Nights in London Part 8

SURBITON AND BATTERSEA

_A SUBURBAN NIGHT_

_Oh, sweetly sad and sadly sweet, That rain-pearled night at Highbury!

The picture-theatre, off the street, That housed us from the lisping sleet, Is a white grave of dreams for me._

_Though smile and talk were all our part, Sorrow lay p.r.o.ne upon your heart That never again our lips might meet, And never so softly fall the sleet In gay-lamped, lyric Highbury.

Love made your lily face to s.h.i.+ne, But oh, your cheek was salt to mine, As we walked home from Highbury._

_O starry street of shop and show, And was it thus long years ago?

Was the full tale but waste and woe, And Love but doom in Highbury, My dusty, dreaming Highbury?_

A HAPPY NIGHT

SURBITON AND BATTERSEA

When I received the invitation to the whist-drive at Surbiton my first thought was, "Not likely!" I had visions of a boring evening: I knew Surbiton. I knew its elegances and petty refinements. I knew its pathetic apings of Curzon Street and Grosvenor Square. I knew its extremely dull smartness of speech and behaviour. I foresaw that I should enjoy myself as much as I did at the Y.M.C.A. concert where everybody sang refined songs and stopped the star from going on because he was about to sing the "Hymn to Venus," which was regarded as "a little amorous." The self-conscious waywardness, the deliberate Bohemianism of Surbiton, I said to myself, is not for me. I shall either overplay it or underplay it. Certainly I shall give offence if I am my normal self. For the Bohemianism of Surbiton, I continued, has very strict rules which n.o.body in Bohemia ever heard of, and you cannot be a Surbiton Bohemian until you have mastered those rules and learned how gracefully to transgress them. If I throw bread pellets at the girls, they will call me unmannerly. If I don't they will call me stiff. You may have noticed that those pseudo-intellectuals who like to think themselves Bohemian are always terrified when they are brought up against anything that really is unconventional. On the other hand, your true Bohemian is disgusted if anybody describes him by that word; if there is one word that he detests more than Belgravia, it is Bohemia.

No, I shall certainly not go.

Surbiton ... Surbiton. I repeated the name aloud, tasting its flavour.

It has always had to me something brackish, something that fills my mind with grey pain and makes me yearn for my old toys. It is curious how the places and streets of London a.s.sume a character from one's own moods. All the big roads have a very sharp character of their own. If all other indications were lacking, one might know at once whether the place were Edgware Road or Old Ford Road, simply by the sounds and by the sweep of it. Pull down every house and shop, and still Oxford Street could never pa.s.s itself off as Barking Road. But they have, too, a message for you. I still believe that a black dog is waiting to maul me in Stepney Causeway. I still dance with delight down Holborn. Peckham Road still speaks to me of love. And Maida Vale always means music for me, music all the way. I had my first fright in Stepney Causeway. I first walked down Holborn when I had had a streak of luck. I first knew Peckham Road when first I loved. And I first made acquaintance with Maida Vale and its daintily naughty flats at the idiotic age of seventeen, when I was writing verses for composers at five s.h.i.+llings a time. They all lived in Maida Vale, and I spent many evenings in the music-rooms of those worn-out or budding composers and singers who, with the Jews, have made this district their own; so that Maida Vale smells always to me of violets and apple-blossom: it speaks April and May. The deep blue of its night skies is spangled with dancing stars. The very sweep and sway of the road to Kilburn and Cricklewood is an ecstasy, and the windows of the many mansions seem to s.h.i.+ne from heaven, so aloof are they.

Surbiton, I repeated. I shall certainly not go. I know it too well.

Surbiton is one of those comfortable, solid places, and I loathe comfortable places. I always go to Hastings and avoid St. Leonards. I always go to Margate and fly from Eastbourne. I always go to Southend and give Knocke-sur-Mer a miss. I like Clacton. I detest Cromer. I love Camden Town. I hate Surbiton. Surbiton is very much like Hampstead, except that, while Hampstead is horrible for 362 days of the year, there are three days in the year when it is inhabitable. On Bank Holidays the simple-minded minor poet like myself can live in it. I was there one August Bank Holiday, and, flushed and fatigued with the full-blooded frolic, I had turned aside to "cool dahn" in Heath Street, when I ran against some highly respectable and intelligent friends.

"What!" they said. "You here to-day? Ah! observing, I suppose? Getting copy? Or perhaps as a literary man you come here for Keats ... Coleridge ... and all that?"

"No," I answered. "I come here for boatswings. I come here to throw sticks at coconuts. I come here to buy ticklers to tickle the girls with. I come here for halfpenny skips. I come here for donkey rides. I do not come for Keats. I do not care a d.a.m.n for Coleridge. I do not come to gloat about Turner or Constable or anybody else who lived at Hampstead a hundred years ago. I come here to enjoy myself--for roundabouts, c.o.c.kles and whelks, steam-organs--which, after all, are the same thing as Keats or Coleridge. They're Life."

Wherefore I felt determined that I could not and would not go to a whist-drive at Surbiton, when I could get the real thing in Upper Street, Islington.

Then Georgie called for me at the office, and we went out to lunch.

Georgie had sold a picture. He had five pounds in his pocket. We went to Maxim's and had lunch. Georgie insisted on sparkling Moselle, and we had two bottles, and three rounds of Cointreau triple sec. By that time it was too late to think of going back to work, so I took Georgie to tea at a literary club, and we talked. I then discovered in a panic that it was half-past six. The whist-drive was at eight, and I had yet to dine and get down to Surbiton. Georgie, by that subtle magnetism which he possesses, had drawn a bunch of the boys about him, and had induced them to make a night of it with him; so we went to Simpson's to eat, and I left them at the table, very merry, and departed to Waterloo. Somewhere, between lunch and dinner, I had unconsciously decided, you see, that I would go to Surbiton. I can't remember just when the change in my att.i.tude took place; but there it was. I went to Surbiton, feeling quite good and almost in love with Surbiton.

The whist-drive was to be held in the local hall, and when I arrived cabs and motors were forming a queue. Each cab vomited some dainty arrangement in lace or black cloth. Everybody was "dressed." (I think I said that it was Surbiton.) Everybody was on best behaviour. Remembering the gang at Simpson's, I felt rather a scab, but a glance in the mirror of the dressing-room rea.s.sured me. I recollected some beautiful words of Mr. Mark Sheridan's, "If I'm not clever, thank G.o.d, I'm clean." The other fellows in the dressing-room were things of beauty. Their public-school accent, with its vile misp.r.o.nunciation of the English tongue, would have carried them into the inner circles of any European chancellery. I never heard anything so supernally affecting. I have heard many of our greatest actors and singers, but I have never heard so much music put into simple words, as, "I say, you fellers!"

Everybody was decent. Everybody, you felt sure, could be trusted to do the decent thing, to do whatever was "done," and to leave undone those things that were not "done," and, generally, to be a very decent sort.

Their features were clean and firm; they were well-tended. Their minds were clean. They talked clean; and, if they did not display any marked signs of intelligence or imagination, if they had not the largeness of personality for the n.o.ble and big things of life, you felt that at least they had not the bent for doing anything dirty. Altogether, a nice set, as insipid people mostly are: what are known in certain circles as Gentlemen.

The girls.... Well, they, too, were a decent sort. Not so decent as the boys, of course, because they were girls. They scanned one another a little too closely. They were too obviously anxious to please. They were too obviously out for the evening. Those who were of the at-home type simpered. They talked in italics. The outdoor type walked like horses.

They looked unpleasant, too. I wonder why "Madge" or "Felice" or "Ermyntrude," or some other writer of toilet columns in the ladies'

papers, doesn't tell her outdoor girl readers how hideous they look in evening frocks. Why don't they urge them not to uncover themselves? For the outdoor girl has large hands and large arms, both of a beefy red.

She has a face and neck tanned by sun and wind, and her ensemble, in a frock cut to the very edge of decency, shows you red hands and forearms, with a sharp dividing line where the white upper arm begins, and a raw face and neck, with the same definite line marking the beginning of white bosom and shoulders. The effect is ridiculous. It is also repulsive. I think they ought to know about it.

The hall was tastefully decorated with white flowers and palms. There was a supper-room, which looked good. The prizes, arranged on a table by the platform, were elegant, well chosen, and of some value. I started at a table with an elderly matron, a very self-conscious Fabian girl, and a rather bored-looking man of middle age, who seemed to be bursting to talk--which is the deadliest of sins at a Surbiton whist-drive. The whist that I play is the very worst whist that has ever been seen. I told my partner so, and she said, "Oh, really!" and asked me if I had had any tennis yet. Then some one begged us to be seated, and, with much arrangements of silks and laces and wraps, we sat down and began to play whist. As I moved from table to table I made no fresh partners. They were differently dressed, but otherwise there was no distinction. They were a very decent sort....

After many hours we stopped playing whist, and broke up for chewing and chatting. The bored-looking man of middle age picked me up, and we took two stray girls in tow for wine and sandwiches. The manners at the supper-crush were elegance itself. The girls smoked cigarettes just a little too defiantly, but they were quite well-bred about it. A lot of well-bred witticisms floated around, with cool laughter and pretty smiles. A knot of girls with two boys talked somewhat decryingly of Shaw and Strindberg; and one caught stray straws of talk about Masefield, Beecham opera, Scriabine, Marinetti, Augustus John. Two girls were giving a concert at the Steinway next week. Others were aiming at the Academy. Another had had a story accepted by the _English Review_. They were a very decent sort.

The bored man plucked at my arm and suggested that we get rid of the girls, and go across to "The Railway" and have one. We did. In the lounge of "The Railway" he told me the one about the lady and taxi. It was very good, but extremely ill-bred. He was a prominent local doctor, so I told him the one about the medical man on the panel, and about the Bishop who put gin in his whisky. Then he told me another ... and another. He remembered the old days at the London.... He said he had had to go to this show because his boy and girl were there. Cards bored him to death, but he liked to be matey with the youngsters. Suppose we had just one more?

We had just one more. From across the way came, very sweet and faint, the sound of laughter and young voices. Some one had started a piano, and the Ballade in A Minor was wandering over Surbiton. I looked into my brandy-gla.s.s, and, as I am very young, I rather wanted to cry. I don't know why. It was just the mood ... the soft night, Surbiton, young boys and girls, Chopin, Martell.... I said I had to catch an immediate train to Waterloo, and I drank up and bolted.

The other Sat.u.r.day morning I met a friend at the Bedford Street Bodega.

He said, "Laddie, doing anything to-night?" I said, "No; what's on?"

He said: "Like to help your old uncle?"

I said: "Stand on me."

"Well, it's a little charity show. A Social at Battersea Town Hall. Some local club or tennis-party or some jolly old thing of that sort. All receipts to the local hospital. All the gang are going to do something--kind of informal, you know. I'm the Star. Yes, laddie, I have at last a shop, for one night only. My fee--seven-and-sixpence and tram-fares. All other services gratuitous. No platform. No auditorium.

Just a little old sit-round, drinking limp coffee and eating anaemic pastry, and listening. Come?"

I said I would, and we adventured along the dreary Wandsworth Road, down the evil-smelling Lavender Hill, into the strenuous endeavour of Clapham Junction. It was gay with lights and shoppers and parading monkeys.

Above us hung a pallid, frosty sky. No stars; no moon; but down in the streets, warmth and cheer and companions.h.i.+p. We called at the blazing, bustling "Falcon," which is much more like a railway-junction than the station itself, and did ourselves a little bit of good, as my professional friend put it. Then we mounted to the gas-lit room where the fun was to take place. We wandered down long, stark pa.s.sages, seeking our door. We heard voices, but we saw no door.

"Harold," said some one, "sometimes wish you wasn't quite such a fool."

"What's the matter now, Freddie?" asked A Voice.

"Why, you know very well it's ten to eight, and you ain't even pulled the piano out."

"Gaw! Lucky you reminded me. Come on, old chew-the-fat, give us a hand with the musical-box."

There were noises "off," from which it seemed that some one had put something on top of something else. There were noises of some one hitting a piece of wood with another piece of wood.

Then "d.a.m.n!" cried A Voice. "Steady on my feet, can't yeh? Bit more to the right. Whoa! Up your end a bit. 'At's it. When was she tuned last?

Give us a scale."

Some one flourished, and then a bright door opened, and two young men in s.h.i.+rt-sleeves with tousled brows, appeared.

"Laddie," cried my friend, dramatically, "is this the apartment for the Young People's Society In Connection With The Falcon Road Miss----?"

"That's us!" cried, I imagine, Freddie.

"Then I am Victor Maulever."

"Oh, step inside, won't you. Bit early, I'm 'fraid. Mr. Diplock ain't here yet. But come in. We got a fire going, and it's sort of turning chilly out, eh?"

We stepped in, and Freddie introduced us. "Harold--this is Mr. Maulever, the actor. Mr. Maulever, may I introduce our sec't'ry, Mr. Worple--Mr.

Harold Worple, I should say."