The Rustle of Silk
matters what you and I want, my dear. I've come to the conclusion that
Lola knows what she's going to do, and we couldn't make her alter her
mind if we went down on our knees to her."
Breezy was profoundly interested. Many times he had discovered that the
little woman who professed to be nothing but a housewife, and very
rarely gave forth any definite opinions of her own, said things from
time to time which almost blew the roof off the shop. She was possessed
of an uncanny intuition, what he regarded almost as second sight, and
when she was in that mood he squashed his own egotism and listened to
her with his mouth open.
So she went on undisturbed. "What I think is that Lola means to aim
high. I've worked it out in my mind that she got into the house in Dover
Street to learn enough to rise above such men as Simpkins and Ernest
Treadwell, so that she could fit herself to marry a gentleman. And I
think she's right. Look at her. Look at those little ankles and wrists
and the daintiness of her in every way. She's not Queen's Road,
Bayswater, and never was. She's Mayfair from head to foot, mind and
body. We're just accidents in her life, you and I, John, my dear. She
will be a great lady, you mark my words."
Breezy didn't altogether like being called an accident. He took a good
deal of credit for the fact that Lola was Mayfair, as Emily called it,
rather well. And he said so, and added, "How about the old de Breze
blood? You forget that, my being a little jeweler in a small shop. She's
thrown back, that's what she's done, and I'll tell you what it is,
missus. She won't be ashamed of us, whoever she marries. _She_ doesn't
look upon us as accidents, whatever you may do, and if some man who's A
1 at Lloyd's falls in love with her and makes her his wife, her old
father and mother will be drawn up the ladder after her, if I know
anything about Lola. But it's a dream, just a dream," hoping that it
wasn't, and only saying so as a sort of insurance against bad luck. It
was a new idea and an exciting one, which put that place on the Thames
into the discard. Personally he had hitherto regarded the Simpkins
proposal in a very favorable light. That little man had more money than
he himself could ever make, and, after all, a highly respectable public
house on the upper Thames, patronized by really nice people, had been,
in his estimation, something not to be sneezed at, by any means.
"Well," said Mrs. Breezy, "you may call it a dream. I don't. Lola thinks
things out. She's always thought things out. She became a lady's maid
for a purpose. When she's finished with that, she'll move on to
something else. I don't know what, because she keeps things to herself.
But she knows more than you and I will ever know. I've noticed that
often. And when she was here on Sunday, and we walked about the streets,
she was no more Lola Breezy than Lady Feo is, and there was something in
the way she laid the dinner and insisted on waiting on us which showed
me that she knew she wasn't. She was what country people call 'fey' that
night. Her body was with us, but her brain and heart and spirit were far
out of our reach. I'm certain of that, John, and I'm certain of
something else, too. She's in love, and she knows her man, and he's a
big man, and very soon she'll have a surprise for us, and it will _be_ a
surprise. You mark my words."
And when she got up to answer the tinkle of the bell on the shop door,
she left the fat John Breezy quivering with excitement and a sort of
awe. Emily was not much of a talker, but when she started she said more
in two minutes than other women say in a week. And after he had told
himself how good it would be for his little girl to win great happiness,
he put both his pale hands on the table, and heaved a tremendous sigh.
"Oh, my God," he said. "And if she could help us to get out of this
shop, never to see a watch again, to be no longer the slave of that
damned little bell, to go away and live in the country, and grow things,
and listen to the birds, and watch the sunsets."
VII
At that moment George Lytham drove his car through the gates of Chilton
Park and up to the old house. He asked for Mr. Fallaray, was shown into
the library and paced up and down the room with his hands deep in his
pockets, but with his chin high, his eyes gleaming and a curious smile
about his mouth.
The moment had come for which he had been waiting since the Armistice,
for which he had been working with all his energy since he had got back
into civilian clothes. He had left London and driven down to Whitecross
on a wave of exhilaration. There had been a meeting at his office at
which all the men of his party had been present,--young men, ex-soldiers
and sailors temporarily commissioned, who had come out of the great
catastrophe to look things straight in the face. "Fallaray is our man,"
they had all said unanimously. "Where is he?" And Lytham, who was his
friend, had been sent to fetch him and bring him back to London that
night. The time was ripe for action.
But when the door opened and Fallaray strolled in--he had never seen him
stroll before--George drew up short, amazed.--But this was not Fallaray.
This was not the man he had seen the previous Friday with rounded
shoulders, haggard face and eyes in the back of his head. Here was one
who looked like a younger brother of Fallaray, a care-free younger
brother, sun-tanned, irresponsible, playing with life.
"My dear Fallaray," he said, hardly knowing what to say, "what have you
done to yourself?"
And Fallaray sent out a ringing laugh and clapped young Lochinvar on the
shoulder. "You notice the change, eh? It's wonderful, wonderful. I say
to myself all day long how wonderful it is." And he flung his hands up
and laughed again and threw himself into a chair and stuck his long legs
out. "But what the devil do you want?" he asked lightly, enjoying the
opportunity of showing the serious man who came out of a future that he
himself had forgotten that he was beginning to revel in his past. "I
said that some one would jolly soon see the wreckage on the shore of my
Eden and send out a rescue party, and here you are."
Lytham didn't understand. The words were Greek to him and the attitude
so surprising that it awakened in him a sort of irritation. Good God,
hadn't this man, who meant so much to them, read the papers? Wasn't he
aware of the fact that the time had arrived in the history of politics
when a strong concerted effort might put a new face upon everything?
"Look here, Fallaray," he said, "let's talk sense."
"My dear chap," said Fallaray, "you've come to the wrong man for that. I
know nothing about sense, and what's more, I don't want to. Talk romance
to me, quote poetry, tell me your dreams, turn somersaults, but don't
come here and expect any sense from me. I've given it up."
But Lytham was not to be put off. He said to himself, "The air of this
place has gone to Fallaray's head. He needed a holiday. The reaction has
played a trick upon him. He's pulling my leg." He drew up a chair and
leaned forward eagerly and put his hand on Fallaray's knee. "All right,
old boy," he said. "Have your joke, but come down from the ether in
which you're floating and listen to facts. The wily little P. M. who's
been between the devil and the deep sea for a couple of years is getting
rattled. With the capitalists pushing him one way and the labor leaders
shouldering him the other, he's losing his feet. The by-elections show
the way the wind's blowing in the country and they've made a draught in
Downing Street. Trust a Celt as a political barometer."
"There's been no wind here, George," said Fallaray, putting his hands
behind his head. "Golden days, my dear fellow, golden days, with the
gentlest of breezes."
But Lytham ignored the interruption. In five minutes, if he knew his
man, he would have Fallaray sitting up straight. "Our anti-waste men are
winning every seat they stand for," he went on, "and this means the
nucleus of a new party, our party. The country is behind us, Fallaray,
and if we keep our heads and get down to work, the next general election
will not be a walk-over for the labor men but for us. Lloyd George is on
his last legs, in spite of his newspapers, and with him the
Coalitionists disappear to a man. As for Trades-Unionism, the coal
strike has proved that it oscillates between communism and socialism,
the nationalizing of everything--mines, railways, land, capital--and the
country doesn't like it and isn't ready for it. The way, therefore, is
easy if we organize at once under a leader who has won the reputation
for honesty, and that leader is yourself. But there is not a moment to
waste. My car is outside. Drive up with me now and meet us to-morrow
morning. Unanimously we look to you." He sprang to his feet and made a
gesture towards the door.
But Fallaray settled more comfortably into his chair and crossed one
long leg over the other. "Do you know your Hood?" he asked.
"Hood?--Why?"
"Listen to this:
"'Peace and rest at length have come,
All the day's long toil is past,
And each heart is whispering Home,
Home at last.'"
"But what has that got to do with it?"
"That's my answer to you, George." And Fallaray waved his hand, as
though the question was settled.
If Lytham had been older or younger, and if his admiration and esteem
for Fallaray had not become so deep-rooted, he must have broken out into
a torrent of incredulity and impatience. What he did, instead,
persuading himself, easily enough, that his friend had not recovered
from his recent disappointments, although he had obviously benefited in
health, was to go over the whole ground again, more quietly and in
greater detail, and to wind up with the assertion that Fallaray was
essential to the cause.
To all of which Fallaray listened with a sort of respectful interest but
without the slightest enthusiasm, and remained lolling in his chair. He
might have been a Buckinghamshire Squire who knew no language but his
own, hearing a Frenchman holding forth for no apparent reason on
Napoleon. He watched his friend's mouth, appraised his occasional
gestures, ran his eyes with liking over his well-knit body and found his
voice pleasant to the ear. Beyond that, nothing.
Lytham began to feel like a man who throws stones into a lake. All his
points seemed to disappear into an unruffled and indifferent surface of
water. It was incomprehensible. It was also indescribably baffling. What
on earth had come over this man who, until a few days before, had been
burning with a desire to reconstruct and working himself into a
condition of nervous exhaustion in an endeavor to pull his country out
of chaos?
"Well," he said, after an extraordinary pause, during which everything
seemed to have fallen flat. "What are you going to do?"
"But I've told you, my dear George," said Fallaray, with a long sigh of
happiness. "I have found a home, at last."
"You mean that you are going to let us down?"
"I mean that I am going to live my own life."
"That you're out of politics?"
"Yes. My resignation goes in to-morrow."
"My God! Why?"
Fallaray got up and went to the window. He stood for a moment looking
out at a corner of the terrace where several steps led down to a
fountain in which, out of an urn held in the hands of a weather-worn
boy, water was flowing, colored like a rainbow by the evening sun.
And Lytham followed him, wondering whether he had gone off his head,
become feeble-minded as the result of overstrain. And then he saw Lola
sitting on the edge of the fountain, with her face tilted up, her hands
clasped round one of her knees and her golden hair gleaming.