Short Stories 1927-1956

by Walter De la Mare

  Philip’s light blue eyes under their silken lashes continued to dwell on its charms in so spell-bound a silence that for a moment the assistant thought the young man was about to swoon.

  ‘Thank you very much,’ said Philip at last, turning away with infinite reluctance and with a movement as graceful as that of a faun, or of a première danseuse about to rest; ‘I will keep it in mind. You are sure the management can afford the reduction?’

  Having made this rather airy comment, it seemed to Philip impolite, if not impossible, to ask the price of a ‘job line’ of mock goatskin cigarette-cases that were piled up in dreary disorder on a tray near at hand. So he passed out into the next Department, which happened to be that devoted to goods described as ‘fancy’, though, so far as he could see, not very aptly.

  Still he glanced around him as he hurried on, his heart bleeding for the unfortunates, old and helpless, or young and defenceless, doomed some day to welcome these exacerbating barbarous jocosities as gifts. But at sight of an obscure, puffy, maroon object demonstratively labelled ‘Pochette: Art Nouveau’, his very skin contracted, and he was all but about to inquire of a large veiled old lady with an ebony walking-stick who was manfully pushing her way through this mélange, possibly in search of a prie-dieu, how such dreadful phenomena were ‘begot, how nourished’, and was himself preparing to join in the chorus, when a little beyond it his glance alighted on a minute writing-case, so frailly finished, so useless, so delicious to look at, handle, and smell, that even Titania herself might have paused to admire it. Philip eyed it with unconcealed gusto. His features had melted into the smile that so often used to visit them when as a little boy he had confided in his Uncle Charles that he preferred éclairs to doughnuts. Its price, he thought, was ridiculously moderate: only £67 10s.

  ‘It’s the décor, sir – Parisian, of course – that makes it a trifle costly,’ the assistant was explaining. ‘But it’s practical as well as sheek and would add distinction to any young lady’s boudoir, bedchamber, or lap. The ink, as you see, sir, cannot possibly leak from the bottle, if the case, that is, is held the right way up – so. The pencil, the “Sans Merci”, as you observe, is of solid gold; and the pen, though we cannot guarantee the nib, is set with life-size turquoises. The flaps will hold at least six sheets of small-size notepaper, and envelopes to – or not to – match. And here is a little something, a sort of calendar, sir, in fine enamel, sir, telling the day of the week of any day of the month in any year in any century from one A.D. to nine hundred and ninety-nine thousand, nine hundred and ninety-nine. It could then be renewed.’

  ‘M’m, very ingenious,’ Philip murmured, ‘and even Leap Year, I see. Is it unique, and so on?’

  ‘No doubt of it, sir. As a matter of fact, a lady from Philadelphia – the United States of America, sir – ordered fifty facsillimies, platinum mounts, of this very article – only yesterday afternoon; they get married a good deal over there, sir; wedding presents.’

  ‘Quite, thank you, no,’ said Philip, firmly but pleasantly. ‘They say there is safety in numbers, but there seems to be precious little else. Have you anything less reproducible?’

  ‘Reproducible, sir? Why, naturally, sir. You see this is only a counter article. While catering for the many, sir, we are bound to keep an eye upon the few. For that very reason, the management prefer to have the costlier specimens under cover.’

  ‘Again, thank you,’ said Philip hurriedly. ‘What evils are done in thy name, O Philadelphia! I may return later.’

  He emerged from the Fancy Goods Department, feeling at the same moment crestfallen and curiously elated. His mind, in fact, at this moment resembled a volcano the instant before its gloom is fated to burst into a blazing eruption. Though very hazily, he even recognized the danger he was in. So in hope to compose himself he sat down for a minute or two on a Madeira wicker chair intended perhaps by the management for this very purpose, and found himself gazing at a large black Chinese cat in the glossiest of glazed earthenware, and as life-like as Oriental artifice could make it. It was seated in a corner under a high potted palm, and it wore a grin upon its features that may have come from Cheshire, but which showed no symptom whatever of vanishing away. At sight of it – for Philip was not only partial to cats but knew the virtues of the black variety – a secret fibre seemed to have snapped in his head. ‘Good luck!’ the creature smirked at him. And Philip smirked back. A flame of anguished defiance and desire had leapt up in his body. He would show his uncle what was what. He would learn him to cut nephews off with shillings. He would dare and do and die!

  He rose, refreshed and renewed. It was as if he had tossed off a bumper of ‘Veuve Clicquot’ of 1066. He must himself have come over with the Conqueror. A shopwalker lurking near was interrupted in the middle of an enormous gape by the spectacle of this Apollonian young figure now entering his department – Pianofortes and American Organs. There was something in the leopard-like look of him, something so princely and predatory in his tread, that this Mr Jackson would have been almost ready to confess that he was moved. Frenchily dark and Frenchily sleek, he bowed himself almost double.

  ‘Yes, sir?’ he remarked out loud.

  ‘I want, I think, a pianoforte,’ said Philip. ‘A Grand.’

  ‘Thank you, sir; this way, please. Grand pianofortes, Mr Smithers.’

  ‘I want a Grand piano,’ repeated Philip to Mr Smithers, an assistant with a slight cast in his left eye and an ample gingerish moustache. But in spite of these little handicaps Philip liked him much better than Mr Jackson. A far-away glimpse of Mrs Smithers and of all the little Smitherses seated round their Sunday leg of mutton at Hackney or at Brondesbury had flashed into his mind.

  ‘Grands, sir,’ cried Mr Smithers, moving his moustache up and down with a curious rotatory constriction of the lips; ‘this way, please.’

  The young man was conducted along serried ranks of Grands. They stood on their three legs, their jaws tight shut, as mute as troops on parade. Philip paced on and on, feeling very much like the late Duke of Cambridge reviewing a regiment of his Guards. He paused at length in front of a ‘Style 8; 7ft 9in, square-legged, black-wood, mahogany-trimmed Bismarck’.

  ‘It looks spacious,’ he smiled amiably. ‘But the finish! And why overhung?’

  ‘Overstrung, sir?’ said Mr Smithers. ‘That’s merely a manner of speaking, sir, relating solely to its inside. But this, of course, is not what we specificate as a grand Grand. For tone and timber and resonance and pedal work and solidity and wear – there isn’t a better on the market. I mean on the rest of the market. And if you were having in mind an everlasting instrument for the nursery or for a practice room – and we supply the new padded partitioning – this would be precisely the instrument, sir, you were having in mind. The young are sometimes a little hard on pianofortes, sir. They mean well, but they are but children after all; and —’

  ‘Now let – me – think,’ Philip interposed. ‘To be quite candid, I wasn’t having anything of that sort in mind. My sentiments are England for the English; and Bismarck, you know, though in girth and so on a remarkable man, was in other respects, a little – well, miscellaneous. It is said that he mixed his champagne with stout – or was it cocoa? On the other hand, I have no wish to be insular, and I may order one of these constructions later – for a lady: the niece, as a matter of fact, of a governess of my uncle Colonel Crompton Pim’s when he was young – as young at least, as it was possible for him to be – who is, I believe, thinking of taking – of taking in – pupils. But we will see to that later. Have you anything that I could really look at?’

  Mr Smithers’s moustaches twirled like a weathercock. ‘Why, yes, sir. Just now we are up to our eyes in pianos – flooded; and if I may venture to say so, sir, Bismarck was never no friend of mine. All this,’ and he swept his thumb in the direction of the avenue of instruments that stretched behind them, ‘they may be Grands, but they’re most of them modern, and if you want a little something as nice to listen t
o as it is natty to look at, and not a mere menadjery fit only for an ’awl, there is a little what they call a harpsichord over yonder, sir. It’s a bijou model, de Pompadour case, hand-painted throughout – cupids and scallops and what not, all English gut, wire, metal, and jacks, and I defy any dealer in London to approximate it, sir, in what you might call pure form. No noise and all music, sir, and that mellow you scarcely know where to look. A lady’s instrument – a titled lady’s. And only seven hundred and seventy-seven guineas, sir, all told.’

  ‘Is it unique?’ Philip inquired.

  ‘Unique, sir? There’s not another like it in Europe.’

  Philip smiled at Mr Smithers very kindly out of his blue eyes. ‘But what about America?’ he said.

  The assistant curved what seemed an almost unnecessarily large hand round his lips. ‘Between you and me, sir, if by America,’ he murmured, ‘you’re meaning the United States, why, Messrs Montferas & de Beauguyou refuse to ship in that direction. It ruins their tone. In fact, sir, they are what’s called difficult. They make for nobody and nowhere but as a favour; and that instrument over there was built for —!’

  He whispered the sesame so low that water rustling on a pebbled beach would have conveyed to Philip tidings more intelligible. But by the look in Mr Smithers’s eye Philip guessed that the lady in question moved in a lofty, though possibly a narrow, circle.

  ‘Ah!’ he said; ‘then that settles it. A home away from home. Charity begins there. I shall want it tomorrow. I shall want them both tomorrow. I mean the pianos. And perhaps a more democratic instrument for the servants’ hall. But I will leave that to you.’

  Mr Smithers pretended not to goggle. ‘Why, yes, sir, that can be easily arranged. In London, I ho – conjecture?’

  ‘In London,’ said Philip, ‘Grosvenor Square.’ For at that very instant, as if at the summons of a jinnee, there had wafted itself into his memory the image of a vacant and ‘highly desirable residence’ which his casual eye had glanced upon only the afternoon before, and which had proclaimed itself ‘to be let’.

  ‘Grosvenor Square, sir; oh yes, sir?’ Mr Smithers was ejaculating, order-book in hand. ‘I will arrange for their removal at once. The three of them – quite a nice little set, sir.’

  ‘Pim, Crompton, Colonel,’ chanted Philip. ‘R-O-M; deferred account; thank you. 4-4-4, yes, four hundred and forty-four, Grosvenor Square. I am – that is, we are furnishing there.’

  But this gentle emphasis on the ‘we’ was so courtly in effect that it sounded more like an afterthought than a piece of information. Nevertheless it misled Mr Smithers. Intense fellow-feeling beamed from under his slightly overhung forehead. ‘And I am sure, sir, if I may make so bold, I wish you both every happiness, I am myself of a matrimonial turn. And regret it, sir? never! I always say if every —’

  ‘That’s very kind indeed of you,’ said Philip, averting his young cheek, which having flushed had now turned a little pale. ‘And, if I may be so bold, I am perfectly certain Mrs Smithers is of the same way of thinking. Which is the best way to the Best Man’s Department, if I take in Portmanteaux and the Fancies on my way?’

  Mr Smithers eyed him with the sublimest admiration. ‘Straight through, sir, on the left beyond them Chappels. On the same floor, but right out on the farther side of the building. As far as you can go.’

  ‘That is exactly what I was beginning to wonder – precisely how far I can go. This little venture of mine is a rather novel experience, and at the moment I am uncertain of its issue. But tell me, why is it our enterprising American friends have not yet invented a lateral lift?’

  ‘Now that’s passing strange, too, sir; for I’ve often fancied it myself,’ said Mr Smithers. ‘But you see in a department like this there’s not much time for quiet thought, sir, with so much what you might call hidden din about. As a matter of fact, when I was younger, sir – and that happens to us all – I did invent a harmonium key-stifler – rubber, and pith, and wool – so – and a small steel spring, quite neat and entirely unnoticeable. But the manufacturers wouldn’t look at it; not they!’

  ‘I don’t believe,’ said Philip, folding up his bill, ‘they ever look at anything. Not closely, you know. But if ever I do buy a harmonium,’ he put his head a little on one side and again smiled at Mr Smithers, ‘I shall insist on the stifler. I suppose,’ he added reflectively, ‘you haven’t by any chance a nice pedigree Amati, or Stradivarius in stock? I have a little weakness for fiddles.’

  Mr Smithers, leaning heavily on the counter on both his thumbs, smiled, but at the same time almost imperceptibly shook his head.

  ‘I fancied it was unlikely,’ said Philip. ‘What’s that over there; in the glass case, I mean?’

  ‘That, sir?’ said Mr Smithers, twinkling up, ‘in that glass case there? That’s a harp, sir. And a lovely little piece that is. Child’s size, sir. What they call minnychoore, and well over a century old, but still as sweet as a canary. It was made, so they say, for Mozart, the composer, sir, as you might be aware, in 1760, and up in the top corner is scratched the letters A.W. No doubt of it, sir – A.W. I’ve seen a picture of the mite myself playing like an angel in his nightcap, and not a day over seven; you’d hardly believe it, and his parents coming in at the door. Surprising. Then Schumann, he had it, sir – I mean the harp; and Schumann, though I don’t know how he could dissuade himself to part with it, he passed it on to Brahms, another composer – and very much thought of even though a bit nearer our day. But you’ll find it all neatly set out on the brass label at the foot. It’s all there, sir. There’s many a custo —’

  ‘Indeed!’ said Philip, ‘Brahms, Schumann, Mozart, what raptures we are recalling! And here it rests at last. The knacker’s yard. How very, very sad. Why, of course, Mr Smithers, we must have that sent on too – and packed very, very carefully. Is the glass case extra?’

  Mr Smithers gulped. ‘I am exceedingly sorry, sir,’ he said, ‘exceedingly sorry, but it’s not for sale; I mean – except the case.’

  ‘Not for sale,’ retorted Philip impulsively. ‘But what is the use, Mr Smithers, of a mercenary institution like this unless everything in it is for sale? You cannot mean for raw advertisement?’

  Mr Smithers was covered with confusion. ‘I am sure, sir,’ he said, ‘that the directors would do their utmost to consider your wishes. They would be very happy to do so. But if you will excuse my mentioning it, I should myself very much miss that harp. I have been in this department thirteen years now … My little boy … It is the only thing…’

  It was Philip’s turn to be all in confusion. ‘Good gracious me, I quite understand,’ he said; ‘not another word, Mr Smithers. I wouldn’t think of pressing the point. Nonetheless I can assure you that even if it had been for sale I should always have welcomed you whenever you cared to come to Grosvenor Square and take another look at it. And, of course, your little boy too – all your little boys.’

  Mr Smithers appeared to be lost in gratitude. ‘If only,’ he began, a light that never was on sea or land in his eye – but words failed him.

  At the other end of the ‘Chappels’ Philip again encountered the walker, Mr Jackson, still looking as much like a self-possessed bridegroom as it is possible for a high collar and a barber to achieve.

  ‘I see,’ said Philip, ‘you exhibit specimens of the tuberphone (and, by the way, I would suggest “a” instead of “er”) – the tubaphone, the clog-box, and the Bombaboo, iniquities at the same time negroid and old-fashioned, but though in a recent visit to Budapest I found even the charming little linden-shaded shops – along the Uffelgang, you know, not, of course, a fashionable part of the city – crammed with models of the “Haba-Stein”, a microtonic instrument with five keyboards and Hindu effects, intended, of course for the polytonal decompositions of the “Nothing-but-Music” school – most interesting; I see no trace of it here. I am not a neotero-maniac, but still, we must keep abreast, we must keep abreast!’

  He waved a not unfriendly glove over his he
ad, smiled and went on.

  Mr Smithers had also watched the slim grey young figure until it had turned the corner and was out of sight. He then had a word with his ‘floor chief’.

  ‘Pim, eh, Crompton,’ said Mr Jackson, squinting morosely, at his underling’s open order-book. ‘“Setting up house”? Then I suppose the old gent must have sent in his checks. Not that I’m surprised this nephew of his hasn’t bought his black yet. Close-fisted, purple-nosed, peppery old —! There won’t be many to cry their eyes out over his arums and gardenias.’

  Mr Smithers, being a family man, felt obliged to seem to enjoy as much as possible his immediate chief’s society.

  ‘All I can say is,’ he ventured, ‘that young feller, and he’s a gentleman if ever there was one, is making it fly.’

  He was. At this moment Philip was assuring Assistant No. 6 in the Portmanteau Department that unless the Maharaja of Jolhopolloluli’s dressing-case could be despatched next day to reach No.444 Grosvenor Square by tea-time he need not trouble. ‘A few other little things,’ he explained, ‘are being sent at the same time.’ No.6 at once hastened to the house telephone and asked for the secretary’s office. The line was engaged.

  But he need not have hesitated, for when a young man with a Pim for an uncle and of so much suavity and resource makes his wishes known, this world is amiability itself. Philip was warming up. However bland in outward appearance, he was by this time at a very enlivening temperature. He had tasted blood, as the saying goes; and he was beginning to see the need of setting a good example. Customers, like the coneys, are usually a feeble folk. His little sortie was turning into a crusade.