CHAPTER VII

JOHNSONESE

Luke was with Jinny at the cake-shop.

“Have another?” said Jinny.

He hesitated. It was her birthday, and she had been tipped, and was treating him. This would have seemed a natural proceeding a year ago, when he would have crammed himself to the utmost limits of her capital. But Luke was growing up; and though not sufficient of a man to forbid the lady to pay, was yet not sufficient of a boy unquestioningly to accept the fifth cream bun. Therefore he compromised with himself: he would ask her to state exactly her financial position; if it exceeded half a crown, he would eat that bun, and be damned to delicate considerations and social etiquette. But if less--

“How much cash have you got, Jinny?”

“Four and six,” promptly; “half a crown from Uncle Will, and two bob from old Simmons. But of course you’ve already eaten some of that.”

“Well, and so’ve you.”

“I’ve only had three, three twopennies--that’s sixpence; you’ve had four.”

“The shortcake’s a penny.”

“Sevenpence, then. And a lemonade each. And two--three sticks of chocolate cream;” Jinny did rapid mental calculations--she was top of her form in arithmetic--and announced two and elevenpence as still remaining from her four and six, after expenses were deducted. Whereat Luke, much relieved, took his fifth cake, satisfied that he had solved the difficulty in fashion befitting a man of the world.

“We’re going to invite you to our Christmas dinner,” he remarked, his mouth full.

“How topping! Who else?”

“The old Baker woman, and Vi. Balaam Atkins,--he’s mashed on Letty, you know. Granpa and Aunt Lou--Granpa’s good for a present, anyway. Oh, and your precious Tommy Cox!”

“Hurrah! He’s spiffing fun. Ever heard him imitate turkeys gobbling?”

“No, and I don’t want to. And I don’t suppose he’d find it difficult. He’s to be lugged in for Vi Baker; she’s supposed to have a broken heart, or some such tommy-rot----”

“And your mother thinks that _Tommy’s rot_ will cheer her up?” Jinny exploded into giggles at her own wit; “I say, Luke, did you hear? I said----”

“Oh, keep your hair on! I don’t want to hear it again.”

“Sour grapes! you wouldn’t have thought of it yourself. But won’t Letty’s fellow be there?”

“Sebastian? Oh, rather; didn’t I count him? I say,” Luke leant forward confidentially across the rickety green tin table, “you know how snarky Pater was about him? Well, two mornings ago he had a letter from old Levi--I heard him tell Mater about it--and ever since, he’s simply oiled himself all over Sebastian. And I believe he’s come to see him this afternoon.”

“Who’s come to see who, stupid?”

“Old Levi. He’s frightfully rich. Come to see Pater.”

“Then why isn’t Sebastian frightfully rich? Has he quarrelled with his dad?”

“Secret,” said Luke shortly. “Come along, let’s be off.”

“No--wait--tell me, Luke. Do. I won’t tell, honest Injun. You might, Luke, because it’s my birthday.”

“As if that was a reason,” scorning her femininity. “Besides, you’ll blab.”

“No, I won’t.” And she added: “You might tell me, Luke,--I’m paying for your tea.”

Luke was not offended; indeed, he thought she had put forth a fairly strong argument.

“Well, when he got sort of engaged to Letty, his Guv’nor was going to make him partner at the Stores, and start him on fifteen hundred quid a year.” He repeated the sum impressively. And Jinny gasped:

“My hat!”

“He’s chucked it,” finished Luke, still more impressively.

“My _hat_! Whatever for?”

“Because he’s a Socialist.”

“What difference does that make?”

Luke embarked on an explanation of the first principles underlying the code of equality; threw in a few cutting sentences regarding the palpable unfairness of “one law for the rich and another for the poor”; and wound up by reading his companion a column from the current issue of “Mine and Yours.”

“But that’s all balmy bosh,” was Jinny’s comment.

“_Is_ it?” huffily. “As it happens, I’m a Socialist myself.”

“_You_ are? Crumbs! Why?”

Luke fumbled in vain for words with which to express the queer gleam which had penetrated the murkiness of his schoolboy soul; soul hitherto stamped solely with football scores, surliness, and Jinny; with cheap cigarettes and brandyballs; canings, ink, and the “usual beastliness” of everything. Thereunto had lately to be added the astounding novelty of someone who sacrificed material advantages for the sake of an abstract idea; and the blended beauty and absurdity of the proceeding had uplifted Luke to a queer sense of gladness that such a miracle should actually take place within his ken; had even inspired him with an inarticulate desire to imitate ... somehow. His shyness had never permitted him to confide in Sebastian; otherwise he might have received another shock on hearing that in this case Socialism was not the motive of renunciation. Sebastian, for his part, might have found some difficulty in translating into Johnsonese the twisted asceticism of Stuart Heron.

But Luke only dogged in boorish silence his sister’s betrothed. And Sebastian thought his future brother-in-law rather an uncouth lad, with whom he could never have anything in common.

In the meantime, Luke realized the impossibility of laying before Jinny the wonder of a share-and-share-alike community, while she was very importantly calling for the bill, and clinking her coins on to the table; especially as he had absently overstepped his self-imposed limit, and eaten twopence off the half-crown.

“Come on!” cried Jinny, catching up her hockey-stick, and marching out of the shop. She had played in a match that afternoon, and won it, three goals to one. And, re-living her victory, she had forgotten all about Luke’s recent outburst. He followed her into the High Street, and thence round the corner into the quiet road running at right angles, and ending abruptly in a high wall which shut off the railway embankment. Luke slouched past the gate of Town House.

“Hi!” shouted Jinny, who had halted at the boarding establishment next door; “have you eaten so much as to forget your own address, fathead?”

“No ... walk with me as far as the wall, Jinny?”

“Why ever?”

“Oh, I dunno; needn’t if you don’t want to.”

She yielded. The constant vituperations with which she adorned her speech, were merely used in defence, as the porcupine shoots its quills. She laboured under a fifteen-year-old delusion that rudeness is the equivalent of wit. But she was very fond of Luke. In fact, in spite of her many assertions to the contrary, her inmost heart preferred him to the redoubtable Tommy Cox.

“Well, what now?” she demanded, in softer tones than usual, as they leant up against the wall.

He looked at her; her curls were tumbled about her neck; her face was a warm blur through the humid mists of a late afternoon in December. Sebastian had been especially devoted to Letty during the last fortnight, and the prevailing atmosphere of sentiment and tenderness had infected Luke. He felt now that he wanted something more of his girl than repartee.... Suddenly he plunged forward; his lips missed her mouth, but landed somewhere in the dim hollow of her throat.

... “Jinny!”

A train thundered along the bank overhead, shook the wall, passed in a rush of light, leaving in its wake a long-drawn-out plaintive whistle....

Then Jinny pulled herself away: “Oh, crumbs! don’t be sloppy!” she cried, and ran swiftly down the road, clattering her hockey-stick along the pavement.

Luke, for very shame, remained rooted to the spot long after he had heard the door of number twenty-seven bang behind her.

* * * * *

Mr. Johnson saw his guest off at the front door. Then, with the air of a man completely satisfied, went into the parlour to report to his wife.

“Did you ask him if he wanted tea, Matthew?”

Her husband smiled broadly. “He had a drink and a cigar, my dear.”

“One of your good cigars?”

Mr. Johnson nodded; and she knew therefore that all was well, and that she might safely ask questions. “What did he say about Sebastian? Did he tell you the reason----?”

“That he did.”

“Well?”

“Ned Levi told me in confidence, Frances.”

“Well?” brushing aside this trifling objection.

“There is nothing to prevent a public engagement as soon as ever you like,” said Mr. Johnson with dignity; “and nothing to prevent ’em getting married as soon as _they_ like. _I_ don’t know what we’ve been waiting for.”

“We’ve been waiting for your consent, Mat,” gently.

“They have it; oh, they have it.” Mr. Johnson’s voice blessed the absent pair.

“And what does Sebastian’s father say about Sebastian not taking his money?” asked Mrs. Johnson, returning to the charge.

And having let five minutes elapse since his promise of secrecy, Mr. Johnson felt he might now with honour let the cat out of the bag:

“The cub got it into his head, at Oxford or some such place, that he wouldn’t take money that had been made in trade. It may be that some other young snob told him that the Stores swindled pence out of people’s pockets. Comes of sending your son to Oxford. And you wanted Luke to go there.”

“I believe it’s a good place in its way, Mat,” Mrs. Johnson said, tolerating Oxford.

“Ned Levi thinks the boy can’t fail to come round all right when he’s married to a sensible girl. That’s why he’s anxious to hurry on the wedding.”

“But meanwhile they can’t live on nothing, Mat. They can’t live on Sebastian’s hundred a year.”

“I’m allowing ’em four hundred a year, just to keep ’em going.”

“But--Matthew----” Mrs. Johnson was completely astounded at her husband’s sudden magnificent disposal of half his income.

He winked at her; a slow and prodigious wink: “Ned Levi’s money, my dear; every cent of it. But not a word to Sebastian.”

Thus the plot stood revealed.

“I’m a great one for argerment,” continued Mr. Johnson; “and I said to him: ‘Levi’ I said, him and me being old pals, ‘Levi’ I said, ‘trade’s as good as any profession if we in trade like to consider any profession as good as us; and that’s logic. But since your jackanapes seems set against takin’ trade-money, what’s to prevent him refusing mine?’ Eh? That’s what I said.”

“And what is, Mat?”

“What is what?”

“To prevent him refusing yours?”

“It won’t be mine. It’ll be Ned Levi’s.”

“Yes, but what’s to prevent Sebastian refusing it, whoever of you it comes from?”

But Mr. Johnson seemed to think Sebastian was already “coming round.”

“I’ve noticed him different since a couple of weeks. More easy-like and anxious to please. Only he’s too proud to go galloping straight back to the Stores and say: ‘Please, sir, I was an ass, give me my partnership and fifteen hundred per annum.’ He’ll say it by degrees. And half of the whole boiling is his when Ned dies. Not but that Ned’s as young as I am, but he looks tired and worn, poor fellow; sort of wistful round the eyes when he said: ‘Johnson, it isn’t your dowry to your daughter he’ll object to; it’s only my help he won’t take; so it must reach him through a back door.’ But Sebastian Levi’s a good match for our girl, Frances, even if he’s gone temporary mad; now that I know his father’s not set against him, as I was afraid.”

Mrs. Johnson began: “I was wondering----” and relapsed into silence.

He encouraged her: “Speak up, old lady.”

“Whether we mightn’t announce the wedding officially at our Christmas dinner. Half the people don’t even know Letty’s engaged.”

“Have it your own way.”

“Yes, but I was wondering----”

“You’ll hurt yourself with wondering so much,” remarked Mr. Johnson facetiously.

“About inviting Mr. Levi. You see, he’s a Jew.”

“What of it? _I_ don’t mind.”

“Nor do I. But _does_ one, to a Christmas dinner?”

“Why not?... Oh! Ah!...” slowly in Mr. Johnson’s brain, an atmosphere of holly, plum-pudding, gifts, and jocularity, cleared away, to reveal for an instant the event for which the festival stood as symbol.

“Ah. Um.”

Mrs. Johnson folded up her work. “I’m going over to consult Millicent Baker; she knows more about Jews than we. I shouldn’t like to do the wrong thing about it, and hurt his feelings.”

Mrs. Baker, when the problem was formally laid before her, delivered judgment against. “He might not be able to eat the food. If it isn’t cooked Kosher. Of course, if you want to put yourself out----”

“I couldn’t possibly ask that much of Cook. When we’re twelve sitting down as it is. And I don’t think my father would care about a--what do you call it?--Kosher plum-pudding. It doesn’t sound convivial, does it?” doubtfully.

“And yet, Sebastian’s father has a right to be present, hasn’t he? Even if it makes extra trouble.” Mrs. Baker hovered uncertainly; the rich Ned Levi, she knew, was a widower; Mr. Baker had been in his grave since fourteen years.

“What I’m most afraid of,” Mrs. Johnson confessed, “is that he’ll feel bound to ask us back to one of _his_ religious festivals,--that funny one where the Jews go up on the roof and eat pineapple.”

“Dear things,” murmured Mrs. Baker.

“I approve highly of all these picturesque customs,” explained the other lady, painstakingly. “But not for myself. Pineapple in large quantities disagrees with me. Especially the tinned kind. And I believe they have to sit cross-legged.”

Then Mrs. Baker, who on questions of etiquette was really invaluable, suggested the brilliant compromise that Mr. Levi, senior, should be invited to dine at Town House on Boxing Day.--“Or on the day after Boxing Day, to make it quite safe.”

“That wouldn’t be Christmas, really Christmas, at all any more, would it?” Considerably easier in her mind, now that the vexed question was settled, Mrs. Johnson returned home again; having first arranged that on the occasion of Mr. Levi’s visit, Mrs. Baker should “just drop in,” and aid in his entertainment, on the strength of her experience at Laura Silberstein’s wedding.

* * * * *

Letty stopped in front of a giant notice-board, which signified: “To Be Let Or Sold.”

“Want to shee inside dat house,” she announced, in coaxing baby language. “Oo, please, Sebastian, want to shee inside.” She tugged imperiously at his hand.

Behind the murky strip of garden, black windows glimmered faintly in a spectral building.

“Darling baby,” Sebastian replied, responding to her whim, “don’t you know that a big bogey-man lives behind that door, and you’ll hear his bones rattle through the letter-box?”

But Letty only tugged the harder, up the damp gravel path. “One can never tell,” stopping and facing him, her blue eyes very serious, her soft curls clinging to cheek and forehead, in little wet tendrils, “how soon we may want a house, now that father has grown nice to you.”

She might equally well have said: “Now that you’ve grown nice to me.” For never had she and Sebastian been so happy together, not even in their first days of courtship, as since their quarrel and reconciliation a fortnight ago. He no longer oppressed her with his moody fits, nor snubbed her when she strove to intrude on his remoteness; he even let her minister to one of his headaches, to her great content; moreover, he seemed possessed by a real lover’s craving for her constant companionship; and the note in his voice when he spoke her name, filled her with a tremulous wish to cry and laugh, both at the same time.

--How could she know he was being hounded day and night by an idea, and that he was striving to place her between the idea and himself? striving to stifle his eyes and ears with her, to cram himself with her, to the exclusion of all else. How should she guess that he dared not love her little, lest her presence should prove too feeble for its purpose; dared not love her much, because of the hard bite in a man’s voice saying: “At the height is the time to cut with any credit, my lad!”... Why, then the more he loaded Letty with his tenderness, the nearer he brought their passion to the height where----But he dared not love her less, nor yet more.

Sebastian had not been near Stuart, since the latter had, hornet-wise, stung his brain to a veritable madness of thought. Stung, and stung again, and left the sting within. Sebastian hated Stuart,--and Lord! how one _could_ hate a man who was capable of such ruthless brutality as to treat love like some luxuriant but dangerous growth; cut it away for the sake of ... of what? This was where Sebastian always lost the idea; could sense it, indeed, far-off, taunting him for his lack of understanding:

“You’re not big enough. Not big enough.”

“He’s not human. Not human,” the boy would shout in reply.

He had perpetual nightmares of killing Stuart; actually hacking at him with a knife; searching for some vulnerable spot. But the blade would rebound against a hard invisible resistance.... The nightmare recurred again and again, tiring Sebastian, wearing him to tatters, with its frenzied futility.

--“Ooo! light a match, Sebastian; it’s so dark,” cried Letty, as the front door yielded to her timid pressure.

The blue flicker betrayed the interior of the house as quite new, smelling strongly of paint, completely devoid of furniture; the walls unpapered; the floors sonorous to the tramp of feet. Some boards and pails lying about, and a candle-end stuck into a bottle on the chimney-piece, betokened that the workmen were still employed there during the daytime.

“Well?” said Sebastian, watching with considerable amusement, as Letty, candle in hand, peeped into all the bare echoing apartments, evidently seeing in them far more than was apparent to the male eye. “Will it do for us? Which is to be my study?”

Solemnly she led him into what might have been a fair-sized cupboard.

“I protest!” cried Sebastian wrathfully. “You’re just a tyrant. _This_ shall be my study.” And he planted himself firmly in the very largest room of all.

“The drawing-room, of course,” Letty contradicted, her voice holding vistas of many ‘At Home days.’ “And I can’t have your dirty boots all over the pink carpet. Oh, Sebastian, let’s pretend, a bit in each room, that we’re already living here; just to see what you’re like in a house of your own.”

They began their game in a phantom-ridden dining-room; at an imaginary breakfast-table.

“Lettice,” angrily, “this is the fifth bill I’ve had for rose chintz. You’ve had enough rose chintz to make a canopy for Hampstead Heath.”

“Oh, Sebastian, and I’ve only covered three tiny little cushions for your study. I do think you’re ungrateful.”

“I’ve told you sixty times I won’t have cushions in my study.”

“I’m only trying to make you comfortable.”

... A Vision, fading into the cold blue frosts that lay beyond comfort or cushions.... He had chosen. Not for him, the Vision. Another man had been stronger, pursued it and held it....

“Now you’re working hard at your desk,” commanded Letty, passing into the room behind. “And I come in and disturb you. I want to test your temper.”

“Seek not to know what the gods have in their mercy hidden,” laughed Sebastian, giving her the candle; she went into the passage, and shut the door on him; for an instant he was alone in the thick blackness.

... But he liked these stark naked rooms with their wide wash of window. What sort of an appearance would they present when furnished in a blend of Johnsonese and his own æstheticism? Letty, he knew, liked cheerful colours and a litter of knick-knacks--hateful word, knick-knacks--one would fall over them--they stood on rickety tables. He was beginning also to dislike his own previous notions about schemes and harmonies of decoration. They spread a cloying smoothness over his mind, fretting for harsher salter relief.... The idea was catching him again, here in the draughty dark.... In a panic he stumbled to the door, calling out her name: “Letty! Letty!”...

She entered with the candle:

“Darling, I’m so sorry to disturb you, but dinner is getting cold on the table. Sarah rang the gong three times,” reproachfully.

He remembered the game, then; and with an affectation of irritability, consigned Sarah and the gong both to the devil.

“Sebastian, you really must not use such language, even if you are busy.” She came up behind him, and put her arms round his neck. “Say you’re sorry!”

“You’ve smudged the page.”

“Say you’re sorry!”

--The game led them upstairs, to the bedrooms.

“Now it’s my turn to be inside,” suggested Letty. “You’ve come home late, oh, horribly late; and I’ve been waiting up for you.”

“I seem to have a pretty rotten character altogether in this show,” Sebastian objected. “What about you coming home late?”

“Wives don’t,” said Letty and a lovely colour flooded her face at the word she had unwittingly let slip.

He smiled. “Don’t they? All right, then we’ll both be coming home late; I refuse to be a prodigal, for you to bully me. We’ve been out together, Letty darling, and you’re dead tired; I think I have to carry you upstairs.” He strode ahead, and placed the candle on the window-sill of the front first-floor room. Then, his hands free, returned for his burden.

“Sebastian, you’re crushing me....”

“Let me undress you, you sleepy baby. Sit down while I pull the combs out of your hair ... what soft light masses ... like burying one’s hands in a snow-drift only it’s warm ... warm. Did you enjoy yourself, dancing with me to-night?”

“It was glorious; I’d rather waltz with you than anyone, Sebastian.”

“Even though I’m only your husband?”

A hush. While the spearhead of flame spun fantastic humped shadows over the ceiling.

... “What are you doing?” her voice was low as a lullaby.

“Taking off your absurd shoes, sweet. No, you’re not to do a thing for yourself; what am I here for?”

“To love me,” she murmured.

“To love you, Letty? Oh, Letty, it’s good to come home like this, to our own house. Drowsy little girl, you can shut your eyes now--now----”

--And now the room had miraculously furnished itself; long mirrors reflecting the silver on the toilet-table; great dark flowers patterned on the walls; in a recess, the shadowy blue gleam of a satin quilt, the twinkle of brass knobs.... The whole drear abode seemed suddenly astir with movement, as though their duet had quickened to life each chamber as they passed through. Somebody was singing overhead--empty hearths had burst into a glow--footsteps ran up and down the lit stairs--

“Letty!”

... Gone, that bleak vision which had tormented him. Vision which sometimes took the shape of a lean figure running, always running, against the wind. Triumphantly Sebastian recognized that it had lost its power with him; he had succeeded in shutting it out--shutting it out, please God, for always....

“Letty! Letty!”

Her name was the talisman; and her fragrance....

--“Sebastian dear, it’s time to go home, isn’t it? I’m just a wee bit cold.”

So they left behind them the empty house; and very close together, walked back to Turnham Green. As they drew near the gate of Town House, a familiar figure loomed in sight from the opposite direction.

“Hullo, Luke; been climbing the railway bank again?”

“No,” disgustedly; he had forsworn these childish pastimes fully two years ago. “I was just hanging about. Mater’s gone over to the Baker woman; I saw her cross the road.”

“Here she is,” cried Letty, as Mrs. Johnson joined them, with a cheery: “Well, children, had a nice afternoon, all of you? Coming in to have a bit of supper with us, Sebastian?”

He hesitated. “Mr. Johnson----”

“He’ll be delighted,” his wife promised. And indeed, Mr. Johnson’s amiability over the roast mutton was a thing to be remembered. The visit of Mr. Levi, senior, was not mentioned; but the marvelling lovers were informed they might fix their wedding-day for the near future, and formally announce the date at dinner on Christmas Day.

“Four o’clock,” Mrs. Johnson reminded Sebastian. “We always start dinner at four on Christmas day, and go on just as long as ever we like.”

“And don’t you take much breakfast, my boy,” put in Mr. Johnson; “just nibble at a bit o’ dry toast. For I warn you, you’ll need every bit of your appetite later on.”