Stanley Portal Hyatt

“ In reply to the telegram, Jimmy wired that he would be at the hotel at nine o'clock. He had given up all idea of going to the office that night, or, rather, of ever going there again. He must get away, at once, from everything which might remind him of the old life. He must cut himself adrift from it, immediately, altogether, if he wished to preserve his sanity. For himself, he cared nothing, at least at the moment; but, though he might never see her again once she had left London, he had to provide for Lalage. ”

“ Somehow, Jimmy had always pictured the editor of a great daily as a plethoric person with keen eyes, and a background of leather-bound volumes; but this one was thin and insignificant; there was not a single book in his room, and, at the first glance, Jimmy was inclined to believe that his friend had been right when he spoke of the editor singing in a chapel choir. Yet, after Kelly had introduced him briefly, as an old colleague, and Dodgson had put a few curt questions, Grierson began to change his mind. ”

“ A policeman on point duty eyed him curiously, yet with no hint of suspicion. Most men, and practically every woman, remembered Jimmy's face when they met him a second time. He was not handsome, far from it; but, in some indefinable way, his grey eyes suggested sympathy, whilst the poise of his head spoke of determination verging on obstinacy.
He was looking at the scene as a whole, rather than at individuals, and the policeman remarked, with a kind of grim satisfaction, that he let the women pass him unnoticed. ”

“ Yet, none the less, he would gladly have made peace with the family, just as May and Walter would have made peace with him, had Ida's bitterness not rendered that so hard as to be almost impossible. She was too good a woman to overlook his sin, or to allow anyone else to overlook it. She believed in the punishment of the sinner, not in his pardon, and she did not think that Jimmy had suffered enough; possibly she believed that he had not suffered at all, for had he not in the end received a thousand pounds which should, by rights, have gone to her own children? ”

“ Jimmy, remembering all that Lalage had done for him during the past three months, cut her short savagely. "That's a lie. She's been everything a woman should be to me."
His sister laughed in bitter scorn. "And to half a dozen other men as well. Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy, what a fool you are, how you've been fooled. Do you think she's been true to you? Do you think a vile creature like that could be true to anyone? No, I will speak for all your swearing at me. Do you think that whilst you have been slaving at that office at nights she has been at home thinking of you? Oh, you have been a blind fool! ”

“ The night he dined at Drylands, Jimmy barely thought of Lalage. He was excited, and yet, at the same time, conscious of a feeling of restfulness, somewhat akin to that he had experienced when he first saw the shores of England on his return from South America. Once again, it seemed as if he had been a long time in the wilderness, and was getting back to his own people at last. Vera Farlow was of those who stand above suspicion. It was impossible to picture her knowing anything about life in a flat ”

“ Kelly knew nothing of Lalage, but he understood what the sudden brightening of Jimmy's face meant.
"Been hard up?" he asked, with a smile. "Why didn't you come to me, as I told you to do? Of course, you'll find it an uphill game, and I would advise you to leave it now, at the start, if I were not sure you would succeed in the end. You'll have a hard fight, because you've got ability and experience of the world, and those will tell against you at first." ”

“ That night, Jimmy hardly closed his eyes, being occupied with the problem of inventing an excuse for getting back to town. The evening post had brought him no letters; and, though it was improbable that Lalage would have any real news for him, he was terribly worried at her silence. Lying then through the long hours, praying for the sleep which would not come to ease him from the hideous pain of jealousy, he suffered as few men can suffer in their lives. ”

“ Consequently, the discovery of Jimmy's double life had filled her with both sorrow and loathing; sorrow at the thought that a Grierson should have been so weak and foolish, loathing at the conduct of the woman who led him astray. She was sitting very grim and upright in the client's chair when Jimmy came in; whilst Walter was at the other side of the table, nervously playing with his eyeglasses and wishing inwardly he had telegraphed for his wife, a proposal which May had vetoed. ”

“ He remembered how he had felt when he had parted from Lalage, the fever and the agony of it, the sense of utter desolation and hopelessness. And from that he came to think of Lalage herself. She had never turned on him because he drank. Far otherwise. The knowledge had made her more tender, more watchful over his comfort, more anxious to shield him from worries which might drive him into the power of his enemy. ”

“ May, too, would probably be pleased when she came to look at the matter in the right light, because, as he told himself with a cynical little smile, it would prove that the Lalage episode was definitely at an end. And then, for a moment, he thought of Lalage again, the Lalage of whom the doctor had told him, young, almost childish in her inexperience, sacrificing her innocence for the sake of her dying father. Suddenly he got up, feeling half choked. If only that man had not died after the motor smash, if only he had lived to suffer. ”

“ Grierson strain in him had asserted itself in so far as it had made him determine to leave Lalage. He was able now to see her sin and his own, especially hers; but still he could not abandon her to her fate, as a true Grierson would have done, because he had been passionately in love, whilst the love of the true Grierson is always decorous, and truly tempered by financial considerations. The dowerless bride is regarded with coldness; the bride with a past is anathema; there is no road back, at least in the opinion of those who have sub-edited their religion in the interests of propriety. ”

“ A minute later, he heard his sister's name spoken, and a tall, well-dressed woman hurried up from behind.
"I have been trying to overtake you for the last five minutes, May," she said. "Only you have been walking as if you were very, very hungry," then, disregarding Mrs. Marlow's little snort of annoyance, she turned to Jimmy, "Don't you remember me, Jimmy—Mr. Grierson I suppose I ought to say—I'm Ethel Grimmer, Ethel Jardine that was." ”

“ Billy Grimmer had been in the City over twenty years, and it was quite time he knew its ways.
"Ethel is a vain, flighty woman," Marlow said, in reply to his wife's remark. "She likes to have young men like Jimmy trailing after her; and Grimmer only laughs. I suppose it's what they call being 'smart.' Pity he doesn't put a little more smartness into his business affairs." He chuckled slightly at the recollection of the dredging shares, which had been some of those he, himself, had received as vendor. ”

“ Kelly would have warned him bluntly not to endanger his prospects by being a fool; a mental specialist would have explained that the shock of John Locke's death, coming on top of the ten years of almost continual overstrain in bad climates, had temporarily affected his balance, an opinion with which Lalage herself would have agreed, knowing, after all, nothing of men's love; but neither opinions nor diagnosis would have altered Jimmy's determination.
He had put in two days of almost savagely hard work. Without money he would be helpless. ”

“ Walter Grierson was a short, clean-shaven man with a decidedly pompous manner. He had been very successful in his profession, owing to his energy, rather than to his mental capacity, and he regarded unsuccessful men as little better than criminals. His whole outlook on life was severe, except in his own home, where he was a generous husband and indulgent father. Never having been tempted himself, he had no sympathy with those who fell, being quite unable to understand them. ”

“ He had no friends, and he wanted none; society, or at any rate women's society, had ceased to be a factor in his life.
On the other hand, success had come to him professionally, though it meant very little to him, or very little compared with what it would have meant in the London days, when half the income he was making now would have seemed wealth. Joseph's legacy had allowed him breathing space. He had quitted Fleet Street finally, abandoned all thought of journalism, and gone in for the writing of short stories. ”

“ Lalage put on a brave face when he told her. "It's a beginning, dear," she said. "Of course, it's a shame to pay a clever man like you so little; but now you've got your foot in, you'll soon get on. You mustn't be downhearted about it, Jimmy." She glanced at him keenly. "You're tired out to-night, and I don't believe you've spent anything on yourself in getting a drink and so on; and you've walked all the way from Fleet Street. Now haven't you?"
Jimmy tried to protest he was all right, but his heavy eyes betrayed him, and she insisted that he should go out and get a quartern of brandy. ”

“ It is only those who have never suffered who show no mercy to others.
What was it that American girl had said to him in Iquique, when she insisted on lending him one hundred dollars, the time he was absolutely penniless and too weak from fever to refuse? "The best thanks you can give me, Jimmy, will be to help another girl if you ever get the chance." He had returned the money a couple of months later, and he had neither seen nor heard of her again; but the memory of her words had remained, and now he seized on them as an excuse for the course he wanted to follow. ”

“ Only a man, and the right man, can bring it to a woman's lips.
When Jimmy left the post-office he went straight back to the cottage. The fear of meeting any of the Drylands people did not worry him in the least. They all belonged to the dream, even Ethel, and now he had got back to the reality. Yet, when he opened the door and found a note from Mrs. Grimmer lying on the floor, he did not feel a twinge of uneasiness, dreading reproaches from her, as his hostess. ”

“ Do what Lalage tells you this time."
"Don't I always do what you tell me?" he asked, laughing.
"Oh, I don't want you to say that," she answered quickly. "You ought to be your own master; only when I know a thing is right I do like to tell you. A woman should, I think."
For an instant, Jimmy felt a wild longing to beg her to change the word "woman" to that of "wife," but she had already turned towards the door, and at the same moment the noise of the grimy street seemed to come in through the window and somehow fill the room. ”

“ He might pity Lalage, but he was not going to let the remembrance of her ruin his future. He had a prospect now of regaining what he had lost when he first met her, and he would be a fool to imperil that prospect by mere foolish sentiment. Moreover, he would leave that wretched whisky alone; it was a weak and idiotic habit to drink as he had been drinking, and the knowledge of it would shock Vera terribly. Men in her world, which was, after all, his own world too, did not do those things. ”

“ By the time I had got curtains and some sheets and one or two odd things like a lamp, there were only a few shillings [Pg 101] left." She looked up seriously. "You wouldn't think till you try how expensive furnishing is; but I was so proud of my little home. I am still; and you know, when you've a place of your own, if you only have bread and milk no one is any the wiser. I've often been hard up since, but I've always managed to scrape up the rent and the hire-purchase instalment. One must do that; they don't give you a day's grace."
Jimmy was chewing savagely at the ends of his moustache. ”

“ Jimmy's eyes had grown dangerously bright. "I allow no one to call my friends vile creatures, not even a man who is supposed to be a preacher of charity and good will. Whatever Miss Penrose has been in the past, she has led a perfectly good life since we parted, and I respect her as much as I respect any other woman living." He spoke proudly, defiantly, looking the cleric full in the face. ”

“ Jimmy nodded. He understood, remembering vividly certain wild drinking bouts which, incidentally, had given him some practical experience in newspaper work, for on more than one occasion he had taken Kelly's place, and brought out the little sheet.
They walked on a little way in silence, then, "Women are a confounded sight better than we are," Kelly jerked out. "They see so much further. We reckon we are being unselfish when we're only cowards; but they're ready to back their own opinion and run the risk; and when they win they let us take the credit." ”