CHAPTER XXVI—DREAMING OF LOVE

The immediate outcome of this was money—more money than Eden Row had ever imagined. Mrs. Sheerug refused to leave Orchid Lodge.

“I’ll help you splash,” she told Alonzo, “but I won’t move out of Orchid Lodge.”

As a compromise, Orchid Lodge was re-decorated in violent colors, and a carriage and pair waited before it. Mrs. Sheerug used her carriage for hunting up invalids that she might dose them with medicines of her own invention. She inclined to the garish in her method of dress, wearing yellow feathers and green plush, as in the old days when Jimmie Boy had dashed to the window to make sketches of her for the faery-godmother. And to him she was a faery-godmother, for she bought his pictures and insisted on having an exhibition of them at The Beauty Palace.

“Ah, my dear,” she would say, crossing her hands, “God sends us poverty that we may be kind when our money comes.”

Was she happy? Teddy wondered. Sometimes he fancied that she coveted the days of careless uncertainty and happy-go-lucky comfort. One of her chief hobbies had been taken from her: it was no longer possible to get into debt And her gifts didn’t mean so much, now that her giving could be endless. It would be absurd for the wife of the great Alonzo Sheerug to produce black bottles from under her mantle and thrust them at people with the information that the contents would “build you up.” She had to send whole cases of wine now, and there wasn’t the same personal pleasure.

She had saved the spare-room from the imagination of the decorators. More than once Teddy caught her there, shuffling about in her woolen slippers and plum-colored dressing-gown. She seemed more natural like that It was so that he loved her best.

For him the success of Beauty Incorporated brought two results: an income and a friend. Mr. Sheerug had rewarded his escapade at Brighton by allotting him shares in the company. The boom increased their value beyond all expectations; he found himself possessed of over three hundred pounds per annum. But the more valuable result was the knowledge of life which he gained from his friendship with Madame Josephine.

To the world in general she was a notorious woman who had sinned splendidly and with discretion. She seemed to deny the advantages of virtue. Was she not beautiful? Was she not young? Hadn’t she wealth? Teddy had come to an age when youth tests the conventions; it was Madame Josephine who answered his doubts on the subject.

The Madame Josephine he knew was a white-haired old lady who liked him to treat her as a grandmother. She would talk to him by the hour about books and dead people, and sometimes about love.

There was an adventure in going to see her, for she only dared to be old in his presence—to the rest of the world it was her profession to be young. As Duke Nineveh was always telling her, appearances had to be kept up.

She had a secret room at the top of her house to which Teddy alone was admitted. The servants were ignorant of what went on there. They invented legends.

He had to speak his name distinctly; then a chair would be pushed back, footsteps would sound, and the key would turn. The moment he was across the threshold, the lock grated behind him. And there, after all these mysteries, was an old lady, sweet-featured and wistful-looking—an old lady who an hour before had been admired for her youth by the London crowds.

Hanging from the ceiling was a cage with a canary. On the sill were flower-boxes. From the window, across trees, one could catch a glimpse of Kensington Gardens and the blown petals of children. It was an old lady’s room, filled with memories. On the walls were faded photographs with spidery signatures; on the table a work-basket; beside the table a rocking chair.

“Here’s where my soul lives,” she said. “The other person, phew!” Her hands opened expressively. “She’s the husk. Those who live to please, must please to live, Teddy. It’s a terrible thing to have to go on shamming when you’re seventy—shamming you’re gay, shamming you’re flippant, shamming you’re wicked. So few things matter when you’re seventy. Money doesn’t.”

She caught the question in his eyes. “Ah, my dear, but when all your life has been lived for adoration, you miss it The poison’s in the blood. At my age one has to pay a long price even for what looks like love.”

That was the nearest she ever came to explaining her relations with Duke Nineveh. She liked to forget him when Teddy was present. It was the ideality of the boy that appealed to her. She wanted to give wisdom to his sentiment, to forewarn his courage and to save him from disappointment It was a strange task for a woman with her record—a woman who had lived garishly, and was remembered for the careers she had ruined. Little by little she drew from him the story of Vashti, and later of Desire.

He looked up at her smiling, trying to treat his confession lightly. “Curious how people come into your life and make your dreams for you.”

She bent over him, taking his hands gently. “Curious! Not curious. People are the most real dreams we have.”

“Yes, but——” He hesitated. “Desire’s not as I remember her any longer. She’s growing up. I wonder what she’s like. If I met her, I might not recognize her. We might pass in the street, my dream and I. And yet——”

He lifted his face to hers. “You know I still think of her—of the price. It’s idiotic, because,” his voice fell, “I know nothing about girls.”

She drew him closer. “D’you know what women need most in this world? Kindness. Good men, like you’ll be,” she seemed to remember, “they’re harsh sometimes. They make women frightened. A good man’s always better than the best woman—that’s a truth that few people own to themselves. If you do find her or any one else, don’t judge—try to understand.” And later, “Never try to be fair to a woman, Teddy; when a good man tries to be fair, he’s unjust.”

From time to time, as they sat together in that locked room, she told him of herself. She gave him glimpses of passion and the despair of its ending. “It doesn’t pay. It doesn’t pay,” was the burden of what she said. One night, it was four years since he had known her, they forgot to turn on the light. Across the ceiling, like a phantom butterfly, the flare from the street-lamps fluttered.

“None of those others that I have told you about were love,” she whispered. “There was a good man in my life once. Whenever you see a woman like me, you may be sure of that. It’s the good men who make us women bad; they expect too much—build their dreams too high. There was a man——” She fell silent “You’re like him. That’s why.”

When he was leaving, she put her arms about him. “When you find her, don’t try to change her. Women long to be trusted. Be content to love.”

For the time being he tried to satisfy his heart-with work. His passion to be famous connected itself with his passion to love. He had an instinct that he must win fame first, and that all the rest would follow.

Much of what Madame Josephine told him about women he applied to Vashti. It made him look on all women with new eyes—the eyes of pity for their frailty. And all these emotions he wove about the figure of Desire.

In the writing of his first book—the book which brought him immediate success, Life Till Twenty-one—was un-cannily conscious of her presence. He would find himself leaving off in a sentence to sketch her face for one of those quaint little marginal drawings. It was as though she had come into the room; by listening intently, he would be able to hear her breathe. Working late at night, he would glance across his shoulder, half expecting to find her. He told himself that she was always standing behind him; why he never saw her was because she dodged in front when he turned his head. It was the old game that she had played in the farmhouse garden, when she had hidden in the bushes at the sound of his coming. He explained these fancies by telling himself that somewhere, out there in the world, she was remembering, and that her thoughts, flying across the distance, had touched him.