The joyful years : a novel

Part One The Wings Of Youth

' Love is the wings of youth, on which it mounts skywards . . . '

SHAUN JAMES.

AT four o'clock on a windy May afternoon of the year 1912 Shaun James and Cynthia Rosemary Bremner were departing from the National Portrait Gallery without regret in search of tea. Shaun was jaunty and shabby, and walked in front; Cynthia, bright-eyed, followed respectfully behind. She was young, she was beautiful, with a pretty look of dignity; also she had the unmistakable air of a girl accustomed to be waited upon, so one of the attendants nudged the other, and pointing to Shaun said, " 'E must be somebody!" to which his more experienced comrade replied, ' ' 'E may. ' ' Shaun was depressed, because he had intended to talk to his chum of friendship and how easily it may change into a warmer affection, and the sight of such a number of bad pictures had deprived him of power and eloquence. He was repeating mentally : " I 'm forty, and I look it. I get good reviews and bad sales. I had an unhappy childhood, oh lor' — men who've been unhappy as children never become cheerful companions. And she's only twenty-one after all! In spite of the fact that I've taught her to think and to begin to appreciate beauty, it still isn't impossible that she should marry into her own class. You don't want to spoil her happiness, Shaun! She's your own pal, Shaun ! She doesn 't love you that way, however much you may hope and pretend. . . . Although there may come a chance at dinner to-night. . . . But she's such a perfect little chum ! ' '

The radiant pal, joyous at having still an hour of holiday to look forward to before the usual appointment at Liberty's with her mother, which although pleasant enough in itself had become heavily monotonous from force of repetition, stood by the side of Mr. James upon the outer step (overtopping him by an inch), turned starry grey eyes to his and said gracefully, ' ' Thank you for a lovely afternoon. Please let me pay for tea this time, Shaun." Several taxi-drivers pulled up at the sight of her : Shaun, noticing them, moved off the step to the pavement and started down the slope towards Trafalgar Square.

He was able to remind himself once more of his age, and of greater reasons for self-restraint, to say aloud, "Yes, thank you, dear," and to invent a fairy-story of old St. Martin's to tell her during tea, all as the last stroke of four chimed from the slender steeple.

Peter Middleton was to dine with the Bremners that night, and his work, which consisted just then of slipping forms into envelopes, comparing the names upon them as he did so, was suffering greatly in consequence. Peter was distracted. The prospect of dining in Portman Square with strangers filled him with excitement and nervousness ; months afterwards he had a painful interview with that high official, Laurence Man, because of mistakes made before the Bremners' dinner. Laurence himself never made mistakes, otherwise he would not have reached at the juvenile age of thirty-nine the exalted position that he occupied. And he had an excuse for them which Peter did not possess, for he was head over ears in love with the daughter of Sir Everard and Lady Bremner; in spite of which he was signing documents with a steady hand, undisturbed by the prospect of seeing Rosemary in a few hours. Lady Bremner was Laurence's ally, so he called the young lady by the name that Lady Bremner preferred — it was characteristic of him. He was unmoved, moreover, by the thought of the obnoxious scribbler James, who was also to be present. Dangerous individual though the man was, as was to be seen by Rosemary's holding to his friendship against her people's expressed wishes, Laurence could not concern himself greatly about a novelist, poor as a church (or any other kind of) mouse and therefore unlikely to attract a girl in the way of marriage. Besides the fellow was a widower — girls don't care for widowers.

Laurence was furiously jealous when in the presence of his beloved, but in her absence intellect ruled supreme; he was not emotionally imaginative. Four o'clock struck, and he was able to dip his fine-pointed pen into the inkpot with an easy mind, ignorant of the identity of Peter except as a junior clerk in the service of the Great Company, a potential maker of mistakes, and happily unaware that he was to see such an insignificant person at the Bremners'.

By four o'clock Peter had satisfied himself that he remembered meeting a little girl much younger than himself on the solitary occasion when his father had taken him to visit Sir Everard Bremner. The child had had fair hair and was dressed in white with short socks ; she was called "Polly," a nice kid, who wanted to play cricket when she grew up. She must be grown up now, as he himself had reached the advanced age of twenty-four. Peter wondered whether he would fall in love with her, and expected that he should, if she were pretty and not too "rough on a man." He might even get to know her well supposing the parents weren't altogether bored with him, which was what he expected must happen, seeing that he had never been to a dinner-party before. It was awfully decent of them to ask him. . . .

How lonely he had been since his father died ! Aunt May had pitchforked him into this awful hole to earn his living — well, he supposed she couldn't do better, as his father's pension had died with him. . . . Major Middleton's son, intended for the army . . . And now he was a clerk, the companion of fellows he hated. Why, look at that animal, Blotter, over there, shirking his work and pretending to be ever so busy — no, he wasn't — Gad, he was putting it away!

With untactful promptitude Peter, who in his dreams had been unaware of the progress of the minute-hand, hurled his envelopes into a drawer, rushed for his hat and coat and fled from the building.

II

LADY BREMNER was accustomed to consider her husband before her children, to regard them through his eyes, and to treat them as she thought he would do in her place. Sir Everard was ignorant of this, and Cynthia suffered thereby. Her father's heart belonged to his wife, his intellect was devoted to the affairs of the Colonial Office, which he had served for thirty years. He believed that Cynthia's confidence was given to her mother and that the two women were leading a satisfying feminine life together in the region of teas, shopping, and dances. It pleased him to keep her a child and to behave to her as though she were seventeen instead of being, as she was, at the restless and thoughtful age of twenty-one. And Lady Bremner, imitating him, had lost the girl's confidence already.

The trio appeared to form a devoted and united family, while, as is the case in so many homes to-day, they were moving towards an inevitable clash of temperaments. Cynthia's fate pressed the more hardly upon her because her only brother Alan had always by his father's wish enjoyed the fullest liberty of thought and action; he was now in chambers, independent of Portman Square, with an allowance to supplement the income which he drew as a clerk in the Foreign Office, while Cynthia herself had to ask her mother for change every time she went out, as she had neither pocket-money nor dress allowance from which to pay her cab-fares.

Amongst other preferences, Sir Everard liked to see the hair of his womenfolk smartly arranged, and their clothes what he would have called "neat," in other words expensively simple, which was the reason why Cynthia, who shared a maid with her mother, was dressed and finished and sitting alone in her room threequarters of an hour before the time for dinner. He praised that appearance of finish, that almost varnished air of smartness, which a good maid, and only a good maid, can give to the attire of a young girl. This was illogical and conflicted with his general desire to keep his 'Polly' the little child he loved to remember her; still, he like it, and Lady Bremner insisted upon regarding his wish as 'Polly's' law. She. would loyally have called the girl by the pet name she disliked, had she not felt that Sir Everard preferred to keep it for his own use, liking to hear his tall and beautiful daughter addressed as 'Rosemary' by his wife and son, while not objecting to the occasional 'Cynthia' that the picturesque Shaun James let drop in public.

' ' Why do you call him ' picturesque, ' Daddy ? ' ' asked Cynthia once, rather rebelliously.

"Because he is," replied Daddy. "I do not say he is not also clever!" It had not occurred to the girl hitherto to observe her friend from the point of view of decorativeness.

Now she was considering him again, seated in a room which was coloured white and blue relieved by the palest gold, a nest of flowered chintzes and delicate gold casement hangings; where Cherries and My First Sermon (early Cynthia), Burne- Jones reproductions and Alpine photographs (middle or school period), and, greatly daring, Eve and A Wounded Amazon of the present Shaun James era, hung side by side upon the walls. Shaun would have made ruthless eliminations and obtained clearer space for the pictures that remained, but Cynthia had not yet risen to this height of artistic perfection. She added to her favourites and was never unfaithful to an old friend.

A bright fire crackled on the hearth, the electric light was white and searching — also trying to the eyes and complexion, a matter for which Cynthia's youth cared little. She adorned a comfortable chair; and the maid, busied with Lady Bremner, was certain not to return. Cynthia was alone with her thoughts.

Yes, Shaun was really nice-looking, in spite of his irregular features, because he looked what he was. One could see he had been a journalist and had given it up to write beautiful prose. His face was very clever, and there was something more than clever about it, something that had developed. He was obviously an artist, but also not a poet. His eyes looked into one, and not upon one, so he could not be a painter or a sculptor, and they were kind eyes. He so clearly 'understood' that it was very sure he couldn't be a musician. . . .

These impressions followed instantaneously upon each other in Cynthia's mind, without clothing themselves in words. They would in all probability have evaded her, had she tried to speak them aloud. She was quick of understanding, but not very fluent in expressing ideas in language, although she talked easily of facts and opinions ; and this kept her free from conceit, making her a sympathetic listener to a clever man. Sir Everard had formed high hopes of her as a child, especially in the direction of mathematics, his favourite study, but an illness having interrupted her education at a critical age she had lost ground which had never been picked up. The greater part of her intellectual development she owed to Shaun.

Being a girl of striking good looks, who had already received a number of proposals, much to her distress and embarrassment, Cynthia of course was conscious that Shaun was beginning to be in love with her. Laurence Man she did not like and dismissed him therefore from her thoughts. Peter she remembered only as a shy little boy who had failed to respond when a shy little girl tried to make friends with him. His sad, elderly, shabby father was dead now, and Daddy had cried out at the breakfast table, ' ' My God ! Emmeline, poor Middleton's gone at last," when he read the announcement in The Morning Post. That was years ago, but she still had the clearest recollection of her mother 's face of horror, which was not for Major Middleton. She wondered, with some bitterness, why Daddy had not looked up his old friend 's son before ; being accustomed

10 THE JOYFUL YEAES

to set friendship on a higher plane than love, which she considered a somewhat selfish emotion. She supposed Daddy thought he had not time, as Major Middleton's death had happened just before he was given his C.M.G., when he was so frightfully busy. Why, that boy must be twenty-four, only two years younger than Alan. She hoped he would not still be shy, for she would probably have to go in with him if Mummy did not give her Mr. Man. She was quite sure that if Mr. Man were an author — which he was neither clever nor nice enough to be — he would not value her opinion of his work as Shaun did, although the dear had such a fearful lot of trouble to extract it from her stupid head !

Francis Thompson's Poems, The Crock of Gold, and Emma lay on the dressing-table, equally beloved. Cynthia reached out a hand to take one, but they made her think of Shaun whom she wished to forget, and she selected the box of chocolates instead. There were three coffee creams left; and she disposed of them in the twink of a dimple, as Shaun would say. Bother Shaun ! There he was again. But she could not help liking him to think her beautiful, she honestly couldn't. She simply loved it! Was it because of his cultured mind, his artistry, his knowing about books? Acting on an impulse she sprang to her feet and ran to the chevalglass with a quick young grace that seemed to fill the room with sudden beauty of movement; and there, taking an end of her scarf in either hand, letting it fall from her shoulders, she looked hard at her reflection, her cheeks pink, her eyes a woman's.

She saw a dignified, slender girl in a dress of filmy green ; a girl with heaps of chestnut fair hair, grey eyes, and a very direct inquiring gaze. She was willowy and strong, her neck was milk-white, her cheeks daintily flushed, and Cynthia could not help liking her! The dress she recognised as a compromise between ancient Greece and modern Paris: at the time of choice she would have liked it more Greek, carried away intellectually as she was by the classical Shaun, but now she could not help being glad that her mother had interposed. Lady Bremner's ladylike taste was conspicuous in the result. Cynthia gave it its full due, admitting frankly to herself that neither she nor the dressmaker could have decided so well alone. She was feminine enough to settle that the colour of the material suited her complexion before regarding the general effect, but it was characteristic of Shaun's influence that she did not confine herself, as most women do, to the criticism of details.

"The dear thing is nice," she thought. "It's sweet! And it is right artistically, for I'm not in the least the classic type, I'm too English-looking!" She was examining her face, and not the lines of her graceful figure. "I'm glad my eyelashes are long. I like my mouth, and my cheeks are prettily curved, and I hold myself well. I think the nose would be almost better snub instead of straight, as my eyes are so wide apart, but that's a matter of taste, and anyway my upper lip is short. I certainly look bright and wide-awake; no one would call me a sleepy person. All the same if I am beautiful, which Shaun said outright on Tuesday, and he does know, which the rest who've said it don't — besides, they've been more prejudiced still — it must be because of my complexion or my eyes ! Cynthia, you 're all eyes, and they're dancing. Don't be a vain idiot! . . .

"Those sleeves are pretty, just caught above the elbow and open above to the shoulders, and I like the chiffon bow on one shoulder. My hips are slender enough to be classical, I think, as my shoulders are fairly broad. Oh, arms, you really are beautiful, and one can't help seeing you through those very open sleeves that aren't sleeves at all — I almost wish I'd had the fuller ones! Neck and shoulders are nice too, but I can't be as sure they're right as I am of the arms and hands. That's a dimple of vanity, Cynthia. Come away from the glass."

But the mirror had given her a thrill of delicate excitement that pulsed through mind and body alike, and after that she could not compose herself. So she went down early to the drawing-room, where she found a nice-looking, brown-haired boy standing awkwardly in front of the fire. At the sight of her he seemed half unhappy, half elated, — she mistook the admiration in his eyes for pleasure at having somebody to talk to. As she advanced with her charmingly youthful air of self-possession she noticed how sensitive was his face. Peter and Cynthia took frank stock of each other in this instant of recognition. If the girl was pleased with the man's appearance, Peter was equally impressed by hers. Indeed, he forgot in one moment his agonies of indecision as to the precise way in which various difficult dishes should be attacked ; his terror lest he should confuse the wine-glasses, whose pictures he had carefully learnt by heart beforehand; his wild chase across London in pursuit of a man who could decide with authority the horrible, suddenly recollected problem of gloves; and all his anxiously prepared speeches into the bargain. This vision must be Polly Bremner, and he could only stare and goggle!

' ' I 'm — I 'm afraid I 'm awfully early, ' ' he stammered. "My n-name is Middleton." At which point he stuck. He was desperately anxious to make proper conversation, only the words had all fled into crannies of his mind, from which they peeped and mocked him.

Cynthia's naturalness saved the situation. "I knew you were Mr. Middleton," she said cheerfully. "I'm glad I'm early too. Please sit down. Come closer to the fire; it's chilly in the evenings, isn't it?"

Peter fell over a Persian cat, and, by an acrobatic effort, gained a chair.

"I'm most fearfully sorry!" he apologised to the indignant tail of the animal as it disappeared from the room. The corners of Cynthia's mouth curved bewitchingly, and she smiled. He had found his way to her heart by the correct aim of an apology: it would have been quite wrong had he made it to her. As things were she felt irresistibly disposed to be friendly to Peter, but remembering the duties of decorum she merely said,

"Don't bother about the cat. She isn't a bit hurt, really," and proceeded to develop the conversation through cats to tigers, and from tigers to Swan's animal paintings, and thence to the Tate Gallery, where they were both at home, each eager to act as host to the other. In fact something like a quarrel arose over Goodwin's Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, to which they laid such particular claim that it sounded as though one of them must at the least have presented the picture to the nation, if neither had painted it.

"That one's mine!" cried Peter. "That one at least is mine."

"No, it isn't," resisted Cynthia, childishly. "I want it. But I'll give it to you," she added sweetly, recollecting that she had not known Mr. Middleton very long and that her mother might not approve of a sudden intimacy, indeed might not authorise one at all. There is something barrier-breaking about even a pretended quarrel. So she went on to tell him how she had been first taken to the Tate by Mr. James.

"Not Shaun James?" asked Peter, enlightened by the pride in her voice. His own was admiring enough to satisfy Cynthia ; she counted him a Friend from that moment. It was clever of him not to guess Henry James, who had not written novels half as good as Shaun 's in her opinion — with which Shaun disagreed. She nodded, dimpling.

"Why, he wrote about the Tate!" murmured Peter, round-eyed with awe of this wonderful girl who knew a celebrated author. Why, she would be telling him next that she was a member of the Savage Club, which he was ignorant enough to believe a possibility. Cynthia, who was a trifle amused at the impression she had made, was on the point of informing him that Shaun might arrive at any second, when the door, which Peter had closed behind the cat, opened again to the rustling of silken skirts.

' ' Oh, here you are, Rosemary ! ' ' said Lady Bremner as they turned to receive her. The phrase was meaningless. She used it always on greeting her daughter after an absence, whether this had lasted a few minutes or several days. Peter saw advancing a thin lady in black, with what are commonly called aristocratic features, which wore a kind expression. Cynthia introduced him. He spoke, but hardly knew what he said. "We are very glad indeed that you could come!" replied the lady with apparent sincerity. She had made him feel at ease by her courteous, accomplished use of a few simple words, and he immediately began to find in her a likeness to Cynthia. But her voice was not so clear and pretty as Cynthia's, and it was older and less gay.

He had scarcely time to form an impression before other guests began to arrive. The short, plain young woman in red was called Miss Taliesin. She spoke in orderly sentences like a book, and there was vigorous common sense in what she said. Alan, the son of the house, a model of smooth correctness, nice-looking in an unemotional way, took possession of her as soon as he came. Next arrived Laurence Man, whom Peter recognised with dismay, for it was the custom of the Great Company to watch jealously the expenditure of their junior clerks, especially of those who were not living at home, and the possession of wealthy friends meant being unfavourably remarked upon unless those friends were connected with the Directorate. Peter saw no opportunity of explaining to his chief that this was the first time he had dined out in his life ; besides, he was certain that ''Lordly Laurence" would resent having been invited to meet him and would not want to speak to him at all.

Regarding him with a critical eye, Peter realised that whereas in the City he had admired Laurence's distinction, here in Portman Square he was doubting his breeding— a return to an older and truer standard of judgment. Laurence Man had been to a good public school, he had refined features, his voice was pleasant, his desire to please assiduous; yet seen at the side of Alan Bremner something was lacking. Peter hastily decided that he was a snob, which received confirmation a moment later when Laurence ignored him. However, he only half understood the reason why Laurence was devoting himself to Lady Bremner, hanging upon her most ordinary remarks with an air that Cynthia condemned as 'dying duck.' It was in reality part of his policy, while his ignoring of Peter was the consequence of jealousy.

Whilst the two young people were engaged in underrating Laurence Man's intelligence, Sir Everard came in. He apologised politely for being late, and welcomed his guests with formal kindness. Peter's mental picture of a ruddy, jovial giant — a memory of childhood — bore no resemblance to real life. On the contrary, he found himself shaking hands with a grey spare man, who had heavy eyebrows, insignificant clean-shaven features, steady eyes without expression, and a polished unyielding manner of address; only the sunburned skin was true to recollection, and that was bronzed instead of florid. Who's Who had revealed Sir Everard as a fine mathematician, educated at Harrow and St. John's, Cambridge, fond of yachting and fishing, and a member of the Travellers' Club; and his letter had suggested to Peter that he was accustomed to be authoritative behind a veil of diplomacy. Now Peter discovered he had charm.

No sooner had Sir Everard left him than a very spick-and-span maid approached Lady Bremner, who was close by, and announced in a low voice, ' ' If you please, a telephone message has just come from Mr. James, requesting you not to wait dinner for him, my lady. He says he has been arrested!"

"Good gracious, Rosemary!" apostrophised the mother, though the daughter responsible for the erring guest was some distance away and out of earshot. ' ' Didn 't he say any more than that, Simmins ? ' '

' ' Only ' Goodbye, ' my lady. ' '

"How vexatious! Very good, Simmins; that will do."

Lady Bremner departed on a cutting-out expedition, and presently withdrew her husband from Laurence

Man. Peter watched, fascinated, and Miss Taliesin, who had joined Peter and to set him at ease was monopolising the conversation, formed a poor opinion of him as a listener. In fact she decided that he was disappointingly ill-mannered, and deserted the subject of politics, on which she could talk ably and sensibly, for motoring, of which she knew herself to be grotesquely ignorant. Peter, after noting with admiration his host's calm reception of the news, and learning from the brief lift of his eyebrows that he cared little for Mr. James and was only slightly surprised at his fate, returned to the topic of motoring, sustaining it with difficulty, since he had never been in a motor-car. Then two ladies arrived together, one of them of uncertain age, like a lily of the hothouse on the point of fading, robed in a sheath and jewelled marvellously, who discoursed of the illness of a husband; and the other absurdly young, enchantingly pretty, and impulsive and outspoken enough to be a terror to any hostess. She was Cynthia's cousin Phyllis, much in awe of Lady Bremner fortunately, and she fell to Peter's lot to take in, dinner being now no longer delayed.

"Do you like black eyes and hair?" she inquired of him in an eager voice as soon as they were fairly settled. "I do. I suppose it is because my own are dark. Rosie looks heavenly though, doesn't she?"

"Yes, she does, but I thought she was called Polly," said Peter, who was not meant to interrupt.

"My uncle calls her that. Mr. James calls her Cynthia. Auntie calls her Rosemary. What was I saying ? Oh yes, looks — I don 't care for that woman I came with a bit. She's passee, you know. I wonder why we sat down with an empty place?"

Lady Bremner disengaged herself from her mild conversation with Laurence Man, glanced across Peter, and said gently but meaningly, "Because we were so very late, Phyllis darling." At which the darling blushed, tossed her head, and attacked her soup. Peter admired the trophy of Zulu shields and assegais on the wall opposite. Then he wondered who had arranged the orchids in the centrepiece, and why dining-rooms are usually papered in a shade of red, and was summoning courage to inspect his other neighbour when a diversion was effected by a voice behind his back announcing nervously, "Mr. Shaun James!"

The distinguished author had an entrance to make that would have daunted most people, and he made it very quietly. He was not tall, and his straw-coloured hair needed cutting, but to Peter's admiring eyes he looked clever enough for anything, and his evening clothes were as correct as Alan's and less obtrusively foppish. "The police arrested me in mistake for a pickpocket who they say resembles me," he explained to Lady Bremner, ' ' and were kind enough to let me telephone from the station when I was waiting to be identified and released. Luckily the nearest man I knew was at home, and he came round at once."

"Where were you, then, Mr. James, when this dreadful thing happened ? ' '

"Marble Arch, Lady Bremner; admiring the evening sky. They told me it was just what a pickpocket and only a pickpocket would do. A pretty comment on the state of aesthetics in this country! I'm desolated at the trouble I've caused you." He went to his seat between Cynthia and Phyllis ; Alan and Sir Everard spoke to him across the table. Peter was concentrating all his wits upon the fish, wherein lurked unsuspected bones, calculated to raise the blush of shame to the cheek of innocence.

"Are you a suffragist?" asked a little buzzing voice in his ear. "I am. I'm sure I deserve a vote. Miss Taliesin is one, too. She doesn't go to prison, because she works. She inspects sweated trades and that sort of thing. Rather dull, but most fearfully useful, you know. I daresay I may go to Holloway one day, I haven't quite made up my mind yet. They say Alan Bremner is in love with her, but he couldn't possibly marry her." The voice grew more piercing as the speaker became interested, and Peter began to tremble, but Lady Bremner this time gave no sign.

"Indeed!" he answered feebly. "No, I'm not a suffragist."

"Aren't you?" She turned a pair of saucer-shaped black eyes upon him. ' ' Then I don 't like you at all ! "