it used to begin as a rumour, a faint stirring and excitement in king’s road, chelsea. the artist on the top floor of joubert studios—an artist who had a private income and a gently nursed hypochondria—received a parcel from home: a couple of cooked chickens, perhaps, a tongue, cakes, crystallised fruits, three bottles of wine and so on. the lady who occupied the studio below, and the musical critic who lived in the third studio from the top, were duly apprised of the fact, and norman and eddie morrow were called in from near by for a consultation.
“clearly,” the lady remarked, “a rag is indicated. a rag must always have a beginning, and this undoubtedly is a most excellent beginning. ring up susie, somebody, and fetch hearn over and ivan and let the cumberlands know; and, oh! hughes, dear little herbert, lend me your pots and pans and things. and, warlow, just run round everywhere and tell all the people you meet. don’t forget john, and i think that deane would like that girl with fuzzy hair. we’ll begin at seven. no, we won’t: we’ll begin now.”
and warlow, nursing his hypochondria and being very biddable, sighed and moved away, saying beseechingly as he went:
“you will leave me a wing, won’t you? i’ve had no breakfast yet.”
240but neither had the rest, and by the time warlow, suffering in a resigned and patient kind of way from paleness and breathlessness, returned, one of the chickens had vanished, and the long table with its litter of paper, cardboard, pencils and paint, was now littered also with plates and knives and forks and breadcrumbs. the rag had begun.
the month was may, a true may with a warm wind, a warmer sun, and fluttering green leaves. the little party—the nucleus of the much larger party that was to meet there in the evening—drifted downstairs to hughes’s studio where there was a grand piano and a portable harmonium which appeared to belong to no one in particular. hughes, looking a little ruefully at the ms. upon which he was engaged, put it away on a shelf, opened his wide windows and began to play. harry lowe, with his magnificent but untrained voice, appeared dramatically in the doorway and sang:
largo
grandioso
for he’s a scotsman, a bonny scotsman,
his feyther and his mither,
his sister and his brither—
(forte)
they are all scotch, from the land of roderick dhu;
(vivace)
and the whitewash brush in the middle of his kilt
(piano)
is all sco-otch too.
this went to a great tune devised, invented, composed and arranged by hughes and lowe. the great air, heard with its cunning chatter of an accompaniment from the piano, put everyone in the right mood, and norman morrow, whose head was always full of ideas, began to prepare “stunts” for the evening, whilst warlow, having nothing better to do, attired himself as an italian count, sat at the open window, and smiled sadly at all the girls whose attention he could attract in the street below.
norman’s idea was a revue—a revue of any old thing: mona lisa, the sale of beautiful slaves, the salome dance by six-foot-two harry lowe, the innocent 241wench who took the wrong turning, etc., etc. he wanted to prepare the groundwork for the evening’s performance; the details could be filled in on the spur of the moment. but, in the afternoon rehearsal, several scenes, exciting the actors, were studied carefully to the most minute particular. kitty, in the meantime, was upstairs preparing food, her dainty hands fluttering over salads and sandwiches. at six, jolly, lovable little susie rushed from her work, revitalised everybody, and sang in her funny little voice, holding a cigarette in one hand and a saucepan in the other.
but before the rag proper began, many charming idiocies were enacted. warlow and eddie morrow walked to sloane square (it is conceivable that they called at the six bells on the way) for the sole purpose of riding back again in a taxi-cab, warlow in a great russian overcoat smothered in fur, eddie a little unkempt and looking as though he had just stepped out of one of j. m. synge’s plays. harry lowe telephoned a number of telegrams to a far-off post office where it was supposed there was a lady who owned his heart and sold postage stamps. norman morrow sat in a corner daubing pieces of brown paper with yellow paint and chuckling inconsequently to himself. all three studios, one above the other, appeared to be in glorious disorder, but, as a matter of fact, nearly every brain was busy with preparations, and by seven o’clock everything was ready for the great rag....
i cannot re-create the scene for you. i do not know quite how it is, but the gaiety, the light-heartedness of that most jolly evening ooze from my heart as i write. i am not sufficient of an artist to sweep from my heart all the sad, irrecoverable things that my heart remembers. especially, i cannot forget ivan heald, who now lies dead. (a year later he was to say to me, in that same studio: “this is a real good-bye, gerald. it is not possible that 242both of us will survive this.”... and, of course, it is he who has gone. one feels mean in surviving, in enjoying the savour of life, when one’s best friends have departed.) ...
the artistic irishman is a perfect actor, an inimitable mimic, and the two morrows surpassed everyone. if ever you have seen eddie morrow, it will appear to you inconceivable that he could ever make a good mona lisa. yet his mona lisa was perfect. he smiled so mysteriously, so faintly, so imaginatively, that walter pater, had he seen him, would have rewritten that swooning chapter which contains so much of art’s opiate.... i remember edith heald who, unexpectedly to me, revealed consummate art as a nigger-boy, her eyes rolling in rapt wonderment. i remember hearn’s eyeglasses, and the smiling eyes behind them, and the little scurry of words that occasionally came from his lips when something magical touched his spirit. and i can hear herbert hughes’ contented voice saying: “well, this is rather splendid, don’t you know.”
hughes was awfully good to me on these occasions, for he would allow me to improvise the music for the dumb charades, though as an extempore player—and, indeed, as a player of any kind—he is worlds above me. and i used to love to invent eastern dances à la bantock to fit the gyrations of harry lowe, or debussy chords for anything shadowy and sentimental, or chromatic melodies—prolonged and melting things in the “o star of eve” manner—for luscious love scenes, or fat, bulgy discords when some real tomfoolery was afoot.
you must imagine everybody gay and, occasionally, just a little riotous; in remembrance, it seems to me very beautiful because so happy and childlike. and you must imagine everybody very friendly, even to complete strangers. there was a carnival atmosphere. clever people were there with their brains burning bright. there 243were wit, music, wine, pretty women, courtesy, infinite good-will.
perhaps, towards midnight, we would seek change in quietness, and, lying on rugs spread on the waxed floor, would listen to norman singing, unaccompanied, an irish rebel song, and something a little hard would come into irish susie’s eyes for a moment or two, and i remember with regret how, some months after war had broken out, i said after norman had been singing that it was no longer pleasant to me to hear rebel songs. regret? yes; for when i said that i was a prig and was imagining myself as something of a soldier-hero. if only norman were alive now to sing whatsoever songs he liked!
well, the evening lapsed into night and the night into morn, and again we became boisterous and new ideas were put into shape and little tragedies were given in the burlesque manner. the resourcefulness of the mimes! the devilishly clever satire! the good spirits that never failed!...
. . . . . . . .
it is no use. i cannot describe for you one of those great nights, for the mood will not come. and one of the reasons why i cannot recapture the spirit of a chelsea rag as it was in the old days, is because whilst i am writing i have in my mind a picture of a very different kind.
. . . . . . . .
1918
early in 1918 i was in london for a brief period after an absence from england of more than two years spent in france, egypt, greece and serbia. my health was broken, my spirits were low. the chelsea people were dispersed; only hearn, with his lame foot, was left of the men, but several of the women were to be found. herbert hughes, by some miracle, was on leave, and he turned up 244unexpectedly one night at my flat. we talked quietly, laughed a little, had some music, and fell into silence.
“those great days!” said i, apropos of nothing.
“yes. nothing like them will come again. but all of us who remain alive and are still in england must meet. what about next sunday? we’ll meet at madame’s.”
and so it was arranged. next sunday there were seven of us to make merry, whereas in former days there were forty or fifty. but we seven were together once more: we who, as it were, had been saved—saved perhaps only temporarily.
it is a long studio in which we sit, but screens enclose a piano, the fireplace, a few rugs and chairs, and a table. madame is tall and quiet and distinguished; her light soprano voice conveys an impression of wistfulness, and her personality, full of charm and a sadness that does not conceal her courage, diffuses itself throughout the room. we have met together for a rag, but no one evinces the least desire to indulge in any violent jollity.
hughes goes to the piano, for a piano always draws him as a magnet draws steel, and sometimes, half-consciously, he feels the pull of one before he has seen it. he goes to the piano and, perking his nose at an angle of about forty degrees with the horizontal, plays french songs very quietly, whilst we sit gazing into the heart of the fire, each with his own thoughts, and probably each with the same thoughts—thoughts of harry lowe in greece, of gordon warlow in mesopotamia, of those who lie dead, though but two years before they were more alive than we ourselves, of those who have gone to france and never returned....
and madame, moving with our thoughts, gently rises and joins hughes and begins, her hands clasped on her breast, to sing with most alluring grace things by hahn, debussy and duparc. the music lulls us into a very luxury of sadness, into a mood in which grief loses its edge 245and sorrow its poignancy. to me, who have heard no music for two years, her singing is mercilessly beautiful, so beautiful, indeed, that my breathing becomes uneven and my eyes wet. and once again i feel that spinal shiver which, as a little boy, i used to experience when i heard an anthem by gounod or just caught the sound of a military band as it marched down another road.... i never used to run from the house to see the band, for even in those early days i had an intuitive knowledge that beauty is mystery, and that to probe mysteries is to mar, if not altogether to kill, beauty.... and to-night, when madame comes to the end of each song, i do not speak, i scarcely breathe, so fearful am i that the spell may be broken. but something of the spell lasts even when she ceases singing altogether and, looking at my wife, i know that she feels it too—that, indeed, all in our little company are more quietly happy, more reconciled to all the brutality and ugliness over the sea, than we have been for a long age.
we talk in quiet tones about the past, the present and the future, each contributing something to the common stock of conversation. madame brings us tea and cakes, and we listen to the dim rumour of traffic in king’s road. and then, not very late, moved by a common impulse, we rise to leave, and talking softly as we go, make our way outside where, as we did in that spot three years ago, we say farewell, wondering as we do so what fate has in store for each of us and whether for one or more of us this is the end of our life in chelsea—a life in which we have worked hard and played hard, enjoying both work and play, and in which we have been carelessly unmindful of the danger lying in wait for our country.
