“Does he?”
Mrs. Moffat nodded, swallowed, and repeated with emphasis:
“He loves you true.”
“How do you know?”
“It doesn’t need knowing—not for anyone that’s got eyes and ears, and their seven senses. And it doesn’t need telling neither, though he told me sure enough with his own lips in this very room. ‘Lizzie, you’ll be nice to her?’ he says. But I says to him, ‘What ’ud your pore ma say, the way she brought you up and all?—you to be bringing goodness knows who into a respectable house like mine, and asking me to mix and meddle in goodness knows what! No, Mr. Michael, I says I’m not the woman, and this isn’t the house, for goings on.’ But he turns round and says to me solemn-like, ‘Lizzie, I love her true,’ he says.”
Chloe twisted round in her chair, dropped her head on her hands, and burst into a passion of weeping.
Chapter XXXIV
The business of looking for a job began again; also the business of wearing out shoe-leather. Chloe was on her way home, and had just become aware of a hole in her right shoe, when she was overtaken by Mr. Monody with a portfolio under each arm. He looked vaguely at her without salutation; but as he continued to walk by her side, she imagined that he had recognized her. It was in the middle of a rather difficult crossing that he suddenly addressed her in a voice which was well calculated to penetrate the roar of the traffic:
“What attracts me to you so strongly—”
At this intriguing juncture Chloe had to flee before a motor bus. She reached an island and looked back, panting. Mr. Monody and his portfolios were intact. Next moment they were beside her, and the road being clear, Chloe ran across to the pavement and trusted him to follow. He did so, and instantly resumed speech:
“What attracts me to you so strongly is the fact that you have run away.”
Chloe looked up with dancing eyes.
“How frightfully nice of you!” she began. But Monody was not looking at her. He strode along, presenting a jutting profile and talking with rapid intensity; if he had not been carrying two portfolios he would certainly have waved his arms.
“I’ve spent my whole life running away,” he said.
“I’m a little tired of it,” said Chloe, and received a momentary glance of reproach.
“There is only one damnation,” said Mr. Monody; “and that is accepting the accepted. The minute you do that, whether it’s in religion, or art, or life, you’re dead and damned—buried, you know, under a neat grassy heap of conventions, with something symbolic in stone at your head and feet. You’ve got to run away if you want to keep alive. You’ve got to be revolutionary if you’re not a born cauliflower.” For a moment the sharp profile was replaced by the misty gaze which seemed to see, not Chloe, but something a good many aeons away. Chloe certainly felt herself to be a mere speck, just one little speck floating with millions of others in a vague and speculative mist. It was not at all comfortable.
“What is history?” said Mr. Monody.
Chloe ceased to be a speck, and became Chloe again.
“It’s generally dull: and it ought to be so exciting,” she said.
Monody frowned. It was quite obvious that he expected to do all the talking himself.
“History is the statement and re-statement of one tragedy. Dynasties, and wars, and politics, and politicians are just so much clutter. The real thing is the continual appearing of ideas—lots of them, streams of them, vigorous, vital, dynamic. What happens all through history? The same old crime, the same damned crime. Nobody wants ’em, nobody can do with ’em; they’re alive, they’re uncomfortable, they’re disturbing. Take them away, and smother them up and bury them deep—everybody’s ready to lend a hand. If you want to save an idea alive, you’ve got to run away with it—the wilderness, you know; every one’s hand against you, and yours against every one; fighting like blazes all the time till your idea is strong enough to fend for itself. Then a few things get smashed.”
They reached Mrs. Moffat’s doorstep as Mr. Monody paused for breath. Chloe felt rather dazed and, for once in her life, at a loss for words; Mr. Monody seemed to have used them all up, for the time being at any rate. He now began to walk up the stairs in front of her. Half way up he dropped one of his portfolios, and they both descended to the bottom to pick up the scattered drawings. As they knelt in the dark hall on either side of the open portfolio, Monody began to talk again.
“I began,” he said, “by running away from my name. My parents cursed me with the deplorable name of Adolphus. They meant well of course—parents always mean well. To them it had a rich, fruity sound; it suggested something in the City—something rich and fat and Adolphian. I ran away from it.”
He picked up the portfolio, and this time remembered to stand aside and let Chloe pass him. When she had nearly reached the top, she heard him coming up behind her three steps at a time. She turned to meet the misty gaze.
“I say, you are Michael’s girl, aren’t you?”
Chloe burst out laughing.
“What would you do if I said ‘No’?” she said.
“I don’t know,” said Mr. Monody. “I want to make a sketch of you. Shall we say to-morrow at ten?”
“I don’t think—”
“To-morrow at ten,” said Mr. Monody firmly. He went into his room and shut the door.
Chloe ran downstairs again, still laughing, and penetrated into Mrs. Moffat’s kitchen. Mrs. Moffat was making apple dumplings, but she allowed Chloe to stay; she even let her make a dumpling for herself and mark it with a large, irregular C.
“It’s frightfully difficult to get a good initial in dough, isn’t it?”
“It all comes with practice,” said Eliza Moffat. “Not that I’ve ever tried,” she added.
“’M,” said Chloe, sucking the dough off her fingers. “Is Mr. Monody mad, Mrs. Moffat?”
Eliza Moffat looked up sharply.
“Mad?” she said. “I don’t call the likes of him mad, nor I don’t hold with shutting them up neither. Who’s been telling you such things?”
“Oh, I don’t know. He seems odd.”
“Odd’s one word and mad’s another,” said Mrs. Moffat, opening the oven door and putting in a tray of dumplings. “Now, say a gentleman was to take the kitchen chopper and bash his wife with it—I’d give in to his being mad. Or a young lady what tries to throw herself off of a crowded bus in the middle of Hammersmith Broadway—well, I’d say likely enough as she was mad, pore thing; for who’s it going to help a-throwing of yourself from buses when all’s said and done? That’s what I calls mad. But if a gentleman likes to write poetry, who’s he a-harming of?”
“Does he write poetry?”
“Strews it all about the floor. And what I say is, it’s a crool shame to shut the pore things up so long as they’re harmless and don’t go throwing of themselves down off buses and such like.” She banged the oven door with decision.
Chloe gazed at her, fascinated.
“Do tell me some more,” she said. “Did a girl really throw herself off a bus in Hammersmith Broadway? Was she hurt?”
“Not her,”—Eliza Moffat sounded a little disappointed—“fell on a perliceman she did.”
“How perfectly thrilling!”
“Fell on a perliceman what was holding up the traffic, and knocked him flat. There he was, one minute throwing a chest, and holding his hand up, and looking as if he’d bought London; and the next minute down she come and knocked him flat.”
“Good gracious!” said Chloe.
“Mr. Moffat’s sister seen it,” said Mrs. Moffat. After a pause she added: “Their banns was called on Sunday.”
It was that afternoon that Chloe saw Emily Wroughton. Emily was coming down the street towards her, holding up an umbrella against the incessant rain; she held it much too high, and a steady cascade descended upon a limp black
ostrich feather, and from thence to a sagging shoulder.
As soon as Mrs. Wroughton saw Chloe, the umbrella came down like an extinguisher, and she scuttled into a side street. Chloe caught her up easily enough, and took her by the drier arm in friendly fashion.
“Why on earth do you run away from me? I’m the one to run—I’m going to too, in a minute. But I did want to say,”—here she squeezed the bony arm impulsively—“I did just want to say ‘Thank you.’” Emily, having failed to keep the umbrella between her and Chloe, let her mouth fall open, and said, “Oh!” She sniffed also, and her nose began to get pink. “It was ripping of you to give me the chance of getting away. I don’t believe I ever thanked you. I—I was horribly frightened really, you know. But afterwards I thought how absolutely topping it was of you.”
Emily said “Oh,” again; her mouth stayed open; the tears began to run down her nose. “I shall have to tell Leonard,” she said in a miserable whisper. “I shall have to tell Leonard that I’ve seen you.”
“All right,” said Chloe quite cheerfully. “Tell him I’ve got a nice post in a detective’s family, and that we shall all be frightfully pleased to see him any time he likes to drop in.”
Emily produced a handkerchief and took three little dabs at her face—left eye, nose, right eye. Then she gave a rending sniff, and said:
“Oh, Miss Dane, have you really? Oh, I’m so glad! But please, please, please don’t tell me any more, because I shall have to tell Leonard what you’ve said.”
“But I want you to. You go home and tell him that the detective is most frightfully anxious to meet him. I do hope he’ll come and see us.”
“Don’t tell me the address,” said Emily quickly.
Chloe laughed and shook her arm lightly.
“Why don’t you stamp your foot at him and tell him to go to Jericho? Just try some day, and see what happens. I believe he’d go off pop like a burst tyre. Anyhow, if he wants to know where I am—”
“No, don’t tell me!” Emily put up a protesting hand.
Chloe gave her another little shake.
“Tell him to ask at Scotland Yard,” she said, and ran back along the way that she had come.
If she had looked behind her when she came to the corner, she would have seen that Emily was no longer alone. Wroughton had come out of a house near by and joined her. When he had listened to half-a-dozen tearful sentences, he, too, ran to the corner round which Chloe had disappeared and, turning it, proceeded to follow her at a safe distance.
Chapter XXV
Chloe sat to Mr. Monody next morning in Mrs. Moffat’s sitting-room. Mrs. Moffat herself did not use it for sitting in, but it contained all the things she valued most on earth. It had, therefore, the atmosphere peculiar to such shrines, and the first thing that Mr. Monody did was to fling the windows wide and let in the north-east wind.
Chloe perched on the arm of a large chair upholstered in crimson plush, and swung her feet.
“Are you one of the people who put an eye in one corner of the picture and another somewhere in the middle of next week?” she asked anxiously. “I saw a painting like that once, and it gave me the cold grues.”
“I’m neither a cubist, nor a vorticist, nor a vertiginist. Tilt your chin and think about running away. Think about running for your life from all the conventions that ever were. And just run your hand through your hair, will you—it’s much too tidy. Don’t look at me—I want your profile. Look at the wall above the fireplace.”
Chloe looked, and found her attention riveted by a print which hung there, an obvious heirloom. Beneath it in flourishing letters its title, “The Broad and Narrow Ways.”
Chloe forgot Mr. Monody and everything modern, and stared, fascinated, at the picture. Right at the top was a single, enormous eye, coloured blue. Beneath it The Broad Way ran steeply downhill. The Broad Way was exactly like Maxton High Street; there were shops on either side of it, and swarms of little black people laughing, talking, and shopping; at intervals there were roundabouts, and people dancing; at the bottom of the street, instead of the bridge, there was an awful chasm which revealed a most authentic Hell, with lots of smoke, and flames and devils. The Narrow Way, which occupied the left-hand side of the picture, was like the course of an obstacle race, a terribly difficult obstacle race. First there was a stream with little jags of rock in it and holes to fall into; a pilgrim could be seen in one up to his neck and looking most uncomfortable. Next came a ladder fixed to the face of what Chloe called a more than perpendicular cliff; a pilgrim, who had almost reached the top appeared to be hanging by a single finger. At the top of the cliff there was a chasm with the flames of Hell coming out of it, very pointed and terrifying. After that there were piles of black stones. And right at the top of the picture there were three fat angels with Georgian smiles and stout calico nightgowns.
Mr. Monody did not talk whilst he was working, and he worked at lightning speed. By the time Chloe had assimilated Eliza Moffat’s great great grandfather’s print he was saying, “Thanks,” and shutting up his sketch-book. Chloe uttered an incredulous “Oh!” and jumped down.
“How quick you’ve been—how frightfully quick! But I must see it!”
“I never—” began Mr. Monody, and at that point found that he was no longer holding his sketch-book.
Chloe ran to the window with it, turned the leaves, and exclaimed. She saw herself running down a steep hill with a tearing wind behind her; her hands were stretched out; her hair was blown about her face; the one brief garment with which Mr. Monody’s pencil had endowed her also blew in the wind. It was a very clever piece of work. She looked at it and said:
“How do you draw the wind? I can see it blowing.”
He came and looked over her shoulder.
“Most people can’t see it. If they could see it, they’d be able to draw it.” He spoke in the abstracted tones of one who informs an infant that C.A.T. spells “Cat.” Then he took his sketch-book out of Chloe’s hands, twisted a piece of worn-out elastic round it twice, and began to drift away. At the door he seemed to wake up; he actually looked at Chloe as if he could see her, and not some fantasy in his own mind.
“You did say you were Michael’s girl, didn’t you?”
Chloe’s colour brightened; her eyes danced.
“No, I didn’t say anything of the sort.”
Mr. Monody rumpled his hair.
“Ah!” he said. “Some one said it—but perhaps it was Michael. I think you’d better shut those windows, because she likes this room kept nice and stuffy. Michael’s a very good chap.”
He was half way out of the room, when Chloe’s voice arrested him; it sounded severe, but her eyes still danced.
“Mr. Monody.” She emphasized the name with a tap of the foot.
“Yes?” said Mr. Monody vaguely.
“Where were you brought up?”
He brightened.
“Everybody asks me that sooner or later. In future I’ve decided to say that seven maiden aunts took me in infancy to a South Pacific island. Don’t you think that covers the whole ground?”
That afternoon Chloe had an adventure. She hunted jobs from half-past two till past-half five, when she had promised to meet Michael and have tea with him. Once or twice during the afternoon an extraordinary feeling of discomfort came over her. It was rather difficult to describe and very disturbing. When it came upon her she found herself turning round to see if she was being followed; she had to struggle against a desire to run as fast as she had been running in Mr. Monody’s sketch. It was in a fit of extravagance induced by this curious, recurrent sense of dread that she expended twopence on a tube fare.
It was too early for the evening rush, but the train was full enough, and the lift in which she found herself at her journey’s end was closely packed. Some one had an elbow in the middle of her back, whilst a massive lady with a feathered hat made
it impossible for her to move even half an inch forward. “Pass along, please,” said the lift man. “Pass along there, pass along.” The elbow became a gimlet. Chloe surged forward into the ostrich feathers, which smelt horribly of dye; and at the same moment she felt a hand in the pocket of her coat. Two thoughts bobbed up in her mind simultaneously—“A pickpocket,” and, “My purse isn’t there, thank goodness.” That was what she thought. What she did bore no relation to it, and must have been quite instinctive. With a lightning dive her hand went into the pocket and found, not another hand, but another purse. Like a flash she had it out and was holding it up high above all those crowding heads.
“Whose purse is this?” she called at the top of her clear young voice; and every soul in the lift heard her, stopped talking, and twisted their necks to look. The lift stopped with a jerk. “Somebody put this into my pocket. Whose is it?” said Chloe to the silence. What she had done had been without thought; but just at this moment thought came into play again. The gate of the lift opened, and the lift man came across to her.
“What’s all this, miss? Had your pocket picked?”
She had begun to shake and feel cold.
“Some one put this into my pocket. It’s not mine.”
Nobody claimed the purse, which proved to contain nearly a pound in silver. Chloe had to accompany the lift man to an inspector to whom she repeated her story, and with whom she left the purse.
“Some one sneaked it of course, got a fright, and tried to get rid of it. But if you ask me why nobody claimed it, well you ask me something that I haven’t got an answer to. Just give me your name and address, miss, will you.”
Chloe met Michael and had tea with him. When they were walking back together she told him what had happened. Half way through the story she took his arm because she felt that it would be nice to have something to hold on to. The hand shook, and Michael felt it shaking. Chloe’s voice shook too.
The Black Cabinet Page 20
