Helena Brett's Career Part 14

He did not know, and she had only just remembered, about that dough-bun.

CHAPTER X

HONOUR

Hubert meanwhile was enjoying quite another sort of artistic evening.

On first arrival, indeed, at the Club (which proved to meet in a Hotel Coffee Room), he found himself wondering whether he might not have been wiser in keeping to the old arrangement. The Lewisham Kit Kats, on entry to their circle, did not promise so much intellectual reward as G. K. Shaw and the scorned Inst.i.tute. They had not the exotic charm of their great prototype.

He had imagined, always, a band of young enthusiasts in Literature, fresh maybe from the 'Varsity, who would be glad to hear what he had got to say and welcome him to their--it might be--weekly dinner. But here were no evening suits except his own, of which he grew now only too aware. The common dress was dark suit, bow-tie, and moustache; or with the women--for it was "mixed"--what he imagined would be blouse and skirt. They were a frowsy-looking lot, he told himself; horribly genial; and he more than suspected them of being Bohemian. There was a tortured look of gladness upon every face. They bowed elaborately and shook hands with fervour, until the whole room buzzed with brotherly salutes. And Hubert, in his dress-suit, stood among them. One by one the members were brought up and all of them shook hands. Not one among the sixty who failed to be very proud to meet him. Hubert sighed for Helena and G. K. Shaw, finding his only means of consolation in elaborating it as a good story. He wished that he could say with truth that they had not an _h_ among them, but this was not so. He would have liked them better, he decided, if that had been true. They were sn.o.bs in their own way, he felt confident, and their gentility was an affair of effort. They were that trying set, the in-betweens....

It was with genuine relief he heard that dinner was now served, and in they trooped: he first with his allotted woman; the rest, all apologetic smiles, falling in anyhow behind. They settled at the tables in a hungry silence. Hubert could see the waiters smiling at his evening dress,--or thought he could, which was equally unpleasant.

He turned hurriedly to his neighbour, whose name he had failed to catch in his agitation. He only remembered the friendly President murmuring in his ear: "Her brother is a book-reviewer," as though that gave her a niche all apart.

"How often do you have these dinners?" he decided to begin.

She aimed a toothy smile straight at him. Hubert had never noticed how unusually fat she was before, and tried hard not to seem as though he had observed it now. He looked doggedly at her light yellow hair, and then looked down again when he saw that it was not real.

"I'm not a Kit Kat, you know, Mr. Hubert Brett," she answered coyly.

"They meet every Tuesday, but we ladies are only asked when there is some special attraction, so you see you should feel very honoured! I find it most interesting" (she laid the accent upon the third syllable), "because you see, my brother is a book reviewer, so I naturally take a special interest."

"Naturally," answered Hubert.

"We always say," she went on, very animated, "just for a joke, you know, only among ourselves, that the Kit Kats have a far gayer time when we ladies are not admitted: we see them on their best behaviour!"

"Yes?" Hubert said absently, forgetting to smile or to live up in any way to this pet joke amongst the ladies. He was thinking. "What does your brother review for?" he enquired as a result.

The big lady looked on him a little sternly, not at all sure whether he had not intended to be rude. He had been very short with her pleasantry, and now was he doubting about Harold? He ought to know the name.

"For several books," she said with dignity, and turned to the man on her other side, who might not be a famous author but was the Mayor's cousin and far less stuck-up.

Hubert knew that he had failed, and his other neighbour proved unhappily to be deaf on the near side. He spent the rest of a long and essentially British meal in trying to appease the critic's sister. It was all rather difficult, and he was glad now that he had told the President he must leave early, as his wife was nervous and he had a long way to go. He could escape a little before half-past nine and they would be much happier without him. He wished now that he had refused the whole thing. Still, it _was_ something to be chosen as the guest of honour....

And, indeed, when all the meal had gone except its odour and the President had facetiously announced that the ladies might now smoke, it proved to be a very big thing indeed to be the Kit Kats' guest of honour.

Even Hubert Brett's tried capacity for absorbing flattery was strained when Mr. President, as everybody called him always, spoke minute after minute in praise of his books: recalling their names (from a list propped up on his cigar-tray), although he was sure Kit Kats would not need reminding. These sterling merits which he had just enumerated had won, he said, for Hubert Brett, if he might drop the Mr. in Art's fellowship (applause), a big following in Lewisham, and to-night's event, he felt confident, would render it yet bigger. Frankly, as President, when he thought of this fixture he had felt pleased.

(Applause.) Of the distinguished novelist's affability in acceding to their desire in spite of the many calls upon his time and recent marriage (laughter), he intended to say nothing. (Some applause.) He here read out, he confessed with a certain pride, the names of distinguished authors who had so acceded formerly, and Hubert was half disappointed yet half flattered to find himself able to agree with the President's remark that none of them was so popular or well-known an author as their guest to-night. "He has told me," slyly concluded the orator, "that the trains home are bad and that his wife is sitting up for him. (Laughter.) Those of us who are married men will understand." (Loud laughter and a high-voiced "Shame," then female t.i.ttering.) "I only pull aside the veil in this way so as to let you realise why I draw my remarks short to-night and call upon our guest of honour, Hubert Brett, for the pleasure of a few words upon the literature of to-day, in which he plays so considerable a part."

Enormous applause greeted this conclusion and to it was added the clapping of white gloves (for all the ladies wore them), as Hubert rose and stood behind his chair. Even the lady whose brother reviewed, possibly melted by hearing that her neighbour was a genius to whom much always is forgiven, smacked him playfully on the back as he got up to speak.

He was not a good speaker and prudently had written out the headings of his speech and a few epigrams that might pa.s.s as impromptu after wine.

There had not, unluckily, been any wine and all the early epigrams pa.s.sed quite unnoticed. A speech devised for 'Varsity enthusiasts was not of the true Kit Kat bouquet.

Hubert had so far got the instincts of an orator that he could realise this fact. The chilly aspect of his listeners told him that he had not gripped them; a swift ranging back to the last speech supplied the cause. He was not broad enough in his effects. They did not care for theories on writing; they wanted something personal. They wanted reminiscences. Their welcome, when he first got up, had shown they took him seriously. n.o.body of his own set was there! What harm?

Hubert Brett's speech (for no one ever used the Mr. of him afterwards) is still remembered as the most enjoyable of all the Kit Kats ever heard. Such interesting people had he met and known, known well; such vivid lights he threw upon the full life of a famous literary man.

No single member who got up to join in the discussion afterwards but started with an eulogy of their guest's work and speech.

Hubert was very pleased. He had warmed to the Kit Kat manner. He should not tell it as a comic story; it would not be fair. After all, perhaps they were not an artistic set, but then not everybody could belong to that, and they were very genial. You only had to get to know them. They were the Public anyhow, the cla.s.s for whom one wrote, and possibly they might have influence, some few of them. This woman next door, now so affable, had got a brother who reviewed for several papers. All of this must help. It was absurd to be exclusive when one came to Art. He looked upon this evening as one of the most encouraging in his whole life. Wouldn't Helena be pleased to hear it all?

And that reminded him.

With a hot shame he drew out his watch.

His speech had been long and one of many after a full dinner. It was very nearly half-past ten and a long journey home....

Full of guilt, he pulled himself together, to make his excuses. There was a gap now. No one seemed to volunteer as speaker. He----

But Mr. President was on his feet. He must not interrupt.

"Gentlemen--_and_ Ladies!" said the President amid appreciative laughter, "all the volunteers now being exhausted, I shall proceed in accordance with Kit Kat tradition to call out the reserve and ask them to speak, whether they wish it or no. And the first gentleman I think we all feel we should like to hear speak is our old valued friend and excellent critic, Mr. Henry Jenks."

This met with such general applause that Hubert felt it would be ridiculous to get up now. It also would be rude and pointed. Besides, "critic"--did he mean professional? It might be silly to offend him.

After all, these people who were asked to speak would surely be better, their estimate of his work more worth while, than those who simply wanted to hear their own voice?

Helena wouldn't mind. She was so easy-going, bless her. She would love to hear.

To the flattered relief of a vigilant President, who had observed the guest of honour's restless movement, Hubert settled once more in his chair.

He would stay ... just a little.

CHAPTER XI

PINK PAPERS AND ST. ANTHONY

It is both easy and comforting to divide men simply into opposites.

Honest, dishonest; truthful, lying; clean, dirty;--what a lot of worry it undoubtedly prevents. You trust one person all the way, another nowhere; you tell your secrets to the first and to the second nothing; it is so simple that few people can resist it, when they come to life.

And it is good enough for working purposes.

But in reality it is not so. A man all white or all black is but rarely met: the last is soon removed, the first impossible for common use. Man was devised from a more subtle palette; and if in all the millions of faces no two are alike, that is yet truer, said about the heart. The man you trust so freely has his see-saw moments, like anybody else, and if as a rule he lands the right end down, it may have been your very confidence that lent him weight. It is the same with all. They must be entered for convenience beneath the colour which they most display, but every one of them is a true moral rainbow and much more. Take it all in all, we humans are the most mixed thing that any one has ever yet invented: the reason why some scorn all other hobbies or amus.e.m.e.nts, so long as there is Man.

Geoffrey Alison was an especially odd mixture--all of course kept rigidly inside. To the mere eye he was, like most, quite simple, almost to the point of dulness. Oh yes; I see, yes; the artistic type; a gentleman though; trustworthy but slack; quite modest although jolly clever; pretty much of a white man... But inwardly he was a thing to watch because his types conflicted, and that ends with fireworks.

He joined the artist's soul--a real love for the beautiful and n.o.ble--to what perhaps may be most easily described as a pink-paper mind. He could sit and gaze happily for hours at a Corregio, forgetting the plush benches and the noisy tourists, utterly absorbed; he found a joy that was almost physical in a sudden landscape or the moon which breaks loose from its clouds and gleams on a rough sea; he would watch with a smile of pleasure the way of a woman with her child or a child with its toy; he shrank with loathing from all that was ugly, sordid--the sight of needless misery or the sound of a woman's oath; and yet--and yet he could not rid himself of the idea that there was something palpitating, wicked, spicy, about a shop-girl who held up her skirt to cross a muddy road. There was a thrill for him each time that he pa.s.sed a stage-door. Garters--champagne (always known as fizz)--corsets--chorus girls--these all held for him a br.i.m.m.i.n.g measure of romance. He was convinced that there was something specially cryptic and alluring about bar-maids, though he would never enter bars as he did not like other people's gla.s.ses. Paris to him stood for a riot of continued orgies shaming a white dawn. He was of those who for peculiar reasons can thoroughly enjoy a really English ballet. The thought of studios and models had half consciously affected the choice of his career; and if he now knew that to be illusion, so far as his experiences went, he still liked--well, one half of him--to read the old exciting fairy-tales. Perhaps they happened somewhere, still.

At times, when he was on a holiday or anywhere except at his own news-shop, he would buy, half-ashamed and furtive, those strange, elemental papers whose main task it is to tickle the broad tastes of City youths or Army officers. And he thoroughly enjoyed them--until afterwards.

Army men, in fact, who had glared at him all through a long dinner-party, often revised their estimate when coffee had come in and their wives departed; if, be it understood, the conversation drifted into a right channel. On the way home, should their wives say; "I liked that Mr. Alison, so clever!" they would reply: "M'yes? Rather an affected a.s.s, my dear: I can't stand those artistic johnnies. Still, he came out a bit over the wine and showed he _had_ got something in him. Not a bad fellow I dare say; bit of a sportsman possibly--in spite of his long hair. But I'm not sure we want to have him calling?"

Which only shows how useful it may be for any man to have two sides.

You never can please all the world with one!

Of course the one in question was entirely abstract. Geoffrey Alison would never have even dreamt of doing all the things he liked to read on paper. It would perhaps have been more healthy if he had; but no, he realised, himself, that it was only an idea.