The Man Who Understood Women and Other Stories/The Tale that Wouldn't Do
THE TALE THAT WOULDN'T DO
"I can tell what's the matter with you," said the Bachelor Girl. "You've got a story to write!"
I had merely shaken hands with her, put down my hat, and chosen a chair by the fire; so I was surprised.
"My dear Sherlock Holmes!" I exclaimed, "this is wonderful. Accustomed as I am to your offensive society, I must own that I fail to see"
"Nothing could be plainer, my poor Watson," she returned; "I have observed that you never look so unhappy as when you have to do any work."
Like all her deductions, the thing was marvellously simple when she explained it.
Her baptismal name is "Patricia." She is an extraordinarily nice girl, with seventeen faces. She changes them while she talks. There are, her moody face that is almost ugly, and her hopeless face with tragedy in it, and her radiant face that's bewildering—and the fourteen others. If she didn't laugh at orange blossoms, you might approve her.
"Well, it's quite true," I answered; "I have a story to write—or, rather, I haven't a story, and I'm obliged to write one. I want to find a story about love; something piquant and yet tender, with"
"Egyptian or American?" she asked sharply, passing the cigarettes.
"American," I said, "but it won't prevent my going on. Something piquant and yet tender, with a note of pathos, and a vein of sentiment, and"
"Columns of drivel!" she put in. "What do you mean by coming here on a wet day and babbling about sentiment? Don't you know how ill it always makes me? Now, never mind your story; be a good fellow and cheer me up; I haven't met a man for a month."
"I'm not a 'man'—I'm married," I mentioned.
"And don't talk to me as if I were a Chiffon Girl, or we shall fall out. Think I want you to flirt with me?"
"I have no illusions left. Besides, I don't believe you could manage to flirt. Did you ever try?"
"Once."
"You don't say so! Was it a success?"
"Tremendous." She nodded. "Biggest joke you ever heard."
"Really?" I said. "Don't get up to make the tea, then. Keep where you are, and tell me about it."
So she crossed her feet on the fender and told me.
"There was somebody I knew," she said—"Bob. That wasn't his name really, but"
"We can let him go at 'Bob,’" I agreed; "there's no need to give him away."
"I was only a kid—about nineteen—just beginning to paint. You wouldn't have known me in those days; I was 'utter'—intensely 'utter'—to look at; I used to flop, like the Burne-Jones things; I wore garments, and my hair so!" She showed me her comedy face, one of the "fourteen others." "He said I was a good fellow when one found me out, and told me not to make a guy of myself. I'd have boxed anybody else's ears, but I liked Dick."
"We re-christened him 'Bob,’" I reminded her.
"Oh, yes. Well, I've let it slip now. It doesn't matter—it was no one you know. He said my clothes and my slang didn't harmonise, and that I was bound to change one or the other. I couldn't change my slang, so I bought a human frock, and he sent me a hundred Nestors as 'A Present for a Good Child.' Don't run away with the idea that I was sentimental about him; we were chums. He used to say the reason he took to me was that I wasn't silly like a girl; he used to say I was the best pal he had. He was only two or three and twenty—younger than I was, in some ways. … The poker's your side—stir the fire!
"Yes, we were awfully good pals for years. When he went to work in Paris—did I tell you he was an artist?—when he went to work in Paris, I could have howled with loneliness. I was so dull! I didn't seem to have anybody to say my best things to. Have you ever missed anyone like that? Something funny would come into my mind, and I'd wish I could say it to him; I'd think, 'Wouldn't it be lovely to be saying it to Dick!' Don't you know the feeling? I don't think I was ever so near to howling as when I'd thought of something funny. … I hope you do understand that I wasn't sentimental? If you fancy I felt anything but friendship for him, I shan't tell you any more."
"I understand perfectly," I said.
"Of course, we wrote to each other. But I was never good at letters—and, anyhow, what's the use of saying funny things if you can't hear the man laugh? He was away about a year. He had meant to stay for two or three, but one day- he wrote that he was coming home sooner than he had expected. He turned up the next afternoon; and it was 'Dick!' and 'Pat!' and 'Well, it is good to see you again!' You know! The first few minutes were jolly. Then I saw that he was keeping something back.
"I said, 'What you're going to do, is to sit down there and tell me all about it. You're in trouble, and I want to hear.'
"‘What a brick you are!' he exclaimed—a man's always astonished when you notice anything that's as plain as a pillar-box; a woman would have been waiting for me to say it from the moment she came into the room.
"‘Is it money?' I said.
"‘Well, in a way,' he said, 'it is money.'
"He had a small income from somewhere or other, but I had known him hard up for a thick 'un, and I thought perhaps I might be of use. I could have lent him a fiver just then without any bother, as it happened; so I asked him how much he wanted.
"‘About a thousand a year,' he answered.
"Well, that told me everything and I couldn't speak for a second. He was only my friend, but he was such a dear, good friend, and I knew it would never be the same thing between us any more. …
"‘Who is she?' I said.
"That started him, and he gave me a catalogue of her fascinations that made me tired. She was a Chiffon Girl. She had gone over to Paris with his sister, and been taken to see Dick's studio. Tea and twaddle!—he admitted she didn't know anything about art. 'Girlish,' he called her; I could imagine her in the studio—saying an artist's work must be 'such fun,' and calling every picture 'sweet'!
"By what he said, it seemed to me she was treating him pretty badly, for all she was so 'girlish.' She wasn't satisfied to accept him, and she wasn't satisfied to let him go. Didn't want to marry a poor man, but didn't want to lose his admiration. For the last six months he seemed to have been always bidding her an eternal farewell, and getting a note from her about nothing a week afterwards. She was back in London now—that was why he was here. His gush about her gave me a headache.
"‘It's a treat to be able to talk it over with you, Pat,' he said.
"‘Yes,' I said—'ripping!'
"He wanted to know if I thought she liked him.
"Well, it was clear she liked him, though whether she liked him enough to live in a fifth-floor flat in West Kensington I had my doubts. But she wasn't nearly good enough for him, that was the main thing. I said:
"‘Even if she'll have you, are you sure that you're wise to go in for marriage yet? Don't think I'm speaking selfishly, old man; we shall never forget we were pals, you and I, and I'll drop in sometimes after you're married and smoke a cigarette with you—if your wife will have me—just the same. It's you I'm thinking of—your own happiness. We've both such real pals, Dick—I know I may talk frankly to you: won't you be hampering your work? Won't you have to sink your ideals, and paint "The New Kitchens" and "Baby's First Rattle" to make the pot boil? Are you sure the game's worth the chandler's shop? Girls are good fun at a dance, or to flirt with up the river, but to settle down with one of them for life, dear boy!—a fellow's got to reckon up the cost!'
"Of course, he wouldn't listen—told me I was a confirmed Bachelor Girl and couldn't understand.
"‘If you'd ever been fond of anybody yourself,' he said, 'you'd know that, when one really loves, nothing else matters. I don't mind what I "sink," I don't mind the cost; I want Rosie—she's worth all the pictures in the world.'
"‘Sh!' I said, 'don't blaspheme! And dear old chap, don't think I'm unsympathetic—you asked me for advice, and I gave it to you honestly, that's all.'
"‘You were always a good sort, Pat,' he said. 'But I didn't ask you for advice—I asked you if you thought she liked me.'
"‘Oh, as far as that goes,' I said, 'I dare say you could marry her if you went the right way about it.'
"You should have seen him jump! 'How?'
"‘So now you are asking me for advice!' I said. 'Well, don't make yourself so cheap, Dick.' (It was horrid to have to tell Dick he had 'made himself cheap'; I hated her for it; but it was true.) 'You've run back to her every time she lifted a finger. Show her you mean what you say. You can offer her a home—of a kind— and you've got a future, if you don't let circumstances spoil it. Very well, then. Tell her she's got to marry you, or say "good-bye" to you once and for all.'
"He answered that he had told her so.
"‘Yes,' I said, 'repeatedly! But tell her so, and stick to what you say. The next time she whistles, don't go. She'll like you twice as much for it.'
"I think it surprised him to find that I understood anything about girls; but I was a girl myself, though he didn't seem to remember it.
"He cheered up wonderfully after that. Funny my coaching him how to win her when I didn't want him to, wasn't it? But he trusted me, and I was bound to play straight with him: I should have been a cad if I hadn't played straight with him when he was trusting me. Still, it was funny, you know—it makes me laugh whenever I think of it."
I detected no amusement in her voice. She paused a moment.
"He dropped in a few days afterwards," she went on, "and told me he had done it. He told me she had said she liked him very much, but didn't want to marry; and that he had wished her 'good-bye.'
"‘Don't "come down" in a hurry this time,' I said; 'when you hear from her next week, send her a few civil lines, and sit tight.'
"Of course he did hear from her—congratulating him on getting into the Academy, and saying she was going to see his picture on Monday afternoon. And when my lady went, he wasn't there. One to Dick!
"It was a black Monday for me, though—I had nothing but 'Rosie' all day long!
"And that was only the beginning of it. She didn't make another move for two or three months, and he thought he had lost her. He weakened then. He told me he used to tramp the room, thinking, half the night. His sister and I were the only people who knew—and his sister had gone to Pangbourne, so I got it all. Rather rough on me! But I was awfully sorry for him—I was sorry for him! His eyes in the morning!
"Then the girl made another step—she fished for an invitation to spend a week at Pangbourne. By that time he was in such a fever that he wanted to propose to her again as soon as she arrived, but his sister said 'No'; she said the best thing he could do was to make the girl fancy he was getting over it. I don't know how much trouble she had with him, but she rubbed her idea in pretty thoroughly, for he came and asked me to help him.
"He said, 'Alice thinks'—Alice was his sister's name; he said, 'Alice thinks I ought to be down there when Rosie comes, and pretend I don't mind any more.'
"‘If you go at all,' I said, 'that is what you ought to do at first.'
"He said, 'She thinks if Rosie once saw me making up to somebody else, it'd be all right.'
"‘Well, I always told you that you had let her feel too sure of you,' I said.
"‘The only thing is,' he said, 'there's no other girl there. Will you come down and see me through, Pat?'
"I did flare out then! To ask me to—I mean it did seem Well, it was a little too much!
"He was all apologies in a minute. I never saw a man so taken aback in all mv life. 'No idea of offending me—I had been such a pal that he didn't imagine I'd cut up rough.' Said he had asked me as he might have asked Alice, only as Alice was his sister she'd be no use. He kept saying how sorry he was to have annoyed me—and looked amazed!
"Well, in the end I said I'd go. If you had heard him you'd understand—it was such a trifle, in the way he put it, and it seemed so strange of me to make a fuss. 'Oh,' I said, 'I don't care—I'll go down and talk with you if you like! Why not?'
"So I went. He treated Rosie beautifully—a nice friendly manner that widened her eyes. Blue eyes—and a dolly complexion, and flaxen hair; she only needed the ticket—'My clothes take off'! But she was very pretty—nothing to find fault with, excepting that she hadn't a brain. Alice had invited a man who didn't count to take her in to luncheon, and Dick took me. Rosie was displeased with me at luncheon. Afterwards Dick showed me the garden, and I brought him back with a flower in his button-hole. Rosie was worried. During the evening, in the moonlight, I said pensively it must be divine on the water now—and Rosie looked as if she hoped I'd be drowned.
"We were away about an hour. Curious—we had never been on the river together before. He didn't bore me too much about her; he talked of his work, and mine, and—we had a lot in common. … It was about the last time we really did have a talk together.
"Oh, well, he had the game in his hands from the beginning! Before we had been down there two days he told me they were engaged.
"‘Hurrah!' I said. 'Good luck to you, old man.'
"‘You've been a trump,' he said; 'if it hadn't been for you, she might never have known her own heart. I'm so grateful to you, Pat, I'd like to kiss you.'
"‘Oh, rats!' I said—'I don't go in for sentiment.’"
The Bachelor Girl's voice trembled. She paused again.
"I had flirted, though," she added defiantly, "when Rosie was watching; and it was a great joke. They were married in the autumn. I never see him now, but he's selling 'The New Kittens' and 'Baby's First Rattle' for big prices. … It's time we had tea. Well, you wanted to think of a tale, and you've been told one instead. Not that it would do for you—it isn't pathetic."
"It wouldn't do at all," I said, "it's very humorous."
And I looked at the fire as I answered, because I knew she was crying.