§ 6
Mr. Preemby thought they were going back for coffee and a little talk and then bed; he had no idea of the immense amount of evening still before him. He knew nothing as yet of the capacity for sitting up late and getting lively in the small hours possessed by this new world of young people into which Christina Alberta had led him.
And in a sort of hectic discontinuous way they were lively for hours. It became vaguely evident to Mr. Preemby that there was a periodic “day” set apart by Mrs. Crumb for evening gatherings in the studio, and that this evening he had chosen for his settling down was such an evening. Fresh people dropped in. One it seemed was a portentous arrival, he came in quite soon after the return from Poppinetti’s; he was very fat and broad, a white-faced man of forty or so, rather short of breath, with exceedingly intelligent eyes under a broad forehead and a rather loose, peevish mouth. He carried himself with the involuntary self-consciousness of a man who thinks he is pointed out. His name it seemed was Paul Lambone, and he had written all sorts of things. Everybody treated him with a faint deference. He greeted Christina Alberta with great warmth.
“How’s the newest Van?” he said, shaking her hand as though he liked it, and speaking with a singularly small voice for so ample a person. “How’s the last step in Advance?”
“You’ve got to meet my father,” said Christina Alberta.
“Has it got a father? I thought it just growed like Topsy—out of Nietzsche and Bernard Shaw and all the rest of them.”
“H’rrmp,” said Mr. Preemby.
Mr. Lambone turned to him. “What a Handful a daughter is!” he said, and bowed slightly towards Christina Alberta, “even the best of them.”
Mr. Preemby replied after the manner of the parents in Woodford Wells. “She’s a good daughter to me, sir.”
“Yes, but they aren’t like sons.”
“You have sons, sir, I presume.”
“Only dream children. I’ve not had your courage to realize things. I’ve married a hundred times in theory and here I am just a sort of bachelor uncle to everybody. Poking in among the younger people and observing their behaviour with”—his intelligent eyes looked quietly over his garrulous mouth at Christina Alberta—“terror and admiration.”
Two other visitors appeared in the doorway and Mr. Lambone turned from Mr. Preemby to greet them as soon as Fay had done her welcome, a fierce-looking young man with an immense head of black hair and a little lady like a china doll dressed to remind one of Watteau.
Conversation became general and Mr. Preemby receded into the background of events.
He found himself side by side with his friend with the silver hair, against his bookcase. “I didn’t expect a party,” he said.
“I thought so too.”
“I only got here this afternoon. The vans came late and lots of my things are still to be unpacked.”
The silver-haired man nodded sympathetically. “Often the case,” he murmured.
Every one was talking loudly. It was difficult to hear. It was confused sort of talking, and whenever two or three seemed to be interested in what they were saying, Fay Crumb went and interrupted them as a good hostess should. Other people, only vaguely apprehended by Mr. Preemby, got into the studio somehow. There was a red-haired young lady with a tremendous decolletage; behind you could see almost to her waist. He h’rrmp’d at it and thought of saying something about it, something cold and quiet, to the silver-haired man. But he didn’t. He couldn’t think of anything sufficiently cold and quiet to say.
Fay Crumb came and asked whether he would like some whisky or beer. “Not on the top of that nice Chianti, thank you,” said Mr. Preemby.
The conversation seemed to get noisier and noisier. In one corner Harold Crumb could be heard quoting the poems of Vachel Lindsay. Then Mr. Lambone came up and seemed to want to talk about the Lost Atlantis, but Mr. Preemby was shy of talking about the Lost Atlantis with Mr. Lambone. “Getting on all right, Daddy?” said Christina Alberta, drifting by and not waiting for any answer but an “h’rrmp.”
There appeared three young people with a gramophone they explained they had just bought, and Fay discovered that the beer had been forgotten and sent Harold out to borrow some from a neighbour. These new-comers made no very profound impression on Mr. Preemby’s now jaded mind, except that one of them, the owner of the gramophone, a very fair young man with a long, intelligent nose, was wearing the big horn of the gramophone as a headdress, and that he meant to have that gramophone going whatever else might occur.
The music was dance-music, jazz for the most part and a few waltzes, and it revived Mr. Preemby considerably. He sat up and beat time with the leg-bones of a roc, and presently two or three couples were dancing on the studio floor. Curious dancing, Mr. Preemby thought; almost like walking—jiggety walking with sudden terrific back-swipes of the legs. There was an interruption when Harold returned with the borrowed beer—bringing its lenders with it. Then there was a general clamour for Christina Alberta and Teddy to “do” their dance. Teddy was quite willing but Christina Alberta seemed reluctant, and when Mr. Preemby saw the dance he was not surprised.
“H’rrmp,” he said, and stroked his moustache and looked at the silver-haired man.
It really was too familiar altogether; for some moments the principals vanished upstairs, and came back altered. For some reason Teddy had adopted a cloth cap and a red neck-wrap; he was, in fact, being an Apache, and the bearing of Christina Alberta had become very proud and spirited with her arms akimbo.
Every one backed against the walls to clear a dancing floor. At the beginning it wasn’t so bad. But presently this Mr. Teddy was pitching Christina Alberta about, throwing her over his shoulder, taking hold of her, bending her backward, holding her almost upside down, both legs in the air and her hands dragging on the ground. And she was red and excited and seemed to like these violent familiarities. There was a kind of undesirable suitability between them for such purposes. She and Teddy looked into each other’s eyes with a sort of intimacy and yet with a sort of fierce defiance. At one point in the extraordinary dance she had to smack his face, a good hard smack, nicely timed. She did it with a spirit that made every one applaud. Whereupon he smiled and took her nice little neck in his hands and strangled her with great realism.
Then the gramophone had its death rattle and the dance was over.
Mr. Preemby’s throat had not troubled him much since dinner, but now he said “h’rrmp” repeatedly.
They wanted Christina Alberta, bright and panting and shock-headed, to repeat the performance, but she wouldn’t. She had had a glimpse of the solemn dismay and perplexity upon her Daddy’s face.
The people from the studio next door were the next to give a display: they obliged with an imitation of a Russian imitation of a peasant dance from Saratoff. There was a gramophone record that was not quite the proper music, but it would do. That dance really amused Mr. Preemby. The young man went down quite close to the floor and kicked out his feet with the greatest agility and the girl was as wooden as a doll. Every one clapped hands in time to the music, and so did Mr. Preemby.
And then came a further irruption. Five people in fancy dress demanding beer. They impressed Mr. Preemby as strange and bright-coloured, but totally uninteresting. One wore a red coxcomb and was dressed as a jester in cap and bells. The others just wore tights and bright things that signified nothing at all. They had been at some party given by somebody or other for the “Young people.” They announced with shouts, “They shut down at midnight. Yes, they shut down at midnight. When the young people go to bed.”
It was only too manifest that No. 8 Lonsdale Mews meant to do nothing of the sort.
Beer. Mr. Preemby declined. The last of the beer. Cigarettes. Much smoke. The last of the whisky. More gramophone, more dancing and Harold Crumb’s voice loose again in recitation. Beer or whisky had thickened it. But there were countervailing noises. Movement. A circle was cleared. Not more dancing! No. Feats of strength and dexterity with chairs, performed chiefly by Teddy Winterton, the gramophone owner, and Harold. This stunting stopped presently and the company flowed back towards the middle of the room. Talk Mr. Preemby could not follow; phrases he could not understand. Nobody taking the slightest notice of him.
A sense of weariness and futility and desolation came upon him. How differently were the evenings of the past spent by the good wise people of the lost Atlantis! Philosophical discourse they had, the lute, the lyre. Elevated thoughts.
He caught sight of Mrs. Crumb yawning furtively. Suddenly, stupendously he yawned. And yawned again.
“Yaaw,” he said to Paul Lambone who was at his side.
“Proyawaw—Prolly thiswe sitting on my beawawd.”
“You live here?” said Mr. Lambone.
“Come to-day. Christina Albyawawawter arranged it.”
“The devil she did!” said Mr. Lambone, and looked across the studio at her. For some moments he seemed lost in thought.
“Very remarkable young woman that daughter of yours,” he said. “Makes me feel old-fashioned.”
He looked at the wrist-watch he wore, “Half-past one,” he said. “I’ll start the Go....”