Twopence Coloured Read online

  Now this was unfilial, not to say anti-tribal, in Son, and incurred very natural family resentment.

  “Oo you bleedin’ well talkin’ to?” asked Dad.

  “Now then, Dad, you keep your talk clean,” said Son, becoming very fierce, and shifting the argument to grounds of piety. “There ’appens to be ladies present.”

  “’Ere,” said Dad, screwing up his eyes. “You a Churchgoer?”

  “No, I ain’t no Churchgoer, but you keep your talk clean.”

  “Oh, I thought you was,” said Dad, and then (it is to be feared) lost control of himself — commencing, as he did, a throaty and threatening growl, and all at once uplifting his newspaper bundle and balancing it augustly in the air, with the object of dealing instant and grandiose retribution on the head of the upstart should his defiance proceed. Whereupon Son jumped to his feet, thrust forth his chin, with a caustic air of welcome, and invited his fate with derisive and challenging words.

  “Will you, then, will you?” asked Son. “Will you?”

  “Will I what?” Dad was a trifle abashed.

  “Will you, then?” Will you just? Will you? Will you? … Will you?”

  “’Ere. You startin’ a Roughahse?” (Dad meant Rough-house by this.)

  “No. I ain’t startin’ no Roughahse, but you keep your talk clean.”

  “You ain’t startin’ a Roughahse?”

  “No.”

  “’Cos you’ll tell me if you was, won’t you?” said Dad, and sat down again.

  And now Son revealed once more his extreme versatility. For after looking into his father’s eyes for several lurching moments with diminishing rage and increasing amicability, “My Pore Old PA!” he said, with sincere and quavering emotion. “Was I ROUGH with yer?”

  “You get along,” said Dad.

  “And ’e said ’is PRAIRS at ’is mother’s KNEE

  Each night at SIX o’ clock!”

  said Son. Which was very possibly extempore, but was beyond question conceived in a general spirit of remorse.

  But this was not lasting, either; for catching sight of Jackie, and for the first time apprehending the homage her beauty demanded, Son without difficulty made the transition to gallantry.

  “But Pardon me,” said Son, and bowed. “Was I treadin’ on your pretty little toe?”

  Jackie lost all her colour again and made no effort to answer.

  “You don’t mind my Addressin’ you, do you?”

  Jackie must have here seemed to have implied that she did n’t, for “A Mere Bagatelle,” said Son, as though speaking on her own behalf, and so forgiving himself. “But what is this? She Blushes. She Reddens! She Pales! Or am I mistook? The Vapours, methinks!”

  Son was far from being mistaken in any of these staccato surmises, and it is fearful to think of what Jackie might or might not have succumbed to, had she not at this moment observed the young man opposite taking a last puff at his cigarette, and extinguishing it with the air of one at last getting down to business. This young man was now her one rock of salvation in quicksands of terror and revulsion, and he was not to fail her.

  Son now went down upon one knee, as in the mode of an earlier and more florid epoch, and came at once to the point.

  “My dear,” entreated Son. “Take me for what I am! Take me for what I am!”

  At this moment the foot of the young man opposite, who had his hands in his pockets again, came slowly out and rested on the seat just beside Jackie, thus causing a long, strong, firm, tweed leg to remain as a valiant barrier between herself and her suitor. But Son did not at first observe this.

  “Bad as I am, I love you,” chanted Son. “So take me for what I am! Come, my dear. I’ve ’ad an Oxford Education, you know. I ’ail from Bawllyol. I’ve ’ad an Oxford Education, you know. I’m a Bacheldore of Arts, I am. Come, wilt thou not imprint a kiss on this fair brow?”

  At this Son put forth his head in anticipation, and rested his hand upon Jackie’s knee: but at the same time the leg gave a little kick, which displaced that hand, and Son came down to earth.

  “’Ere,” said Son. “Ooz Limb?”

  The young man did not reply.

  “Was you aware that you was intruding upon me?” asked Son, and the young man this time replied in a pleasant and very well-controlled voice.

  “Now then, get up,” he said. “And don’t make an ass of yourself.”

  “Is you aware,” said Son, getting up and brushing his knees, “that I come from Bawllyol. Was you apprised that I been educated at Oxford?”

  “Well, I have too,” said the young man. “So I’m just as clever.”

  “Oh, you ’ave, ’ave you?” Son paused. “Let me see, now. You was n’t by any chance the Oxford Don, was you, now?” (This with infinite irony.)

  “I really did n’t know there was such a thing.”

  “Nor yet the Senior Wrangler?”

  “No.”

  “Then would it perchance shock you to ’ear what I think of you?”

  “It’s impossible to say.”

  “Oh, it is, is it? Well.” Son was rather at a loss. “Well, I says she’s a swell skirt, that’s all.”

  “You can’t be a swell skirt, you know,” said the young man, with sweet reasonableness. “You can have a swell skirt, or wear a swell skirt, but you can’t be a swell skirt, really.”

  “Oh, can’t you? Reely?” rejoined Son. “Well, I can.”

  There was a silence after this crushing personal testimony, and Son again turned to Jackie. But the barrier was still up, and the young man spake.

  “What about this game we were going to have? Are n’t we going to start?”

  “What game’s that?”

  “Come on. We’II have this corner.” He looked at Jackie and smiled. “Will you shove up the other side?”

  Jackie, who was now in perfect command of herself, smiled and rose. The young man then asked her if they might use her suitcase, and smiled, with some sweetness, again, and she said “Oh yes. Certainly,” and smiled. He then asked the young girl in black, with a smile, alas, as sweet as any he had yet bestowed, whether she would move to the other side of the old gentleman, so that they could have one half of the compartment to themselves. A triumph of organization indeed, and within one minute the whole atmosphere was changed and everything was mobilized for play — with the important exception, that is, of Dad, who at this point was discovered to be sleeping — not in the comfortable and reclining posture fitting to the action, but leaning forward in a stertorous coma which threatened at any moment to level both himself and his bundle with the floor.

  Son himself was already considerably subdued. Not subdued, of course, but comparatively so.

  “You’re a good sport, you are,” he said to the young man. “I ain’t got nothin’ against you. Come along, Dad. Come off it. Nah then. Wake up, you Old Snorter.”

  Whereat Son shook his slothful and remiss parent violently, and the old man awoke murmuring a senile “Whassser? …”

  “Nah then, Dad. Never mind messin’ abaht. You come over’ere.” He lifted his father and dumped him down next to him. And after a short discussion on the game to be played, and a rather longer discussion on the stakes to be lain, and a few more inapposite remarks from Dad, such as: —

  “Doewa’e’ay” (I do not want to play),

  “Karzordir’e” (The cards are all dirty),

  “Wobuie-e-ooig” (What the bloody hell are you doing?), the cards were dealt skilfully by the young man, and a game of Nap began. The storm was passed.

  IV

  The train, all this time, had been advancing in its own inexorable and puffingly detached way into a fog which grew denser and denser every mile and filled the compartment with a garish light, which was the colour of mud, and from which glowed the mournfully but steadily window-gazing eyes of the young girl in black, in a manner which struck the heart chill, and overclouded the soul. And as the train advanced further into this yellowing pall, it was compelled to surren
der something of its earlier decision and grasp of its immediate object in life — which was to take Jackie to London — and to become more diffident, not only from time to time slowing warily down, and stopping dead with a jerk and deep silence, but also occasionally capitulating to an inconsequent tendency to go back to Brighton again. This it did very slyly, of course, and very tentatively, but it was obvious that it had got into a bit of a funk about the matter and thought another day would be better, if you did n’t mind…. The passengers within accepted these manifestations with the patient and trusting stolidity common to passengers — being apprised, by various remote gravel-scrunchings, men’s voices, fog-bangs, whistlings, and so forth, in the dark mist outside, that the poor, weak-spirited thing was being coaxed as far as the company’s servants were able. Nevertheless, this spirit of morose vacillation soon transferred itself to Jackie, who had imagined she was going to be in the spring-morning of life this afternoon, but was now more damply wretched than she could ever remember having been. In the space of half an hour, the joyous and exulting relief which the matured young man (whom she intended to thank royally, when she had the chance) had brought about by his tact, firmness and management, had all worn away; and she looked over at that side of the compartment without any true satisfaction or self-congratulatory thoughts on what might have been but for him.

  As for Dad and Son, they were now behaving, with minor exceptions, as gentlemen should behave. Dad, it is true, was frequently dropping his cards in a nerveless and disorderly manner, and making very rash calls without anything to substantiate them (for which errors he was being continually brought to book by Son); and it is true that the fumes of alcohol had not yet entirely dispersed in the head of Son himself, who was winning all the time, and who, in his felicity, every now and again leant right over to Jackie either winkingly to reveal the beauty of his hand, or to make such neighbourly but perplexing remarks as “You must n’t mind my Dad, you know. ’E’s been to the Races.” (This in view of the fact that the races this day were at Doncaster, being an euphemism of what he considered the most delicate description.) Or, “I’ll meet you at the Stage Door if you like, my dear.” (This with the air of a hardened and knowledgeable roué.) Or merely, “She’s SOMEBODY’S mother, you know,” in a reversion to that maternal obsession, one might almost say neurosis, with which his spirit was tormented. But in each of these lapses he himself was called to order by the matured young man, and he was extremely placable. There was, in fact, no disturbance of any kind in the whole dragging, despondent journey to Croydon, where this couple left the train.

  There was a certain resurrection of high spirits on their departure, both the old lady and the young girl in black leaving here as well, and after several exuberant and redundant farewells, it was found that Dad, in the excitement of the moment, had deserted his bundle. Wherefore the young man seized this bundle, and put his head out of the window.

  “Old Gentleman!” he cried.

  In a few moments Dad came growling back again.

  “Your Bundle.”

  Whereupon the young man fell at once back into his seat, reopened his attaché-case, re-embarked upon the Life of Francis Place, and was alone with Jackie as the train slid out on its last lap to Victoria.

  V

  So here Jackie was! So here she was, on her day of adventure and high aspiration, sitting in the foggy compartment of a sluggardly train, alone with an absorbed young man who had been her salvation but had now nothing whatever to say to her. Life, she felt, had bettered her in this first encounter. It had employed irrelevant and senseless weapons wherewith to knock the courage out of her, and had contrived a foggy day in which to do it.

  Her immediate business, though (she told herself), was to thank this young man. That she also yearningly desired to talk to anybody, on any excuse, was true enough; but she did sincerely wish to thank this young man, and had observed that neither the old lady nor the young girl in black had made any attempt to do so. It was plainly up to her. Nevertheless, he did not appear to be the type of young man who would give much response, as far as sentiment was concerned, and her task was not easy. Her soul, in fact, began to palpitate, and her face began to lose its colour again, in the most extraordinary manner, as she framed phrases to start with, and wondered whether she ought to Leave it or not, and what he would Say. And what made matters doubly difficult was the fact that she was now in the corner seat farthest away from him. It was out of the question to commence from such a distance, she told herself.

  Eventually, and very suddenly, it was another voice, coming from some mechanical source within her, that was feebly uttering:

  “I think that we ought to have thanked you for getting that couple to play that game like that.”

  Jackie’s first sickening impression, on hearing this voice, was that it had committed itself to several too many million “thats” and that its owner would spend the rest of her days in unending torments and self-reproach for having allowed it to do so. But the next moment she was pulling round under a very stimulating smile, which very possibly sensed a “that” or two too much somewhere, but which fully and freely forgave it.

  “Yes. It was jolly lucky he mentioned it.”

  “But I can’t think how you got them to do it.”

  “Oh, they were n’t really troublesome. I’ve seen people lots worse than that.”

  “Well, I think you were wonderful,” said Jackie. Whereat Jackie blushed, without a moment’s hesitation, for it was not correct to say that he was wonderful. It, alone, might be wonderful. He did not reply. He would plainly never forgive her this time.

  And now, in the madness of the moment, she plunged even farther into the mire.

  “I think I’ll come back to my corner seat,” she said, smiling, and the next moment she was sitting opposite him. He smiled at this, but again did not reply. And because he did not reply, and because she had cast away, in her missish gaucherie, the last poor shreds of her self-respect, and because he had smiled civilly and made no effort to rescue them, she now felt rising in her bosom a great hatred for this complacent and self-controlled young man — a hatred which cancelled all other sensations for the time being, and caused her to look out of the window with great disinterestedness and superiority. He also was looking out of the window, but not like that.

  “‘And he thought of his dear old mother‚’” he said amiably, ruminating, and before he had smiled at her, she knew that in some subtle way he had saved the situation again. And she began to adore him again.

  “Were n’t they terrible?” she said.

  “Yes. They were rather ghastly.”

  “How awful it must be to get like that.”

  “Well‚” he said; “they found it rather nice, I expect.”

  Queer, and rather perverse individual, this, thought Jackie.

  “Yes. But how beastly, I mean.”

  “Oh, I don’t know. I expect they were rather dears if you only knew them and got used to them.”

  A curious conception of dears, thought Jackie, but she was not going to argue the point. He was still looking out of the window, with his book open on his knees, and she thought it best to let him go on reading. She therefore picked up a newspaper, which the old lady had left behind, and lightly cast her eyes over it, opening it wide at last, and giving an excellent impersonation of a young girl all at once spotting something of great interest to herself at the bottom of a column. She at once sensed that he had gone back to his Francis Place, and experienced a slight annoyance at this. She then commenced a laborious process of the deftest paper-lowering, and most cunning eye-raising, with the object of seeing him without being caught at it — which took nearly a minute to accomplish, but which was rendered a waste of time and energy by his calm but absolute absorption in his book. This she did several times, with the same result each time. It was clear that she had no longer any existence for him, and that he would not reopen the conversation ever again.

  And the fog was worse still
, and now they were getting very near to their destination — Victoria. And the realization of this gave another sudden shock to Jackie — she scarcely knew why. She had forgotten there was an end to this, that she would soon have to get out and grapple again with existence. Victoria! The mere decayed, ponderous sound of that irrevocable terminus, where she would have to shift for herself, filled her with apprehension. And at this point the train, with a sudden clattering laughter at her, dashed over Vauxhall Bridge, under which dimly flowed the sluggish and unwelcoming Thames, and panted deeply onwards to the dreaded appointment.

  Then came the slowing down, which was the slowing down of Jackie’s pulses as well. Uncanny gliding moments of enforced patience and chill eagerness — hoardings, and brick, and dead, disused trains, and the submissive bump of hitherto buoyant rails beneath. And then at last, and suddenly, the Station itself! It was not apprehension that Jackie felt, as the train puffed with funereal and exhausted grandeur under this giant, looming roof; it was fear. It was a child’s fear of the dark, the half-dark — of evil noises and nightmare transactions. It was the mouth of some gaunt hell: it was Destination. The roar of the porter’s trucks might have been the roar of lions, to whom she and her fellow-travellers were to be delivered, and all the shoutings might have been instructions for the rough-and-ready handling of this grim cargo. The young man flicked open the door: there was a sudden expansion and particularization of noise; and Jackie stood up and mistily pretended to busy herself with her suitcase. By the time she looked round the young man had vanished. “Well, now for it,” said Jackie, and stepped on to the platform.

  Her next object was her luggage at the back of the train. She made for this in a thick crowd streaming against her, and had some relief in espying the young man, bobbing up ahead, at the same thing. This left her with one straw to keep her from submergence under the massive indifference of her fellow-creatures; and she quickened her pace to get nearer him. The train was of enormous length, and under that glimmering, smoky roof, where, it seemed, lingered all the sorrows and all the terrors of all journeyings since the beginning of time, Jackie chased a bobbing head.