Poor Caroline Page 8

  Number 40 was distinctly more respectable than its neighbours. No children clambered up its yellow-stoned steps. If the columns of the porch were peeled like the bark of the plane tree on the opposite pavement, the brass knob of the door was newly polished. The hideous conservatory of coloured glass above the balcony was in a state of tolerable repair.

  'So this is where Caroline lives,' thought Eleanor. 'How very angry Aunt Enid would be if she thought that I had called upon Poor Caroline.' Yet why shouldn't she? She was not sociable, but she was adventurous. Curiosity allured her. The South African habit of never passing a friend's house influenced her. The temptation to do something of which her Aunt Enid would disapprove decided her. With her lips compressed, her eyes dancing, and her heart beating quickly under her trim tailored coat, she tripped up the steps and rang the bell.

  §3

  'And so I knew that something nice would happen to-day,' said Caroline.

  They sat together in the leaping firelight, 'two bachelor girls just on our own,' giggled Caroline comfortably. They drank tea out of chipped cups of rather fine old china, and ate bread and margarine and very stale seed cake,

  'If I'd known you were coming, I'd have got a walnut cake,' said Caroline, then added hastily, lest her guest should take this as a hint that her unexpected visit was not welcome, 'but of course a surprise visit is far, far nicer. Only it's you who suffer, because I've been so busy these last few weeks that my housekeeping has gone just all anyhow.'

  The firelight was kind to the crowded room. It revealed only for fleeting moments the large brass bedstead attempting with awkward bashfulness to hide behind a torn pink curtain and the desk in the window almost drowned in papers. Papers overflowed on to the floor, the chairs, the bed. Another curtain hung bulging over an alcove by the fireplace. A row of bookshelves beside the window, a screen round an untidy washstand, a table and two chairs beside, the fire filled all the available space.

  When Eleanor had arrived, she was shown up three flights of steep stairs by a gaunt, very neat and thin-lipped woman, who knocked peremptorily on a door, and announced^ 'Visitor, Miss Smith,' and left her standing there on the dark landing, wishing she had not come, longing to turn and fly.

  But from within the room had come the sound of doors banging, papers rustling, curtain rings squealing along a metal pole, and the door had opened, revealing a short, plump, animated woman, little taller than Eleanor herself, who peered with short-sighted eyes into the gloom, and cried, 'Who's that? Who's that, Mrs. Hales?'

  'I - I - is that Miss Denton-Smyth?' Eleanor had stammered. 'I'm Eleanor de la Roux. I think we're sort of cousins. My car broke down in the road just outside, and I

  had to wait a few minutes to get it mended. So I came to call -just -just . . .'

  The little woman fumbled among the many chains and beads and ribbons which hung against her crimson bodice. She found one at last from which were suspended a pair of tarnished but decorative lorgnettes. Up they went with a click, opening against her round, peering, battered, vivacious face.

  'Who's that? What did you say?' And then as though the lorgnettes had indeed enlightened her, though, in that dark landing she could not possibly have seen anything clearly, she cried with rapture. 'Why, Eleanor - Eleanor de la Roux? Of course. My little cousin from South Africa!' and dropping the lorgnettes that chimed and jangled against all her festooning beads and seals and pencils, she stretched out short arms in tight crimson velvet sleeves, and drew Eleanor into a warm embrace.

  'Well, isn't this nice? Well, isn't this nice? Come in and let me have a look at you,' she chirruped, taking the girl by both hands and pulling her into the firelit room. 'My little cousin from South Africa. Dear Agatha's daughter. Why, of course I remember Agatha. A lovely girl. One of the sweetest girls I knew. And you're like her, my dear. You've got her eyes, I believe. Real hazel. I always say there's nothing like hazel. And long lashes. But she was taller. You're like me, my dear. Little - little but good, they say. Small body, large heart. Well, well. And to think you should come and call upon me. That was nice of you. I am pleased. And you are stopping in London? When did you arrive? You haven't had tea, have you? I've just got the kettle on. And your car broke down? Do you drive yourself? Oh, you modern girls, how I envy you. I should certainly have had a car. And flown. Do you fly? I always say now that I shall have to wait until I'm an angel. Still, you never know. Perhaps I shall do it yet, now that I'm making my fortune at last.' She bent over the fire, poking it vigorously. The flames leapt up. The kettle sang. The firelight illuminated her face with grotesque lines and shadows. She crouched above her kettle like a witch brewing enchantments.

  'She is like a witch,' thought Eleanor. 'You're cosy here,' she said aloud.

  Caroline caught at the compliment. 'Yes, I am!' she cried. 'There's nothing like a bed-sitting-room, I always say. Then you have your books and papers all around you and can work to any hour of the night or day.'

  'Do you often work at night?'

  'Oh, quite often. Especially now since I went into business. The director of a company has great responsibilities, I can tell you. Dear Enid would tell you of my work, didn't she? I expect she's been very busy preparing for Christmas and that's why she hasn't had time to write to me herself. I know that those grand old-fashioned Yorkshire Christmasses take a great deal of preparation, and I'm so glad, dear, that you went straight to Marshington when you came to England. It would never have done to miss seeing our real Yorkshire hospitality.' She was laying the cloth, fetching cups from the fireplace, and bringing teaspoons and knives from a battered tin biscuit-box. 'Of course, here in London I can't offer my friends the hospitality I should like. You know the pioneer is bound to go through some rather dark and lonely times. Wasn't it Robert Owen who said, "Pioneering doesn't pay?" But that was in a moment of bitterness, and of course we all have our moments of bitterness.' She made tea in a chipped brown tea-pot. She bade Eleanor draw up her chair. 'But now, of course, I am reaping the reward of my labours. I suppose you never heard how much dear Enid and Robert intend to invest with us, did you? Perhaps they would not talk about it in front of you. Of course, I am hoping to be able to reserve quite a number of shares for them. But if you are writing you might just mention that it would be as well to let me know soon. You might just say casually that I thought about three thousand, just as a kind of beginning. It's a really good thing. We're going to sweep the country soon.'

  As though she had never had a listener in her life before, Caroline poured forth the details of the Christian Cinema Company. She told Eleanor of its vicissitudes, its hopes, its possibilities. She told her of the wonders of the Tona Perfecta Film, the obstinacy of Mr. Macafee, and his final ultimatum. She told her of the last Board meeting. 'An Extraordinary Meeting, my dear, and you're a relation or I would not tell you company secrets, for of course in a way it's all confidential, but you're a Smith and I want you to understand exactly my position so that when you see dear Enid and Robert you can put it to them.' She told her how Mr. Macafee had repeated his offer, and how Mr. Isenbaum had not been present. ' "Unavoidably detained," he wired, and of course I was terribly upset because of course I had felt sure that he was the man who was going to save us; but of course I always say God moves in a mysterious way His wonders to perform. And if it's not Mr. Isenbaum, it will be someone else. These delays are sent to try us — to purify us as by fire. And in any case I persuaded Mr. Macafee to give us another month - till the end of January. I must say that I take a little credit for that. I had him out to lunch, you know, and talked to him like a mother. I felt afterwards that I had been wrestling against the powers of darkness. But he gave way.'

  She was a witch. Her brown eyes glowed; her bosom heaved. She built up for Eleanor a glowing, romantic picture of High Finance and Big Business inspired by Idealism, of Art and Ethics reconciled at last.

  She did not deny her poverty, her loneliness, her frequent failures. But she spoke of them all in the past tense.

 
'I've sometimes thought,' she said, 'that when the dreamer's dream comes true, he takes a little while to realize that he isn't still asleep. To be really affluent at last - to be able to repay all the kindness that people have shown one in the past, because I always say that it's just the art of being kind that's all this sad world needs. You know, my dear, as we grow older we do like to do a little of the giving as well as the taking in the material things of life. I have always tried to be a spiritual giver. But circumstances have often compelled me to be a material borrower. I've tried to take generously, because I always say that it takes two to make a gracious gift, the generous giver and the generous taker. But there comes a time when one would like to be the giver for a change. And so you see how doubly glad I was when I realized that it might be in my power

  not only to repay, but to enrich those who have helped me.'

  'Yes, of course,' murmured Eleanor inadequately.

  'That's why I made my Will as I did.' She turned and rummaged among the papers in her desk, opening drawer after drawer, each of which spilled new contributions to the general confusion on the floor. But at last she found a long blue envelope. 'Ah. Here it is. I want you to read this, my dear. Just in case.'

  In just what case, Eleanor did not know; but she took the envelope and drew from it a long blue document, written in Caroline's delicate sloping hand.

  'The last Will and Testament of Caroline Audrey Denton-Smyth, Journalist and Secretary, of 40 Lucretia Road, West Kensington, in the County of London.

  'I, Caroline Audrey Denton-Smyth, being in my right mind and in active bodily health do hereby cancel and revoke all other wills, testaments, and legacies whatsoever that I may at any former time have made. And I will and bequeath hereby to my dear friend and cousin Enid Smith of Marshington in the County of Yorkshire, and to her husband, Robert Harold Smith, 10,000 Ordinary £1 Shares in the Christian Cinema Company, to be held jointly if both are alive when this Will comes into force, or severally by the survivor. And I will and bequeath to my dear cousin John Robert Smith, son of the above, the sum of £500, and to my dear cousins Dorothy and Elizabeth Smith, sisters of the above John Robert, and to his brother Harold, the sum of £250 each. To my cousin the Reverend Ernest Albert Smith, Rector of Flynders in the County of Lincolnshire I will and bequeath 1,000 £i shares in the Christian Cinema Company, in the hope that he will continue to use his influence as a clergyman to bring the Church of England to a full sense of its Responsibility in the matter of the Purification of the Amusements of the People. To my nephews, Claude and William, sons of my late dear sister Daisy Shot-well (née Smyth) of Newcastle-on-Tyne, I leave the sum of £50 each in token of my true forgiveness of all their past neglect. To my friend and landlady, Eliza Hales of 40 Lucretia Road, I leave the sum of £200 in gratitude for all her kindness and consideration to me, and in testimony to our sisterhood in Christ through the Fellowship of St. Augustine's Church. The rest of my fortune I leave to the Church Fund of Saint Augustine's, Fulham, in the County of London, in memory of all the inspiration and help that it has been to me in my lonely work of pioneering, and in the hope that my friends there may see fit to commemorate any small service that I may have been able to render to my fellows by a memorial tablet to be placed near the pew in the Southern transept where I used to worship.'

  Eleanor read to the end and sat silent, the document in her hands, her face bent over it.

  'Well? Well?'asked Caroline. 'What do you think of it? It's fair, isn't it? It gives an impression of Christian justice and magnanimity, doesn't it? Or do you think I ought not to say that about forgiving my nephews? But you know, my dear, I always say that bitterness is the first infirmity of ignoble minds, but really they might have written or come to see me when they were in London.'

  'I think it's a wonderful will,' said Eleanor truthfully. 'And how splendid to be able to leave all that money, after . . .' She meant to say 'after you have been so poor.' But the evidence of present poverty was all around her. The details that Caroline had told her of the Christian Cinema Company's fortune perplexed her. 'I didn't realize that you had invested all that amount of capital in the company.'

  'Oh, of course, dear, you must understand. I haven't yet. That is what will happen when we come into our own. Of course, we've got to find three thousand to begin with before the end of January, or else Mr. Macafee will withdraw his patent and then I don't quite know what will happen. But what's the good of Faith if you can't gamble on it a little?'

  'You mean you've left this money without having it yet?' asked Eleanor slowly.

  'Why - but I've as good as got it, my dear. Quite as good. Because if I don't, if I don't get it - why, what's the good of waiting and starving? Yes, starving through all these years of pioneer work, if I never see the promised land? Oh, I shall get it. Life won't let me down. God won't let me down. I always say that wills are like epitaphs - you know the poem.

  "Write your own epitaph in high-flown phrases,

  Paint every virtue in its brightest hue,

  Fill all your lines with glowing, golden praises -

  Then live a life that shall prove it true."

  Well? Isn't that wonderful? Isn't that beautiful. "That's Faith, my dear. I live on Faith. My will is a great act of Faith, and will be justified. You'll see, my dear. You'll see.'

  §4

  Eleanor left Lucretia Road disturbed, amazed and curious. She had never met anyone like Cousin Caroline before. Her bizarre, animated, decorative little figure, in the crimson velvet dress which, Eleanor reflected, had probably once belonged to Dorothy or Betty, her crowded room, her fantastic will, her large, glowing, beautiful brown eyes, all these epitomized the unexpected quality that Eleanor found in London. The Christian Cinema Company was to her the personification of all that she found strange in England.

  She had little leisure during the following few days in which to think of Caroline, for the novelty of London life absorbed her. She had come to the club in Earl's Court bristling with prejudices, prepared to dislike everybody and to wear the discomfort of English society as a hair-shirt under her sensitive shyness. She found to her astonishment that she was popular, and that her fellow residents in the club, though frequently second-rate and silly, were almost invariably kind.

  Being a modest person, and, until her father's death, not given to introspection, she found it odd that something of a fashion should arise for her society. She was surprised to find herself regarded as a person of unusual courage and initiative. Her car, her mechanical efficiency, her Afrikaans expressions, her enterprise and independence all won respect and interest. The girls were refreshed by her appearance of unself-conscious interest in feminine society. They had their own standards of social value, and according to these, within a week of the acquisition of the Clyno, an evening drive with Eleanor de la Roux ranked almost equal to a date with a young man. Eleanor could not understand their eagerness for male society. She herself was so well accustomed to the companionship of her father, her brother and their friends, that she found a certain attractive novelty in association with girls, and, anxious to return any kindness shown her by the English, she invited one member of the club after another to accompany her upon her voyages of discovery through London.

  But Eleanor's expeditions were by no means all idle pleasure-trips. During her first week at the club she had been taken to an I.L.P. meeting by a fierce, untidy, ink-stained amusing young fanatic called Rita Hardcastle. There she listened to a thin man with black heavy hair, a disarming smile, and a mind of virginal unsophistication piling one indictment after another upon the British Empire. He reminded her of the speakers at the Nationalist Convention at Bloemfontein. Translating in her own mind his most telling phrases into Afrikaans, she felt that at last she had found her spiritual home in London. She joined the Independent Labour Party, and later on placed her car and her services in the evening at the disposal of its London speakers.

  Then began a period of superb adventure. Throughout the rest of the winter
she spent bright orderly days at the secretarial college, where she worked with punctual neatness and efficiency; but her days were threaded together by nights of daring splendour. Backwards and forwards through the lighted streets of London Eleanor drove, conveying chairmen to conferences, lecturers to week-end schools, and humbler speakers to little meetings at Croydon and Ilford. She learned the elements of English politics through heated discussions in small schoolrooms and Labour clubs. She learned the geography of the Home Counties by poring over maps in the light of an electric torch, and she saw the landscape of England as a flurry of moving darkness, through which she rode behind the silver spear of light thrown by her lamps on the sleek ribbons of asphalt or the winding caprice of country lanes. She drove in a cool fury of concentration, tilting at the huge December darkness with her spear of light, and as she drove she felt that she was indeed tilting against slums and poverty and economic oppression and the hidden menace of vested interests. She surrendered herself to the strong sweeping urgency of speed and propaganda. Though temperamentally cool-headed and suspicious of enthusiasm, she found that the physical excitement of driving an uncertain engine down strange roads in darkness, and the mental excitement of political indictment of half-realized evils, relaxed the painful tension of her nerves. She was so tired when she went to bed that she no longer lay tormenting herself about her father's death, but fell into the dreamless sleep of exhausted youth.