The House by the River

By A. P. Herbert.

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I

The Whittakers were At Home every Wednesday. No one else in Hammerton Chase was officially At Home at any time. So everyone went to the Whittakers’ on Wednesdays.

There are still a few intimate corners in London where people, other than the poor, are positively acquainted with their neighbours. And Hammerton Chase is one of these. In heartless Kensington we know no more of our neighbour than we may gather from furtive references to the Red Book and Who’s Who, or stealthy reconnaissances from behind the dining-room curtains as he goes forth in the morning to his work and to his labour. Our communication with him is limited to the throwing back over the garden-wall of his children’s balls, aeroplanes, and spears, or—in the lowest parts of Kensington—to testy hammerings with the fire-irons towards the close of his musical evenings. Overt, deliberate, avoidable, social intercourse with any person living in the same street or the same block of mansions is a thing unknown. What true Londoner remembers going to an At Home, a dance, a musical evening, or other entertainment in his own street? Who is there who regards with friendship the occupant of the opposite flat?

Hammerton Chase could scarcely be regarded as a street. A short half-mile of old and dignified houses, clustered irregularly in all shapes and sizes along the sunny side of the Thames, with large trees and little gardens fringing the bank across the road, and, lying opposite, the Island, a long triangle of young willows, the haunt of wild duck and heron and swan—it had a unique, incomparable character of its own. It was like neither street, nor road, nor avenue, nor garden, nor any other urban unit of place in London, or indeed, it was locally supposed, in the world. It had something, perhaps, of an old village and something of a Cathedral Close, something of Venice and something of the sea. But it was sui generis. It was The Chase, W 6. And the W 6 was generally considered to be superfluous.

But, whatever it was, it prided itself on the intimate and sociable relations of its members. They were all on friendly terms with each other, and knew exactly the circumstances and employment, the ambitions, plans, and domestic crises of each other at any given moment. They “dropped in” at each other’s houses for conversation and informal entertainment; they borrowed wineglasses for their dinner-parties and tools for their gardens and anchors for their boats. They were a community, a self-sufficient community, isolated geographically from their natural homes in Chelsea and Kensington, W, by the dreary wilderness of West Kensington and the barbarous expanse of Hammersmith, and clinging almost pathetically together in their little oasis of civilization.

And yet they were not suburban. They were in physical fact on the actual borders of London County; they were six miles from Charing Cross. But Ealing and the suburbs are farther still. And the soul of Ealing was many leagues removed from the soul of The Chase, which, like The Chase, was something not elsewhere to be discovered.

So that on Wednesdays the Whittakers were At Home in the evening, and everyone went. Andrew Whittaker was an artist and art-critic; though for various reasons he devoted more time to criticism than to execution. Mrs. Whittaker wrote novels in the intervals of engaging a new servant or dismissing an old one, and grappling undaunted with the domestic crisis which either operation produced. They were both exceedingly pleasant, cultivated, and feckless people, and they well represented the soul of The Chase. Indeed, no one else was so well fitted to collect the bodies of The Chase together on Wednesdays.

On this Wednesday there were fewer bodies than usual in the grey drawing-room. It was a moist and thunderous evening, very heavy and still, and many of The Chase were gasping quietly in their own little gardens, reluctant to enter a house of any kind. And there were one or two households vaguely “away in the country.” It was rather the habit of true members of The Chase to “go away” in May, or in June, or in any month but August, not simply because it was a wise and sensible thing to do, August being an overrated and tumultuous month in the country, not only because if you lived in the airy Chase the common craving of Londoners to escape from London in August did not affect you, but chiefly because if you lived in The Chase that was the kind of thing you did.

Mrs. Whittaker was a little distressed by the meagre attendance. Six or seven ladies of The Chase, Mr. Dimple, the barrister, Mr. Mard, the architect, and his wife were there; but these were all elderly and unexciting, and without some powerful stimulus from the outer world it was impossible to prevent them from discussing food and domestic servants. Domestic worries dominated their lives. Life in The Chase was one long domestic worry. And the great problem of Mrs. Whittaker’s At Homes was to prevent people from talking about servants, food, and domestic worries. Her method was to invite large numbers of artistic, literary, and otherwise interesting people from distant London, who were apparently immune from domestic worries or were at any rate capable of excluding them from their conversation. The artistic element was thinly represented this evening by a psychologist from Oxford and a dramatic critic. But, nobly though they strove to discuss the drama and the mind, they were hopelessly swamped by a loud discussion on domestic servants and food among the ladies of The Chase, vigorously led by Mrs. Vincent and Mrs. Church. Mrs. Ralph Vincent was a carroty-haired lady of extraordinary aggressiveness and defiant juvenility in the face of her forty-five summers and seven children. Mrs. Church was the widow-daughter of old Mrs. Ambrose, who was ninety and extremely deaf. Mrs. Church herself had an unfortunate stutter. Yet these two ladies, living together at Island View, practically constituted the Intelligence Staff of The Chase. They knew everything. They never went out, except on Wednesdays to the Whittakers’, when the indomitable Mrs. Ambrose strode unaided under the splendid elms to Willow House and laboured by stages up the narrow stairs. But their agents came to them daily for teas and “little talks,” and handed over, willingly or no, the secrets of The Chase. Nor could it be said that either of them knew more or less than the other. Old Mrs. Ambrose prided herself on her lipreading, and no doubt Mrs. Church’s unfortunate impediment made it easier for the old lady to practise this art to advantage. Some said, indeed, that Mrs. Church’s stutter had been assumed in filial piety for this very purpose.

Mrs. Ambrose was busily endeavouring to read the lips of the psychologist and the dramatic critic, whom she suspected of being engaged in a discussion of unusual interest, if not actual indelicacy. People who knew of her supposed gift felt sometimes very uncomfortable about conversation in her presence, especially if they were speaking to some reckless person who did not know of it.

The voice of the psychologist was heard protesting to his host the sincerity and thoroughness of the Oxford method. Whittaker stood patiently in front of him with a trayful of homemade cocktails. “We make them concentrate … a priori … processes of thought … lectures … philosophy … system. …”

Then domesticity broke out again, and Mrs. Whittaker, listening with one ear to each party, raged furiously within. “Mary takes the children in the morning … the gas-oven … margarine … the geyser … the front doorstep … pull out the damper … simply walked out of the house … margarine … Mrs. Walker’s Bureau … butter … very good references … margarine … the principles of reasoning … what about Susan? … margarine … a month’s wages … margarine … thought-circles … washing-up … a lady-help … margarine. …”

Mrs. Whittaker despaired. Were none of her artistic circle coming? She went over to her husband and whispered fiercely, “Are the Byrnes coming? Go out and ring them up. Tell them they simply must.”

Whittaker deposited his tray in the arms of the psychologist and went out; the psychologist assumed the air of one who is equal to any emergency, and sat solemnly embracing the tray.

When Whittaker came back there was a wide grin on his pleasant face. He announced:

“The Byrnes are coming in a minute—and he’s bringing the Choir.”

“Oh, good,” said Mrs. Whittaker, and echoing approvals came from several of the company.

The psychologist said, “Is that Stephen Byrne?” in an awed voice, and tried not to look as impressed and gratified as he felt when Whittaker assured him that it was. The elderly ladies looked more cheerful, and abandoned the barren topic of domestic worries to discuss poetry and Mr. Byrne. Mrs. Ambrose said, “I like Mr. Byrne”; Mrs. Church said, “A nice man, Mr. Byrne”; Mrs. Vincent said, “Such a nice couple, the Byrnes.”

There were many accomplished people living in The Chase, but Stephen Byrne was the lion of them all; there were many delightful people living in The Chase, but Stephen Byrne was the darling of them all. He was the gem, the treasure of The Chase. Indeed, he was the treasure of England. He was a real poet. Men had heard of him before the war; but it was in the years of war that he had come to greatness. He was one of a few men who had been able in a few fine poems to set free for the nation a little of the imprisoned grandeur, the mute emotion of that time. But none of all those young men, who found their voices suddenly in the war and spoke with astonishment the splendid feelings of the people, had so touched the imagination, had so nearly expressed the tenderness of England, as Stephen Byrne. At twenty-seven he was a great man—a national idol.

No wonder, therefore, that The Chase delighted in him. But there was more. He was personally delightful. So many successful men are unusually ugly, or unusually bad-tempered, or soured, or boorish, or intolerably rude; and the people of The Chase, being essentially a critical people and far too noble to be capable of intellectual snobbery, would not have given their hearts to a successful poet if he had been ugly or boorish or intolerably rude. Stephen Byrne was none of these things—but handsome and affable and beautifully mannered. And so they loved him.

While they were waiting for him it grew dark and a little cooler, and more of The Chase came in. Mr. Dunk, the American, came in, and Petway, of the Needlework Guild, and Morrison, the publisher. After them came Mr. and Mrs. Stimpson. Stimpson was a Civil Servant, but his lifework was cabinetmaking. Mrs. Stimpson was an execrable housekeeper and mother, but knitted with extraordinary finish. Knitting was her craft; cabinetmaking was her husband’s craft. Everybody had a craft of some kind in The Chase. They all made things or did things, which nobody made or did in Kensington.