Hautoix. In the old days that invitation had been as regular as the Waits. However, they had lost their eldest son in the Cambrai fighting. They were having no parties this Christmas, of course.
He had thought that the Seddons might ask him. He got on so well with Roddy and Rachel. They sent him a card "from Rollo," their baby. Kind of them to remember him! So he busied himself about the flat. He was preparing for the future—for that wonderful time when the war would be really and truly over, and the world as it had been in the old days. His life was centred in Hortons and the streets that surrounded it. He could be seen every morning walking up Duke Street into Piccadilly. He knew every shop by heart, the picture shops that seemed to be little offspring of the great "Christie's" round the corner, with their coloured plates from Ackermann's "Microcosm," and Pierce Egan, and their oils of large, full-bosomed eighteenth century ladies; and the shops with the china and the cabinets and the lacquer (everything very expensive indeed); and Bottome's, the paper shop, with Mr. Bottome's humourous comments on the day's politics chalked on to a slate near the door, and the Vie Parisienne very large in the window; then there was the shop at the corner of Jermyn Street, with the silk dressing-gowns of dazzling colours, and the latest fashions with pink silk vests, pyjamas; and the great tobacconists and the wine-windows of Fortnum and Masons—at last the familiar broad splendours of Piccadilly itself. Up and down the little old streets that had known all the famous men of their day, that had lodged Thackeray and Swift and Dryden, and now lodged Mr. Bottomley and the author of Mutt and Jeff, the motors rolled and hooted and honked, and the messenger boys whistled, and the flower-man went up and down with his barrow, and everything was as expensive and pleasant and humourous as could be. All this Absalom Jay adopted. He was in his own mind, although he did not know it, King of St. James's, and he felt that they must all be very glad to have him there, and that rents must have gone up since it was known that he had taken his residence among them.
He even went in one day and expostulated with Mr. Bottome for having the Daily Herald in his window. Mr. Bottome agreed with him that it was not a "nice" paper, but he also added that sinister sentence that Absalom was getting now so tired of hearing that "these were strange times. 'E didn't know what we were coming to."
"Nonsense, my good man," said Absalom rather tartly, "England isn't Russia."
"Looks damned like it sometimes," said Mr. Bottome.
Then as the year 1919 extended Absalom began to feel terribly lonely. This fear of loneliness was rapidly becoming a concrete and definite terror, lurking behind the curtains in his flat, ready to spring out upon him at any moment. Absalom had never in all his life been alone. There had always been people around him. Where now were they all? Men now were being demobilised, houses were opening again, hospitals were closing, dances were being given, and still his gold mirror remained innocent of invitations. He fancied, too (he was becoming very sensitive to impressions), that the men in the "Warrington" were not so eager to see him as they had been. He went to the "Warrington" a great deal now "to be cheered up." He talked to men to whom five years ago he would not have condescended to say "Good-morning"—to Isaac Monteluke, for instance, and Bandy Manners. Where were all his old friends? They did not come to the club any longer, it seemed. He could never find a bridge four now with whom he was really at home. This may have been partly because he was nervous these days of losing money—he could not afford it—and he did not seem to have his old control of his temper. Then his brain was not quite so active as it had been. He could not remember the cards. …
One day he heard some fellow say: "Well, if I'd had my way I'd chloroform everyone over sixty. We've had enough of the old duds messing all the world up."
Chloroform all the old duds! What a terrible thing to say? Why, five years ago it had been the other way. Who cared then what a young man said? What could he know? After all, it was the older men who had had the experience, who knew life, who could tell the others. …
He found himself laying down the law about things—giving ultimatums like—"They ought to be strung up on lamp-posts—pandering to the ignorant lower classes—that's what it is."
If there had been one thing above all others that Absalom had hated all his life it had been rudeness—there was the unforgivable sin. As a young man he had been deferential to his elders, and so in his turn he expected young men to be to him now. But they were not. No, they were not. He had positively to give up the "Warrington" because of the things that the young men said.
There was a new trouble now—the trouble of money. His investments were paying very badly, and the income tax was absurd. He wrote to the Times about his income tax, and they did not print his letter—did not print it when they printed the letters of every sort of nobody. Everything was so expensive that it took all his courage to look at his weekly bill. He must eat less; one ate, he read in the paper, far more than one needed. So he gave up his breakfast, having only a cup of coffee and a roll, as he had often done in France in the old days. He was aware suddenly that his clothes were beginning to look shabby. Bacon, the valet, informed him of this. He did not like Bacon; he found himself, indeed, sighing for the departed Rose. Bacon was austere and inhuman. He spoke as seldom as possible. He had no faults, he pressed clothes perfectly, kept drawers in absolute order, did not drink Absalom's claret nor smoke Absalom's cigarettes. No faults—but what an impossible man! Absalom was afraid of him. He drew his little body together under the bedclothes when Bacon called him in the morning because of Bacon's ironical eyes. Bacon gave him his Times as though he said: "How dare you take in the Times—spend threepence a day when you are as poor as you are?"
It was because of Bacon that Absalom gave up Merritt. He did not dare to have him when Bacon knew his poverty.
"I'm going to shave myself in the future, Merritt," he said; "it's only laziness having you." Merritt was politely sorry, but he was not very deeply grieved. Why should he be when he had the King's valet and Sir Edward Hawksbury, the famous K.C., and Borden Hunt, the dramatist, to shave every morning?
But Absalom missed him terribly. He was now indeed alone. No more gossip, no more laughter over other people's weaknesses, no more hearty agreement over the wicked selfishness of the lower orders.
Absalom gave up the Times because he could not bear to see the lower orders encouraged. All this talk about their not having enough to live on—wicked nonsense! It was people like Absalom who had not enough to live on. He wrote again to the Times and said so, and again they did not publish his letter.
Then he woke from sleep one night, heard the clock strike three, and was desperately frightened. He had had a dream. What dream? He could not remember. He only knew that in the course of it he had become very, very old; he had been in a room without fire and without light; he had been in prison—faces had glared at him, cruel faces, young, sneering, menacing faces. … He was going to die. … He awoke with a scream.
Next day he read himself a very serious lecture. He was becoming morbid; he was giving in; he was allowing himself to be afraid of things. He must pull himself up. He was quite severe to Bacon, and reprimanded him for bringing his breakfast at a quarter to nine instead of half-past eight. He made out then a list of houses that he would visit. They had forgotten him—he must admit that. But how natural it was! After all this time. Everyone had forgotten everybody. Why, he had forgotten all sorts of people! Could not remember their names!
For months now he had been saying, "After the war," and now here "after the war" was. It was May, and already Society was looking something like itself. Covent Garden was open again. Soon there would be Ascot and Henley and Goodwood; and the Peace Celebrations, perhaps, if only those idiots at Versailles moved a little more quickly! He felt the old familiar stir in his blood as he saw the red letters and the green pillars repainted, saw the early summer sunshine upon the glittering windows of Piccadilly, saw the green shadows of Hyde Park shift and tremble against the pale blue of the evening sky, saw,
