The Rustle of Silk
them in Washington, while pretending to observe the laws laid down by
the Allies as to her disarmament and the manufacture of war materials
under her treaty obligations. Krupps had designed new methods of
artillery fire control, new fuses for projectiles, new gas engines, new
naval fire-control devices, new parts for airplanes, new chemicals and
new radio apparatuses. To what end? In the face of these facts he could
perfectly well understand the French attitude, hysterical as it seemed
to be. They knew her for a liar, a cheat and an everlasting enemy and
whenever Fallaray returned from those interminable conferences in Paris,
he did so with the recollection upon him of something in the eyes of
Foch and other Frenchmen whose love of country was a religion that put a
touch of fear into his soul. What were they all doing, these politicians
of England, of the United States, of Italy? Were they not those very
same ostriches who during all the years that led up to the War had
hidden their heads in the sand,--the same heads, precisely the same
sand?
As he entered the House that afternoon to be heckled with questions
which he dared not answer truthfully, he wished that he had been born
not to politics but to sportsmanship. He wished that he had carried on
his undergraduate love of games, had kept himself fit, had joined the
army as a subaltern in August, '14, and had found the German bullet upon
which his name had been written. In such a way, at any rate, he could
better have served his country than by being at that grave moment an
impotent piece on the political chessboard. Both publically and
privately this man felt himself to be a failure. In the House of Commons
he was more or less friendless, regarded as an unreliable party man. In
his home he was a lodger, ignored by the woman who ran his house. He was
without love, joy, kindness, the interest and devotion of any one sweet
person who could put her soft fingers on his forehead and give him back
his optimism. He was like Samson shackled to the windlass which he
pushed round and round with gradually diminishing strength.
III
Lola spent the afternoon with Ernest Treadwell. Loyalty to her old
friend took her to the public library on her way back to lunch to ask
him to fetch her for a little walk in the afternoon. The flash of joy
that came into that boy's eyes at the sight of her rewarded her well and
sufficiently. To tell the truth, she would much have preferred to devote
the whole of that afternoon to daydreams, but she knew, no one better,
the peculiar temperament of young Treadwell and his hungry need of the
inspiration which she alone could give him. But just as the boy arrived,
a telegram was handed in addressed abruptly to "Breezy, 77 Queen's Road,
Bayswater." It was opened, naturally enough, by John, who, to the
astonishment of half a dozen customers, emitted a howl of rage. Getting
up from his chair behind the glass screen, he wobbled into the back
parlor where Lola was seated with Ernest, deciding as to whether they
should take the motor bus to Wimbleton Common or the train to Windsor.
With an air of comic drama, though he did not intend it to be comic, the
watchmaker flung the telegram upon the crowded table. The remains of
lunch hobnobbed with kodaks, tissue paper, balls of string and empty
cardboard boxes. The telegram fell on a pat of butter and to Ernest
Treadwell's imaginative eye it looked like a hand grenade stuck into a
blob of clay. To him, somehow, there was always something sinister about
a telegram. Was this one going to ruin the brief happiness of his
afternoon?
It was from Feo and ran like this. "I shall need you at six o'clock.
Sorry. You had better be at Dover Street at five-thirty. Am dining in
town."
Lola read these words over again and again. Windsor was impossible. Even
the trip to Wimbleton Common could not be made. But how was this going
to affect the Carlton at seven-thirty? She longed above all things once
more to get into the clothes and the proper social surroundings of
Madame de Breze, and hear people talking what had become her own
language and listen to the music of a good orchestra. She felt that she
deserved another adventure with Chalfont. This erratic twist by Lady
Feo, whose movements seemed that week-end to resemble those of the
woodcock, shattered all these plans. At least,--did they? Not if she
knew it.
"Well, there it is," she said and gave the telegram to Ernest Treadwell,
who had been watching her face with the most painful anxiety. "She who
must be obeyed. I'm afraid this means that all we can do is to wander
about for a couple of hours and that our little jaunt to Windsor must be
postponed. And we never went to Hampton Court to see the crocuses, did
we? Bad luck."
But while she was speaking, her brain was hitting all its cylinders and
racing ahead. She would go to the Carlton, Lady Feo or no Lady Feo. She
would get her dress from Mrs. Rumbold, with her shoes and stockings, and
take them to Dover Street. She would have to dress at Dover Street,
bribe Ellen to get her a taxicab and slip down at twelve o'clock to let
her in to the area door. That must be the plan of action, whatever the
risks might be.
She sprang to her feet and flung an arm round her father's neck,--her
disappointed, affectionate father who had looked forward to a merry
evening at the local music hall and to one of the old-time Sundays when
he could march out in his best clothes and show off Lola to the
neighbors. "It's life, Daddy," she said. "It can't be helped. You have
your wrist watches. I have Lady Feo. What's the good of grumbling? Tell
Mother when you get the chance. At the moment she is busy and mustn't be
disturbed. Come on, Ernest, let's go."
But Ernest had other views, now that the country was impossible. "I've
got something in my pocket I want to read to you," he said. "Might we go
up to the drawing-room, do you think?"
That was excellent. That made things ever so much easier. She could give
Ernest until four o'clock or a little after and then get rid of him, go
round to Mrs. Rumbold and get eventually to Dover Street in time to have
everything ready for Lady Feo on her arrival.
And so they went upstairs and opened up the aloof room, with its
persistent and insular odor of the Sabbath and antimacassars, and drew
up chairs to the window. The row of houses opposite, which had been
converted into shops, was bathed in the afternoon sun. A florist's
windows alight with flowers looked like a line from Tennyson in the
middle of a financial article in a newspaper. Traffic roared in the
street below but did not quite succeed in drowning a weather-beaten
piano accompanying a throaty baritone singing, "She dwelt amid the
untrodden wiys.--And h'oh the differ-rence ter me."
With a thoughtfulness that seemed to Ernest Treadwell to be exquisite,
Lola shut the window so that she might not miss a single word that she
was about to hear. Without any preliminaries and with the colossal
egotism that is part and parcel of all writing, the young librarian took
from his pocket a wad of manuscript, and in a deadly monotone commenced
to read his epic. It was in blank verse and ran to about sixteen pages.
It retold the old story of Paola and Francesca, not in the manner of
Stephen Phillips and not in imitation of Masefield or any of the younger
poets, but in the Treadwell way,--jerky, explosive and here and there
out of key; but for all that filled with a rough picturesqueness and
passion, with a quite extraordinary sense of color and feeling which
held Lola breathless from beginning to end. It was this boy's greatest
effort, on which he had been working for innumerable months, burning the
midnight oil with the influence of Lola upon him, and his great love
which lifted him into ecstasy.--And when he had finished and ventured to
look into her face, he saw there something that crowned his head with
laurels and filled his heart with tears.
"Oh," she said. "Oh.--Ernie, you've done it. It's beautiful. You are a
poet. However far behind them all, you are in the line of great
singers." And she reached out for the manuscript and saw that on the
first page, in angular boyish writing, were the words, "To Lola,--of
whom I dream."
Simpkins, Treadwell, Chalfont,--but, oh, where was Fallaray, her hero,
the man who needed love?
IV
When Feo bounced into her room a little after five-thirty she found a
perfectly composed and efficient Lola who had laid out a selection of
her mistress's most recent frocks with the accompanying shoes and
stockings. There was nothing about the girl to indicate her latent
excitement and her determination under any circumstances to keep her
appointment at the Carlton. The cardboard box from Mrs. Rumbold's was up
in her room. Ellen had been interviewed and had promised to slip down
and open the area door at twelve o'clock.
Feo nodded and gave one of her widest smiles. "Good for you, Lola," she
said. "If you had been out for the day or something, I should, of
course, have been able to do my hair, dress and get off,--but not so
well as when you're here. If it came to a push I suppose I could do
everything for myself, even cook my breakfast; but I should hate it and
it wouldn't give me any pleasure.--That one," she said, and pointed to a
most peculiar frock that looked like the effort of that
overconscientious chameleon when it endeavored to imitate the tartan of
the Gordon Highlanders. It was a very chaos of colors, but she was in
the highest spirits and evidently felt in a riotous mood. And while she
gave herself up to Lola, in order to have a few deep waves put in her
wiry bobbed hair, she babbled as though she were talking to Mrs. Malwood
or one of her other particular friends.
"I don't know what the devil's happened to this week-end," she said.
"Every blessed thing's gone wrong. That glossy scoundrel at
Chilton,--good Lord, I must be more careful,--and all those dullards at
Aylesbury! We played bridge nearly all night and no one ever doubled. It
was like going to a race meeting and finding the anti-vice brigade where
the bookies ought to be. I simply couldn't stay there another night, so
I slept until four o'clock this afternoon, had a cup of tea in my room
and dashed up. To-night I hope for better things. An old friend of
mine--and really old friends have their points--got back from India
yesterday. I saw his name in the paper and rang him up at the Rag. We're
going to dine and dance and so forth, quite like old times; so do your
best with me, Lola. I haven't seen this man for five years.--Don't allow
any of them to remain round my eyes.--Oh, by the way, I'm really awfully
sorry to have smashed up your plans and I don't see how you can go back
to your father and mother to-morrow because I shall want to be dressed
about ten o'clock and I shall be home again to sleep. So it pretty well
rots your day, Lola. Never mind, I'll see that you have a little holiday
before long."
And she smiled up into Lola's face and for the moment looked very
womanly and charming and perfectly sincere. For all her curious tangents
and unexpected twists and the peculiar hardness and unscrupulous
selfishness that she brought into her dealings with every one, this
woman had good points; and even when she hurt her friends deeply she had
an unexplainable knack of retaining their loyalty. She really liked Lola
and admired her and would have gone very far out of her way to look
after her.--The pity of it was that she had not been born a man.
She babbled on while Lola polished her up and did all those quite
unnecessary things which modern life has invented for women before they
will show themselves to the public. In the frankest possible way and