Cakes and Ale Page 4

  When he stood on the platform, in evening dress admirably worn, or in a loose, much used, but perfectly cut lounge suit if it better fitted the occasion, and faced his audience seriously, frankly, but with an engaging diffidence, you could not but realize that he was giving himself up to his task with complete earnestness. Though now and then he pretended to be at a loss for a word, it was only to make it more effective when he uttered it. His voice was full and manly. He told a story well. He was never dull. He was fond of lecturing upon the younger writers of England and America, and he explained their merits to his audience with an enthusiasm that attested his generosity. Perhaps he told almost too much, for when you had heard his lecture you felt that you really knew all you wanted to about them and it was quite unnecessary to read their books. I suppose that is why when Roy had lectured in some provincial town not a single copy of the books of the authors he had spoken of was ever asked for, but there was always a run on his own. His energy was prodigious. Not only did he make successful tours of the United States, but he lectured up and down Great Britain. No club was so small, no society for the self-improvement of its members so insignificant, that Roy disdained to give it an hour of his time. Now and then he revised his lectures and issued them in neat little books. Most people who are interested in these things have at least looked through the works entitled Modern Novelists, Russian Fiction, and Some Writers; and few can deny that they exhibit a real feeling for literature and a charming personality.

  But this by no means exhausted his activities. He was an active member of the organizations that have been founded to further the interests of authors or to alleviate their hard lot when sickness or old age has brought them to penury. He was always willing to give his help when matters of copyright were the subject of legislation and he was never unprepared to take his place in those missions to a foreign country which are devised to establish amicable relations between writers of different nationalities. He could be counted on to reply for literature at a public dinner and he was invariably on the reception committee formed to give a proper welcome to a literary celebrity from overseas. No bazaar lacked an autographed copy of at least one of his books. He never refused to grant an interview. He justly said that no one knew better than he the hardships of the author’s trade and if he could help a struggling journalist to earn a few guineas by having a pleasant chat with him he had not the inhumanity to refuse. He generally asked his interviewer to luncheon and seldom failed to make a good impression on him. The only stipulation he made was that he should see the article before it was published. He was never impatient with the persons who call up the celebrated on the telephone at inconvenient moments to ask them for the information of newspaper readers whether they believe in God or what they eat for breakfast. He figured in every symposium and the public knew what he thought of prohibition, vegetarianism, jazz, garlic, exercise, marriage, politics, and the place of women in the home.

  His views on marriage were abstract, for he had successfully evaded the state which so many artists have found difficult to reconcile with the arduous pursuit of their calling. It was generally known that he had for some years cherished a hopeless passion for a married woman of rank, and though he never spoke of her but with chivalrous admiration, it was understood that she had treated him with harshness. The novels of his middle period reflected in their unwonted bitterness the strain to which he had been put. The anguish of spirit he had passed through then enabled him without offence to elude the advances of ladies of little reputation, frayed ornaments of a hectic circle, who were willing to exchange an uncertain present for the security of marriage with a successful novelist. When he saw in their bright eyes the shadow of the registry office he told them that the memory of his one great love would always prevent him from forming any permanent tie. His quixotry might exasperate, but could not affront, them. He sighed a little when he reflected that he must be for ever denied the joys of domesticity and the satisfaction of parenthood, but it was a sacrifice that he was prepared to make not only to his ideal, but also to the possible partner of his joys. He had noticed that people really do not want to be bothered with the wives of authors and painters. The artist who insisted on taking his wife wherever he went only made himself a nuisance and indeed was in consequence often not asked to places he would have liked to go to; and if he left his wife at home, he was on his return exposed to recriminations that shattered the repose so essential for him to do the best that was in him. Alroy Kear was a bachelor and now at fifty was likely to remain one.

  He was an example of what an author can do, and to what heights he can rise, by industry, common sense, honesty, and the efficient combination of means and ends. He was a good fellow and none but a cross-grained carper could grudge him his success. I felt that to fall asleep with his image in my mind would ensure me a good night. I scribbled a note to Miss Fellows, knocked the ashes out of my pipe, put out the light in my sitting-room, and went to bed.

  2

  When I rang for my letters and the papers next morning a message was delivered to me, in answer to my note to Miss Fellows, that Mr Alroy Kear expected me at one-fifteen at his club in St James’s Street; so a little before one I strolled round to my own and had the cocktail which I was pretty sure Roy would not offer me. Then I walked down St James’s Street, looking idly at the shop windows, and since I had still a few minutes to spare (I did not want to keep my appointment too punctually) I went into Christie’s to see if there was anything I liked the look of. The auction had already begun and a group of dark, small men were passing round to one another pieces of Victorian silver, while the auctioneer, following their gestures with bored eyes, muttered in a drone: ‘Ten shillings offered, eleven, eleven and six’ … It was a fine day, early in June, and the air in King Street was bright. It made the pictures on the walls of Christie’s look very dingy. I went out. The people in the street walked with a kind of nonchalance, as though the ease of the day had entered into their souls and in the midst of their affairs they had a sudden and surprised inclination to stop and look at the picture of life.

  Roy’s club was sedate. In the ante-chamber were only an ancient porter and a page; and I had a sudden and melancholy feeling that the members were all attending the funeral of the head-waiter. The page, when I had uttered Roy’s name, led me into an empty passage to leave my hat and stick and then into an empty hall hung with life-sized portraits of Victorian statesmen. Roy got up from a leather sofa and warmly greeted me.

  ‘Shall we go straight up?’ he said.

  I was right in thinking that he would not offer me a cocktail and I commended my prudence. He led me up a noble flight of heavily carpeted stairs, and we passed nobody on the way; we entered the strangers’ dining-room, and we were its only occupants. It was a room of some size, very clean and white, with an Adam window. We sat down by it and a demure waiter handed us the bill of fare. Beef, mutton, and lamb, cold salmon, apple tart, rhubarb tart, gooseberry tart. As my eye travelled down the inevitable list I sighed as I thought of the restaurants round the corner where there were French cooking, the clatter of life, and pretty, painted women in summer frocks.

  ‘I can recommend the veal-and-ham pie,’ said Roy.

  ‘All right.’

  ‘I’ll mix the salad myself,’ he told the waiter in an off-hand and yet commanding way, and then, casting his eye once more on the bill of fare, generously: ‘And what about some asparagus to follow?’

  ‘That would be very nice.’

  His manner grew a trifle grander.

  ‘Asparagus for two and tell the chef to choose them himself. Now what would you like to drink? What do you say to a bottle of hock? We rather fancy our hock here.’

  When I had agreed to this he told the waiter to call the wine-steward. I could not but admire the authoritative and yet perfectly polite manner in which he gave his orders. You felt that thus would a well-bred king send for one of his field-marshals. The wine-steward, portly in black, with the silver chain of his offic
e round his neck, bustled in with the wine-list in his hand. Roy nodded to him with curt familiarity.

  ‘Hallo, Armstrong, we want some of the Liebfraumilch, the ‘21.’

  ‘Very good, sir.’

  ‘How’s it holding up? Pretty well? We shan’t be able to get any more of it, you know.’

  ‘I’m afraid not, sir.’

  ‘Well, it’s no good meeting trouble half-way, is it, Arm-strong?’

  Roy smiled at the steward with breezy cordiality. The steward saw from his long experience of members that the remark needed an answer.

  ‘No, sir.’

  Roy laughed and his eye sought mine. Quite a character, Armstrong.

  ‘Well, chill it, Armstrong; not too much, you know, but just right. I want my guest to see that we know what’s what here.’ He turned to me. ‘Armstrong’s been with us for eight and forty years.’ And when the wine-steward had left us: ‘I hope you don’t mind coming here. It’s quiet and we can have a good talk. It’s ages since we did. You’re looking very fit.’

  This drew my attention to Roy’s appearance.

  ‘Not half so fit as you,’ I answered.

  ‘The result of an upright, sober, and godly life,’ he laughed. ‘Plenty of work. Plenty of exercise. How’s the golf? We must have a game one of these days.’

  I knew that Roy was scratch and that nothing would please him less than to waste a day with so indifferent a player as myself. But I felt I was quite safe in accepting so vague an invitation. He looked the picture of health. His curly hair was getting very grey, but it suited him and made his frank, sunburned face look younger. His eyes, which looked upon the world with such a hearty candour, were bright and clear. He was not so slim as in his youth, and I was not surprised that when the waiter offered us rolls he asked for Ryvita. His slight corpulence only added to his dignity. It gave weight to his observations. Because his movements were a little more deliberate than they had been, you had a comfortable feeling of confidence in him; he filled his chair with so much solidity that you had almost the impression that he sat upon a monument.

  I do not know whether, as I wished, I have indicated by my report of his dialogue with the waiter that his conversation was not as a rule brilliant or witty, but it was fluent and he laughed so much that you sometimes had the illusion that what he said was funny. He was never at a loss for a remark and he could discourse on the topics of the day with an ease that prevented his hearers from experiencing any sense of strain.

  Many authors from their preoccupation with words have the bad habit of choosing those they use in conversation too carefully. They form their sentences with unconscious care and say neither more nor less than they mean. It makes intercourse with them somewhat formidable to persons in the upper ranks of society whose vocabulary is limited by their simple spiritual needs, and their company consequently is sought only with hesitation. No constraint of this sort was ever felt with Roy. He could talk with a dancing guardee in terms that were perfectly comprehensible to him and with a racing countess in the language of her stable-boys. They said of him with enthusiasm and relief that he was not a bit like an author. No compliment pleased him better. The wise always use a number of ready-made phrases (at the moment I write ‘nobody’s business’ is the most common), popular adjectives (like ‘divine’ or ‘shy-making’), verbs that you only know the meaning of if you live in the right set (like ‘dunch’), which give a homely sparkle to small talk and avoid the necessity of thought. The Americans, who are the most efficient people on the earth, have carried this device to such a height of perfection and have invented so wide a range of pithy and hackneyed phrases that they can carry on an amusing and animated conversation without giving a moment’s reflection to what they are saying and so leave their minds free to consider the more important matters of big business and fornication. Roy’s repertory was extensive and his scent for the word of the minute unerring; it peppered his speech, but aptly, and he used it each time with a sort of bright eagerness, as though his fertile brain had just minted it.

  Now he talked of this and that, of our common friends and the latest books, of the opera. He was very breezy. He was always cordial, but today his cordiality took my breath away. He lamented that we saw one another so seldom and told me with the frankness that was one of his pleasantest characteristics how much he liked me and what a high opinion he had of me. I felt I must not fail to meet this friendliness half-way. He asked me about the book I was writing, I asked him about the book he was writing. We told one another that neither of us had had the success he deserved. We ate the veal-and-ham pie and Roy told me how he mixed a salad. We drank the hock and smacked appreciative lips.

  And I wondered when he was coming to the point.

  I could not bring myself to believe that at the height of the London season Alroy Kear would waste an hour on a fellow writer who was not a reviewer and had no influence in any quarter whatever in order to talk of Matisse, the Russian Ballet, and Marcel Proust. Besides, at the back of his gaiety I vaguely felt a slight apprehension. Had I not known that he was in a prosperous state I should have suspected that he was going to borrow a hundred pounds from me. It began to look as though luncheon would end without his finding the opportunity to say what he had in mind. I knew he was cautious. Perhaps he thought that this meeting, the first after so long a separation, had better be employed in establishing friendly relations, and was prepared to look upon the pleasant, substantial meal merely as ground bait.

  ‘Shall we go and have our coffee in the next room?’ he said.

  ‘If you like.’

  ‘I think it’s more comfortable.’

  I followed him into another room, much more spacious, with great leather arm-chairs and huge sofas; there were papers and magazines on the tables. Two old gentlemen in a corner were talking in undertones. They gave us a hostile glance, but this did not deter Roy from offering them a cordial greeting.

  ‘Hallo, General,’ he cried, nodding breezily.

  I stood for a moment at the window, looking at the gaiety of the day, and wished I knew more of the historical associations of St James’s Street. I was ashamed that I did not even know the name of the club across the way and was afraid to ask Roy lest he should despise me for not knowing what every decent person knew. He called me back by asking me whether I would have a brandy with my coffee, and when I refused, insisted. The club’s brandy was famous. We sat side by side on a sofa by the elegant fireplace and lit cigars.

  ‘The last time Edward Driffield ever came to London he lunched with me here,’ said Roy casually. ‘I made the old man try our brandy and he was delighted with it. I was staying with his widow over last weekend.’

  ‘Were you?’

  ‘She sent you all sorts of messages.’

  ‘That’s very kind of her. I shouldn’t have thought she remembered me.’

  ‘Oh, yes, she does. You lunched there about six years ago, didn’t you? She says the old man was so glad to see you.’

  ‘I didn’t think she was.’

  ‘Oh, you’re quite wrong. Of course she had to be very careful. The old man was pestered with people who wanted to see him and she had to husband his strength. She was always afraid he’d do too much. It’s a wonderful thing if you come to think of it that she should have kept him alive and in possession of all his faculties to the age of eighty-four. I’ve been seeing a good deal of her since he died. She’s awfully lonely. After all, she devoted herself to looking after him for twenty-five years. Othello’s occupation, you know. I really feel sorry for her.’

  ‘She’s still comparatively young. I dare say she’ll marry again.’

  ‘Oh, no, she couldn’t do that. That would be dreadful.’

  There was a slight pause while we sipped our brandy.

  ‘You must be one of the few persons still alive who knew Driffield when he was unknown. You saw quite a lot of him at one time, didn’t you?’

  ‘A certain amount. I was almost a small boy and he was a middle-a
ged man. We weren’t boon companions, you know.’

  ‘Perhaps not, but you must know a greal deal about him that other people don’t.’

  ‘I suppose I do.’

  ‘Have you ever thought of writing your recollections of him?’

  ‘Good heavens, no!’

  ‘Don’t you think you ought to? He was one of the greatest novelists of our day. The last of the Victorians. He was an enormous figure. His novels have as good a chance of surviving as any that have been written in the last hundred years.’

  ‘I wonder. I’ve always thought them rather boring.’

  Roy looked at me with eyes twinkling with laughter.

  ‘How like you that is! Anyhow you must admit that you’re in the minority. I don’t mind telling you that I’ve read his novels not once or twice, but half a dozen times, and every time I read them I think they’re finer. Did you read the articles that were written about him at his death?’

  ‘Some of them.’

  ‘The consensus of opinion was absolutely amazing. I read every one.’

  ‘If they all said the same thing, wasn’t that rather unnecessary?’

  Roy shrugged his massive shoulders good-humouredly, but did not answer my question.

  ‘I thought The Times Lit. Sup. was splendid. It would have done the old man good to read it. I hear that the Quarterly is going to have an article in its next number.’

  ‘I still think his novels rather boring.’

  Roy smiled indulgently.

  ‘Doesn’t it make you slightly uneasy to think that you disagree with everyone whose opinion matters?’

  ‘Not particularly. I’ve been writing for thirty-five years now, and you can’t think how many geniuses I’ve seen acclaimed, enjoy their hour or two of glory and vanish into obscurity. I wonder what’s happened to them. Are they dead, are they shut up in mad-houses, are they hidden away in offices? I wonder if they furtively lend their books to the doctor and the maiden lady in some obscure village. I wonder if they are still great men in some Italian pension.’