I suppose that very few people know how Mrs Albert
Forrester came to write
The Achilles Statue; and
since it has been acclaimed as one of the great novels
of our time I cannot but think that a brief account of the
circumstances that
gave it birth must be of interest to all serious students
of literature; and indeed,
if, as the critics say, this is a book that will live, the
following narrative, serving a
better purpose than to divert an idle hour, may be regarded
by the historian of
the future as a curious footnote to the literary annals of
our day.
Everyone of course remembers the success that attended the
publication of
The Achilles Statue. Month
after month printers were kept busy printing,
binders were kept busy binding, edition after edition; and
the publishers, both
in England and America, were hard put to it to fulfil the
pressing orders of the
booksellers. It was promptly translated into every European
tongue and it has
been recently announced that it will soon be possible to
read it in Japanese and
in Urdu. But it had previously appeared serially in
magazines on both sides of
the Atlantic and from the editors of these Mrs Albert
Forrester’s agent had
wrung a sum that can only be described as thumping. A
dramatization of the
work was made, which ran for a season in New York, and
there is little doubt
that when the play is produced in London it will have an
equal success. The
film rights have been sold at a great price. Though the
amount that Mrs Albert
Forrester is reputed (in literary circles) to have made is
probably exaggerated,
there can be no doubt that she will have earned enough
money from this one
It is not often that a book meets with equal favour from
the public and
the critics, and that she, of all persons, had (if I may so
put it) squared the
circle must have proved the more gratifying to Mrs Albert
Forrester, since,
though she had received the commendation of the critics in
no grudging terms
(and indeed had come to look upon it as her due) the public
had always
remained strangely insensible to her merit. Each work she
published, a slender
volume beautifully printed and bound in white buckram, was
hailed as a
masterpiece, always to the length of a column, and in the
weekly reviews which
you see only in the dusty library of a very
long–established club even to the
extent of a page; and well–read persons read and praised
it. But well–read
persons apparently do not buy books, and she did not sell.
It was indeed a
scandal that so distinguished an author, with an
imagination so delicate and a
style so exquisite, should remain neglected of the vulgar.
In America she was
almost completely unknown; and though Mr Carl van Vechten
had written an
article berating the public for its obtuseness, the public
remained callous. Her
agent, a warm admirer of her genius, had blackmailed an
American publisher
into taking two of her books by refusing, unless he did so,
to let him have
others (trashy novels doubtless) that he badly wanted, and
they had been duly
published. The reception they received from the press was
flattering and
showed that in America the best minds were sensitive to her
talent; but when it
came to the third book the American publisher (in the
coarse way publishers
have) told the agent that any money he had to spare he
preferred to spend on
synthetic gin.
Since The Achilles Statue Mrs Albert Forrester’s previous books have been
republished (and Mr Carl van Vechten has written another
article pointing out
sadly, but firmly, that he had drawn the attention of the
reading world to the
merits of this exceptional writer fully fifteen years ago),
and they have been so
widely advertised that they can scarcely have escaped the
cultured reader’s
attention. It is unnecessary, therefore, for me to give an
account of them; and it
would certainly be no more than cold potatoes after those
two subtle articles
by Mr Carl van Vechten. Mrs Albert Forrester began to write
early. Her first
work (a volume of elegies) appeared when she was a maiden
of eighteen; and
from then on she published, every two or three years, for
she had too exalted a
conception of her art to hurry her production, a volume
either of verse or
prose. When The
Achilles Statue was written she had reached the
respectable
age of fifty–seven, so that it will be readily surmised
that the number of her
works was considerable. She had given the world half a
dozen volumes of
verse, published under Latin titles, such as Felicitas, Pax Maris, and Aes Triplex,
all of the graver kind, for her muse, disinclined to skip
on a light, fantastic toe,
trod a somewhat solemn measure. She remained faithful to
the Elegy, and the
Sonnet claimed much of her attention; but her chief
distinction was to revive
the Ode, a form of poetry that the poets of the present day
somewhat neglect;
and it may be asserted with confidence that her Ode to President Fallières will
find a place in every anthology of English verse. It is
admirable not only for the
noble sonority of its rhythms, but also for its felicitous
description of the
pleasant land of France. Mrs Albert Forrester wrote of the
valley of the Loire
with its memories of du Bellay, of Chartres and the
jewelled windows of its
cathedral, of the sun–swept cities of Provence, with a
sympathy all the more
remarkable since she had never penetrated further into
France than Boulogne,
which she visited shortly after her marriage on an
excursion steamer from
Margate. But the physical mortification of being extremely
seasick and the
intellectual humiliation of discovering that the
inhabitants of that popular
seaside resort could not understand her fluent and
idiomatic French made her
determine not to expose herself a second time to
experiences that were at once
undignified and unpleasant; and she never again embarked on
the treacherous
element which she, however, sang (Pax Maris) in
numbers both grave and
sweet.
There are some fine passages too in the Ode to Woodrow Wilson, and I
regret
that, owing to a change in her sentiments towards that no
doubt excellent man,
the author decided not to reprint it. But I think it must
be admitted that Mrs
Albert Forrester’s most distinguished work was in prose.
She wrote several
volumes of brief, but perfectly constructed, essays on such
subjects as Autumn
in Sussex, Queen Victoria, Death, Spring in Norfolk,
Georgian Architecture,
Monsieur de Diaghileff, and Dante; she also wrote works,
both erudite and
whimsical, on the Jesuit Architecture of the Seventeenth
Century and on the
Literary Aspect of the Hundred Years War. It was her prose
that gained her that
body of devoted admirers, fit though few, as with her rare
gift of phrase she
herself put it that proclaimed her the greatest master of
the English language
that this century has seen. She admitted herself that it
was her style, sonorous
yet racy, polished yet eloquent, that was her strong point;
and it was only in her
prose that she had occasion to exhibit the delicious, but
restrained, humour
that her readers found so irresistible. It was not a humour
of ideas, nor even a
humour of words; it was much more subtle than that, it was
a humour of
punctuation: in a flash of inspiration she had discovered
the comic possibilities
of the semi–colon, and of this she had made abundant and
exquisite use. She
was able to place it in such a way that if you were a
person of culture with a
keen sense of humour, you did not exactly laugh through a
horse–collar, but
you giggled delightedly, and the greater your culture the
more delightedly you
giggled. Her friends said that it made every other form of
humour coarse and
exaggerated. Several writers had tried to imitate her; but
in vain: whatever else
you might say about Mrs Albert Forrester you were bound to
admit that she
was able to get every ounce of humour out of the semi–colon
and no one else
could get within a mile of her.
Mrs Albert Forrester lived in a flat not far from the
Marble Arch, which
combined the advantage of a good address and a moderate
rent. It had a
handsome drawing–room on the street and a large bedroom for
Mrs Albert
Forrester, a darkish dining–room at the back, and a small
poky bedroom, next
door to the kitchen, for Mr Albert Forrester, who paid the
rent. It was in the
handsome drawing–room that Mrs Albert Forrester every
Tuesday afternoon
received her friends. It was a severe and chaste apartment.
On the walls was a
paper designed by William Morris himself, and on this, in
plain black frames,
mezzotints collected before mezzotints grew expensive; the
furniture was of
the Chippendale period, but for the roll–top desk, vaguely
Louis XVI in
character, at which Mrs Albert Forrester wrote her works.
This was pointed out
to visitors the first time they came to see her, and there
were few who looked at
it without emotion. The carpet was thick and the lights
discreet. Mrs Albert
Forrester sat in a straight–backed grandfather’s chair
covered with red damask.
There was nothing ostentatious about it, but since it was
the only comfortable
chair in the room it set her apart as it were and above her
guests. Tea was
dispensed by a female of uncertain age, silent and
colourless, who was never
introduced to anyone but who was known to look upon it as a
privilege to be
allowed to save Mrs Albert Forrester from the irksome duty
of pouring out tea.
She was thus able to devote herself entirely to
conversation, and it must be
admitted that her conversation was excellent. It was not
sprightly; and since it
is difficult to indicate punctuation in speech it may have
seemed to some
slightly lacking in humour, but it was of wide range,
solid, instructive, and
interesting. Mrs Albert Forrester was well acquainted with
social science,
jurisprudence, and theology. She had read much and her
memory was
retentive. She had a pretty gift for quotation, which is a
serviceable substitute
for wit, and having for thirty years known more or less
intimately a great many
distinguished people she had a great many interesting
anecdotes to tell, which
she placed with tact and which she did not repeat more than
was pardonable.
Mrs Albert Forrester had the gift of attracting the most
varied persons and you
were liable at one and the same time to meet in her
drawing–room an
ex–Prime Minister, a newspaper proprietor, and the
ambassador of a First Class
Power. I always imagined that these great people came
because they thought
that here they rubbed shoulders with Bohemia, but with a
Bohemia sufficiently
neat and clean for them to be in no danger that the dirt
would come off on
them. Mrs Albert Forrester was deeply interested in
politics and I myself heard
a Cabinet Minister tell her frankly that she had a
masculine intelligence. She
had been opposed to Female Suffrage, but when it was at
last granted to
women she began to dally with the idea of going into
Parliament. Her difficulty
was that she did not know which party to choose.
‘After all,’ she said, with a playful shrug of her somewhat
massive shoulders, ‘I
cannot form a party of one.’
Like many serious patriots, in her inability to know for
certain which way the
cat would jump she held her political opinions in suspense;
but of late she had
been definitely turning towards Labour as the best hope of
the country, and if a
safe seat were offered her it was felt fairly certain that
she would not hesitate to
come out into the open as a champion of the oppressed
proletariat.
Her drawing–room was always open to foreigners, to
Czecho–Slovaks,
Italians, and Frenchmen, if they were distinguished, and to
Americans even if
they were obscure. But she was not a snob and you seldom
met there a duke
unless he was of a peculiarly serious turn and a peeress
only if in addition to
her rank she had the passport of some small social solecism
such as having
been divorced, written a novel, or forged a cheque, which
might give her claim
to Mrs Albert Forrester’s catholic sympathies. She did not
much care for
painters, who were shy and silent; and musicians did not
interest her: even if
they consented to play, and if they were celebrated they
were too often
reluctant, their music was a hindrance to conversation: if
people wanted music
they could go to a concert; for her part she preferred the
more subtle music of
the soul. But her hospitality to writers, especially if
they were promising and
little known, was warm and constant. She had an eye for
budding talent and
there were few of the famous writers who from time to time
drank a dish of tea
with her whose first efforts she had not encouraged and
whose early steps she
had not guided. Her own position was too well assured for
her to be capable of
envy, and she had heard the word genius attached to her
name too often to feel
a trace of jealousy because the talents of others brought
them a material
success that was denied to her.
Mrs Albert Forrester, confident in the judgement of
posterity, could afford to
be disinterested. With these elements then it is no wonder
that she had
succeeded in creating something as near the French salon of
the eighteenth
century as our barbarous nation has ever reached. To be
invited to ‘eat a bun
and drink a cup of tea on Tuesday’ was a privilege that few
failed to recognize;
and when you sat on your Chippendale chair in the
discreetly lit but austere
room, you could not but feel that you were living literary
history. The
American Ambassador once said to Mrs Albert Forrester:
‘A cup of tea with you, Mrs Forrester, is one of the
richest intellectual treats
which it has ever been my lot to enjoy.’
It was indeed on occasion a trifle overwhelming. Mrs Albert
Forrester’s taste
was so perfect, she so inevitably admired the right thing
and made the just
observation about it, that sometimes you almost gasped for
air. For my part I
found it prudent to fortify myself with a cocktail or two
before I exposed
myself to the rarefied atmosphere of her society. Indeed, I
very nearly found
myself for ever excluded from it, for one afternoon,
presenting myself at the
door, instead of asking the maid who opened it: ‘Is Mrs
Forrester at home?’ I
asked: ‘Is there Divine Service today?’
Of course it was said in pure inadvertence, but it was
unfortunate that the
maid sniggered, and one of Mrs Albert Forrester’s most
devoted admirers, Ellen
Hannaway, happened to be at the moment in the hall taking
off her goloshes.
She told my hostess what I had said before I got into the
drawing–room, and as
I entered Mrs Albert Forrester fixed me with an eagle eye.
‘Why did you ask if there was Divine Service today?’ she
inquired.
I explained that I was absent–minded, but Mrs Albert
Forrester held me with
a gaze that I can only describe as compelling.
‘Do you mean to suggest that my parties are . . .’ she
searched for a word.
‘Sacramental?’
I did not know what she meant, but did not like to show my
ignorance before
so many clever people, and I decided that the only thing
was to seize my trowel
and the butter.
‘Your parties are like you, dear lady, perfectly beautiful
and perfectly divine.’
A little tremor passed through Mrs Albert Forrester’s
substantial frame. She
was like a man who enters suddenly a room filled with
hyacinths; the perfume
is so intoxicating that he almost staggers. But she
relented.
‘If you were trying to be facetious,’ she said, ‘I should
prefer you to exercise
your facetiousness on my guests rather than on my maids. .
. . Miss Warren will
give you some tea.’
Mrs Albert Forrester dismissed me with a wave of the hand,
but she did not
dismiss the subject, since for the next two or three years
whenever she
introduced me to someone she never failed to add:
‘You must make the most of him, he only comes here as a
penance. When he
comes to the door he always asks: Is there Divine Service
today? So amusing,
isn’t he?’
But Mrs Albert Forrester did not confine herself to weekly
tea–parties: every
Saturday she gave a luncheon of eight persons; this
according to her opinion
being the perfect number for general conversation and her
dining–room
conveniently holding no more. If Mrs Albert Forrester
flattered herself upon
anything it was not that her knowledge of English prosody
was unique, but
that her luncheons were celebrated. She chose her guests
with care, and an
invitation to one of them was more than a compliment, it
was a consecration.
Over the luncheon–table it was possible to keep the
conversation on a higher
level than in the mixed company of a tea–party and few can
have left her
dining–room without taking away with them an enhanced
belief in Mrs Albert
Forrester’s ability and a brighter faith in human nature.
She only asked men,
since, stout enthusiast for her sex as she was and glad to
see women on other
occasions, she could not but realize that they were
inclined at table to talk
exclusively to their next–door neighbours and thus hinder
the general
exchange of ideas that made her own parties an
entertainment not only of
the body but of the soul. For it must be said that Mrs
Albert Forrester gave you
uncommonly good food, excellent wine, and a first–rate
cigar. Now to anyone
who has partaken of literary hospitality this must appear
very remarkable,
since literary persons for the most part think highly and
live plainly; their
minds are occupied with the things of the spirit and they
do not notice that the
roast mutton is underdone and the potatoes cold: the beer
is all right, but the
wine has a sobering effect, and it is unwise to touch the
coffee. Mrs Albert
Forrester was pleased enough to receive compliments on the
fare she provided.
‘If people do me the honour to break bread with me,’ she
said, ‘it is only fair
that I should give them as good food as they can get at
home.’
But if the flattery was excessive she deprecated it.
‘You really embarrass me when you give me a meed of praise
which is not my
due. You must praise Mrs Bulfinch.’
‘Who is Mrs Bulfinch?’
‘My cook.’
‘She’s a treasure then, but you’re not going to ask me to
believe that she’s
responsible for the wine.’
‘Is it good? I’m terribly ignorant of such things; I put
myself entirely in the
hands of my wine merchant.’
But if mention was made of the cigars Mrs Albert Forrester
beamed.
‘Ah, for them you must compliment Albert. It is Albert who
chooses the
cigars and I am given to understand that no one knows more
about a cigar
than Albert.’
She looked at her husband, who sat at the end of the table,
with the proud
bright eyes of a pedigree hen (a Buff Orpington for choice)
looking at her only
chick. Then there was a quick flutter of conversation as
the guests, anxious to
be civil to their host and relieved at length to find an
occasion, expressed their
appreciation of his peculiar merit.
‘You’re very kind,’ he said. ‘I’m glad you like them.’
Then he would give a little discourse on cigars, explaining
the excellencies he
sought and regretting the deterioration in quality which
had followed on the
commercialization of the industry. Mrs Albert Forrester
listened to him with a
complacent smile, and it was plain that she enjoyed this
little triumph of his. Of
course you cannot go on talking of cigars indefinitely and
as soon as she
perceived that her guests were growing restive she broached
a topic of more
general, and it may be of more significant, interest.
Albert subsided into silence.
But he had had his moment.
It was Albert who made Mrs Forrester’s luncheons to some
less attractive
than her tea–parties, for Albert was a bore; but though
without doubt perfectly
conscious of the fact, she made a point that he should come
to them and in fact
had fixed upon Saturdays (for the rest of the week he was
busy) in order that
he should be able to. Mrs Albert Forrester felt that her
husband’s presence on
these festive occasions was an unavoidable debt that she
paid to her own
self–respect. She would never by a negligence admit to the
world that she had
married a man who was not spiritually her equal, and it may
be that in the
silent watches of the nights she asked herself where indeed
such could have
been found. Mrs Albert Forrester’s friends were troubled by
no such reticence
and they said it was dreadful that such a woman should be
burdened with such
a man. They asked each other how she had ever come to marry
him and (being
mostly celibate) answered despairingly that no one ever
knew why anybody
married anybody else.
It was not that Albert was a verbose and aggressive bore;
he did not button–
hole you with interminable stories or pester you with
pointless jokes; he did
not crucify you on a platitude or hamstring you with a
commonplace; he was
just dull. A cipher. Clifford Boyleston, for whom the
French Romantics had no
secrets and who was himself a writer of merit, had said
that when you looked
into a room into which Albert had just gone there was
nobody there. This was
thought very clever by Mrs Albert Forrester’s friends, and
Rose Waterford, the
well–known novelist and the most fearless of women, had ventured
to repeat it
to Mrs Albert Forrester. Though she pretended to be
annoyed, she had not
been able to prevent the smile that rose to her lips. Her
behaviour towards
Albert could not but increase the respect in which her
friends held her. She
insisted that whatever in their secret hearts they thought
of him, they should
treat him with the decorum that was due to her husband. Her
own demeanour
was admirable. If he chanced to make an observation she
listened to him with a
pleasant expression and when he fetched her a book that she
wanted or gave
her his pencil to make a note of an idea that had occurred
to her, she always
thanked him. Nor would she allow her friends pointedly to
neglect him, and
though, being a woman of tact, she saw that it would be
asking too much of the
world if she took him about with her always, and she went
out much alone, yet
her friends knew that she expected them to ask him to
dinner at least once a
year. He always accompanied her to public banquets when she
was going to
make a speech, and if she delivered a lecture she took care
that he should have
a seat on the platform.
Albert was, I believe, of average height, but perhaps
because you never
thought of him except in connexion with his wife (of
imposing dimensions)
you only thought of him as a little man. He was spare and
frail and looked
older than his age. This was the same as his wife’s. His
hair, which he kept very
short, was white and meagre, and he wore a stubby white
moustache; his was a
face, thin and lined, without a noticeable feature; and his
blue eyes, which once
might have been attractive, were now pale and tired. He was
always very neatly
dressed in pepper–and–salt trousers, which he chose always
of the same
pattern, a black coat, and a grey tie with a small pearl
pin in it. He was perfectly
unobtrusive, and when he stood in Mrs Albert Forrester’s
drawing–room to
receive the guests whom she had asked to luncheon you
noticed him as little as
you noticed the quiet and gentlemanly furniture. He was
well mannered and it
was with a pleasant, courteous smile that he shook hands
with them.
‘How do you do? I’m very glad to see you,’ he said if they
were friends of some
standing. ‘Keeping well, I hope?’
But if they were strangers of distinction coming for the
first time to the house,
he went to the door as they entered the drawing–room, and
said:
‘I am Mrs Albert Forrester’s husband. I will introduce you
to my wife.’
Then he led the visitor to where Mrs Albert Forrester stood
with her back to
the light, and she with a glad and eager gesture advanced
to make the stranger
welcome.
It was agreeable to see the demure pride he took in his
wife’s literary
reputation and the self–effacement with which he furthered
her interests. He
was always there when he was wanted and never when he wasn’t.
His tact, if
not deliberate, was instinctive. Mrs Albert Forrester was
the first to
acknowledge his merits.
‘I really don’t know what I should do without him,’ she
said. ‘He’s invaluable
to me. I read him everything I write and his criticisms are
often very useful.’
‘Molière and his cook,’ said Miss Waterford.
‘Is that funny, dear Rose?’ asked Mrs Forrester, somewhat
acidly.
When Mrs Albert Forrester did not approve of a remark, she
had a way that
put many persons to confusion of asking you whether it was
a joke which she
was too dense to see. But it was impossible to embarrass
Miss Waterford. She
was a lady who in the course of a long life had had many
affairs, but only one
passion, and this was for printer’s ink. Mrs Albert
Forrester tolerated rather
than approved her.
‘Come, come, my dear,’ she replied, ‘you know very well
that he wouldn’t exist
without you. He wouldn’t know us. It must be wonderful to
him to come in
contact with all the best brains and the most distinguished
people of our day.’
‘It may be that the bee would perish without the hive which
shelters it, but
the bee nevertheless has a significance of its own.’
And since Mrs Albert Forrester’s friends, though they knew
all about art and
literature, knew little about natural history, they had no
reply to this
observation. She went on:
‘He doesn’t interfere with me. He knows subconsciously when
I don’t want to
be disturbed and, indeed, when I am following out a train
of thought I find his
presence in the room a comfort rather than a hindrance to
me.’
‘Like a Persian cat,’ said Miss Waterford.
‘But like a very well–trained, well–bred, and well–mannered
Persian cat,’
answered Mrs Forrester severely, thus putting Miss
Waterford in her place.
But Mrs Albert Forrester had not finished with her husband.
‘We who belong to the intelligentsia,’ she said, ‘are apt
to live in a world too
exclusively our own. We are interested in the abstract
rather than in the
concrete, and sometimes I think that we survey the bustling
world of human
affairs in too detached a manner and from too serene a
height. Do you not
think that we stand in danger of becoming a little inhuman?
I shall always be
grateful to Albert because he keeps me in contact with the
man in the street.’
It was on account of this remark, to which none of her
friends could deny the
rare insight and subtlety that characterized so many of her
utterances, that for
some time Albert was known in her immediate circle as The
Man in the Street.
But this was only for a while, and it was forgotten. He
then became known as
The Philatelist. It was Clifford Boyleston, with his wicked
wit, who invented the
name. One day, his poor brain exhausted by the effort to
sustain a conversation
with Albert, he had asked in desperation:
‘Do you collect stamps?’
‘No,’ answered Albert mildly. ‘I’m afraid I don’t.’
But Clifford Boyleston had no sooner asked the question
than he saw its
possibilities. He had written a book on Baudelaire’s aunt
by marriage, which
had attracted the attention of all who were interested in
French literature, and
was well known in his exhaustive studies of the French
spirit to have absorbed
a goodly share of the Gallic quickness and the Gallic
brilliancy. He paid no
attention to Albert’s disclaimer, but at the first
opportunity informed Mrs
Albert Forrester’s friends that he had at last discovered
Albert’s secret. He
collected stamps. He never met him afterwards without
asking him:
‘Well, Mr Forrester, how is the stamp collection?’ Or:
‘Have you been buying
any stamps since I saw you last?’
It mattered little that Albert continued to deny that he
collected stamps, the
invention was too apt not to be made the most of; Mrs
Albert Forrester’s
friends insisted that he did, and they seldom spoke to him
without asking him
how he was getting on. Even Mrs Albert Forrester, when she
was in a specially
gay humour, would sometimes speak of her husband as The
Philatelist. The
name really did seem to fit Albert like a glove. Sometimes
they spoke of him
thus to his face and they could not but appreciate the good
nature with which
he took it; he smiled unresentfully and presently did not
even protest that they
were mistaken.
Of course Mrs Albert Forrester had too keen a social sense
to jeopardize the
success of her luncheons by allowing her more distinguished
guests to sit on
either side of Albert. She took care that only her older
and more intimate
friends should do this, and when the appointed victims came
in she would say
to them:
‘I know you won’t mind sitting by Albert, will you?’
They could only say that they would be delighted, but if
their faces too plainly
expressed their dismay she would pat their hands playfully
and add:
‘Next time you shall sit by me. Albert is so shy with
strangers and you know
so well how to deal with him.’
They did: they simply ignored him. So far as they were
concerned the chair in
which he sat might as well have been empty. There was no
sign that it annoyed
him to be taken no notice of by persons who after all were
eating food he paid
for, since the earnings of Mrs Forrester could certainly
not have provided her
guests with spring salmon and forced asparagus. He sat
quiet and silent, and if
he opened his mouth it was only to give a direction to one
of the maids. If a
guest were new to him he would let his eyes rest on him in
a stare that would
have been embarrassing if it had not been so childlike. He
seemed to be asking
himself what this strange creature was; but what answer his
mild scrutiny gave
him he never revealed. When the conversation grew animated
he would look
from one speaker to the other, but again you could not tell
from his thin, lined
face what he thought of the fantastic notions that were
bandied across the
table.
Clifford Boyleston said that all the wit and wisdom he
heard passed over his
head like water over a duck’s back. He had given up trying
to understand and
now only made a semblance of listening. But Harry Oakland,
the versatile critic,
said that Albert was taking it all in; he found it all too,
too marvellous, and with
his poor, muddled brain he was trying desperately to make
head or tail of the
wonderful things he heard. Of course in the City he must
boast of the
distinguished persons he knew, perhaps there he was a light
of learning and
letters, an authority on the ideal; it would be perfectly
divine to hear what he
made of it all. Harry Oakland was one of Mrs Albert
Forrester’s staunchest
admirers, and had written a brilliant and subtle essay on
her style. With his
refined and even beautiful features he looked like a San
Sebastian who had had
an accident with a hair–restorer; for he was uncommonly
hirsute. He was a
very young man, not thirty, but he had been in turn a
dramatic critic, and a
critic of fiction, a musical critic, and a critic of
painting. But he was getting a
little tired of art and threatened to devote his talents in
future to the criticism of
sport.
Albert, I should explain, was in the city and it was a
misfortune that Mrs
Forrester’s friends thought she bore with meritorious
fortitude that he was not
even rich. There would have been something romantic in it if
he had been a
merchant prince who held the fate of nations in his hand or
sent argosies,
laden with rare spices, to those ports of the Levant the
names of which have
provided many a poet with so rich and rare a rhyme. But
Albert was only
a currant merchant and was supposed to make no more than
just enabled Mrs
Albert Forrester to conduct her life with distinction and
even with liberality.
Since his occupation kept him in his office till six
o’clock he never managed to
get to Mrs Albert Forrester’s Tuesdays till the most
important visitors were
gone. By the time he arrived, there were seldom more than
three or four of her
more intimate friends in the drawing–room, discussing with
freedom and
humour the guests who had departed, and when they heard
Albert’s key in the
front door they realized with one accord that it was late.
In a moment he
opened the door in his hesitating way and looked mildly in.
Mrs Albert
Forrester greeted him with a bright smile.
‘Come in, Albert, come in. I think you know everybody here.’
Albert entered and shook hands with his wife’s friends.
‘Have you just come from the City?’ she asked eagerly,
though she knew there
was nowhere else he could have come from. ‘Would you like a
cup of tea?’
‘No, thank you, my dear. I had tea in my office.’
Mrs Albert Forrester smiled still more brightly and the
rest of the company
thought she was perfectly wonderful with him.
‘Ah, but I know you like a second cup. I will pour it out
for you myself.’
She went to the tea–table and, forgetting that the tea had
been stewing for an
hour and a half and was stone cold, poured him out a cup
and added milk and
sugar. Albert took it with a word of thanks, and meekly
stirred it, but when Mrs
Forrester resumed the conversation which his appearance had
interrupted,
without tasting it put it quietly down. His arrival was the
signal for the party
finally to break up, and one by one the remaining guests
took their departure.
On one occasion, however, the conversation was so absorbing
and the point at
issue so important that Mrs Albert Forrester would not hear
of their going.
‘It must be settled once for all. And after all,’ she
remarked in a manner that
for her was almost arch, ‘this is a matter on which Albert
may have something
to say. Let us have the benefit of his opinion.’
It was when women were beginning to cut their hair and the
subject of
discussion was whether Mrs Albert Forrester should or
should not shingle. Mrs
Albert Forrester was a woman of authoritative presence. She
was large–boned
and her bones were well covered; had she not been so tall
and strong it might
have suggested itself to you that she was corpulent. But
she carried her weight
gallantly. Her features were a little larger than life–size
and it was this that gave
her face doubtless the look of virile intellectuality that
it certainly possessed.
Her skin was dark and you might have thought that she had
in her veins some
trace of Levantine blood: she admitted that she could not
but think there was in
her a gypsy strain and that would account, she felt, for
the wild and lawless
passion that sometimes characterized her poetry. Her eyes
were large and black
and bright, her nose like the great Duke of Wellington’s,
but more fleshy, and
her chin square and determined. She had a big mouth, with
full red lips, which
owed nothing to cosmetics, for of these Mrs Albert
Forrester had never deigned
to make use; and her hair, thick, solid, and grey, was
piled on top of her head in
such a manner as to increase her already commanding height.
She was in
appearance an imposing, not to say an alarming, female.
She was always very suitably dressed in rich materials of
sombre hue and she
looked every inch a woman of letters; but in her discreet
way (being after all
human and susceptible to vanity) she followed the fashions
and the cut of her
gowns was modish. I think for some time she had hankered to
shingle her hair,
but she thought it more becoming to do it at the
solicitation of her friends than
on her own initiative.
‘Oh, you must, you must,’ said Harry Oakland, in his eager,
boyish way. ‘You’d
look too, too wonderful.’
Clifford Boyleston, who was now writing a book on Madame de
Maintenon,
was doubtful. He thought it a dangerous experiment.
‘I think,’ he said, wiping his eye–glasses with a cambric
handkerchief, ‘I think
when one has made a type one should stick to it. What would
Louis XIV have
been without his wig?’
‘I’m hesitating,’ said Mrs Forrester. ‘After all, we must
move with the times.
I am of my day and I do not wish to lag behind. America, as
Wilhelm Meister
said, is here and now.’ She turned brightly to Albert.
‘What does my lord and
master say about it? What is your opinion, Albert? To
shingle or not to shingle,
that is the question.’
‘I’m afraid my opinion is not of great importance, my
dear,’ he answered
mildly.
‘To me it is of the greatest importance,’ answered Mrs
Albert Forrester,
flatteringly.
She could not but see how beautifully her friends thought
she treated The
Philatelist.
‘I insist,’ she proceeded, ‘I insist. No one knows me a you
do, Albert. Will it
suit me?’
‘It might,’ he answered. ‘My only fear is that with
your–statuesque
appearance short hair would perhaps suggest–well, shall we
say, the Isle of
Greece where burning Sappho loved and sung.’
There was a moment’s embarrassed pause. Rose Waterford smothered
a
giggle, but the others preserved a stony silence. Mrs
Forrester’s smile froze on
her lips. Albert had dropped a brick.
‘I always thought Byron a very mediocre poet,’ said Mrs
Albert Forrester at
last.
The company broke up. Mrs Albert Forrester did not shingle,
nor indeed was
the matter ever again referred to.
It was towards the end of another of Mrs Albert Forrester’s
Tuesdays that the
event occurred that had so great an influence on her
literary career.
It had been one of her most successful parties. The leader
of the Labour Party
had been there and Mrs Albert Forrester had gone as far as
she could without
definitely committing herself to intimate to him that she
was prepared to
throw in her lot with Labour. The time was ripe and if she
was ever to adopt a
political career she must come to a decision. A member of
the French Academy
had been brought by Clifford Boyleston and, though she knew
he was wholly
unacquainted with English, it had gratified her to receive
his affable
compliment on her ornate and yet pellucid style. The
American Ambassador
had been there and a young Russian prince whose authentic
Romanoff blood
alone prevented him from looking a gigolo. A duchess who
had recently
divorced her duke and married a jockey had been very
gracious; and her
strawberry leaves, albeit sere and yellow, undoubtedly
added tone to the
assembly. There had been quite a galaxy of literary lights.
But now all, all were
gone but Clifford Boyleston, Harry Oakland, Rose Waterford,
Oscar Charles,
and Simmons. Oscar Charles was a little, gnome–like
creature, young but with
the wizened face of a cunning monkey, with gold spectacles,
who earned his
living in a government office but spent his leisure in the
pursuit of literature.
He wrote little articles for the sixpenny weeklies and had
a spirited contempt
for the world in general. Mrs Albert Forrester liked him,
thinking he had talent,
but though he always expressed the keenest admiration for
her style (it was
indeed he who had named her the mistress of the
semi–colon), his acerbity
was so general that she also somewhat feared him. Simmons
was her agent; a
round–faced man who wore glasses so strong that his eyes
behind them
looked strange and misshapen. They reminded you of the eyes
of some
uncouth crustacean that you had seen in an aquarium. He
came regularly to
Mrs Albert Forrester’s parties, partly because he had the
greatest admiration for
her genius and partly because it was convenient for him to
meet prospective
clients in her drawing–room.
Mrs Albert Forrester, for whom he had long laboured with
but a trifling
recompense, was not sorry to put him in the way of earning
an honest penny,
and she took care to introduce him, with warm expressions
of gratitude, to
anyone who might be supposed to have literary wares to
sell. It was not
without pride that she remembered that the notorious and
vastly lucrative
memoirs of Lady St Swithin had been first mooted in her
drawing–room.
They sat in a circle of which Mrs Albert Forrester was the
centre and
discussed brightly and, it must be confessed, somewhat
maliciously the various
persons who had been that day present. Miss Warren, the
pallid female who
had stood for two hours at the tea–table, was walking
silently round the room
collecting cups that had been left here and there. She had
some vague
employment, but was always able to get off in order to pour
out tea for Mrs
Albert Forrester, and in the evening she typed Mrs Albert
Forrester’s
manuscripts. Mrs Albert Forrester did not pay her for this,
thinking quite
rightly that as it was she did a great deal for the poor
thing; but she gave her the
seats for the cinema that were sent her for nothing and
often presented her
with articles of clothing for which she had no further use.
Mrs Albert Forrester in her rather deep, full voice was
talking in a steady flow
and the rest were listening to her with attention. She was
in good form and the
words that poured from her lips could have gone straight
down on paper
without alteration. Suddenly there was a noise in the
passage as though
something heavy had fallen and then the sound of an
altercation.
Mrs Albert Forrester stopped and a slight frown darkened
her really noble
brow.
‘I should have thought they knew by now that I will not
have this devastating
racket in the flat. Would you mind ringing the bell, Miss
Warren, and asking
what is the reason of this tumult?’
Miss Warren rang the bell and in a moment the maid
appeared. Miss Warren
at the door, in order not to interrupt Mrs Albert
Forrester, spoke to her in
undertones. But Mrs Albert Forrester somewhat irritably
interrupted herself.
‘Well, Carter, what is it? Is the house falling down or has
the Red Revolution
at last broken out?’
‘If you please, ma’am, it’s the new cook’s box,’ answered
the maid. ‘The porter
dropped it as he was bringing it in and the cook got all
upset about it.’
‘What do you mean by “the new cook”?’
‘Mrs Bulfinch went away this afternoon, ma’am,’ said the
maid.
Mrs Albert Forrester stared at her.
‘This is the first I’ve heard of it. Had Mrs Bulfinch given
notice? The moment
Mr Forrester comes in tell him that I wish to speak to
him.’
‘Very good, ma’am.’
The maid went out and Miss Warren slowly returned to the
tea–table.
Mechanically, though nobody wanted them, she poured out
several cups of tea.
‘What a catastrophe!’ cried Miss Waterford.
‘You must get her back,’ said Clifford Boyleston. ‘She’s a
treasure, that woman,
a remarkable cook, and she gets better and better every
day.’
But at that moment the maid came in again with a letter on
a small plated
salver and handed it to her mistress.
‘What is this?’ said Mrs Albert Forrester.
‘Mr Forrester said I was to give you this letter when you
asked for him,
ma’am,’ said the maid.
‘Where is Mr Forrester then?’
‘Mr Forrester’s gone, ma’am,’ answered the maid as though
the question
surprised her.
‘Gone? That’ll do. You can go.’
The maid left the room and Mrs Albert Forrester, with a
look of perplexity on
her large face, opened the letter. Rose Waterford has told
me that her first
thought was that Albert, fearful of his wife’s displeasure
at the departure of Mrs
Bulfinch, had thrown himself in the Thames. Mrs Albert
Forrester read the
letter and a look of consternation crossed her face.
‘Oh, monstrous,’ she cried. ‘Monstrous! Monstrous!’
‘What is it, Mrs Forrester?’
Mrs Albert Forrester pawed the carpet with her foot like a
restive,
high–spirited horse pawing the ground, and crossing her
arms with a gesture
that is indescribable (but that you sometimes see in a
fishwife who is going to
make the very devil of a scene) bent her looks upon her
curious and excessively
startled friends.
‘Albert has eloped with the cook.’
There was a gasp of dismay. Then something terrible
happened. Miss Warren,
who was standing behind the tea–table, suddenly choked.
Miss Warren, who
never opened her mouth and whom no one ever spoke to, Miss
Warren, whom
not one of them, though he had seen her every week for
three years, would
have recognized in the street, Miss Warren suddenly burst
into uncontrollable
laughter. With one accord, aghast, they turned and stared at
her. They felt as
Balaam must have felt when his ass broke into speech. She
positively shrieked
with laughter. There was a nameless horror about the sight,
as though
something had on a sudden gone wrong with a natural
phenomenon, and you
were just as startled as though the chairs and tables
without warning began to
skip about the floor in an antic dance. Miss Warren tried
to contain herself, but
the more she tried the more pitilessly the laughter shook
her, and seizing a
handkerchief she stuffed it in her mouth and hurried from
the room. The door
slammed behind her.
‘Hysteria,’ said Clifford Boyleston.
‘Pure hysteria, of course,’ said Harry Oakland.
But Mrs Albert Forrester said nothing.
The letter had dropped at her feet and Simmons, the agent,
picked it up and
handed it to her. She would not take it
‘Read it,’ she said. ‘Read it aloud.’
Mr Simmons pushed his spectacles up on his forehead and
holding the letter
very close to his eyes read as follows:
My Dear—
Mrs Bulfinch is in need of a change and has decided to
leave, and as I do not feel inclined
to stay on here without her I am going too. I have had all
the literature I can stand and I am
fed up with art.
Mrs Bulfinch does not care about marriage, but if you care
to divorce me she is willing to
marry me. I hope you will find the new cook satisfactory.
She has excellent references.
It may save you trouble if I inform you that Mrs Bulfinch
and I are living at 411 Kennington
Road, S.E.
Albert
No one spoke. Mr Simmons slipped his spectacles back on to
the bridge of
his nose. The fact was that none of them, brilliant as they
were and accustomed
to find topics of conversation to suit every occasion,
could think of an
appropriate remark. Mrs Albert Forrester was not the kind
of woman to whom
you could offer condolences and each was too much afraid of
the other’s
ridicule to venture upon the obvious. At last Clifford
Boyleston came bravely to
the rescue.
‘One doesn’t know what to say,’ he observed.
There was another silence and then Rose Waterford spoke.
‘What does Mrs Bulfinch look like?’ she asked.
‘How should I know?’ answered Mrs Albert Forrester,
somewhat peevishly.
‘I never looked at her. Albert always engaged the servants,
she just came in for a
moment so that I could see if her aura was satisfactory.’
‘But you must have seen her every morning when you did the
housekeeping.’
‘Albert did the housekeeping. It was his own wish, so that
I might be free to
devote myself to my work. In this life one has to limit
oneself.’
‘Did Albert order your luncheons?’ asked Clifford
Boyleston.
‘Naturally. It was his province.’
Clifford Boyleston slightly raised his eyebrows. What a
fool he had been
never to guess that it was Albert who was responsible for
Mrs Forrester’s
beautiful food! And of course it was owing to him that the
excellent Chablis
was always just sufficiently chilled to run coolly over the
tongue, but never so
cold as to lose its bouquet and its savour.
‘He certainly knew good food and good wine.’
‘I always told you he had his points,’ answered Mrs Albert
Forrester, as
though he were reproaching her. ‘You all laughed at him.
You would not
believe me when I told you that I owed a great deal to
him.’
There was no answer to this and once more silence, heavy
and ominous, fell
on the party. Suddenly Mr Simmons flung a bombshell.
‘You must get him back.’
So great was her surprise that if Mrs Albert Forrester had
not been standing
against the chimney–piece she would undoubtedly have
staggered two paces to
the rear.
‘What on earth do you mean?’ she cried. ‘I will never see
him again as long as
I live. Take him back? Never. Not even if he came and
begged me on his bended
knees.’
‘I didn’t say take him back; I said, get him back.’
But Mrs Albert Forrester paid no attention to the misplaced
interruption.
‘I have done everything for him. What would he be without
me? I ask you.
I have given him a position which never in his remotest
dreams could he have
aspired to.’
None could deny that there was something magnificent in the
indignation of
Mrs Albert Forrester, but it appeared to have little effect
on Mr Simmons.
‘What are you going to live on?’
Mrs Albert Forrester flung him a glance totally devoid of
amiability.
‘God will provide,’ she answered in freezing tones.
‘I think it very unlikely,’ he returned.
Mrs Albert Forrester shrugged her shoulders. She wore an
outraged
expression. But Mr Simmons made himself as comfortable as
he could on his
chair and lit a cigarette.
‘You know you have no warmer admirer of your art than me,’
he said.
‘Than I,’ corrected Clifford Boyleston.
‘Or than you,’ went on Mr Simmonds blandly. ‘We all agree
that there is no
one writing now whom you need fear comparison with. Both in
prose and
verse you are absolutely first class. And your style–well,
everyone knows your
style.’
‘The opulence of Sir Thomas Browne with the limpidity of
Cardinal
Newman,’ said Clifford Boyleston. ‘The raciness of John
Dryden with the
precision of Jonathan Swift.’
The only sign that Mrs Albert Forrester heard was the smile
that hesitated for
a brief moment at the corners of her tragic mouth.
‘And you have humour.’
‘Is there anyone in the world,’ cried Miss Waterford, ‘who
can put such a
wealth of wit and satire and comic observation into a
semi–colon?’
‘But the fact remains that you don’t sell,’ pursued Mr
Simmons
imperturbably. ‘I’ve handled your work for twenty years and
I tell you frankly
that I shouldn’t have grown fat on my commission, but I’ve
handled it because
now and again I like to do what I can for good work. I’ve
always believed in you
and I’ve hoped that sooner or later we might get the public
to swallow you. But
if you think you can make your living by writing the sort
of stuff you do I’m
bound to tell you that you haven’t a chance.’
‘I have come into the world too late,’ said Mrs Albert
Forrester. ‘I should have
lived in the eighteenth century when the wealthy patron
rewarded a dedication
with a hundred guineas.’
‘What do you suppose the currant business brings in?’
Mrs Albert Forrester gave a little sigh.
‘A pittance. Albert always told me he made about twelve
hundred a year.’
‘He must be a very good manager. But you couldn’t expect
him on that
income to allow you very much. Take my word for it, there’s
only one thing for
you to do and that’s to get him back.’
‘I would rather live in a garret. Do you think I’m going to
submit to the
affront he has put upon me? Would you have me battle for
his affections with
my cook? Do not forget that there is one thing which is
more valuable to a
woman like me than her ease and that is her dignity.’
‘I was just coming to that,’ said Mr Simmons coldly.
He glanced at the others and those strange, lopsided eyes
of his looked more
than ever monstrous and fish–like.
‘There is no doubt in my mind,’ he went on, ‘that you have
a very
distinguished and almost unique position in the world of
letters. You stand for
something quite apart. You never prostituted your genius
for filthy lucre and
you have held high the banner of pure art. You’re thinking
of going into
Parliament. I don’t think much of politics myself, but
there’s no denying that it
would be a good advertisement and if you get in I daresay
we could get you a
lecture tour in America on the strength of it. You have
ideals and this I can say,
that even the people who’ve never read a word you’ve
written respect you. But
in your position there’s one thing you can’t afford to be
and that’s a joke.’
Mrs Albert Forrester gave a distinct start.
‘What on earth do you mean by that?’
‘I know nothing about Mrs Bulfinch and for all I know she’s
a very
respectable woman, but the fact remains that a man doesn’t
run away with his
cook without making his wife ridiculous. If it had been a
dancer or a lady of
title I daresay it wouldn’t have done you any harm, but a
cook would finish
you. In a week you’d have all London laughing at you, and
if there’s one thing
that kills an author or a politician it is ridicule. You
must get your husband
back and you must get him back pretty damned quick.’
A dark flush settled on Mrs Albert Forrester’s face, but
she did not
immediately reply. In her ears there rang on a sudden the
outrageous and
unaccountable laughter that had sent Miss Warren flying
from the room.
‘We’re all friends here and you can count on our
discretion.’
Mrs Forrester looked at her friends and she thought that in
Rose Waterford’s
eyes there was already a malicious gleam. On the wizened
face of Oscar
Charles was a whimsical look. She wished that in a moment
of abandon she
had not betrayed her secret. Mr Simmons, however, knew the
literary world
and allowed his eyes to rest on the company.
‘After all you are the centre and head of their set. Your
husband has not only
run away from you but also from them. It’s not too good for
them either. The
fact is that Albert Forrester has made you all look a lot
of damned fools.’
‘All,’ said Clifford Boyleston. ‘We’re all in the same
boat. He’s quite right, Mrs
Forrester. The Philatelist must come back.’
‘Et tu,
Brute.’
Mr Simmons did not understand Latin and if he had would
probably not
have been moved by Mrs Albert Forrester’s exclamation. He
cleared his throat.
‘My suggestion is that Mrs Albert Forrester should go and
see him tomorrow,
fortunately we have his address, and beg him to reconsider
his decision. I don’t
know what sort of things a woman says on these occasions,
but Mrs Forrester
has tact and imagination and she must say them. If Mr
Forrester makes any
conditions she must accept them. She must leave no stone
unturned.’
‘If you play your cards well there is no reason why you
shouldn’t bring him
back here with you tomorrow evening,’ said Rose Waterford
lightly.
‘Will you do it, Mrs Forrester?’
For two minutes, at least, turned away from them, she
stared at the empty
fireplace; then, drawing herself to her full height, she
faced them.
‘For my art’s sake, not for mine. I will not allow the
ribald laughter of the
Philistine to besmirch all that I hold good and true and
beautiful.’
‘Capital,’ said Mr Simmons, rising to his feet. ‘I’ll look
in on my way home
tomorrow and I hope to find you and Mr Forrester billing
and cooing side by
side like a pair of turtle–doves.’
He took his leave, and the others, anxious not to be left
alone with Mrs Albert
Forrester and her agitation, in a body followed his
example.
It was latish in the afternoon next day when Mrs Albert
Forrester, imposing in
black silk and a velvet toque, set out from her flat in
order to get a bus from the
Marble Arch that would take her to Victoria Station. Mr
Simmons had
explained to her by telephone how to reach the Kennington
Road with
expedition and economy. She neither felt nor looked like
Delilah. At Victoria
she took the tram that runs down the Vauxhall Bridge Road.
When she crossed
the river she found herself in a part of London more noisy,
sordid, and bustling
than that to which she was accustomed, but she was too much
occupied with
her thoughts to notice the varied scene. She was relieved
to find that the tram
went along the Kennington Road and asked the conductor to
put her down a
few doors from the house she sought. When it did and
rumbled on leaving her
alone in the busy street, she felt strangely lost, like a
traveller in an Eastern tale
set down by a djinn in an unknown city. She walked slowly,
looking to right
and left, and notwithstanding the emotions of indignation
and embarrassment
that fought for the possession of her somewhat opulent
bosom, she could not
but reflect that here was the material for a very pretty
piece of prose. The little
houses held about them the feeling of a bygone age when
here it was still
almost country, and Mrs Albert Forrester registered in her
retentive memory a
note that she must look into the literary associations of
the Kennington Road.
Number four hundred and eleven was one of a row of shabby
houses that
stood some way back from the street; in front of it was a
narrow strip of shabby
grass, and a paved way led up to a latticed wooden porch
that badly needed a
coat of paint. This and the straggling, stunted creeper
that grew over the front
of the house gave it a falsely rural air which was strange
and even sinister in
that road down which thundered a tumultuous traffic. There
was something
equivocal about the house that suggested that here lived
women to whom a life
of pleasure had brought an inadequate reward.
The door was opened by a scraggy girl of fifteen with long
legs and a tousled
head.
‘Does Mrs Bulfinch live here, do you know?’
‘You’ve rung the wrong bell. Second floor.’ The girl
pointed to the stairs and at
the same time screamed shrilly: ‘Mrs Bulfinch, a party to
see you. Mrs
Bulfinch.’
Mrs Albert Forrester walked up the dingy stairs. They were
covered with torn
carpet. She walked slowly, for she did not wish to get out
of breath. A door
opened as she reached the second floor and she recognized
her cook.
‘Good afternoon, Bulfinch,’ said Mrs Albert Forrester, with
dignity. ‘I wish to
see your master.’
Mrs Bulfinch hesitated for the shadow of a second, then
held the door wide
open.
‘Come in, ma’am.’ She turned her head. ‘Albert, here’s Mrs
Forrester to see
you.’
Mrs Forrester stepped by quickly and there was Albert
sitting by the fire in a
leather–covered, but rather shabby, arm–chair, with his
feet in slippers, and in
shirtsleeves. He was reading the evening paper and smoking
a cigar. He rose to
his feet as Mrs Albert Forrester came in. Mrs Bulfinch
followed her visitor into
the room and closed the door.
‘How are you, my dear?’ said Albert cheerfully. ‘Keeping
well, I hope.’
‘You’d better put on your coat, Albert,’ said Mrs Bulfinch.
‘What will Mrs
Forrester think of you, finding you like that? I never.’
She took the coat, which was hanging on a peg, and helped
him into it; and
like a woman familiar with the peculiarities of masculine
dress pulled down
his waistcoat so that it should not ride over his collar.
‘I received your letter, Albert,’ said Mrs Forrester.
‘I supposed you had, or you wouldn’t have known my address,
would you?’
‘Won’t you sit down, ma’am?’ said Mrs Bulfinch, deftly
dusting a chair, part of
a suite covered in plum–covered velvet, and pushing it
forwards.
Mrs Albert Forrester with a slight bow seated herself.
‘I should have preferred to see you alone, Albert,’ she
said.
His eyes twinkled.
‘Since anything you have to say concerns Mrs Bulfinch as
much as it concerns
me I think it much better that she should be present.’
‘As you wish.’
Mrs Bulfinch drew up a chair and sat down. Mrs Albert
Forrester had never
seen her but with a large apron over a print dress. She was
wearing now an
open–work blouse of white silk, a black skirt, and
high–heeled, patent–leather
shoes with silver buckles. She was a woman of about
five–and–forty, with
reddish hair and a reddish face, not pretty, but with a
good–natured look, and
buxom. She reminded Mrs Albert Forrester of a
serving–wench, somewhat
overblown, in a jolly picture by an old Dutch master.
‘Well, my dear, what have you to say to me?’ asked Albert.
Mrs Albert Forrester gave him her brightest and most
affable smile. Her great
black eyes shone with tolerant good–humour.
‘Of course you know that this is perfectly absurd, Albert.
I think you must be
out of your mind.’
‘Do you, my dear? Fancy that.’
‘I’m not angry with you, I’m only amused, but a joke’s a
joke and should not
be carried too far. I’ve come to take you home.’
‘Was my letter not quite clear?’
‘Perfectly. I ask no questions and I will make no
reproaches. We will look
upon this as a momentary aberration and say no more about
it.’
‘Nothing will induce me ever to live with you again, my
dear,’ said Albert in,
however, a perfectly friendly fashion.
‘You’re not serious?’
‘Quite.’
‘Do you love this woman?’
Mrs Albert Forrester still smiled with an eager and
somewhat metallic
brightness. She was determined to take the matter lightly.
With her intimate
sense of values she realized that the scene was comic.
Albert looked at Mrs
Bulfinch and a smile broke out on his withered face.
‘We get on very well together, don’t we, old girl?’
‘Not so bad,’ said Mrs Bulfinch.
Mrs Albert Forrester raised her eyebrows; her husband had
never in all their
married life called her ‘old girl’: nor indeed would she have wished it.
‘If Bulfinch has any regard or respect for you she must
know that the thing is
impossible. After the life you’ve led and the society
you’ve moved in she can
hardly expect to make you permanently happy in miserable
furnished
lodgings.’
‘They’re not furnished lodgings, ma’am,’ said Mrs Bulfinch.
‘It’s all me own
furniture. You see, I’m very independent–like and I’ve
always liked to have a
home of me own. So I keep these rooms on whether I’m in a
situation or
whether I’m not, and so I always have some place to go back
to.’
‘And a very nice cosy little place it is,’ said Albert.
Mrs Albert Forrester looked about her. There was a kitchen
range in the
fireplace on which a kettle was simmering and on the
mantelshelf was a black
marble clock flanked by black marble candelabra. There was
a large table
covered with a red cloth, a dresser, and a sewing–machine.
On the walls were
photographs and framed pictures from Christmas supplements.
A door at the
back, covered with a red plush portière, led into what,
considering the size of
the house, Mrs Albert Forrester (who in her leisure moments
had made a
somewhat extensive study of architecture) could not but
conclude was the only
bedroom. Mrs Bulfinch and Albert lived in a contiguity that
allowed no doubt
about their relations.
‘Have you not been happy with me, Albert?’ asked Mrs
Forrester in a deeper
tone.
‘We’ve been married for thirty–five years, my dear. It’s
too long. It’s a great
deal too long. You’re a good woman in your way, but you
don’t suit me. You’re
literary and I’m not. You’re artistic and I’m not.’
‘I’ve always taken care to make you share in all my
interests. I’ve taken great
pains that you shouldn’t be overshadowed by my success. You
can’t say that I’ve
ever left you out of things.’
‘You’re a wonderful writer, I don’t deny it for a moment,
but the truth is I
don’t like the books you write.’
‘That, if I may be permitted to say so, merely shows that
you have very bad
taste. All the best critics admit their power and their
charm.’
‘And I don’t like your friends. Let me tell you a secret,
my dear. Often at your
parties I’ve had an almost irresistible impulse to take off
all my clothes just to
see what would happen.’
‘Nothing would have happened,’ said Mrs Albert Forrester
with a slight
frown. ‘I should merely have sent for the doctor.’
‘Besides you haven’t the figure for that, Albert,’ said Mrs
Bulfinch.
Mr Simmons had hinted to Mrs Albert Forrester that if the
need arose she
must not hesitate to use the allurements of her sex in
order to bring back her
erring husband to the conjugal roof, but she did not in the
least know how to
do this. It would have been easier, she could not but
reflect, had she been in
evening dress.
‘Does the fidelity of five–and–thirty years count for
nothing? I have never
looked at another man, Albert. I’m used to you. I shall be
lost without you.’
‘I’ve left all my menus with the new cook, ma’am. You’ve
only got to tell her
how many to luncheon and she’ll manage,’ said Mrs Bulfinch.
‘She’s very
reliable and she has as light a hand with pastry as anyone
I ever knew.’
Mrs Albert Forrester began to be discouraged. Mrs
Bulfinch’s remark, well
meant no doubt, made it difficult to bring the conversation
on to the plane on
which emotion could be natural.
‘I’m afraid you’re only wasting your time, my dear,’ said
Albert. ‘My decision
is irrevocable. I’m not very young any more and I want
someone to take care of
me. I shall of course make you as good an allowance as I
can. Corinne wants
me to retire.’
‘Who is Corinne?’ asked Mrs Forrester with the utmost
surprise.
‘It’s my name,’ said Mrs Bulfinch. ‘My mother was half French.’
‘That explains a great deal,’ replied Mrs Forrester,
pursing her lips, for though
she admired the literature of our neighbours she knew that
their morals left
much to be desired.
‘What I say is, Albert’s worked long enough, and it’s about
time he started
enjoying himself. I’ve got a little bit of property at
Clacton–on–Sea. It’s a very
healthy neighbourhood and the air is wonderful. We could
live there very
comfortable. And what with the beach and the pier there’s
always something to
do. They’re a very nice lot of people down there. If you
don’t interfere with
nobody, nobody’ll interfere with you.’
‘I discussed the matter with my partners today and they’re
willing to buy me
out. It means a certain sacrifice. When everything is
settled I shall have an
income of nine hundred pounds a year. There are three of
us, so it gives us just
three hundred a year apiece.’
‘How am I to live on that?’ cried Mrs Albert Forrester. ‘I
have my position to
keep up.’
‘You have a fluent, a fertile, and a distinguished pen, my
dear.’
Mrs Albert Forrester impatiently shrugged her shoulders.
‘You know very well that my books don’t bring me in
anything but
reputation. The publishers always say that they lose by
them and in fact they
only publish them because it gives them prestige.’
It was then that Mrs Bulfinch had the idea that was to have
consequences of
such magnitude.
‘Why don’t you write a good thrilling detective story?’ she
asked.
‘Me?’ exclaimed Mrs Albert Forrester, for the first time in
her life regardless of
grammar.
‘It’s not a bad idea,’ said Albert. ‘It’s not a bad idea at
all.’
‘I should have the critics down on me like a thousand
bricks.’
‘I’m not so sure of that. Give the highbrow the chance of
being lowbrow
without demeaning himself and he’ll be so grateful to you,
he won’t know what
to do.’
‘For this relief much thanks,’ murmured Mrs Albert
Forrester reflectively.
‘My dear, the critics’ll eat it. And written in your
beautiful English they won’t
be afraid to call it a masterpiece.’
‘The idea is preposterous. It’s absolutely foreign to my
genius. I could never
hope to please the masses.’
‘Why not? The masses want to read good stuff, but they
dislike being bored.
They all know your name, but they don’t read you, because
you bore them. The
fact is, my dear, you’re dull.’
‘I don’t know how you can say that, Albert,’ replied Mrs
Albert Forrester, with
as little resentment as the equator might feel if someone
called it chilly.
‘Everyone knows and acknowledges that I have an exquisite
sense of humour
and there is nobody who can extract so much good wholesome
fun from a
semicolon as I can.’
‘If you can give the masses a good thrilling story and let
them think at the
same time that they are improving their minds you’ll make a
fortune.’
‘I’ve never read a detective story in my life,’ said Mrs
Albert Forrester. ‘I once
heard of a Mr Barnes of New York and I was told that he had
written a book
called The Mystery of a
Hansom Cab. But I never read it.’
‘Of course you have to have the knack,’ said Mrs Bulfinch.
‘The first thing to
remember is that you don’t want any lovemaking, it’s out of
place in a detective
story, what you want is murder, and sleuth–hounds, and you
don’t want to be
able to guess who done it till the last page.’
‘But you must play fair with your reader, my dear,’ said
Albert. ‘It always
annoys me when suspicion has been thrown on the secretary
or the lady of the
title and it turns out to be the second footman who’s never
done more than say,
“The carriage is at the door.” Puzzle your reader as much
as you can, but don’t
make a fool of him.’
‘I love a good detective story,’ said Mrs Bulfinch. ‘Give
me a lady in evening
dress, just streaming with diamonds, lying on the library
floor with a dagger in
her heart, and I know I’m going to have a treat.’
‘There’s no accounting for tastes,’ said Albert.
‘Personally, I prefer a
respectable family solicitor, with side–whiskers, gold
watch–chain, and a
benign appearance, lying dead in Hyde Park.’
‘With his throat cut?’ asked Mrs Bulfinch eagerly.
‘No, stabbed in the back. There’s something peculiarly
attractive to the reader
in the murder of a middle–aged gentleman of spotless
reputation. It is pleasant
to think that the most apparently blameless of us have a
mystery in our lives.’
‘I see what you mean, Albert,’ said Mrs Bulfinch. ‘He was
the repository of a
fatal secret.’
‘We can give you all the tips, my dear,’ said Albert,
smiling mildly at Mrs
Albert Forrester. ‘I’ve read hundreds of detective
stories.’
‘You!’
‘That’s what first brought Corinne and me together. I used
to pass them on to
her when I’d finished them.’
‘Many’s the time I’ve heard him switch off the electric
light as the dawn was
creeping through the window and I couldn’t help smiling to
myself as I said:
“There, he’s finished it at last, now he can have a good
sleep.”’
Mrs Albert Forrester rose to her feet. She drew herself up.
‘Now I see what a gulf separates us,’ she said, and her
fine contralto shook a
little. ‘You have been surrounded for thirty years with all
that was best in
English literature and you read hundreds of detective
novels.’
‘Hundreds and hundreds,’ interrupted Albert with a smile of
satisfaction.
‘I came here willing to make any reasonable concession so
that you should
come back to your home, but now I wish it no longer. You
have shown me that
we have nothing in common and never had. There is an abyss
between us.’
‘Very well, my dear,’ said Albert gently, ‘I will submit to
your decision. But you
think over the detective story.’
‘I will arise and go now,’ she murmured, ‘and go to
Innisfree.’
‘I’ll just show you downstairs,’ said Mrs Bulfinch. ‘One
has to be careful of the
carpet if one doesn’t exactly know where the holes are.’
With dignity, but not without circumspection, Mrs Albert
Forrester walked
downstairs and when Mrs Bulfinch opened the door and asked
her if she
would like a taxi she shook her head.
‘I shall take the tram.’
‘You need not be afraid that I won’t take good care of Mr
Forrester, ma’am,’
said Mrs Bulfinch pleasantly. ‘He shall have every comfort.
I nursed Mr
Bulfinch for three years during his last illness and
there’s very little I don’t
know about invalids. Not that Mr Forrester isn’t very
strong and active for his
years. And of course he’ll have a hobby. I always think a
man should have a
hobby. He’s going to collect postage–stamps.’
Mrs Albert Forrester gave a little start of surprise. But
just then a tram came in
sight and, as a woman (even the greatest of them) will, she
hurried at the risk of
her life into the middle of the road and waved frantically.
It stopped and she
climbed in. She did not know how she was going to face Mr
Simmons.
He would be waiting for her when she got home. Clifford
Boyleston would
probably be there too. They would all be there and she
would have to tell them
that she had miserably failed. At that moment she had no
warm feeling of
friendship for her little group of devoted admirers.
Wondering what the time
was, she looked up at the man sitting opposite her to see
whether he was the
kind of person she could modestly ask, and suddenly
started; for sitting there
was a middle–aged gentleman of the most respectable
appearance, with
side–whiskers, a benign expression, and a gold watch–chain.
It was the very
man whom Albert had described lying dead in Hyde Park and
she could not
but jump to the conclusion that he was a family solicitor.
The coincidence was
extraordinary and really it looked as though the hand of
fate were beckoning to
her. He wore a silk hat, a black coat, and pepper–and–salt
trousers, he was
somewhat corpulent, of a powerful build, and by his side
was a despatch–case.
When the tram was half–way down the Vauxhall Bridge Road he
asked the
conductor to stop and she saw him go down a small, mean
street. Why? Ah,
why? When it reached Victoria, so deeply immersed in
thought was she, until
the conductor somewhat roughly told her where she was, she
did not move.
Edgar Allan Poe had written detective stories. She took a
bus. She sat inside,
buried in reflection, but when it arrived at Hyde Park
Corner she suddenly
made up her mind to get out. She couldn’t sit still any
longer. She felt she must
walk. She entered the gates, walking slowly, and looked
about her with an air
that was at once intent and abstracted. Yes, there was
Edgar Allan Poe; no one
could deny that. After all he had invented the genre, and
everyone knew how
great his influence had been on the Parnassians. Or was it
the Symbolists?
Never mind. Baudelaire and all that. As she passed the
Achilles Statue she
stopped for a minute and looked at it with raised eyebrows.
At length she reached her flat and opening the door saw
several hats in the
hall. They were all there. She went into the drawing–room.
‘Here she is at last,’ cried Miss Waterford.
Mrs Albert Forrester advanced, smiling with animation, and
shook the
proffered hands. Mr Simmons and Clifford Boyleston were
there, Harry
Oakland and Oscar Charles.
‘Oh, you poor things, have you had no tea?’ she cried
brightly. ‘I haven’t an
idea what the time is, but I know I’m fearfully late.’
‘Well?’ they said. ‘Well?’
‘My dears, I’ve got something quite wonderful to tell you.
I’ve had an
inspiration. Why should the devil have all the best tunes?’
‘What do you mean?’
She paused in order to give full effect to the surprise she
was going to spring
upon them. Then she flung it at them without preamble.
‘I’M GOING TO WRITE A DETECTIVE STORY.’
They stared at her with open mouths. She held up her hand
to prevent them
from interrupting her, but indeed no one had the smallest
intention of doing
so.
‘I am going to raise the detective story to the dignity of
Art. It came to me
suddenly in Hyde Park. It’s a murder story and I shall give
the solution on the
very last page. I shall write it in an impeccable English,
and since it’s occurred
to me lately that perhaps I’ve exhausted the possibilities
of the semi–colon, I
am going to take up the colon. No one yet has explored its
potentialities.
Humour and mystery are what I aim at. I shall call it The Achilles Statue.’
‘What a title!’ cried Mr Simmons, recovering himself before
any of the others.
‘I can sell the serial rights on the title and your name
alone.’
‘But what about Albert?’ asked Clifford Boyleston.
‘Albert?’ echoed Mrs Forrester. ‘Albert?’
She looked at him as though for the life of her she could
not think
what he was talking about. Then she gave a little cry as if
she had suddenly
remembered.
‘Albert! I knew I’d gone out on some errand and it
absolutely slipped my
memory. I was walking through Hyde Park and I had this
inspiration. What a
fool you’ll all think me!’
‘Then you haven’t seen Albert?’
‘My dear, I forgot all about him.’ She gave an amused
laugh. ‘Let Albert keep
his cook. I can’t bother about Albert now. Albert belongs
to the semicolon
period. I am going to write a detective story.’
‘My dear, you’re too, too wonderful,’ said Harry Oakland.