Two in a Train

by Warwick Deeping

  “Oh, a motor smash.”

  “What bad luck. I can get a taxi or a carriage in St. Jean.”

  “Could you?”

  “Of course.”

  “It’s awfully good of you.”

  “O, no. I’ll go—at once.”

  How absurd of her! She was suddenly hot and confused. She got up, and smiled—not at him, but over him. Her face was a different face.

  “I won’t be ten minutes.”

  She ran.

  She found a carriage in St. Jean waiting by the little harbour. Her French was not very good, but she managed to explain to the man that he was to drive to the headland and wait for her. Someone had sprained a leg. Returning, she found Julian sitting there with the air of a patient child. He smiled at her.

  “I’ve got a carriage. But do you think—you can manage?”

  He looked shy. If someone would lend him a shoulder—? She understood. She helped him up, and made him put an arm across her shoulders, her left arm encircled him.

  “Rather like a three-legged race.”

  She watched him take a step, moving to keep in rhythm with him.

  “Put your weight on me. That’s right.”

  “Yes—I can manage.”

  It took them five minutes to reach the carriage, and in those five minutes a completely new attitude to life had affected both of them. The intimacy of an impersonal occasion had become self-conscious. That racquet arm of hers was supporting a live thing. She got him into the carriage. He was a little flushed, whether with pain or pleasure or both, she could not say. Her own face had come into sudden bloom.

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Oh, the Bedford.”

  The carriage rattled back to St. Jean, and they sat self-consciously side by side, demure and dignified. They had become suddenly shy of each other, two young souls in profile. But their silence was like a pause between two musical movements.

  He said, “I’m awfully sorry I upset your game. It never occurred to me—that——”

  She held her breath. So the old wretch had told him!

  “But—really—you didn’t.”

  “Yes—I did. It bothered you. You see—I can’t move, and it was rather good watching you move.”

  She was speechless. And then she said in rather an off-hand way, “I wonder if it’s worth while?”

  He looked at her a little anxiously.

  “What?”

  “Rushing about—banging a ball, and making such a beastly business of it. I think I’ll lose to-morrow.”

  “Please—don’t.”

  “I don’t think I should mind much.”

  He said, “I should.”

  When the carriage drew up outside the hotel she jumped out quickly.

  “I’ll get a porter.”

  And then she saw that he had something to say.

  “Might—I come to-morrow?”

  Her eyes met his.

  “But you can’t. You mustn’t.”

  “Oh, yes—I could. I’ve still got my old splint and a crutch. Kept in reserve, you know. But if it’s going to put you off your game. And I won’t stare.”

  Her face had a new mystery.

  “I’d like you to come—if you want to. No, it won’t worry me.”

  She ran up the hotel steps to fetch the concierge to help him.

  It was a crowded day. When she walked on to the court with the Fink woman she looked towards that particular place. He was there. He raised his hat, and she gave him a little wave of the racquet. Fräulein Fink, lean, kinky-haired, all teeth, flashed them at the crowd. Hands clapped. Fräulein Fink smiled upon the world. Her big nose seemed to transfix victory. She smiled upon her opponent. O, yes, she was feeling supremely confident, and Miss Fortescue was looking nervous.

  The game began in an atmosphere of tension. The German girl was at the top of her form, and she won the first two games with supreme ease. Joan was netting or driving out. Most of her first services were faults. The crowd’s tension relaxed. The affair looked like being a walk-over, and the crowd began to be a little sorry for Joan.

  Their compassion was premature. Suddenly, and apparently for no reason at all, she found herself; and one of those sudden changes came over the game. She had been fumbling and asleep, but now her thrusts were deep and true, her counters cunning and swift. Her drives went deep into the corner, pitching within a few inches of the base-line. Her anticipation became exquisite. She ran in on some of those deep drives, intercepted the return and put the ball away.

  The crowd grew clamorous. Fräulein Fink was still all teeth and smile—but her eyes were anxious. She began to lob the English girl, but her lobs lacked length and subtlety. Joan killed most of them, or gave back more deadly lobs.

  First set to Miss Fortescue at 6—4.

  Julian Peters seemed to be sitting on a hot chair. He squirmed. The lady next him became annoyed. Why couldn’t the man sit still?

  In the second set Joan lapsed. She became cautious. She lost that set, though it was a long-drawn duel. Both girls were all out—but it became obvious that Miss Fortescue was the fitter of the two. The German’s big mouth was open—not to smile, but for air. Her nose looked pinched.

  Before the third set Miss Fortescue did an unconventional thing. She went and spoke to somebody in a chair, and that somebody said to her, “Go in and volley. Put them deep in the corners—like you did in the first. You’ll win.”

  She did. She attacked from the first stroke. She had a tiring opponent running to and fro. Once more—her anticipation was beautiful, her volleying crisp and deadly. She played like a man, and on her day few men could have beaten her. She won the final set at 6—2.

  Applause, hand-shakes, smiles, a very eminent gentleman standing forward to congratulate both ladies, a lame man with a crutch hobbling behind rows of chairs to stand at a gate.

  He met her coming out.

  “Splendid. I knew you could. The best game you ever played.”

  She looked strangely confused.

  “I felt—like—playing in my sleep.”

  He laughed.

  “Well, it was a wonderful dream.”

  And that was what he imagined his own affair to be; a beautiful, tantalizing and poignant incident; a little bitter to him in its beauty—perhaps, but just a day in the life of Atalanta. He could not play with her. She was—in a sense—a public person, a draw, a prize for the photographers, but not for him. This crowd was dispersing, but other crowds would gather at Monte Carlo and Menton and Cannes, and Joan Fortescue would perform before them. No, he was not going to Monte Carlo or Menton or Cannes.

  The Hotel Bristol was concluding the week’s festival with a Bal Fleuris. Everybody was going to it; but Julian did not go. He remained at the Bedford Hotel nursing his leg and a secret and absurd passion.

  Said the Austrian champion to Joan as they fox-trotted, “You are going to Cannes, of course?”

  She seemed tired, a little distraught. Her glances wandered, and were not for him—which was unusual, for he had been given to understand that all women were mad about him.

  “No—I’m scratching.”

  “Scratching?”

  “Yes—feeling stale.”

  Which—of course—on her day’s brilliance—was absurd. He could only suppose that she was shy of meeting the Fink woman a second time.

  A dream and an awakening—but why—either? She sat in the gardens and walked to St. Jean, but she saw no Julian. Had he gone to Cannes? She climbed the steps of the Bedford Hotel, and feeling absurdly self-conscious, she inquired casually for Mr. Peters.

  “How is Mr. Peters—I hope his leg is better?”

  She was told that Mr. Peters had gone out for a drive.

  She remembered that wonderful drive of theirs. She was feeling acutely romantic. She walked to St. Jean, and on to the headland. She would go and sit among the pine trees where he and she had come together for a moment in their lives. She came upon a taxi waiting under the pine
s. Had he——? She held her breath for a moment; she hesitated. Was he, too, up there redreaming a dream?

  She saw him. She waved a hand. She ascended through the sunlight and shadow. She saw that he was trying to rise.

  “Don’t. Please—don’t move.”

  His face was a complete self-betrayal, and hers was not much better. She sat down.

  He said, “I thought you had gone to Cannes.”

  “No—I scratched.”

  “Scratched? But—you——”

  “Oh—I’m rather stale. I’m rather off rushing about and hitting things. I think I want to sit and stare.”

  He looked infinitely grave.

  “That’s what I do. I have to—but you—— Do you know what it means?”

  She looked at the sea showing blue between the pines.

  “I’d like to find out. One must miss such a lot just rushing about. More than you miss, perhaps.”

  He prodded the ground with his stick.

  “There’s a difference. If you get tired of sitting and staring—you can rush off; I can’t. I watch life and scribble about it. Of course there is a lot in life—my sort of life, but it’s limited.”

  She watched that restless stick of his.

  “Not so limited, perhaps—as—mine. I’m reading one of your books.”

  He glanced at her sharply.

  “Yes—I do get some movement in books—but wouldn’t that bore you?”

  She had the air of a woman marvelling over some mystery.

  “No. It didn’t bore you watching me play?”

  “Hardly. I could always watch you.”

  She gave him a shy little laugh and a glimpse of her eyes.

  “Doesn’t that cut both ways?”

  And suddenly he had hold of her hand, and for half a minute they sat in silence.

  Then he said, “It’s too wonderful. I simply—had it at first sight. But—it can’t go on. I can’t ask you to marry a crock.”

  She looked at the sea.

  “Then—if you don’t ask me—— Won’t it be rather hard—for the real crock—that’s me?”

  “My dear—my——”

  They looked steadily at each other and kissed.

  So—in spite of mutual protestations, a star fell from the firmament of the tennis world. Mr. Peters insisted that Mrs. Peters must not disappoint her public, and Mrs. Peters humoured him and herself—but when Mrs. Peters became a wife and something more than a wife, the rhythm of life altered. Some people said, “What a pity”—others, “How very old-fashioned,” but Joan was not listening to what people said of her, or what the Press had ceased to say.

  THE MALICE OF MEN

  Because Oscar Blount said something scurrilous and funny about Harold Tarmac, and because a waspish friend repeated the remark to Tarmac, the feud began.

  “Oh, old Harold takes his sex and his sugar—three lumps to the cup.”

  Blount was that most rare bird—a poet, and Harold Tarmac wrote novels of infinite solemnity and porcine dullness. Blount was a little, sallow monkey of a man with a hungry profile and much black greasy hair. Tarmac was vast and red with a ruff of sandy hair crowning a high and shiny forehead, blue eyes that stared, large teeth of a dubious yellowness. He gave you the impression of being in a perpetual perspiration.

  Tarmac retorted upon Blount.

  “Oscar’s linen and his license both might go to the laundry.”

  The feud was venomous from its inception. It was the clash of two pretentious personalities, of two persons who—it so happened—found themselves posing to the same public and were mutually offended. Each wanted the little public occasion for itself, and resented the presence of the other fellow. And, circumstance, as though enjoying the jest, so arranged it that Harold and Oscar were always joggling against each other.

  Both belonged to the Green Cat Club, and though Harold lunched there regularly, Oscar could not afford to do more than use the club matches in the smoking-room. It was said of Oscar that he purloined those matches, but then a poet must have his perquisites.

  They attended the dinners of the Bulbul and the Brick-a-Brac clubs, and made speeches in which they contrived to advertise themselves with a nice subtlety.

  But their mutual superfluities became most evident at the house of “Chloe,” Chloe being one of the bright young women of the day, a kind of Madame Recamier with an Eton crop and various nudities, who gave cocktail parties. Chloe, or Miss Iris Parmoor, had a house in Gaunt Street, and collected “funny faces.” Both Tarmac and Blount could be included in that category.

  So these two eminent men were always meeting and getting in each other’s way. Both were great talkers, and not being able to engage each other with swords, they would cross tongues. Miss Parmoor and a mischievous world encouraged the scuffles of the two celebrities.

  Mr. Tarmac, arriving late at one of these parties, and delayed for a moment in the vestibule by attention to his tie, heard through the half-open door the voice of Oscar Blount.

  “Harold puts the baby in the font, you know, all the baby and nothing but the baby. The sentimental sacerdotalist. But when you realize that Harold’s baby is not a real baby, but only a sort of stuffed bambino, you know all that you need know about Harold’s books.”

  Someone retorted.

  “But ‘The Crown of Thorns’ had distinction.”

  Mr. Tarmac heard Oscar’s little, clattering laugh.

  “I sat on the ‘Crown of Thorns’ in the Monitor and it did not penetrate my trousers. Harold thinks himself highbrow of the highbrows. He buzzes in sentimentality like a bee in a bottle full of sugar and beer.”

  Tarmac dallied over the adjustment of his tie. His colour was high. That Blount should have called him a sentimentalist was the supreme outrage, particularly so when Harold Tarmac was flinging that word perpetually at the heads of other novelists. He wrote pontifical articles in the Weekly Standard in which he admonished all literary prostitutes and panders.

  He entered. He looked heated and moist and massive. Miss Parmoor’s guests were seated upon cushions disposed about the white enamelled floor. Chloe’s cushions and her white floor were part of her vogue. There was an interested silence. Probably fat Harold had overheard Oscar’s irreverent jibes.

  Miss Parmoor presented a hand to be kissed. That too was part of the ritual.

  “And how is St. Harold to-night?”

  Tarmac was producing one of his ironical suavities when he was disturbed by Blount’s fancifulness. Almost Oscar impinged upon Tarmac. He had dragged his cushion close to Chloe’s knees, and he knelt on it, with his paws together in supplication.

  “O, my god, Chloe—mercy, mercy. I have blasphemed. Oscar is afraid.”

  His insolent little slate-grey eyes challenged Tarmac.

  “I have cast a stone at the stained-glass window. I have blasphemed against an almost best seller.”

  Tarmac looked down at him over his ample waistcoat. He was stout for a man of forty. He showed himself sententious, and savagely suave.

  “It grieves me that I have no bag of nuts to-night, Oscar. But I sometimes go to the Zoo on Sunday.”

  The room laughed. Miss Parmoor’s clique cultivated supreme frankness, and Oscar was very like a monkey. He could caper; he could make himself look pathetic as though some dream-world of palm trees mocked his captivity. But the lash had stung him. He showed his teeth.

  “Nuts. O, my god, he speaks to me of nuts! Brazil and Barcelona. But—people—I implore you, defend me from Behemoth and Buns.”

  He wriggled on his cushion. He raised ironical, supplicating hands.

  “Throw him buns, throw him buns quickly, or Behemoth will trample on me. Praise him, praise him. Throw him buns, Bath buns.”

  Tarmac stood and observed him. He perspired. This fooling had a bitter edge to it.

  He said—“You have given the monkey too many cocktails, Chloe. Do get up, my dear Blount. The knees of your trousers are so precious.”

  He smirked. He s
trolled across to the drink table, nodding at various acquaintances. He helped himself to whisky. He flattered himself that he had flattened Blount. And then he heard the voice of the poet appealing to pathos.

  “Harold’s peeved. O, my god, what have I done! Sat on the crown of thorns. And they weren’t prickly. No, not in the least prickly. Let Harold suggest that my trousers were too thick. No, I assure you I must have sat on one of his bun books.”

  Tarmac sipped his whisky. He was trying to think of a retort, and nothing would come. He began to feel that the candour of Chloe’s clique was a little too primitive.

  But the world of such egoists as Harold Tarmac and Oscar Blount is a jealous world, and there can be no malice more venomous than that of the literary gentleman who is ceasing to please his public. Tarmac had had a certain vogue, and was losing it. He had arrived at that phase when a man—ceasing to be creative—takes refuge in criticism. He must have his audience. He must be listened to, even if he shows an envious eloquence in abusing his betters.

  Blount, with his monkeyish quickness, knew how to plant the dart. He planted it in Tarmac’s stout back as the novelist was saying good night to Miss Parmoor’s crowd.

  “Poor old Harold—becoming a back number, written out. Makes him touchy. Obviously.”

  Tarmac heard the remark; he had been meant to hear it. He went out with blue eyes glaring in a red and shiny face.

  Blount had called him Behemoth, and Tarmac had some of the cunning and the unforgetfulness of that order of mammal. He could wait for his opportunity and plant a ponderous foot. Yes, with his trunk, he would catch the monkey, and dash him to earth. Very vain creatures, both of them, and vanity makes men cruel. Tarmac did not rage for a night and forget in the morning. For years he had taken himself so seriously that he took insults seriously.

  If Blount had a malicious finger, so had he, and his finger was twice as thick as Blount’s. He cogitated. He knew, what many of the members of the Green Cat Club knew, that Blount concealed his burrow. No one had ever discovered where the poet lived. He had no address. His letters came to the Club. His secretiveness had a shabby significance. Someone had suggested jokingly that in his unpoetic moments Blount ran a pawnbroker’s shop.