hilary, stretching his slender length wearily in peter's fat arm-chair, was saying in his high, sweet voice:
"it's the merest pittance, peter, yours and mine. the robinsons have it practically all. the robinsons. really, you know ..."
the sweet voice had a characteristic, vibrating break of contempt. hilary had always hated the robinsons, who now had it practically all. hilary looked pale and tired; he had been settling his dead uncle's affairs for the last week. the margerisons' uncle had not been a lovable man; hilary could not pretend that he had loved him. peter had, as far as he had been permitted to do so; peter found it possible to be attached to most of the people he came across; he was a person of catholic sympathies and gregarious instincts. even when he heard how the robinsons had it practically all, he bore no resentment either against his uncle or the robinsons. such was life. and of course he and hilary did not make wise use of money; that they had always been told.
"you'll have to leave cambridge," hilary told him. "you haven't enough to keep you here. i'm sorry, peter; i'm afraid you'll have to begin and try to earn a living. but i can't imagine how, can you? has any paying line of life ever occurred to you as possible?"
"never," peter assured him. "but i've not had time to think it over yet, of course. i supposed i should be up here for two years more, you see."
at hilary's "you'll have to leave cambridge," his face had changed sharply. here was tragedy indeed. bother the robinsons.... but after a moment's pause for recovery he answered hilary lightly enough. such, again, was life. a marvellous two terms and a half, and then the familiar barred gate. it was an old story.
hilary's thoughts turned to his own situation. they never, to tell the truth, dwelt very long on anybody else's.
"we," he said, "are destitute—absolutely. it's simply frightful, the wear and strain of it. peggy, of course," he added plaintively, "is not a good manager. she likes spending, you know—and there's so seldom anything to spend, poor peggy. so life is disappointing for her. the babies, i needn't say, are growing up little vagabonds. and they will bathe in the canals, which isn't respectable, of course; though one is relieved in a way that they should bathe anywhere."
"if he was selling any pictures," peter reflected, "he would tell me," so he did not enquire. peter had tact as to his questions. one rather needed it with hilary. but he wondered vaguely what the babies had, at the moment, to grow up upon, even as little vagabonds. presently hilary enlightened him.
"i edit a magazine," he said, and peter perceived that he was both proud and ashamed of the fact. "at least i am going to. a monthly publication for the entertainment and edification of the englishman in venice. lord evelyn urquhart is financing it. you know he has taken up his residence in venice? a pleasant crank. venice is his latest craze. he buys glass. and, indeed, most other things. he shops all day. it's a mania. when he was young i believe he had a very fine taste. it's dulled now—a fearful life, as they say. well, his last fancy is to run a magazine, and i'm to edit it. it's to be called 'the gem.' 'gemm' adriatica,' you know, and all that; besides, it's more or less appropriate to the contents. it's to be largely concerned with what lord evelyn calls 'charming things.' things the visiting englishman likes to hear about, you know. it aims at being the complete tourist's guide. i have to get hold of people who'll write articles on the duomo mosaics, and the galleries and churches and palaces and so on, and glass and lace and anything else that occurs to them, in a way calculated to appeal to the cultivated british resident or visitor. i detest the breed, i needn't say. pampered hotel philistines pretending to culture and profaning the sanctuaries, ruskin in hand. ruskin. really, you know.... well, anyhow, my mission in life for the present is to minister to their insatiable appetite for rhapsodising over what they feel it incumbent on them to admire."
"rather fascinating," peter said. it was a pity that hilary always so disliked any work he had to do. work—a terrific, insatiable god, demanding its hideous human sacrifices from the dawn of the world till twilight—so hilary saw it. the idea of being horrible, all the concrete details into which it was translated were horrible too.
"if it was me," said peter, "i should minister to my own appetite, no one else's. bother the cultivated resident. he'd jolly well have to take what i gave him. and glass and mosaic and lace—what glorious things to write about.... i rather love lord evelyn, don't you."
peter remembered him at astleys, in berkshire—urquhart's uncle, tall and slim and exquisite, with beautiful waistcoats and white, attractive, nervous hands, that played with a monocle, and a high-pitched voice, and a whimsical, prematurely worn-out face, and a habit of screwing up short-sighted eyes and saying, with his queer, closed enunciation, "quate charming. quate." he had always liked peter, who had been a gentle and amused boy and had reminded him of sylvia hope, lacking her beauty, but with a funny touch of her charm. peter had loved the things he loved, too—the precious and admirable things he had collected round him through a recklessly extravagant life. peter at fifteen, in the first hour of his first visit to astleys, had been caught out of the incredible romance of being in urquhart's home into a new marvel, and stood breathless before a bow rose bowl of soft and mellow paste, ornamented with old japan may flowers in red and gold and green, and dated "new canton, 1750."
"lake it?" a high voice had asked behind his shoulder. "lake the sort of thing?" and there was the tall, funny man swaying on his heels and screwing his glass into his eye and looking down on peter with whimsical interest. little peter had said shyly that he did.
"prefer chaney to cricket?" asked urquhart's uncle, with his agreeable laugh that was too attractive to be described as a titter, a name that its high, light quality might have suggested. but to that peter said "no." he had been asked to astleys for the cricket week; he was going to play for urquhart's team. not that he was any good; but to scrape through without disgrace (of course he didn't) was at the moment the goal of life.
lord evelyn had seemed disappointed. "if i could get you away from denis," he said, "i'll be bound cricket wouldn't be in the 'also rans.'"
and at that moment denis had sauntered up, and peter's worshipping regard had turned from lord evelyn's rose bowl to his nephew, and it was bow china that was not among the also rans. at that too lord evelyn had laughed, with his queer, closed mirth.
"keep that till you fall in love," he had inwardly admonished peter's back as the two walked away together. "i daresay she won't deserve it any better—but that's a law of nature, and this is sheer squandering. my word, how that boy does lake things—and people!" after all, it was hardly for any urquhart to condemn squandering.
that was lord evelyn, as he lived in peter's memory—a generous, whimsical, pleasant crank, touched with his nephew's glamour of charm.
when peter said, "i rather love him, don't you," hilary replied, "he's a fearful old spendthrift."
peter demurred at the old. it jarred with one's conceptions of lord evelyn. "i don't suppose he's much over fifty," he surmised.
"no, i daresay," hilary indifferently admitted. "he's gone the pace, of course. drugs, and all that. he soon won't have a sound faculty left. oh, i'm attached to him; he's entertaining, and one can really talk to him, which is exceptional in venice, or, indeed, anywhere else. is his nephew still up here, by the way?"
"yes. he's going down this term."
"you see a good deal of him, i suppose?"
"off and on," said peter.
"of course," said hilary, "you're almost half-brothers. i do feel that the urquharts owe us something, for the sake of the connexion. i shall talk to lord evelyn about you. he was very fond of your mother.... i am very sorry about you, peter. we must think it over sometime, seriously."
he got up and began to walk about the room in his nervous, restless way, looking at peter's things. peter's room was rather pleasing. everything in it had the air of being the selection of a personal and discriminating affection. there was a serene self-confidence about peter's tastes; he always knew precisely what he liked, irrespective of what anyone else liked. if he had happened to admire "the soul's awakening" he would beyond doubt have hung a copy of it in his room. what he had, as a matter of fact, hung in his room very successfully expressed an aspect of himself. the room conveyed restfulness, and an immense love, innate rather than grafted, of the pleasures of the eye. the characteristic of restfulness was conveyed partly by the fat green sofa and the almost superfluous number of extremely comfortable arm-chairs, and peter's attitude in one of them. on a frame in a corner a large piece of embroidery was stretched—a cherry tree in blossom coming to slow birth on a green serge background. peter was quite good at embroidery. he carried pieces of it (mostly elaborately designed book-covers) about in his pockets, and took them out at tea-parties and (surreptitiously) at lectures. he said it was soothing, like smoking; only smoking didn't soothe him, it made him feel ill. on days when he had been doing tiresome or boring or jarring things, or been associating with a certain type of person, he did a great deal of embroidery in the evenings, because, as he said, it was such a change. the embroidery stood for a symbol, a type of the pleasures of the senses, and when he fell to it with fervour beyond the ordinary, one understood that he had been having a surfeit of the displeasures of the senses, and felt need to restore the balance.
hilary stopped before a piece of extremely shabby, frayed and dingy tapestry, that had the appearance of having once been even dingier and shabbier. it looked as if it had lain for years in a dusty corner of a dusty old shop, till someone had found it and been pleased by it and taken possession, loving it through its squalor.
"rather nice," said hilary. "really good, isn't it?"
peter nodded. "gobelin, of the best time. someone told me that afterwards. when i bought it, i only knew it was nice. a man wanted to buy it from me for quite a lot."
hilary looked about him. "you've got some good things. how do you pick them up?"
"i try," said peter, "to look as if i didn't care whether i had them or not. then they let me have them for very little. the man i got that tapestry from didn't know how nice it was. i did, but i cheated him."
"well," hilary said, passing his hand wearily over his forehead, "i must go to your detestable station and catch my train.... i've got a horrible headache. the strain of all this is frightful."
he looked as if it was. his pale face, nervous and strained, stabbed at peter's affection for him. peter's affection for hilary had always been and always would be an unreasoning, loyal, unspoilably tender thing.
he went to the station to help hilary to catch his train. the enterprise was a failure; it was not a job at which either margerison was good. they had to wait in the detestable station for another. the annoyance of that (it is really an abnormally depressing station) worked on hilary's nervous system to such an extent that he might have flung himself on the line and so found peace from the disappointments of life, had not peter been at hand to cheer him up. there were certainly points about young peter as a companion for the desperate.
peter, having missed hall, as well as hilary's train, went back to his room and put an egg on to boil. he lay back in his most comfortable chair to watch it; he needed comfort rather. he was going down. it had been so jolly—and it was over.
he had not got much to show for the good time he had had. physically, he was more of a wreck than he had been when he came up. he was slightly lame in one leg, having broken it at football (before he had been forbidden to play) and had it badly set. he mended so badly always. he was also at the moment right-handed (habitually he used his left) and that was motor bicycling. he had not particularly distinguished himself in his work. he was good at nothing except diabolo, and not very good at that. and he had spent more money than he possessed, having drawn lavishly on his next year's allowance. he might, in fact, have been described as an impoverished and discredited wreck. but for such a one he had looked very cheerful, till hilary had said that about going down. that was really depressing.
peter, as the egg boiled, looked back rather wistfully over his year. it seemed a very long time ago since he had come up. his had been an undistinguished arrival; he had not come as a sandwich man between two signboards that labelled his past career and explained his path that was to be; he had been unaddressed to any destination. the only remark on his vague and undistinguished label had perhaps been of the nature of "brittle. this side up with care." he had no fame at any game; he did not row; he was neither a sporting nor, in any marked degree, a reading man. he did a little work, but he was not very fond of it or very good. the only things one could say of him were that he seemed to have an immense faculty of enjoyment and a considerable number of friends, who knew him as margery and ate muffins and chocolates between tea and dinner in his rooms.
he had been asked at the outset by one of these friends what sort of things he meant to "go in for." he had said that he didn't exactly know. "must one go in for anything, except exams?" the friend, who was vigorously inclined, had said that one certainly ought. one could—he had measured peter's frail physique and remembered all the things he couldn't do—play golf. peter had thought that one really couldn't; it was such a chilly game. well, of course, one might speak at the union, said the persevering friend, insisting, it seemed, on finding peter a career. "don't they talk about politics?" enquired peter. "i couldn't do that, you know. i don't approve of politics. if ever i have a vote i shall sell it to the highest female bidder. fancy being a liberal or a conservative, out of all the nice things there are in the world to be! there are health-fooders, now. i'd rather be that. and teetotallers. a man told me he was a teetotaller to-day. i'll go in for that if you like, because i don't much like wine. and i hate beer. these are rather nice chocolates—i mean, they were."
the indefatigable friend had further informed him that one might be a fabian and have a red tie, and encourage the other fabians to wash. or one might ride.
"one might—" peter had made a suggestion of his own—"ride a motor bicycle. i saw a man on one to-day; i mean he had been on it—it was on him at the moment; it had chucked him off and was dancing on him, and something that smelt was coming out of a hole. he was such a long way from home; i was sorry about it."
his friend had said, "serve him right. brute," expressing the general feeling of the moment about men who rode motor bicycles.
"isn't it funny," peter had reflectively said. "they must get such an awful headache first—and then to be chucked off and jumped on so hard, and covered with the smelly stuff—and then to have to walk home dragging it, when it's deformed and won't run on its wheels. unless, of course, one is blown up into little bits and is at rest.... but it is so awfully, frightfully ugly, to look at and to smell and to hear. like your wallpaper, you know."
peter's eyes had rested contentedly on his own peaceful green walls. he really hadn't felt in the least like "going in for" anything, either motor bicycling or examinations.
"i suppose you'll just footle, then," his friend had summed it up, and left him, because it was half-past six, and they had dinner at that strange hour. that was why they were able to run it into their tea, since obviously nothing could be done between, even by peter's energetic friend. this friend had little hope for peter. of course, he would just footle; he always had. but one was, nevertheless, rather fond of him. one would like him to do things, and have a sporting time.
as a matter of fact, peter gave his friend an agreeable surprise. he went in, or attempted to go in, for a good many things. he plunged ardently into football, though he had never been good, and though he always got extremely tired over it, which was supposed to be bad for him, and frequently got smashed up, which he knew to be unpleasant for him. this came to an abrupt end half way through the term. then he took, quite suddenly, to motor bicycling. all this is merely to say that the incalculable factor that sets temperament and natural predilection at nought had entered into peter's life. of course, it was absurd. urquhart, being what he was, could successfully do a number of things that peter, being what he was, must inevitably come to grief over. but still he indomitably tried. he even profaned the roads and outraged all æsthetic fitness in the endeavour, clacking into the country upon a hired motor-bicycle and making his head ache badly and getting very cold, and being from time to time thrown off and jumped upon and going about in bandages, telling enquirers that he supposed he must have knocked against something somewhere, he didn't remember exactly. the energetic friend had been caustic.
"i've no intention of sympathising with you," he had remarked; "because you deserve all you get. you ass, you know when it's possible to get smashed up over anything you're safe to do it, so what on earth do you expect when you take up a thing like this?"
"instant death every minute," peter had truly replied. (his nerves had been a little shaken by his last ride, which had set his trouser-leg on fire suddenly, and nearly, as he remarked, burnt him to death.) "but i go on. i expect the worst, but i am resigned. the hero is not he who feels no fear, for that were brutal and irrational."
"what do you do it for?" his friend had querulously and superfluously demanded.
"it's so frightfully funny," peter had said, reflecting, "that i should be doing it. that's why, i suppose. it makes me laugh. you might take to the fiddle if you wanted a good laugh. i take to my motor-bicycle. it's the only way to cheer oneself up when life is disappointing, to go and do something entirely ridiculous. i used to stand on my head when i'd been rowed or sat upon, or when there was a beastly wind; it cheered me a lot. i've given that up now; so i motor-bicycle. besides," he had added, "you said i must go in for something. you wouldn't like it if i did my embroidery all day."
but on the days when he had been motor-bicycling, peter had to do a great deal of embroidery in the evenings, for the sake of the change.
"i don't wonder you need it," a friend of the more æsthetically cultured type remarked one evening, finding him doing it. "you've been playing round with the urquhart-fitzmaurice lot to-day, haven't you? nice man, fitzmaurice, isn't he? i like his tie-pins. you know, we almost lost him last summer. he hung in the balance, and our hearts were in our mouths. but he is still with us. you look as if he had been very much with you, margery."
peter looked meditative and stitched. "old fitz," he murmured, "is one of the best. a real sportsman.... don't, elmslie; i didn't think of that, i heard childers say it. childers also said, 'by jove, old fitz knocks spots out of 'em every time,' but i don't know what he meant. i'm trying to learn to talk like childers. when i can do that, i shall buy a tie-pin like fitzmaurice's, only mine will be paste. streater's is paste; he's another nice man."
"he certainly is. in fact, margery, you really are not particular enough about the company you keep. you shun neither the over-bred nor the under-bred. personally i affect neither, because they don't amuse me. you embrace both."
"yes," peter mildly agreed. "but i don't embrace streater, you know. i draw the line at streater. everyone draws the line at streater; he's of the baser sort, like his tie-pins. wouldn't it be vexing to have people always drawing lines at you. there'd be nothing you could well do, except to draw one at them, and they wouldn't notice yours, probably, if they'd got theirs in first. you could only sneer. one can always sneer. i sneered to-day."
"you can't sneer," elmslie told him brutally; "and you can't draw lines; and what on earth you hang about with so many different sorts of idiots for i don't know.... i think, if circumstances absolutely compelled me to make bosom friends of either, i should choose the under-bred poor rather than the over-bred rich. that's the sort of man i've no use for. the sort of man with so much money that he has to chuck it all about the place to get rid of it. the sort of man who talks to you about beagles. the sort of man who has a different fancy waistcoat for each day of the week."
"well," said peter, "that's nice. i wish i had."
his friend turned a grave regard on him. "the sort of man who rides a motor-bicycle.... you really should, margery," he went on, "learn to be more fastidious. you mustn't let yourself be either dazzled by fancy waistcoats or sympathetically moved by unclean collars. neither is interesting."
"i never said they were," peter said. "it's the people inside them...."
peter, in brief, was a lover of his kind, and the music life played to him was of a varied and complex nature. but, looking back, it was easy to see how there had been, running through all the variations, a dominant motive in the piece.
as peter listened to the boiling of his egg, and thought how hard it would be when he took it off, the dominant motive came in and stood by the fire, and looked down on peter. he jingled things in his pockets and swayed to and fro on his heels like his uncle evelyn, and he was slim in build, and fair and pale and clear-cut of face, and gentle and rather indifferent in manner, and soft and casual in voice, and he was in his fourth year, and life went extremely well with him.
"it boils," he told peter, of the egg.
peter took it off and fished it out with a spoon, and began rummaging for an egg-cup and salt and marmalade and buns in the locker beneath his window seat. having found these things, he composed himself in the fat arm-chair to dine, with a sigh of satisfaction.
"you slacker," urquhart observed. "well, can you come to-morrow? the drag starts at eleven."
"it's quite hard," said peter, unreasonably disappointed in it. "oh, yes, rather; i'll come." how short the time for doing things had suddenly become.
urquhart remarked, looking at the carpet, "what a revolting mess. why?"
"my self-filling bath," peter explained. "i invented it myself. well—it did fill itself. quite suddenly and all at once, you know. it was a very beautiful sight. but rather unrestrained at present. i must improve it.... oh, this is my last term."
"sent down?" urquhart sympathetically enquired. it was what one might expect to happen to peter.
"destitute," peter told him. "the robinsons have it practically all. hilary told me to-day. i am thrown on the world. i shall have to work. hilary is destitute too, and peggy has nothing to spend, and the babies insist on bathing in the canals. bad luck for us, isn't it. oh, and hilary is going to edit a magazine called 'the gem,' for your uncle in venice. that seems rather a nice plan. the question is, what am i to apply my great gifts to?"
urquhart whistled softly. "as bad as all that, is it?"
"quite as bad. worse if anything.... the only thing in careers that i can fancy at the moment is art dealing—picking up nice things cheap and selling them dear, you know. only i should always want to keep them, of course. if i don't do that i shall have to live by my needle. if they pass the sweated industries bill, i suppose one will get quite a lot. it's the only bill i've ever been interested in. my uncle was extremely struck by the intelligent way i took notice of it, when i had disappointed him so much about tariff reform and education."
"you'd probably be among the unskilled millions whom the bill turns out of work."
"then i shall be unemployed, and march with a flag. i shall rather like that.... oh, i suppose somehow one manages to live, doesn't one, whether one has a degree or not. and personally i'd rather not have one, because it would be such a mortifying one. besides," peter added, after a luminous moment of reflection, "i don't believe a degree really matters much, in my profession. you didn't know i had a profession, i expect; i've just thought of it. i'm going to be a buyer for the ignorant rich. make their houses liveable-in. they tell me what they want—i get hold of it for them. turn them out an italian drawing-room—della robbia mantel-piece, florentine fire-irons, renaissance ceiling, tapestries and so on. things they haven't energy to find for themselves or intelligence to know when they see them. i love finding them, and i'm practised at cheating. one has to cheat if one's poor but eager.... a poor trade, but my own. i can grub about low shops all day, and go to sales at christie's. what fun."
urquhart said, "you'd better begin on leslie. you're exactly what he wants."
"who's leslie?" peter was eating buns and marmalade, in restored spirits.
"leslie's an ignorant rich. he's a hebrew. his parents weren't called leslie, but never mind. leslie rolls. he also bounds, but not aggressively high. one can quite stand him; in fact, he has his good points. he's rich but eager. also he doesn't know a good thing when he sees it. he lacks your discerning eye, margery. but such is his eagerness that he is determined to have good things, even though he doesn't know them when he sees them. he would like to be a connoisseur—a collector of world-wide fame. he would like to fill his house with things that would make people open their eyes and whistle. but at present he's got no guide but price and his own pure taste. consequently he gets hopelessly let in, and people whistle, but not in the way he wants. he's quite frank; he told me all about it. what he wants is a man with a good eye, to do his shopping for him. it would be an ideal berth for a man with the desire but not the power to purchase; a unique partnership of talent with capital. there you are. you supply the talent. he'd take you on, for certain. it would be a very nice little job for you to begin with. by the time you've decorated his town house and his country seat and his shooting-box and all his other residences, you'll be fairly started in your profession. i'll write to him about you."
peter chuckled. "how frightfully funny, though. i wonder why anyone should want to have things unless they like to have them for themselves. just as if i were to hire streater, say, to buy really beautiful photographs of actresses for me!... well, suppose he didn't like the things i bought for him? suppose our tastes didn't agree? should i have to try and suit his, or would he have to put up with mine?"
"there's only one taste in the matter," urquhart told him. "he hasn't got any. you could buy him any old thing and tell him it was good and he'd believe you, provided it cost enough. that's why he has to have a buyer honest though poor—he couldn't check him in the least. i shall tell him that, however many the things you might lie about, you are a george washington where your precious bric-a-brac is concerned, because it's the one thing you care about too much to take it flippantly."
peter chuckled again. life, having for a little while drifted perilously near to the shores of dullness, again bobbed merrily on the waters of farce. what a lot of funny things there were, all waiting to be done! this that urquhart suggested should certainly, if possible, be one of them.
a week later, when mr. leslie had written to engage peter's services, urquhart's second cousin rodney came into peter's room (a thing he had never done before, because he did not know peter much) and said, "but why not start a curiosity shop of your own? or be a travelling pedlar? it would be so much more amusing."
peter felt a little flattered. he liked rodney, who was in his third year and had never before taken any particular notice of him. rodney was a rather brilliant science man; he was also an apostle, a vegetarian, a fine football player, an ex-fabian, and a few other things. he was a large, emaciated-looking person, with extraordinarily bright grey eyes, inspiring a lean, pale, dark-browed face—the face of an ascetic, lit by a flame of energising life. he looked as if he would spend and be spent by it to the last charred fragment, in pursuit of the idea. there was nothing in his vivid aspect of peter margerison's gentle philosophy of acquiescence; he looked as if he would to the end dictate terms to life rather than accept them—an attitude combined oddly with a view which regarded the changes and chances of circumstance as more or less irrelevant to life's vital essence.
peter didn't know why rodney wanted him to be a travelling pedlar—except that, as he had anyhow once been a socialist, he presumably disliked the rich (ignorant or otherwise) and included leslie among them. peter always had a vague feeling that rodney did not wholly appreciate his cousin urquhart, for this same reason. a man of means, rodney would no doubt have held, has much ado to save his soul alive; better, if possible, be a bricklayer or a mendicant friar.
"some day," said peter politely, "i may have to be a travelling pedlar. this is only an experiment, to see if it works."
he was conscious suddenly of two opposing principles that crossed swords with a clash. rodney and urquhart—poverty and wealth—he could not analyse further.
but rodney was newly friendly to him for the rest of that term. urquhart commented on it.
"stephen always takes notice of the destitute. the best qualification for his regard is to commit such a solecism that society cuts you, or such a crime that you get a month's hard. short of that, it will do to have a hole in your coat, or paint a bad picture, or produce a yesterday's handkerchief. he probably thinks you're on the road to that. when you get there, he'll swear eternal friendship. he can't away with the prosperous."
"what a mistake," peter said. it seemed to him a singularly perverse point of view.
