Chapter XVII: A Drawn Battle

It was about this time, if I recollect aright (for _I_ am the girl who does not keep a diary), that Romeo invited me to dinner.

I have two reasons for my avoidance of the besetting sin of diary-writing. The first is that I am usually dog-tired with work when evening comes, so that to ask me to fill in a journal with the day’s events is like asking a galley-slave to take a scull in a pleasure-boat after his toil is over. The second is that if you keep no diary it cannot be used in evidence against you. As yet, ’tis true, by rigid self-examination, I have steered clear of capital crimes; but I remember always Ophelia’s wise saw, “We know what we are; we know not what we may be.”

Romeo invited me with caution, and tentatively. He began by remarking, as if for no special reason, that he was giving a dinner next week at the Savoy—a dinner devised for a particular purpose. Then he added after a while that his mother would be there. This to inspire confidence, dear fellow! as though I ever doubted him. Next he inquired in a rather timid voice whether, if his mother picked me up by the way in her brougham, I would mind joining the party. “My mother has not called upon you yet,” he murmured in an apologetic parenthesis, looking up at me askance from under his ridged eyebrows with an interrogative lid; “but—perhaps you would waive that.” From the way he said it I could read much. I felt instinctively she was a black-satin old lady of the straightest sect; Romeo had implored her to call; she had refused point-blank to go and see a type-writer girl who lived in one room in an impossible street in Soho. Romeo had begged and prayed; the mother had presented the true stiff neck of the black-satin order. Then Romeo had planned this dinner as a means of introducing me, confident (dear boy) that if once we were brought together, his mother—well, would think as much of me as he did. Poor purblind Romeo! I pitied him for that. How little had he fathomed black-satin psychology!

I hesitated a moment. Not on Romeo’s account, nor even on the mother’s—I do not fear the smoothest black satin; but because of the mere material difficulty of a gown, which just at first rose insuperable. Otherwise I thought so much of Romeo now—he had begun to play so large a part in the unwritten dramas of my future with which I lulled myself to sleep—that I felt at all costs I must be present at this dinner and face the mother. A mother is almost inevitable; the sooner one gets over her, like measles, the better.

I had one evening dress, or the ghost of one, which had descended to me from the days when I was a lady. Its sleeves carried date; but the bodice and skirt were of that fanciful kind which is above the fashion, and therefore never either in it or out of it. The colour was sweet—white, shot with faint streaks of the daintiest pink, like the first downy stage of budding willow catkins. On the other hand, I was still in mourning for my dear father. Had I loved him less I should have shrunk from wearing that gown; but my sorrow was not of the sort that measures itself by yards of crape, which is why I have troubled you with it so little in this narrative. I reflected a moment; then I answered, “Yes; it will give me great pleasure.”

That it gave Romeo great pleasure was visibly written on his face. He had expected a _no_, and was delighted at my acceptance. I knew by his eyes he had anticipated and even exaggerated the dress difficulty. I did not misinterpret his pleased look, however. I never thought Romeo was in love with me; I knew he was interested in me, both personally and as a possible authoress; and I saw he wished much to bring me officially into his mother’s circle. More than that, I did not believe, or rather, if I am to tell you the precise truth, I thought Romeo was falling in love with me by slow steps, but mistaking his love for mere interest and friendliness.

For a week I was a woman, not merely a type-writer. I worked hard at that gown, first planning, then executing my alterations. Dear little Elsie helped me with it like a Trojan. Nay, in cutting out and fitting she displayed or developed unexpected talent. When dress was in question she was no longer stupid; the woman in her grew; she showed taste and skill; indeed, I have noted in life, throughout, that taste has no necessary connection, direct or inverse, with intelligence or stupidity; it is a native endowment which may break out anywhere. She was glad it was a dinner, not a dance; her religious opinions would not have sanctioned her assisting me with a ball-dress. But all sects alike approve the habit of feeding. I must admit that when it came to the details of my gown she showed herself at once most frankly worldly. Elsie had little chance of making dresses for herself, poor child; but she aided me with her needle and her advice till I was truly grateful. The way she reorganised the sleeves to a Parisian model made one believe in alchemy. We spent a few shillings on new tulle and lining. Every evening we had an orgy of dressmaking: whole packets of pins, snippets of silk on the floor. Before the end of the week we had transformed that old gown of mine into a joy for ever. It was better than new; as it fell in soft folds the blush showed on the ridge and cream-white in the hollows. When I tried it on, Elsie bent over me enraptured. “You dear thing!” she cried, hugging me (to the danger of the tulle), “I always knew you were pretty, but I never knew till now you were splendidly beautiful.”

And I will honestly admit that the frock became me.

The day arrived at last. Elsie came round to help me dress my hair. We made more of this dinner than I should have made of being presented in the days of my grandeur—such as it was. Dear little Elsie had brought me some flowers from a friend’s garden at Ealing, choice sweet-scented flowers, with a background of maidenhair. If I had believed her, I would have thought no fairy princess ever looked more radiant than I looked that evening; and, indeed, our joint efforts on the gown repaid us with interest. When the last touch had been given Elsie kissed me on both cheeks. “He will propose to-night,” she whispered. “I know he will: he can’t help himself, dear. You _are_ so captivating!” I blushed, for I had never mentioned his name to Elsie; but then, I forgot that Elsie too was a woman.

At ten minutes to eight the brougham arrived at the door. Never before had our street beheld so distinguished an equipage. This was unfortunate, for the children next door came to gaze at me with dirty faces and unaffected interest, exclaiming, “Oh, my, don’t she look a reel lidy?” as I made a rush for the carriage.

Romeo’s mother was precisely what I had painted her—a Lady Montague of the severest, with coffee-coloured point-lace, a Cornelia one shade too stout for the mother of the Gracchi. Her smooth white hair looked not gentle, but forbidding; she listened to what I said with well-bred reserve: too stiff to acquiesce, too polite to contradict, too stony to show interest.

At the hotel, we were ushered into a handsome private room, most gracefully decorated with crimson arabesques on white panelling. The party consisted of Romeo and his mother with some six or eight more (including a prebendary), among whom the chief guests seemed to be a certain amiable-faced Lady Donisthorpe and her husband, Sir Everard. I name them in this order, for though the husband was a man of some force and character—early English, comfortable—Lady Donisthorpe, like Paul, was the chief speaker. She seemed what is called “a womanly woman”—one of those tranquil women with soft, rounded outlines, who look like wax, but within are flint. She reminded me most of all of a pouter pigeon.

She apologised much because dear Meta could not come. It was _such_ a disappointment. The poor child had been taken ill—nothing serious she was glad to say—but impossible to go out. She hoped Romeo would excuse her. Romeo expressed most courteous regret at dear Meta’s enforced absence; though I, who knew him now so well, and was used at the office to note the varying degrees of cordiality or boredom in his reception of authors, inferred at once from his eyes that he was somewhat relieved at heart by dear Meta’s non-appearance. It was clear to me, too, that Lady Donisthorpe flung Meta inartistically at his head; twenty times during the evening she referred with a rigid smile and a puff of the pouter bust to one of dear Meta’s sweet ways or to something delightful that dear Meta had said or done for somebody. The impression she left upon me was that Meta must be an insipid paragon, with all the virtues and their concomitant insupportability. Romeo’s absent smile at each such advertisement of Meta’s charming qualities—“so gentle,” “so unaffected”—made me feel convinced that he was of the same opinion.

To put it plainly, Lady Donisthorpe showed want of tact in her crude mode of placarding Meta.

She had another trick of manner which disturbed my peace of mind; like most of the newly-enriched, she attached an excessive importance to the after all somewhat negative quality of ladylikeness. The highest praise she could accord to each achromatically charming girl of her acquaintance was that of being “a perfect lady.” She flung the phrase in my teeth. Apart from the fact that it seems to imply a somewhat narrow standard, I always suspect women who insist upon this point of being themselves cotton-backed ladies.

I knew her type: she belonged to an aristocracy recruited by the names of all the best-known brands of beer, soap, and whiskey.

I protest, however, that just at first I began by treating Romeo’s mother and Lady Donisthorpe with the utmost cordiality. For had I not good reasons for desiring to conciliate them? But their treatment chilled me. I could see they had come prepared to dislike me for a conceited upstart. In return, I soon found I disliked their texture. Cornelia was cold; I felt she regarded my humour as ill-timed. Lady Donisthorpe had the vulgar fear of vulgarity. I do not share it; nature is vulgar enough; we can only be “perfect ladies” on the Donisthorpe pattern by shutting our eyes, shutting our ears, and shutting our noses to most things around us. Now, I will not shut my eyes nor my mouth either. If facts obtrude themselves, I recognise them. I fear Lady Donisthorpe thought it painfully unladylike of me to have lived in the East-End, and positively rude to tell stories of slop-makers. She raised her tortoise-shell glasses at the very word as a mute protest.

In fine, both were conscious of a social barrier. So was I—with a difference. Lady Donisthorpe moved in what calls itself “good society,” but _genteel_ would have been scarce too hard a word to describe her.

Romeo’s mother swept in to dinner on Sir Everard’s arm, a three-decker under full sail. Romeo offered me his; I gathered it was because Meta had not arrived as expected. Always handsome, he looked handsomer in evening dress. A waxy white flower lay on each plate: Romeo pinned mine on my bodice. Lady Donisthorpe’s placid eyes did not let the action pass unnoticed.

The dinner—by which you shall understand the food—was the best I ever tasted. The champagne, in the judgment of one who is no judge, was a thought too dry, but delicious. The _mousse de jambon_ was an epicure’s dream. I really enjoyed myself. Besides, I was conscious that Romeo liked my dress and felt some mild surprise to see how well I looked in it. He had hitherto known me in my black office gown alone. I forgot my poverty and was once more a lady.

It suits me better. I blossom under it. I did not even object to Sir Everard for being a millionaire; it was hardly his fault; millionaires, after all, are an outcome of the age: one can but regret that they absorb its income. Lady Donisthorpe’s talk reeked of wealth till I felt it would be delightful to get home at night and see something cheap again. My seat was between Romeo and a clever young man, with keen eyes and _pince-nez_, a rising physiologist. It relieved me to learn he was not an electrical engineer; all the young men I used to meet in my præ-type-writing days had been given over to riotous electrical engineering. My neighbour’s hobby was a cheerful one—the identity of genius and madness. He took _Paradise Lost_ and the Vatican frescoes for premonitory symptoms of acute mania; he held the steam-engine to be a by-product of the insane temperament. Yet he urged his thesis so well that, on his own showing, I foresaw he must be qualifying for residence in an asylum. When I told him so, he cavilled at my graceful compliment. To escape his retort, I turned to the other side and joined talk with Romeo and the prebendary. I do not know what a prebendary does; his functions are more mysterious than even the archidiaconal; but I have said I love mystery; and I found the prebendary a capital talker.

Romeo was charming, as always—more charming to me that night, I fancied, than ever. Perhaps it was because he had never seen me dressed like a human being before; but also, I think, he was conscious of his mother’s keen eyes and Lady Donisthorpe’s steely glance; smiling ever her set smile, she felt Meta’s chances were slipping from her visibly. She was an ox-eyed Hera, a little run to seed, and now almost cow-faced, but cat-like in her watchfulness. To counteract the chilling effect of the two mothers—one a feather-bed, the other a poker—and to put me at my ease, Romeo behaved with the sweetest courtesy. He talked to me; he drew me out; if I ever can be brilliant (which ’tis not for me to judge) I was brilliant that evening. I flashed to my own surprise; Romeo’s admiration, and the two elder women’s scarcely concealed hostility, put me on my mettle.

I was not angry with his mother; it was comprehensible, of course; mothers are made like that. We erect each other into a class, and judge accordingly. Could any woman with an aquiline nose, and white hair neatly dressed by an immaculate maid, sit by unperturbed while her only son paid open court to a type-writer girl? I suppose I should have felt as she did, had I been put in her place. Being put in my own, I naturally did my best to let myself be seen to the greatest advantage.

So did Romeo. Having brought me there, he was determined I should be treated with proper respect. He insisted on talking to me; Lady Donisthorpe’s cat-like graciousness, Cornelia’s Roman austerity, only increased his anxiety to do me honour. The more his mother froze, the more Lady Donisthorpe, smiling her mechanical smile, and gently crushing, raised her tortoise-shell eye-glasses to decide whether I was human, the more did Romeo draw me out, and the more did I scintillate, till at last all the table was talking to me or listening to me. I laughed and raised laughter; I sparkled and parried. When Lady Donisthorpe interposed sweetly, “And so you type-write at the office! How fatiguing it must be!” on purpose to disconcert me, I had my repartee ready: “At least it preserves me from being a perfect lady.” I could see Romeo was pleased. I was a social success. I had justified his temerity.

In the midst of our fencing, of a sudden, Cornelia drew out a gold pencil, wrote something on a card, and handed it across to him. Romeo glanced at it and crumpled it up; I could guess by his face her note had not pleased him. “As you will,” he answered across the table; then he turned to me once more. “That was delicious,” he said; “and what did you reply to him?”

I went on with my story. Still, I could gather that he was annoyed; not only annoyed, indeed, but perplexed and troubled. Dinner solemnised, we withdrew to the comfortable divans of the balcony for Turkish coffee. All the party crowded round me, save the two mammas; they did not sit apart, but, joining our group, they preserved an austere moral aloofness. The rest, however, redeemed their abstention. Even Sir Everard was untrue to poor Meta’s chances. I was flushed by this time, and the men’s eyes told me I was looking my prettiest. The two other girls of the party chimed in and encouraged me. So did the prebendary; I talked easily and brightly. Sir Everard laughed again and again at my sallies. He was a portly old gentleman with a massive white waistcoat, very like a toad as he leaned back on the ottoman. His voice, too, was a purr; he was a toad, not a natterjack.

But Romeo had stolen away to give some mysterious orders. I felt rather than saw that something had gone wrong somewhere with the machinery.

We were to adjourn to a theatre. We drove round in state. Our stalls were near the centre; Lady Donisthorpe in claret-coloured velvet looked truly imposing. In one of the interludes I looked round at the pit. Directly behind me, in the front row, sat a foxey-headed man staring open-eyed towards me. It was the Grand Vizier, accompanied by a lady (no doubt “with brains”) and concealing but imperfectly the fact that he had been dining.

For a moment—a rare moment—I felt really disconcerted. Under any other circumstances it would only have amused me had the Vizier leaned forward and shouted, “Good evening, miss,” in his own dialect. But to-night, with the eyes of those two mothers fixed stonily on my face, I confess I trembled lest he should rise in his seat, wave one hairy hand, and call out loudly across the intervening rows, “Allow me to introduce my fee-on-say to you, Miss Appleton!” I looked away hastily, not before he had caught my eye. I expected to see his goggle eyes fall out and drop upon the floor: he was so evidently surprised at my transfigured appearance. The last time he had parted from me it was beneath the golden symbol of St. Nicholas at the shop in the Strand; to light upon me there that night, dressed like a lady, surrounded by a little court, made much of by the men, and flushed from the Savoy, might naturally astonish him.

However, he behaved with better taste than I could have anticipated. He nudged his companion, and whispered in her ear, but kept his face averted. He was puzzled, I felt sure; still he had sense enough to know that this greeting would be ill-timed, and good feeling enough to prevent him from forcing himself upon my notice.

When the play was over Romeo led me to the door. I was still hot and uncertain. So far as he was concerned this evening was for me a great triumph; every man and woman there, save only the two mothers, had paid me much attention, and, I will even venture to add, admired me. I had looked and talked my best, and I was satisfied with my performance. But the two elder women hung like black clouds lowering in the rear; I could feel them disapproving of me with various degrees of rancour. One feared for her son, the other for her daughter.

Very natural, I knew; but so too was my own attitude. No woman is born to be merely a type-writer.

At the door Romeo led me by myself into a well-appointed brougham. Then I knew what had happened. Cornelia had written across to him that she declined to take me back in her carriage to Soho; and Romeo, to save me the knowledge of that slight, had slipped away at the hotel, and ordered another carriage to await me at the theatre. He held my hand in his own for a brief space after he put me into it.

“It was so good of you to come,” he said. “I have so much enjoyed this talk with you.”

But the two mothers hardly gave me the tips of their fingers, and bowed distantly as I drove away alone, with chilly politeness.

When I got back to my room my feelings were mixed. The jealous Gods thus alloy our triumphs. Romeo had seen me at last as I really was. But I had innocently disturbed the peace of two families.

I did what every other woman would have done in my place—sat down to a good cry and thought about Romeo.