Noble in Reason

by Phyllis Bentley

  “I can keep an eye on the books at the weekend, without pay.”

  “Better not, Chris,” said John. “It would only worry you.”

  “In that case,” I said hotly, “I might as well go and live in London. I could pick up more jobs there.”

  My father halted and looked at me with his head on one side.

  “Why not?” said John.

  It was as easy as that, I said to myself, incredulous; one struck but a single blow and one was free!

  A week later I was in London.

  At that time a certain song was the rage—one heard it on the wireless programme sung by the great-hearted Cicely Courtneidge, and in the streets whistled by errand boys and lorry drivers. Its tune had an irresistibly cheerful martial lilt; its title was The Changing of the Guard. The verse began like this:

  Are you going to London?

  If you go to London—

  WHEN you go to London—

  and went on to urge—I forget the exact words—that in London you must see the Changing of the Guard. Even today, nearly a quarter of a century later, I cannot hear those words or their tune without a tingling of the blood. At the time they thrilled me so that I could scarcely keep still; I laughed at this childish excitement and told myself ruefully that it was more suited to a lad of twenty than a man of thirty-five, but I could not help it; my eyes shone, my head jerked, my mouth opened in a beaming smile whenever I heard them. I was radiantly happy in my escape; the mere sight of a London bus roused in me a loving joy, so that I would gladly have patted its red sides; the roar of the traffic was a paean of joy celebrating my freedom. I had arranged to stay for a night or two at one of the large cheap bed-and-breakfast hotels while I looked for a more permanent lodging; I wanted to acquire an accommodation with a literary flavour if possible before calling on the editors with whom I had had correspondence. But on the first morning after my arrival the fancy took me to walk down Charing Cross Road, eyeing the bookshops, and discover whether by any chance some copies of The Inadvertent Mind—though it was now a year old—lurked in their windows.

  It was quite a severe shock to see the name of Merridew still above its accustomed window; somehow I had imagined that in the twenty years which had elapsed since I worked there, the place would have been swept away by the stream of time. The shock was not altogether one of pleasure, for it recalled poor Henry and the foolish young fledgling Christopher, of whom I was not particularly proud. Still, I had made progress since then; I had published four novels. Perhaps after all I had unconsciously intended to seek out Mr. M and ask his appreciation of his packing-boy turned novelist. I entered the shop.

  A handsome lad, fair and tall, came forward to greet me. There was something in his face which made me say, regardless of ages and probabilities:

  “Are you Mr. M’s son?”

  “Grandson,” he replied, smiling. “Nicholas Merridew.”

  “Is Mr. Merridew—here?” I continued, not liking to ask whether he were dead, though it felt such aeons since I had known him that this seemed probable.

  “Yes. You want to see him?”

  “My name is Christopher Jarmayne. I worked here once,” I began.

  “Oh! We have your books,” said Nicholas, smiling. “My grandfather has always taken an interest-”

  He turned and indicated a shelf where, sure enough, in the corner stood my four novels. Their presence, and young Nicholas’s knowledge of it, was a delicious compliment; I coloured with pleasure and could not forbear to take down The Inadvertent Mind from the shelf, turn it over, glance at the title page and replace it, quite in the most foolish manner of the young writer. After this piece of conceit I looked at Nicholas with a sheepish grin; he laughed in sympathy, then stood back to allow his grandfather, who had emerged from a nearby bay of shelves, to approach.

  Mr. M looked scarcely a day older than when I last saw him; he was still tall, slender, good-looking, elegant, rather bald. That his immense courtesy was perhaps more strongly tinged with irony than of old, was the only apparent change. Of course as a boy I had made the boy’s mistake of thinking all grown-ups old; in his late forties then, Mr. M was after more than half my lifetime only in his late sixties now. He congratulated me on my books, speaking knowledgeably and soundly of their contents; expressed pleasure at the great step forward I had taken with The Brazen Rod; told me—delightful offering to an author’s ears!—how many copies he had sold of each. Leaning against shelves of books, surrounded by tiers of books spreading between ceiling and floor, my elbow touching my own published works, talking to an old man and a young man who both spoke my own literary language, I experienced a sense of radiant well-being, through which I nevertheless was able to rejoice that I had not re-encountered Mr. M earlier; I should have been ashamed to present Chris Jarmayne to him before my recent efforts at self-healing.

  The upshot of our conversation was that I found myself installed in a small back garret above the Merridew establishment. The usual offices, accompanied by a gas-ring, lay in a shabby but clean and workable condition just outside my door. The view from my room was of chimney-pots, blackened roofs at all angles, rusty railings, dust-blocked unused windows, quite in a Dickensian style—but then I have never found an agreeable view conducive to concentration. I was extraordinarily happy here. To live in the heart of London, with the traffic of the Charing Cross Road roaring just behind my head, was in itself an immense pleasure to me; at last I was in life, I thought, as I lounged at night in my rickety armchair and listened to the sounds of the nearby pub disgorging its customers—the Cockney jestings, the amatory approaches, the drunken brawls. To live in a building crammed from basement to roof with books cushioned my nerves as if with velvet. My address was a help to me in my work, too; the story of my connection with Mr. M made a good talking-point, a useful anecdote, and new literary acquaintances were quite ready to climb the long flights of stairs which led to my snug little attic, because these stairs were lined with books, amongst which they sometimes found one of particular interest to their own work.

  For the first few months I worked hard and contrived to support myself by literary journalism, though by no means in a lavish style. By the time I had paid the rent I had not many shillings left—luckily before leaving Hudley I had deposited six months’ contribution for Robert’s maintenance in Edie’s hands, so I had not to worry about this as yet, though I saw the problem each day rising higher above the horizon. A wandering minstrel /, A thing of shreds and patches, I used to hum cheerfully as a relevant commentary on the state of my shirts, while I shaved each morning. Mercifully the West Riding cloth of which my suits and coat were made was practically indestructible.

  Mr. Merridew was very kind in inviting me to dine with him at intervals which I am sure were calculated at first to keep me from starving without burdening me with undue obligation. But presently the invitations were given and accepted for other reasons than those of food; I was happy in his home circle and he, I think and hope, liked to have me there.

  He had a delightful little house on the river bank in Hammersmith where he lived with his two grandchildren and his daughter-in-law. He had lost his only son (after whom and himself Nicholas was named) in the 1914 war and his wife, a musician of German origin, had then died of a broken heart. His daughter-in-law, a small lean dark beaky woman of some Slav nationality, a trained pianist who spoke several languages and dressed and cooked with a good deal of sophistication, had a sharp tongue and was rather too continuously dissatisfied and parental in her dealings with her children, to please me; I disliked her, indeed, until one day when we chanced to be alone together for a few minutes, she broke out in a passionate lament for the loss of her husband, about which it appeared she was still after all these years enraged with Fate. It seemed the elder Nicholas had been a person of singular kindness and charm, truly gemütlich, truly gentil; sa bonté, wailed poor Marie Merridew, her sophisticated features quite contorted with grief, had been really incroyable. This I could easily
believe from observing his children. I saw little of the girl Hermia, who was busy studying for her degree in London University, save that she was quiet and dark-eyed and attended to her grandfather’s wants with unobtrusive care, but the young man, Nicholas, was all that his father was said to have been and I enjoyed his company. We all sat out after dinner either on the low wall which bounded the tiny garden—low as to the garden, but really the high containing wall of the river embankment—or in a kind of loggia supported by round white pillars which backed the house. The Thames ran softly by, the setting sun made golden reflections in its ripples; the Merridews talked about music, when I listened in respectful ignorance, or literature, when I was able to take my share. The sun set, in the twilight pale yellow lights appeared, I travelled back to the city in a state of joyous stimulation, and sat up into the small hours, happily at work.

  Presently out of the lightness of my heart I began to write a play: The Man in Green Baize. It was just a warm-hearted detective comedy, based upon the character of the tram-conductor I had met on the day of my rejection from the Army, whom I transformed into the factotum of a small provincial hotel. The tough West Riding shrewdness of this character, to whom I gave the characteristic name of Josiah, expressed a latent humour in myself which had been so long repressed I had almost forgotten its existence; it now bubbled up with the force of a hitherto untapped stream. I had now long uninterrupted hours to spend upon my work; I was not summoned away from crucial scenes by textile or domestic concerns; the play had every chance of expressing my concept without mutilation. Not to make too much of this matter, for my literary career as I have said is not my subject except in so far as it contributes to the history of my self-conquest, I had luck with the play; the agent to whom an editor had recommended me dropped it in the lap of the right management at the right moment, and to my astonishment I found myself the author of a piece accepted for production at a large London theatre, with a couple of well-known actresses in the cast.

  The period of the rehearsals, which I had often read of as a torturing ordeal to the author, was a strenuous delight to me. I found in myself the ability to modify my text to suit stage requirements without ruining it from my point of view—to cut, to insert, to seam, to expand, quickly and so as to give satisfaction. I enjoyed exceedingly this newly discovered skill; I was in my element. Finding me not unreasonable in my attitude to requests for alteration, and fairly skilful in my handling of them, the producer and the cast warmed to me, and I was made free of the careless, generous, uninhibited world of the stage. A world more different from that of Ashroyd and Hilbert Street it would be difficult to imagine, and I revelled in the opportunities it offered for fresh experience. The tolerance I had recently taught myself found full play. I learned to drink—though here I was quietly careful, remembering my poor mother. I learned to dress well—because of the ugliness I had suffered in my youth I could never now affect the calculated slovenliness fashionable in some circles, but I learned to avoid the over-natty and the over-bright. I learned some of the catchwords of the day; I knew which restaurants were fashionable and which were not. Most important of all, I achieved experience in the art of amour—I will not use the English word love, which has a different meaning.

  This came to me at first in an unexpected but kindly fashion from my leading lady, Helena. A well-known and respected figure in London theatrical life, of middle age—she was playing the part of the ingénue’s apparently featherbrained but really shrewd mother—and therefore some twelve or fifteen years older than myself, she combined a caustic wit with a particularly warm and generous heart. Her sophistication, her knowledge of theatrical life both in London and New York, the subtle elegance of her dress, were salted by a biting shrewdness, a capacity for ribald commentary, which could not have been exceeded by a West Riding charwoman. From the first we liked each other; she was kind to me, eased me out of many of the impasses into which my theatrical ignorance drove me; I was well aware both of what I owed her on the stage and how deep the diverse needs her motherliness and her sophistication satisfied in me. The exigencies of rehearsals threw us together a good deal and I became familiar with her very fashionable and agreeably furnished apartment.

  Calling on her one afternoon by her command to discuss some minor alteration in the play’s text, I found her arrayed in a quite delicious négligé of white chiffon and lace set off by brilliant jewels, her rather brassy curls piled high, her lean and handsome body scented. There was a freshness and a perfection in her hair and dress which showed they had been recently attended to; it occurred to me that she expected another guest, a man in whom she was interested as a woman. I therefore minimized and hurried through my business. To my surprise Helena exaggerated and delayed it. We sat side by side on a divan, with the script in front of us on a low table; presently in pointing out a sentence which she disapproved, she touched my hand with her heavily ringed fingers. In the most gauche and clumsy manner imaginable my whole body jerked with astonishment; I was utterly confused; was I letting my imagination run away with me, or was there really desire mingled with her kindness? At the mere thought of this my own body responded. Confused and embarrassed, I looked away; looked back so as not to appear embarrassed and confused. Our eyes met. She laughed.

  “Why so surprised, my dear Chris? Don’t you know you’re a handsome fella?”

  She did not, of course, mean this to be taken literally, but merely as an indication that for her my appearance “had something”; the jesting phrase touched a nerve, and I replied with a bitterness in my tone which I deplored but could not control:

  “No one has ever thought so,” said I.

  “Not even your wife, Chris?”

  “Certainly not my wife,” said I.

  At this Helena, with all the friendly skill of which she was such a mistress, extracted from me the wretched story of my marriage. At its conclusion she took my head between her hands and kissed my lips.

  “Poor boy! What you need is a spot of hearty lust to make you forget all that, Chris,” she said.

  Tears stood in her light sparkling eyes as she spoke—those eyes which had charmed a thousand audiences—and the smile on her famous wide mouth was candid and friendly. Her exquisite sympathy seemed what I had longed for all my life. We became lovers.

  “I am glad of this if my father never knows,” I thought confusedly, still the inhibited child, in the very moment of consummation—but even as I thought this some last tie broke and I no longer cared for my father’s disapproval.

  That the wretched, cowardly, always-failing, despised Christopher Jarmayne should have a play produced in the heart of London and enjoy the favours of an actress celebrated throughout the English-speaking world was a source of such overwhelming satisfaction to me that I could not sufficiently rejoice in my good fortune; I sang and whistled, I spent money recklessly, I quoted to myself with tongue-in-cheek approval the line that one crowded hour of glorious life is worth an age without a name. This was my hour (I thought) of life, my hour of fulfilment; heaven knew I had lived aeons imprisoned without a name. My daydreams withdrew; they no longer had any function to fulfil since my life completely satisfied me.

  As the first night of Green Baize approached, I grew more irritable than my stage associates thought proper.

  “Temper, temper! Tantrums, tantrums! What is the matter with you, Chris darling?” said Helena in a fond but ironic tone. “What about the stiff upper lip and the chin up and the mind equal before success and defeat, or whatever it is, and all that? Eh? And you a Yorkshireman! You surprise me!”

  I laughed, and turning my glance inwards, discovered that though I was, of course, in considerable suspense about the fate of my play, my real trouble was that my family must be present at the first night. Making an effort to employ my rational technique, I hauled this motive firmly up out of the deeps and offered it to Helena.

  “My family are always my worst trouble,” I concluded.

  “Whose isn’t?” said Helena,
laughing. “Families are the devil. The greatest boon, the greatest bane.”

  “I haven’t noticed much boon about them.”

  “Oh, Chris! You’re very young,” said Helena.

  Grasping the nettle firmly, I wrote invitations to my father and John and arranged stalls and hotel accommodation for all the Jarmaynes. Edie wrote me an odd letter in reply; kind and congratulatory but perplexingly apologetic, and enquiring whether I really meant the twins and Anne and Robert to attend. I showed the note to Helena, who laughed (in her famous delightful trill) and said:

  “My dear, she thinks the play’s something highbrow and unsuitable for the young.”

  I reassured my sister-in-law on this point, not without an inner vexation, for in my heart I wished that my play had precisely the quality she deplored.

  The first night came, and with it the Jarmaynes. There was the usual harassing collapse of arrangements, the failures to meet and accidental separations, which so often mark family gatherings, so that in my efforts to get them all safely into the theatre in time, properly fed and dressed, my anxiety about the play was driven out of my mind. They looked less provincial than I feared. Robert fair and rosy-cheeked in his Eton collar was the proper picture of an English boy of thirteen, John had his usual solid good looks and my father, who seemed to have grown thinner than of old, had quite an air of distinction with his crooked pince-nez and golden crest. On the other hand, Edie’s small plump form had grown heavier with the years and she looked very much the housewife let loose, while her three daughters seemed ready to burst with youthful energy out of their highly coloured evening frocks. Still, they were not as embarrassing as I had feared until they spoke, when their accents sounded excessively Yorkshire and their opinions excessively blunt. (Netta had of course been invited but did not come, as Stephen was suffering from mumps.)