Not George Washington — an Autobiographical Novel

by P. G. Wodehouse

  Chapter 9

  JULIAN LEARNS MY SECRET_(James Orlebar Cloyster's narrative continued)_

  A difficulty in the life of a literary man in London is the question ofgetting systematic exercise. At school and college I had beenaccustomed to play games every day, and now I felt the change acutely.

  It was through this that I first became really intimate with JohnHatton, and incidentally with Sidney Price, of the Moon AssuranceCompany. I happened to mention my trouble one night in Hatton's rooms.I had been there frequently since my first visit.

  "None of my waistcoats fit," I remarked.

  "My dear fellow," said Hatton, "I'll give you exercise and to spare;that is to say, if you can box."

  "I'm not a champion," I said; "but I'm fond of it. I shouldn't mindtaking up boxing again. There's nothing like it for exercise."

  "Quite right, James," he replied; "and exercise, as I often tell myboys, is essential."

  "What boys?" I asked.

  "My club boys," said Hatton. "They belong to the most dingy quarter ofthe whole of London--South Lambeth. They are not hooligans. They arenot so interesting as that. They represent the class of youth that is astratum or two above hooliganism. Frightful weeds. They lack the robustanimalism of the class below them, and they lack the intelligence ofthe class above them. The fellows at my club are mostly hard-workingmechanics and under-paid office boys. They have nothing approaching asense of humour or the instinct of sport."

  "Not very encouraging," I said.

  "Nor picturesque," said Hatton; "and that is why they've been soneglected. There is romance in an out-and-out hooligan. It interestspeople to reform him. But to the outsider my boys are dull. I don'tfind them so. But then I know them. Boxing lessons are just what theywant. In fact, I was telling Sidney Price, an insurance clerk who livesin Lambeth and helps me at the club, only yesterday how much I wishedwe could teach them to use the gloves."

  "I'll take it on, then, Hatton, if you like," I said. "It ought to keepme in form."

  I found that it did. I ceased to be aware of my liver. That winter Iwas able to work to good purpose, and the result was that I arrived. Itdawned upon me at last that the "precarious" idea was played out. Onecould see too plainly the white sheet and phosphorus.

  And I was happy. Happier, perhaps, than I had ever hoped to be.Happier, in a sense, than I can hope to be again. I had congenial work,and, what is more, I had congenial friends.

  What friends they were!

  Julian--I seem to see him now sprawling in his hammock, sucking hispipe, planning an advertisement, or propounding some whimsical theoryof life; and in his eyes he bears the pain of one whose love and lifeare spoilt. Julian--no longer my friend.

  Kit and Malim--what evenings are suggested by those names.

  Evenings alone with Malim at his flat in Vernon Place. An unimpeachabledinner, a hand at picquet, midnight talk with the blue smoke wreathinground our heads.

  Well, Malim and I are unlikely to meet again in Vernon Place. Nor shallwe foregather at the little house in the Hampstead Road, the housewhich Kit enveloped in an inimitable air of domesticity. Her past hadnot been unconnected with the minor stage. She could play on the pianofrom ear, and sing the songs of the street with a charming cockneytwang. But there was nothing of the stage about her now. She was bornfor domesticity and, as the wife of Malim, she wished to forget allthat had gone before. She even hesitated to give us her wonderfulimitations of the customers at the fried fish shop, because in herheart she did not think such impersonations altogether suitable for arespectable married woman.

  It was Malim who got me elected to the Barrel Club. I take it that Ishall pay few more visits there.

  I have mentioned at this point the love of my old friends who made myfirst years in London a period of happiness, since it was in this monthof April that I had a momentous conversation with Julian aboutMargaret.

  He had come to Walpole Street to use my typewriter, and seemed amazedto find that I was still living in much the same style as I had alwaysdone.

  "Let me see," he said. "How long is it since I was here last?"

  "You came some time before Christmas."

  "Ah, yes," he said reminiscently. "I was doing a lot of travelling justthen." And he added, thoughtfully, "What a curious fellow you are,Jimmy. Here are you making----" He glanced at me.

  "Oh, say a thousand a year."

  "--Fifteen hundred a year, and you live in precisely the same shoddysurroundings as you did when your manuscripts were responsible for anextra size in waste-paper baskets. I was surprised to hear that youwere still in Walpole Street. I supposed that, at any rate, you hadtaken the whole house."

  His eyes raked the little sitting-room from the sham marble mantelpieceto the bamboo cabinet. I surveyed it, too, and suddenly it did seemunnecessarily wretched and depressing.

  Julian looked at me curiously.

  "There's some mystery here," he said.

  "Don't be an ass, Julian," I replied weakly.

  "It's no good denying it," he retorted; "there's some mystery. You're amaterialist. You don't live like this from choice. If you were tofollow your own inclinations, you'd do things in the best style youcould run to. You'd be in Jermyn Street; you'd have your man, a cottagein Surrey; you'd entertain, go out a good deal. You'd certainly give upthese dingy quarters. My friendship for you deplores a mammoth skeletonin your cupboard, James. My study of advertising tells me that thispaltry existence of yours does not adequately push your name before thepublic. You're losing money, you're----"

  "Stop, Julian," I exclaimed.

  "_Cherchez_," he continued, "_cherchez_----"

  "Stop! Confound you, stop! I tell you----"

  "Come," he said laughing. "I mustn't force your confidence; but I can'thelp feeling it's odd----"

  "When I came to London," I said, firmly, "I was most desperately inlove. I was to make a fortune, incidentally my name, marry, and livehappily ever after. There seemed last year nothing complex about thatprogramme. It seemed almost too simple. I even, like a fool, thought toadd an extra touch of piquancy to it by endeavouring to be a Bohemian.I then discovered that what I was attempting was not so simple as I hadimagined. To begin with, Bohemians diffuse their brains in everydirection except that where bread-and-butter comes from. I found, too,that unless one earns bread-and-butter, one has to sprint very fast tothe workhouse door to prevent oneself starving before one gets there;so I dropped Bohemia and I dropped many other pleasant fictions aswell. I took to examining pavements, saw how hard they were, had a lookat the gutters, and saw how broad they were. I noticed the accumulationof dirt on the house fronts, the actual proportions of industrialbuildings. I observed closely the price of food, clothes, and roofs."

  "You became a realist."

  "Yes; I read a good deal of Gissing about then, and it scared me. Ipitied myself. And after that came pity for the girl I loved. I sworethat I would never let her come to my side in the ring where themonster Poverty and I were fighting. If you've been there you've beenin hell. And if you come out with your soul alive you can't tell otherpeople what it felt like. They couldn't understand."

  Julian nodded. "I understand, you know," he said gravely.

  "Yes, you've been there," I said. "Well, you've seen that my littleturn-up with the monster was short and sharp. It wasn't one of theold-fashioned, forty-round, most-of-a-lifetime, feint-for-an-opening,in-and-out affairs. Our pace was too fast for that. We went at it bothhands, fighting all the time. I was going for the knock-out in thefirst round. Not your method, Julian."

  "No," said Julian; "it's not my method. I treat the monster rather as awild animal than as a hooligan; and hearing that wild animals won't domore than sniff at you if you lie perfectly still, I adopted that rusetowards him to save myself the trouble of a conflict. But the effect oflying perfectly still was that I used to fall asleep; and that workssatisfactorily."

  "Julian," I said, "I detect a touch of envy in your voice. You try tokeep it out, but you can't. Wai
t a bit, though. I haven't finished.

  "As you know, I had the monster down in less than no time. I said tomyself, 'I've won. I'll write to Margaret, and tell her so!' Do youknow I had actually begun to write the letter when another thoughtstruck me. One that started me sweating and shaking. 'The monster,' Isaid again to myself, 'the monster is devilish cunning. Perhaps he'sonly shamming! It looks as if he were beaten. Suppose it's only a feintto get me off my guard. Suppose he just wants me to take my eyes offhim so that he may get at me again as soon as I've begun to look for acomfortable chair and a mantelpiece to rest my feet on!' I told myselfthat I wouldn't risk bringing Margaret over. I didn't dare chance herbeing with me if ever I had to go back into the ring. So I kept jumpingand stamping on the monster. The referee had given me the fight and hadgone away; and, with no one to stop me, I kicked the life out of him."

  "No, you didn't," interrupted Julian. "Excuse me, I'm sure you didn't.I often wake up and hear him prowling about."

  "Yes; but there's a separate monster set apart for each of us. It'sFate who arranges the programme, and, by stress of business, Fatepostpones many contests so late that before they can take place the manhas died. Those who die before their fight comes on are called richmen. To return, however, to my own monster: I was at last convincedthat he was dead a thousand times----"

  "How long have you had this conviction?" asked Julian.

  "The absolute certainty that my monster has ceased to exist came to methis morning whilst I brushed my hair."

  "Ah," said Julian; "and now, I suppose, you really will write to MissMargaret----" He paused.

  "Goodwin?"

  "To Miss Margaret Goodwin," he repeated.

  "Look here, Julian," I said irritably; "it's no use your repeatingevery observation I make as though you were Massa Johnson on MargateSands."

  "What's the matter?"

  I was silent for a moment. Then I confessed.

  "Julian," I said, "I can't write to her. You need neither say that I'ma blackguard nor that you're sorry for us both. At this present momentI've no more affection for Margaret than I have for this chair. Whenprecisely I left off caring for her I don't know. Why I ever thought Iloved her I don't know, either. But ever since I came to London all thelove I did have for her has been ebbing away every day."

  "Had you met many people before you met her?" asked Julian slowly.

  "No one that counted. Not a woman that counted, that's to say. I am shywith women. I can talk to them in a sort of way, but I never seem ableto get intimate. Margaret was different. She saved my life, and wespent the summer in Guernsey together."

  "And you seriously expected not to fall in love?" Julian laughed "Mydear Jimmy, you ought to write a psychological novel."

  "Possibly. But, in the meantime, what am I to do?"

  Julian stood up.

  "She's in love with you, I suppose?"

  "Yes."

  He stood looking at me.

  "Well, can't you speak?" I said.

  He turned away, shrugging his shoulders. "One's got one's own right andone's own wrong," he grumbled, lighting his pipe.

  "I know what you're thinking," I said.

  He would not look at me.

  "You're thinking," I went on, "what a cad I am not to have written thatletter." I sat down resting my head on my hands. After all--love andliberty--they're both very sweet.

  "I'm thinking," said Julian, watching the smoke from his pipeabstractedly, "that you will probably write tonight; and I think I knowhow you're feeling."

  "Julian," I said, "must it be tonight? Why? The letter shall go. Butmust it be tonight?"

  Julian hesitated.

  "No," he said; "but you've made up your mind, so why put off theinevitable?"

  "I can't," I exclaimed; "oh, I really can't. I must have my freedom alittle longer."

  "You must give it up some day. It'll be all the harder when you've gotto face it."

  "I don't mind that. A little more freedom, just a little; and then I'lltell her to come to me."

  He smoked in silence.

  "Surely," I said, "this little more freedom that I ask is a small thingcompared with the sacrifice I have promised to make?"

  "You won't let her know it's a sacrifice?"

  "Of course not. She shall think that I love her as I used to."

  "Yes, you ought to do that," he said softly. "Poor devil," he added.

  "Am I too selfish?" I asked.

  He got up to go. "No," he said. "To my mind, you're entitled to abreathing space before you give up all that you love best. But there'sa risk."

  "Of what?"

  "Of her finding out by some other means than yourself and before yourletter comes, that the letter should have been written earlier. Do yousign all your stuff with your own name?"

  "Yes."

  "Well, then, she's bound to see how you're getting on. She'll see yourname in the magazines, in newspapers and in books. She'll know youdon't write for nothing, and she'll make calculations."

  I was staggered.

  "You mean--?" I said.

  "Why, it will occur to her before long that your statement of yourincome doesn't square with the rest of the evidence; and she'll wonderwhy you pose as a pauper when you're really raking in the money withboth hands. She'll think it over, and then she'll see it all."

  "I see," I said, dully. "Well, you've taken my last holiday from me.I'll write to her tonight, telling her the truth."

  "I shouldn't, necessarily. Wait a week or two. You may quite possiblyhit on some way out of the difficulty. I'm bound to say, though, Ican't see one myself at the moment."

  "Nor can I," I said.