The London Venture

by Michael Arlen

  VIII

  As I look back now on the past years, I find that the thing thatpenetrated most into my inner self, shocked me to the heart, and gave meno room and left no desire for any pretence about the will of fate anddestiny, such as sometimes consoles grief, was the death of my friendLouis. Unlike most great friendships, mine with Louis began at school;and those, to whom circumstances have not allowed friendships at school,cannot realise the intensity of certain few friendships which, beginningon a basis of tomfoolery and ragging, as the general relations betweenschoolboys begin, yet survive them all, and steadily ripen with theyears into a maturity of companionship, which has such a quality andnobility of its own that no other relation, not even that of passionatelove, can ever take its place when it is gone.

  I have not happened to mention Louis before in these papers for thereason that he had actually come very little into my life in London. Infact, we retained our intimacy against the aggression of our differentlives, which was rather paradoxical for the casual people we believedourselves to be. (Without a sincere belief in his own casualness themodern youth would be the most self-important ass of all generations.)Our ways of life lead very contrarily; there was nowhere they couldrationally touch; he, a soldier; I, a doctor, lawyer, or pedlar, I didnot know which. But I had the grace, or if you like, the foolishness, toenvy him the definite markings of his career; I envied him his knowledgeof the road he wished to tread, and of the almost certainties which layinevitably along that road.

  Later, in those very best of days, I used to talk about him toShelmerdene. And as I described, she listened and wondered. For, shesaid, such a man as I described Louis to be, and myself, could havenothing in common. But I told her that it isn't necessary for two peopleto have anything "in common" but friendship--and as I made thatmeaningless remark I put on a superior air, and she did not laugh at me.She continued to wonder during months, and at last she said, "Producethis wretched youth." But I would not produce him, "because Louis hasnever in his life met or dreamt of any one like you, and he will fall inlove with you straight away. And as he is more honest than I am, so hewill fall in love with you much more seriously, and that will be verybad for him, because you are the sort of woman that you are. It isn'tfair to destroy the illusions of a helpless subaltern in the RifleBrigade.... No, I will not produce him, Shelmerdene." But of course Idid, and of course Louis saw, heard, and succumbed delightedly, and allthrough that lunch and for the half-hour after I had to keep a verystern eye on Shelmerdene and take great care not to let her get within ayard of him, else she would have asked him to go and see her next timehe was in town, and then there would have been another wild-eyed ghostwandering about the desert places of Mayfair. As for Louis, he beat evenhis own record for dulness during that lunch. He admired hertremendously and obviously, and too obviously he couldn't understand abeautiful woman with beauty enough to be as dull as she liked, sayingwitty and amusing things every few seconds, always giving the mosttrivial remark, the most stereotyped phrase, such a queer twist as wouldmake it seem delightfully new. For ever after he pestered me to"produce" him again, and I made myself rather unpopular by putting himoff; and I never did let him see her again. On Shelmerdene's part it wasjust cussedness to worry me to see him again, for with a disgusted laughat my "heavy father stunt," she forgot all about him; after that lunchshe had found him "rather dull and a dear, and much to be loved by allwomen over thirty-five. I am not yet old enough to love your Louis," shesaid. And she retained her surprise at our friendship.

  It was, perhaps, rather surprising; surprising not so much that we werefriends, but how we ever became friends; for there are many people inthis world, who could be great friends with each other if they could butonce surmount the first barrier, if they could but _wish_ to surmountthat barrier--and between Louis and me there was much more than a simplebarrier to surmount. We became friends in spite of ourselves, then;though Louis, as you may believe, had nothing at all to do with theaffair; he just sat tight and let things happen, to him, for his was notthe nature consciously to defeat an invisible aim, a tyrannical decree.As one of England's governing classes, even at the age of fourteen whenI first met him, such a rebellion as that of forcing God's hand aboutthe smallest trifle would somehow have savoured to him of disloyalty tothe "Morning Post" which, together with the Navy, Louis took asrepresenting the British Empire.

  I had been at school already one term when Louis came; and so it was atbreakfast on the opening day of the winter term that I first noticed hisbewildered face, though as we grew to prefects that same face aired soabsolute a nonchalance that, together with my rather sophisticatedfeatures, we thoroughly deserved the title of the _blasted roues_.However, at that time, we were not prefects, but "new bugs," thoughLouis was by one term a newer "bug" than myself and my friends, andtherefore had to sit at the bottom of the "bug" table and take his foodas he found it. I, of course, took no notice of him at all; I maintaineda, so to speak, official _hauteur_ about our meal-time relations--onecouldn't do anything else, you know, if one wished to keep unimpairedthe dignity of one's seniority. I had, in fact, no use for newer "bugs"than myself; I was quite happy at my own end of the table with the threemen (ages fourteen to fourteen-and-a-half) with whom I shared a study.We made a good and gay study, I remember, for they were three stalwartfellows and I, even at that age not taking my Armenianism veryseriously, gave a quite passable imitation of an English public-schoolman.

  How, as I looked round at my three friends and said to myself "here arecompanions for life," how was I to know of the irruption into my life ofa bewildered face! I despised that face. It was the face of a newer"bug" than myself. But the wretched man could play soccer, I noticed;his deft work at "inside right" to my "center forward" warmed my heart;and, by the time the term was half over, he had gained a certaindistinction for being consistently at the bottom of the lowest form inthe school; one rather liked a man for sticking to his convictions likethat.

  Nevertheless we became silently inimical. He ceased to look bewildered;with an English cunning he had already found that an air of nonchalancepays best. And his sort of "Oh, d'you think so?" air began to irritateme; it was no good doing my man of the world on a man who obviously madea point of not believing what I said. I rather felt in speaking to himas an irritated and fussy foreign ambassador must feel before thewell-bred imperturbability of Mr. Balfour; I wasn't then old enough toknow I felt like that, but myself and study had reasonable grounds fordeciding that "that sloppy-haired new long bug was a conceited youngswine," and that he was trading rather too much on being at the bottomof the school.

  There was a dark-haired, sallow-faced youth, one Marsden, who had comethe same term as we three; he had at first shared our study, but hadbeen fired out for being a cub. And, by intimating to the House-Masterthat if he was put back in our study, new bugs or no, we wouldn't answerfor his mother's knowing him, we had fired him out in such a way that hecouldn't ever get back. But he didn't try to get back. He just went intothe newest bug's study, and there, when Louis came the next term, madefirm and fast friends with him. Marsden disliked me much more than hedisliked any one else, as I had been the instigator of his ejection fromour study, and so the silent and contemptuous enmity with which Louiseyed me wasn't very strange. Those two made common cause in theirindifference to anything we three at the head of the table might say;and soon, things came to such a pass that we had to put lumps of saltinto the potato dish before handing it down to them. And even thatdidn't seem to have much effect, for one tea-time I distinctly heard amurmur resembling "Armenian Jew" escape from Marsden's lips; that, ofcourse, couldn't be borne, and I couldn't then explain to him that therewas no such person as an Armenian Jew for I wasn't myself quite certainabout it--all I knew was that I wasn't a Jew, and it wasn't Marsden whowas going to call me one in vain. So there and then I upped and threw mypot of jam at his head, striking him neatly just above the right eye; Ididn't do it in anger, I didn't know why I did it, though now I
know itwas done through a base passion for notoriety, which I still have,though in a less primitive manner. I certainly got notoriety then, andalso six cuts from a very supple cane and a Georgic on which to work offmy ardour.

  But I gained Louis for a friend. He had, it seemed, admired the deft andunassuming way in which I had thrown that pot of jam--he knew even lessthan I did about that passion for notoriety--and when he met me in thepassage as I came back from my six cuts in the prefects' room, he said,"I say, bad luck," and I suggested that if his friend Marsden's uglyface hadn't got in the way of a perfectly harmless pot of jam I wouldn'thave got a licking. Thus, in a three-minute talk, we became friends; butwhen we each went to our own studies we didn't know we were friends--infact, I was quite prepared to go on treating him as an enemy until, whenwe met again, we both seemed to find that we had something to say toeach other. And throughout those years of school we had always somethingto say to each other which we couldn't say quite in the same way to anyone else, and that seems to me to be the basis of all friendship.... Idon't quite know what happened to Marsden, or how Louis told him that hehad decided to discontinue his friendship. I have an idea that Marsdenwent on disliking me through four years of school, and that if I met himon Piccadilly to-morrow would recognise me only to scowl at me, the manwho not only hit him over the eye with a pot of jam, but also deprivedhim of his best friend.

  Louis and I left school together; he on his inevitable road toSandhurst, and I, with a puckered side glance at Oxford, to EdinburghUniversity. Even now I don't know why I went to Edinburgh and not toOxford; I had always intended going to Oxford, my family had alwaysintended that I should go to Oxford, up to the last moment I wasactually going to Oxford--when, suddenly, with a bowler hat crammed overmy left ear and a look of vicious obstinacy, I decided that I would goto Edinburgh instead.

  Of course it was a silly mistake. The only thing I have gained by notgoing to Oxford is an utter inability to write poetry and a sort ofsuperior contempt for all pale, interesting-looking young men with darkeyes and spiritual hair who are tremendously concerned about the utterworthlessness of Mr. William Watson's poetry. Of course my own superiorattitude may be just as unbearable as their anaemic enthusiasm over,say, a newly discovered _rondel_ by the youngest son of the localfishmonger; but I at least do sincerely try to face and appreciateliterature boldly, and frankly, and normally, and not self-consciouslyas they do, attacking literature from anywhere but a sane standpoint,trying to force a breach in any queer spot so that it is unusual and hasnot been thought of before; and through this original breach willsuddenly appear an Oxford face with a queer unhallowed grin ofself-conscious cleverness; and all this for a thin book of poems in ayellow cover, called, as like as not, "Golden Oxygen"!

  Louis, down at Sandhurst, was being made into a soldier, and I, up atEdinburgh, was on the high road to general fecklessness. I only stayedthere a few months; jumbled months of elementary medicine, politicaleconomy, metaphysics, theosophy--I once handed round programs at anAnnie Besant lecture at the Usher Hall--and beer, lots of beer. Andthen, one night, I emptied my last mug, and with another side-glance atOxford, came down to London; "to take up a literary career" mybiographer will no doubt write of me. I may of course have had a"literary career" at the back of my mind, but as it was I slackedoutrageously, much to Louis' disgust and envy. I have already written ofthose months, how I walked in the Green Park, and sat in picturegalleries, and was lonely.

  That first loneliness was lightened only by the occasional visits toLondon of Louis. He was by now a subaltern in the Rifle Brigade, with anindefinite but cultured growth somewhere between his nose and upper lip,and a negligent way of wearing mufti, as though to say, "God, it's goodto be back in civilised things again!" They were jolly, sudden evenings,those! London was still careless then. Of an evening, a couple of youngmen in dress suits with top hats balanced over their eyebrows and eyesfull of a _blase_ vacancy, were not as remarkable as they now are. Lifehas lost its whilom courtesy to a top hat. Red flags and top hats cannotexist side by side; the world is not big enough for both. Ah, thouBolshevik, thou class-beridden shop-steward! When ye die, how can ye saythat ye have ever lived if, in your aggressive experiences, you have notknown upon your foreheads the elegant weight of a top hat, madeespecially to suit your Marxian craniums by one Locke, who has anancient shop at the lower end of St. James's Street and did at one timedictate the headwear of the beaux of White's and Crockford's. I warrantthe life of my top hat, made by that same artist to withstand the impactof the fattest woman on earth, against all the battering eloquence ofall the orators in all the Albert Halls of all the Red Flag countries.With it on my head I will finesse any argument whatsoever with you anynight of the week. And at the end of the argument, if you are stillobstinate, I will cram my blessed top hat on your head and, lo andbehold! you are at once a Labour Minister in the Cabinet, and a mostrespectable man with a most rectangular house in Portman Square!... ButI must go back to Louis, who never got further in his study of Labourthan an idea that all station-masters were labour leaders because theytook tips so impressively.

  Those occasional evenings were very good. I put away from myself writingand books--Louis hadn't really ever read anything but Kipling,"Ole-Luk-Oie" and "The Riddle of the Sands"-and I temporarily forgotShelmerdene, and we dined right royally. I don't know what we talkedabout, perhaps we talked of nothing at all; but we talked all the time,and we laughed a great deal, and we still had the good old "_blastedroue_" touch about us. We were very, very old indeed, so old that wedecided that the first act of no play or revue in the world couldcompensate one for a hurried dinner; and we were old enough to know thata confidential manner to _maitres d'hotels_ is a thing to be cultivated,else a chicken is apt to be wizened and the sweet an unconscionable longtime in coming. After dinner, a show, and then perhaps a night club, "toteach those gals how to dance."

  We founded a Club for Good Mannered People. I, as the founder, was thepresident of the club, and Louis the vice-president; there were nomembers because we unanimously black-balled every one whom, in a momentof weakness, one or other of us might propose. We decided, in the end,that the Club could never have any members except the president andvice-president, simply because the men of our own generation were theworst mannered crew God ever put within lounging distance of adrawing-room.... There must be something wrong, we said, in a worldwhere public-school men could be recognised by the muddy footprints theyleft on other people's carpets. So it was obviously left to us to supplythe deficiency of our generation, both as regards manners and everythingelse. We made a cult of good manners; Louis took to them as a cult wherehe had never taken to them as a necessity, and the happiest moments ofhis life were when he could work it off on to some helpless woman whohad dropped an umbrella or a handkerchief. The Club, we decided, mustnever come to an end, it must go on being a Club until one or other ofus should die ... and now the Club is no more, for suddenly a springgave way, the world gave a lurch towards hell, and Louis stopped playingat soldiers to go away and be a real soldier, to die in his first attackwith a bullet in his chest....

  _The London Venture_: IX