The Cruise of the Make-Believes

Gilbert Byfield glanced at his watch. "We shall be late for the first act," he said.

"Which of course puts an end to the discussion," Enid said, as she rose from the table. "Of course, if you'd like me to send her anything that would be useful, I should be only too pleased. Mother likes me to be charitable."

The play proved to be dull (at least to Gilbert Byfield), and the evening seemed to stretch on interminably. For the man was haunted by the miserable feeling that this child, in her common back-yard – this girl he had understood, as he thought, so perfectly – could never by any chance be understood by those who had not intimately touched her life. He was puzzled to think what he could do to carry out that brave determination of his to help her – to lift her out of her surroundings. If he remained where he was, among his own people, and in his own sphere, he deserted the child; if he went back to her, he deserted them, and took up his life in surroundings uncongenial, except so far as she was concerned. And he saw that it was utterly impossible to go half-way about one matter or the other; Arcadia Street was not to be brought into the West End and dumped down there.

It happened that between the acts he went out to smoke a cigarette, and found himself, with a dozen other men, near the open doors of the theatre. A few people were strolling listlessly outside in the street – pausing now and then to stare in at the well-dressed men, and to whisper. And once a girl went past – a thin shabby girl in black; and he was reminded so forcibly of Bessie Meggison that, without knowing what he did, he hurried out of the place, and went after her. Fifty yards down the street she stopped to look in at a shop window; and it was not Bessie at all, but someone quite different. Yet the thought assailed him, as he went back to the theatre, that just in that fashion the girl might be wandering alone in this horrible London – poorly clad, and not too well fed. He hated the thought of his own prosperity; quite unnecessarily called himself a brute, because he had had a good dinner, and was supposed to be out in search of enjoyment.

Never for a moment, of course, did it occur to him that his point of view was wrong; never for a moment did he understand that properly his life could not touch the girl's, and could have nothing in common with it. He accused himself unnecessarily, when the only mistake that had been made in the whole matter was in going to Arcadia Street at all, and above all going there under false colours. That point of view he did not regard in the least.

But he walked home that night, after leaving his friends, feeling miserably that it would have been better if he had buried himself for ever in Arcadia Street; if in some impossible way, he could have forgotten this selfish purposeless life he had always lived, and could have flung himself into some real work that would have brought him nearer in thought and feeling to the girl. Not for the first time he cried out against artificiality; metaphorically speaking, he wanted to put on rough clothing and thick boots, and plunge into the real fierce work of the world.

Some sense of the injustice of the world in meting out such different lots to such different women urged him, after a lapse of days during which he had been at the beck and call of Enid, to go back to Arcadia Street. He told himself that it would be merely an experimental visit; he meant to see if something could not be done to shake old Meggison into an understanding of his responsibilities, and perhaps even to urge the derelict brother into an attempt to earn a living. That was what he told himself; in the end, of course, it amounted to his going with the prospect of seeing the girl, and of doing something, in a wholly indefinite way, for her personally.

He was a little shy about meeting her; so many ridiculous suggestions had been thrown to him by Jordan Tant, and by Enid and her mother, concerning this girl, that the old freedom between them, so far at least as he was concerned, seemed a thing of the past. Even when that summer evening arrived when, leaning over the wall, he saw her seated in her garden, and called to her, it was with a new constraint.

"I've come back, you see," he said.

She was genuinely very glad to see him; he found himself wondering if the eyes of Enid could by any chance ever light up at his coming as did the eyes of this child. Things were different in Arcadia Street, he knew; almost he wished that they were not – almost he wished that this happy familiarity might obtain in other places with which he was more naturally in touch.

"I thought – thought you were not coming back," said the girl. "And yet I hoped – "

"Hoped that I was – eh?" he supplemented. "Even now, I don't know how long I may be able to stop here; I may go away again at a moment's notice – and never come back at all. Don't look so grave about it; you can go on making-believe, you know, just as well as ever."

"It won't be quite the same," she said. "You see, in that you've helped me – because, as I told you, you understood."

"And how have you been getting on?" he asked. "I mean, of course – the house?"

She stood against the wall over which he leaned; she did not look up at him when she replied. "Oh, pretty well, thank you," she said in a low voice. "Nothing ever happens, you know, in Arcadia Street – except the thing you don't want to happen."

"Your father?"

"Father is quite established again at his club; they think a lot of him at his club," she said. "And Aubrey is positive he will hear of something to do very shortly."

"That's good news," said Gilbert. "By the way – that Mr. Quarle I met when I was here last – the night I came over into your garden – do you know him very well?"

"Oh, yes; he's been a great friend of mine for nearly two years. But for him I think we couldn't keep the house going; he is the only lodger I have ever had who pays money without being asked for it. He's simply wonderful. Not that he's well off; he's only retired from something, and I don't think the something was very much before he retired from it. But his payments – oh – they're beautifully regular!"

"He's a valuable man," said Gilbert, not without a curious little feeling of jealousy that anyone else should be good to the girl except himself. Then the thought of what he had meant to do – the remembrance of the girl, shabby and forlorn, who had walked past the theatre that night, and had been something like Bessie Meggison – urged him to say something else.

"Bessie – (you don't mind my calling you Bessie – do you?) – have you ever had a holiday? I mean, have you ever got away from this dull house for one long evening – and seen bright lights, and happy faces – and heard music? Have you ever done that?"

Still leaning against the wall, she shook her head slowly, without looking up. "There hasn't been time – or money," she said simply.

"If you found the time – and I found the money?" he suggested. "What then?"

She looked up at him wonderingly; did not seem for a moment to understand what he meant. At last she said slowly – "I'm afraid it wouldn't do, you know; it really wouldn't do at all. Someone would be wanting me – someone would be calling for me."

"I should let them call for once," said Gilbert. "Just suppose for once, little Make-Believe, that we went out of Arcadia Street – and far beyond Islington – just our two selves. There are certain places called theatres, you know."

She nodded, with a sigh. "I know," she said. "That is, of course, I don't know much about what they're like inside; the outsides are wonderful. But I expect they're very expensive."

"We might manage it – just for once," he urged. "I could save up, you know – go without something."

It needed a lot of persuasion before she would consent at all; but at last she named a night when it was probable that father would be more in requisition at his club even than usual, and when Aubrey would be engrossed in the mysteries of a billiard handicap. She would go then; and, the better to preserve the proprieties (for Arcadia Street was given to gossip), would meet him at a certain spot not a hundred yards from the Arcadia Arms.

He began to understand, almost at the last moment, that the expedition must be conducted in her own fashion; he had the delicacy to understand that he must be shabby to match her poor shabbiness. So that it is probable very few of his friends would have recognized Mr. Gilbert Byfield, had they seen him waiting about at the corner of a certain street in Islington, in a well-worn tweed suit and a billycock hat. At that time he did not like the idea at all; he would have liked to whirl her away in a hansom, and do the thing properly at a first-class restaurant, with stalls at a theatre to follow. He wondered a little how the evening was going to pass.

And yet, after all, it proved to be rather pleasant – viewed as a new experience. Pleasant, to begin with, to see that little thin figure coming towards him; to hold for a moment the little hand in the worn glove, and to notice with satisfaction how neat she was, and how tastefully dressed, despite the poor things she had on. He had the grace to forget that a swift hansom might be hailed with the raising of a hand; found an omnibus almost comfortable – quite delightful, in fact, with the girl seated beside him, wearing upon her face that extraordinary look of complete happiness. He forgot even to think what his friends would have said had they seen him riding in such a vehicle, dressed in such fashion, and with such a companion.

The choosing of a restaurant was a difficulty, because he scarcely knew the cheaper or more dingy ones. She drew back in alarm at the prospect of entering a place gay with electric light; became reconciled at last to a little place of few tables and fewer waiters; sat open-eyed and breathless at the glory of a fifth-rate place, with a decided smell of the kitchen about it every time a creaking door was opened near her. She did not talk much; only occasionally she glanced at him, and when she did she smiled that slow grave smile of gratitude and friendliness.

Afterwards he found himself, for the first time in his life, in the upper circle at a theatre; congratulated himself on the fact that a friend he saw in a box below would not be likely to raise his eyes to the third row of that particular part of the building. He contented himself, not with looking at a play he had already seen, but with watching the thin face of the girl beside him – the bright eyes and the half-parted lips. Once, at a moment that was thrilling, she gripped his arm; and for quite a long time kept her hand there, holding to him while she watched the stage.

Coming out of the theatre, in the whirl and rush of people homeward bound, he got her into the hansom almost before she knew what had happened; it was only after the horse had started for Arcadia Street that she looked up at him reproachfully – shocked and awed by this friend who could spend so much money in a single evening. She voiced that thought as they drove along.

"You'll have to go without quite a lot for this, Mr. Byfield – won't you?" she asked wistfully. "I mean – it has been a frightfully expensive evening."

"I don't mind – for once," said Gilbert. "The only question in my mind is – have you really had a good time?"

She heaved a big sigh. "I should like to do it all over again," she said softly – "but to do it much more slowly. It has been wonderful!"

This was the one man in all the world that had ever thought about her, or had ever done her a kindness. Small wonder then that her eyes spoke more than gratitude when she put that little hand into his again in Arcadia Street, before the shabby house swallowed her up, and the door closed upon her. No one saw her, because Arcadia Street, save on Saturday nights, goes early to bed.

CHAPTER V

THE GREAT GAME OF MAKE-BELIEVE

IN the course of many scrambling, shambling years Mr. Daniel Meggison had learnt much, in the sordid sense, concerning the value of men. Had it been necessary for him, at any time in his later life, to pass a strict examination in the Gentle Art of Tapping People, he would in all probability have come out of the ordeal with flying colours, as one having vast experience.

For he could have told you to a nicety how, in the case of this man, you must not try for more than half a crown, and must be jocular with him; how, in another case, you might fly higher, and whine for a sovereign, with a pitiful tale pitched to charm the coin out of his pockets; and how, in other cases, you would have to drop your demands so low as a shilling or even possibly a sixpence. It is not too much to say that every man, in a very special sense, had for Mr. Daniel Meggison his price; and that on all and sundry occasions he was only too ready to exact that price from his fellows.

Exactly how far back in the years he had really made any attempt to earn an honest living it is impossible to say, and he had probably long since forgotten. It had at the beginning been a mere accidental business; a temporary loss of work had thrown him into the willing arms, as it were, of a wife who had always done something to help him. It merely became necessary for her to increase her efforts; Mr. Meggison was in no hurry to look for work, and gradually the truth was forced upon him that he need never do so again. True, he made a pretence, for something like twelve months, to gain a livelihood, but with no ardour in the pursuit; and so gradually drifted into that great and marvellous army which always in a big city manages to exist pretty comfortably without working at all.

He learnt their tricks and their ways – even their little catch-phrases slipped naturally from his tongue. He might have been heard talking loudly concerning the affairs of the nation, and how they should be conducted; he knew his newspaper by heart. More than that, he might have been heard often demanding to know why this man and that did not obtain the employment that was obviously waiting for him in a busy world. And so in time he grew to the belief that he was in all respects something of a poor gentleman, for whom others must provide money, and who, by reason of a certain superiority of birth and education and resources, stood outside the mere common grubbing workaday world.

There were, of course, mean shifts and petty frauds to be encountered; but in time the man grew hardened even to those. There was a bed in which he might sleep, and there was food for him, and tobacco always; he became a familiar figure in his poor neighbourhood, and accepted with each day that which was provided for him, not without grumbling. In time the patient wife folded her hands, and sighed, and fell asleep; and the patient daughter took up the burden quite naturally, as it had been bequeathed to her. The legacy of the shiftless father, who was always to be protected and looked after, descended to her, and was taken up as a sacred trust.

But with that shiftless life that had been his portion so long the man had not lost his natural cunning – the cunning of the creature that preys upon his fellows. Money was necessary, for the occasional replenishing of his scanty wardrobe, and for tobacco and drinks; he would have been a poor thing without money in his pockets. Hence the borrowing – hence the tapping of any and every one with whom he came in contact. Therefore, too, it is small wonder that he turned his eyes at last towards Gilbert Byfield, with something of a smacking of lips. For here was higher game; here was a man who might, if handled carefully, be a man of sovereigns instead of paltry shillings.

The man was not above playing the spy, and he had of course a jealous interest in the fate of that chief breadwinner – his daughter. More than once he had shivered, with a very genuine horror, at the prospect of love or marriage being even suggested to her; had been short with Harry Dorricott, when he had seen that boy's eyes turn with an unmistakable look of affection in them in Bessie's direction. For what, in the name of all that was tragic, was to become of Mr. Daniel Meggison if his daughter left him?

From behind the curtain of a window he had seen the stranger who lived next door talking to the girl over the wall; had been inclined to resent that at once. At the same time, he had a craven feeling that it would not do to upset Bessie; he had better watch, and be silent. So he had seen other meetings, until at last that night had arrived when Bessie was not in the house, and when she came in very late, and crept up to her room like the guilty truant she was. And had there not been a sound of wheels outside the house? Daniel Meggison shivered in his bed, and wondered what he had done in all his blameless life to deserve this.

Questioned cautiously on the following morning, Bessie would say but little. Yes – she had been out – all the evening – with a friend. No – she had not spent money over it; she would not have thought of doing such a thing; the friend had paid for everything. She hoped that her father was not annoyed, and that he had not wanted for anything.

"No, my child, I am not suggesting that I wanted for anything; I spent the greater part of the evening at my club," he replied stiffly. "Only, of course, as a father I am naturally anxious for you – and I – "

"It was a very nice friend – a very nice one indeed," she broke in; and he decided that it would not be wise to pursue the matter then.