Beasts and Super-Beasts
“He lives somewhere near there, doesn’t he?” said Eleanor. “Do you know
what his habits are? Does he take a walk at any particular time of day?”
“He usually walks down to his club about three o’clock, if it’s a fine
day. That takes him right past Goliath and Mastodon’s.”
“Let us two meet him accidentally at the street corner to-morrow,” said
Eleanor; “we can walk a little way with him, and with luck we ought to be
able to side-track him into the shop. You can say you want to get a
hair-net or something. When we’re safely there I can say: ‘I wish you’d
tell me what you want for your birthday.’ Then you’ll have everything
ready to hand—the rich cousin, the fur department, and the topic of
birthday presents.”
“It’s a great idea,” said Suzanne; “you really are a brick. Come round
to-morrow at twenty to three; don’t be late, we must carry out our ambush
to the minute.”
At a few minutes to three the next afternoon the fur-trappers walked
warily towards the selected corner. In the near distance rose the
colossal pile of Messrs. Goliath and Mastodon’s famed establishment.
The afternoon was brilliantly fine, exactly the sort of weather to tempt
a gentleman of advancing years into the discreet exercise of a leisurely
walk.
“I say, dear, I wish you’d do something for me this evening,” said
Eleanor to her companion; “just drop in after dinner on some pretext or
other, and stay on to make a fourth at bridge with Adela and the aunts.
Otherwise I shall have to play, and Harry Scarisbrooke is going to come
in unexpectedly about nine-fifteen, and I particularly want to be free to
talk to him while the others are playing.”
“Sorry, my dear, no can do,” said Suzanne; “ordinary bridge at
three-pence a hundred, with such dreadfully slow players as your aunts,
bores me to tears. I nearly go to sleep over it.”
“But I most particularly want an opportunity to talk with Harry,” urged
Eleanor, an angry glint coming into her eyes.
“Sorry, anything to oblige, but not that,” said Suzanne cheerfully; the
sacrifices of friendship were beautiful in her eyes as long as she was
not asked to make them.
Eleanor said nothing further on the subject, but the corners of her mouth
rearranged themselves.
“There’s our man!” exclaimed Suzanne suddenly; “hurry!”
Mr. Bertram Kneyght greeted his cousin and her friend with genuine
heartiness, and readily accepted their invitation to explore the crowded
mart that stood temptingly at their elbow. The plate-glass doors swung
open and the trio plunged bravely into the jostling throng of buyers and
loiterers.
“Is it always as full as this?” asked Bertram of Eleanor.
“More or less, and autumn sales are on just now,” she replied.
Suzanne, in her anxiety to pilot her cousin to the desired haven of the
fur department, was usually a few paces ahead of the others, coming back
to them now and then if they lingered for a moment at some attractive
counter, with the nervous solicitude of a parent rook encouraging its
young ones on their first flying expedition.
“It’s Suzanne’s birthday on Wednesday next,” confided Eleanor to Bertram
Kneyght at a moment when Suzanne had left them unusually far behind; “my
birthday comes the day before, so we are both on the look-out for
something to give each other.”
“Ah,” said Bertram. “Now, perhaps you can advise me on that very point.
I want to give Suzanne something, and I haven’t the least idea what she
wants.”
“She’s rather a problem,” said Eleanor. “She seems to have everything
one can think of, lucky girl. A fan is always useful; she’ll be going to
a lot of dances at Davos this winter. Yes, I should think a fan would
please her more than anything. After our birthdays are over we inspect
each other’s muster of presents, and I always feel dreadfully humble.
She gets such nice things, and I never have anything worth showing. You
see, none of my relations or any of the people who give me presents are
at all well off, so I can’t expect them to do anything more than just
remember the day with some little trifle. Two years ago an uncle on my
mother’s side of the family, who had come into a small legacy, promised
me a silver-fox stole for my birthday. I can’t tell you how excited I
was about it, how I pictured myself showing it off to all my friends and
enemies. Then just at that moment his wife died, and, of course, poor
man, he could not be expected to think of birthday presents at such a
time. He has lived abroad ever since, and I never got my fur. Do you
know, to this day I can scarcely look at a silver-fox pelt in a shop
window or round anyone’s neck without feeling ready to burst into tears.
I suppose if I hadn’t had the prospect of getting one I shouldn’t feel
that way. Look, there is the fan counter, on your left; you can easily
slip away in the crowd. Get her as nice a one as you can see—she is such
a dear, dear girl.”
“Hullo, I thought I had lost you,” said Suzanne, making her way through
an obstructive knot of shoppers. “Where is Bertram?”
“I got separated from him long ago. I thought he was on ahead with you,”
said Eleanor. “We shall never find him in this crush.”
Which turned out to be a true prediction.
“All our trouble and forethought thrown away,” said Suzanne sulkily, when
they had pushed their way fruitlessly through half a dozen departments.
“I can’t think why you didn’t grab him by the arm,” said Eleanor; “I
would have if I’d known him longer, but I’d only just been introduced.
It’s nearly four now, we’d better have tea.”
Some days later Suzanne rang Eleanor up on the telephone.
“Thank you very much for the photograph frame. It was just what I
wanted. Very good of you. I say, do you know what that Kneyght person
has given me? Just what you said he would—a wretched fan. What? Oh
yes, quite a good enough fan in its way, but still . . .”
“You must come and see what he’s given me,” came in Eleanor’s voice over
the ’phone.
“You! Why should he give you anything?”
“Your cousin appears to be one of those rare people of wealth who take a
pleasure in giving good presents,” came the reply.
“I wondered why he was so anxious to know where she lived,” snapped
Suzanne to herself as she rang off.
A cloud has arisen between the friendships of the two young women; as far
as Eleanor is concerned the cloud has a silver-fox lining.
THE PHILANTHROPIST AND THE HAPPY CAT
Jocantha Bessbury was in the mood to be serenely and graciously happy.
Her world was a pleasant place, and it was wearing one of its pleasantest
aspects. Gregory had managed to get home for a hurried lunch and a smoke
afterwards in the little snuggery; the lunch had been a good one, and
there was just time to do justice to the coffee and cigarettes. Both
were excellent in their way, and Gregory was, in his way, an excellent
husband. Jocantha rather suspected herself of making him a very charming
wife, and more than suspected herself of having a first-rate dressmaker.
“I don’t suppose a more thoroughly contented personality is to be found
in all Chelsea,” observed Jocantha in allusion to herself; “except
perhaps Attab,” she continued, glancing towards the large tabby-marked
cat that lay in considerable ease in a corner of the divan. “He lies
there, purring and dreaming, shifting his limbs now and then in an
ecstasy of cushioned comfort. He seems the incarnation of everything
soft and silky and velvety, without a sharp edge in his composition, a
dreamer whose philosophy is sleep and let sleep; and then, as evening
draws on, he goes out into the garden with a red glint in his eyes and
slays a drowsy sparrow.”
“As every pair of sparrows hatches out ten or more young ones in the
year, while their food supply remains stationary, it is just as well that
the Attabs of the community should have that idea of how to pass an
amusing afternoon,” said Gregory. Having delivered himself of this sage
comment he lit another cigarette, bade Jocantha a playfully affectionate
good-bye, and departed into the outer world.
“Remember, dinner’s a wee bit earlier to-night, as we’re going to the
Haymarket,” she called after him.
Left to herself, Jocantha continued the process of looking at her life
with placid, introspective eyes. If she had not everything she wanted in
this world, at least she was very well pleased with what she had got.
She was very well pleased, for instance, with the snuggery, which
contrived somehow to be cosy and dainty and expensive all at once. The
porcelain was rare and beautiful, the Chinese enamels took on wonderful
tints in the firelight, the rugs and hangings led the eye through
sumptuous harmonies of colouring. It was a room in which one might have
suitably entertained an ambassador or an archbishop, but it was also a
room in which one could cut out pictures for a scrap-book without feeling
that one was scandalising the deities of the place with one’s litter.
And as with the snuggery, so with the rest of the house, and as with the
house, so with the other departments of Jocantha’s life; she really had
good reason for being one of the most contented women in Chelsea.
From being in a mood of simmering satisfaction with her lot she passed to
the phase of being generously commiserating for those thousands around
her whose lives and circumstances were dull, cheap, pleasureless, and
empty. Work girls, shop assistants and so forth, the class that have
neither the happy-go-lucky freedom of the poor nor the leisured freedom
of the rich, came specially within the range of her sympathy. It was sad
to think that there were young people who, after a long day’s work, had
to sit alone in chill, dreary bedrooms because they could not afford the
price of a cup of coffee and a sandwich in a restaurant, still less a
shilling for a theatre gallery.
Jocantha’s mind was still dwelling on this theme when she started forth
on an afternoon campaign of desultory shopping; it would be rather a
comforting thing, she told herself, if she could do something, on the
spur of the moment, to bring a gleam of pleasure and interest into the
life of even one or two wistful-hearted, empty-pocketed workers; it would
add a good deal to her sense of enjoyment at the theatre that night. She
would get two upper circle tickets for a popular play, make her way into
some cheap tea-shop, and present the tickets to the first couple of
interesting work girls with whom she could casually drop into
conversation. She could explain matters by saying that she was unable to
use the tickets herself and did not want them to be wasted, and, on the
other hand, did not want the trouble of sending them back. On further
reflection she decided that it might be better to get only one ticket and
give it to some lonely-looking girl sitting eating her frugal meal by
herself; the girl might scrape acquaintance with her next-seat neighbour
at the theatre and lay the foundations of a lasting friendship.
With the Fairy Godmother impulse strong upon her, Jocantha marched into a
ticket agency and selected with immense care an upper circle seat for the
“Yellow Peacock,” a play that was attracting a considerable amount of
discussion and criticism. Then she went forth in search of a tea-shop
and philanthropic adventure, at about the same time that Attab sauntered
into the garden with a mind attuned to sparrow stalking. In a corner of
an A.B.C. shop she found an unoccupied table, whereat she promptly
installed herself, impelled by the fact that at the next table was
sitting a young girl, rather plain of feature, with tired, listless eyes,
and a general air of uncomplaining forlornness. Her dress was of poor
material, but aimed at being in the fashion, her hair was pretty, and her
complexion bad; she was finishing a modest meal of tea and scone, and she