Living Alone, Page 2

  CHAPTER I

  MAGIC COMES TO A COMMITTEE

  There were six women, seven chairs, and a table in an otherwiseunfurnished room in an unfashionable part of London. Three of the womenwere of the kind that has no life apart from committees. They need notbe mentioned in detail. The names of two others were Miss Meta MostynFord and Lady Arabel Higgins. Miss Ford was a good woman, as well as alady. Her hands were beautiful because they paid a manicurist to keepthem so, but she was too righteous to powder her nose. She was the sortof person a man would like his best friend to marry. Lady Arabel wasolder: she was virtuous to the same extent as Achilles was invulnerable.In the beginning, when her soul was being soaked in virtue, the heel ofit was fortunately left dry. She had a husband, but no apparent tragedyin her life. These two women were obviously not native to theirsurroundings. Their eyelashes brought Bond Street--or at leastKensington--to mind; their shoes were mudless; their gloves had not beenbought in the sales. Of the sixth woman the less said the better.

  All six women were there because their country was at war, and becausethey felt it to be their duty to assist it to remain at war for thepresent. They were the nucleus of a committee on War Savings, and theywere waiting for their Chairman, who was the Mayor of the borough. Hewas also a grocer.

  Five of the members were discussing methods of persuading poor people tosave money. The sixth was making spots on the table with a pen.

  They were interrupted, not by the expected Mayor, but by a young woman,who came violently in by the street door, rushed into the middle of theroom, and got under the table. The members, in surprise, pushed backtheir chairs and made ladylike noises of protest and inquiry.

  "They're after me," panted the person under the table.

  All seven listened to thumping silence for several seconds, and then, asno pursuing outcry declared itself, the Stranger arose, without grace,from her hiding-place.

  To anybody except a member of a committee it would have been obviousthat the Stranger was of the Cinderella type, and bound to turn out aheroine sooner or later. But perception goes out of committees. The morecommittees you belong to, the less of ordinary life you will understand.When your daily round becomes nothing more than a daily round ofcommittees you might as well be dead.

  The Stranger was not pretty; she had a broad, curious face. Her clotheswere much too good to throw away. You would have enjoyed giving them toa decayed gentlewoman.

  "I stole this bun," she explained frankly. "There is an uninternedGerman baker after me."

  "And why did you steal it?" asked Miss Ford, pronouncing the H in "why"with a haughty and terrifying sound of suction.

  The Stranger sighed. "Because I couldn't afford to buy it."

  "And why could you not afford to buy the bun?" asked Miss Ford. "A bigstrong girl like you."

  You will notice that she had had a good deal of experience in socialwork.

  The Stranger said: "Up till ten o'clock this morning I was of theleisured classes like yourselves. I had a hundred pounds."

  Lady Arabel was one of the kindest people in the world, but even shequivered at the suggestion of a common leisure. The sort of clothes theStranger wore Lady Arabel would have called "too dretful." If one iswell dressed one is proud, and may look an angel in the eye. If one isreally shabby one is even prouder, one often goes out of one's way tolook angels in the eye. But if one wears a squirrel fur "set," and adyed dress that originally cost two and a half guineas, one is damned.

  "You have squandered all that money?" pursued Miss Ford.

  "Yes. In ten minutes."

  A thrill ran through all six members. Several mouths watered.

  "I am ashamed of you," said Miss Ford. "I hope the baker will catchyou. Don't you know that your country is engaged in the greatestconflict in history? A hundred pounds ... you might have put it in theWar Loan."

  "Yes," said the Stranger, "I did. That's how I squandered it."

  Miss Ford seemed to be partially drowned by this reply. One could seeher wits fighting for air.

  But Lady Arabel had not committed herself, and therefore escaped thisdisaster. "You behaved foolishly," she said. "We are all too dretfullyanxious to subscribe what we can spare to the War Loan, of course. Butthe State does not expect more than that of us."

  "God bless it," said the Stranger loudly, so that everybody blushed. "Ofcourse it doesn't. But it is fun, don't you think, when you are giving apresent, to exceed expectations?"

  "The State--" began Lady Arabel, but was nudged into silence by MissFord. "Of course it's all untrue. Don't let her think we believe her."

  The Stranger heard her. Such people do not only hear with their ears.She laughed.

  "You shall see the receipt," she said.

  Out of her large pocket she dragged several things before she found whatshe sought. The sixth member noticed several packets labelled MAGIC,which the Stranger handled very carefully. "Frightfully explosive," shesaid.

  "I believe you're drunk," said Miss Ford, as she took the receipt. Itreally was a War Loan receipt, and the name and address on it were:"Miss Hazeline Snow, The Bindles, Pymley, Gloucestershire."

  Lady Arabel smiled in a relieved way. She had not long been a socialworker, and had not yet acquired a taste for making fools of theundeserving. "So this is your name and address," she said.

  "No," said the Stranger simply.

  "This is your name and address," said Lady Arabel more loudly.

  "No," said the Stranger. "I made it up. Don't you think 'The Bindles,Pymley,' is too darling?"

  "Quite drunk," repeated Miss Ford. She had attended eight committeemeetings that week.

  "S--s--s--sh, Meta," hissed Lady Arabel. She leaned forward, notsmiling, but pleasantly showing her teeth. "You gave a false name andaddress. My dear, I wonder if I can guess why."

  "I dare say you can," admitted the Stranger. "It's such fun, don't youthink, to get no thanks? Don't you sometimes amuse yourself by sendingpostal orders to people whose addresses look pathetic in the telephonebook, or by forgetting to take away the parcels you have bought in poorlittle shops? Or by standing and looking with ostentatious respect atboy scouts on the march, always bearing in mind that these, in their owneyes, are not little boys trotting behind a disguised curate, butBritish Troops on the Move? Just two pleased eyes in a crowd, just ahundred pounds dropped from heaven into poor Mr. Bonar Law's wistfulhand...."

  Miss Ford began to laugh, a ladylike yet nasty laugh. "You amuse me,"she said, but not in the kind of way that would make anybody wish toamuse her often.

  Miss Ford was the ideal member of committee, and a committee, of course,exists for the purpose of damping enthusiasms.

  The Stranger's manners were somehow hectic. Directly she heard thatlaughter the tears came into her eyes. "Didn't you like what I wassaying?" she asked. Tears climbed down her cheekbones.

  "Oh!" said Miss Ford. "You seem to be--if not drunk--suffering from someform of hysteria."

  "Do you think youth is a form of hysteria?" asked the Stranger. "Orhunger? Or magic? Or--"

  "Oh, don't recite any more lists, for the Dear Sake!" implored MissFord, who had caught this rather pretty expression where she caught herlaugh and most of her thoughts--from contemporary fiction. She had a lotof friends in the writing trade. She knew artists too, and an actress,and a lot of people who talked. She very nearly did something cleverherself. She continued: "I wish you could see yourself, trying to beuplifting between the munches of a stolen bun. You'd laugh too. Butperhaps you never laugh," she added, straightening her lips.

  "How d'you mean--laugh?" asked the Stranger. "I didn't know that noisewas called laughing. I thought you were just saying 'Ha--ha.'"

  At this moment the Mayor came in. As I told you, he was a grocer, andthe Chairman of the committee. He was a bad Chairman, but a good grocer.Grocers generally wear white in the execution of their duty, and thisfancy, I think, reflects their pureness of heart. They spend their daysamong soft substances most beautiful to touch; and sometim
es they sellhonest-smelling soaps; and sometimes they chop cheeses, and thus reachthe glory of the butcher's calling, without its painfulness. Also theyhandle shining tins, marvellously illustrated.

  Mayors and grocers were of course nothing to Miss Ford, but Chairmenwere very important. She nodded curtly to the Mayor and grocer, but shepushed the seventh chair towards the Chairman.

  "May I just finish with this applicant?" she asked in her thin inclusivecommittee voice, and then added in the direction of the Stranger: "It'sno use talking nonsense. We all see through you, you cannot deceive acommittee. But to a certain extent we believe your story, and arewilling, if the case proves satisfactory, to give you a helping hand. Iwill take down a few particulars. First your name?"

  "M--m," mused the Stranger. "Let me see, you didn't like Hazeline Snowmuch, did you? What d'you think of Thelma ... Thelma Bennett Watkins?...You know, the Rutlandshire Watkinses, the younger branch----"

  Miss Ford balanced her pen helplessly. "But that isn't your real name."

  "How d'you mean--real name?" asked the Stranger anxiously. "Won't thatdo? What about Iris ... Hyde?... You see, the truth is, I was neveractually christened ... I was born a conscientious objector, andalso----"

  "Oh, for the Dear Sake, be silent!" said Miss Ford, writing down "ThelmaBennett Watkins," in self-defence. "This, I take it, is the name yougave at the time of the National Registration."

  "I forget," said the Stranger. "I remember that I put down my trade asMagic, and they registered it on my card as 'Machinist.' Yet Magic, Ibelieve, is a starred profession."

  "What is your trade really?" asked Miss Ford.

  "I'll show you," replied the Stranger, unbuttoning once more the flap ofher pocket.

  * * * * *

  She wrote a word upon the air with her finger, and made a flourish underthe word. So flowery was the flourish that it span her round, rightround upon her toes, and she faced her watchers again. The committeejumped, for the blind ran up, and outside the window, at the end of astrange perspective of street, the trees of some far square were as softas thistledown against a lemon-coloured sky. A sound came up thestreet....

  The forgotten April and the voices of lambs pealed like bells into theroom....

  Oh, let us flee from April! We are but swimmers in seas of words, wemembers of committees, and to the song of April there are no words. Whatdo we know, and what does London know, after all these years oflearning?

  Old Mother London crouches, with her face buried in her hands; and sheis walled in with her fogs and her loud noises, and over her head arethe heavy beams of her dark roof, and she has the barred sun for askylight, and winds that are but hideous draughts rush under her door.London knows much, and every moment she learns a new thing, but this sheshall never learn--that the sun shines all day and the moon all night onthe silver tiles of her dark house, and that the young months climb herwalls, and run singing in and out between her chimneys....

  * * * * *

  Nothing else happened in that room. At least nothing more important thanthe ordinary manifestations attendant upon magic. The lamp hadtremulously gone out. Coloured flames danced about the Stranger's head.One felt the thrill of a purring cat against one's ankles, one saw itsgreen eyes glare. But these things hardly counted.

  It was all over. The Mayor was heard cracking his fingers, andwhispering "Puss, Puss." The lamp relighted itself. Nobody had knownthat it was so gifted.

  The Mayor said: "Splendid, miss, quite splendid. You'd make a fortune onthe stage." His tongue, however, seemed to be talking by itself, withoutthe assistance of the Mayor himself. One could see that he was shakenout of his usual grocerly calm, for his feverish hand was stroking a catwhere no cat was.

  Black cats are only the showy properties of magic, easily materialised,even by beginners, at will. It must be confusing for such an orderlyanimal as the cat to exist in this intermittent way, never knowing, soto speak, whether it is there or not there, from one moment to another.

  The sixth member took a severely bitten pen from between her lips, andsaid: "Now you mention it, I think I'll go down there again for theweek-end. I can pawn my ear-rings."

  Nobody of course took any notice of her, yet in a way her remark waslogical. For that singing Spring that had for a moment trespassed in theroom had reminded her of very familiar things, and for a few seconds shehad stood upon a beloved hill, and had looked down between beech treeson a far valley, like a promised land; and had seen in the valley a paleriver and a dark town, like milk and honey.

  As for Miss Ford, she had become rather white. Although the blind hadnow pulled itself down, and dismissed April, Miss Ford continued to lookat the window. But she cleared her throat and said hoarsely: "Will youkindly answer my questions? I asked you what your trade was."

  "It's too dretful of me to interrupt," said Lady Arabel suddenly. "But,do you know, Meta, I feel we are wasting this committee's time. Thisyoung person needs no assistance from us." She turned to the Stranger,and added: "My dear, I am dretfully ashamed. You must meet my sonRrchud.... My son Rrchud knows...."

  She burst into tears.

  The Stranger took her hand.

  "I should like awfully to meet Rrchud, and to get to know you better,"she said. She grew very red. "I say, I should be awfully pleased if youwould call me Angela."

  It wasn't her name, but she had noticed that something of this sort isalways said when people become motherly and cry.

  Then she went away.

  "Lawdy," said the Mayor. "I didn't expect she'd go out by the door,somehow. Look--she's left some sort of hardware over there in thecorner."

  It was a broomstick.