WEEK-END READING

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 32, 30 April 1927, Page 11

WEEK-END READING

A COMPLETE SHORT-STORY

THE SHABBY MAN

BY

C. D. LESLIE

The train was scheduled to start in two minutes, Beckton Junction the first stop, and the five passengers in the compartment we are surveying, having fortified themselves with literature of various kinds, were fervently hoping no last-minute invasion of latecomers would mar the comfort of the journey. Four at least were so occupied, the fifth, a young woman, who sat in the middle facing the engine, was wondering, a neglected “Tailer” on her knee that her father hp.d just bestowed upon her, together with his benediction and a kiss, if two pounds was enough to carry her through the 10 days of her stay at Felling Hall; for that, save a few shillings and a return ticket, was all she posessedSheila Braithwaite was barely 20, and this was her first visit to a country house; she was plunging into a world seen hitherto only in dreams. A whistle sounded, a flag waved, the train moved; at the same instant someone jumped on the footboard, hpened the carriage door and sank panting into the seat opposite her. “Oh, I’m sure I’m going to have a top-hole time,” Sheila told herself;

“but I wish I had a little more money,” she added, surveying with satisfaction her smart new shoes and silk stockings. Thanks to Aunt Mary’s cheque she’d been able to turn herself out quite creditably.

A most dilapidated pair of boots caught her eyes, and following them upwards she beheld the wearer, the latecomer whom she hadn’t looked at. He effectually startled her out of her absorption. A young man, certainly under 30, with a refined and rather clever face; he was most appallingly shabby.

The suit had once been smart, one could imagine the original owner disporting it at Ranelagh or Lord’s, but it had been worn out, in the ordinary sense, years ago. It had reached the last stage of decrepitude. It was not so much a suit as a relic. With it there went a faded tie and a tennis shirt, clean certainly, but on which laundries had time and again done their fell work. And to come back to the boots they were of a piece—so to speak—as the rest of his clothes. The cracked uppers just hung together, the soles were worn through. So apparently a gentleman was he despite his clothes that it struck Sheila he might be an actor dressed as a down-and-out, but on their eyes meeting he blushed. Yes, grown man though he was, the colour deepened on his face, and hunching his shoulders and tucking his boots under the seat he stared at the floor as though wishing it would open and swallow him. No acting here, his distress was genuine, and Sheila felt her cheeks grow hot in sympathy.

She liked his face, was subconsciously aware he approved her, and she wondered what story lay behind his appalling poverty, and what he was doing taking a long railway journey, luggageless, for he lacked even a parcel, and, she felt certain, moneyless. She wondered, then solved the problem; recalling a certain charitable society she knew of, it took down-and-outs willing to work off the street and sent them into the country to farmers who wanted extra hands during harvest time. This was one of their proteges, they’d given him a wash and an old clean shirt, and paid his fare to Beckton, where doubtless work awaited him. But they might have given him a pair of boots. Pattering on the window made her turn her head. Raining, the unfortunate man would get his feet wet before he’d gone 50 yards from the station. Her fingers went to the wristbag that carried her cash.

Poverty, she moralised, is a relative term. She had just been bewailing her lack of money. But his necessity was greater than hers. How paltry her fears of not having enough to fee overfed, overpaid servants, while he needed protection from the wet. Moved by the passion of self-sacrifice that her sex—some of them, at least—are prone sometimes to indulge in, she found a pencil and scrap of paper, and, screened by the “Tatler,” wrote: “Get yourself some boots and a cheap mac, if it’ll run to it. Wish I could spare more, but I’ve only two pounds in the world, and I’m going to stay in a country house and must keep one. Good luck and better times. —5.8.” Sheila had a professional knowledge of poverty. Her father was a doctor in Netting Hill Gate, with panel patients, and she helped him in the dispensary. Folding the Treasury note in the paper, she twisted it, cocked-hat shape and peered forth; everybbody in the carriage was absorbed in reading or meditation. She touched the shabby man with her foot, flipped her missive on to his knee, and retired behind her journal. How he took it she knew not, for she carefully refrained from looking at him again, but when they reached the junction and she descended, a backward glance told her he, too, had alighted. The rain pelted, and Sheila took refuge in the waiting-room, and over the fire exchanged casual remarks with ,a stout lady who, in dudgeon, told the world her husband and car hadn't arrived to fetch her. Other people grouped around it, and then the shabby man peeped in, lingered a while near the door, and then vanished. A few minutes later her train arrived. She secured a seat, the compartment filled, but nowhere, though she furtively sought him, did she see the shabby man. Evidently a farm near Beckton was his destination, and their orbits would never touch again. She regretted that when he came into the waiting-room after one glance at him she had turned her head. She would have liked to have exchanged a few words, but she felt shy, and he evidently lacked initiative.

But she didn’t—no—she didn’t regret her impulsive generosity. Two hours later she was in her bedroom at Felling Hall and the ordeal of arriving, which she had secretly feared, was over and proved to be no ordeal at all. She had never before met her hostess, Mrs. Swain, the rich banker’s wife, but as Mrs. Rivers the name was quite familiar. Mrs. Braithwaite and Bessie Rivers had corresponded since their school days and now Sheila’s mother was dead and her friend, remarried, remembering the existence of her old chum's daughter, had bidden her to stay, and the motherly hug which welcomed her had banished all Sheila’s timidity. She had met and spoken to most of the other guests, drank a cup of tea in their company, and found neither the men nor women formidable. Especially had she been attracted by two of the other girls—a dark, handsome, even regal beauty called June, whose surname she hadn’t caught, and Babs, a very young woman with green eyes and an impish nose, a cousin of Mrs. Swain’s.

Last but not least, her frock pleased her critical eye. “I know I’m going to enjoy myself,” she murmured, as she descended for dinner.

In the big square lounge, with which she was now familiar, were gathered the guests whose acquaintance she had made, and others strange to her. They would be 18 at dinner, she had been informed. A throng of blackgarbed men and gaily bedizened and bejewelled women filled the lounge,

and in the chatter of conversation her entrance passed unnoticed. A minute later June appeared. and then the butler announced that dinner was served. Sheila, spying her hostess resplendent in pink silk and a diamond tiara, approached to learn the identitv of her dinner partner. Mrs. Swain ” bore a frown on her usually good-natured face, and, speaking in a tone of suppresesci anger, “Peter, you are really too tiresome,” she murmured, and then, seeing the girl, “Sheila, let mo introduce . . . who will take you in,” the only important word, the name, as not infrequently happens, being unheard. So angry was the speaker that some of her wrath seemed transferred to the innocent guest. “I’m charmed to have this privilege,” said the man, and, meeting his smiling eyes, memory asked a question, when and where had they met before ? A moment later, anybody looking on, though nobody except the man was, would have seen Miss Braithwaite blush deeply, a phenonemon the more noticeable because her complexion was unfashionably natural.

The recipient of her reckless bounty faced her, the erstwhile shabby man transformed into a plutocratic-looking well-groomed patrician, who indubitably patronised a fashionable tailor, and for the moment Sheila hated him. ”1 wondered,” he said softly, "if you were coming on here and dared not think Fate would be so kind.” She took refuge in silence, unbroken as went in to dinner. W on t you speak to me?” he begged as they sat down. But the girl was till smarting under the shame of discovering how she had blundered. t *l^ ou fraud!” she flashed at him. Give me back my pound note.” She spoke in a low voice, angry though she xvas; at all costs she must stop him telling the story at table; she felt ready to die of shame if he did.

’ Peter,” called the dark girl across the table, “didn’t I see you entering the house some two hours ago looking like a destitute tramp?” “Too true, June. Bates’s look of horr°r when we met still haunts me.” “Yes, I saw him earlier. He told me he’d been sent on in advance with your kit. Didn’t he leave you one respectable suit to travel in? Everyone knows your passion for dressing like a scarecrow in your own house.” “I forgot to change,” confessed Peter, with his merry smile. “Yes, I looked so realistically broke that—” “If you tell the story I won’t stay in the house,” whispered Sheila. “An old lady at Paddington nearlv gave me a penny,” he concluded. “At Beckton I hired a car to avoid further misunderstandings.” Mrs. Swain by addressing June turned the conversation, which broke into fragments, and Peter and Sheila began to talk. In her relief that he hadn’t given her away her anger evaporated, and Peter improved on acquaintance. He early struck on a topic that interested her—dogs. He kept half a dozen Airedales at his Dulwich house. Sheila, a confirmed, dog lover, confided her sorrow at being parted from Jack, best and most intelligent of fox terriers, and the dinner which began so inauspiciously ended by their being on the best of terms.

Pool followed dinner and he initiated her into its mysteries. Dancing followed pool, and here she became teacher. Peter’s dancing was certainly C 3, but he was so contrite over his deficiencies, spoke so touchingly of a wasted life into which fox-trots never intruded, was so likeable and teachable, that she enjoyed playing instructress—engrossed to the extent that the fact that they were monopolising each other never occurred to her. The other men and women merely formed a background to enable her to enjoy the evening. Some time after midnight dancing ended, the men adjourned to the bil-liard-room for a final drink, while bed, Sheila gathered, was the programme for her sex. With their departure she was subtly aware of a change in the atmosphere. What was the secret joke the majority of the women were enjoying? Was it imagination that it concerned her? And why did Mrs. Swain look so cross? Sheila approaching her received the chilliest of good nights compatible with courtesy; the others gave her casual nods, except June, who ignored her utterly. A bewildered girl stood outside her bedroom door in the bril-liantly-lighted corridor, feeling extremely lonely and low-spirited, and not five minutes ago she had thought it the jolliest evening she had ever spent. The slim, elfish-looking Miss Swain tripped by. “Good night, Miss Braithwaite,” she said, and her voice had a satiric ring. “Pleasant dreams.” Sheila, floundering in a slough of bewilderment, clutched her like a drowning person a lifebelt. “Babs, what have I done? Come in and tell me. Why is Mrs. Swain so cross with me?” Babs plumped herself down on Sheila’s bed, hugged her knees, and rocked in peals of shrill, girlish laughter. “Oh, you’re too funny, to innocent for worlds, 'less you’re acting. And you come from London!” “Notting Hill, and that’s a long way from Mayfair; do be more definite. Indicate my crime.” The tears in Sheila’s voice sobered Babs. She ceased to rock. “Why, in one word, ‘Peter.’ You've, annexed, captured, appropriated, pinched, pocketed, poached Peter.”

“I didn’t; he annexed me. And who is he, by the way.” Peter’s confidence, though frank concerning his dogs’ pedigrees, had stopped short at his oyyn.”

“He’s Mr. Swain’s son —her stepson,” ghrgied Babs, and he’s rolling in it, my dear, his mother’s money; and Aunt Bessie wants him to marry into the ll’aristocracy. It ’ud give her a social leg-up. But he’s girl-shy. For two years she’s been trying to marry him to June Talboys—she’s a cousin of the Duke of Ormonde —and at last it was understood he’d come to the scratch, and this house party was arranged as the locale to announce the engagement. Well, the curtain went up, the hero made his entrance —and positively declined to take June in to dinner; never went near her the whole evening, but devoted himself to you.” “But I didn’t know.” protested Sheila. “How could I know? I don’t want him. For goodness sake tell Miss Talbovs that.” “ ’Eavens. as if I dared intrude on the august June! I aren’t supposed to know all this, dear thing, but it’s the truth, straight from the well. Oh, Jimini! You’re brought here to be a walking guest, and you’ve cast yotirself for the role of villainess wots partin’ two lovin’ ’earts. Oh, Sheila. Sheila, you booful vamp.” The speaker paused, then added in her natural vnire with a touch of malice, Ive always hated that stuek-up Talboys erl anyway. Lord John had an escape when he fled to Africa to don’t you see what a hideous PO - S \Vi°sh nvas' in one like it,” said the other girl with the frankness modern 17. “Why, you ve obi musly clicked with the girl-shy Pe t ter ’. “ Aunt Bessie doesn’t like it sl \ e lump it. Gather your roses and youi millionaire and be thankful. But this was not Sheilas tien of the matter. Pacing up and Jo in me room behind a locked door, ha\m o =ot

rid of Babs. she raged against Fate and Peter—especially Peter. For if the story told her was true, and Mrs. Swain’s manner convinced her it was, Peter stood revealed in a very unpleasant light. Having philandered with this other girl for two years, brought to the scratch, he’d shied at proposing to her, and started a violent flirtation with herself. And even if it were a genuine infatuation for her, nothing could excuse his rudeness to Miss Talboys. No, Peter was a cad, look at it how she would, one couldn’t get away from that. “He’s ruined my visit absolutely and completely,” she wailed; “Oh, I’ll never do another kind action as long as I live.”

She rose early, after an almost sleepless night, dressed, and went downstairs before the hour of early tea. The front door stood open and brilliant sunshine streamed into the hall. Standing on the threshold, the visitor glimpsed a dew-drenched landscape. But next moment she saw a sight that at once drew her from contemplating the beauties of nature. A car, much travel-stained, was drawn up on the carriage drive, and a chauffeur, its only occupant, was talking to a man who, turning round at that moment, proved to be Peter —a tastefully tweedclad Peter —who smiled, waved and cried joyfully. “Ah, well met. Gorgeous morning, what? Come and see the last roses of summer in the rose garden.” Unsmiling, Sheila advanced. It was well met. The sooner she let Peter know what she thought of him the, better* Her smouldering wrath kindled anew at his contented air; the man seemed bursting with self-satisfaction. What a fraud he was! “This way,” he said, and then, “D’you know whose car that is?”

“Dexter's. Haven’t you heard of Lord John Dexter, the explorer? The man who shoots three lions and an elephant every morning before breakfast. Why, he’s a national hero.’* “Really.” Her unresponsiveness seemed at last to strike Peter. “Forgive my exuberant spirits,” he begged, “you see, he’s just saved my life. My life’s happiness, I mean. By turning up at my house yesterday and incidentally making me nearly miss my train —ye gods and little fishes! But for that June and I would have been engaged by now. Irrevocably; for my step-mother would have phoned the news to the ‘Morning Post.’ ” Sheila stopped short on the gravel walk, a queer tingling sensation ran through her, a sense of expectancy, as though she were at a theatre and the curtain was about to rise. For the first time that morning she looked Peter in the face. “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “Lord John and June. They were engaged, y’know, two years ago. Had a row and parted. He went to the wilds and buried himself. People thought he was dead. My stepmother, who has always been urging me to get married, finally pulled me into saying I’d mary June if she’d have mi.. She wasn’t too keen, but I think pressure was put on her, and it was arranged, through third parties, we were to meet here and fix things up.

“Well,” continued Peter, “I was busy in my garden yesterday when John Dexter, of all people, dashed up in a car. Had landed from Southampton the day before. Confided that he still wanted June, learned to his surprise she was still unmarried, but on the verge of getting engaged to me. Was that true? I said ‘Yes.’ He said, ‘Sorry, but he was a candidate, too/ I said, realising how little I wanted her, ‘3STo, I’ll retire gracefullv, and nurse my broken heart among my orchids and Airedales.’ “Further talk ensued, and I, with the spirit of sacrifice stUl on me, said I wouldn’t propose to June till he’d met her and tried his luck, and if I saw her first I wouldn’t say a word about his arrival. He said he wanted to take her by surprise, and then he’d know in a second if she still cared for him. And then off he dashed.” “Oh,” said Sheila, revolving this curious tale in her mind, and finding a certain discrepancy, “but why didn’t he turn up earlier?” “That,” said Peter, “was what I was asking myself all yesterday. You see, Dexter thought dad was still living in Sussex and I forgot he didn’t know he’d moved to the Midlands. Owing to this he went there first and a punctured tyre and a few other troubles so delayed him that he’s been travelling all night, and only got here half an hour ago, so his chauffeur has informed me.” “But where’s he now?” “Closeted with June in one of the sitting-rooms. They’ve been together,” Peter consulted his wristwatch, “just 20 minutes. When,” he perused, “a young woman is awakened at 7 in the morning with a message that a certain man desires an immediate interview, when, as I am informed, that girl dresses in a quarter of an hour, and the demanded interview has lasted 20 minutes, well, then we, who know the object of the call, may safely assume he hasn't been turned down. Can’t we. Sheila?” But Miss Braithwaite avoided a direct reply. “Give me my pound back,” she said; “why didn’t you travel in that suit yesterday, and stop me making a fool of myself?” “Never,” said Peter, “I shall never part with it; the woman who desires that particular pound will have to take me with it.”

“Oh. don’t be absurd,” she said, her cheeks, greatly against her own wishes, trying to match the red roses on the pergola before them. •A fool!” whispered Peter; “an adorable angel with a heart of gold; the girl I’ve been looking for all my life!” , . , Sheila declined to look at him; but the world seemed very fair. It was, after all, going to be a top-hole visit. As a matter of history she did eventaallv get her pound back, but on Peter’s terms.—“ The Australasian.”