The Old Wives' Tale by Arnold Bennett (carter reed txt) 📕

“I don’t know,” said Peel-Swynnerton.

This was a lie, justified in the utterer’s opinion as a repulse to Mr. Mardon’s vulgar inquisitiveness, such inquisitiveness as might have been expected from a fellow who tucked his serviette under his chin. Peel-Swynnerton knew exactly how long he would stay. He would stay until the day after the morrow; he had only about fifty francs in his pocket. He had been making a fool of himself in another quarter of Paris, and he had descended to the Pension Frensham as a place where he could be absolutely sure of spending not more than twelve francs a day. Its reputation was high, and it was convenient for the Galliera Museum, where he was making some drawings which he had come to Paris expressly to make, and without which he could not reputably return to England. He was capable of foolishness, but he was also capable of wisdom, and scarcely any pressure of need would have induced him to write home for money to replace the money spent on making himself into a fool.

Mr. Mardon was conscious of a check. But, being of an accommodating disposition, he at once tried another direction.

“Good food here, eh?” he suggested.

“Very,” said Peel-Swynnerton, with sincerity. “I was quite—”

At that moment, a tall straight woman of uncertain age pushed open the principal door and stood for an instant in the doorway. Peel-Swynnerton had just time to notice that she was handsome and pale, and that her hair was black, and then she was gone again, followed by a clipped poodle that accompanied her. She had signed with a brief gesture to one of the servants, who at once set about lighting the gas-jets over the table.

“Who is that?” asked Peel-Swynnerton, without reflecting that it was now he who was making advances to the fellow whose napkin covered all his shirt-front.

“That’s the missis, that is,” said Mr. Mardon, in a lower and semi-confidential voice.

“Oh! Mrs. Frensham?”

“Yes. But her real name is Scales,” said Mr. Mardon, proudly.

“Widow, I suppose?”

“Yes.”

“And she runs the whole show?”

“She runs the entire contraption,” said Mr. Mardon, solemnly; “and don’t you make any mistake!” He was getting familiar.

Peel-Swynnerton beat him off once more, glancing with careful, uninterested nonchalance at the gas-burners which exploded one after another with a little plop under the application of the maid’s taper. The white table gleamed more whitely than ever under the flaring gas. People at the end of the room away from the window instinctively smiled, as though the sun had begun to shine. The aspect of the dinner was changed, ameliorated; and with the reiterated statement that the evenings were drawing in though it was only July, conversation became almost general. In two minutes Mr. Mardon was genially talking across the whole length of the table. The meal finished in a state that resembled conviviality.

Matthew Peel-Swynnerton might not go out into the crepuscular delights of Paris. Unless he remained within the shelter of the Pension, he could not hope to complete successfully his re-conversion from folly to wisdom. So he bravely passed through the small rose-embroidered door into a small glass-covered courtyard, furnished with palms, wicker armchairs, and two small tables; and he lighted a pipe and pulled out of his pocket a copy of The Referee. That retreat was called the Lounge; it was the only part of the Pension where smoking was not either a positive crime or a transgression against good form. He felt lonely. He said to himself grimly in one breath that pleasure was all rot, and in the next he sullenly demanded of the universe how it was that pleasure could not go on for ever, and why he was not Mr. Barney Barnato. Two old men entered the retreat and burnt cigarettes with many precautions. Then Mr. Lewis Mardon appeared and sat down boldly next to Matthew, like a privileged friend. After all, Mr. Mardon was better than nobody whatever, and Matthew decided to suffer him, especially as he began without preliminary skirmishing to talk about life in Paris. An irresistible subject! Mr. Mardon said in a worldly tone that the existence of a bachelor in Paris might easily be made agreeable. But that, of course, for himself—well, he preferred, as a general rule, the Pension Frensham sort of thing; and it was excellent for his business. Still he could not … he knew … He compared the advantages of what he called ‘knocking about’ in Paris, with the equivalent in London. His information about London was out of date, and Peel-Swynnerton was able to set him right on important details. But his information about Paris was infinitely precious and interesting to the younger man,, who saw that he had hitherto lived under strange misconceptions.

“Have a whiskey?” asked Mr. Mardon, suddenly. “Very good here!” he added.

“Thanks!” drawled Peel-Swynnerton.

The temptation to listen to Mr. Mardon as long as Mr. Mardon would talk was not to be overcome. And presently, when the old men had departed, they were frankly telling each other stories in the dimness of the retreat. Then, when the supply of stories came to an end, Mr. Mardon smacked his lips over the last drop of whiskey and ejaculated: “Yes!” as if giving a general confirmation to all that had been said.

“Do have one with me,” said Matthew, politely. It was the least he could do.

The second supply of whiskies was brought into the Lounge by Mr. Mardon’s Marie. He smiled on her familiarly, and remarked that he supposed she would soon be going to bed after a hard day’s work. She gave a moue and a flounce in reply, and swished out.

“Carries herself well, doesn’t she?” observed Mr. Mardon, as though Marie had been an exhibit at an agricultural show. “Ten years ago she was very fresh and pretty, but of course it takes it out of ‘em, a place like this!”

“But still,” said Peel-Swynnerton, “they must like it or they wouldn’t stay—that is, unless things are very different here from what they are in England.”

The conversation seemed to have stimulated him to examine the woman question in all its bearings, with philosophic curiosity.

“Oh! They LIKE it,” Mr. Mardon assured him, as one who knew. “Besides, Mrs. Scales treats ‘em very well. I know THAT. She’s told me. She’s very particular”—he looked around to see if walls had ears—“and, by Jove, you’ve got to be; but she treats ‘em well. You’d scarcely believe the wages they get, and pickings. Now at the Hotel Moscow—know the Hotel Moscow?”

Happily Peel-Swynnerton did. He had been advised to avoid it because it catered exclusively for English visitors, but in the Pension Frensham he had accepted something even more exclusively British than the Hotel Moscow. Mr. Mardon was quite relieved at his affirmative.

“The Hotel Moscow is a limited company now,’ said he; “English.”

“Really?”

“Yes. I floated it. It was my idea. A great success! That’s how I know all about the Hotel Moscow.” He looked at the walls again. “I wanted to do the same here,” he murmured, and Peel-Swynnerton had to show that he appreciated this confidence. “But she never would agree. I’ve tried her all ways. No go! It’s a thousand pities.”

“Paying thing, eh?”

“This place? I should say it was! And I ought to be able to judge, I reckon. Mrs. Scales is one of the shrewdest women you’d meet in a day’s march. She’s made a lot of money here, a lot of money. And there’s no reason why a place like this shouldn’t be five times as big as it is. Ten times. The scope’s unlimited, my dear sir. All that’s wanted is capital. Naturally she has capital of her own, and she could get more. But then, as she says, she doesn’t want the place any bigger. She says it’s now just as big as she can handle. That isn’t so. She’s a woman who could handle anything—a born manager—but even if it was so, all she would have to do would be to retire—only leave us the place and the name. It’s the name that counts. And she’s made the name of Frensham worth something, I can tell you!”

“Did she get the place from her husband?” asked Peel-Swynnerton. Her own name of Scales intrigued him.

Mr. Mardon shook his head. “Bought it on her own, after the husband’s time, for a song—a song! I know, because I knew the original Frenshams.”

“You must have been in Paris a long time,” said Peel-Swynnerton.

Mr. Mardon could never resist an opportunity to talk about himself. His was a wonderful history. And Peel-Swynnerton, while scorning the man for his fatuity, was impressed. And when that was finished—

“Yes!” said Mr. Mardon after a pause,, reaffirming everything in general by a single monosyllable.

Shortly afterwards he rose, saying that his habits were regular.

“Good-night,’ he said with a mechanical smile.

“G-good-night,” said Peel-Swynnerton, trying to force the tone of fellowship and not succeeding. Their intimacy, which had sprung up like a mushroom, suddenly fell into dust. Peel-Swynnerton’s unspoken comment to Mr. Mardon’s back was: “Ass!” Still, the sum of Peel-Swynnerton’s knowledge had indubitably been increased during the evening. And the hour was yet early. Half-past ten! The Folies-Marigny, with its beautiful architecture and its crowds of white toilettes, and its frothing of champagne and of beer, and its musicians in tight red coats, was just beginning to be alive— and at a distance of scarcely a stone’s-throw! Peel-Swynnerton pictured the terraced, glittering hall, which had been the prime origin of his exceeding foolishness. And he pictured all the other resorts, great and small, garlanded with white lanterns, in the Champs Elysees; and the sombre aisles of the Champs Elysees where mysterious pale figures walked troublingly under the shade of trees, while snatches of wild song or absurd brassy music floated up from the resorts and restaurants. He wanted to go out and spend those fifty francs that remained in his pocket. After all, why not telegraph to England for more money? “Oh, damn it!” he said savagely, and stretched his arms and got up. The Lounge was very small, gloomy and dreary.

One brilliant incandescent light burned in the hall, crudely illuminating the wicker fauteuils, a corded trunk with a blue-and- red label on it, a Fitzroy barometer, a map of Paris, a coloured poster of the Compagnie Transatlantique, and the mahogany retreat of the hall-portress. In that retreat was not only the hall-portress—an aged woman with a white cap above her wrinkled pink face—but the mistress of the establishment. They were murmuring together softly; they seemed to be well disposed to one another. The portress was respectful, but the mistress was respectful also. The hall, with its one light tranquilly burning, was bathed in an honest calm, the calm of a day’s work accomplished, of gradual relaxation from tension, of growing expectation of repose. In its simplicity it affected Peel-Swynnerton as a medicine tonic for nerves might have affected him. In that hall, though exterior nocturnal life was but just stirring into activity, it seemed that the middle of the night had come, and that these two women alone watched in a mansion full of sleepers. And all the recitals which Peel-Swynnerton and Mr. Mardon had exchanged sank to the level of pitiably foolish gossip. Peel-Swynnerton felt that his duty to the house was to retire to bed. He felt, too, that he could not leave the house without saying that he was going out, and that he lacked the courage deliberately to tell these two women that he was going out—at that time of night! He dropped into one of the chairs and made a second attempt to peruse The Referee. Useless! Either his mind was outside in the Champs Elysees, or his