocks here.”

“We could come down in the morning,” said Christina Alberta, “and go and look at them in the afternoon.”

“Not the same afternoon,” said Mr. Preemby. “No. I want my mind to be quite fresh and open when I look at the Rocks. I think it will be best to see them quite early--after a night’s sleep. When there are no other visitors. I think--I think, Christina Alberta, that for the first time I’d better go to them quite alone. Without you. Sometimes you say things, Christina Alberta--you don’t mean to say them of course--but they put me out....”

Christina Alberta reflected. “What do you expect to find at these Rocks, Daddy?”

Mr. Preemby waved his moustache and the rest of his face slowly from side to side. “I go with an Open Mind,” he said. “Perhaps all of Atlantis was not lost. Some of it may be hidden. There are legends preserved by the philosopher Plato. Partly in cipher. Who knows? It may be here. It may be in Africa. A plan. A sign. The toad rock must be most singular. In the British Museum there is a toad rock from Central America....”

He mused pleasantly for a time.

“I shall take a note-book,” he said, “and several coloured pencils.”

He continued to meditate. His next remark came after an interval of three or four minutes, and was a surprise for Christina Alberta.

“I hope, my dear,” said Mr. Preemby, “that among all these artists and people you are not getting Ram Shackle.

“I should be sorry to think you were getting Ram Shackle,” said Mr. Preemby.

“But Daddy, what makes you think I may be getting--Ram Shackle?” asked Christina Alberta.

“One or two little things I saw at the Mew,” said Mr. Preemby. “Just one or two little things. You’ve got to be careful, Christina Alberta. A girl has to take care of herself. And your friends--decidedly Ram Shackle. Don’t mind my making a remark about them, Christina Alberta. Just a word in season.”

Christina Alberta’s answer came after a little interval, and without her usual confident ring. “Don’t you worry about me, Daddy,” she said. “I’m all right.”

Mr. Preemby seemed about to change the subject. Then he remarked, “I don’t like that feller, Teddy Winterton. He’s too familiar.”

“I don’t like him either,” said Christina Alberta. “He _is_ too familiar.”

“That’s all right,” said Mr. Preemby. “I thought you didn’t notice,” and relapsed into meditation.