Conrad Aiken: The Collected Short Stories of Conrad Aiken

“But isn’t that a little gem?” said Mr. Lynton. “Isn’t it a marvel ?”

“I particularly like the sand,” crowed Mrs. Lynton. “And do you know why it’s so good, so sandlike?”

“Just feel it, Mrs. Beebe,” said Mr. Lynton, positively purring through his beard, “it even feels like sand!”

My mother felt of the beach, sceptically.

“Now, doesn’t it?” cried Mrs. Lynton. “And do you know why?”

“No,” said my mother, a little coldly, and drawing back from the easel. “Why?” Her voice was curiously flat.

“Because I mixed sand with the paint!”

This was a dramatic moment: we were expected to be impressed. It was, as it were, the very last word an æstheticism. The Lyntons glowed at us. They waited with delighted eagerness for our praise, our astonishment. But instead my mother became all at once quite acid.

“I’m afraid,” she said, “I think that’s just sentimental nonsense. Do you want to scratch matches on it?”

It was as if a torpedo had been exploded in the room. Mr. Lynton walked toward the window and blew his nose. My father looked sheepish. And in an instant the whole party had obviously come to an end—the gayety seemed false, the studio looked tawdry, we all felt poor and miserable, there was nothing to say. We drank the bad coffee, which Mrs. Lynton presently brought us, vainly endeavored to make her talk or laugh again, and then, a little later, went home.

That was the end of the curious intimacy between the Lyntons and the Beebes. A week later, the Lyntons moved away from Oxford Street. And six months later, we learned from the Herald one morning that Mrs. Lynton had died of pneumonia. I believe a note of condolence was written, and was never answered—and we never saw Mr. Lynton again.

I.

It was five o’clock, dark, and beginning to drizzle. I crossed Oxford Street by the Marble Arch, wondering what to do—for I had no raincoat—and my eye fell on the signboards of a small cinema theater. There was an early Chaplin film—“The Pawnshop”—and I could think of no better way of passing an hour; so without hesitation I approached the woven-wire guichet , pushed a shilling and two coppers through the little pigeonhole, received a metal ticket in exchange, and walked into the dark theater. A color-film was on the screen—and a string quartet, with a tinny piano, was playing, or trying to play, the “Unfinished Symphony.” I sank into the seat illuminated by the usher’s electric torch, lit a cigarette, and watched a procession of muleteers descending a rocky gorge. It was somewhere in Spain. The rocks were red, glaucous prickly-pears leaned above them, the donkeys picked their way down a winding pathway, with wagging bells. The riders, sitting astride the little beasts, and wearing wide-brimmed hats, looked enormous by comparison. They came to a ford—the water was beautifully green. The donkeys plunged in with no sign of alarm save that they put back their ears; and then, floundering out on the farther bank, among broken rocks and poppies, wound in single file through an orchard of cherry trees, which were in bloom. The colors were excellent—the trees looked as if they were foaming. I stretched out my legs, relaxed, and began watching the film with that dazed and hypnotized fascination with which one always watches an ever-changing motion. As one follows the flowing of a stream, with its innumerable sparkles and fluctuations of shadow and gleam, so I followed this soundless cataract of adventure in Andalusia. London, and February in London, and my engagement for the evening with the Proctors, became remote and unreal.

It was after half an hour or so of this state of abstraction that I became aware of the woman who sat on my left. I had felt a sort of stealthy pressure from her—very much as if she were trying to pick my pocket; and on looking down sharply to see what she was doing, I found that she had dropped her right hand over the arm of the chair, allowing it to rest against my side. I looked quickly then at her face, which, in the dim light, I could see to be that of a woman middle-aged. She knew that I was observing her, but she made no effort to withdraw her hand. Instead, after a moment, she leaned more closely toward me, so that her elbow pressed hard against mine. At the same moment, also, with the least perceptible motion of her face and eyes, she stole a quick glance at me, simultaneously giving a discreet little middle-aged cough.

My first feeling was one of cynical amusement. I withdrew, as gently and inoffensively as I could; and then it occurred to me that this was rather heartless. Besides, I was curious. So without more ado, I took out my cigarette case and offered her a cigarette. She accepted it with a quietly said “Thank you,” I lighted it for her, she slipped her arm through mine, and we began a desultory conversation about the film. She didn’t like Chaplin—she thought he was vulgar; but she liked Harold Lloyd. She was very fond of Theda Bara, and of the vampire type of film in general. She told me that Theda Bara had been born on an oasis in the Sahara Desert. She thought she had a marvelously beautiful mouth, and that she looked as if she were very passionate. I countered by saying that my own favorite movie-actress was Mary Pickford. At this point, Charlie was taking the alarm clock to pieces on the counter of the pawnshop. I laughed, and she gave me a look of tolerant disdain.

“How can you see anything funny in it,” she said.

I replied that I thought he was simply delicious.

Her answer to this was a disquieting squeeze of my arm. It became apparent that she was going to make love to me. The idea was not in the least attractive—it struck me as grotesque. For an instant, I felt trapped; a kind of amused panic seized me; I wondered how on earth I was going to get out of the situation. I had cruelly misled the poor thing—it would be impossible for me simply to get up and walk away. I thought rapidly, and then suggested that we go out and have tea, or a drink.

“Don’t you want to stay here?” she said.

“No, I’m thirsty. And I’ve seen this picture before.”

She hesitated, as if disappointed.

“All right,” she said. “I’ve had my tea, but I wouldn’t mind having a glass of port.”

She rose, clasping the feather boa round her neck, and we went down the aisle to the emergency-exit at the left of the stage. Pushing through the heavy plush curtains, we found ourselves in a bare stone corridor. It was here that I had my first good look at her. She was a woman of about fifty—small, shabby, pathetic, fadedly genteel. When they were new, her brown satin dress and tweed coat must have been “good”; but now they looked weather-beaten. Her shoes were scarred and down at the heel; her stockings (which passed for white) were mud-spattered; the feather boa had moulted about half of its feathers.

I took in all this as I held the door open for her; and I found myself smiling at her in an effort to conceal my real feelings. I was terribly afraid that she would guess my attitude—that she would be hurt. Would she imagine—and justly—that I was somewhat chagrined at finding myself in such company? I smiled, therefore, to encourage her; and I must admit that I smiled also because there was something in her face and in her tired blue eyes which moved me to sympathy. It was a dilapidated face—red where it should have been white, and white where it should have been red—but for all its dilapidation it was a face not without charm, and must once have been pretty. Pretty, but weak. Charming, but destined for defeat. Life had been too much for her; and she had become (I could see at a glance) one of that countless army of semi-respectable women who frequent, after nightfall, the “family bar”.… She smiled back at me, affectionately, taking my arm; and we scuttled round the corner to the King’s Head. It was raining hard. The idea of sitting in a warm pub, and drinking port, was not unpleasant.