the language of smaller fry as though he might have been through it all himself. No wonder everybody liked him!
After showing the Johndarm into the lounge Dickie stood in the hall for a moment, fighting off depression. Ma Cox! I don’t generally call her that. I said it on purpose to cheer poor White up. What a good fellow I am! Saying the right thing to everybody. Mexico …
A door opened upstairs. Christina and Mrs. Hughes were returning from their inspection of Bobbins.
‘I shouldn’t have allowed it,’ Christina was saying. ‘But I shan’t let it happen again.’
‘It doesn’t do,’ said Mrs. Hughes, ‘to try to order them about too much, you know, dear.’
‘Oh, I’ve been very tactful. Very nice about it. That strengthens my position. But I won’t have Dickie getting in with people like that.…’
Dickie, aware that he was eavesdropping, bolted back into the lounge. He took his part and retired with it into a corner, pretending to learn it. Not tonight, not just yet, could he make it up with Christina. I shouldn ’ t have allowed it .… That strengthens my position .… His ardour had completely evaporated.
‘What awful faces Dickie is making,’ whispered Mrs. Hughes to Christina, who sat beside her in the window-seat . ‘Look how he’s scowling!’
‘He always does in a play,’ replied Christina, and added with a giggle: ‘He’s getting into the skin of his part.’
3
W ETHERBY’S Pavilion had put sixpence on the rates, and all citizens of substance had therefore a strong motive for regarding it as an amenity. To patronise the Pavilion Café, especially during the morning, had become a matter of principle.
In the old days the morning rendezvous had been the Mandalay in Market Street. There a dark and stuffy labyrinth of small, low-ceilinged rooms, smelling strongly of coffee, and lit by rose-coloured lamps, had provided a background for the natural pattern of local society. Friends forgathered, lovers trysted, news was exchanged and plans were hatched, in twenty secluded corners. Much went on, and not all of it was laid bare immediately. The first news of pregnancies was whispered over these coffee tables, and so, in oblique murmurs, was the truth about fatal diseases. It was to the Mandalay that invalids and the bereaved first ventured , on the return of health or spirits. To be seen there, to be welcomed, was a signal of recovery.
In that narcotic atmosphere there were more reconciliations than quarrels. Scandals were doubtless born and circulated, but, at certain tables where the kindest hearts presided, spiteful rumours were frequently contradicted , denounced and slain. For the Mandalay had its natural rulers, unelected and unappointed, as are the rulers in all truly free communities. What some thought mattered more than what others thought. This was as inevitable as the weather and there was as little appealagainst it. Character was recognised and received deference.
The Pavilion Café was less kind to human needs. Nobody could creep into it or hide in a corner. Nothing could be arranged in a whisper. All that went on was instantly revealed. Patrons seemed to lose identity and stature as soon as they came into that large, light place. Sitting uneasily round the steel tables, their shopping bags beside them, they looked disconcertingly like the women in a sketch which Wetherby had submitted when the plans for the Pavilion were first under dis-discussion . They had enjoyed a good laugh over this sketch, which substituted blank pink eggs for faces; but it had proved prophetic. The eager eyes, the sharp noses, the pugnacious chins, which had clustered round the Mandalay lamps, were all fused into a featureless uniformity by Wetherby’s great north window.
Here there were no leaders. Everybody was as much reduced, diminished, dwarfed, drained of life, as everybody else. Only Martha Rawson, who always had a special table reserved for her, maintained a kind of
After showing the Johndarm into the lounge Dickie stood in the hall for a moment, fighting off depression. Ma Cox! I don’t generally call her that. I said it on purpose to cheer poor White up. What a good fellow I am! Saying the right thing to everybody. Mexico …
A door opened upstairs. Christina and Mrs. Hughes were returning from their inspection of Bobbins.
‘I shouldn’t have allowed it,’ Christina was saying. ‘But I shan’t let it happen again.’
‘It doesn’t do,’ said Mrs. Hughes, ‘to try to order them about too much, you know, dear.’
‘Oh, I’ve been very tactful. Very nice about it. That strengthens my position. But I won’t have Dickie getting in with people like that.…’
Dickie, aware that he was eavesdropping, bolted back into the lounge. He took his part and retired with it into a corner, pretending to learn it. Not tonight, not just yet, could he make it up with Christina. I shouldn ’ t have allowed it .… That strengthens my position .… His ardour had completely evaporated.
‘What awful faces Dickie is making,’ whispered Mrs. Hughes to Christina, who sat beside her in the window-seat . ‘Look how he’s scowling!’
‘He always does in a play,’ replied Christina, and added with a giggle: ‘He’s getting into the skin of his part.’
3
W ETHERBY’S Pavilion had put sixpence on the rates, and all citizens of substance had therefore a strong motive for regarding it as an amenity. To patronise the Pavilion Café, especially during the morning, had become a matter of principle.
In the old days the morning rendezvous had been the Mandalay in Market Street. There a dark and stuffy labyrinth of small, low-ceilinged rooms, smelling strongly of coffee, and lit by rose-coloured lamps, had provided a background for the natural pattern of local society. Friends forgathered, lovers trysted, news was exchanged and plans were hatched, in twenty secluded corners. Much went on, and not all of it was laid bare immediately. The first news of pregnancies was whispered over these coffee tables, and so, in oblique murmurs, was the truth about fatal diseases. It was to the Mandalay that invalids and the bereaved first ventured , on the return of health or spirits. To be seen there, to be welcomed, was a signal of recovery.
In that narcotic atmosphere there were more reconciliations than quarrels. Scandals were doubtless born and circulated, but, at certain tables where the kindest hearts presided, spiteful rumours were frequently contradicted , denounced and slain. For the Mandalay had its natural rulers, unelected and unappointed, as are the rulers in all truly free communities. What some thought mattered more than what others thought. This was as inevitable as the weather and there was as little appealagainst it. Character was recognised and received deference.
The Pavilion Café was less kind to human needs. Nobody could creep into it or hide in a corner. Nothing could be arranged in a whisper. All that went on was instantly revealed. Patrons seemed to lose identity and stature as soon as they came into that large, light place. Sitting uneasily round the steel tables, their shopping bags beside them, they looked disconcertingly like the women in a sketch which Wetherby had submitted when the plans for the Pavilion were first under dis-discussion . They had enjoyed a good laugh over this sketch, which substituted blank pink eggs for faces; but it had proved prophetic. The eager eyes, the sharp noses, the pugnacious chins, which had clustered round the Mandalay lamps, were all fused into a featureless uniformity by Wetherby’s great north window.
Here there were no leaders. Everybody was as much reduced, diminished, dwarfed, drained of life, as everybody else. Only Martha Rawson, who always had a special table reserved for her, maintained a kind of
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