Chapter XVIII: _Sweet and Twenty_

The studio, looking very cheerful for Jenny's birthday, had achieved a Sabbath tidiness. It was, to be sure, a tidiness more apparent than real, inasmuch as it consisted of pushing every disorderly object into a corner and covering the accumulation with an old Spanish cope. Beneath this semicircle of faded velvet lay onions and sealing-wax, palette, brushes, bits of cardboard, a mixture of knives and forks, a tin of pineapple still undefeated, many unanswered letters, a tweed overcoat, and other things that gave more to utility than beauty.

The fire blazed in the big fireplace and rippled in reflection about the sloping ceiling. Chairs were set in a comfortable crescent round the tea-table, and looked as invitingly empty as the Venetian mirror. The teacups, where each one held the fire's image, showed an opal in the smooth porcelain. Anticipation brooded upon the apartment, accentuated by the bell of a neighboring church that rang in a quick monotone. In the high deal ingle sat three young men smoking long clay pipes; and by the window facing the river Maurice stood breathing upon the glass in order to record his love's name in evanescent charactery upon the misted surface.

At last the monotonous bell ceased its jangling. Big Ben thundered the hour of four, and the host, throwing up the window, leaned out to a gray, foggy afternoon.

"Here's Jenny," he cried, drawing back so quickly into the studio that he banged his head against the frame of the window. The three young men in the ingle rose and, knocking out their pipes, stood with their backs to the fire in an attitude of easy expectation. Maurice by this time was dashing out into the street to welcome Jenny, who was accompanied by Irene.

"Hurrah!" he said. "I was afraid you might get lost. How are you now?" he went on, turning to Irene.

"I'm quite all right now," replied the latter.

"She's in the best of pink," said Jenny.

"Pink enough to climb all these stairs?" asked Maurice, laughing.

"I expect so," said Irene.

"Any of the others come yet?" Jenny inquired on the way up.

"Only Castleton and Cunningham and Ronnie Walker."

"I mean any of the girls?"

"No, you're the first--and fairest."

Irene, for all her optimism, was beginning to feel exhausted.

"I say, young Jenny, does your friend here--Maurice--I suppose I can call him Maurice?"

"Idiot! Of course."

"Does Maurice live much higher?"

"Yes, you may well ask," said Jenny. "What! He's Sky-scraping Bill, if you only knew."

"We're nearly there," said Maurice apologetically. Outside the door of the studio they paused.

"What are their unnatural names?" asked Jenny, digging Maurice as she spoke.

"Cunningham, Castleton and Walker."

"They sound like the American Comedy Trio that got the bird. You remember, Ireen. Who cares? I shall call them Swan and Edgar for short."

"That's only two."

"Oh, well, I can remember Walker."

Maurice opened the door, and Cunningham, Castleton and Walker advanced to make their bows.

"This is Miss Pearl, and this is Miss Dale."

"Pleased to meet you," said Irene.

Jenny said nothing, but shook hands silently, taking the measure of the trio with shrewd and vivid glances.

"Sit down, won't you?" said Cunningham.

"Have a chair?" Walker suggested.

Castleton looked at Jenny.

"Isn't he tall?" she commented. "Doesn't he remind you of somebody?"

"No," said Irene vaguely.

"He does me. That Russian juggler--you know--who was struck on Queenie Danvers. _You_ know--the one we used to call Fuzzy Bill."

"Oh, him?" said Irene.

"Call me Fuzzy Bill, won't you?" put in Castleton. "It's a pleasantly descriptive name. I shall answer to that." Indeed, he did, for from that moment he became "Fuz" and never heeded a summons expressed differently.

Just then there was a ring at the front door, and downstairs Maurice rushed to admit the visitors. Presently he came up again.

"Damned kids," he grumbled.

"You don't mean to say they fetched you all that way for nothing?" exclaimed Jenny.

"It's good for him," Ronnie Walker asserted.

"Yes, but what a dreadful thing," said Jenny. "Fancy tearing all that way for nothing. I should go mad."

Another ring punctuated Jenny's indignation. Everybody to be forewarned ran to the window.

"It is them this time. Gladys! Elsie!" she called. Then in critical commentary: "What a dreadful hat Elsie's got on."

"She bought it yesterday.

"I don't think," said Jenny. "Or if she did, it must have lain in the window and got forgotten since the year before last. Besides, what a shocking color. It's like anchovy paste."

Madge Wilson and Maudie Chapman now appeared from round a corner, and, since Maurice was already on his way downstairs, Jenny ran after him to prevent a double journey.

"Wait, wait," she called after him. "Madge and Maudie are coming, too."

He stopped and waved to her.

"Jenny--quick, one kiss--over the banisters. Do."

"Do, do, do, I want you to," she mocked in quotation. But all the same she kissed him.

"I absolutely adore you," he whispered. "Do you love me as much to-day as you did yesterday?"

"Oh, I couldn't answer all that in my head. I should have to put it down on paper."

"No, don't tease. Do you? Do you?"

"Of course, baby," she assured him.

"Angel!" he shouted, and rushed downstairs two steps at a time to admit the bunch of guests on his doorstep.

In a minute or two the studio was full of introductions, in the middle of which Maudie Chapman, a jolly girl with a big nose and a loud voice, explained the adventures of Madge and herself in arriving at 422 Grosvenor Road.

"Where we got to, my dear, well, that wants knowing. I was saying, when we got off the tram at Vauxhall Bridge, 'Wherever is this man's house?' and Madge she was giggling and then I asked the time, and it was only half-past three, and I said, 'Whatever shall we do, we're most shocking early.' So we got inside a big building near here--full of pictures and a pond with gold-fish. I thought at first it was an aquarium, and then we saw some statues and I thought it was a Catholic church."

"Isn't she a lad?" said Jenny, admiring the spirited piece of narrative.

"Well, we had a good look at the pictures, _which_ we didn't think much of, and I slipped on the floor and burnt my hand on a sort of grating, and then we couldn't find the way out. We _couldn't_ find the way out. We got upstairs somewhere, and I called out, 'Management,' and a fellow with his hair nailed down and spectacles, said: 'Are you looking for the Watts?' and I said, 'No, we're looking for the What Ho's!' and he said, 'You've made a mistake, miss; they're in the National Gallery,' and Madge, you know what a shocking giggler she is, she burst out laughing and I didn't know where to look. So I said, 'Can you tell me where Grosvenor Road is?' and he looked very annoyed and walked off."

"Oh, but it really was difficult to find the way out," Madge corroborated.

"And what did you think of the pictures?" asked Ronnie Walker, who was a painter himself and still young enough to be interested in a question's answer.

"Oh, don't ask _me_," said Maudie.

"Nor me," said Madge.

"They never looked at no pictures," said Jenny. "I bet you they was all the time trying to get off with the keeper. I know Madge and Maudie."

Castleton suddenly laughed very loudly.

"What's Fuz laughing at?" asked Jenny.

"I was thinking of Madge and Maudie getting off with the Curator of the Tate Gallery. It struck me as funny. I apologize."

Jenny looked at him suspiciously. Castleton, however, large, wide-faced and honest, could not be malicious.

"Well, they do. They did at the Zoo once. Only he got annoyed when they asked him if he slept in a cage."

At this point the bell interrupted reminiscence.

"That must be Lilli Vergoe," said Jenny. "I'll go down and let her in. She'll feel uncomfortable walking into a crowd by herself."

"I'll come as well," Maurice volunteered.

The two of them took almost longer to descend than to come up, so much discussion was there of the immortality of affection, so much weighing up of comparative emotion. When they reached the studio with Lilli, the party had settled down into various groups of conversation.

"What about tea?" said the host. "Jenny shall pour out."

"But what a terrible teapot," cried the latter when she had accepted the task. "It's like my sister's watering-can. What's the matter with it?"

"Age," said Castleton solemnly. "It's old Lowestoft. If you look inside, you'll see 'A Present from Lowestoft.'"

"Shut up," said Maurice, "and pass the Chelsea buns."

"A bit of old Chelsea," murmured Castleton.

"Shut up making rotten jokes," said Cunningham.

"You must excuse him," said Maurice. "He isn't funny, but he's very nice. Good Lord!" he went on. "I've never wished Jenny 'many happy returns of the day.'"

"Yes, it's a pity you waited till after she's seen those buns," said Castleton. "However!"

"And the cake," said Maurice, diving into the cupboard.

"Don't look so sad," Castleton whispered to the guest of honor. "It isn't really a tombstone."

"Isn't he awful?" said Jenny, laughing.

"I say," cried Maurice. "Look here!"

Across the white cake was written in pink icing: "Sacred to the Memory of a Good Appetite."

"Rotten!" said Cunningham. "Castleton, of course."

"Of course," said Maurice. "And now we haven't got any candles."

"Let's light the gas instead," Castleton suggested.

"You are mad," said Jenny.

Tea went on with wild laughter, with clinking of saucers and spoons, with desperate carving of the birthday cake, with solemn jokes from Castleton, with lightning caricatures from Ronnie Walker.

Once Jenny whispered to Maurice:

"Why did you say I shouldn't like Fuz? I think he's nice. You know, funny; but very nice."

"I'm glad," Maurice whispered back. "I like you to like my friends."

After tea they all wandered round the studio in commentary of its contents.

"Maurice!" said Castleton, stopping before the wax model of Aphrodite. "You don't feed your pets regularly enough. This lady's outrageously thin."

"Isn't he shocking?" said Maudie. "What would you do with him?"

"He's a nut," said Madge.

"Isn't he?" said Elsie and Gladys in chorus. These two very seldom penetrated beyond the exclamatory interrogative.

"A nut, you think?" said Castleton. "A Brasilero of the old breed with waxed pistachios and cocoanut-matted locks?"

"Oh, dry up," said Maurice. "I want the girls to look at this dancing girl."

"No one couldn't stand in that p[)]s[=i]sh," said Jenny. "Could they, Lilli?"

"Not very easily," the latter agreed.

"Really?" asked Maurice, somewhat piqued.

"Of course they could," Maudie contradicted.

"Certainly," said Irene, highly contemptuous.

"I say they couldn't then," Jenny persisted.

"She'd be a rotten dancer if she couldn't."

"I don't think so," Jenny said frigidly.

The girls unanimously attempted to get into the position conceived by Maurice; but in the end they all had to agree that Jenny and Lilli were right. The pose was impossible.

"Is that your mother?" asked Madge, pointing to Mona Lisa.

"Don't be silly, Madge Wilson," Jenny corrected. "It's a picture, and I _don't_ think much of her," she continued. "What a terrible mouth! Her hands is nice, though--very nice. And what's all those rocks at the back--low tide at Clacton, I should think."

"But don't you like her marvelous smile?" asked Maurice.

"I don't call that a smile."

"I knew those flute-players annoyed her," said Castleton. "Down with creative criticism. She's nothing but a lady with a bad temper."

"Of course she is," said Jenny.

"Would you smile, Jenny, if Ronnie here painted you with a gramophone behind a curtain?"

"No, I shouldn't."

"Catch the fleeting petulance, and you become as famous as Leonardo, my Ronnie."

Philip IV was voted a little love with rather too big a head, and the Prince of Orange was a dear. Botticelli's Venus was not alluded to. The acquaintanceship was not considered ripe enough to justify any comment in that direction; although later on Jenny, her eyes pectinated with mirth and flashing wickedly, sang, pointing to the embarrassed goddess: "She sells seashells on the seashore." Primavera concluded the tour of inspection, and by some Primavera herself was thought to be not unlike Jenny.

"She's more like one of those angels with candles at Berlin," said Ronnie Walker.

"Anyway," said Maurice, with a note of satisfaction, "she's a Botticelli."

"Well, now you've all settled my position in life," said Jenny, "what's Irene?"

But somehow it was not so interesting to discover Irene's prototype, and her similarity to the ideal of any single old master was left undecided.

Now came the singing of coon songs with ridiculous words and haunting refrains, while dusk descended upon London. Maudie was at the piano, where a candle flickered on each side of the music and lit up the size of her nose. When all the favorites of the moment had been sung, older and now almost forgotten successes were rescued from the dust of obscurity.

"We _are_ among the 'has beens,'" said Jenny. "Why, I remember that at the Islington panto when I went to see you, Lilli, and that's donkey's years ago. We've properly gone back to the year dot."

Gradually, however, the jolly dead tunes produced a sentimental effect upon the party, commemorating as they did many bygone enjoyments. The sense of fleeting time, evoked by the revival of discarded melodies, began to temper their spirits. They sang the choruses more softly, as if the undated tunes had become fragile with age and demanded a gentler treatment. Perhaps in the gathering gloom each girl saw herself once more in short frocks. Perhaps Lilli Vergoe distinguished the smiling ghost of old ambition. Certainly Jenny thought of Mr. Vergoe and Madame Aldavini and the Four Jumping Beans.

Maudie Chapman suddenly jumped up:

"Somebody else's turn."

Maurice looked at Cunningham.

"Won't you play some Chopin, old chap?"

"All right," said Cunningham, a dark, very thin young man with a high, narrow face, seating himself at the piano. The girls composed themselves to listen idly. Maurice drew Jenny over to an arm-chair by the window. The studio grew darker. The notes of the piano with the rapid execution of the player seemed phosphorescent in the candle-light. The fire glowed crimson and dull. The atmosphere was wreathed with the smoke of many cigarettes. The emotions of the audience were swayed by dreams that, sustained by music, floated about the heavy air in a pervading melancholy, inexpressibly sensuous. It was such an hour as only music can attempt to portray. Here was youth in meditation untrammeled by the energy of action. Age, wrought upon by music, may know regret, but only youth can see aspiration almost incarnate. Jenny, buried in the arm-chair, with Maurice's caressing hand upon her cheeks, thought it was all glorious, thought that Cunningham played gloriously, that the river with a blurred light was glorious, that love was glorious. She had a novel wish to bring May to such a party, and wondered if May would enjoy the experience. Time as an abstraction did not mean much to Jenny; but as the plangent harmonies wrung the heart of the very night with unattainable desires, she felt again the vague fear of age that used to distress her before she met her lover. She caught his hand, clasping it tightly, twisting his fingers in a passionate clutch as if he were fading from her life into the shadows all around. She began to feel, so sharply the music rent her imagination, a pleasure in the idea of instant death, not because she disliked the living world, but because she feared something that might spoil the perfection of love: they were too happy. She knew the primitive emotion of joy in absolute quiescence, the relief of Daphne avoiding responsibility. Why could not she and Maurice stop still in an ecstasy and live like the statues opposite glimmering faintly? Then, with a sudden ardor, life overpowered the enchantment of repose; and she, leaping to meet the impulse of action, conscious only of darkness and melody, spurred, perhaps, by one loud and solitary chord, pulled Maurice down to her arms and kissed him wildly, almost despairingly. The music went on from ballad to waltz, from waltz to polonaise. Sometimes matches were lit for cigarettes, matches that were typical of all the life in that room, a little flame in the sound of music.

At last, on the delicate tinkle of a dying mazurka, Cunningham stopped quite suddenly, and silence succeeded for a while. Outside in the street was the sound of people walking with Sabbath footsteps. Out over the river there was a hail from some distant loud-voiced waterman. The church bell resumed its hurried monotone. Castleton got up and lit the gas. The windows now looked gray and very dreary; it was pleasant to veil them with crimson birds and vine-leaves. The fire was roused to a roaring blaze; the girls began to arrange their hair; it was time to think of supper. Such was Jenny's birthday--intolerably fugitive.