The Wax Fruit Trilogy Page 8

  “Where did you get to know him?”

  David was ready for this. His first encounter with Stephen Hayburn had been at the White Bait Music Hall in St. Enoch’s Wynd. They had struck up a friendship, and finding, like many another pair of sparks, that they had frivolity in common, had met there again or at Browns Music Hall Restaurant or some other convenient free-and-easy. Then, in the summer, while the house in Dowanhill was closed and Mama Hayburn and her maids were by the sea, David had invited his friend to share his lodgings for a week or two. He knew that he dare not say the words music hall, even to his ally Bel, nor could he say that he knew Stephen in business for any business David did was from Arthur’s office.

  “As a matter of fact,” he said, “he had rooms at my digs in the summer, when his mother was at Kilcreggan.”

  “It’s queer you never told us about him.”

  “As a matter of fact, I’ve really got to know him better since then. I meet him sometimes.”

  “Have you been to his house?”

  “No. But he introduced me to his mother last week. We met her coming out of Wylie and Lochhead’s in Buchanan Street. She was just getting into her carriage.”

  David had, knowing and sharing Bel’s weakness, aimed the carriage direct at it. It hit its mark.

  She tried to look as matter-of-act and sensible as possible. “Well, David,” she said, “I think it’s perfectly ridiculous that a young man like you with a steady position in a good business should not have the proper clothes to wear when nice people invite him to things.”

  And so it came about that David was standing, in full war-paint for the first time in his life, turning himself about, in front of Bel and her mirror.

  “Yes. Very nice. Have you got your gloves?”

  “Yes.” He produced them—white and immaculate kid.

  “Wait a minute,” Bel went to a drawer and produced a white rose from a little paper bag. It had cost her a bit, for the month was November. And hot-house blooms were hot-house blooms in these days. It was a perfect half-opened bud too, set in maidenhair fern, wired and finished off with silver paper. She showed David where and how it should be fixed when he arrived, and returned it to its paper bag.

  David grinned a little sheepishly and thanked her.

  II

  “Are you saying goodnight to the children?”

  “Of course. Arthur’s not back, is he?” He looked a little anxiously at the little bedroom clock.

  “No. No. Of course not. He had a church-meeting, otherwise I wouldn’t have asked you to come and show yourself off.” Church-meetings had other uses than merely religious ones. But if Arthur would be so stubborn and silly about the uses of polite society, what could his wife and his brother do?

  Firm, still childish, purposeful tinkling was coming from the drawing-room piano. Phœbe had finished practising and was amusing herself playing a waltz David had bought her. It was called “Come to my Pagoda”. He had heard it first at Brown’s, and Phœbe’s innocent strummings evoked memories of the spangled, if a little overblown, charms of the lady who had sung it. He had thought it better to buy an edition with the words left out.

  “Hello, Phœbe!”

  Phœbe spun round on the stool, and said “Hello!” She looked little different for her four years in Glasgow, except that she was bigger. There seemed nothing of the woman about her so far. And yet you felt that she was approaching the borderline. That any time now she would take a fit of growing, and, before you knew where you were, you might have a slim and elegant young lady for a sister.

  “Like that tune?”

  Phœbe nodded.

  “Some day I’ll sing the words to you.”

  “Why not now?”

  “Oh, I don’t know—I’ve got to go away. Goodnight.”

  She came to David and took his hand. “Come upstairs and look at Arthur the Second.”

  “I couldn’t possibly.”

  “You must!”

  “Don’t tease her, David,” Bel said, coming in and overhearing this last piece of talk. “And don’t wake the babies up.”

  All the family knew that Phœbe had a passion for her little nephew. Every moment she was allowed to give to him, that she gave. Perhaps it was that she felt she had established a special claim upon him on that very first night that she came to Ure Place, and forced Bel to tell her that the baby was coming. Perhaps her heart had seized on the tiny newcomer and filled its empty places with him, in that first difficult year in Glasgow.

  For it had been a difficult year. Both for her and for Bel. There were many times when Phœbe had been naughty, and Arthur and Bel were at their wits’ end. At moments it had only been pride and fear of the derision of her sisters-in-law that had kept Bel from asking Arthur to send her back to the Laigh Farm. Often she had to remind herself of what she had said to Mary and Sophia—that a child could show its sense of bereavement by being ill-behaved.

  But now in four years she had settled down to be a quiet child—strangely reserved, observant and impartial. One wondered what went on behind those quick, deep-set eyes. She seemed to care little for any of them, even Arthur her brother, though for him she appeared to have respect. The single exception was the little boy, for whom she had this extraordinary attachment.

  Bel had never been sure if she liked her little sister-in-law much, but, being on the whole a sensible woman and quite unmorbid, she had long since accepted Phœbe as part of her duty, and left it at that.

  David was dragged tiptoe into the nursery where Arthur Moorhouse, junior, slept in one cot and Isabella Moorhouse slept in another.

  “Look at him, David,” Phœbe leant over the little boy.

  Arthur had all the enchantment of any pretty, sleeping child of three. There was nothing more. The strange thing to David was the intensity of Phœbe. She seemed as though she could devour him. He crossed over and looked at his niece, Isabel. To him she was just as pleasing in her way. But Phœbe scarcely bothered to look at her.

  David turned and came out of the nursery.

  “Goodnight, David.”

  “Do you know what about you? You’re a curiosity. Good-night.”

  Phœbe did not know what he meant. Nor did he bother to explain.

  Bel was holding the handle of the front door. At the carriage-stone a cab was waiting.

  “I’m treating you to this cab,” Bel said. “There and back. It’s all arranged.”

  “Bel, you’re too good to be true.”

  “Goodnight, David. Have a good time. And come in whenever you can and tell me all about it.” She kissed him and patted his shoulder, as one might pat the bread one is about to cast upon the waters.

  She stood on the step and laughed to herself, a little, as the cab disappeared round the corner. A cab from the middle of the town all the way out to beyond Botanic Gardens! When there were excellent horse-buses running, that would take you at a mere fraction of the cost! This was an expense that would have to be discreetly sunk in her house-keeping money! But, after all, David was a nice boy; why shouldn’t she stand him a cab? Bel did not care to own up. Even to herself.

  It was a good thing that Arthur was now an elder of the kirk and had to attend meetings!

  III

  The cab jogged its way westward. Cathedral Street, Bath Street, Bath Crescent. The further end of Sauchiehall Street.

  David, though he was now twenty-seven and considered himself a man about town, was beginning to suffer from social panic. Each street, as he watched, sitting forward in his seat, seemed to have become incredibly short. The very outline of the new University seemed majestic and forbidding; seemed to belong to a world that was not his. Now he was outside the boundaries of the City of Glasgow.

  What was this strange compulsion that made timid, sensitive people drive themselves into company that knew nothing of them? What was this strange determination not to be left out of things? Stephen Hayburn was familiar enough to him now—and good fun. But why hadn’t he left it at that? Why sho
uld he, David Moorhouse, force himself to enter Stephen’s house? Because Stephen would be offended if he didn’t come this evening? Perhaps. But that was the mere shadow of a reason. And David knew it. No. It was something that went much deeper. Down into the roots of him. Meanwhile the damned cab was bringing him remorselessly nearer. And as the distance lessened, the hollow weakness that occupied that part of him where his stomach was usually to be found, seemed to grow in magnitude.

  The Hayburns occupied one of the many new-built mansions in Dowanhill. This pleasant preserve of the wealthy was coming into being. It took the cabman some time to find the house. For Dowanhill was then no less confusing than it is today. David, paralysed with shyness, hoped he would have to go on searching for ever. But at last the house was found. Now he must descend, preserving as best he might the outer semblance of a man of the world.

  The door was standing open. Flaring gas-jets cast their mellow light. Discreet and pretty parlourmaids directed him onwards and upwards to the gentlemen’s bedroom. A handsome room, with a fire burning in a large iron fireplace, littered with black overcoats and scarves. There were a number of other young men. All, David thought, looking intolerably self-assured and appearing to know each other unnecessarily well. One of them, with a cascade moustache, was, he gathered, staying in the house for the night, as his home was so far out in the country. He came from somewhere near the village of New Kilpatrick. He had a great deal to say about the duck-shooting in the ponds not far from his home. He was giving the others in the room pressing invitations to visit him.

  David, having said good-evening, and having received in return very formal good-evenings back, left it at that. He picked up the great silver brushes on the dressing-table, and brushed his already perfectly macassared hair. He brushed his shoulders and his sleeves. He sat down and adjusted his brand-new elastic-sided boots of glacé kid. In every way he could think of he did things to himself so that he might remain behind by himself in the bedroom. Up here he was far from comfortable, but the thought of it was heaven to facing the people downstairs.

  The young men went, leaving him alone. Then he wondered if he ought to have followed them down. It would have been easier, perhaps, to have gone in and been received with the crowd. He hung about, looking at the bedroom pictures.

  There were two handsome engravings of stags and mountains, taken from the work of Mr. Landseer, hanging against the rose-trellised wallpaper. Another of a Greek lady embracing an urn. They were very striking and interesting, David told himself falsely.

  Strains of music came up from down below. So they had a violinist and some wind instrument as well as a pianist! The sound of the several instruments increased his panic. It would have been easier—less alarming—if there had been only a piano. His throat was very dry. He remembered a little box of perfumed cachous Bel had given him, and took one.

  IV

  He was leaning on the mantelshelf gazing into the fire, when a “Hello” behind him caused him to jump and turn round.

  A tall, spare boy of nineteen or thereabouts with big, puppy bones that made his clothes look ill-fitting came forward.

  “Hello, are you David Moorhouse?”

  “Yes.”

  “I’m Henry Hayburn.”

  David had grasped this from the family likeness to his friend, Stephen. Though Stephen must be quite five years older, and was handsomer and more mature.

  They shook hands.

  “Stephen said he thought he had caught sight of you going upstairs. Are you all right?”

  “All right?”

  “Yes, I thought you were looking a bit seedy when I came in just now.”

  “Oh, no. I’m all right.” David smiled into the boy’s pleasant pug face.

  “Perhaps you were just feeling like me, that all this kind of thing is just an awful nuisance.”

  David did not know what he meant. “What kind of thing?”

  “All this dancing and nonsense. Turning the whole house upside down. It’s not as if we were a family of girls, and had to set to work to find husbands.”

  David could find nothing to say to this. He smiled vaguely.

  The boy seemed to take for granted that he agreed with him. “But there you are, Mother and Stephen are so infernally socially minded. And as usual there were far more women expecting to be asked than men. If you only knew the hunt we’ve had for anything in trousers!”

  It was fortunate that the exact meaning of this remark in so far as it applied to himself did not penetrate to David’s flustered reason. For he liked this boy. He was friendly and unaffected.

  “Well, come on down, will you?”

  David followed. At least, it was not so bad having this approachable, if rather cross, creature to go down with.

  The drawing-room was L-shaped and enormous. Or so it seemed, and its size was increased by the fact that all the furniture, except the large cottage piano, its stool and the musicians’ chairs and music-stands, had been taken out of it. Only one or two narrow benches, hired from a caterer, were set close against the walls. The main floor was entirely covered by a large, tightly stretched white cloth. The handsome gilded gaselier, and the gilded wall-brackets were, every one of them, lit. Each flame—shaped like the eye of some fantastic peacock’s feather, the outer part golden, the inner part next to the jet transparent purple—shed a mellow, flattering light on girlish shoulders, wasp-waists and elegant bustled dresses, on the one hand; and sleek, black, bewhiskered correctness on the other.

  Most of the guests were standing up to make sets of quadrilles. There were four sets and the room would certainly have held a fifth. David’s friend Stephen was running about among the guests, getting them arranged.

  “Hello, Moorhouse. Glad to see you. Do you mind staying out of this? There’s not enough people for five sets.” He was gone before David could reply.

  “Have you seen Mother, by the way?” Henry said, still beside him.

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “You’d better come then.”

  Henry led the way out of the drawing-room into what was in reality a little study next door.

  A stout, elderly lady was sitting by the fire. She looked a very important lady, David thought—partly, perhaps, because he was in a state of mind to be impressed and partly because this lady herself was determined that he should think her so.

  She was dressed in black. A handsome cameo brooch held a white silk shawl about her shoulders, and she wore a snowy cap on her plain parted hair. At her hand was a table with tea-things, for it was then the custom to offer newly-arrived guests tea and cakes even at such a formal entertainment as this. Most of the other guests had been offered cups of tea from large silver trays, but Mrs. Hayburn liked to preserve the illusion, even tonight when so many were present, that she was still the reigning queen of her own tea-table. And thus she had had these things arranged beside her.

  For the moment she was sitting alone in the room.

  “Mother, this is Stephen’s friend, Mr. Moorhouse.”

  She stood up to greet him. “Good evening, Mr. Moorhouse. It’s very kind of you to come.” Then with the typical Scots belittlement of one’s own efforts at entertainment, she added, “The boys thought they would just have a few friends in to make a little dance. It was kind of you to think it worthwhile. Sit down and let me give you a cup of tea.”

  David murmured as suitable a reply as he could think of while his hostess bent over her tea-table.

  Her welcoming speech had been everything that was insincere. She did not think it was kind of him to come. She considered it was an honour for any young man—especially one she didn’t know—to enter her house. It was she, not her sons, who had decided to have the dance; for she considered it was time, for prestige’s sake, that she should make some kind of social demonstration. The only use David could possibly be to her was that he helped to make up the right number of men.

  But now that she had him here she was not averse to finding out something about him.r />
  “Go and see if there are any more people to be looked after, Henry dear,” she turned to her long, gawky son who, having offered David cake, was munching a piece himself.

  Henry went, leaving David alone with his mother. The music of the quadrilles started up in loud earnest. Even in the little adjoining room with the doors closed they had to raise their voices.

  “Stephen said he had got to know you in business, Mr. Moorhouse,” she said conversationally.

  That would do excellently so far as Stephen’s mother was concerned, so David said, “Well, yes.” David was grateful to fate and Stephen that his hostess should thus unwittingly have framed this difficult question so that he could answer it.

  “He didn’t say what you were?”

  Her question was impertinent. But David was not to be caught out.

  “I’m a merchant, Mrs. Hayburn.” That sounded all right. Steel merchants, coal merchants, East India merchants were the lords of Glasgow just at this time.

  She was not brazen enough to probe further. Mrs. Hayburn was a snob, and snobs are, as a rule, fairly stupid even at their own game. David was very new and very nervous, but he was naturally gifted socially. To an almost excessive degree he possessed the instinct to make the rough places plain. It was by chance a part of him, just as his handsome, distinguished and rather delicate face was by chance a part of him. As he sat there facing this rather formidable woman, and with the relentless beat of the quadrille in his ears, without ever lying, David gave his hostess a very suitable impression of himself. He had been brought up in the country. Mrs. Hayburn jumped to—or rather was gently led in the direction of—the conclusion that he was a younger son of the Ayrshire county, not very rich, perhaps, who had come into the City to make his fortune. He was very sensibly living in rooms right in the centre to be near his work. That he was distinguished, her own eyes could tell her for themselves.