Collected Works of E M Delafield

by E M Delafield

  When the concert was over, Mr. Lawrence spoke again. He said: “I’m afraid it’s raining. Can I help you to find a taxi?”

  “I — I have a car,” faltered Miss Duquenois, and she blushed, for she still felt most terribly self-conscious about her new wealth. She added, in order to minimize her feelings of guilt: “Only a hired one, of course.”

  “Quite,” said Mr. Lawrence, imperturbably, just as though he had known it all the time.

  The beautiful hired car came gliding round the corner of Langham Place without keeping her waiting at all, and Mr. Lawrence, in spite of the rain, escorted her down the steps and across the pavement.

  Juliet, still sufficiently unused to consideration to find it profoundly moving, felt that the least she could possibly do was to offer to take Mr.

  Lawrence wherever he wished to go. She proffered her invitation in a voice choked with alarm, and without daring to look at him.

  “Thank you very much,” said Mr. Lawrence. “I should be very glad — if Albemarle Street is not out of your way.”

  “Not in the least.”

  Albemarle Street was even more reassuring than the engraved card. Such a good address. Juliet gave the good address to the chauffeur and Mr. Lawrence got into the car beside her. It was a very large car, and he was careful to place himself in the corner of the seat, so that they were not in contact, and this was a great, though unconscious, relief to Miss Duquenois.

  They talked about music and musicians.

  “There is a violin recital next Thursday, in which I am particularly interested,” he told her. “A young Roumanian, who has never played in London before. I wonder if you would care to hear him? I am particularly anxious to get the real musical connoisseurs there rather than the general public.”

  Juliet liked the implication, but felt at once that she must be on her guard against flattery.

  “Shall I — would it be possible for me to get a ticket?” she asked rather doubtfully.

  “I was going to suggest that you might allow me to take you there.”

  “Oh,” said Juliet, even more doubtfully. “Thank you — thank you very much indeed—”

  He did not appear to notice her hesitation.

  “This young man — his name is Raoul Radow — has met with practically no recognition at all, so far. He is penniless, and has been getting his living playing at cabarets in New York. That’s where I heard him. Personally, I believe in his genius. I’ve taken one or two people to hear him — it may interest you to see what they say.”

  He pulled two or three letters out of his pocket-book and handed them to her.

  The signatures made her gasp.

  “His technique is equal to that of Ysaye....”

  “Radow seems to me the greatest marvel that the world of art has produced since Mozart....”

  “But why isn’t he famous already?” said Juliet. “These people” — she handed him back the letters reverently— “must know.”

  “Yes. But you see he’s got no backing. One or two of us — including myself, as a matter of fact — are putting up the money for this show on Thursday. But, of course, it isn’t what’s wanted. What’s really wanted is a big hall — say, the Queen’s, or even the Steinway — and a series of recitals — a Raoul Radow season, with big advertising, and invitations to every musical critic in London. This one recital can’t really lead to anything, except perhaps a few engagements to play at private parties. But it will give him a little hope, poor fellow, in the sense of his being recognized for something like what he is. He was literally in despair, and half starving, when I found him.”

  “How terrible! Is he quite young?”

  “Twenty-three, I believe.”

  “Poor boy!”

  “I don’t want him to face an empty house on Thursday,” Mr. Lawrence said earnestly. “I think it’ll be full, all right — we’ve had to give away an enormous number of seats, of course. He’s fearfully nervous, and I should think a frost would nearly kill him.”

  “I’ll get some tickets,” she exclaimed, wishing that she knew to whom she could send them, with the certainty of their being used.

  “It would be extraordinarily good of you,” Mr. Lawrence told her, “and I really do feel sure that his playing would interest you. It’s quite amazing. Let me give you some notices.”

  His pocket-book came out again, and some leaflets on shiny yellow paper.

  Juliet accepted them with awe.

  A feeling of embarrassment possessed her, for she did not know whether she had, or had not, accepted Mr. Lawrence’s invitation to go with him to the concert.

  She felt grateful to him when he relieved her mind, just as the car drew up at the corner of Albemarle Street.

  “May I call for you on Thursday? I am unfortunately obliged to meet a man on business at lunch time, but perhaps you’ll let me have the pleasure of taking you to tea somewhere after the concert? We could go behind the stage, if it would interest you at all.”

  Miss Duquenois drew a long breath.

  “I should like it very much,” she said recklessly.

  “Thank you very much indeed. This is my address.”

  She handed him one of her new visiting-cards — the first one, in fact, that she had ever used.

  “That will be delightful. Just after half-past two, then, on Thursday.”

  She left Mr. Lawrence on the pavement, his hat in his hand, his whole appearance most reassuringly correct.

  “He really is quite a gentleman,” thought Juliet, who had been brought up to divide her acquaintances into two classes: the Quite-quite, and the Not Quite-quite.

  She spent her evening entirely alone, as usual, but she was pleased and excited, feeling that there was something to look forward to beside the still delightful novelty of hot baths, in a lovely bathroom of her own, excellent meals, and as many new novels as she liked.

  In the very early days of her wealth, shopping had pleased her very much, too, but she had been poor so long that she was still afraid of spending, and she was not brave enough to buy the kind of clothes that she really admired — still less to wear them. For the concert, however, she bought herself a new hat, and a new frock of dark blue crepe-de-chine. It had not occurred to Juliet to get new shoes, or a new hand-bag, although she realized, when she was actually dressed up in her new clothes, that these accessories ought to have been remembered.

  “But after all,” murmured the spirit of her inferiority complex, “nothing will ever make me look slim, or young. I’m just a middle-aged woman, and far too fat. The only beautiful thing about me was my hair before it got so grey — and now that everybody’s shingled it only makes my head look too large for my body.”

  In spite of this discouraging summary, however, she felt most pleasurably excited when Mr. Lawrence arrived. She heard the front door bell ring, and looked out from behind the drawing-room window curtains. He had come for her in a taxi, and he was keeping it waiting.

  All Juliet’s instincts shrieked to her that this was an extravagance, but at the same time it added to her admiration for Mr. Lawrence. She felt sure that he wasn’t rich. It was just that he liked to do things properly.

  She hurried downstairs so as to save additional twopences, ticking away on the meter, and they were driven away to a hall in Chelsea that Miss Duquenois had never visited before. She and Mr. Lawrence had seats in the front row.

  He at once bought two programmes.

  She studied with interest the photograph on the cover, with Raoul Radow printed beneath it.

  Raoul Radow showed a Slavonic profile — high cheek bones, a heavy-lidded eye fringed with black, a young, sullen-looking mouth, and colossal plumes of black hair sweeping off his forehead down to the back of his collar.

  “He’s very handsome,” she murmured.

  “Yes, he’s a good-looking lad at present. If he succeeds, though, he’ll get fat. They all do,” said Mr. Lawrence pessimistically. “And, in any case, people of his nationality look middle-
aged by the time they’re thirty. That’s one reason why I want to establish him now. He stands a better chance with the general public than he will ten years hence.” —

  Miss Duquenois was faintly pained by so cynical a reflection, but she felt that it was probably true.

  Her own judgment of Radow, of course, would be based upon his musical abilities alone. She had decided that before he came on, and this was perhaps as well, since his appearance, full face, of a sallow complexion, and standing little more than five feet high, lost considerably by comparison with the profile on the programme.

  But his playing was wonderful.

  It was with genuine awe and excitement that Juliet turned to her escort.

  “He’s marvellous! Surely — surely — he really is a great genius?”

  “I think so,” Mr. Lawrence agreed, in a rather solemn voice. “And, of course, people who really are more competent to judge than I am say the same thing. But the general public, that’s different. They want to see a man advertised, and boomed, and his name on every hoarding, before they’ll believe he’s great. This audience to-day is fairly intelligent — but it isn’t large enough. And, of course, there’s no money here, to speak of, except perhaps the Jewish gentleman in the next row. You know who he is?”

  “No.”

  He told her, but added:

  “Not that I’ve much hope, there. He backed a Spanish dancer heavily last year, and lost his money. He can afford to lose, but no one likes to be made a fool of. No, I really feel sorry for Radow.”

  So did Juliet — and felt also aghast at this glimpse, so new to her, of the way things were done behind the scenes in the artistic world. She had never, she told herself, imagined anything in the least like it. It preoccupied her very much, even through Radow’s last solo, and the applause that followed it.

  “Would you care to come behind with me, and meet Radow?” Mr. Lawrence inquired.

  “Oh yes, please, it would be most interesting.”

  This would be something to tell Kate Beamish about, Juliet thought. Never before had such an opportunity come her way, and she was as naively thrilled by it as a schoolgirl might have been.

  Fidgeting wildly with her large hat, her gloves, her bag, and the fastening of her fur coat, she followed Mr. Lawrence through chilly passages, and up and down steps, and finally into a small room that seemed full of people, all of them talking, and most of them drinking something that looked more like beer than anything else.

  In the extreme corner of the room, quite by himself, and looking unspeakably sulky, stood the young violinist, Radow. He was still holding his bow.

  Mr. Lawrence walked up to him, still followed by Juliet.

  “Well — that went all right,” he encouragingly remarked. “I think we shall get a good Press for you all right.”

  Radow moved his head up and down, his air of gloom unabated.

  “Monsieur Radow finds an English audience rather cold,” said Mr. Lawrence, turning to Juliet.

  Again the black head of Monsieur Radow waved up and down in mournful assent.

  “Yeh — cold like hell,” he strangely observed, speaking in a raucous voice, and with a peculiar accent that Miss Duquenois took to be Roumanian, superimposed upon American.

  “Let me,” said Mr. Lawrence, “present you to Miss Duquenois, Radow. A lady who understands music as you do yourself. Miss Duquenois, let me introduce Monsieur Raoul Radow.”

  Radow put down his bow very carefully, as Juliet timidly put out her hand, and then disconcerted and astonished her by bowing down and imprinting a kiss upon the back of her glove.

  He then flung her hand away with far less care than he had bestowed upon his bow — but his gesture had frightened her so much that this was a relief.

  “I wanted you to meet Miss Duquenois particularly,” Said Mr. Lawrence, bridging the silence. “Well, I’ll see you later, Radow.”

  “Aw-right,” wearily returned Radow.

  The unsmiling genius turned on his heel. A man in shirt sleeves and a green baize apron had just approached him with a tall glass.

  “Shall we come, Miss Duquenois?”

  “I’m quite ready,” murmured Juliet.

  As they worked their way out, one or two other people spoke to Lawrence. He punctiliously introduced all of them to his companion. She came away bewildered, but convinced that a unique and wonderful experience had been hers. Outside, Mr. Lawrence summoned another taxi.

  “Where would you care to go for some tea?” he inquired.

  “Oh — anywhere,” said Juliet, confused. She felt that he ought not to be allowed to spend any more money, for there was firmly implanted in her the conviction that it could never be anything but wrong, in a greater or lesser degree, to spend money unnecessarily.

  She felt that even Fuller’s, in Sloane Street, where she had sometimes, since her accession to wealth, taken Kate Beamish, might be too expensive.

  “Is there a Lyons Corner House anywhere near?” she suggested.

  “Yes — ?” said Mr. Lawrence, but he said it entirely in the tone of one politely pretending to consider an impracticable proposal, and added almost immediately: “Or what about Rumpelmayer’s? Do you know that?”

  “No,” faltered Miss Duquenois.

  “Then let’s try that.” And he gave the order to the driver.

  Miss Duquenois was, as usual, very much impressed. She had never been in such a place as Rumpelmayer’s in her life, and she thought that the people were quite as wonderful as the place. They — and it — looked terribly expensive, and she felt that Mr. Lawrence — after all, still a professional man, in spite of his engraved cards — was spending money that he ought not to spend.

  Had he a wife and family to support?

  She wanted to know, but did not like to ask. She was, also, greatly perturbed by feeling that it was really incumbent upon her to return some of his kindness — but how could she invite him to a meal in Wilton Crescent without first finding out if there was a Mrs. Lawrence, who ought also to be invited? These considerations distracted Juliet, although she tried to give her whole mind to the very interesting things that Mr. Lawrence was telling her, about Radow and his genius.

  Suddenly, in the midst of it, came the information that she wanted.

  “If I didn’t happen to be a bachelor, with no one depending upon me, I couldn’t even have done the little that I have done,” said Mr. Lawrence. “It means parting with capital, of course. But if anyone who could afford to put down a few thousands cared to go into the thing, and take a chance for the sake of Art — well, personally, I’m absolutely certain it would turn out a first-class investment. Radow, mark my words, with proper backing, would get to the very top of the tree.”

  Miss Duquenois, her face flushed and her fingers sticky, was indeed marking his words. An amazing idea was beginning to germinate in her mind.

  “But I must be cautious and businesslike,” she told herself. “I’ll think it all over quietly, at home, and perhaps talk to Kate Beamish. In any case I shan’t give Mr. Lawrence the least hint.”

  Nor did she.

  She only asked him, with a good deal of awkwardness, whether he would care to come and have tea with her on Sunday.

  “You — you might like to see the piano,” she said in great embarrassment, feeling that an excuse was absolutely necessary, and trying not to remember that her piano was a very old-fashioned one, that had been left unplayed upon far too long, and was worth neither seeing nor hearing.

  “Thank you, I should like that very much.”

  Miss Duquenois hoped that he would have forgotten all about the piano, by the time that Sunday came.

  He took her back to Wilton Crescent — again in a taxi — but she did not invite him to come in, partly from nervousness, and partly because her mention of the piano was so very recent that he would have been almost bound to take an interest in it.

  “Good-bye, and thank you so very much for taking me. I have enjoyed it.”

 
; “The pleasure has been mine,” said Mr. Lawrence, in his cold, unsmiling way, that somehow carried conviction to the perpetually flustered mind of Miss Duquenois. “Sunday at about five o’clock then. I shall look forward to it.”

  She saw him, as her front door opened, walk away.

  So he evidently didn’t like taxis on his own account — only on hers.

  Juliet felt guilty, as though she ought to have made him realize that for years and years she had walked to and from her destinations, with only tubes and omnibuses to help her. Naturally, he couldn’t guess that, having met her in a row of expensive seats, at a big concert in London, and wearing those good furs. And, of course, the address in Wilton Crescent must have clinched it.

  Miss Duquenois wished very much that she had asked him to lunch — it was such a much greater economy, she knew from experience, to be given lunch than to be given tea — but from this she was absolutely debarred. She had not the least idea what men drank for lunch, and she could not endure the thought of exposing her ignorance to the parlourmaid of her late godfather.

  She would not admit it even to Kate Beamish, to whom she told the whole story of the violin recital, and the singular behaviour of Monsieur Raoul Radow, and the generous way in which she had been entertained by Mr. Arthur Lawrence.

  “Well,” said Miss Beamish, “that was all very nice, dear, I’m sure. And most interesting about the young man playing the fiddle so well. But if he’s as good as all that, I don’t see why this Mr. Lawrence is nervous about his being successful. Is it just money?”

  “Just money,” said Miss Duquenois. “You see,” she added with a sense of possessing a new and inside knowledge of the concert platform, “you see, there’s a tremendous amount of advertisement needed before a person can get really known, and, of course, there’s the hire of a hall — things like that are terribly expensive.”

  “How did the others manage — Paderewski and Clara Butt and people?”

  “I think most of them have a certain amount of backing to begin with. Rich people, with a few thousands to spare.... It’s an investment, in a way, of course,” said Juliet, faithfully retailing her newly acquired wisdom.