Twopence Coloured Read online

  Nor did Brighton Station reassure her flagging spirits. Rather did it — with the judj-judj-judjing of its fitful engines, with its tremulous whistles and bangs and giant hissings, its penny-flinging and paper-snatching bookstall, its echoing voices from nowhere, its air of being one vast improvisation in which all was temporary and unsettled, save the large clock above which, with its unmoving yet miraculously advancing hands, testified greyly to the eternal and irrevocable factors of the universe — rather did it subtly steal from Jackie the last remains of her confidence in being in any way the mistress of her own fate, or indeed anything but an entity drifting impotently on tides of unfathomable circumstance in a drab and disinterested world. Nor did the porter, whom she at last enlisted into her service, possess any scintillating or suggestive character wherewith to relieve the situation — trundling dumbly ahead of her, as he did, and from time to time inconsequently deserting her, at apparently crucial moments. But he did finally guide her, with a certain oafish omniscience, to the train she needed: walking endlessly up the platform to his own idea of the proper thing in the way of third-class compartments, and flinging her suitcase under the seat with his first comment on the matter — “There-Yar-miss!” Whereupon Jackie began to fumble piteously, and like a wild thing, in her bag, while her porter stood by and observed the ups and downs of the battle with melancholic detachment. All of which eventually terminated in Eightpence — together with a Halfpenny (which was dropped) — and a brusque “Thank you” from the recipient, who laid great stress on his “you,” for reasons unknown, unless it was that, in view of Eightpence (an outrageous sum) he was fearful of allowing any attention to be drawn to his “Thank” — in which case she might have had some small justification in hoping that he had, before passing out of her life, forgiven her. That Jackie winced under his treatment, this porter was aware, but being a cruel and vain porter, whose pride was touched, he walked unrelentingly away, and left the girl to seek absolution where she could find it.

  II

  Jackie had five-and-twenty minutes in which to compose herself for the journey in front of her, and she was glad of it. This was all but her first experience of third-class travelling, and she told herself that the hardships of the penurious genteel — a class to which she now emphatically and rather pleasantly belonged — had been grossly exaggerated. It was true, certainly, that the company betrayed some sense of catering for the indistinguishable herd. It provided, for example, no pleasant leather arms for the indulgence of individuality or squeamishness: and it provided no pleasant leather straps, at the corner seats, wherewith the opulent might relax their jaded wrists: and it provided upholstery resembling a dusty carpet, in place of the dark blue button-pressed paddedness it provided for those who could run the extra four and twopence. It was dealing with cattle, in fact, and the frigid statement, printed under the rack, that this compartment could contain Ten, was revealing of its callous and numerical attitude. But these affronts troubled Jackie not at all, and she actually came to the conclusion, by some very obscure process of reasoning, that it was all Just as Nice.

  For about ten minutes or so Jackie was left unmolested in her corner seat: but by that time a thickening crowd of travellers was dreamily hastening up to the higher parts of the train, and Jackie had undergone several curious examinations by prospective persons framing themselves in the window, and after meeting her eyes and thinking the matter well out, deciding against her. She was at last risked, however, by an old lady with a suitcase, who took the corner seat farthest away from her, and sat up perkily and spent her time in arduously not looking at her. The spell being now broken, there entered another old lady — which at once caused Jackie and the first old lady, who were previously divided, to unite in critical glances and mild resentment against the suitcases, fussings, and general appearance and character of the second old lady — such being the normally inimical nature of railway relationships. Then, two minutes afterwards, the three of them forgot old differences in a common cause against yet another new-comer, who was a young girl of not more than sixteen, dressed in black from head to foot, and carrying a basket containing a kitten. She bore a bereaved look, and for some reason did not take a corner seat. There then entered a well-dressed young man, who sat directly opposite Jackie.

  This young man entered with great decision, did not look at anybody, snatched a book out of his attaché-case, on which were engraven the initials R. G., and commenced at once to read. He had dominated the compartment, and entered Jackie’s life, and was reading unconcernedly, before any of them had time to mobilize their critical forces against him. On second thoughts, this young man was not a young man, Jackie decided, but nevertheless he was nothing else: for not by any stretch of the imagination could he be styled an old man, or even a middle-aged man, so what were you to do? Perhaps you could only say that he was no longer a boy — no longer a youth — for he had the air of brown virility and reserved strength which is impossible of acquisition until past the actual prime of life. Thirty-six, thought Jackie, and a lot of sorrow at that. Not trouble, or worry, but sorrow was the word Jackie fixed upon; and by this dramatization she betrayed, if she knew it, something of her quickly awakening interest in him. In fact she at last awarded him a Great Sorrow, in the singular, and the greater the sorrow the more she fancied him. This was rather the type of young man who would Go out into the Night, thought Jackie. He would fix up the whole affair for the happy couple, and go out into the night. She was, alas, reading his character ill. For although her railway companion had doubtless been out into his Night with the best, in his day, a keener observer would have recognized that that was not his line nowadays.

  His face was the most interesting face she had ever seen; and it was unique in this, that it was attractive without giving the slightest offence by its attractiveness. You did not understand, at a first glance, that you were looking at anything out of the way; it was only slowly that you observed, with a feeling of personal and exclusive discovery, that there was a great deal more to it than anyone but you would imagine. Jackie was convinced that she alone could see the extreme charm of this face, and she had a desire to defend its beauty against a world of disparagers. And here again Jackie was as much in error over his powers of attraction as she had been over his dramatic self-negations — as time was to show.

  With ruminations of this kind Jackie, who had brought no book or paper, spun out the time before the train started. She also looked about her at her other fellow-travellers. No one else having entered to rearrange the present clash and interchange of personality amongst these, a state of mutual tolerance, almost amicability, obtained. The status of each was clearly defined. Jackie, having been the first to arrive, had the prestige, as it were, of a pioneer and oldest settler, and so might have been regarded as the genius, the familiar spirit of the compartment. The two old ladies, as successful marauders, had an equal and solid standing of their own. The young girl in black was of no consequence, and an object of mere commiseration. As for the young man who had arrived last, he, by the sheer force of his character, businesslike attaché-case-snapping and unconcerned reading, was a kind of Conqueror, who had dominated all save the original founder, Jackie, whose sanctions he could not obliterate, but only share, as an Alexander might have flirted on equal terms with the gods and mysteries of Egypt. Whether this young man, who was now rapidly reading the Life of Francis Place, was aware that he had thus swept all but one before him and come to hold this position, is doubtful. Probably, indeed, he had no idea that he was in this train at all. Possibly none of the others had, either. But these fine shades of personality and prestige were existent, nevertheless.

  A very pleasant calm had settled upon this gathering, then, and it appeared that — in spite of the numerous and now rather more apprehensive countenances that bobbed themselves with panic-stricken explorative glances into the window frame — that these five were going to have it to themselves. Doubtless, in fact, they were already preening themselves upon their go
od fortune at the very moment at which fate singled them out for the vicious trap it had in store for them.

  However that may have been, it was within one minute before the train departed, that, with the suddenness of an accident, and with Jovian uproar, there entered a thick smell of gin, and a stamping of feet, and a great lurching and shouting and plunging and throaty growling — all creating a mist of terror and surprise, which, after a moment, cleared away, and revealed to the sight but two individuals of a low class of life engaged in argument and thick verbosity.

  And the first and loudest of these individuals was a thin, seedy object of about thirty, wearing a decaying blue suit and begrimed collar and shirt. And the second and softer of these individuals was a grey bearded and stupefied old gentleman of about sixty, wearing a decayed rain-coat which reached his ankles and no collar at all (though an excellent brass stud). And the first of these individuals was smoking a yellowed tenth of a cigarette (which was in the process of choking him), and addressed the second individual, with not very filiar jocosity, as “Dad”: and the second of these individuals was carrying a newspaper-wrapped bundle under his arm, and addressed the first individual, with dreamy paternal sentiment, as “Son.”

  From what depths of the sea-side town these individuals had arisen, and to what depths of the metropolis for which they were so buoyantly bound, they would again descend, are unanswerable questions, but they manifestly had the better of dull care so far as the immediate journey and interim were concerned. Son, in fact, was at this moment standing up in the centre of the compartment and entreating the other, whom he named his “Pore Old Parent”, to Kiss him Good-night — which was a silly, maudlin, and (it is to be feared) revealing thing to be doing at such a time of day in a railway compartment. Nor did the deep and insecure embrace that followed speak any better of their mutual condition — in spite of a weak protest from Dad to the effect that his offshoot was Acting like one of They Frogs — by which he, in his sturdy Englishry, intended to cast disparagement upon the French.

  It is impossible to say whether poor Jackie at first realized what was the original inspiration of the joy elevating this couple at the moment, but from the beginning she sensed dimly that there was something overstressed in their jocularity — that there was something, in fact, “the matter” with these two. It was not, however, until she had observed one of the old ladies, in the corner farthest from her, suddenly to arise, seize her suitcase, and vanish precipitately, that the full truth struck home.

  Now it has been demonstrated how foolish a girl like Jackie was, how unhabituated to the experiences of this world, after only nineteen years spent in it: and so you will be well able to understand how, when the word struck home (and she had only one reeling ghastly word for it) — how her face went to ashes and her spirit was shocked.

  Drunk! It was as though you had given Jackie a lash across the cheek with a mule-whip. To Jackie it was something abhorrent, like madness, as leering and unthinkable.

  You will be well able to understand how she sat there with thought and movement paralysed, how she looked illy around at the others — at the young girl in black, who was most amazingly, and gravely, unperturbed; at the other old lady, who was moving her head from left to right and fidgeting horridly; at the young man opposite her, who was reading the Life of Francis Place as rapidly as ever — how she looked down at her suitcase, which was under the heels of Dad, who was now seated; how she wondered if she might yet escape, and say “May I have my suitcase, please?” and smile; and how she at last half rose to do so, and met the eyes of the young man opposite, and fell weakly back again…. And by this time the train was moving….

  III

  Dad began it. Son was engaged in rolling a cigarette. For a few minutes, indeed, there had seemed a possibility that there was not going to be much trouble now that the train was off: but Dad began it. This watery-eyed old gentleman, who for a little while had been content, in a sudden access of somewhat pathetic dreaminess, to sit looking out of the window, all at once, and as though in continuance of a previous conversation, put his hand out on to the knee of the young girl all in black, and leering forward, spoke in tones of husky condolence.

  “’As yer Auntie died then, dear?” asked Dad.

  To which there was no reply.

  “I expect yer Auntie’s died, ain’t she, dearie?” asked Dad, who had, apparently, an idée fixe on the actual form his fellow-traveller’s had taken.

  “Don’t you talk such nonsense, Dad,” shouted Son, suddenly bursting in. “Of course ’er Auntie ain’t died. Never ’eard of such a thing. You’ll be sayin’ my Auntie’s died next.”

  “Well, she’s all in black, ain’t she?”

  Son said that So was Christmas too. This was a perfectly inaccurate and really quite irrelevant argument, but some obscure logic latent in it appeared to satisfy his parent, and there was a lull. Then Son began to sing.

  Son was an exceptionally foolish singer, pronouncing all his words not as it was natural for such a common man to pronounce them, but in such a manner as he conceived one who had been benefited by an “Oxford Education” would have brought them out. It was indeed one of his boasts, when in liquor (as now), that he himself had been elevated by this type of education, as will be shown. He also beat his breast a great deal.

  “Ef yew WAH the oanLAY gel in the WARLD,” sang Son. “And Ai wah the OAN LAY BOY!”

  Son now turned jauntily to Jackie, as though to paint the prospect for her. “NOTHin’ — ELSe ’d — MATTAH — INthe — WARLD TOO

  DAY!

  WEEKood — go on — LOVin’ — in the — SAME OLD WAY.’

  By the way Son stressed the “same old way,” it was clear that Jackie was committed in the past.

  “A garDEN — of EeDEN — just built for TEW,

  Dah-dah-dee, dah-dah, DAH DAY! (This very shrewdly.)

  Ef yew WAH the oanLAY gel in the WARLD,

  And Ai WAH the Oan LAY BOY!”

  Concluding which, with a heavenward flourish and a smile of bliss at the giddy supposition, Son at once came back to earth; and feeling his duties as the life of the party, immediately flung out a little green packet under the face of the old lady next to him, and courteously begged her to take a Wood — by which Son intended Woodbine (his own favourites) — but was quietly rebuffed. He was in no way wounded, however, and at once expressed his sociability by the same method to the young girl in black opposite him, who also resisted the temptation. He then stated that he was a Regular Woodbine Willie, he was, and made the same offer to Jackie, which was similarly abortive. Nothin’ Abashed, though (as he himself put it), he turned to the young man in the corner, who, to the surprise of all, thanked him and accepted. He then offered one to his father, but expressed his doubts as to the propriety of so doing, on the theory that the old man “doubtless ’ad ’is Turkish on ’im” — thereby imputing the elder with a certain snobbishness and effeminacy — but this unjustifiably. After which he leant back and remarked, apropos of nothing, and of no previously mentioned lady, that “She Reclined on ’er Ottoman languidly smokin’ ’er ’Ookah,” and fell into silence and contemplation.

  There was, in fact, a large and long silence which promised well for all. But promised unfaithfully, as Dad, after looking dreamily out of the window again for two minutes or so, softly demonstrated. It was plain that Dad had the thing on his conscience. He put out another sympathetic hand.

  “’As yer Auntie died then, dear?” asked Dad.

  There was again no answer to this; but this time Son was a little irritated by the pursuing of this so fruitless subject.

  “Nah then, Dad, you leave that alone,” he said. “If you don’t interfere with ’er Auntie, she won’t interfere wiv yours.”

  “Well, I says she’s all in black,” said Dad, defending himself.

  “And I says so ’s Christmas too!” retorted Son, becoming heated.

  And as this once more placed the matter beyond controversy, and silenced his
father utterly, Son did not add to the reproach, and as though to show that there was no ill feeling, relapsed into further irrelevances.

  “And ’e THOUGHT of ’is Deer Old MOTHAH!” said Son. It is impossible to say what Son intended to convey by this (just as it is impossible to fathom his earlier allusion to the Ottoman); and from what ballad (if any) he was actually citing, is not known; but it was uttered with strong sentiment and in the spirit of the utmost good-fellowship, and it served to change the subject well, even if, in the silence that followed, his listeners were left in the dark as to the inner purport of the declaration.

  “Well‚” said Son, producing a pack of cards, and commencing to shuffle them with some verve and brilliance. “What about a little game, then? Solo Whist? Aukshun? Berzeek? Peekay? or Cabbage? I beg your pardon‚” amended Son quickly, and with an air of one having made a great faux pas (though he was only joking really). “Cribbaige.”

  Jackie, by this time, was far from comfortable, but the colour had come back into her cheeks, and she felt that she was under some kind of subtle protection from the young man who was not a young man opposite her, who had by now put his book away, smiled once, sadly rather than knowingly, at her, and was watching the invaders in an easy attitude and with his hands very reassuringly in his pockets. Now there could have been no more welcome suggestion than that of a little game, Jackie thought, as it would serve, possibly, to subdue and engross them for the rest of the journey. She therefore waited for Dad’s answer with some eagerness. But Dad’s thoughts, unfortunately, were running upon other, and by now familiar, lines, and there was much strife yet to come.

  “Did n’t she leave yer nothin’ in ’er Will, then?” asked Dad.

  There was a short pause after this, and then the storm broke.

  “Now ’ow many times ’ave I spoke to you about that, Dad?” cried Son, putting out his forefinger and speaking very sharply. “Don’t let me ’ear no more now, you old dog.”