Chapter XV At Weymouth
I
Only lookers-on at the human comedy can be consistently philosophical. The drama is too exciting, too distracting to the players. When a man is chasing his hat along a gusty thoroughfare, he takes little heed of the headgear of others. Till now Posy’s outlook had been girlishly critical. Her ideas and ideals were coloured or discoloured by the persons with whom she came in contact, but she was modest and sensible enough to realize that her experience of the big things of life was negligible. She had never suffered sharp pain either of mind or body. The death of her grandmother affected her subjectively. A familiar figure had been removed from her small circle. A landmark had vanished for ever. It was awful to reflect that her own mother might have been taken. She remembered an incident at school, the summoning of a girl about her own age, a chum, to the presence of the headmistress. The girl, to the wonder of all, had not returned to the class-room, but Posy saw her an hour later putting her things together for a long journey. The girl’s face had changed terribly. In answer to the first eager question, she had said, drearily: “My mother is dead.”
Posy burst into tears; the girl’s eyes were dry. Then Posy stammered out: “Did you love her very much?” and the other laughed, actually laughed, as she replied: “Love her? She was all I had in the world!” This glimpse of a grief beyond tears was a unique experience, something which transcended imagination, and something, therefore, not fully absorbed. For many nights Posy was haunted by the vision of that white, drawn face, with its hungry, despairing expression; then it slowly faded away. By this time, also, she had almost forgotten the Honeybun stories of the submerged tenth. Bexhill breezes had blown them out of her mind. Somewhere in festering slums and alleys, men and women and children were fighting desperately against disease, poverty, and vice. Teachers had pointed out, with kindly common sense, that it would be morbid and futile to allow the mind to dwell upon conditions which, for the moment, a schoolgirl was powerless to ameliorate. With relief, Posy had purged her thoughts of such horrors.
And now her father raised the question—What was to be done with this fancy piece?
Posy answered that question after her own fashion. The Chrysostom aforesaid—excellent, practical parson!—had indicated a task. Under his teaching and preaching Posy had returned gladly enough to the fold of the Church of England. She no longer thought of Omnipotence as a vague essence permeating the universe. The Deity had become personal. Chrysostom, however, was too sensible a man to fill the minds of schoolgirls with doctrinal problems. He preached practical Christianity with sincerity and eloquence. The nail he hammered home into youthful pates was this: “Make the world a pleasanter place for others, and you will find it more pleasant for yourselves.” The girls at Posy’s school indulged in mild chaff over this dictum. Sweet seventeen admonished blushing sixteen to “Be a sunbeam!” Another catchword in frequent use was: “Save a smile for mother!”
Fired by the conviction that the sunbeam business paid handsome dividends, Posy returned to Soho Square. She intended to brighten the lives of everybody in the house, including the tweenie. That, for the moment, was to be her “job.” She described the process as “binging ’em up.”
And the member of her father’s household who seemed to be most in need of “binging” happened to be James Miggott.
II
In August—she had left school for good at the end of the summer term—Posy and her mother went to Weymouth. Quinney did not accompany them. He said, jocularly, that he got all the change he needed travelling about the kingdom in search of “stuff.” Business being at a low ebb in August, he selected that month for a general stocktaking, balancing of accounts, and the planning of an active autumn campaign. Mabel Dredge remained with him, a most capable assistant; James Miggott was told that he might spend three weeks wherever he pleased.
It will never be known whether or not James knew that Susan and Posy were going to Weymouth. We do know that Posy met James on the pier, and was much struck by his gentlemanly appearance. It is possible that the young man planned this meeting; it is quite impossible to infer as much from what passed between them. James raised a neat straw hat, and was strolling on, when Posy waved her parasol.
“Are you thinking of cutting me?” she asked, holding out her hand. “What an extraordinary coincidence your being here?”
“Is it?” asked James quietly. “I have been to Weymouth before, have you?”
“No; this is our first visit. Did father tell you we were coming?”
“No.” He laughed derisively, as he continued, “Mr. Quinney does not talk to me about you. I can imagine that he might—er—object——”
He paused significantly.
“Object to what?”
“To this. I know my place, Miss Quinney.”
He was as humble as Uriah Heep, but more prepossessing in appearance. The sun and wind had tanned his cheeks, his brown hair curled crisply beneath the brim of his smart hat. He wore white shoes and quiet grey “flannels.
“Now that you are here,” said Posy, “let us sit down and listen to the band. Mother is writing to father. She writes every day, dear thing! She will turn up presently.”
Once more James hesitated, but he obeyed. The band played a popular waltz; upon the beach below people were bathing; the sea displayed the many twinkling smile as the breeze kissed the lips of the wavelets.
“Jolly, isn’t it?” said Posy.
“Very.”
“But you don’t look jolly, Mr. Miggott. You never do look very jolly. And I have wondered—why.”
She looked straight into his eyes, smiling pleasantly, anxious to put him at ease, anxious also to peer beneath an impassive surface, to find out “things” concerning a good young man, whose goodness, apparently, had not brought with it a very delirious happiness.
“Shall I tell you?” he asked, in a voice that trembled oddly. “Shall I let myself go for once? Ought I?”
Posy glanced the length of the pier. Her mother was not in sight. She might not appear for half an hour.
“Yes; please tell me.”
He told his tale so fluently that the uncharitable might hazard the conjecture that he had told it before, perhaps to Mabel Dredge. By hinting at this we have somewhat prejudiced the effect on the reader, who must bear in mind that Posy was too innocent and young to entertain such suspicions.
“I don’t look jolly, Miss Quinney, because I don’t feel jolly. Perhaps you think that a man ought to disguise his feelings when he’s with a charming young lady. Well, I can’t. I’m too honest. It was a shock just now meeting you, because you stand for everything I want and can’t get.”
The inflections of his voice far more than the actual words challenged her interest. Obviously, he was capable of feeling, and she had deemed him cold. He continued more calmly, subtly conveying to her the impression that he was suppressing his emotions on her account.
“I am your father’s foreman, and I earn three pounds a week. Lark and Bundy, Tomlin, any of the big dealers would pay me five pounds a week, but I can’t leave Soho Square.”
Posy said hastily:
“I’m sure father couldn’t spare you.”
“I am useful to him. I’m not such a fool as to underrate my services. He is generous. He will raise my salary, but I shall remain downstairs. I repeat, I know my place. I am fully aware that I ought not to be talking to you like this. Mr. Quinney would be angry.”
“Really, that is absurd.”
“Do you know your father as well as I know him?”
She evaded his eyes.
“Perhaps not, but there’s nothing of the snob about daddy; he never pretends to be better than he is. He rose from the ranks, and he’s proud of it. I’m proud of it. I admire men who rise. I have no use for slackers who owe everything to others. Why shouldn’t you rise higher than father? You are better educated and a greater artist.”
“What! You have thought of me as an artist?”
“I have been told that you are an artist. Father says so, and Mr. Tomlin. It interested me enormously. You love your work for your work’s sake. That is fine. And yet you tell me that you are unhappy, that it gives you a shock to meet me, because I stand for everything you want and can’t get. What do you want?”
“Freedom for one thing.”
“Mustn’t freedom be earned? I have been taught so. You are serving, I suppose, your apprenticeship. The work you love may be a small part of that, and the rest drudgery. I used to loathe playing scales, but I tried to be jolly.”
“Your position is assured.”
“If you’re the right sort, yours will be.”
“I shall be jolly when it is. You ought to know all the truth, Miss Quinney, if my stupid affairs don’t bore you too utterly?
“Can’t you see how interested I am?”
“You are divinely kind. I can’t express what your sympathy means to me. Well, you spoke of my rising. That’s just where the shoe pinches. I have not risen; I have fallen.”
“Fallen from—what?”
“My people were gentlepeople.”
“Oh!”
She drew in her breath sharply. James could see that his last shaft had transfixed her. He was very clever, and he guessed exactly how she felt about gentlepeople, using the word in its widest sense. Quinney’s money had made her a gentlewoman.
“My father was an officer in the Army.” (It was true that James’s father had once held a second lieutenant’s commission in the Militia.) “My mother was the daughter of a West Country parson. They died when I was a boy. There was practically nothing for me. I was educated at a charitable institution. Charity apprenticed me to a cabinet-maker at Exeter. Charity nearly buried me—twice. I have known what it is, Miss Quinney, to be without food, and without money, and to wake morning after morning wishing that I had died in the night!”
III
This was the part of the tale which James told so fluently. Admittedly, that last long sentence smacked of rhetorical effect. It could hardly have been entirely impromptu. Nevertheless, it rolled Posy in the dust. She became horribly conscious of rushing in where angels might fear to tread. Indeed, that hackneyed quotation occurred to her. She ejaculated, “Oh!” for the second time, and blushed piteously. James rose to his feet. He spoke politely:
“I see that I have distressed you, and I am very sorry; but you asked me.”
“I, too, am sorry,” said Posy earnestly. “I am most awfully sorry. I wish I could say the right thing, but I feel rather a fool.”
“The right thing for me to say, Miss Quinney, is good-bye. I shall go to Lulworth this afternoon.”
“But why should you go? I don’t understand. Are you going on our account?”
“On my own.”
Another transfixing shaft. Posy was too honest to misinterpret this calm statement. Secretly she was thrilled by it; delicious shivers crept up and down her spine. For the first time she became supremely conscious of her power over a man. At that moment she turned from a jolly girl into a woman. It touched her to fine issues. In a low, tremulous voice she faltered:
“You know best.”
James raised his hat and went.
IV
Half an hour later Susan had the story, with reserves, from Posy’s lips. Are we to blame the girl because she left out the climax? At any rate, her conscience remained clear. She could not betray a sacred confidence.
Susan was not vastly interested, as a wiser mother might have been. She accepted James’s departure with a certain smug satisfaction which exasperated her daughter. She was sure that father would approve. Posy said sharply:
“But, mummie, daddy couldn’t object to our being decently civil to Mr. Miggott?”
“He might.”
“But why—why?”
“Father is so ambitious for you, child. Any gallivanting about with his foreman——”
“Gallivanting! Who spoke of gallivanting? Mr. Miggott is a gentleman. You like him and respect him. So do I. The word ‘gallivanting’ sounds so housemaidy, so merry-go-roundy.”
“Oh, well, my dear, I’m glad the young man has gone, that’s all.”
The subject remained closed for the rest of the Weymouth visit. Mother and daughter returned to London a month later. James was at work downstairs. When Posy and he met, she could hardly believe that he was the same James who had sat beside her on the pier. His dignified salutation, “Good-afternoon, Miss Quinney!” seemed ludicrously inadequate, but what else could the poor fellow have said? Posy could find no answer to this insistent question, and yet she had expected a different greeting. He had not offered to shake hands, nor had she. Ought she to have held out her hand first? Was he offended because she hadn’t? When she woke next morning she wondered whether James was wishing that he had died in the night. The determination to brighten his life, within reasonable limits, imposed itself upon her while she was dressing. More, it inspired her to choose a clean, lilac-coloured frock, which became her admirably. Putting up her hair she was careful to arrange it artistically, because an artist might look at it with deep-set, melancholy eyes. If you had told her that she was romantic she would have been furious.
At breakfast Quinney said briskly:
“I’ve a job for you, my girl.”
“Certainly, daddy.”
“I’m going to turn over to you the dusting of my china, and the cleaning of the Waterford glass. You used to do it nicely before you went to boarding-school.”
“I shall just love it.”
Quinney was much gratified. Posy, he reflected, was his own dear daughter; no nonsense about her, no highfalutin airs and graces, first and last a perfect lady. He smacked his lips with satisfaction.
“You must teach me values, daddy.”
“By Gum, I will. You’ll learn, too, mighty quick. Did the girls at your school ever throw it up to you that you was a tradesman’s daughter?”
“No, I told them that you were the honestest dealer in England.”
“So I am, my pretty, the honestest in the world. It pays to be honest.”
“That’s not why you’re honest?”
“No, missie, it ain’t. I swore solemn never to sell fakes except as such the night you was born.”
“What a funny time to choose!”
Susan made a sign to him, but he went on:
“Funny? Never could make out why people use that word in such a silly way. Funny? Your dear mother nearly died the night you came to us.”
Susan interfered nervously.
“Now, Joe, you ain’t going into that, are you?”
“Yes, I am. Why not? It’s high time, speakin’ of values, that young Posy should know just what she cost us. I say it’s part of her education, the part she couldn’t learn at school. She’s eighteen. She knows, I take it, that she didn’t drop from heaven into the middle of a gooseberry bush?”
At this Susan, not Posy, blushed. It was the girl who said, calmly:
“You are quite right, father. I ought to know what I’ve cost both of you.” She looked at her mother tenderly, and spoke in a softer voice: “Is it true that you nearly died?”
“Yes.”
“And so did I,” said Quinney.
Posy’s eyes filled with tears.
“I shall always remember that,” she murmured.