r It /^ "^rMu^^^ 
 
 ■7^- 
 
THE CHINA SHOP 
 
By the Same Author 
 
 DEBATABLE GROUND 
 
 6 6 A N exceedingly interesting novel. Miss Stern 
 •^*- is clever, with a sound grasp of Wells' daz- 
 zling technique. ... A mighty sharp-eyed and 
 sharp-tongued novel." 
 
 — Francis Hackett in The New Republic. 
 
 "The story fits England and America. . . . De- 
 batable Ground presents something for all of us to 
 think about, and it likewise has a story interesting 
 enough for its own sake." 
 
 — The Chicago Daily News. 
 
 "An exceedingly clever book which is at the 
 same time an almost terribly real one. The dia- 
 logue alone in it is worth the price of admission. 
 Each character has a rich, full life at the hands 
 of the author. It's all glittering with brilliance, 
 but somehow, fundamentally, it's all real." 
 
 — Fanny Butcher in The Chicago Tribune. 
 
 $2.50 net at all Bookshops 
 
 ALFRED • A • KNOPF 
 
 Publisher New York 
 
THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 G. B. STERN 
 
 • . » . « » 
 
 NEW YORK ALFRED • A • KNOPF MCMXXI 
 
COPYRIGHT, 1921, BY 
 G. B. STERN 
 
 This hook has been published and copyrighted 
 in England under the title "Larry Munro." 
 
 PSIKTBO IN THB UKITBD STATBS OS* AMISICA 
 
TO 
 NOEL COWARD 
 
 In memory of much china broken 
 at St. Merryn in August, 1918 
 
 M371S7 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 
 in 2007 with funding from 
 
 IVIicrosoft Corporation 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/chinashopOOsterrich 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 PART I 
 The Shrine 11 
 
 PART II 
 The China-Shop 81 
 
 PART III 
 The Dynasty 223 
 
PART I— THE SHRINE 
 
L 
 
 [1] 
 
 '^T ARRY MUNRO" . . . 
 
 As ever, the repetition of the name, even 
 spoken by myself, goaded me through all 
 the familiar stages of memory and exasperation and 
 sense of unbearable injury, till it reached a climax 
 when it seemed the whole universe was not space 
 enough for me and Larry both; and that one of us 
 would be crowded out and suffocated: one of us had 
 better die. 
 
 And I cared about Larry sufficiently to wish I might 
 be that one. 
 
 Here was the grotesque twist on the situation! 
 Simple hatred is a strain; but when the hated oddly 
 becomes also a beloved object, unconscious of offend- 
 ing, and offending by mere existence and vitality; 
 when other persons and jealousies of other persons are 
 involved; when all this tumult is separated in habita- 
 tion by a mere garden wall, and that in fact only, not 
 in metaphor — then it may be understood why I was 
 seated in the blessed west-bound express which carried 
 me, a fugitive from Larry and Larry and Larry 
 Munro, to a household that knew only me, had never 
 heard of Larry; that could not compare us, nor obvi- 
 ously wonder if I suffered from such propinquity as 
 
 had been forced upon me; to a family that, if the 
 
 11 
 
12 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 words "Larry Munro" were haphazardly spoken, 
 'Would form np swift mind-picture of his slanting 
 faun's eyes and mischievous crooked smile and red- 
 Brown hair rushing sleekly from his forehead as 
 though combed backward by the wind. 
 
 And luxuriating in the prospect of such a house- 
 hold, cool respite for my chafed and elbowed spirit, by 
 the time Devon's bold flare of colour waved like a flag 
 beyond my carriage window, I was able dreamily to 
 dissociate my ego from Larry-saga and Larry-idolatry; 
 and marvel at the friendship between Felicity and 
 Prue as though it were a thing of long ago, dimmed 
 and frosted to legend; and yet muse upon it with the 
 freshness of first-time wonder. For it was an odd 
 friendship oddly begun; yet with a lilt in its oddity 
 that rendered it almost divine . . . Larry Munro had 
 been Prue's husband, and was to have been Felicity's 
 husband, and they met at his death-bed. 
 
 [2] 
 
 I had stayed in the room with Felicity when Larry 
 Munro died, because I wanted to make quite sure that 
 I was not being humbugged again: I had twice seen 
 him die upon the stage, and each time I believed in it 
 with quiet satisfaction, until the shock of his subse- 
 quent entrance, splendid as ever, into Felicity's 
 drawing-room. Such treatment naturally rendered 
 me suspicious. 
 
 Felicity was my mother. I do not know how I 
 
THE SHRINE 13 
 
 came to call her Felicity, or when I began to do so. 
 It must have been in the baby stages of life ; it pleased 
 her — she was only eighteen when I was bom, and 
 reluctant for motherhood. 
 
 When the knock came at the outer door, it was I 
 who let in the strange lady. 
 
 "Larry Munro?" she faltered. 
 
 "Yes. He lives here. He's not very well today. 
 He'll soon be dead." 
 
 My six-year-old attempt to "break the news gently" 
 was not as successful as one might have wished ; Prue's 
 small, whimsical features puckered suddenly to 
 anguish — she pushed past me into the room with the 
 big bed in it. . . . Felicity was on her knees at 
 the far side of the bed . . . they must have 
 first seen each other across the prone body of Larry 
 Munro. 
 
 Or possibly that pretty piece of symbolism was 
 adjusted by my later fancy. I have so often and so 
 vividly added to my fragment memories of that meet- 
 ing, by dramatic instinct, and by perception of Prue 
 and Felicity, their ways and intonations and char- 
 acteristics, that it would be to me as painful a process 
 to subtract now from the inevitable shape, complete 
 and luminous, into which I and time have crystallized 
 the scene, as it would be to see pieces wantonly 
 chipped off a much-prized ornament. For I do 
 indeed value that scene. . . . 
 
 Through a sound of ticking clock and the wash 
 of rain and rumble of distant traffic, I can certainly 
 
14 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 hear some one saying: "Ought the child to be in 
 here?" 
 
 It was Prue, the strange lady, who protested against 
 my unseemly presence in the room. Felicity had for- 
 gotten me — forgotten me rather more than usual — for 
 I was never an acute reality to her. She said vaguely : 
 "Go outside, Kevin, and wait. ..." But I knew the 
 waiting would he long and dull ; even the manservant 
 was out — in quest of the doctor, probably; so I decided 
 that just on this one occasion I need not uphold 
 Felicity's authority by instant obedience — I had 
 generally, for pride's sake, to insist with extreme 
 punctiliousness and care about Felicity's authority 
 over me, because she was herself so liable to let it sag. 
 
 Larry's head lay on Prue's breast; there must have 
 been rest in that: his wife again, the wife who used 
 to make him comfortable. But his eyes were fixed in 
 drugged absorption on Felicity's restless pale-gold 
 head. . . . ^w women! it was right that both should 
 be present, since both loved him greatly. 
 
 And while there was still an atom of life in him 
 to be shared, while he was still a male to evince a last 
 faint preference, while his hand could still move un- 
 certainly in the direction of one or the other, while 
 it was still undecided for whom the last look was to 
 be, or who had the strongest claim to grief, the two 
 women clashed against one another's presence with all 
 the resentful emotion that could be spared from love 
 of Larry Munro dying. But presently there was a 
 change, a stir, and then a greater silence in the room; 
 
THE SHRINE 15 
 
 and flesh and blood had ceased to be, and flesh and 
 
 blood rivalry. . . . 
 
 Prue stole round to the other side of the bed, put 
 
 both her arms round Felicity's tired, quivering figure, 
 
 her sodden cheek against the glister of pale gold hair, 
 
 and whispered: 
 
 "Oh, my poor girl — my poor girl " 
 
 I think that neither of them wept, but that they 
 
 clung very closely together. 
 
 [3] 
 
 But memory shorn and stripped can only swear to 
 admitting Prue, and "Go outside, Kevin" . . . and 
 several days or weeks afterwards, a move from our 
 own house into another neighbourhood; a boy, not 
 much older than I, whistling astride a garden wall; 
 and myself looking curiously up at him and demand- 
 ing his name. 
 
 "Larry Munro." 
 
 "You can't be. He's dead." 
 
 "I'm Larry Munro all the same, I tell you." 
 
 "But — but I tell you he's dead. I saw him dead. 
 You cant be Larry Munro," I reiterated suddenly, 
 afraid, nevertheless, that this horror of resurrection 
 might be just possible. There was no very definite 
 likeness between the Larry Munro of forty-one and 
 the boy on the garden wall — and yet — if any 
 other creature on earth had claimed to be Larry 
 Munro, I would have wholly scouted the notion; to 
 
16 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 me, a name was then so inseparably attached to a 
 personality, that a man dead meant the name dead too, 
 as much as his limbs or his sight and hearing; I, 
 Kevin Somers, would have been stumned past all 
 reasoning at the news that there was another Kevin 
 Somers in the world. And I had seen Larry Munro 
 dead — dead — dead — I chanted in unholy triumph 
 ... to quell misgivings that whispered: "I wish 
 that boy would go away before Felicity comes out — I 
 don't want Felicity to see that boy. . . ." 
 
 [4] 
 
 Strangers and infrequent visitors were bothered and 
 perplexed by our two adjoining and very much inter- 
 mingled households. It was good fun to hear them 
 comment on possible relationships; fixing up a joint 
 family tree which branched us together weirdly and 
 wonderfully ; speculating why a bust of Larry's father 
 should stand in Felicity's studio. They usually ended 
 by assuming me certainly to be a stepson of somebody- 
 or-other — which was not imhumorous, if I chose to 
 regard it without bitterness; by leaving out the late 
 Gilbert Somers altogether; and by wondering why 
 Prue's brother Wentworth permitted the irregular 
 intimacy. 
 
 Wentworth himself admitted it to be irregular; but 
 explained carefully that of course he would not have 
 permitted it had Felicity been actually married to 
 Larry Munro, but as he had died four days before- 
 hand, she was really no relation. . . . 
 
THE SHRINE 17 
 
 Wentworth Sheppard had charged himself with the 
 care of Prue and Prue's son, after she had divorced 
 her scapegrace husband — divorce that nearly broke 
 her hearty — but she was older than Larry Munro, and 
 she had plagued him too little and loved him too well, 
 so he left her with a baby of eighteen months . . . 
 ran off with the Adventuress of his company of tour- 
 ing melodrama, even as he had once run off with Prue 
 herself — Prudence, of Quaker stock, cooped up over- 
 long with exacting religion and stiff, horsehair fumi^ 
 ture and a querulous mother — even as he had nearly 
 run off with the rich girl-widow Felicity Somers. 
 Larry Munro made his success off and on the stage 
 by bold abduction: the Young Lochinvar style of 
 courtship, toned down and re-dressed to suit the nine- 
 teenth century; but given full play as swashbuckler 
 and highwayman in the numerous "costume dramas" 
 through which he dashed and duelled and eloped and 
 proved his honour ringingly, night after night, till his 
 last illness took him by the throat. Nevertheless, I 
 am persuaded that this Larry must have been some- 
 thing more than a cloak-and-dagger hero, which might 
 have sufficed for the Adventuress, but would hardly 
 have exacted such luminous and steadfast passion 
 from women like Felicity and Prue. What was the 
 deep, hidden spring of the fascination? — an un- 
 quenchable wild optimism that walked with head 
 thrown back through the most sodden mire of diffi- 
 culties? — gay conviction that he could twirl romance 
 as one twirls a trencher, and keep it a-twirl at his 
 
18 THECHINASHOP 
 
 pleasure? — blend of exasperating child and chubby- 
 egoist and good-looking braggart? — was he really no 
 more individual than this stale type, for whom Felicity 
 could go tragically restless and alone through the 
 years of my schoolboyhood? memory-driven as dust 
 before the wind; her moments sharp and salty with 
 unfulfilled longings: . . . "If only he had lived four 
 days longer!" But she had been cheated of Larry; he 
 had never been wholly hers — never, never; and now 
 she could only guess of the golden lover he might have 
 been. And Prue, while so often she sat — I have seen 
 her — ^with Wentworth reading aloud on the other side 
 of the fire, and her lips twitching to a secret smile, 
 part roguish . . . she might well have been thinking 
 of that good year or two before Larry had abandoned 
 her. 
 
 And yet, with these evidences before me of a thing 
 unquenchable, I had dared to suppose death would 
 have rid me of Larry Munro? Why — ours were no 
 two houses side by side, but one house in which lived 
 Prue and Felicity and a shrine and a boy. . . . 
 Wentworth and I and the garden wall were the sole 
 unrealities; only Wentworth had not perceived it, 
 which was fortunate for him. And I had. Went- 
 worth and I were the disconnected shadows of the 
 household, tolerated, honoured even, as tiresome, sur- 
 face attadhments of the surface life which Felicity and 
 Prue had led before they came together as mourners. 
 
 They were a quaint and incongruous couple; 
 Felicity was so much the younger as almost to be of 
 
THE SHRINE 19 
 
 another generation; Felicity, with her delicate, forlorn 
 beauty; her wanton carelessness of consequence; her 
 brilliance, which flickered with eerie suddenness into 
 speech or judgment or creation, and then would as 
 suddenly sheathe itself in a quality of haziness, leav- 
 ing her helplessly incapable of living through a 
 moment of her life without direction and support; 
 Felicity, "entertaining" in a setting which scoffed at 
 expense, was not unlike a complete and successful em- 
 bodiment of a Society Paragraph. But Felicity deal- 
 ing with tradesmen, children, officials, animals or 
 servants, behaved — well, more like a wistful, charm- 
 ing idiot than a responsible human. Prue, who from 
 the first day we moved into the grey, rambling house 
 incongruously planted next door to her own neat red- 
 brick villa, took Felicity vigorously in hand, even Prue 
 sometimes despaired of drilling the other's errant 
 waywardness into practical conformity. 
 
 She was a dear, quaint body, this wife of Larry the 
 first; full of sharp little economies, and method with 
 servants, and resource over a bum, blister or birth. 
 Neighbours were continually sending for her in 
 emergencies — there was a flavour of village midwife 
 about her career; perhaps a Quaker grandmother had 
 been famous in this profession. She destroyed senti- 
 ment by a brisk rub-up the wrong way till its sleekness 
 was all a-spike and a-tingle ; but she could worry over 
 irrelevant people's irrelevant worries — provided they 
 were tangible — with an activity that astounded Felic- 
 
20 THECHINASHOP 
 
 ity, to whom fellow-creatures existed either as a dim 
 crowd jostling somewhere in space, or else as one 
 single being who had exacted fearful sacrifice and 
 worship. 
 
 Prue's mentality was plain, not spotted; and she 
 had only good to say of others — unless it were a burst 
 of honest and deserved indignation. That, too, per- 
 plexed Felicity, who could damn any one who bored 
 her, quite regardless of their virtues; that is to say, 
 she oould achieve damnation for them with a phrase 
 let fall so absent-mindedly as to lead you to believe 
 she might just as well have meant it for some one 
 else — till you came to think it over. Felicity's entire 
 life conveyed an impression of an inspired thing 
 broug'ht about by a series of vague and happy acci- 
 dents . . . you oould almost catch your breath and 
 thank Heaven for abstaining from the slip which 
 would have ruined all. Her beauty was thus, and her 
 sculpture; she never tried for the elusive like- 
 ness, but looking the other way, as it were, tossed it 
 over her shoulder, and it happened. By the same 
 process, it appeared a wonder that the people who 
 loved her most, did not hate her most . . . she had 
 caught their devotion miraculously by the skin of 
 her teeth. 
 
 And again, it was Felicity's perverse nature that 
 caused her to exact devotion from the one source where 
 it was never forthcoming — from her servants. Ser- 
 vants drifted in and strayed out of our household — 
 you could not say she was ever quite definite enough 
 
THE SHRINE 21 
 
 to engage them or give them notice — and she never 
 ceased to expect in them the dogged attachment of 
 old family retainers — ^the silver-headed type that 
 would bring her their savings when she was ruined, 
 and beg to be allowed to stay on without wages; 
 she would not even have minded a little bullying from 
 these: "Old servants are naturally tyrants, aren't 
 they, Prue?" . . . but the not unreasonable indiffer- 
 ence towards her mistress's personal happiness dis- 
 played by a parlourmaid of a fortnight's standing, 
 sent Felicity petulantly complaining next door, where 
 Prue laboured under no delusion that Martha the cook 
 would die for her, but saw to it that Martha did not 
 waste gravy. 
 
 "Oh dear, Prue, I didn't mean to disturb you on 
 your At Home day ... I had forgotten; let me 
 escape before any more of your dreadfully dull 
 visitors begin to arrive. . . . That's the lady with a 
 disgraceful husband who has been forbidden by the 
 company to travel on the London South-Westem rail- 
 way because he insults first-class female passengers 
 when they're alone, isn't she? I think it is so nice of 
 him to want to insult ^^5^class passengers ... it 
 shows, in a way, that he has the instincts of a gentle- 
 man — but it all doesn't make her any less dull; isn't 
 it odd? — one would suppose it might brighten her 
 up. Prue, darling, how can you have any one in 
 your drawing-room who wears black thread gloves? 
 Or is it sort of doing penance for her husband like 
 Jane Shore? Would you like me to go and talk to 
 
22 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 her?" After which fairly audible monologue, Felicity- 
 would seat herself beside the visitor under discus- 
 sion, and encircle her about and about in charm, till 
 Mrs. Western waddled home in an invisible silken 
 mesh of Felicity's winding. "And I never once asked 
 her how Mr. Shore contrives to get about without 
 travelling, though I was really interested to know." 
 
 Prue cried in despair: "My dear child, poor Mr. 
 Western — ^Western, not Shore " 
 
 "Well, why did you tell me his name was Shore?" 
 
 "I did not, Felicity! — and he was a most highly 
 respected railway official, only his doctor had to forbid 
 him to travel alone towards the end of his life be- 
 cause his heart wasn't strong; he died of syncope at 
 last, and she's still in mourning." 
 
 But Felicity invariably dotted her t's and crossed 
 her i's. And w^hen corrected and carefully shown at 
 what exact stage of fact she had begun to go astray, she 
 would listen attentively, as to a new story altogether, 
 and be impressed by it to such an extent . . . that 
 her previous mistake was dinted in deeper even than 
 before. There was an obstinate blank spot in Feli- 
 city's brain; fifty times contradicted and scratched 
 out, the scandal of Mr. Western and the lonely fe- 
 male passenger would survive and become an ob- 
 session. / knew it was safest to pass over the original 
 error, and trust that Felicity would forget the whole 
 story. But Prue never ceased from striving to make 
 her accurate, domestic, and methodical. I wonder 
 how Prue managed to be all these things herself, and 
 
THE SHRINE 23 
 
 yet never be wearisome to Felicity; as I wonder how 
 Felicity continued to be her fantastic self, and never 
 shock Prue. Unless, for memory's sake. Felicity 
 conquered her faculty for being bored, and Prue her 
 faculty for being outraged. 
 
 And even where memory of Larry Munro steeped 
 them like two entirely different fabrics in the same 
 rich dye, they characteristically retained their contrast. 
 Prue never mentioned his name; her soul scurried past 
 this dominating passion of her life as though fright- 
 ened of it — a sombre, flame-tipped mountain in an 
 aspect of tiny molehills . . . How had it come to be 
 there? Or, in a more practical morning mood, you 
 could almost hear her reasoning with the mountain: 
 "Come, come, no such nonsense! you're in the way 
 here, can't you see that? Everything in its proper 
 place and time, and give as little trouble as you can, 
 because this is Monday and I've got my hands full 
 up with work." 
 
 No, it was not in shame that she denied herself 
 expression of her love for Larry Munro ; but to her it 
 may well have seemed that such divinely tender 
 friendship with Felicity was memorial enough — it 
 stood solidly erected for any one to see. A super- 
 fluity of sighs and sobs and small, sacred recollections 
 exchanged between them would have brought to the in- 
 timacy a flavour of indecency, to Prue's mind. 
 
 Only Felicity had a disconcerting habit of speak- 
 ing of the late Larry just whenever it occurred to her 
 — "My dear, you can't expect me to look on your son 
 
24 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 as an Immaculate Conception, as Wentworth does!" 
 — lightly violating poor Prue's most fundamental re- 
 ligious and social instincts, and completing the horror 
 by causing her to laugh — for Prue had a nimble sense 
 of humour, and the apt remark about Wentworth 
 delighted her. 
 
 Wentworth Sheppard was an old maid, small and 
 neat as his sister; and with a certain likeness to King 
 George in his pointed beard and the cut and hang of 
 him generally, on which resemblance he built up a 
 whole formal attitude. He cultivated the extreme 
 simplicity of good form in his household — was not the 
 Royal Family notoriously addicted to rice pudding 
 diet, symbolic and actual? Fortunately, Wentworth's 
 mild mania in this respect accorded well with Prue's 
 essays in economy. He rarely talked haphazardly, 
 but "conversed with intelligent interest on all topics." 
 To strangers and visitors, he Unbent Genially — ^you 
 could watch him doing it like clockwork. He drank 
 water, because Prue considered wine a medicine, not 
 a beverage; but he drank water portentously, with the 
 air of Setting an Example to the Nation. And though 
 he longed to spoil Larry, he strove hard that his 
 nephew should receive an education of severe practi- 
 cability, in ignorance (after the manner of Royalties) 
 that he was heir to a throne. . . . 
 
 Or heir to a shrine. But then Wentworth himself 
 was ignorant of the importance of the shrine in our 
 midst. Dubious at first over the proximity of the 
 Somers, he very soon took a fancy to Felicity — ah, 
 
THE SHRINE 25 
 
 Felicity saw to that! — ^and even began to trust that 
 the society of himself and his sister might be benefi- 
 cial to her. "If not too upsetting for you, Prue, my 
 dear?" — and might in time, by representing the un- 
 ostentatious spectacle of a quiet, wholesome, happy 
 English home, tone down a certain regrettable exuber- 
 ance in Felicity's environment, and — and, — well, 
 something like astigmatism in her moral outlook. 
 
 Wentworth and Felicity continued, till the end, on 
 terms of the most amiable cross-purpose. She thought 
 that she was managing him, and he thought that he 
 was influencing her. Prue laughed at them both, and 
 — metaphorically — flipped them with her duster. 
 
 Wentworth's one instinctive concession to the shrine 
 of an undesirable brother-in-law was his reluctance to 
 include an intelligent interest in the theatre, among his 
 other exhibitions of broad-mindedness. He did not 
 care for his sister to visit the theatre at all — he evi- 
 dently thought it might remind her of what she had 
 forgotten. 
 
 Young Larry neither sang nor recited, nor dis- 
 played any other prodigy inheritance — except a tend- 
 ency to whistle, whistle from morning till night. I 
 can hear him, mournful, exultant, melodious . . . 
 up and down the stairs, splashing in his bath, down the 
 garden in his scamper next door. . . . He was nearly 
 always next door — ^with us. 
 
 [5] 
 What chance did I stand against Larry? I, who 
 
26 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 was in all outward respects a reproduction of Gilbert 
 Somers. Had I been able to make Felicity love me 
 better, she would have loved my father for looking 
 like me, so it was all my fault. . . , 
 
 This was my infantile reasoning. 
 
 But I learnt to reverse the argument to its proper 
 sequence, when I saw what young Larry gained in 
 spontaneous tenderness and privilege of caress, 
 through being the son of Larry Munro. I learnt 
 definitely what I had always suspected ; that my father, 
 that handsome picture of a cavalier, with the blank 
 wall behind his looks, had disappointed the radiant, 
 all-expectant girl, whom he had married out of the 
 schoolroom, to a state of indifference bordering on 
 apathy. And this was my inheritance. 
 
 Well, I had never worn myself out fretting against 
 Felicity's vapoury lack of demonstration, while I 
 thought it was her nature, unalterable, to be accepted 
 with a philosophic shrug of the shoulders. . . . But 
 presently I was to watch the awakening of all her 
 warm maternity — and for a contemporary of my own. 
 It was an interesting spectacle, but rather too poign- 
 antly so where I was concerned. "I'm her own son, 
 and he isn't! It must make a difference — it must. 
 Nothing he does will make him as if he was her 
 son!" . . . Ah, but I had never guessed she could 
 be so adorable with the child she loved . . . bright 
 flushed cheeks, and her hand rumpling through his 
 hair; a thousand whimsical distractions planned that 
 the little scamp might not feel dull; a thousand absurd 
 
THE SHRINE 27 
 
 nonsense names she invented for him: "Larrikin" and 
 "Humpty" (because she had first seen him sitting on 
 a wall). . . . Soft, husky inflection in her voice 
 when she called to him — "Hallo, Larry darling, I've 
 got a surprise for you!" . . . There were always 
 surprises for Larry. And she never forgot to consult 
 his tastes, and to cater for them; she, with memory 
 usually so misted, could recall exactly, and to a shade, 
 what young Larry liked. 
 
 This was different treatment and a different atmos- 
 phere from the austerity of his own home, where 
 Wentworth advocated good form in the shape of 
 boiled milk puddings and plenty of cold water; and 
 Prue alternately slapped and chaffed her only son out 
 of all possible affectations, swagger, and extrava- 
 gances. Prue believed firmly that all boys were 
 healthy young animals, who hated superfluous carpets 
 and fuss, and were all the worse for coddling unless 
 they were ill, which they had no right to be. Though 
 deep down in her heart Larry was acknowledged a 
 very special boy indeed, though she was wrapt up in 
 him to the exclusion of every one else ; yet even to him 
 the stock rules applied : Give him plenty to do, plenty 
 of exercise, plenty of wholesome food; see that he 
 wears flannels in winter, make him wash behind the 
 ears and be kind to animals, give him only sixpence a 
 week pocket-money, let the man of the house thrash 
 him as often as he is discovered in mischief — and with 
 a bit of luck he will grow up into a plucky, clean- 
 limbed, creditable young Englishman. 
 
28 THECHINASHOP 
 
 It's the bit of luck that so often fails these dealers 
 in the generic boy. 
 
 Larry was a glorious little ruffian — but with senses 
 thrillingly flexible and resilient. He could give and 
 take in the touch market without self -consciousness 
 ever cramping him to unnatural self -control. And 
 Prue, who was sure that all boys must necessarily hate 
 being fussed over, Prue was a martyr to her own con- 
 viction, which she would not allow to make exception, 
 even in the case where she most longed to make it. 
 While Felicity, less wise — Felicity got the kisses! 
 
 Though I doubt if Prue minded. I imagined her 
 using the argument: "After all, I'm his own 
 mother!" with a great deal more success than I could 
 infuse into my similiar tag: "After all, I'm her own 
 son!" And verily, if I had gone to Prue claiming 
 any sort of kinship of jealous suffering, she would 
 have blown my head off in a gale of common sense 
 and banter and cheery misconception . . . some- 
 times I nearly understood why Larry the first had 
 run away from this perpetual process of having a 
 waste-paper basket clapped over his enthusiasm. 
 
 Larry loved his mother — carelessly. Wentworth 
 bored and irritated him; so did the Spartan rigours of 
 home — as applied to the little Princes of Wales. 
 Prue's mistake had been never to pander to the in- 
 cipient man in him. Larry was her baby, her 
 only child — ^but these are both sexless terms. He was 
 enervated by the more barbaric blow of colour in the 
 
THE SHRINE 29 
 
 house next door; the soft glimmer and sheen of 
 Felicity's idolatry could not fail to appeal to him. 
 His Palace Beautiful, with its pictures and books and 
 rugs and statuary, was irresistibly new and jolly, and 
 even furnished complete with a comrade in the boy 
 line. Oh yes, he liked me. So, indeed, did Felicity 
 . . . she liked me very much. And she never forgot 
 her exquisite manners so far as to let me feel left 
 out; I was given everything — tangible — that Larry 
 was given. But, "Kev and I are not demonstrative; 
 we understand each other!" 
 
 Undoubtedly she would have missed my clenched 
 protection. She consulted me at intervals with as 
 much deference as though I were the old family 
 solicitor. And when I gradually developed a brain 
 and a caustic sense of humour, she confided in me her 
 grateful relief that she was not doomed to dwell for 
 ever with a person — "as stupid as that terrible man, 
 Gilbert Somers — your poor, dear father, you know, 
 Kevin!" Our meals began to be enlivened by mutual 
 and brilliant word-sparring. In fact, I was a com- 
 bination of minor uses, such as one can seldom hope 
 to find in a son. Only 
 
 Oh, mother, mother, your arms round me once, as 
 so often they were flung round Larry. . . . 
 
 Well, one cannot always be a cynic and a phil- 
 osopher — at eight and nine and ten years old. Some- 
 times at night, I used to behave like a very babyish 
 small boy — just by way of a change. 
 
30 THECHINASHOP 
 
 [6] 
 
 Larry was eight and I was six when our seniors, 
 with that callous disregard for any possible incom- 
 patibility of tempers in beings not yet adult, plumped 
 us down in gardens indifferently separated, and said 
 that we would soon be great friends. As it happens, 
 their prophecy was realized. 
 
 I had just managed to hate Larry the first, terrified 
 all the time that he would exert himself to overcome 
 my scowls. ... I had seen Felicity's opposition 
 melted like froth by the darlin' wicked ways of him, 
 as Irish tongues would twist it; and I knew how easily 
 I would capitulate if he once turned his attention 
 seriously to such unimportant conquest. But I bored 
 him and fidgeted him; he used to say discourteously: 
 "Get rid of the brat, Felicity!" ... So I just 
 managed to hate him — con dmore — till the end. I 
 could sympathize with Felicity, though, in her infat- 
 uation — my God, yes! 
 
 Larry the second — little brute! — decided that a 
 chum of more or less his own age would be a handy 
 matter to have next door . . . and the rest was a 
 foregone conclusion. 
 
 Primarily we tumbled into mischief together, and 
 were together lectured by Wentworth — that formed a 
 bond. It happened again, and he punished Larry 
 severely, and sent round a perfectly polite message 
 to Felicity requesting that she should do the same by 
 me, or, lacking the strength, permit him the privilege, 
 as he considered it a blow to a boy's fundamental 
 
THE SHRINE 31 
 
 sense of justice that where two were equally in fault, 
 only one should suffer. Felicity, looking worried, 
 consulted me : 
 
 "Oh dear, Kevin, must I take any notice of this?" 
 
 "You'd better let me hear the letter," — ^non-com- 
 mittal for the moment. 
 
 She read it aloud. 
 
 "What a fuss!" 
 
 "Isn't it?" she agreed delightfully; "but we don't 
 want to quarrel with the old man, do we? It would 
 make things so awkward for Prue. Do you think if I 
 sent you to bed — ?" 
 
 As it was then already past eight o'clock p. M., it 
 struck even my understanding that such punishment 
 would not be regarded by Wentworth as adequate. 
 But it annoyed me that Felicity should be bothered, 
 and I soothed her by a promise to step round to 
 Wentworth the following morning and let him do his 
 damndest. 
 
 It was not a horrible precocity on my part which 
 prevented me from evading punishment where evasion 
 was so easy; but an inarticulate conviction, early 
 forced upon me and accepted in a semi-humorous 
 spirit, that Felicity was too indifferent for her job 
 where I was concerned, and that a spoilt, whining 
 infant would bring discredit upon her — shame her 
 incapacity in sight of the world. By pretending that 
 I was disciplined by a rod of some severity, I could 
 keep up appearances for Felicity's sake; but the ro3 
 was in my own hand. 
 
32 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 It was typical of Felicity that she did not even ask 
 what was the offence we hoys had committed; some- 
 thing to do with taps left running till a stair-carpet 
 was ruined, I believe — nothing serious, at all events; 
 but there is quite an amount of ungodliness con- 
 nected with cleanliness when two urchins set out to be 
 inventive in a bathroom. 
 
 Larry and I received a mild thrashing apiece, and 
 then wandered out into the garden to grumble in 
 fellowship. Oddly enough, I found he held the same 
 austere views as mine concerning the muffishness and 
 general lack of dignity about the boy who has been 
 well spoilt at home. We could neither of us express 
 ourselves on the subject, of course: 
 
 "Mums hates it when I get into a row, but she 
 always makes out that I've done worse than it is, case 
 old uncle lets me off ; an' then he makes it out worse 
 'cos he's afraid mums'll beg him not to hurt me — an' 
 they pile it up between them so's I get it worse than 
 if I hadn't been an only child. An' yet mums adores 
 me so, she'd die for me any time I liked." 
 
 "I'm an only child, too — " a pause, . . . and 
 then I added: "My mother'd die for me too, all over 
 the place." 
 
 Larry began to boast. "Mums sat up with me 
 two weeks without moving when I had diphtheria — 
 the doctor said he'd never seen such devotion!" 
 
 And I swaggered back: "When I had dip-dipferia, 
 my mother sucked the something-or-other an' saved 
 my life an' the doctor said it might have killed her an' 
 
THE SHRINE 33 
 
 he^d never seen such devotion!" Fiction had given 
 me the advantage that time; Larry was momentarily 
 damited — and then pressed on: 
 
 "Mums hasn't married again 'cos of me; I heard 
 uncle say so." 
 
 "Nor my mother hasn't married again because 
 of me." 
 
 Well — it was busy work, inventing Felicity's "no- 
 more-than-natural" feeling, even though Larry 
 had twice given me the lead. My neck and cheeks 
 were burning hot with the strain, smarted under 
 Larry's puckish gaze — did he suspect me? To divert 
 his mind, I let off an inconsequent but excellent 
 imitation of "Fi'-fresh-strawbrish" as bawled down 
 the streets in June, by the man with the barrow . . . 
 an accomplishment of which I was proud; I could do 
 the coal-man's cry as well, and the mufiin-man, and 
 chairs-to-mend. Larry listened with admiration, and 
 then suggested we should saunter innocently up the 
 road, and see how many occupants of the houses we 
 could draw to the window and door by my hoarse 
 promise of "Fi'-fresh-strawbrish." . . . The month 
 happened to be November, which we had forgotten, 
 but otherwise the game was completely successful; 
 curiosity ramped on to the little iron balconies, in 
 wonder whence the shout originated; and nobody sus- 
 pected the demure little boy strolling on the pavement 
 beside the other demure little boy. . . . "Street- 
 cries" became a favourite pastime of ours, though 
 Larry never attained to my pitch of excellence; and 
 
34 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 was therefore the first to tire of it, and to suggest we 
 should return to our old passion for floatables; that 
 is to say, anything in the nature of barge, boat, raft, 
 sail or steamer — whatever requires water below it. 
 Presently we were nearly drowned together in the 
 Serpentine; Larry boasted he had saved my life, and 
 I contended hotly that I had saved his; but as we 
 could neither of us swim, perhaps it was the boat- 
 man's credit, after all. And Prue promptly whisked 
 us off to the instructor at the nearest swimming-baths. 
 
 From floatables our interest shifted to mechanics. 
 Felicity's priceless Dresden clock, Wentworth's type- 
 writer, Prue's sewing-machine and carpet-cleaner, 
 were all pleasant to take to pieces and investigate ; our 
 favours were entirely impartial, but we were inter- 
 ested to find that on this occasion Prue's temper was 
 the worst of the three. 
 
 Love was our subsequent experience shared — at 
 least, I was pursued by the object of Larry's passion, 
 and he kicked me for it, which I considered wholly 
 unfair. "I don't want the nobby little beast" — ^the 
 Honourable Nina was the daughter of Lord Barclay, 
 one of the endless aristocratic widowers, relics of the 
 Somers period, whose aristocratic feet decorated the 
 parquet at Felicity's receptions — "can't you keep her 
 to yourself?" 
 
 As this was exactly what Larry most desired to do, 
 I was, perhaps, not being tactful. But Nina's big 
 brown eyes and wavy black hair were too like my own 
 to rouse my dormant emotions. It was only weari- 
 
THE SHRINE 35 
 
 some to have out-rivalled Larry over a woman of no 
 importance — to me. 
 
 "It's your looks," he said, sitting astride of me, 
 and moodily reducing them to a pulp. 
 
 I did not deprecate ; I was a very handsome boy — 
 obviously and blatantly handsome, as my father had 
 been. Mine was the type of face that led the casual 
 observer to expect a character full of cheap Toreador 
 effects. . . . "Fancy you being so sarcastic!" was 
 the astonished and disappointed cry that even at the 
 age of eleven caused me an unholy inward glee; or 
 they supplemented their comment — "so horrid and 
 sarcastic!" — Evidently the Hon. Nina, one year my 
 senior, found the blend attractive. 
 
 Larry added: "I s'pose it'll always be like that. 
 Why, even now you're as big as me, even though 
 you're only a kid. One day a girl will come 
 along " 
 
 True enough! One day a girl would come along 
 ... or we would come along to where a girl, the girl, 
 awaited us, two men — but I foretold as an ab- 
 solute certainty only one girl — life was already shap- 
 ing us for the catastrophe. And Larry would have 
 grown up to that type of ugliness which she would 
 presently begin to find oddly beautiful; and I to that 
 type of beauty which she would presently begin to 
 find oddly boresome. . . . 
 
 So vivid was my fancy at that instant, that I could 
 see her, a slim golden creature a-sway towards Larry 
 ... I was nowhere in the picture, and her face was a 
 
36 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 dim mystery, but I was clearly aware of his attitude of 
 triumph. 
 
 In the case of the Hon. Nina, the preference had 
 only been given to me because I could have dispensed 
 with it. The imp of destiny whom it amused that my 
 life should everywhere be confronted by Larry 
 Munro, had arranged it thus. Next time 
 
 All this, a barely coherent impression, following 
 with a rush on Larry's remark in the vein of des- 
 pondent wooer — I jerked my knees upwards and flung 
 him suddenly on to the floor — the signal for a scrap! 
 In a moment all question of the Hon. Nina vanished 
 to an ecstasy of squeals and pummellings. 
 
 But next time — I began then to watch out for the 
 inevitable occasion when the existence of a Larry 
 Munro on earth should most eff'ectually spoil my 
 happiness; to watch for it, and morbidly to dread it 
 ... if it were to be anything like the vision of 
 Felicity's maternal instinct unfolding itself. 
 
 Felicity came into the room, and Larry flashed her 
 one of his impudent crooked grins: "Help! 
 Murder!" he shouted boisterously. 
 
 Murder! . . . our scuffling bodies drew to closer 
 grips and closer . . . suddenly, at the pressure of his 
 pinioned limbs, my easy enjoyment of the scrap 
 flared to murder indeed. . . . My enemy — Larry's 
 father as well as Larry himself — I was in physical 
 contact at last with the elusive. . . . Larry- 
 thing! . . . More than I could bear. . . . Might 
 never happen again. . . . Control? what does it 
 
THE SHRINE 37 
 
 matter . . . he — he doesn't give me room to 
 breathe . . . and Felicity. . . . 
 
 If one were to dig — dig something into him . . . 
 Mustn't let go — ^no, don't let go . . . he'll always be 
 there if you let go now — if you don't hurt him — ^kill 
 him — ^with your teeth — 
 
 "Damn! . . . You young swine!" 
 
 "Goodness gracious me, boys, what language!" 
 that was Prue, humorously admonishing us. My 
 vicious fury was quenched; and I behaved 
 fairly meekly while, in his character of senior, Larry 
 punished me by a hearty thrashing — and let me go. 
 
 "I'll teach you to bite when we rag! Good Lord, 
 if you can't fight good-naturedly " 
 
 I sought to justify myself by ingenious argument: 
 "It's only idiots who fight good-naturedly. Fighting 
 is an angry thing to start with. And a good-natured 
 fight is para — para " 
 
 " — doxical," finished Felicity. "Ought he to use 
 words like that, Prue? And ought we to let a little 
 boy hit a big one — isn't there something about it in 
 the rules?" — helplessly. 
 
 Prue replied that boys will be boys, and that 
 exercise on a rainy day gave them appetites — "as long 
 as they don't hurt the furniture," — ignoring the ethics 
 of the case. 
 
 "And which of us is the ' little boy '?" demanded 
 Larry, still breathless from his exertion to educate me 
 "Kev's topped me by nearly half an inch, or — or of 
 course I wouldn't — ^what do you think? He's 
 
38 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 going to be much bigger than me," with an injured 
 look towards Prue's small, trim figure. Then — "Did- 
 dums hurtums?" magnanimously bending over me 
 where I still lay gracefully recumbent. "What a 
 Sleeping Bee-yuty! I was lamming into him because 
 he had such a pretty mug," he further explained to 
 Prue and Felicity. "Yus — it was a female woman 
 come between us! like bruvvers we wos, till then!" 
 
 "So you fought because of me," murmured Felic- 
 ity, with a sort of preoccupied infallibility. "Did 
 you?" she pleaded for affirmation; a new Guinevere, 
 even in this paltry nursery squabble between two 
 youngsters, unable to bear that she should not be the 
 queen about whose tormenting beauty the tournament 
 had raged. 
 
 "The very idea! Whatever next!" in brief 
 expostulation from Prue ; "boys don't fight about their 
 mothers." 
 
 "But you are not Kevin's mother." 
 
 Felicity meant: "But I am not Larry's 
 mother." 
 
 [7] 
 
 "Good night. Felicity." 
 
 I hovered near the door, stretching out my cramped 
 courage to its utmost. Perhaps Larry was only re- 
 warded because he took the confident initiative; 
 perhaps if I once smashed the accepted formula: 
 "Kev and I are not demonstrative." . . . 
 
THE SHRINE 39 
 
 Her head was bent musingly over a form of em- 
 broidery — spangling, I think it was called ; a tiny gold 
 disc shimmered on her poised needle; a glittering 
 shower was poured from the wee, glass-lidded box on 
 the table beside her; the standard lamp with its amber 
 silk shade spilt more gold on her cloudy hair. 
 
 I broke indecision like a stick across my knee ; sped 
 across the room, and . . . kissed her. Only once — 
 but she must have felt my heart thumping against her 
 side. . . . 
 
 Never again! — oh, never again while I live! That 
 upward look of casual astonishment was enough. . . . 
 
 "Oh?— good night, Kev." 
 
 [8] 
 
 School was a disappointment. I had hoped that 
 among such a large selection of boys, I would easily 
 find a substitute for Larry as comrade ; thus setting me 
 free to hate him, roundly and smoothly, uncomplicated 
 by the want of him and the love of him. I 
 assured myself that Larry was indispensable merely 
 as a result of circumscribed choice. 
 
 The boys of Runchester were all right. The boys 
 of Wilton House, our preparatory school, had also 
 been all right. Only — only — Good Lord! — I grew 
 impatient — surely at least one of them might have 
 contrived to put up a better show against my incubus! 
 Just something in the eager poise of his body 
 when he ran; the careless blackbird note of his whist- 
 
40 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 ling; just the wickedness in his slanting no-coloured 
 eyes, which were almost sloe-green, and not quite 
 yellow, and often hazel — all the woodland tints — oh, 
 and his naive manner of toppling his whole life on to 
 the nearest and handiest shoulders and leaving it 
 there ; a queer trick he had of following up a remark 
 compounded all of joyous swagger, by an outburst of 
 super-swagger so out of proportion and ridiculous as 
 to convey the impression he sought: that really he had 
 only been fooling the first time also ! 
 
 If I could once have arrested myself in full swing 
 of hating Larry, I do honestly believe that I need 
 never have started again. But he gave me no chance 
 to stop; here at school, worse even than at home, he 
 elbowed me out of existence; sunnily unconscious of 
 the process, but perfecting it, it would almost seem, 
 by mechanism. 
 
 I was not temperamentally jealous, that I swear. 
 Mine was a locked jealousy, stagnant around one 
 object, as opposed to the tidal jealousy which ebbs and 
 flows and overflows and swamps indiscriminately. 
 Beyond Larry, the creatures of the universe might 
 have their hearts' desires granted to them, and I could 
 decently rejoice, even help them to attainment; 
 beyond Larry, I winced at hearing no person praised; 
 nor grudged them their meed of fortune. Beyond 
 Larry. . . . 
 
 But they were wrong who said there was always 
 enough to go round, whether of love, or popularity, or 
 success. Some grinning malignancy had arranged 
 
THE SHRINE 41 
 
 that what was more for Larry Munro should be less 
 for Kevin Somers, always and always. 
 
 Steady now! No good to batter yourself against 
 defeat pre-ordained. Steady — you'll hurt your- 
 self! Look — it's quite a good joke really . . . 
 can you laugh at it? Excellent! Then you're not 
 mad . . . just for a second I was afraid .... 
 
 What I began to do at school was this: to annex 
 bits of the world for myself, populate them, and 
 fortify them against Larry. Every new friendship I 
 regarded as a spiked fortification. 
 
 And Larry slipped through the spikes. 
 
 He must have known — the happy persistence with 
 which he invariably chummed with my latest chum 
 proved it. Sometimes, even while my selection was 
 still unspoken — a mental gesture of "you'11-do-next," 
 even then a series of tiny accidents would incredibly 
 bring about an encounter between Larry and this par- 
 ticular boy; I would have to watch them beginning 
 to like each other; then quietly I renounced the claim, 
 no one the wiser for my silent choice and withdrawal. 
 Friendships which included Larry were obviously no 
 use to me, foreseeing times when my nerves would 
 urgently cry aloud, yelp in agony, for a retreat where 
 Larry was not, nor likely to be. 
 
 Talk of Bruce's spider! — ^was it only a paltry seven 
 times that he essayed to spin his web, and the eighth 
 time succeeded? I had no respect for Bruce's 
 spider. 
 
 And not only in human traffic of boys and masters, 
 
42 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 mind you, this tormenting pursuit in whichever direc- 
 tion I ran, and the kick, kick, at my heels, but if 
 I became keen on any abstraction, science, or a period 
 of history, there, just behind me, alongside, in front 
 of me, was Larry. If I excelled in some special form 
 of sport . . . Larry again, emulating, outrivalling 
 me; for the mere fact that he was also there, dulled 
 my enthusiam, and I dropped away. Larry! 
 Larry! leave me alone — I want my pals alone 
 — I want to walk without meeting you in my favourite 
 thickness of the larch wood aslant on the hill — I want 
 to hear the cry: "Somers is an Al bowler on a jfast 
 wicket," without the addition: "Rather — and so is 
 Munro!" Once we were actually bracketed second 
 in an examination in which we had both striven 
 keenly for a top place ; physical geography, I think it 
 was. 
 
 Holidays were a respite; for then I could abandon 
 myself to the absolute ease of Larry's society, without 
 perpetual misgiving that I ought to be building new 
 fortresses against the inevitable future, or walking 
 round the established ones to make sure of the encir- 
 cling spikes, or in sick irritation watching Larry in 
 other company, being charming, being himself. 
 
 Certainly, in the holidays, home and Felicity came 
 into being. But the bond between Larry and my 
 mother seemed to slacken during his lithe race 
 through the schoolboy years, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen. 
 He evaded caresses, not awkwardly, but mind and 
 
THE SHRINE 43 
 
 body in its amazed awakening twisted shyly away 
 from touch or question. 
 
 "Besides, you know, Kev, Felicity is such a deliri- 
 ous duffer about Runchester. The mater has twice 
 her sense." 
 
 Well, it was true enough that Felicity's conception 
 of a boy's public school was gloriously out of focus; 
 but immediately I asked Larry if he considered him- 
 self any more at ease in "Igg-liff," as we always 
 called Felicity's social entertainments. This, as it 
 happens, was nasty, for Larry, at a recent dinner 
 party, had made quite a conspicuous ass of himself — 
 something to do with the proper sequence of drinks; 
 and his partner had been heard informing Felicity 
 that he was too deliciously infantile for words, 
 and the memory of it all was still a hot blush to Larry. 
 
 It was not likely I would allow any one, not Larry 
 nor any one else, to laugh at Felicity; just because I 
 could myself chuckle inwardly at her delirious duff- 
 erisms, nevertheless she must not be exposed, 
 defenceless and unaware, to alien laughter. So I 
 went about with fists doubled and tongue edged. 
 
 Those holidays were best when Larry and I, touring 
 on bicycle or on foot, were dependent on one another 
 without outside distraction; and could map out our 
 separate careers in that semi-burlesqued, semi-im- 
 personal fashion which we imagined hid a genuine 
 concern . . . off-hand shyness that every day's 
 twilight and dusk merged again to a bolder intimacy. 
 But I withheld from Larry down what stream I had 
 
44 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 already swung my dream-argosies. He might — ^he 
 would — choose the same for himself. ... I pre- 
 tended I was for engineering; bridge-building; rail- 
 building. And all the while saw myself at grey old 
 Oxford, and then with chambers in one of the grey old 
 Inns of Court — I was ambitious for the Bar. 
 
 "I'm going to be an engineer, too," shouted Larry 
 enthusiastically. 
 
 I knew it! and was glad of my deception; though 
 ashamed to the depths of my soul of the obsession 
 which festered to plots and secrets and laborious cir- 
 cumventions. Perhaps by next term hatred would 
 have vanished. 
 
 And the next term I watched the symptoms recur 
 like a chronic sickness. And the term after, they 
 would be worse than ever. 
 
 At all events, he was leaving Runchester at eight- 
 een, two years before I did. I looked forward 
 eagerly to that period clear of him. 
 
 At seventeen, when other boys blunder through the 
 hideous hobbledehoy stage, Larry lit up to quite 
 amazing beauty — that elusive tiptoe gift which among 
 maidens is known as beaute du diable; precious 
 because indefinable, because at any moment it may 
 wing away; because it tugs the tears to the eyes, and 
 rouses an unquiet desperate wish to clutch at it and do 
 something with it, quickly. . . . 
 
 Unlike Larry, I never was dowered with evanescent 
 fascination. Perhaps that sort of miracle cannot 
 happen on features already surpassingly excellent. 
 
THE SHRINE 45 
 
 At all events, I had the consolation of knowing that I 
 would make a handsome corpse, whereas there was no 
 hope at all for Larry once life had fled from him. 
 
 At seventeen, also, he suddenly shed school inter- 
 ests; was impatient of such major matters as the tone 
 of Runchester under the new prefecture; as careless 
 and apathetic here, as he had previously been keen, 
 he was already straining out to possibilities beyond 
 Runchester. 
 
 And Prue, alarmed, started to invite nice flappers 
 to play tennis. "You don't mind if we use your 
 court, do you, Felicity? But ours is so cramped at 
 the wall end where Wentworth plants his nasturtiums, 
 and he does get so annoyed to have them trampled on ; 
 though I tell him it's what he must expect now, with 
 young people about." 
 
 Prue applied nice flappers as a first-aid remedy to 
 her shadowy alarms about Larry, without in the least 
 bringing forward these shadows for clearer inspection. 
 Influenced still by Quaker prohibitions on what they 
 deemed sinful, she was as afraid for Larry the second 
 in his adolescent phase, as she had been and still was 
 afraid of her undying passion for Larry the first. 
 Was she at all aware of the startling likeness which 
 had sprung now into visibility, between the two of the 
 dynasty? But even if she saw it, Prue was tcyo 
 normally cheerful to fret over such a superficial 
 danger — "He's a good boy enough!" Prue had been 
 very much better informed than Felicity over Run- 
 chester code, and thus she had stood high with Larry 
 
46 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 during his three or four years of — ^neuter gender. 
 She did not notice when it began to matter less to him 
 that Felicity was unbalanced in her cricketing infor- 
 mation; or how often he sauntered restlessly down 
 the garden and through the gate in the wall. Next 
 door was the right sort of luxuriant softness; inter- 
 esting, gracious people to be met, celebrities, some of 
 them; flowers in profusion; and colour strikingly 
 massed or artfully subdued ; and wine and good cook- 
 ing; and Felicity's voice singing queer little song- 
 snatches that thrilled by their incomprehensibility; 
 and talk that dared and amused by a certain 
 suppleness at its moral joints. Next door, in fact, 
 Larry existed in surroundings originally supplied by 
 Gilbert Somers — including caste. 
 
 Prue was wise in her statement that the genus boy 
 (from twelve to sixteen) abhors carpets. Prue was 
 foolish to forget that Larry was seventeen. His 
 mother was no good to him at this juncture, but it 
 did not matter, because he was able to confide in 
 Felicity again; the barrier of the Runchester years 
 was broken. They were once more as they had been 
 when Larry was an urchin. I was forced back 
 to remember again and again how adorable she could 
 be with a child she loved . . . and presently re-ac- 
 customed myself to the pain of finding them in the 
 studio, his head vivid against her knee, her fingers 
 rumpling through his hair; bright flushed cheeks; 
 tender inflexion in her voice as she called him by the 
 absurd nonsense names invented long ago: "Larri- 
 
THE SHRINE 47 
 
 kin" and "Humpty." It was as though he had re- 
 turned from a long journey abroad. 
 
 One evening I walked into the studio, and found 
 the picture just as usual . . . and knew that for them 
 it was different, eternally and miraculously different, 
 . . . and that there was no further need for me to 
 remind myself fiercely: "I'm her own son, and he 
 isn't!" Larry was putting up no more competition 
 as Felicity's son. 
 
 I cannot tell why the certainty that they were 
 imminent lovers smote me on that one entrance out 
 of the thousand times that I had seen them in contact 
 as close and as happy. Larry was not conscious yet 
 of the difference — ^nor, I believe, was Felicity; but I 
 cannot be sure. 
 
 It seemed ages and a&ons that I stood about and 
 waited helplessly for their realization ; and went back 
 with Larry to Runchester; and returned home; and 
 stood about and waited, I alone at one end of 
 the world, and they at the other; and somewhere 
 in space Prue's active, merry little person hoping 
 that her son was "all right," and would one day make 
 a good husband and father; "but, dear me, plenty of 
 time for that!" . . . 
 
 Ages and aeons — not quite a year, actually. The 
 Christmas after Larry had left Runchester Felicity 
 was swung up on a surge of creative power; exhibited 
 two or three exquisite pieces of statuary at the 
 Nouveau Siecle Galleries; and, hectic and excited by 
 the kudos she received, insisted on modelling Larry's 
 
48 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 head and shoulders — "Not you, Kevin; you're too 
 obvious. You shall be my model when I'm reduced 
 to doing pot-boilers!" 
 
 And in those hours she spent studying his lines 
 and moulding the set of his head, pursuing the secret 
 of his intangible boyish sweetness, mobile mischief of 
 his mouth, and fleeting desire in his eyes, she must 
 have started more than once at the subtly unfolding 
 likeness to the first and only man she had loved. 
 
 Her torment of frustration was lulled, and longing 
 passed magically away from her body and her soul; 
 her abstracted brain was steadied and at peace; and 
 her soul was like an opal, the blurred greys and 
 mauves and blues shifting, clouding, parting to show 
 the light bright fire shut in. Felicity was a girl 
 again — ^Larry Munro had come back. 
 
 And for me the waiting was over. 
 
 And from Prue? — bitter reproaches? — a mother's 
 curse? — a widow's hard resentment for her husband 
 superseded and forgotten? Why, no, none of this 
 fantastic rubbish. Prue quite simply did not know. 
 She confided in me how thankful she was that my 
 mother seemed to be "settling down more." 
 
 "Felicity, will you send me to school abroad some- 
 where?" 
 
 "Yes, dear. Do you want to learn the language? 
 Are you sick of Runchester already?" 
 
 "I can't stand it any more." 
 
 And for once she was attentive to the harshness in 
 my voice, and knew that "it" did not refer to Run- 
 
THE SHRINE 49 
 
 Chester. A pause, during which a question hovered 
 on the air. . . . Then — 
 
 "Well, Kevin," kindly, "make what arrangements 
 you like." 
 
 "I want to be sent!" impatient of my futile inde- 
 pendence. And I added: "Don't let me come home 
 for the holidays for a year or two. Then I'll be 
 ready for Oxford." 
 
 "Larry is going to Oxford; he's in the seventh 
 heaven." 
 
 For the first and only time I was guilty of melo- 
 drama. 
 
 "Larry can go to the seventli hell — for all I care!" 
 
 But at all events there was no more for me 
 to suffer now. Larry Munro had robbed me twice 
 over of what God had never once given me. So what 
 else could he do? 
 
 "What shall I say to Prue when she asks why 
 you've left your school?" Felicity could not be 
 broken in one hour of the habit of turning Vo me for 
 counsel. 
 
 "Oh, tell her that foreign travel widens the mind. 
 Tell her that my father mentioned in his will I was to 
 be educated in France. Tell her I was discovered 
 hanging on to a sheet out of my dormitory window 
 with a ginger-beer bottle between my toes, and they 
 requested you to remove me." 
 
 I had forgotten that Felicity was only a semi- 
 listener. Her subsequent version persisted that I had 
 confessed to be in a scrape at Runchester, and was 
 
50 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 begging her to take me away before I was discovered 
 hanging myself from the dormitory window. 
 
 I went eventually to a college at Lausanne. And 
 discovered winter sport to be an excellent soporific, 
 leaving little space in which to brood ... on the 
 sudden opening of a studio door — two figures, a boy 
 and a woman, in the far dusky alcove . . . woman's 
 head bent and boy's head bent back. . . . 
 
 "Gare! Care!! Gare!!!" — a crowded sleigh 
 whizzed past our hungry procession a-tramp 
 down the mountains from Chateau d'Oex. Jolly good 
 days in the crunching weather. It was almost 
 all right. I had almost forgotten. . . . 
 
 [9] 
 
 I was two years at Lausanne, three at Oxford. 
 Larry had thought better of the university project, 
 and allowed me this period unmolested — I felt it to be 
 in the nature of a sub-let. He was meanwhile but- 
 ting his way through the workshops of a first-class 
 engineering firm in the Midlands; in due time he 
 returned to London, professionally involved in new 
 schemes for the extension of tube railways. I hardly 
 dared believe yet that it would be safe for me to make 
 open statement in his presence that I intended reading 
 for the Bar, without tempting his swift emulation. 
 But had some hitch occurred in the mechanism I had 
 long ago accepted? Or had the poignant crisis of 
 
THE SHRINE 51 
 
 five years back been also my liberation? For Larry 
 merely said, "Going to take silk, are you, old man? 
 May heaven in its mercy visit the Bench with deaf- 
 ness!" 
 
 I settled down in chambers off Middle Inn 
 Gardens. Felicity made no comment on my 
 determination not to live at home. But Prue took 
 the unexpected view that I dwelt apart because I in- 
 tended to lead a fast life; and quite comically dis- 
 approved of me; remonstrating with Felicity for per- 
 mitting such callous independence: "Bless me, boys 
 have got to sow their wild oats, and I don't ask Larry 
 questions; but a decent home in the background and 
 his mother to count his washing, make no end of a 
 difference in the long run. Felicity, my dear!" 
 
 I laughed when Felicity reported this speech. And 
 her gay, ironic eyes smiled back at me ... we were 
 good enough friends for that; though we still did not 
 refer to my reasons for not emulating Larry's shirking 
 example held up to me. Breeding is a disadvantage 
 sometimes, when vituperation might so effectively 
 clear the air. 
 
 "Give Prue my love, and ask her to come to tea 
 with me — and I promise to clear away all the lurid 
 photographs from my mantelpiece!" 
 
 "I suppose she supposes it must be chorus-girls — 
 and brokers," Felicity surmised. Then — "She's 
 rather a dear . . ."a hint of remorse in the acknowl- 
 edgment. "But I do wonder — " She fell silent, 
 
52 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 musing. And, silent also, I was able to add my 
 wonder to hers, by what seductions Prue could have 
 drawn Larry the first for mate. 
 
 "Can you see her as a girl, Kevin?" 
 
 "Oh yes, easily. Mid-Victorian. Not the demure, 
 swooning type, but lively, arch and amiable — with the 
 sort of sleeves and ringlets that go with it. 'She 
 rallied him in a sprightly tone ' — that was Prue." 
 
 "She's very grey now," still with tenderness and 
 remorse blended — and a hint of fear. "And when 
 she buys a new hat, she wears it back to front, to 
 disguise that she was ever married to an actor. I do 
 love her for that! She's been good to me, Kevin 
 ..." her voice pleaded an excuse, lifted to a 
 question unspoken: "Need I ever tell her?" 
 
 "It's beyond her range of guessing," I answered 
 elliptically, standing at the leaded window with my 
 back to the room. And — "Ask her to come next 
 Saturday; when she can be practical about furniture 
 and draughts to her heart's content." 
 
 Prue duly arrived, in the new hat still back to 
 front, albeit jauntily put on, in honour of this rather 
 immoral visit to an immoral bachelor's immoral 
 apartments. She discovered immediately that my 
 bed was aslant between door and window, and snapped 
 my head off when I suggested that there was no other 
 place for it. 
 
 "Bless the boy! What's wrong with here?" 
 
 Nothing at all. "Here" was where it had stood 
 originally — only I had moved it to give Prue the 
 
THE SHRINE 53 
 
 pleasure of putting it back. She dusted my books too, 
 and tweaked my desk into a convenient place for the 
 light; and made inquires about the porter and char- 
 woman and window-cleaner; and did I know how 
 to manage a geyser by myself? and the grates were a 
 disgrace; and — "This cupboard's locked, KeVin," 
 shaking at the door; "just like their impertinence! 
 See that you get the key, and have it cleared out." 
 
 "It has a key — I mean — I knew it was locked . . . 
 there's nothing in it," I stammered culpably. And 
 Prue pursed up her lips — and chattered quickly and 
 libellously about washerwomen. 
 
 There was no harm in encouraging Prue's 
 pleasantly thrilled convictions that the secret of my 
 mysterious follies lay all that afternoon within a few 
 feet of her, in the locked cupboard; she was not fond 
 enough of me to be grieved by the idea. 
 
 "Why Felicity doesn't lecture you, instead of gad- 
 ding about! She's your mother. And you're no 
 more fit to look after yourself " 
 
 "Than she is." 
 
 Prue stirred her tea vigorously, scrutinized me 
 from under the uncompromising back brim of her 
 hat, and jerked her chair an inch or two nearer 
 mine. 
 
 "You haven't been much at home these last years, 
 Kevin, or I might have spoken my mind to you sooner 
 — about Felicity." 
 
 "Well?" Instantly I sprang sentinel. 
 
 "That cottage of hers in Kent " 
 
54 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 Felicity had bought Thyme Croft about two or three 
 years ago. The delicacy which prompted the pur- 
 chase was natural — her own house was next door to 
 Prue's. . . . 
 
 "She has never once invited me down there," the 
 latter blurted out. 
 
 "Nor me." 
 
 Prue's hurt little face brightened. "How odd 
 of Felicity!" She was relieved at not being singled 
 out for special exclusion, but still worried over 
 Felicity's motives. 
 
 "She probably thinks you wouldn't care to leave 
 Wentworth," I blundered. 
 
 "My dear lad, I shouldn't; but Wentworth and 
 Felicity get on capitally ; and he'd have been only too 
 delighted to come along and give her any sort of help 
 in the management of her plants: I suppose she has 
 plants down there?" 
 
 — And other things, the management of whom 
 needed no help from Wentworth. Wentworth . . . 
 I smiled at the notion of Larry's idyll Under Royal 
 Patronage. 
 
 "No doubt I'm wrong in speaking to you like this, 
 Kevin, as you're her son; but do you think Felicity 
 is — being foolish at all?" 
 
 I negatived with brief haughtiness; sorry for the 
 blatant lie — but loyalty cannot be bent in two direc- 
 tions. "She's admired, naturally; I should be the 
 last to grumble at her social influence, string-pulling 
 by charm — all that ; it's not a bad start for me to be 
 
THE SHRINE 55 
 
 devilling for Sir Harry Eyre. But entertaining so 
 much in London, and being entertained, I expect she 
 feels an after-the-season reaction, and the need of 
 complete solitude." 
 
 Prue cheered up. "Dear me, yes, I know what 
 it means myself; rushing about, and one's friends 
 popping in and out, and the Sewing Club always at 
 sixes and sevens, and my At Home day " 
 
 Bless her innocent conceit, which saw in her own 
 trotting, unselfish obscure existence "with one's 
 friends popping in and out," the equivalent of Feli- 
 city's gracious spacious career as a Society Para- 
 graph. But my joy in Prue was touched to irritation 
 when she went on to say : 
 
 "It would do her good to remember, all the same, 
 and I've told her often enough, that we're no chickens, 
 she and I; and can't gallivant as we used to, without 
 knocking ourselves up." 
 
 Her fuzzy grey hair and humorous eyes netted in 
 tiny wrinkles, bore witness to it. And no wonder 
 Felicity was galled, to be dragged along in Prue's 
 thoughts, a contemporary as a matter of course. But 
 to Prue, over fifty. Felicity, twelve years younger, 
 figured only as the other woman whom Larry Munro 
 had loved and would have married. 
 
 "You know I care a great deal about your mother, 
 Kevin, and I'd hate her to be laid up this winter; 
 but she worCt wear wool next to her skin." 
 
 "She told me once that it was worth while being 
 ill, having you to nurse her." 
 
56 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 And Prue was soothed and gratified by the tribute, 
 which, though diplomatic, was also genuine. "Oh, 
 nonsense, I only run in and rub her chest, as any 
 neighbour would!" 
 
 "You'll come in and rub mine if I'm ill, won't you, 
 Prue? I don't want to be left to the thronging 
 neighbours." 
 
 Prue's eyes were drawn irresistibly to the cupboard. 
 "You've got — your mother." 
 
 "Not in there." 
 
 "Though she's hopeless in a sick-room, the poor 
 darling. Do you remember that week after Miss 
 Adams had left, when she gave you castor oil three 
 times a day instead of cod-liver oil?" 
 
 We laughed in chorus over this one of Felicity's 
 rare displays of maternal determination. 
 
 "That I lived through it, proves I was intended to 
 be a great man." 
 
 "Oh, you're just ordinary," she chaffed me. 
 
 "And Larry, is he just ordinary too?" 
 
 She sighed. "He's so plain lately, Kevin — ^when 
 did you last see him? We thought at one time he 
 wasn't bad-looking; but now — " her eyes shone with 
 pride in her son, even while her voice tapped him in 
 depreciation, "not that it matters for a man. And 
 he's doing well at his job ; nothing out of the way, of 
 
 course 
 
 It's all right, my dear; I'm not Larry, and it 
 won't unduly puff me up if you tell me to my face 
 how wonderful he is." 
 
THE SHRINE 57 
 
 After that she stayed another hour and a half, 
 boring me. . . . 
 
 "For such an old-fashioned mite as you used to be, 
 Kevin," on parting, "I must say you've grown a fine 
 big fellow," her eyes ruminated on my length 
 and breadth for a moment — ^and I waited for the 
 long-delayed piece of sentiment or impulse of nearer 
 confidence. At last — 
 
 "I believe you could manage my piano between 
 you, you and Larry; it does bring such a lot of dirt 
 and bother to have a man in for the job, and they do 
 charge you such a lot nowadays; and grumble if they 
 don't get their glass of beer. And the language! 
 And then you have to thank them on your bended 
 knees for ruining the stair-carpet. Wentworth 
 doesn't like a piano in the dining-room, suddenly, 
 after all these years, and wants it moved on to the first 
 floor. If Oxford hasn't made you too proud " 
 
 I kissed her puckered forehead, and reassured her 
 that Oxford had taught me nothing but the profound- 
 est humility — and that the piano should be moved 
 forthwith. 
 
 [10] 
 
 Larry and I did not meet frequently within the 
 next two years; he was engrossed in his work, and I 
 in mine; and when we took recreation — ^well, I made 
 it my care that it should be on different recreation 
 grounds. Thanks to Lausanne and Oxford and the 
 
58 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 Bar, this was apparently easy; my circle no longer 
 intersected Larry's. And though I could not relax 
 from the habit of spiking my fortresses, as of old, yet 
 it really seemed as though my destiny, subservient to 
 Larry-idolatry, had been spun free at last. Never- 
 theless, I vowed he should not know my friends, nor 
 the friends of my friends; the familiar kick at 
 my heels and jolt at my elbows might still urge me to 
 a very frenzy for escape. So I guarded myself from 
 intimacy with any of those luminaries of politics, 
 diplomacy and art — Igg-liff , in fact, to use our school- 
 boy joke — whom I used to meet at Felicity's salon. 
 It must be dubbed a salon; drawing-room conveys the 
 wrong idea, over-emphasizes the diamond-and-low- 
 neck aspect. Felicity's career as a hostess was of the 
 kind which one day would form itself into the ideal 
 volume of light biography: "Mrs. Somers and her 
 Times, 255. net." It held just the mellow unreality 
 of an illustration filmed in tissue-paper, of such a 
 book; Felicity had retained from the training of the 
 Somers, an aversion from the hoyden manners and 
 violent revolts of young twentieth-century; and they 
 were never permitted to intrude. 
 
 I imagined Larry to be a favourite among Felicity's 
 friends ; but I had not the right to question him, while 
 I strictly kept concealed from him what were my 
 own intimate spheres. And he showed no curiosity; 
 we might both have been conforming to the 
 silent rules of an understood game — accidental on 
 Larry's part, of course; he simply was not interested. 
 
THE SHRINE 59 
 
 And gradually my precautions slackened from mis- 
 trustful tension ; I ceased from teasing my brain with 
 far-fetched possibilities of Larry breaking into this 
 fortress or that, by means of chance encounter, chance 
 introduction: the friend whose relation-by-marriage 
 just happens to bring a fellow along to a studio rag 
 one evening, who had an after-appointment with 
 young Munro who called in to fetch him. . . . 
 
 Drivelling — yes! but often enough in the earlier 
 stages of my panic, I had narrowly, by lie and by 
 strategy, circumvented such catastrophe: Larry in my 
 rooms, and the stray man who dropped in — it was our 
 schoolboyhood all over again — breathless watching, 
 while Larry all unconsciously walked into popularity. 
 Had he not been so unconscious, had he only been 
 aware of my existent state of mind, sharing it even, I 
 could have said to him boldly: "No — don't stop on 
 for another drink, at any moment Randolph and 
 Payne and Willy Carter may arrive, and I can't turn 
 them away, and they may like you, and invite you to 
 call; and at the Paynes' you will inevitably meet the 
 Setons and Rex Warrington-Crewe, and Leonora 
 Bamet — and there you are . . . where I don't want 
 you to be!" 
 
 But Larry would have thought me mad. I had to 
 fake an engagement elsewhere, march him out of the 
 house, use a public telephone to 'phone home to whom- 
 ever might have arrived — by invitation or by accident 
 — that I was detained and would return presently: 
 then rid myself of Larry in the vicinity of my pre- 
 
60 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 tended destination, eluding his frank and exaspera- 
 ting desire to accompany me, . . . and double back 
 to Middle Inn Gardens! 
 
 It would have been less tortuous and more dignified, 
 more decent, even, to have knifed affection ruthlessly ; 
 and on some pretext of quarrel, have parted with him 
 for good. But — life without Larry? . . . My 
 twin bogey of love and hate stalked me grimly, and 
 gave me no rest, that first year I settled down in Lon- 
 don. The second year, as I have said before, fear be- 
 gan to dwindle. I had averted all looming contingen- 
 cies, and now they recurred less frequently. Larry 
 himself was moody and depressed whenever I saw him 
 — and it was only the conquering irresistible Larry 
 who twanged the nerve of my obsession. What was 
 the matter with him, and whence had departed the 
 glory of early day that had hung about him before he 
 was twenty? A woman might have wept over the 
 change in Larry; perhaps two women did. And I — I 
 wanted to do something for him; wanted to hear the 
 old infectious whistle, which in the past had caused 
 me to hate him furiously ; and in the future, I knew, 
 would make me hate him no less. 
 
 But this was not the sort of Larry I could fight with 
 any credit. And so I let vigilance sag. 
 
 "Can you get away for a week's tramp, old man?" 
 
 I shook my head. "Eyre will want me for the 
 Crown V, Durham, Ltd., case till the end of the month, 
 anyway. I could clear off in May; in fact, I was 
 
THE SHRINE 61 
 
 was going down to Porthgollan, but I'd rather put in 
 the time with you." 
 
 "Who's at Porthgollan?" 
 
 "Kate Seton has a cottage there. Calls it The Shoe 
 — always has so many people in it she doesn't know 
 what to do sort of idea. She's a novelist, and bound 
 over by the public to be strictly original." 
 
 Idly Larry strolled over to my book-shelves. "K. 
 B. Seton — is that the woman? Is her stuff any 
 good?" 
 
 "Borrow a couple, if you like, and find out for 
 yourself. She gave me that^' — indicating a recent 
 acquisition. 
 
 "My lamb!" Larry apostrophized the buU-pup 
 affectionately; a low, vindictive growl was the 
 response. "My fairy! Doesn't answer to either 
 of these titles. Hi! Baskerville!" — and a red 
 snap from eyes deep-set in festoons of loose baggy 
 flesh. 
 
 "He's annoyed at being called out of his name, 
 that's all. Potter!" 
 
 Potter's one enormous fang, worn decoratively out- 
 side his face, ceased to be threatening. Almost, he 
 smiled on his master. 
 
 "Little Playmates!" remarked Larry rudely, for 
 he was accustomed to the worship of dogs. "Potter 
 is very much in this picture, Kev: the Lonely Little 
 Boy, and: 'At least, dear old doggie, you love me, 
 don't you? ' And you've both got the same pleading, 
 melting, liquid, brown eyes." 
 
62 THECHINASHOP 
 
 "Like butterscotch in its different stages of manu- 
 facture — yes. Potter isn't at all the sort of footling 
 character you describe; when he and I feel misan- 
 thropic, we sit and growl at one another. But look 
 here, Larry, I'm not a bit keen on Porthgollan — will 
 you be able to manage the second week in May for a 
 tramp?" 
 
 "Dunno; I'll try;" his brief spell of enthu- 
 siasm for the projected holiday had already subsided 
 to apathy. 
 
 Had Felicity done this to him? Was his dejection 
 the result of her favour withdrawn? Felicity was 
 radiantly capricious, I knew . . . but never yet to 
 Larry Munro. 
 
 A subtle aversion turned me from going to see her, 
 and thus solving the riddle. Hitherto I had believed 
 Felicity capable of one passion, translucent and fixed. 
 That its object had died and been re-embodied was no 
 contradiction to her loyalty. But if now she had 
 grown sick of Larry. . . . 
 
 I ought to have been glad of the possibility — God ! 
 I had hated him enough, and twice over. Nevertheless 
 and curiously, I could probe to the very core of my 
 wound, and find there a speck of comfort in recogni- 
 tion of the manifest scheme and purpose of the two 
 women absorbed in the one type . . . wife and wife 
 — for in all but the consummation. Felicity had been 
 wedded to Larry the first; mother and lover . . . the 
 rhythm lilted on — and I, the outcast, foredoomed. 
 But the resentment of vision could never be bitter as 
 
THE SHRINE 63 
 
 of those blindly thwarted and pushed out. An artist 
 had here planned perfection. And I, as an artist in 
 appreciation, was appalled at the thought that Fe- 
 licity's disloyalty was bound to destroy my sense of 
 an ordered grouping — turn my isolation into sense- 
 less, cruel accident. . . . 
 So I did not go to her. 
 
 [11] 
 
 Through the dense breath of the Cafe Royal — the 
 long, low room with the kiosk of foreign newspapers 
 on the threshold — I caught a sudden glimpse of Larry 
 at a table not far off. He was pale, and his eyes glit- 
 tered scornfully, scorn that might have been 
 directed against himself, or at me, or — who was with 
 him? 
 
 A plump, intervening shoulder, twisting and shrug- 
 ging coyly among a group of male satellites, entirely 
 blocked out his companion from my range of vision. 
 I, too, twisted and shrugged in opposition till I could 
 see what I wanted. Felicity? No, a flapper; a 
 child of about sixteen, common and pretty ; face 
 smothered lavishly in powder; baby lips over-red but 
 parted in fresh surprise at something Larry had just 
 bent to whisper into her mop of dark curls; crimson 
 satin tammy; beads . . . 
 
 Oh Lord! 
 
 She nudged him, and giggled loudly — "You are a 
 one! Let's get a move on now; I wouldn't miss 
 
64 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 Beattie and Babs for worlds, I wouldn't; and their 
 turn is billed for ten-fifteen." 
 
 They passed our table on their way out. Larry 
 nodded to me, the corners of his mouth jauntily tilted. 
 
 "Hurry up," I admonished him, "or you'll miss 
 Beattie and Babs" — ^the flapper was already at the 
 door, her high black patent boots twinkling from 
 beneath the flare and toss of her short skirt. 
 
 "I wouldn't for worlds,'^ said Larry, very 
 seriously; and followed the lure of the boots. 
 
 "That was Munro, wasn't it?" asked one of the 
 men at my table; "son of the notorious Larry. He's 
 in the works with Blake Fenton. Awful young slacker, 
 Fenton says, and no wonder, considering what he goes 
 about with. I didn't know you knew him, Somers." 
 
 "We were at Runchester together," I replied 
 evasively. 
 
 I sat up late for Larry that night, oddly positive of 
 his appearance in my rooms. 
 
 "Give me a drink, Kev!" 
 
 "Two, if you like." 
 
 "D'you mean that? I was afraid you'd try and 
 influence me for my good, after the look you 
 gave me to-night." He flung himself into a saddle- 
 bag. 
 
 "Your mistake. That was congratulation and best 
 wishes." 
 
 "Damn your sarcasm . . . Kev, she was young, 
 that's all!" 
 
THE SHRINE 65 
 
 I understood — that this was a knell. 
 
 "What about Felicity?" and I was glad now that 
 I had always called her so; that there was no need 
 for me to say; "What about my mother?" 
 
 "Felicity — " he stared before him, avoiding 
 my eyes. "Well — she's forty-one, and I'm twenty- 
 five." 
 
 "Try not to be a cad." 
 
 A knell . . . cracked . . . discordairt . . . my 
 ears were still full of the sound. 
 
 Larry sprang up; stood with arms outflung, 
 gripping at the table behind him. 
 
 "Am I less of a cad if I lie about it? I'm going 
 to her to-morrow — yes, to-morrow morning ... to 
 tell her. It's only fair. I don't want to be furtive. 
 Kevin, I can't stand it any longer! — No, it isn't that 
 kid — Heavens, no! Don't care if I never see her 
 again; that was only a rag! It isn't any one. 
 It's just that Felicity has worn me out . . . seven 
 years of it . . . what did I know, when I was 
 eighteen, of how I should feel at twenty-five? For 
 those seven years — I swear it — she's had the best of 
 me, unshared; but I want — oh, I don't know 
 what I want!" with a plunge back into despondency. 
 "But I'm going to Felicity to-morrow." 
 
 Well . . . his desire was crudely obvious enough, 
 symbolized in his reaction to that flapper. He wanted 
 youth, youth, youth — the sap and spring of it; the 
 pace of youth alongside of his own, and its plangent. 
 
66 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 mooning quality. He wanted to teach, not learn; 
 to be masterful, not submissive; to be shocked, not 
 finessed. He wanted his mate .... I could not 
 but acknowledge that it argued a passionate sincerity 
 in him, that he was ready to renounce Felicity for the 
 mere romantic idea, before ever it materialized into 
 beloved form. 
 
 "So you propose telling her " 
 
 "That I respect and honour her more than any- 
 body else I know, but " 
 
 Larry was interrupted by my uncontrollable shout 
 of laughter. I could not help myself. 
 
 "What is it?" 
 
 "Nothing. Go on. That you respect and honour 
 her more than anybody else you know, but ?" 
 
 "I don't see what you're laughing at," sulkily. 
 
 "At your pretty, chivalrous reassurances, that's all. 
 Confound you, Larry! even you can't seriously 
 intend to insult her by that sort of tosh?" 
 
 Larry presented to me a blank chubbiness: 
 "There's no insult and no tosh in telling a woman that 
 you respect her. I won't have her imagine that I'm 
 chucking her away like a frayed glove." 
 
 "You're not, of course." 
 
 "I was mad about her in my teens. But where's 
 the callow young ass who wouldn't have been? Why, 
 she was there, waiting, almost before I was 
 ready to have any one waiting for me, who would 
 have expected less; so where was my chance?" 
 incoherently. 
 
THE SHRINE 67 
 
 Heir, unconsciously, to a demand created by the 
 first Larry Munro — yes, Felicity's parched exactions 
 must have been overwhelmingly too much for eight- 
 een-and-a-half. 
 
 "All right, all right," I granted him. "You've 
 been kidnapped, ensnared, sirened, harpied and har- 
 pooned, with all the stock seasoning. Even then, 
 you re coming out sound and happy, aren't you?" 
 "If only I were," he muttered. "One wrench — 
 and wholly boy again. . . . But I've left a bit of me 
 hanging like a rag on a bramble-bush. I'm twenty- 
 five, Kevin; and if I don't revolt now — well, I never 
 shall! I shall grow — lazy. D'you think my com- 
 mon clay isn't aware that Felicity has solved a com- 
 mon-clay problem for me, all these years? — Ah!" 
 he winced backwards, involuntarily; then his gloom 
 burst into a puckish grin: "I say, remember when 
 we were kids and you flew at me once like a young 
 savage?" 
 
 I had not supposed him so perceptive. "Why 
 mention it now?" 
 
 "I thought you were going to do it again, a second 
 ago. Kev," with a grave simplicity that was discon- 
 certing, "I do so want a girl whom I can bring home 
 to the mater — I've felt a swine towards her." 
 I groaned impatiently. 
 "Hang it — ^the mater does exist." 
 "Not more now than seven years ago." 
 "I don't see why I'm justifying myself to you," he 
 flared. 
 
68 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "You're not. Far from it. So don't worry." 
 
 Larry stormed up and down the room in his wrath! 
 "Man — there's wonder for me at the end of the world 
 — would you have me miss it? . . . A sort of 
 promise — because I'm rather wonderful myself!" — 
 He jerked back his head, while he swung and flaunted, 
 as a blade from its sheath, his confidence in a special 
 grant of divinity. Then, ashamed in the old, 
 familiar Larry-fashion, began absurdly outboasting 
 his own boast, to make me believe its reality to have 
 been meant for sheer, vapid nonsense. 
 
 I was reminded of the Greek Peleus who had held 
 Thetis in his hand — "though she changed her shape 
 seven times. For she changed, as I held her, into 
 water, and to vapour, and to burning flame, and to a 
 rock, and to a black-maned lion, and to a tall and 
 stately tree" — Larry, in the past half-hour, had 
 twisted through the stages of ingenuous schoolboy, 
 man of the world, almost a brute, entirely a fool, a 
 less than human goblin, a more than human god, a 
 braggart, a poet — I had never remotely suspected this 
 last in Larry; but surely he was a poet who lamented 
 that he could not escape from enchanted ground with- 
 out the sacrifice of a fragment of his impetuous youth 
 — "left hanging like a rag on a bramble-bush." 
 
 "Felicity " 
 
 I became attentive again. What was he raving 
 about, dreaming about, now? 
 
 "Felicity is unique; a thousand times too good for 
 me — and too much for me. When I gabble rot, she 
 
THE SHRINE 69 
 
 can smile that absent, mournful, teasing smile of hers, 
 which simply shuts me up, because it means that she's 
 probed so much deeper than I, has learnt wisdom and 
 tolerance years and years ago, loves my rash, idiotic, 
 infantile judgments — and it shut me up and it mad- 
 dens me, Kev, for the girl who'd be intolerant and 
 idiotic with me. . . . Oh, that girl! — ^you know 
 . . . the one who doesn't exist — she'd pick up sticks 
 in a wood, a damp, mushy wood with most of the red 
 leaves blown down, and help a fellow to get a 
 fire burning under a gipsy tripod." 
 
 "So would a Boy Scout," I snubbed his ardours. 
 
 "And Felicity would trail about among the tree- 
 stems, in exquisitely inappropriate clothes, scattering 
 exquisitely inappropriate remarks — till suddenly 
 she'd look forlorn as a star reflected in a puddle, and 
 ask to be escorted home. The girl would never 
 want to go home; she'd want to go on!" he rang out, 
 triumphant as though she were a fact instead of 
 ether. 
 
 "I'm sick of you. Go and find her, then." 
 
 "How can I?" He hauled himself slowly to his 
 feet, and stood with bowed shoulders, a maimed look 
 about him, as of a man who has just remembered he is 
 heavily burdened. "After tomorrow morning" — ^he 
 shrugged. 
 
 "Wait till the evening," I entreated him suddenly. 
 
 "Why on earth — oh, cut the cheap sentiment, Kev." 
 
 Nightmare by early day! ... By night one was 
 strung up to expect all that was sinister and macabre; 
 
70 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 but nightmare by day gained all the contrasting horror 
 of normal surroundings. 
 
 "Good night, old man, and thanks for being a 
 pillow to my troubles; I'll perjure myself by saying 
 it wasn't at all like rubbing one's cheek confidingly 
 against sandpaper." 
 
 "And I won't perjure myself by saying it was over- 
 good taste to select me as your confidant. Under the 
 circumstances, I'm not the right person." 
 
 "Can't help that," said Larry coolly; "you're the 
 only person, you see." 
 
 His feet pattered down the stone steps, thudded to 
 a leap at the bottom — God! how could he? But I 
 allowed myself one throb of gladness for what he had 
 last said . . . before I began to think of Felicity. 
 
 [12] 
 
 But perhaps she would have need of me now. 
 Felicity was one of those who reached for human aid 
 in a crisis of suff*ering; I had seen her cling to Prue 
 when they lost Larry the first. But this time the 
 solace of Prue was, of necessity, denied. And: 
 "I'm her son — her own son!" the old tag which I had 
 deemed limp and devitalized, beat its measure again 
 all through the next morning, while I knew Larry to 
 be destroying her . . . destroying her . . . and 
 assuring her of his continued reverence. 
 
 In the afternoon I went. 
 
THE SHRINE 71 
 
 "Oh, you, Kev! — it's so good of you to come; you 
 know I'm At Home now on second and fourth Tues- 
 days. You've just missed Magdalen Ralli, conveying 
 more obviously than ever that her looks were burnt 
 out by passion and not fretted out by time — that's 
 what she plays for you to say, of course! I'm 
 expecting quite a crowd this afternoon." 
 
 She was wandering to and fro in the drawing-room, 
 her heels tapping the parquet, her hand now among 
 the fragile tea-cups, now straightening a miniature 
 on the wall. She wore a sprigged muslin frock, and 
 corals; her hair, with its softening pallor of silver on 
 the gold, piled in high, loose curls. She motioned me 
 to a chair, and strove to keep me entertained as though 
 I were a visitor; handed me my tea-cup, and 
 said, "Here's rue for you — and here's some for me." 
 . . . No, her eyes only, in their stricken clouded 
 blue, sounded Ophelia's plaint to my fancy, as I sat 
 and cursed Larry — "Milk and sugar, Kevin? I 
 forget. . . ." 
 
 (". . . I would give you the violets, but they 
 withered all when my father died. . . .") 
 
 So he had been that morning. I wondered dis- 
 passionately if I would have done better to have 
 murdered him last night in my rooms — before Felic- 
 ity put on that girlish little muslin frock and the 
 corals, to receive him. Or had she changed into this 
 attire for some distraught reason unknown to the 
 world beyond her sorrow, after he had left? For me, 
 
72 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 those dangling corals were part of the nightmare. 
 
 She went on gaily: "I'm expecting — let me see 
 ... oh, Lord Chambercombe nearly always comes; 
 and Mrs. Kildare and her daughter — poor thing, she 
 can't remember she has married a millionaire, and 
 will order things that are in season for her dinner- 
 parties! And — do you know Nina Barclay? 
 And probably Norway Reade, the sculptor; and little 
 Etienne to meet him — I've promised the introduction ; 
 it's such a help to beginners. Or was it Lord Cham- 
 bercombe he was so anxious to know, because of a 
 constituency somewhere — it couldn't be, though, as 
 he's a Frenchman; one's friends are so confus- 
 ing, and yet it seems ungracious to shut oneself away 
 from them. Weren't you once rather taken with Nina 
 Barclay, Kevin? She's engaged to the dramatic 
 critic on The Roundabout.' " 
 
 "Not a very good match for her, then; they never 
 have dramatic criticism on 'The Roundabout'!" 
 ... I had not the remotest notion what I was talking 
 about. If only she would sit still, not keep 
 moving the empty chairs a few inches to the right or 
 left. I was glad nobody arrived to occupy the chairs, 
 and yet. ... 
 
 "I hate a crowd," she repeated fretfully. "Larry 
 was here this morning, but he won't come to my after- 
 noons — somebody bores him, and then he gets cross, 
 like all men. Have you seen this little thing I did 
 of Larry? I do think I've caught him rather 
 well." . . . 
 
THE SHRINE 73 
 
 I glowered in silence at the bust of Larry's head 
 and shoulders, on which her preoccupied hand was 
 for a moment resting in caress — it was the identical 
 one of eight years ago, when she had made fatal 
 discovery of Larry the first in Larry the second. 
 
 "Larrikin is so like him," she whispered. 
 "Look, Kev — isn't it ridiculous?" She slid open a 
 drawer in the Vemet-Martin bureau, and passed me 
 a photograph. 
 
 Larry. About four years old. And beside him 
 a girl of the same age, with a shock of thick fair hair 
 falling over a farouche little face. That puzzled me. 
 
 "Who is it?" I asked. 
 
 "Larrikin." 
 
 "Yes, I know. But the girl?" 
 
 The tenderness in her voice faded to indifference. 
 "Yo ; his twin. I named her Yolande after your aunt 
 who died in India in some terribly hot station in the 
 hills — or it may have been because it wasn't in the 
 hills, that she died — ^Kipling muddles one so about 
 India." 
 
 But I was still intent on the photograph. A giant 
 fist had clenched somewhere inside me . . . knuckles 
 white with the contraction. ... I waited for it to 
 relax. 
 
 "Felicity " 
 
 "Miss Beech. Miss Hilda Beech." 
 
 Felicity swayed down the room to receive her 
 visitors. They were the only ones who came that 
 afternoon; two gawky, hoydenish girls, rather over- 
 
74 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 powered by Felicity from the outset ; quite superfluous 
 girls. 
 
 But what had become of the brilliant "set" who 
 used to gather round Felicity Somers as a matter of 
 course? Had her moon waned? Had the celebrities 
 tired of her increasing vagueness and sweet gracious 
 inconsequence? This special afternoon, barren and 
 dreary, seemed too poignantly in keeping with the 
 situation overhanging it, to be mere accident. . . . 
 Miss Beech and Miss Hilda Beech giggling, "Yes — 
 oh, yes!" Was Felicity entertaining them as she had 
 "entertained" me? — or else a phantom company sit- 
 ting about in the empty chairs? Her manner of 
 setting those girls at ease was perfect as ever; her 
 epigrams as pungent; her scandal ripe, but not too 
 ripe. Miss Beech and Miss Hilda Beech were not 
 worth the effort squandered on them; but she con- 
 trived that they should leave, feeling, I know, that 
 they had gone down well with their hostess ; been, in 
 short, a tremendous success. 
 
 Felicity informally saw them down the steps to the 
 front garden gate; she had forgotten to ring for 
 Murray. I watched her from the open window, the 
 photograph still in my hand. Hilda Beech remarked 
 on the beauty of the wistaria, and Felicity raised her 
 arm, leaning back to pull down a branch of it for the 
 girl to pluck. ... It must have been a pretty pose 
 when she had originated it a few years ago — in just 
 such another sprigged muslin, and the sun on her 
 golden hair. Why did I know so certainly that 
 
THE SHRINE 75 
 
 it was only Felicity's wraith picking the spray 
 for a wraith who had just quitted a crowded 
 salon? . . . 
 
 "Good-bye! good-bye! Do come again!" She 
 bent a little forward from the gate, as though with 
 that anxious, pleading smile she were watching her 
 own charm, not quite sure of it in the transit. . . . 
 
 She came back to me in the drawing-room. "Dear 
 girls! I'm so fond of them both. I thought they 
 were never going." 
 
 "Felicity," — I stopped, fought for mastery over 
 that cramping cold fist — "Felicity, is this Larry's 
 son?" 
 
 "Larry's son — and mine." She took the photo- 
 graph away from me, pored over it lovingly . . . her 
 look was a cradle song. 
 
 Something in my silence must have recalled her 
 to the fact that I had received a shock. 
 
 "You didn't know, Kevin? No, of course not; 
 we had to keep it from Prue," however blank to her 
 own egoism in scooping up the glory of Larry's youth, 
 however obtuse to my point of view, when she spoke 
 of Prue, compunction, shame even, always crept into 
 her tone. "They are at school near Hythe, and at 
 Thyme Croft in the holidays. Larry would never let 
 me tell you, though I can't see why — it doesn't make 
 any difference to you. And now " 
 
 The unspoken reference at last. And I answered: 
 "Larry was with me last night. You'll be going down 
 to Thyme Croft tomorrow, I suppose?" 
 
76 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "Today." 
 
 ("I'm her own son — Larry can never be her son, 
 like I am!" The old refrain still jigged and jeered 
 in my brain. . . . Felicity had an own son, and 
 his name was Larry, and his face was Larry's.) 
 
 "Do you want me to take you down?" 
 
 "Oh no," lightly; "I'm quite independent." 
 
 "Then good-bye." As we stood in the doorway I 
 suddenly felt her become definitely aware of my 
 height and breadth of shoulder; aware of me as a son 
 grown up. The old longing to shield her from heart- 
 break, to encircle her bruised spirit strongly, to dedi- 
 cate my manhood in her service, swept over me like a 
 great wave. . . . Was she going to say, like Prue: 
 "What a fine big fellow you are, Kevin!" and ask me 
 to move pianos for her? 
 
 Oh, my dear, my dear, that — and how much more, 
 gladly! 
 
 "What a big fellow you are, Kevin!" She 
 paused. "Perhaps ... if I had not had a son — of 
 his own age — even taller than he is ... he might not 
 have noticed — so soon " 
 
 I took the midnight express to PorthgoUan that 
 same evening. 
 
 [13] 
 
 There, at the farthest end of England, where nobody 
 knew of Larry Munro, might be reprieve for 
 me ... a short reprieve only. Down the past, as 
 
THE SHRINE 77 
 
 far as memory could travel, was Larry; and into the 
 future, as far as vision could peer, Larry; and he 
 encompassed my present like a winding-sheet. There 
 was no real escape. But just for a little while — 
 to forget that Felicity had said it was my fault Larry 
 had told her she was henceforth to be revered, not 
 desired. . . . 
 
 Not three Larry s, but one. Not one, but a thou- 
 sand . . . dynasty without end, clutching at the love 
 that was due to me, at the motherhood due to me, and 
 the warmth and space due to me. 
 
 For that journey I had ceased to be ironically 
 resigned, as of yore, to the impish fatality which 
 pressed me up against a dynasty. I had just learnt 
 there was a third of the dynasty, and I rebelled. 
 
 Jealous of him? I was jealousy! The incarnate 
 figure of it, hunted and malignant . . . my brain a 
 warren where the morbid burrowing thoughts 
 swarmed like dark little animals in and out of their 
 numberless dark little holes. 
 
 But a journey west, by night, is a blessed healing 
 thing. It lulls by its very rock and rhythm — and 
 then wakes a sense of bold magic that closes barrier- 
 high at the rear of the train, shutting off backward 
 vistas. 
 
 Larry Munro. . . . Larry Munro. . . . Drow- 
 sier now. ... A boy not yet twenty, with quick- 
 silver in his heels and mischief in his eyes, and the 
 urge for free adventure tugging at his spirit. 
 
 Father of two children. A boy not yet twenty. 
 
78 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 Even now at twenty-five it rang unspeakably sad. 
 One sees a young bridegroom merged by degrees into 
 the young husband and the young parent — the official 
 stages find expectation prepared. But to me it 
 seemed as though Larry had been maimed in his fleet- 
 ness, robbed of his adventure, and hung about his neck 
 with a burdensome "for ever," all in that one smiting 
 second of realization when I held the photograph of 
 his children in my hands. Poor old fellow. . . . 
 Poor old Larry. . . . 
 
 Larry Munro. . . . Larry Munro. . . . Drow- 
 sier still ... by the time the dawn broke, and 
 Devon's flare of colour waved like a flag beyond my 
 carriage window, I was able to dissociate my ego from 
 the Larry-saga, and marvel once more at the friend- 
 ship between Felicity and Prue, as though it were 
 a thing of long ago, dimmed and frosted to 
 legend. ... 
 
PART II— BROKEN CHINA 
 
[1] 
 
 BARBARA SETON and a very primitive pony- 
 cart met me at St. Catts, the nearest station 
 for Porthgollan. Her manner was alternately 
 confidential and embarrassed ; I learnt afterwards that 
 she had impulsively claimed to be the one to drive in 
 and fetch the strange young man, and had wished 
 all the way she had not been such a little fool. . . . 
 Barbara was seventeen, and had only just left school. 
 
 "Would you rather I took you home by the hill or 
 by the nine gates?" she asked, as we drove off. 
 
 "Is there a catch in it?" doubtfully. "Because 
 I'm not very bright after a night in the train." 
 
 She laughed. "Yes, there is a catch in it; you'd 
 have to get down nine times and open the gates." 
 
 "By the hill then, please." 
 
 "It's just exactly as you like, of course," with a 
 sudden, solemn politeness. Later on, I learnt these 
 lapses were typical of all the Setons, nipping you just 
 when you took for granted a happy state of familiar 
 intimacy. 
 
 "The pony always falls on his knees halfway down 
 the hill — I hope you won't mind awfully." 
 
 "Halfway down a hill isn't my hour for morning 
 
 81 
 
82 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 prayers, but I'll follow the example of any really 
 serious-minded pony!" 
 
 Barbara pondered for several minutes on the 
 general possibilities in my demeanour — it is difficult 
 to look Spanish and languorous in a bumping cart 
 four feet by six, containing two persons, a suit case, 
 and numerous nobbly parcels; but evidently I 
 achieved this effect, for she said firmly: "We'll go 
 home by the gates," risking no emergencies before my 
 worth was proven. 
 
 "I say, I hope you won't mind awfully" — every 
 second phrase contained the gauche apology, "but I've 
 got to wait outside the apothecary's till the 8.45 has 
 started, and get embrocation and lead shot for Ned." 
 
 I rubbed my eyes contentedly, and asked if I 
 might light a pipe. Porthgollan was so far away 
 from everywhere, and Barbara was so pretty, and it 
 was early morning with bits of sea stabbing in vivid 
 blue slits and triangles and patches at all the remoter 
 points of the landscape, with no respect for geog- 
 raphy . . . and I liked the bit about the apothecary. 
 
 "Go on. Why does the apothecary lead a double 
 life?" 
 
 "He's the signal-man," laughed Barbara, drawing 
 up outside his shop. "And every afternoon when 
 there are no trains in and out, is early closing day 
 here — except Thursdays and Saturdays. It's a 
 terribly difficult village to manage. The butcher 
 only kills on Wednesdays, so he's open on a Thurs- 
 day; and the baker is never open before 2 P. M. And 
 
BROKEN CHINA 83 
 
 General Stores are just a joke, because they're never 
 opened at all — they went smash directly after they 
 had the name painted up. Only, of course, strangers 
 don't know that, and hang about. . . ." 
 
 She paused, breathless. She had me under deep- 
 set observation, eager to hail me as "all right" by 
 hockey-field standard of measurement; my arrival 
 was obviously a shy excitement to the child to whom 
 leisure had hitherto only meant holidays. Barbara 
 was so delightfully just-left-school. 
 
 "What does the post-office do in the comic line? 
 There are enormous possibilities in a post-office." 
 
 "It doesn't do very much — only keeps shut until 
 twenty minutes after the one-outgoing-post-a-day has 
 gone Qut, so that you can't stamp your letters unless 
 you've done it the day before. And they send 
 telegrams up as a sort of a favour, only if they like 
 you. They adore mother, or we shouldn't have had 
 yours last night." 
 
 "I should hate to be dependent on the affections 
 of the post-office to get the news of my father's death, 
 or not." 
 
 "Oh — is he ill?" Barbara looked startled and 
 apprehensive. 
 
 "Dead." 
 
 "Well, then it doesn't matter . . ." she began — 
 and bit her lip, crimsoning; to cover her lapse she 
 plunged breathlessly into further accounts of Porth- 
 gollan and its eccentricities: 
 
 "D'you hear that bell? They ring the same one 
 
84 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 for muffins and church, so that we never know if it's 
 tea-time or Sunday — mother put it like that in one 
 of her books," she admitted frankly; "I suppose I 
 ought to tell you?" 
 
 I nodded : "Yes, I remember it. It's in ' The 
 Square Peg.' " 
 
 "Are you going to remember all mother's quota- 
 tions?" disgustedly. "Because they've got well 
 mixed up in the language — our private home 
 language, you know. And a few of them were Ned's 
 and Micky's and mine to begin with, so it wouldn't be 
 fair to think we were cribbing. Here is Mr. Cragge," 
 with a sigh of relief, as the apothecary ambled up 
 from the tiny station which was the terminus of the 
 branch line. 
 
 Soon we were jogging between hedges that were 
 walls — or walls that were hedges — I was not sure 
 which, with the sea gleaming between the feathery 
 green of the tamarisks. 
 
 "I say, I hope you won't mind awfully — but Ned 
 does revolver practice. I expect he'll get tired of it 
 in a week or two," consolingly. 
 
 "Does he give exact warning at what hour and in 
 what place he intends to do revolver practice?" 
 
 "Oh no; he does it just when and where he 
 feels inclined. Mother doesn't mind, but Henry is a 
 bit nervous. Henry is our father. Are you 
 nervous?" 
 
 "I shall probably do a bit of revolver practice 
 
BROKEN CHINA 85 
 
 myself, when I feel inclined," I assured her carelessly. 
 "What's this coming?" 
 
 "This" was a piercing cry of "Mack'rel! fi' 
 mack'rel!" from an approaching cart. Barbara im- 
 mediately pulled up and bought a large quantity of 
 fish. It was quite in keeping with the character of 
 Porthgollan, that the wag who cried "Mack'rel" 
 should have only sprats for sale. And equally so 
 that the milkman whom we passed a few moments 
 later, should sing out cheerily that his grandmother 
 would consent to do the washing for Mrs. Seton that 
 week, as the weather was fine. 
 
 "Once upon a time," I related to Barbara, "there 
 was a village idiot without a village. And he felt 
 very forlorn. So he fell asleep and dreamt a village 
 and lived happy in it ever after. And it happened 
 to be Porthgollan." 
 
 Barbara liked this. And I liked Barbara. We 
 were excellent friends when we sighted Micky a-swing 
 on the gate of the grey stone cottage called The Shoe. 
 It was a good world . . . and I had assuredly left 
 Larry Munro behind me. 
 
 [2] 
 
 I had met Micky before, so his carefully formal 
 greeting and well-nigh angel beauty did not decieve 
 me in the slightest; being aware that his thirteen 
 years were as crammed full of wickedness as it was 
 
86 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 healthy for them to be, and that his only skyward 
 disposition was in his nose and thick black lashes. 
 His eyes were bluer than Barbara's, and his skin's 
 original fairness dazzled through the brown bloom 
 with which Cornwall had lightly washed it. And his 
 hair was a million tiny tips of gold. . . . And as 
 though all this were not enough, his mother who 
 adored him, had firmly pronounced him Psychic — 
 poor Micky! 
 
 Kate Seton, who now appeared from the house, her 
 bare, brown feet sturdily defying the purple plush 
 tea-gown arrangement she wore, had this disconcert- 
 ing habit of making leaps in psychology which landed 
 her on the wrong side of nowhere. . . . Sometimes 
 she suffered herself to be gently led back to the place 
 from whence she started. Usually she could not be 
 budged. Thus I knew from previous conversation 
 with her that Micky alliteratively was a Mystic; 
 that Barbara had the Maternal Instinct; that Ned, a 
 year younger than Bar^bara, was an Artist ... or 
 was it a Pagan? — I forget. Kate's husband, an 
 amiable but futile person called Henry, she had irre- 
 vocably set down as a Decadent. She ran the four 
 along these lines, sternly resisting their slighteslt 
 attemps at deviation; and as in all other respects she 
 was a kindly, humorous woman, sensible and ener- 
 getic, the household prospered. Curiously, in her 
 novels her psychology was imerring. Some divine 
 instinct seemed to guide her wobbliness, and then 
 meanly forsake her the instant the pen was laid aside. 
 
BROKEN CHINA 87 
 
 I had had my label affixed two years ago. "Mis- 
 understood" was scrawled upon it, in Mrs. Seton's 
 squarest caligraphy. I read "Misunderstood" beam- 
 ing in pity from both her eyes, as she welcomed me to 
 The Shoe. Such assumptions are infectious. ... I 
 began to feel Misunderstood all over. 
 
 "Good boy, to have come. You want breakfast, 
 of course. No, don't bother to wash, or wash 
 at the pump. You hadn't seen Babs before, had you? 
 She would meet you — oh, I'm sorry, my dear," 
 at Barbara's scowl of agony; "better help your father 
 and Ned with the beds till your face cools off. Come 
 along, 'Kevin. Micky, go and pick snails for Lulu." 
 
 "Lulu's the pig," Micky explained to me kindly. 
 Bar^bara had flown to the far end of the lawn, where 
 two males were apparently cavorting in the blanket- 
 trot and the bolster-roll. "Are you going to open the 
 strawberry jam for Kevin, mother?" 
 
 "Yes — for Kevin,''^ emphatically. 
 
 Micky, in simple friendliness, slipped his arm into 
 mine, and we all three entered the kitchen, which was 
 also the living-room. 
 
 "Do you want to sleep out in the garden with us, 
 or indoors, Kevin? Because if out, they must put 
 you up an extra bed." 
 
 Micky said ruminatively : "I believe Barbara 
 would kick at that." And Mrs. Seton and I 
 exchanged a perturbed smile. 
 
 "My son — go forth and pick snails." 
 
 "But, mother. . . ." 
 
88 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "My son, I have spoken." 
 
 "Mother, mayn't I sleep indoors if it rains to- 
 night?" 
 
 "No — nor any other night. You know what the 
 doctor said." 
 
 "Mother" — Micky was almost crying now — "am 
 I never to sleep in a bed again?" 
 
 "Good heavens, don't I always sacrifice myself 
 on the other bunk? How many mothers, do you 
 suppose, would sleep in a pig-sty, at my age, just to 
 keep you company?" 
 
 "If I slept on a bed, in a room with a roof," Micky 
 wheedled, "you wouldn't have to." 
 
 "I dare say. Go and pick snails." 
 
 Micky departed, murmuring anarchy and revolu- 
 tion. 
 
 "I shall put the case to the S.P.C.C.," I warned her. 
 
 "Micky isn't as strong as he should be. . . ." For 
 one moment she was all mother. Then, confiden- 
 tially, "I ought to have remembered about Barbara 
 — before Micky reminded me. All the footling little 
 things one has to take into account with a grown-up 
 daughter about; and she flushes and flares into 
 tempers, and accuses me of telling her too little . . . 
 or too much — and runs away for the day, and upsets 
 herself over nothing, and goes dancing mad with 
 infectious high spirits when I want to shut myself up 
 and work; and says 'Mother, how can you!' horri- 
 fied over my most innocent habits of years — I shan't 
 be natural or happy again till I get her married. . . . 
 
BROKEN CHINA 89 
 
 K. B. Seton fixed me broodingly — they all had this 
 deep-set grey-blue scrutiny — waited a few moments 
 that no possible suspicion could connect her next 
 speech with her last; and then said: "Do you like 
 Barbara?" 
 
 "In Barbara's name I say, 'Mother, how can 
 you?'" I countered, champion in Barbara's cause. 
 If Kate behaved with this naive candor to every 
 eligible who entered the house, I could understand 
 that the girl had rolled herself up into a ball of 
 sensitive thorns. 
 
 "Too soon. . . . Have some more coffee? Don't 
 scowl at me, Kevin, I've got a lot to put up with. I'm 
 a no /elist and a mother of stalwart sons. That's all I 
 can manage. I'd forgotten Barbara. . . . She used 
 to go to her school-friends for most of her holidays. 
 And then I'd reckoned she might be a genius, and I've 
 begged her to beg me to send her for three years to the 
 Conservatoire in Paris or to Montmartre or Dresden, 
 or any of those convenient places where art and music 
 can be studied " 
 
 "And every one would praise your sacrifice in your 
 little daughter's interests. Won't Barbara oblige 
 with a single talent?" 
 
 "She's just a nice, normal girl of seventeen who 
 wants to be given a good time," said Kate Seton in 
 quiet desperation. "I'd have coped gallantly with a 
 wild, inspired daughter. ... I'd have understood 
 her subtle needs and strange fancies as few mothers 
 could — in fact, I meant to be a mother to that sort 
 
90 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 of thing. But the nice, normal girl is well beyond 
 me. I can't even write about them. . . . She's 
 a dear, sweet child, and very fond of me, and comes 
 to me for guidance, and when I give it to her wrong, 
 she puts me right. It seems I'm all wrong in my 
 morals and my outlook and my tolerances — oh, 
 Barbara knows; Barbara knows for certain. She 
 knows that good's good and bad's bad." The psy- 
 chological novelist sought my compassion at such a 
 state of things. 
 
 "I'm worried, Kevin. I'm blighted. How long 
 is it to go on? In the interests of English literature, 
 ought she to be allowed to play about spoiling an 
 excellent novel in the making? — my making. And 
 she's chockful of maternal instinct" — I was waiting 
 for this — "super-developed. Her job is mothering 
 a brood, and then she'd stop brooding over a mother 
 
 " Another hopeful pause to allow me to make 
 
 formal proposal for Barbara's hand. 
 
 "It's better to let an excellent novel be spoilt than 
 a girl's playtime," I said, pedantically; and helped 
 myself to cream and hot splits and honeycomb — a 
 conjunction of happiness to be recommended. 
 "Umph! Are you still unhappy at home?" 
 "I haven't been living at home for two years." 
 She paused. "And you've never told me. Why?" 
 "You can't exort confidences with a bludgeon, 
 Kate dear." We were quite intimate friends, she and 
 I. 
 
 She stood up, putting both her hands on my shoul- 
 
BROKEN CHINA 91 
 
 ders. Her shrewd little eyes were full of affection. 
 "Has your mother ever loved you as she ought to, 
 Kevin?" 
 
 I thrust aside the prig's halo tendered for my wear. 
 
 "Felicity has always been very polite and pleasant 
 tome." 
 
 "Of all things that most exasperate me, reserve 
 and discretion are the worst," said Kate, frankly. 
 "They're such silly qualities. Here have I been 
 laying bare my very soul to you, and if you'd only do 
 the same to me, everything would be jolly and easy 
 all round!" 
 
 "If there were no taciturnities and withholdings, 
 K. B. Seton, and everything were jolly and easy all 
 round, what would you write your novels about?" 
 
 "I'm not going to argue with you. You've been 
 very unsympathetic. Go and be taciturn with 
 Barbara — her soul is full of these little nun's gardens 
 — you'll be a nice, spontaneous pair. Oh, here 
 comes Ned — he'll take you out and try to kill you, 
 while I finish off Part II. of my new book." 
 
 I discovered that Ned Seton's way of entertaining 
 family and guests was on a system of: "Bet you 
 can't do this!" On to the recurring phrase we were 
 all perilously suspended. Ned risked his life cheer- 
 fully ninety times a day, saying: "Bet you can't do 
 this!" 
 
 Of the entertainment proffered by the three young 
 Setons while their mother finished Part II., Micky's 
 was to be preferred as the most mature. Babs still 
 
92 THEGHINASHOP 
 
 shied away from me, with the merest intervals of 
 impulsive friendship — perhaps she suspected that 
 "mother had been awful again," in conversation with 
 me. It was Micky who conscientiously showed me 
 the bathing-pool, and the view from the headland, and 
 the smuggler's cave, and the ruins of the altar of 
 St. Constantine, all the stock ruggedness of the wild 
 Cornish coast, which must be endured and got over 
 before one can begin to discover for oneself the innate 
 friendliness or ferocity of the place; itVas Micky 
 who, letting Ned plunge on wildly ahead shouting 
 his monotonous challenge, turned from rock to rock to 
 see if I were close behind, and gravely offered me the 
 help of his hand. "There's rather a difficult place 
 here. I think if we went round that way, and put 
 your other foot on this little bit. Mind the seaweed 
 — it's the slippery sort!" 
 
 "Micky," at last; "honestly, d'you know, I may 
 be a bit weak and tottery, with St. Vitus' dance from 
 birth, and I haven't got my sea-legs yet, and my heart 
 is diseased, and my lungs both rotten, and I'm liable 
 to vertigo at any moment, and my nerves, of course, 
 are in bits — but I'm not absolutely senile." 
 
 Micky threw me a gleam of mischievous compre- 
 hension; "Ned has laid up most of our visitors," he 
 explained. "It doesn't matter with our own friends; 
 they can look after themselves, but you belong to 
 mother's lot; I mean you knew her before you knew 
 
 us." 
 
 "That proves nothing," I argued, knowing well 
 
BROKEN CHINA 93 
 
 that in Micky's sight it put me a generation wrong. 
 
 He sat down in a shallow pool, and put both his 
 hands about his knees. "It's astounded me in a way, 
 that you should be able to be any sort of a companion 
 to her — because mother's pretty old and pretty in- 
 telligent." 
 
 I felt it was time I did something drastic in 
 Micky's sight; just then Ned halloed from half- 
 way up a beetling cliff — at least a cliff which offered 
 no apparent footholds whatever, and also slanted the 
 wrong way, which I take to be the essentials of 
 "beetling." 
 
 "Bet you can't do this!" 
 
 I did it. 
 
 Micky accepted the reproof like a cherub. And 
 we came shouting and pummelling home, wet and 
 torn, and covered in slime and sand, a trio of idiot 
 good fellowship. 
 
 "I don't want to be considered; pray don't consider 
 me, I'm nobody, nobody at all in this household. 
 Who am I — ? Don't take the slightest notice of 
 me. . . ." Henry Seton entered late for the meal, 
 his white hair in a brush of perturbation. 
 
 "No, Henry, we don't; you shan't be; we're not," 
 his wife soothed him. "Would you like the wishing- 
 bone, Micky?" 
 
 Mr. Seton burst out: "If you want to know, the 
 sheep are in the meadow, and the pigs in the corn!" 
 
 "Little Boy Blue, come blow up your son . . ." 
 retorted Kate. ''He pulled down the tamarisk 
 
94 THEGHINASHOP 
 
 boughs we laid across the gap in the hedge this 
 morning, and didn't stop to put them back." 
 
 "It was for Kevin to get through," lied Micky. 
 "You told me to look after him, mother." 
 
 "Yes, it was for me to get through," I upheld 
 him. "And he looked after me like a Matthew, Mark, 
 Luke, and John!" 
 
 Micky twinkled me his gratitude. Barbara, 
 sturdily practical, had already darted out of doors to 
 cope with the rampaging animals. I joined her. 
 The sheep were easily enough diverted back into 
 their proper sphere; but Lulu, excited no doubt by 
 her recent demolishment of a whole two-pound jam- 
 pot full of snails, performed a clumsy and intoxicated 
 saraband among the green, sunlit corn, defying 
 Barbara, who with a short stick in her hand, and her 
 long, light brown hair blown straightly out by the 
 sea-wind, reminded me irresistibly of an illustration 
 to Andersen's Fairy Tales. The goose-girl — the 
 swine-herd's daughter . . . her graceful ankles and 
 arms were bare; her attention was completely 
 absorbed by the big black pig. "Head her off to the 
 gap, Kevin!" as it lunged in my direction. 
 
 I caught Lulu in my arms. Lulu was astonished. 
 So was L "There you are, little lady!" Barbara 
 helped me lace the gap anew with branches. 
 
 We returned triumphantly to The Shoe, rather 
 inclined to preen ourselves on our achievement. 
 Also and inasmuch as any ridiculous experience 
 shared promoted friendship far swifter than tragedy 
 
BROKEN CHINA 95 
 
 or peril, we returned a hundred degrees more intimate 
 than when we had rushed forth. 
 
 "Barbara," I whispered hurriedly at the gate, 
 "don't leave me to Micky this afternoon. Please 
 don't. I'm tired of being cherished. Let's run away 
 together." 
 
 [3] 
 
 And a few hours later found us alone on a tri- 
 angular pinnacle of rock, out-jutting between two 
 narrow bays of stealthy, sombre-green water, which 
 pushed silently and relentlessly into the rounded 
 archway of the cave yawning far back into the cliff. 
 In contrast to the swimming coolness below and sur- 
 rounding us, our rock island, for it was so slightly 
 joined to the mainland by a dizzy six-inch causeway 
 as to be almost imperceptible once crossed, was tilted 
 boldly up as though to attract every arrow of sun 
 that slanted eastward across the Atlantic. Barbara 
 lay prone among the cushions and knolls and tufts of 
 sea-thrift, her neck and arms plunged deep in the 
 bright pink pungently-scented flower, her eyes dream- 
 ing out to a tiny russet sail. 
 
 "This is the Dead Kings' Burial-ground," she 
 said at last. 
 
 "What is?" 
 
 "The mound we're lying on now. The dead kings 
 of Cornwall were all buried here — Constantine, and 
 the rest." 
 
96 THECHINASHOP 
 
 "And who is the King of Cornwall now, Barbara?" 
 
 "George, I suppose," she replied in matter-of-fact 
 tones. And I became annoyed. 
 
 "I have the deepest respect for George and Mary — 
 but they've got all the rest of England and India, and 
 so on. Cornwall is different, it ought to have a 
 monarch of its own. / will be King of Cornwall. 
 And this burial-ground shall be my throne. And I'll 
 start with a massacre, just to show 'em!" 
 
 "There's no one here to show, and there's no one 
 here to massacre either." Barbara raised herself on 
 elbow, and looked me steadily in the face. 
 
 "Am I then alone on the Dead Kings' Burial- 
 ground?" 
 
 She thought it over. Then — "I think you're a 
 pig," in inconsequent discovery. 
 
 ''Lese Majeste. That settles it." 
 
 Just in time to save herself from being precipi- 
 tated into the abyss down that sinister slope disguised 
 innocently by the blowing sea-thrift, Barbara called 
 out — "If you're King of Cornwall, I'm Queen!" — and 
 I released her. 
 
 "Why couldn't you say so before? It might have 
 been too late to save yourself. That would have been 
 quite a good joke, though . . . the first joke perpe- 
 trated by his Merry Majesty, King Kevin of Cornwall. 
 . . . I'm going to revive some of these rich 
 mediaeval forms of humour." 
 
 "We'll have a jester, then, to be funny." 
 
 "We'U have an executioner to be funny," grimly. 
 
BROKEN CHINA 97 
 
 " I don't like executioners much. Because of 
 Lady Jane Grey. He took two blows with the axe 
 before he cut it off." 
 
 "If our executioner ever takes more than one blow 
 to cut it off, he shall be executed by the jester." 
 
 "And we'll all look on, and laugh heartily," cried 
 Barbara, unexpectedly displaying some of the rich 
 and jocund spirit of the more full-blooded period I 
 was reviving. 
 
 "Are you keen on pomp and ceremony and ritual 
 and regalia? — ^barbaric splendour and profligate 
 customs?" 
 
 "Yes, I'd enjoy it sometimes; but it would make me 
 feel stuffy, like Sundays, if I had too much of it!" 
 
 "We could always run away and throw off our 
 shoes and stockings and go prawning, when we were 
 fed up " 
 
 "Or smuggling. This coast is packed with secret 
 paths and caves and doorways in the rock — Oh, could 
 we — I mean, would it be compatible with our royal 
 dignity?" her lips were parted in breathless excite- 
 ment, her eyes freckled with roguery. 
 
 "To patronize smugglers? Our subjects needn't 
 know, need they? — and we'll be admitted to all the 
 smugglers' councils and pow-wows and villainous 
 enterprises. Oh, and wreckers ought to be encour- 
 aged. Wrecking was a glorious pastime for winter 
 evenings. You light a match on a headland and trust 
 to luck that the foundering ship holds treasure to be 
 washed ashore with the cold tide at dawn. It's great 
 
98 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 fun — much better than tiddliwinks. We'll exact kegs 
 of old brandy and gold dust and rolls of lace as 
 tribute from every sunken ship, and the wreckers can 
 put on their advertisement 'Under Royal Patronage 
 — Wreckers to their Majesties the King and Queen of 
 Cornwall.' "... 
 
 "Like bootmakers," murmured Barbara. "Sup- 
 posing the cargo turned out to be only penwipers or — 
 or lexicons?" 
 
 I reminded her that bloodthirsty pirates have blood- 
 thirsty cargoes — "Such as blood-oranges and — oh, 
 what other bloodish thing is there that one can men- 
 tion in good society?" 
 
 "Blood relations?" suggested Barbara doubtfully. 
 "I think that if a cargo of blood relations were washed 
 ashore, I should want to throw them to the Potted 
 Gargoyle." 
 
 "I didn't know we had one, but it's quite a good 
 thought." 
 
 "He lives in that cave and he ramps," pointing 
 downwards — "But he's only Partly-a-Gargoyle ; 
 we are not quite sure what the other part is," Barbara 
 reluctantly confessed. 
 
 I shrugged my shoulders; "Why worry?" 
 
 "Oh, I don't. And then I have other royal visitors 
 — ^jolly people like Prester John and the Khan of 
 Samarkand. I'll invest them with the Grand Order 
 of Partly-a-Gargoyle." 
 
 "With the crest and motto: 'Why worry?' It's 
 rather cheek of you to talk about investing your 
 
BROKEN CHINA 99 
 
 visitors, though, in that independent sort of fashion. 
 /'/7i going to give dinner-parties that will shock 
 you " 
 
 "Shock away!" 
 
 I looked at her apprehensively. 
 
 "How old are you? Sixteen?" 
 
 "Nearly eighteen. You can't shock me." 
 
 Thus challenged, I boldly announced my intention 
 of entertaining six selected harlot empresses of 
 ancient Rome. 
 
 "Pooh!" Barbara exclaimed, as though she had 
 sported with harlot empresses all her life. 
 
 "Messalina, Faustina, Theodora, Poppaea, Cleo- 
 patra — she was Egypt, but it doesn't matter — Jezdbel 
 and Jael." I re-filled my pipe with a satisfied air. 
 
 "That's seven, and you've mixed the Bible in." 
 
 "Aholibah and Lucrezia Borgia," firmly, to show 
 that I was not going to be bullied by any schoolgirl. 
 "Lucrezia might be able to give me a wrinkle or 
 two." 
 
 "She would," vindictively, "a great many — the cat! 
 And that makes nine harlot empresses." 
 
 "And I'll invite nine evangelical curates to take 
 them in to dinner. The harlots shall drink tumblers 
 of new milk from our own dairy, and the curates 
 some richly-stained and evil-looking liqueurs in 
 green and gold and translucent crimson. During the 
 * courses my favourite jongleur shall improvise songs 
 concerning my valiant prowess and doughty deeds." 
 
 "Ought we to bore our guests?" queried Barbara 
 
100 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 innocently. But a swift revenge overwhelmed her: 
 
 "My guests. You shall come into dessert, if you're 
 good, Babs, and recite to us, in your white spotted 
 muslin and wide blue sash." 
 
 Her indignation rose and crashed upon me like a 
 wave. 
 
 "I haven't got a white spotted muslin — who — ^who 
 told you I had ?" 
 
 "And a wreath of sea-thrift in your hair." 
 Teasingly I dropped a whole handful of the blossom 
 over her face and her slender white arms — Barbara 
 never seemed to tan, for all her boyish disregard of 
 coverings. It was good to be there and talk nonsense 
 to this pretty schoolgirl with the frank, questioning 
 eyes. . . . And, somehow, looking at Barbara's un- 
 conscious grace softly defined by her short, grey-green 
 skirt and faded jersey and cap of the same hue, look- 
 ing at Barbara, and knowing how absolutely certain 
 she was, in her rigid baby code, of right and wrong, 
 straight and crooked ; aware that she was simply and 
 sublimely unaware of — well, practically everything; 
 looking at Barbara, I felt as though my hatred of 
 Larry and all the evil it had entailed was pouring 
 away like black rapids, leaving me a little dazed, 
 forgetful and secure, aloft on this sunwashed pin- 
 nacle, among the 'sea -thrift with Barbara. . . . 
 
 Glad of her, I put out a hand and laid it over hers 
 — the Lord knows I meant no harm — no sinister 
 designs on a trustful maid . . . but Barbara was 
 plainly disconcerted. She flushed crimson — flung 
 
BROKEN CHINA 101 
 
 me a tentative, questioning glance — turned; her- he^cl 
 away again; I saw her lips quiver; her hand had 
 jerked once under mine, then was obviously re- 
 directed to remain quiescent. I followed her 
 racing emotions easily enough. . . . 
 
 "Why not ask me?'' I suggested. 
 
 "You?— but I wasn't— Ask what?" 
 
 "What you're just now longing to ask your mother 
 or your best friend — the proper behaviour when a 
 young man . . . does this? Ask me, dear, since I'm 
 here." 
 
 Barbara was wildly bewildered. She was pre- 
 pared that I should go to any length of wickedness, 
 but not that I should make kind offer to assist her 
 in the perplexities of which I was the cause. 
 
 "Your first instinct," I teased her, "was to snatch 
 your hand away and run, but it struck you that I 
 might consider such conduct very juvenile, and that 
 you ought rather to impress me, by your perfect 
 haughtiness and savoir faire, that you are capable of 
 dealing with such trifling incidentals ... so unwil- 
 lingly you left it there, Barbara, and tilted up 
 your nose at the sky . . . but that was such a very 
 puzzled, piteous look that you shot at me, when you 
 thought I was busy with my pipe. You were wonder- 
 ing what it would lead to, and whether you were a prig 
 to mind — and — Micky and Ned wouldn't approve, 
 would they? They'd call you soppy. Only life, 
 your life, is slipping beyond the judgment 
 of even Micky, nowadays. And then — and then, Bar- 
 
102 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 1/ara, you started to feel a little bit happier, though 
 the monster's hand was still holding yours — ^because 
 your mouth curved at the comers, and your frown 
 got sort of mixed up with a smile — and — and I 
 believe you began to like it, Barbara . . ." 
 
 I released the small clenched fist. 
 
 "This is what they call flirting, Barbara." 
 
 "I hate girls who flirt," came muffled from chastity 
 cooling her cheeks among the springy cushions of the 
 thrift. "I mean, I hate men who flirt." 
 
 "So do I," heartily. "Who began it, though?" 
 
 "Oh — your springing upright in raging con- 
 tradiction. 
 
 "Quite right. Me. I'm awfully penitent. You 
 can push me into that pool of slimy black seaweed on 
 the way home, if you like. But there was no harm 
 really, you know!" 
 
 Doubtful, now, her deep scrutiny — and still 
 bewildered. Then, reassured, it broke into gay 
 laughter: 
 
 "It was so absurd of you to suggest that I should 
 ask you what to do!" 
 
 "There's no fixed rule, Babs. You must judge 
 your man, that's all." 
 
 "Kevin, you're queer!" 
 
 "Not sure if you like me, eh?" 
 
 "Oh, but I do!" swiftly. Then she bit her lip. 
 "I'm sure we shall be jolly good friends when we 
 know each other better." 
 
BROKEN CHINA 103 
 
 "My reply in the style of the Young Ladies' 
 Curriculum is — garn! Your hand again, Barbara." 
 
 She complied — her predicament left her no choice, 
 alone with a madman on the Dead Kings' Burial- 
 ground. 
 
 "Now — shall I shake it in comradeship or kiss it 
 in homage?" 
 
 "Kiss it, please," said Barbara, after due delibera- 
 tion. 
 
 I was glad to bend quickly, and hide the irre- 
 pressible smile, which was sheer enjoyment of an 
 honest, clean-minded hoyden in the process of becom- 
 ing a dishonest and adorable woman. 
 
 "Look at the sun," Barbara exclaimed suddenly 
 — "it's late. Race you home as far as Wine Cove!" 
 
 I only just beat her. She ran as girls with brothers 
 are trained to run, fleetly and sparing of breath and 
 without bagging or sagging in all directions. But the 
 western blaze was in our eyes, and the gold-dyed pools 
 and puddles swam wavering in our path — we were 
 soaked in saltwater, scratched and hot and our knees 
 sand-plastered, before we reached the white road that 
 writhed inland and uphill amongst the hummocks 
 sown with strong rushes that flogged the bare legs; 
 till, robed and crowned in that sublime messiness of 
 the seashore, which is never to be confounded with 
 the earthier term of "grubby," the newly elected 
 monarchs of the Cornish kingdom plunged shouting 
 into the kitchen of The Shoe. 
 
104 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 [4] 
 
 After supper, Micky challenged me to a game of 
 Polish bezique. 
 
 "It's not a game we play at the Club," I rejoined 
 loftily — for I was a bit nervous of Micky, and had 
 to summon up a mythical club or two as props to 
 my self-esteem. "What about a round or two of 
 Auction?" 
 
 "Are you a good player?" Micky, in his turn, 
 showed signs of nervousness. 
 
 "The Nicaraguan plenipotentiary was kind enough 
 to say that if he could have had a few lessons from 
 me before his famous encounter with the bridge 
 champion of Montenegro, the borough of East Ken- 
 sington would not have been lost to the Gonversative 
 party." 
 
 Micky wisely decided to stick to Polish bezique. 
 It was one of those horribly easy games that some- 
 how the enlightened mind refuses to grasp. In fact, 
 Micky won. His behaviour, at the final victory, had 
 not that repose which stamps the caste of Vere de 
 Vere. He flung himself, burbling and chortling, on 
 the ground, wholly small boy, his cheeks pink with 
 delight, his hair in a triumphant crest, his heels 
 ecstatically beaten together. I restrained myself 
 with difficulty from raising him on to my knee with 
 an aff'ectionate kiss. 
 
 "Ho! ho! ho! I've whacked the champion player 
 of his Club! What price the great Lord Kevin 
 
BROKEN CHINA 105 
 
 Somers and his bridge now? Hurrah! Ned, I've 
 won! Babs, mummy — I've won by 370 points — 
 What would they say to that at the club?" 
 
 "Well, naturally at the Club we never know who 
 has won or lost; it's not considered decent form 
 to let one's manner betray emotion one way or another. 
 But thanks for a very good game, Micky. ..." 
 
 Micky had become silent and thoughtful, and his 
 legs ceased to waggle. The following evening he 
 again approached me, with demeanour planed down 
 to the level of careful indifference. 
 
 "I'll be delighted to give you your revenge — if 
 you care about it, of course." 
 
 I did care about it immensely. Micky's altered 
 manners were a dream. My exclusive and non- 
 existent Club would have elected him to membership 
 without a murmur. When the final reckoning proved 
 him again the winner, he said nonchalantly, without 
 a trace of his former elation — "I had all the luck, I'm 
 afraid. You held rotten cards — ^no one could do any- 
 thing with them. Thanks for a very good game." 
 
 "On the contrary, thank your not to be outdone 
 in excellence of breeding. And my opponent, with 
 a laconic nod to me, answered his mother's fourteenth 
 frenzied call sty-wards and bed-wards. 
 
 "I worship and adore your youngest son," I in- 
 formed Kate, when she returned to the kitchen and 
 claimed me for a last stroll. 
 
 She twinkled comprehensively — "I'm afraid I do 
 too. I'm a wicked mother to show favouritism. He 
 
106 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 told me just now — 'I did want him to win this game, 
 mums, as I came off best last night, but all the picture 
 cards happened to fall my way; and, of course, I 
 couldn't insult him by giving him the game!' What 
 have you done to him, Kevin? Is he always going to 
 be like this? I don't think I can live up to it, and I'm 
 sure Henry can't." 
 
 "When two men of the world get together, their 
 intercourse is bound to conform to a certain unspoken 
 code; but Micky doesn't realize how near he came to 
 being embraced today " 
 
 "Barbara does," brusquely from my hostess. 
 
 I smoked on in obstinate silence, fully aware of 
 Kate's cheery resolution to work havoc amongst my 
 reserves and Barbara's confidences. 
 
 "Listen to that cricket. . . ." 
 
 "You wouldn't listen to any crickets, my dear 
 young man, if you had to listen to a daughter clamour- 
 ing for a mother's wise and prudent supervision — 'he 
 held my hand for a minute and a half, mother.' 
 'My dear, he can hold your foot for an hour and a 
 half if he likes' — That produced fireworks! — I'll 
 never get this book of mine finished, Kevin, never; it's 
 hopeless ! To hear her educate me in circumspection 
 and fierce young modesty! ... the kind that keeps a 
 girl at home with her mother all her life instead of 
 getting married. 'I wouldn't bother Kevin with all 
 that,' I advised her — 'It'll put him off.' " 
 
 I groaned into the night — "For the Lord's sake, 
 K. B. Seton — listen to that cricket." 
 
BROKEN CHINA 107 
 
 It was like thrusting a small twig under Niagara, 
 to divert the waterfall. 
 
 "All this rumpus was while we were making the 
 beds, out on the lawn this evening; it wasn't my turn 
 to make 'em, and I may as well inform you that guests 
 are expected to do their share, even if they persist in 
 sleeping in a frowsy attic." 
 
 "Yes. I'll do them tomorrow," meekly. But I 
 really could not consent to lay myself down in a row 
 with Henry, Ned, and Barbara. 
 
 " 'You'll be sorry if I go headlong to the devil!' " 
 - — and I grasped that my companion had again re- 
 sumed quotation from the recent scene with her 
 daughter — " 'Not you, my dear, you're not the kind 
 that does!' and that didn't please her, either. Oh, but 
 I'm right enough, Kevin, to be quite tranquil about 
 Barbara. Her maternal instinct will keep her out of 
 mischief. Now if she'd inherited Henry's decadent 
 curiosities^ " 
 
 I professed a mighty interest in Henry's decadent 
 curiosities. It was my private opinion that he had 
 none; but anything was better than treating the 
 cloisters of Barbara's soul as though they were the 
 Grand Parade at Brighton. Kate burst forth again 
 a few moments later — and I informed her that no 
 bond fide navvy would act as she had manipulated 
 him in her last book but one. Her indignant justifi- 
 cation of the navvy brought us safely across the last 
 field home. 
 
 A slender and beautifully-shaped white sleeping- 
 
108 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 suit, carrying a candle, was darting in pursuit of a 
 dumpy blanket-bag, that waddled comically through 
 the murky air and into a hedge; a clear whoop — 
 and the sleeping-suit dipped and disappeared after 
 him; and only a pair of bats wheeled dismally in 
 their stead. ... I rubbed my eyes: 
 
 "Midsummer Eve! . . . are those flapping things 
 all that's left to us of Barbara and Ned?" 
 And Kate Seton chuckled heartlessly: 
 "As long as Micky isn't translated " 
 
 [5] 
 
 I cannot account for this odd unrolling of time and 
 space inimitably, and not in hard, little alternate 
 blocks of day and night, between London and Porth- 
 gollan; between the group of Larry and Felicity and 
 Prue and the first Larry, and the wholesome pugnacity 
 of the Setons in their Shoe. Until after the final 
 tragedy of Felicity receiving me in the sprigged 
 muslin and corals, I had been webbed into a fantastic 
 dream played out among real and matter-of-fact sur- 
 roundings. Now, in metamorphosis, I was among 
 people wholly real and matter-of-fact, but with their 
 bare, brown feet sturdily planted in a dream country, 
 a nursery-rhyme village . . . light glass-green pools 
 shadowed with fig!-purple . . . bad-tempered grey 
 seas hurled into runnels and veins of white against 
 high, bulging rocks. 
 
 The Larry conspiracy dwindled to a mere speck of 
 
BROKEN CHINA 109 
 
 horror. And every little daily happening, trivial or 
 absurd : Lulu, drunk with snails, sowing her wild oats 
 in the com — Micky and his game of Polish bezique — 
 Barbara and Ned bolstering each other into a ditch by 
 candlelight — the absurd struttings of a swan who 
 lived without a lake or any visible means of support, 
 in the village — K. B. Seton in her crimson plush tea- 
 gown raking in ducks from the blind pedlar, bargain- 
 ing for butter in the butcher's rose-wreathed porch, 
 smuggling in fish that ought to have been dispatched 
 to London before it ultimately returned to Porth- 
 gollan: K. B. Seton dragging away a mournful Henry 
 from perusal of "Getting Married," in order to air 
 the pillows and the blanket-bags and the striped rugs 
 — "I don't like that man George Shaw for you, Henry 
 — try a volume of Edna Lyall when you've finished 
 your job!" All these trivial daily happenings piled 
 themselves high and higher, barricading the present 
 from a past in which all happenings had been huge 
 and sinister and out of scale. 
 
 The Setons were the sort of family who, from a 
 divine lack of imagination, would survive all circum- 
 stances, and never succimib to them. In sheer 
 arrogance of their own physical hardness, the 
 younger members scuffled joyously all day long; I was 
 presently infected by the pummelling fashion, and 
 tossed and rolled and prodded with the rest. Bar- 
 bara, who in her moods of wakening femininity would 
 not suffer me to lay one light finger on her arm, joined 
 as unconsciously as any boy in the hilarious medley 
 
no THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 of limbs and laughter, when we bathed, and explored, 
 and kicked each other round the kitchen. 
 
 But the Setons had a habit of interlacing their 
 exuberance with periods of silent, thoughtful scrutiny, 
 to be followed by a disconcerting summing-up of 
 impressions in which the possible sensitiveness of 
 the guest, helpless in their midst, was disregarded with 
 a serene brutality that I have never since encountered. 
 This habit was a legacy from Kate to her three 
 children, matching their deep-set grey-'blue gaze. 
 Only Henry relieved the uneasiness of the Setons 
 observant, by his amiable brown eyes that bulged 
 slightly and missed everything essential. I learnt to 
 protect myself against Kate and Ned and Barbara by 
 a subtle counter-attack which had all the misleading 
 appearances of boyish candour; but our golden-haired 
 and cherubic Micky was a veritable demon, and the 
 utmost I achieved against him was a draw. 
 
 But never could it be said of the Setons that they 
 were elusive, or dim, or fantastic, or in any way 
 delicately outlined. The Setons were a fact — five 
 facts — labelled Writing Woman, Decadent, Maternal 
 Instinct, Pagan, and Psychic. They lived in a Shoe, 
 except for Psychic, who lived in a sty ; and they owned 
 a shiny black pig called Lulu, who crunched snails; 
 and two of us were King and Queen of Cornwall, 
 except on Sundays when we went to the chemists to 
 hear the muffin-bell ring for sprats ; and we bathed so 
 often that we lost count: and ate thrice a day and 
 thrice between thrice — ^which neither Micky nor I 
 
BROKEN CHINA 111 
 
 could work out in a satisfactory multiplication sum; 
 and the weather scuttled to a change every hour, so 
 that optimists could affirm that the black-swept skies 
 never lasted long anyhow, and the pessimists grumhle 
 at the capricious duration of the hour blue-dabbled; 
 and after a ship had been wrecked, we dived for coal, 
 and swam against tides for bobbing driftwood, and 
 lugged our spoil into the house for winter firing — 
 triumphant with the sense of having wrested gain 
 from rocks and water and earth themselves, instead of 
 paying in coin, which is a tame and foolish means of 
 attainment. Sometimes we found more than drift- 
 wood — queer, clean objects, white and bleaching, in a 
 fairy pool — and they were bones ("said the old bold 
 mate of Henry Morgan!"). And there was once 
 upon a time an old squire of the neighbourhood — 
 really a Farmer Old who married a Miss Squire . . . 
 thus things are tweaked out of shape in Porthgollan! 
 — and he found Barbara and myself sprawling deep 
 in sorrel and clover, and hobbled around us poking 
 us absurdly with his stick and muttering. "I did think 
 as ee were sheep, as ee were sheep, as ee were sheep. 
 . . . Hev ee seen a couple o' turkeys pass along?" 
 Nursery-rhymes and Hans Andersen and a smug- 
 glers' shore. . . . We were entirely happy, the 
 Setons and I. 
 
 "I've thought of something jolly to do!" exclaimed 
 Ned, at breakfast. 
 
 Barbara and Micky and I exchanged mournful 
 
112 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 looks — then clasped hands and bade each other good- 
 bye. 
 
 "Yes, my son, tell us!" Kate encouraged Ned in 
 suicide and murder, on the grounds that she liked her 
 boys to be healthy -minded. 
 
 "I believe we could toboggan down the steeper 
 sand-hills ; anyway, I'll rig up a board and we'll have 
 a try." 
 
 "Here's Eye-solda!" Micky spied the gallant 
 post-girl with the leather satchel cycling up the field- 
 path towards the house. She entered with her usual 
 air of bringing the good news from Ghent to Aix; 
 flung down the letters plus a few chaffing remarks to 
 Henry, whose favourite she was, and pedalled 
 furiously off. 
 
 I was glad when, as today, there were no letters 
 for me — sharp little cries from the distance, piercing 
 the atmosphere of thick, healing peace in which I was 
 miraculously encased. 
 
 "D'you ever get any briefs, Kevin?" asked Micky. 
 
 "Thousands. The office boy makes boats out of 
 'em when they're the right sort of paper." And in- 
 deed, I had received two briefs in the past year. . . . 
 
 Kate Seton looked up from her correspondence to 
 say: "Babs, Larry Munro is coming!" 
 
 [6] 
 
 And Barbara dropped a hot splitter, and cried 
 joyfully: "Oh, Mums— when?" 
 
 "Where's he to sleep?" carolled Micky. 
 
BROKEN CHINA 113 
 
 "On Saturday, he writes — what's today? Tues- 
 day? I'm sure I don't know, darling — I never know 
 where anybody is to sleep till I see how long and how 
 wide and how particular they are. Kevin, this is a 
 young man who has lost his head over my books, and 
 written me charming letters to say so. I'd rather my 
 husband had explained this to you, beaming witn 
 pride, while I modestly tried to stop him, but he's as 
 usual knee-deep in 'Androcles and the Lion.' — So I 
 wrote back suggesting to him that he should come 
 down to PorthgoUan for a holiday to make my 
 acquaintance — and be surprised how young I was, 
 and how pretty. . . . After a long pause he has 
 suddenly decided that he will. Babs, go on with your 
 breakfast, and try to look as if young men happened 
 to you every day; you may not be his style at all — 
 evidently he prefers elderly women!" 
 
 Henry shut Androcles with a bang. "I don't 
 wish to be consulted. I hold that the happiest person 
 in a household is the cypher. My dear Kate, my 
 dear Barbara, I should be sorry if you let my opinion 
 influence you in the slightest. But I do not think 
 these — these stray strangers ought to be encouraged to 
 come and make a home amongst us." 
 
 "Oh, daddy, it isn't as bad as that!" 
 
 "I've never heard such narrow-minded rubbish in 
 all my life, Henry. What would George Shaw say if 
 he could hear you?" 
 
 "May we only get to know people we know 
 already?" Micky's bit of a nose was tilted to an 
 
114 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 angle of such impertinent innocence, as ought to have 
 brought a fist crashing down upon it. 
 
 Henry Seton, ahnost extinguished, murmured: 
 "He might be a coster." 
 
 "I can reassure you about that, sir," I laughed — 
 "I know Larry Munro — yes, isn't it queer? — Oh, 
 quite intimately; we lived next door and went to the 
 same school!" and I laughed again — ^at this beauti- 
 fully inadequate rendering of my relations with 
 Larry. "As a matter of fact, it was I who lent him 
 two of your books!" 
 
 "Then did you know all the time he was coming 
 here?" 
 
 "No." 
 
 "What's he like?" The chorus went up. 
 
 I began to praise Larry, hectically. The effusion 
 jarred in my own ears ... it sounded so unnaturally 
 generous, as though I were trying to gain favour by 
 unconsciously revealing myself the blatant sort of 
 good fellow who has always a fund of enthusiasm in 
 stock when a pal is mentioned. But had I not praised 
 Larry, what would I have said of him? And some 
 perverse solo in my brain, thrumming against the 
 whole discordant orchestra of jhatei, wanted these 
 Setons to appreciate the fact that my friend Larry 
 Munro claimed attention as something vivid and finely 
 modelled, and rather rare. . . . 
 
 If I could have been silent — but there was no chance 
 of it under pressure of the eager curiosity of Barbara, 
 and Ned, and Micky. 
 
BROKEN CHINA 115 
 
 "Is he a sport?" 
 
 "He sounds fascinating from your description." 
 This was Barbara. 
 
 "Is he good-looking?" 
 
 "Does he swank?" 
 
 "Will he mind ragging?" 
 
 "Can he dance?" 
 
 "Who cares — can he swim?" 
 
 "Does he hate girls?" 
 
 "Oh, shut up, Babs — you do ask the most idiotic 
 questions! I want to know " 
 
 "/ want to know," from Kate Seton — "and 
 Mr. Munro being my special visitor, I'd like you 
 children to be quiet for half a moment — whether he's 
 a good trencher-man, in which case we'll kill 
 Lulu—" 
 
 "Mums!!!" 
 
 "And whether he's moderately intelligent? — of 
 course he is, as he likes my books — and whether there 
 is a twinkle in his eye? — I can't stand solemn people 
 — and what's his private sorrow, and his inherited 
 vice, and his confidential history, and his hidden 
 depravity, and do you consider, Kevin, between 
 ourselves, that he has the paternal instinct?" 
 
 I smiled at the rapacious lady, and answered 
 simply, "Yes, he has an excellent appetite. Let us 
 sacrifice Lulu." 
 
 I lay on the bank of a field adjoining the garden of 
 The Shoe. I lay in a tangle of sweet-smelling grasses 
 
116 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 and weeds, with warm, wet honey-suckle weighing 
 down a hedge above me in great splashes of thick 
 cream, and gold-dusty fawn, and flesh colour; I lay 
 there — and hated Larry. . . . 
 
 These attacks of mine frightened me by their 
 intensity; with each recurrence they waxed more 
 savage and corrosive — further beyond my control. 
 
 You must not allow yourself to feel like this^-you 
 must not . . . for your own sake. Larry is coming 
 down here? Well, what of it? Need it matter to 
 you? Yes, but — but 
 
 Why cant he leave me alone? 
 
 Honey-suckle and clover field and belt of dark blue 
 sea swirled into stammering black. . . . Leave me 
 alone, Larry — I came here to get rid of you — ^to get 
 away from you — not to hear you or see you. This is 
 my fortress — my friends — they like me . . . they'll 
 like you better — I shall be forced to watch it happen. 
 ... Or I can go. . . . Damn you. . . . Why 
 should I be driven out — pressed out — by you? It's 
 all done on purpose. You beast! You beast! and 
 I was beginning to forget. . . . 
 
 [7] 
 
 Micky dropped over the nearest gate, looked 
 around him, and espying me, saimtered along to my 
 side. 
 
 "I've been on the hunt for you." 
 
 I uttered no word of welcome, and wished I had 
 
BROKEN CHINA 117 
 
 betaken my surliness to a remoter spot. The boy 
 curled himself up against the bank, snuggled his head 
 down on his arms. His eyes glinted at me sideways 
 . . . they were extraordinarily blue and bad this 
 morning. He matched my sombre silence with a 
 pregnant one of his own. At last — 
 
 "You don't want Larry Munro to come here." 
 
 It was no query, but an assertion delivered with 
 quiet infallibility. 
 
 "Why shouldn't I? He's an awfully decent chap. 
 We've been pals for years." 
 
 "You said so at breakfast. The others think 
 you're glad he's coming. But I wasn't sure. I 
 went out to think it over. I'm sure now. I've got 
 you sized up and squeezed up, and put away in a box 
 and ticketed, every bit of you." 
 
 "P-some p-sycholog|ist,^' I teased him — feeling 
 fairly helpless, notwithstanding. "You're a young 
 ass, Micky — I really am keen on Larry." 
 
 "Oh yes, you like him all right. But you don't 
 want him here. You like him in a funny sort of way. 
 It will be interesting to watch you together." 
 
 Micky's metaphorical legs were waggling proudly 
 in the air. He was not a fourteen-year-old boy at the 
 moment, but a fiendish little gnome, with the long 
 grey beard of experience, and the twinkle of a soulless 
 other world in all he said. To shatter the illusion, 
 I forced myself to remember a certain photograph of 
 a school group in which Micky, Captain of his Eleven, 
 lolled back at his lordly ease in a deck chair, while 
 
118 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 his ten companions, of whom he was the smallest and 
 chubbiest, sat meekly about on the grass. This more 
 commonplace presentment of Micky gave me confi- 
 dence. 
 
 "I say, I wonder if you'd mind fetching my pipe? 
 It's amongst the pottery on the dresser, I think." 
 
 "Right-o," courteously Micky rose and set out for 
 the house. 
 
 "And, Micky," I called out — he turned, "when 
 you've fetched it " 
 
 "Yes?" 
 
 "Don't fag to bring it back here." 
 
 He understood, but he did not grin or fling me a 
 rude tu quoque ; the dignified set of his back as he dis- 
 appeared over the gate, revealed plainly his state of 
 mind. I was a brute to have hurt Micky — but I 
 was never a brute till the old kick at the heels, and 
 joggle at the elbows made itself felt — it was Larry's 
 fault — Larry — Larry Munro always. . . . Oh, 
 curse him! 
 
 Only this time I had done it myself, enflaming the 
 bitterness . . . fool, idiot, dolt, why did you ever 
 lend him those books? Why, after your years of 
 vigilance, quick to destroy the most far-fetched 
 possibility of admitting Larry into the ultimate refuge 
 where you hoped to escape from him in any crisis of 
 sick- weariness. . . . 
 
 And the crisis had come, and the refuge, and 
 immunity. And this was Tuesday, and he was 
 coming on Saturday . . . because I had lent him a 
 
BROKEN CHINA 119 
 
 couple of books. ''You did it yourself! Yah! yah! 
 yah! did it yourself!" ... If only I could have 
 strangled my screeching, scoffing ego! 
 
 "Ahoy, Babs — I want you — quick!" it was Ned 
 calling from his tool-shed in the garden. 
 
 "Wait a sec!" clear and distant. 
 
 "Can't!" 
 
 "Right!" the pad of her feet made no sound on 
 the grass, but it was barely half a minute later that I 
 heard him say, "Put your hand here — no, here. Yes, 
 of course it's the toboggan — did you think it was a 
 shoe-horn?" 
 
 Barbara's reply was quenched in the monotonous 
 journey of the saw backwards and forwards. 
 
 "I say — was that your thumb?" 
 
 "No . . . it's all right." 
 
 "Sorry. Can you hold on?" 
 
 "Yes," gallantly. And the drowsy sawing re- 
 commenced. 
 
 "... I want a girl who'd be idiotic and intolerant 
 with me. . . . Oh, that girl! how she'd pick up 
 sticks in a wood, and help a fellow get a fire 
 burning under a gipsy tripod. . . ." 
 
 It was not Ned speaking now, but Larry . . . and 
 my numb senses had started awake to recognition 
 at last. . . . Barbara — Barbara was two dream- 
 girls materialized into one. Larry's mate, who 
 would help him light his gipsy fire — ^had she not 
 
120 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 just borne uncomplainingly her brother's clumsy saw 
 across her thumb? . . . Larry's girl, young as tree- 
 buds in February; and she was also the girl 
 predestined to our rivalry,' whom my instinct had 
 foretold years and years ago, when on the floor of 
 Felicity's drawing-room, two small boys had fought 
 over an entirely unimportant Hon. Nina. 
 
 Then — did I love Barbara, whom Larry was to 
 love? . . . What else had been the powerful en- 
 chantment of this holiday? I had come in pain be- 
 yond the healing of mere change or place or event; be- 
 yond Setons and nursery rhymes and sea-dip, for 
 all my pretence that these had wrought the warlock 
 f orgetfulness of yet a third Larry. . . . 
 
 Barbara . . . child-mouth which I had not dared 
 to kiss, and soul the most clear and honest of any in 
 the world. . . . Barbara, who could romp like a boy 
 and flush petal crimson like a shy girl; whose 
 impulse ran, without a single loop, towards truth, as 
 a straight white road with one lonely dwelling-house 
 at the end of it. . . . No doubt but that I loved Bar- 
 bara — and that Larry would love Barbara — and that 
 Barbara 
 
 No doubt of it. The gibing conspiracy was work- 
 ing itself out nicely. 
 
 But how furiously she would repudiate Larry if 
 she knew of his seven years' infatuation and thraldom 
 to Felicity, my mother! Barbara was of that type 
 most ruthless, most terrible in condemnation, when 
 
BROKEN CHINA 121 
 
 faced by a story that could not quite be faced. Bar- 
 bara was the normal schoolgirl who judged darkness 
 fearlessly, because she lived in the clear light. We 
 who have learned tolerance are merely blinking side- 
 ways into the shadows where our own kinks and way- 
 wardness, adjustments, transgressions, lie submerged. 
 
 Especially in matters of sex, of which she was 
 wholly and gloriously ignorant, would Barbara be 
 most severe. 
 
 If she were told about Larry. . . . 
 
 How should she be told? Larry himself would 
 not be likely to make confession — abstaining not from 
 deliberate deceit, but a certain wanton loss of memory 
 where it pleased him to forget. And nobody else 
 could tell her. 
 
 Oh ... / could tell her, of course. 
 
 For the second time that morning, I laughed — but 
 with a sardonic grimace towards the suave Com- 
 spirator who had not been quite humane enough to 
 make me a cad. 
 
 The dinner-bell, chiming faintly over the honey- 
 suckle, found me still wrenching up green things from 
 the reluctant mould . . . and hating Larry. I 
 hauled myself erect, and looked down at the mutilated 
 havoc of bald patches and splintered stems, torn up 
 star-blossoms fading in the sun, grasses crushed flat 
 and limp ... it seemed as though I ought to 
 apologize — a man has no right to vent his temper on 
 the kindly earth. 
 
122 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 [8] 
 
 Barbara was at her gayest during dinner, too guile- 
 less to conceal her exhilaration at the prospect of yet 
 another flirtation (well, not really flirting!). So 
 it was true what she had vaguely heard and dreamily 
 anticipated, that young men, all alive and kicking, 
 were legitimate plunder of a girl grown-up. One — 
 yes, certainly! — ^but two in a summer were unexpected 
 bounty. 
 
 Life was tremendously jolly and exciting. . . . 
 So much I read in Barbara's radiant demeanour. 
 She did not refer to her thumb bound up in a strip of 
 linen — a sister must be damaged in the service of 
 brothers, and make no plaint. 
 
 The talk of Ned and Micky was all of the toboggan, 
 to be tested that afternoon. Micky's manner to me 
 was a shade cold. I was sorrowful, but not surprised. 
 I wished I had not off'ended Micky. Henry stayed 
 outside for the meal, refusing to leave the side of a 
 sick guinea-pig who was also a prospective mother; 
 his dinner was brought to him. 
 
 As for me, I wondered whereabouts Larry would 
 sit at the table, and if in ai position where I should 
 see his face every time I looked up from my 
 plate. 
 
 "I say, Kev, where have you been all the morning? 
 Did you bathe?" 
 
 "No. I'll bathe when the tide's up in the bay 
 this evening." 
 
 "Aren't you going to toboggan with us? We 
 
BROKEN CHINA 123 
 
 thought of whizzing you down first to prepare the 
 slide, as you're the heaviest!" 
 
 "I don't like to be so pampered, Ned. Make me 
 useful; I prefer it." 
 
 Micky chuckled . . . and, I believe, forgave me. 
 
 We tried all the lesser slopes and hillocks among 
 the dunes; and then I pointed out a sandy cliff at a 
 steep angle from the bay: 
 
 "That looks a good one!" restless at the unperilous 
 thing our pastime had hitherto proved. 
 
 "M' no," said Ned, to my astonishment. Micky 
 and the toboggan were sprawling a few yards apart 
 on the shore below, he in the attitude of a tortoise 
 turned over on his back and unable to recover any 
 other equilibrium. 
 
 "Why not?" Babs ran along between the whip- 
 ping grasses, to the crest of my suggested slide, and 
 peered over. "Looks a bit steep," carelessly, as I 
 thudded up to her. 
 
 Her tone indicated that she was ready to applaud 
 me for attempting a feat on which even Ned had put 
 a veto. 
 
 "Board, Micky!" I halloed. 
 
 "No. Are you?" in a faint treble from the 
 yellow-haired tortoise. 
 
 ' 'We — want — the — ^toboggan — ^up — here ! " Bar- 
 bara called, with a distinctness that purported trouble 
 for her young brother. 
 
 "Speak to it kindly, then. Or whistle to it," piped 
 Micky. i , 
 
124 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 I raised my eyebrows towards Ned, who promptly 
 scrambled down by the quickest route, made Micky 
 swallow a handful of dry and unpleasant seaweed 
 encrusted with mussels — "for his cheek!" and re- 
 turned, dragging the toboggan behind him. 
 
 "Bet you can't do this!" I said brutally — ^we were 
 none of us at our best that afternoon. Astride of the 
 roughly-carved plank, I launched it over the edge, 
 with its nose obliquely pointed. . . . 
 
 "Oh, Kev, had you better?" 
 
 "He's a fool!" gruffly from Ned. 
 
 The toboggan, gaining speed, whizzed rapidly down 
 a natural glide of smooth shining silver. Tingling to 
 exhilaration after the innumerable bumps and stop- 
 pages we had endured in our former experiences, I 
 caught sight of Micky erect suddenly, dancing and 
 gesticulating like a frenzied Dervish almost directly 
 under my descending swoop. 
 
 I could not be certain of a slow finish — so I 
 shouted him a warning to remove himself. . . . 
 Then, with a movement of the foot, slewed round on 
 my course, struck against a protruding hummock of 
 grass — the toboggan darted out into space . . . sun- 
 stab full in my eyes- across the bay . . . was that 
 Micky who yelled as the wildly spiralling beach 
 sprang up and hit my head a dull heavy bang? . . . 
 Dont, Larry, it isn't fair! . . . but Larry only ans- 
 wered: "The train is in, so the chemist is out!" and 
 went on padding at my heels down the passages of 
 Portland prison, banging me on the head and body 
 
BROKEN CHINA 125 
 
 with a bladder. ... I glanced over my shoulder 
 in running, and saw that he was in Harlequin costume 
 — he smiled his nice crooked smile . . . yes, but 
 you can run faster than I, because you're lighter — 
 and because I'm carrying Lulu — how did the rhyme 
 go? "Stole — a pig — " that's it — "Stole a pig and 
 away he run;" had I stolen Lulu? . . . "away he 
 run" . . . there was something wrong about that 
 line — they might have put it right first. . . . But he 
 never caught up with me, only irritated me with the 
 persevering kick on the heels, jolt at my doubled 
 elbows. 
 
 . . . Surely we must come to the end of it soon — 
 this maze of passages between high black walls — they 
 spread quickly — before I could spring out of them, 
 spread till they covered the space of the whole world 
 . . . dead world . . . Larry and I shut up in it 
 alone — and yet not enough room for us. ... If I 
 could meet Wentworth I'd ask him to supper with 
 Messalina. . . . Oh, God, let me meet some one! 
 round the next bend, then, or the next . . . feet 
 usually make a noise if one stamps them — not on sand 
 . . . glittering silver sand. . . . Larry, leave me 
 alone! leave me — alone, . . . 
 
 Good, here's some one at last — far away — ^nearer 
 — rushing towards me. . . . 
 
 — Only Larry again. Then there's more than one 
 Larry. I know that — ^who told me? Miss Beech — 
 Miss Hilda Beech. . , . 
 
126 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "Tom, Tom, the piper's son, 
 Stole a pig and away he run." 
 
 There is something wrong with it — George Shaw 
 wrote it — let's ask George Shaw. . . . Can he play 
 Polish bezique, though? Hurrah, Ned, I've beaten 
 the great George Shaw — I need hardly point out, my 
 lord, that the defendant, by admitting this, renders 
 himself entirely ineligible. . . . 
 
 But I'm tired of high black walls and a silver 
 muffler under my feet and grim unechoing silences. 
 . . . Hush, that's because Larry Munro is dying 
 behind one of the walls. Which? The next? . . . 
 Can't I lie down and die too? I could, if Larrikin 
 weren't looking over the wall at me . . . such a 
 little boy — how did he get up there? Felicity 
 called him Humpty dumpty. . . . Barbara knows 
 all about Felicity — ^then the fat's in the fire. The 
 sheep's in the meadow, the fat's in the fire — 
 
 My dear Larry, you must blame Micky for that. 
 Yes, but I'm so tired, am I never to sleep indoors 
 again. Mummy? Felicity doesn't like me to call her 
 Mummy. . . . Who said I can't tell Babs? — 
 Babs! 
 
 "Yes, Kevin?" 
 
 That was a voice not Larry's at last. I stood still, 
 cautiously — had he gone? . . . 
 "Kevin." 
 . . . Very, very tired after all that running, but 
 
BROKEN CHINA 127 
 
 so glad to be back again in my attic at the Shoe, with 
 Barbara's fingers lightly touching my forehead. . . . 
 I did not even want to open my eyes, or to know why 
 I was in bed, nor what day of the week it might be. 
 
 But Larry was coming on Saturday. 
 
 — Oh, Larry spoils everything, always. I had 
 been dreaming about Larry — gruesome dreams, he 
 had banged me with a bladder 
 
 "Oh, Mums, he's been talking such a lot of non- 
 
 sense." 
 
 661 
 
 'Poor fellow. He's quiet enough now." 
 
 "Yes, but he isn't conscious; I spoke to him, and 
 he never moved." 
 
 "Kevin!" in Kate Seton's pleasant authoritative 
 tones. 
 
 But it was too much work to respond. I just 
 meditated listlessly on the nonsense I might have 
 talked, with Babs listening. Suppose — Suppose 
 I had given myself away in my hatred of Larry. . . . 
 
 "At any rate. Dr. Mackworth is bound to be here 
 by nine — he promised me " 
 
 Or suppose — I almost started upright with the 
 thought, but an incomprehensible instinct kept me 
 still simulating unconsciousness — suppose in delirium 
 I had revealed the secret of Larry and Felicity — secret 
 I so ached for Barbara to know — secret which would 
 cause her to hate him ... as I did 
 
 You can't tell her. No, of course I can't . . . but 
 if it came to the surface like froth while I was not 
 
128 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 responsible, nobody can blame me — I couldn't blame 
 myself — for that? Barbara said: "He's been talk- 
 ing a lot of nonsense." . . . 
 
 " — No, Mums — only a jumble of words and names 
 and bits, and once he recited 'Tom, Tom, the piper's 
 son' " — I heard Barbara's low, clear laugh — "Oh, I 
 oughtn't to laugh, but it was rather funny, and — and 
 — he's not really bad, is he, Mumsie?" 
 
 "No, my dear — only a slight concussion, I should 
 imagine. But we'll hear when the doctor comes. 
 Meanwhile I'll fetch " 
 
 Disappointment flowed over my mind and swamped 
 it in a black tide. I had revealed no secret. Babs 
 would certainly have told her mother, here and now. 
 Even with soul and body wrenched apart, it seemed 
 I could not do myself any good . . . and those walls 
 were beginning to rise again out of the sand. 
 
 "Barbara." 
 
 "Yes, Kevin?" Her eagerness rent the gauze 
 wrappings which entwined my understanding. 
 
 "Don't let Larry bang me over the head with a 
 bladder": I could hear my voice in quite lucid appeal, 
 but had no more- control over its utteraces than over 
 the tick of clockwork wound up to go. 
 
 "No, of course not." 
 
 The attic with its porthole bracelet of dark blue 
 sea — my hot little camp bed — Bai'bara — slid them- 
 selves fantastically into the recurring nightmare of 
 walls and sand. 
 
 "I can run faster than you, but not as fast as 
 
BROKEN CHINA 129 
 
 Larry," I went on. And wondered with some curi- 
 osity what the voice — my voice — was going to say 
 after that. It was a funny sensation — not at all bad. 
 
 One thing that I must not say — not now that I was 
 conscious — I had missed my chance — what was it? — 
 Larry's mistress is my mother — ^Larry's mother is my 
 mistress 
 
 That was me laughing. Well, no wonder! Such 
 a comical idea — I and Prue. ... So I went on 
 chuckling quite happily. Bang — ^bang — the bladder 
 again, on the back of my head. Larry, as usual, 
 interfering when I was happy. . . . Not fear 
 now, but fury — choking red fury obsessed me. . . . 
 And I could, I could have my revenge. ... I had 
 just to say, "Larry's mistress is my mother." 
 
 No, no. Felicity, no, darling. ... I had for- 
 gotten that it would hurt you too. . . . 
 
 Only — that last time ... I knew quite well that 
 I must never speak it aloud — but it seemed to me 
 that I heard the words — and in my own voice — ^that 
 last time. . . . 
 
 I began to run again, stumbling in the sand. . . . 
 
 [9] 
 
 It was, as Kate Seton had prophesied, only a very 
 slight concussion. Within three days I was walking, 
 shakily enough, about the garden, and even a little 
 way across the clover field and up the honey-suckle 
 lane, or down the white road to the sea. The Setons 
 were cheery and off-hand as usual in their surface 
 
130 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 treatment of me, but it was obvious, never- 
 theless, that they considered I had saved Micky's 
 life at the risk of my own, by diverting the plunge of 
 the toboggan . . . and that he was very uncomfort- 
 able about it. I was compelled to cheer him by 
 privately pointing out that I had no right to have 
 attempted that particular descent; and that any fatal 
 results to him of my f oolhardiness would have turned 
 my hair white in a single night 
 
 "You see," Micky explained gratefully, "I was 
 trying to warn you, when I jumped about and shouted, 
 that you would have to leap the last twelve yards, 
 because the slope bit inwards suddenly, where you 
 couldn't see it. Of course I was an ass to get in your 
 way — but it never struck me that the others could 
 lam into me afterwards that the service of a lifetime 
 wouldn't addykuttly repay you." 
 
 In view of his disgust I naturally apologized. 
 "I'm more sorry than I can addykuttly express, 
 Micky. And — er — of course I don't claim the 
 service of your lifetime. In fact, it looks more as 
 though you could claim mine, as you risked your life 
 
 to warn me." 
 
 "Oh, that^s all right," said Micky, not quite sure 
 from which angle the service-of-a-lifetime obligation 
 was most painful. "I say, what's up with Babs and 
 mother? And Ned and Pater are queer too — it's 
 about this Munro chap who's coming tomorrow. But 
 they won't tell me what." 
 
 Neither did I tell him what. But it would have 
 
BROKEN CHINA 131 
 
 been blatantly evident to me, even if I had not re- 
 membered my grotesque period of semi-consciousness, 
 that the Setons, with the exception of Micky, were 
 now aware of an event which concerned only Larry 
 Munro and my mother, Felicity Somers. 
 
 Unfortunately, I did remember. There was no 
 reprieve for my conscience, self-condemned. Miti- 
 gating circumstances, yes, one or two . . . the fever- 
 ish aggravation of Larry's trespass; and the ensuing 
 concussion which had temporarily sundered control 
 from the wish to the speech. 
 
 Nevertheless, had I not beforehand desired so 
 madly and so persistently that Barbara should know 
 about Larry and Felicity, revelation would not have 
 occurred during that pause, when, betwen two stages 
 of complete delirium, I was aware of my inconsequent 
 sayings, though unable to hinder them. And besides 
 . . . why had I all the time feigned unconsciousness 
 had it not been with some sort of idea . . . ? 
 
 Guilty! The mitigating circumstances carried no 
 weight at all. They might be left out as far as I was 
 concerned. Guilty. . . . And now I could no 
 longer and never again, feel injured with regard to 
 Larry — only mean — oh, horribly mean. Larry him- 
 self, with all his tricks, would never have played me 
 such a trick as this. . . . 
 
 The attitude of the Setons aided my scourging 
 self-contempt. Why, with the sentiments she now 
 held towards the young unknown, Kate should not 
 have quite simply disposed of his visit by some 
 
132 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 pretext, written or wired, I cannot tell. She probably- 
 refrained from a kindly fear that such a procedure 
 would cause me to guess that I, in delirium, had 
 unwittingly damned a friend. . . . 
 
 For, of course, I was not informed that I had done 
 any such thing — I suppose they wanted to spare such 
 shock and subsequent grief to my noble and upright 
 nature and gentleman's sense of honour. 
 
 "You talked a pack of rubbish and nursery 
 rhymes," Kate answered my tentative inquiry. 
 "None of it any good at all for copy, Fm sorry to 
 say." And Barbara also, hectically, and without her 
 mother's novelistic touch in deception, joked with me 
 about "Tom, Tom, the piper's son. . . ." 
 
 The piper's son and his stolen pig were a plausible 
 selection from a sick man's ravings, and came in 
 very useful. 
 
 I, it was equally evident, had to remain serenely 
 unaware, unless I were to give myself away, that any 
 information had leaked out to alter their rejoicing 
 over the hitherto welcome guest. It remains a 
 problem unsolved how I should have accounted for 
 this sudden raging and hostility, had I been as sub- 
 limely ignorant of my treachery as — Oh God! as 
 I would like to have been! 
 
 It was a highly uncomfortable situation before it 
 even started, so to speak; only to be saved by super- 
 discretion on the part of Kate Seton — super-finesse 
 from Barbara. 
 
 And these were not their distinguishing qualities. 
 
BROKEN CHINA 133 
 
 Kate's fetish was clean manliness. She was trying to 
 bring up her boys to clean manliness; and trusted that 
 Barbara, by marriage, would import more of this 
 desirable element into the home. The Larry-saga, as 
 she first received it compressed into one phrase, must 
 have sounded harsh, to say the least of it. 
 
 She had never known Felicity, in whose presence 
 the ugliness and coarseness surmised in the story 
 would not for an instant have been suffered to dwell. 
 She had never heard how two women had held each 
 other close over the body and the memory of the man 
 they had both loved; nor that Felicity, faithful for 
 seventeen years, had only been still faithfully adher- 
 ent to the same ideal when she met Larry Munro for 
 the second time; neither could she guess how help- 
 lessly young the boy had been when his macabre 
 inheritance encompassed him; nor how of late he had 
 rebelled, and brutally — but with clean manliness — 
 shaken himself free; spells and spell-woman 
 exchanged for the quest of a girl like Barbara. 
 
 Had K. B. Seton, who was a fine novelist, been 
 aware of all this, Larry might not have had to 
 encounter the vehement bigoted dislike of which my 
 one utterance was productive. Kate, at least, might 
 have been mellowed to partial understanding. Never 
 Barbara. Barbara was obviously making no allow- 
 ances. To her frank challenging eyes. Felicity was 
 just a fact. 
 
 And the fault was mine — I had cheated as well as 
 betrayed — I had lied as well as cheated — ^there was 
 
134 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 no truth in the stark utterance "Larry's mistress is 
 my mother. . . ." 
 
 That sort of thing! . . . Barbara had heard of it 
 thousands of times — only it happened to other people, 
 not to oneself, ever. To her, the only outstanding 
 feature of this thoroughly commonplace incident was 
 that it had somehow got entangled with oneself and 
 one's house, and even with one's feelings (Barbara 
 had been dreaming of a wonderful Prince Larry!) 
 . . . Horrid fast young man and elderly (horrid) 
 siren. . . . Oh, it was — horrid. Barbara, Ned, and 
 Kate, with Henry to help in the background, set out 
 with the zealous determination to show Master Larry 
 their views "on that sort of thing." 
 
 I was only surprised that Micky had not been told 
 of the business. But Micky, when a secret was in 
 question, evaded open statement, preferred to prowl 
 round the rim of things, and increase the prevailing 
 uneasiness a hundredfold, before he announced with 
 that glint of sidelong blue between upcurling black 
 lashes, that he knew all about it now, thanks! 
 
 I believe the Setons would have been disappointed 
 had Larry's visit been deferred or cancelled. Their 
 antagonism was active and healthy and needed a live 
 victim. So that relief mingled with scorn when, on 
 Saturday morning, a telegram arrived for Mrs. Seton: 
 "Arriving 6.30, St. Catts station, slim and divinely 
 handsome in grey — Larry Munro." 
 
 "He must be conceited!" Babs' short upper lip 
 curled like that of a fictional duchess. 
 
BROKEN CHINA 135 
 
 "Beastly swanky sort of chap, telling us before- 
 hand what he's going to wear — ^who cares!" This 
 was Ned. 
 
 Then Kate, affixing the label, "Extravagant — sign- 
 ing both names to a telegram — Munro alone would 
 have done quite well." 
 
 Finally Henry's contribution, "My opinion is of 
 no value whatever, and you need not assure me that it 
 is; but I submit, nevertheless, that the young man must 
 have meant a portion of his telegram to be a 
 joke." 
 
 "Bravo, Henry!" I murmured inwardly. The 
 ridiculous wire had made me smile, and yet caused a 
 pang — ^the sender was so buoyantly confident of his 
 welcome. 
 
 "Anyway, who's going to meet him?" demanded 
 Micky, lazily letting down the deck chair in which 
 Ned sprawled. 
 
 "Not me!" 
 
 "You met Kevin!" 
 
 "Kevin would like to drive in to meet his own 
 friends, though," a little flickering smile in my 
 direction. 
 
 "Not well enough." I certainly had no desire to 
 encounter Larry a second before I was forced to it. 
 "Besides, I didn't invite him." 
 
 "Mums invited him. Mums, you've got to drive 
 into St. Catts for him." 
 
 "With three buxom children and a husband — and 
 I a decrepit old woman, with the last chapters of a 
 
136 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 book to write, and dinner to get? No. Certainly 
 not. Henry " 
 
 Henry gave us to understand, with the usual 
 preamble of self-depreciation, that his services would 
 certainly be required in attendance on the favourite 
 guinea-pig this very day, because 
 
 "That will do, Henry." 
 
 "My dear Kate, if among these enlightened young 
 people I mayn't mention such elemental matters as 
 birth and death " 
 
 "Death, as much as you please," said his wife. 
 "Your guinea-pig is dying — is that it?" 
 
 Henry was disposed to argue. 
 
 "Anyway," Kate cut him short, "Ned and 
 Micky are driving the pony into St. Catts this even- 
 mg. 
 
 "Ned is jolly well not doing anything of the sort. 
 I can't stand this Munro rotter." 
 
 "Why? It isn't as if you knew him yet," 
 Barbara made a conscientious effort to play up to the 
 presence of Micky and myself. 
 
 "No ; but you know whof I meanr — in italics. 
 
 Had I not been so poignantly involved, it would 
 have been an excellent diverting spectacle to watch the 
 Setons in the process of manoeuvring a delicate situa- 
 tion. As it was, though I loathed the necessity for 
 further histrionics on my part, it seemed I could not 
 let pass what should have been to me an incompre- 
 hensible condemnation of Larry, without evincing 
 some natural astonishment. I evinced it. 
 
BROKEN CHINA 137 
 
 Their excuse was the telegram. Kate, metaphori- 
 cally, grabbed at the telegram, and the others followed 
 her lead ; . . . they had been prepared to like their 
 guest, to welcome him heartily, till he had "put them 
 off" by his intolerable message. With "Tom, Tom, 
 the piper's son," that telegram became a useful 
 property to the Setons. 
 
 "Micky, dear old boy, dear little brother," coaxed 
 Barbara, "you wanted to go into St. Catts anyhow to 
 get that oiled silk for covering the model aeroplane. 
 The station is on your way " 
 
 But Kate interrupted with a decisive: "I'd rather 
 Micky did not go." 
 
 Followed a short, wordless contest between mother 
 and daughter, in which the latter tried to communicate 
 that Micky, not in the secret as regards Larry's dis- 
 creditable past, could have no valid reason for 
 refusing the errand ; while Kate retorted, equally with- 
 out sound, that she did not intend exposing her cherub 
 to an hour's solitary corruption. 
 
 I doubt if either succeeded as I did in interpreting 
 the other. They were not by nature fashioned for 
 speech under cover of silence. 
 
 But whether silently or in speech, it was a night- 
 mare, incredible, and yet dreadfully familiar, to 
 listen to Larry discussed, Larry's name, here in Corn- 
 wall, in Porthgollan, in The Shoe, among the Setons, 
 where, because I had set up sanctuary, I had most 
 dreaded the intrusion, most often anticipated it, most 
 strenuously denied the possibility. 
 
138 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "Thomas shall fetch him from the station," was 
 the conclusion arrived at. Thomas was the black- 
 smith's son, aged eight, whom I had once publicly 
 miscalled Tommy and had been publicly reproved by 
 his mother: "Thomas, ef you please — Tommy du be 
 tu old fur un yet awhile!" 
 
 "Yes, Thomas can drive in for him." They 
 would have deputed the cat to do so, if feasible. 
 
 Larry was expected about half -past seven P. M. 
 Our usual supper time at The Shoe meandered 
 evasively between eight and nine o'clock. But Mrs. 
 Seton said quite plausibly that Mr. Munro would be 
 hungry from his long drive in an open cart through 
 the soaking rain. So we all began the meal 
 sharply at 7.30 without him. 
 
 I was poignantly aware of a vacant place at the 
 table, just opposite my own. 
 
 Also of atmospheric conditions at ominous high 
 pressure. 
 
 And of Barbara, in the faded grey-green tatters 
 from which she had declined to change, but with her 
 wontedly tossed and straying hair wound in a plait 
 round her small bronze head, which in its revealed 
 shapeliness, was conspicuously Barbara's "best 
 point." 
 
 The soft lines of her throat were a girl's 
 insolent challenge to an unknown woman shadowed 
 behind an unknown man ... or so I read it. 
 
 Steady rain drenching the stiff ruts of the lane to 
 a smother of mud that would prevent us from hearing 
 
BROKEN CHINA 139 
 
 the cart from the station draw up outside. At any 
 moment. . . . Obstinate in refusal to let Larry 
 actually as well as symbolically thrust me out, I now 
 swore at myself for not having returned to London 
 that morning, after all. 
 
 The kitchen door opened straight on to the path 
 to the gate. The path, also spongy, would allow no 
 footstep to sound upon it. 
 
 But perhaps the click of the gate. . . . 
 
 I was in extreme sympathy with the electric mood 
 of a cat, when for no apparent reason save nerves — 
 which of course the cat could conquer if it chose not 
 to give way — it tears madly up and down with every 
 separate hair stiff and tingling. Such exercise, ex- 
 pressive of catastrophe, must be tremendous relief to 
 the cat. ... 
 
 Was that wheels? 
 
 My unease communicated itself to Micky. Though 
 he was probably the only outcast from secret knowl- 
 edge at that table — state of dewy innocence that Kate, 
 Henry, Barbara and Ned likewise assigned to me! 
 — yet I sensed him more than the others on the jump 
 . . . and I silently conceded to his proud mother that 
 Micky might be slightly Psychic. 
 
 In addition to a fine salad of mixed emotions, I 
 added a slice of anger with the Setons for beginning 
 supper without their guest — I remembered how Feli- 
 city in her worst hour had made welcome Miss Beech 
 and Miss Hilda Beech. 
 
 A voice from the lane called: "Whoa!" 
 
140 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "You've spoilt your entrance, Larry," to myself. 
 For all the Setons had heard, and were staring hard 
 at the door. 
 
 But though stock effective, it was not such a bad 
 entrance, after all. Trust Larry! Door flung im- 
 petuously open ; and silhouetted against a background 
 of darkness and whimpering rain and faint goblin out- 
 line of cart, pony, and Thomas, stood a slight figure, 
 cap in hand, overcoat sparkling with tiny drops in the 
 lamplight. . . . Oh, not at all bad! 
 
 Then only it occurred to me that my presence 
 there must be sheer surprise to Larry — Was it? I 
 could not remember the chaos of events succes- 
 sively — 
 
 "Hullo, Kev!" 
 
 Apparently not. Larry's greeting was quite cool 
 and self-possessed; his grin irresistibly friendly. In 
 spite of a quick memory of what it felt like when a 
 bladder whacked the back of my head, I calmly 
 twinkled back. . . . "Hullo, Larry!" 
 
 For the flash of a second it seemed astoundingly 
 as though we understood one another down to the 
 last fraction of complexity, and were allied in appre- 
 ciation of the joke. 
 
 Then I introduced him. 
 
 The Setons each asserted afterwards that they took 
 an instant dislike to the personality of the new-comer. 
 Nor could I argue that they were hardly in an un- 
 prejudiced frame of mind. For then — flushing very 
 red — ^they would have retorted that they knew nothing 
 
BROKEN CHINA 141 
 
 beforehand what indeed could they know? — to 
 
 the detriment of Mr. Miinro. And I, shackled to 
 ignorance, must perforce acknowledge them right, 
 curse my delirium (or lack of it) — curse Larry — a 
 special brand for Larry as usual! — curse the Setons 
 — the whole idiot set of complications. . . . 
 
 "It was when he took off his coat and I saw his 
 grey suit," explained Barbara, "it reminded me of the 
 telegram, and I detest a dandy " 
 
 Yes — that was it — it reminded all of them of the 
 telegram. (Thanks, Babs, for the cue!) — and they 
 all detested a dandy . . . and showed it! 
 
 But Larry had come prepared to be liked; and for 
 a short while before he grasped and readjusted his 
 manners to hostility, he behaved like one who was 
 confidently prepared to be liked. In superb high 
 spirits, he swung forward his eager intimacy in their 
 direction, instead of advancing it with the tentative 
 demeanour of a criminal — as, of course, he should 
 have done. K. B. Seton, to whom was his primary 
 allegiance paid, covered her lack of cordiality by a 
 brisk attention to material details: 
 
 "Take off your coat and hang it near the fire — 
 you're wet through. What about Thomas? I hope 
 he knows that we want the cart presently to take Mr. 
 Munro and his luggage to Tremerrith? Or — Ned 
 you can drive over after supper, and drop Mr. Munro, 
 and take the cart back to the 'Red Deer,' can't you? 
 Tell Thomas he needn't wait, and give him sixpence; 
 Micky, take Mr. Munro to Kevin's room for a wash. 
 
142 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 I'm sorry we can't put you up here, but this is a very 
 small cottage, and we're packed as it is; Tremerrith 
 is only three fields away and a bit up the lane, and 
 Mrs. Chubbe will be sure to make you comfortable. 
 You come here for all your meals, of course. Which 
 reminds me that you must be starving; Babs — pie — 
 oven — hurry up!" and Kate subtracted herself from 
 futher concern with the arrival. 
 
 The alacrity on the negative side, with which Ned, 
 Micky, and Babs obeyed their mother's commands, 
 may have accounted for Larry's air of good-humoured 
 conviction, as he turned to me an hour later at the gate 
 of Tremerrith, and said: "What absolutely abomi- 
 nable children!" 
 
 Ned had driven Larry round by the road, while I 
 walked across the three fields and met the cart outside 
 the gate of Mrs. Chubbe's cottage. 
 
 I listened, without reply, to the retreating jangle of 
 the cart. 
 
 "That boy — ^what's his name — Ned? — seems to 
 have got it into his bumpkin head that I'm a puny 
 coward type. We had an eerie drive through black- 
 ness and rain through a lane with ruts like mountains 
 . . . the cart climbed 'em painfully and dropped 
 splashing into the pools colleeted either side . . . 
 nearly bumped us out and drowned us each time. 
 And he lashed the pony like a madman; I'd have 
 gracefully alighted and walked or swum, but we were 
 surrounded, back and front, by a formal procession 
 
BROKEN CHINA 143 
 
 of muttering bullocks — yes, honestly, Kev, they did 
 mutter, scowling with their heads down, like Socialist 
 workmen before a strike; and I don't see why I 
 should be bullied into walking arm-in-arm with a 
 Socialist bullock through two feet of mud and two 
 of water — on my first night here." 
 
 Ned, infernal young scoundrel, had obviously 
 brought the cart through a carefully selected lane, 
 instead of by the road. 
 
 "He hoped to see you behave badly," I explained 
 briefly. 
 
 "And shriek: ' Lemme get out — I'm frightened'? 
 — Yes, I grasped that was his fond idea, from the way 
 he kept on looking at me." Larry laughed, and threw 
 his boots into a comer of the room. "It was deuced 
 uncomfortable, that's all. And I expect the rude 
 little schoolgirl will be glad to hear that it's about 
 done for my 'elegance' " ; ruefully holding the candle 
 to survey himself. 
 
 Barbara, when at supper he signified intention of 
 climbing down into a certain precarious blow-hole 
 mentioned by Ned, had replied scornfully: "You'd 
 better stop away from the rocks altogether, or you'll 
 ruin your elegance — people aren't expected to wear 
 those sort of clothes in Cornwall, you know," anxious 
 to prove herself impervious to his fascinations from 
 the beginning, and to make him well acquainted with 
 the fact. 
 
 "As it happens, I've a sweater and some bags in 
 
144 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 my suit case," Larry answered her gently — "But 
 people aren't expected to wear those sort of clothes 
 on a journey, you know. Or didn't you?" 
 
 " — Rude little schoolgirl! What's her hair up 
 for? I'll pull it down!" 
 
 And he said it exactly like a rude little schoolboy, 
 sitting on the side of the bed, and with an injured air 
 caressing one grey silk foot. But I drew no comfort 
 from the spurting conflict; it was merely plain that the 
 courtship of Larry and Barbara, already hotly con- 
 scious one of the other, was to be conducted on lines 
 of a very juvenile Katherine and Petruchio. 
 
 By the evening of the next day the Setons had 
 conclusively proved to Larry that their treatment of 
 him was deliberate, and not their wonted character- 
 istic way with a guest. Their method of proof was 
 my punishment for spoiling his reception: they 
 exploited me sickeningly as their own good boy — a 
 lay figure, usefully at hand to emphasize a contrast. 
 Barbara, Ned, and Micky ostentatiously sought my 
 company and deferred to my wishes; Kate pampered 
 me with first helpings of chicken-breast; I had all the 
 privileges of "quite one of the family," mingled 
 with the consideration due to an honoured visitor. 
 It was roses, roses all the way and myrtle mixed in 
 my path like mad — simply damnable! I saw Larry 
 smile once or twice at a particularly blatant bit of 
 favouritism pointedly directed, but he made no com- 
 ment when we were alone together — a rare occurrence 
 since my sudden popularity. There was no escape 
 
BROKEN CHINA 145 
 
 from a ridiculous predicament, unless by confessing 
 to Barbara that I had not been as unconscious as 
 she believed me to be on a certain occasion. And 
 indeed, in sheer dislike of my present helplessness, I 
 might have so exposed myself to her contempt, had it 
 not involved that Larry should hear what I had 
 done for him. . . . And this I dreaded more than 
 anything else. More than I had dreaded his arrival. 
 More than I dreaded to see Barbara in his arms — 
 
 I cannot tell why. 
 
 My attic was separated by only a board partition 
 from the bedroom in which Kate Seton and Bai'bara 
 never slept. One gusty evening, however, they were 
 driven from their garden roosts and hammocks to 
 indoor refuge — excepting only Micky, who first pro- 
 testingly, and then miserably resigned, was as usual 
 left sternly shelved in the wind-blown, rain-buffeted 
 pig-sty, without even the solace of his mother mar- 
 tyred in the bunk below him. And that night I heard 
 a fragment of talk between Babs and her mother — 
 
 " — And go on pretending we like him, or that we 
 don't know things about him? It's not straight. I 
 want to tell him right out that he's a beast and ought 
 to be ashamed and we hate him — ^Why shouldn't I?" 
 
 "When you're a woman of the world, Barbara my 
 dear, you'll learn that I convey more reproof by an 
 imperceptible hint of coldness in my manner " 
 
 "But it's not straight,^'' the child's voice rang out 
 again, passionate, vehement. "A sort of fumbling. 
 . . . Oh, I don't know. But I shan't be able to 
 
146 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 keep myself much longer from having it out with him 
 — and it's fairer too!" 
 
 "To Larry. But to Kevin?" 
 
 In the silence that followed, I opened my door 
 twice and banged it again, to warn them of my vicinity. 
 I smiled at Kate Seton deluding herself with the 
 notion of "imperceptible hints," which were not un- 
 like a volley of bricks directed at Larry's provocative 
 head. And then I realized Barbara's threat: "I 
 shan't be able to keep myself much longer from hav- 
 ing it out with him." 
 
 Oh Babs, beloved little Babs, how I should like to 
 grip you by the shoulders, and shake you, and shake 
 you, till I had shaken out some of your unsophisti- 
 cated policy of justice and fairness, your exasperating 
 shattering certainty that all matters can be easily ad- 
 justed by a mere act of "having it out," your crude 
 disregard of all delicate manners and tolerance and 
 convenience and tact. . . . Barbara, maid of 
 honour in its truest sense — Barbara whom I worship, 
 tonight I could well-nigh murder you and not be sorry, 
 just to teach you, little fool Barbara, to think, 
 to be sorry and kind before you are pure and scornful, 
 to forgive, to understand — and to mind your own 
 business ! 
 
 All of which vindictive denunciation of Barbara 
 meant that my own burnt and blistered conscience 
 was paining me to frenzy. 
 
 I believe that Barbara was not only capable of 
 fulfilling her threat to "have it out" with Larry, but 
 
BROKEN CHINA 147 
 
 that she was incapable of refraining from it. I was 
 able to ward off the imminent disclosure by prevent- 
 ing Larry and Barbara from ever being a minute 
 alone together — not an easy task, for I had to man- 
 oeuvre without apparent purpose; and though Barbara 
 helped me by pointed distaste for Larry's society, 
 he rather sought out hers, with the mocking air of 
 being perfectly conversant of an attitude which 
 afforded him immense pleasure. 
 
 Warfare between them, formerly intermittent, was 
 now incessant; they were at it sword and dagger, 
 cudgel and quarter-staff; Micky and Ned backing 
 up their sister; Mrs. Seton unscrupulously detaching 
 herself from all responsibility towards her visitor; 
 Henry occasionally strolling into the fray on the 
 side of his offspring. Larry, solitary and dangerous, 
 with that gentleness upon his tongue, and that yellow 
 sparkle in his faun's eyes, which rendered him so 
 vitally attractive — Larry, though he betrayed no 
 astonishment at the surrounding belligerence, must 
 surely have wondered what it was all about, and why 
 I maintained throughout my apparently naive and 
 fatuous position of neuter. 
 
 Some time and soon there was bound to be speech 
 between myself and Larry . . . significant, dis- 
 concerting speech ; but not before there was revelation 
 between Larry and Barbara — ^how soon? 
 
 Under that black archway of rocks high as the 
 cliffs . . . that was where I had caught my final 
 glimpse of them: Barbara and Larry, tiny 
 
148 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 doll figures, grotesquely a-swing on what appeared 
 to be a smooth surface, till they dropped from sight 
 down a seeming abyss — I was tired and knew I could 
 not follow, tired of keeping pace with their tireless 
 scramble — they must not be left — not a moment, 
 or Barbara would "have it out" with Larry ... as 
 she was having it out with him now, somewhere 
 among these giant crags and needles on the island 
 beyond the last archway. 
 
 I gave in. The rocks had been inimical to me 
 from the very start of this morning's expedition. 
 And that was queer, because hitherto I had felt upon 
 rocks that boundless certainty of tread, as well as that 
 sense of rest and home and all's well, which is wont 
 mysteriously grip a man in one particular element 
 and no other — on the sea or upon moors or else in 
 mountains. Rocks beneath my feet brought a famil- 
 iar sensation of suppleness and poise; I knew — just 
 knew — not uncannily but as a simple matter of course, 
 exactly how to correct a slip of the body or limb by 
 a lightning adjustment to any unexpected writhe or 
 jut of the boulders. I could cope, laughing, with the 
 fair deception of an apparently outgoing tide, that 
 was in reality licking up a strip of white sand round 
 the next bend and behind the last bend; or with the 
 veined and polished serpentine, fatal in its almost 
 invisible cloak of slippery weed. I recognized the 
 separate perils of granite rock that crumbled at a 
 clutch; of slate rock that broke sharply, cutting the 
 skin; of barnacle-rock, that offered at the same time 
 
BROKEN CHINA 149 
 
 safety and agony to the clinging soul. There was 
 no end to the friendliness of the Atlantic shore when 
 once it had adopted you; no end to its variety show of 
 low-hooded caves with swinging green floor; caves that 
 might be swum or precariously paddled, till a sombre 
 black pool, bottomless and untwinkling, sent you 
 plunging back to the sun- watched entrance; quiet 
 lagoons, closing to a meandering creek where the 
 rocks bulged to a roof above your crouching head; 
 opening again to a chain of glittering puddles, purple 
 and pink and emerald ; no end to the orchestral music 
 of waters fretting plaintively through a channel too 
 narrow for their impetuous entrance, spitting out in 
 dazzling fury from a hole unsuspected; hissing down 
 like hail from their own tossed height. Yet the sea, 
 and its sounds, and its motley draperies of weed and 
 shell, and its darting wriggling shadow population, 
 was to me only an accessory of its own wild shore- 
 boundaries . . . which point of view would no doubt 
 cause surprise to the bom sailor; just as my treatment 
 of moor and meadow and brown earth existing as 
 a mere wide fringe running down and down and 
 down till it met that strip of conflict that I loved best, 
 would be a novel and distasteful aspect of the case 
 to the typical landsman. Sea was too restless, and 
 knew too many adherents. Land was too stolid, and 
 could too easily be divided into property. But 
 rock-territory, in its unclaimed loneliness, the end 
 and the beginning and the neither-nor; the very rim 
 of island; the edge of the map, where in old lesson 
 
150 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 days the paint-brush dipped in cobalt followed so 
 painfully an unmeaning squiggle of scoop and head- 
 land; rock-territory, sturdy and undeniable to the 
 memory even while the tide, moon-ordered, slipped 
 over it and submerged it wholly; elusive and 
 phantasmagoric to the sight even while tfie t^de, 
 moon-ordered, stripped it again and left it pale and 
 grey and slawered in night-black; rock- territory, all 
 colours, all surprises, all promises; rock-territory, 
 like a fantastic semi-frightening dream shaped into 
 visible form; rock-territory was mine; and on it I 
 was happy — till now. 
 
 But today the rocks had changed their temper. 
 
 Common sense urged that I was still too con- 
 valescent to have attempted such a strenuous expedi- 
 tion; and that the humiliation of head and body 
 submissive to rock-tyranny, where they had previously 
 been conquerors, was from entirely natural causes. 
 But comlnon sense could not survive the spectacle of 
 Larry and Barbara all the time well in my van, call- 
 ing to me, pausing for me; taking the besetting 
 obstacles of our progress with so careless a stride, 
 with such an unconsciously flamboyant exhibition 
 of their nervous young strength, that I was driven 
 to wonder if my own increasing difficulties of gid- 
 diness and uncertain foothold were imagination; to 
 wonder, irritably, if I were indeed already senile? 
 The type of envious decrepit creature who cannot 
 bear tranquilly the sight of youth and fitness leaping 
 ahead. 
 
BROKEN CHINA 151 
 
 "Wait for Kevin!" 
 
 "Come on, old man. Don't keep us all night." 
 
 In a vile humour I struggled and stumbled in their 
 wake, over a portion of rough beach that was new to 
 me; towards a great chain of rock doorways each 
 as tall and taller than the very cliffs, built at right 
 angles from the cliffs, far out to sea. In better 
 moments I might have found it a fairy spectacle. 
 . . . Atlantis suddenly risen from the ocean and 
 hurled in opaque grey and fig-purple and indigo 
 against the taut sapphire sky; unreality fading 
 to its final impermanence in a foam-lapped island, 
 sentinelled by two jagged columns lifted high from 
 the green sea; a last roofless portal after three 
 arches perfect and complete. . . . 
 
 Well, I was in no mood for Atlantis and be- 
 witchment; Brighton pier would have suited me 
 better. 
 
 "Come on, Kev!" 
 
 I hoisted myself on to a ledge; some goblin must 
 have greased it. . . . I slid — threw up my left 
 hand and grabbed at a hold that slowly and joyfully 
 crumbled. Yet I swear Larry and Bai^bara must 
 have come over this barrier of points and chasms in 
 odd marbled yellow. There was no alternative pas- 
 sage to the first archway. My other fingers had, 
 without conscious volition, fastened on to security, 
 though forcing my body to a twisted dangle in mid-air 
 — I kicked about for a shelf to stand upon — found 
 none — my arm was already numb. There was some* 
 
152 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 thing resourceful to be done, of course; some quick, 
 nimble way out of the predicament. But . . . plop 
 of the brown sea-grapes as my chest scraped them 
 against the rock — ^but I was wholly at a loss — curse 
 this dinging in my ears! — in an alien element — alien 
 territory — rock territory. . . . 
 
 "Put your heel here — to your right — ^no — wait! 
 I'll guide it! — hereP' My foot was lifted and firmly 
 wedged into a crevice whence I could obtain leverage 
 to ease the strain on my one arm. Then Barbara — 
 yes, it was she who had come to the rescue — Barbara 
 said casually. "All right now, aren't you?" and re- 
 joined Larry, running back towards us. 
 
 "How could I guess? He's always been a first- 
 rate climber; far better than I," I heard him explain 
 in defence to some reproach of hers which I was not 
 near enough to catch. 
 
 "But he's been ill!" indignantly. 
 
 Larry shrugged his shoulders. His gaze roamed 
 down the line of arches, and stayed, fascinated. 
 
 "I must get out to that island — is it concrete fact, 
 or is it just one's inner vision thrown out to sea when 
 one happens to say the word 'islajnd' to oneself 
 softly? ... I shouldn't be in the very slightest 
 degree surprised to hear that neither of you saw it." 
 
 "We can both see a chunk broken off from the 
 mainland, without rhapsodizing, I suppose?" I 
 found it a relief to be surly. But Larry merely re- 
 peated, "I must get out to that island — can it be 
 done?" to Barbara, who replied eagerly, "It's just 
 
BROKEN CHINA 153 
 
 passable by the lowest tides; Ned discovered a way; 
 we might manage it now if we made a dash for it." 
 
 "Come along, then. Look here, Kev, you'd better 
 sit down and smoke your eternal pipe. We won't 
 be very long." 
 
 "I'm coming too," in my most dogged voice. 
 
 The rocks had deserted me; Larry was their god 
 and master and comrade now. Larry, with Barbara 
 beside him. Even the rocks ... I was getting 
 maudlin in my endeavour not to betray the strain 
 of following the difficult trail of the pair who must 
 not be left alone — must not be left alone — or she 
 would tell him. . . . 
 
 Barbara, hectically desiring my company, said: 
 "Yes, come along; I'll help you over the nasty 
 places." 
 
 But it was a wry prospect to be helped by Barbara, 
 up and down interminably, up those stark black 
 precipices and down those horribly smooth gulfs; 
 always with the huge archways overhead hollowing 
 the sound of our voices, disguising the gulls' cry to 
 human anguish; with the streaked and sickly rocks 
 needling a flat, blue-purple background; streams of 
 cold air; the suck of invisible breakers from below 
 and round about, swirling hoarsely to meet us, 
 booming sullenly in our rear. . . . And feet that 
 slipped and slipped. . . . Rock-territory was now 
 more than hostile; it was nightmare. 
 
 I shook my head; sat down and filled my pipe, as 
 bidden. 
 
154 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "We shan't be long," Larry repeated reassuringly. 
 Barbara sat down beside me, and dug her toes 
 obstinately into the sand. "I'm not keen on going. 
 Let's give it up. There's a sort of three-inch sloping 
 gangway we should have to cross, just under the dip 
 by the last arch, before we jump over to the island; 
 there's no take-off — it always frightens me. I'll stop 
 with Kev." 
 
 Barbara's tact was a gruesome thing. Nor was I 
 complimented by her choice to remain behind. She 
 hated Larry; undoubtedly liked me best. But her 
 liking was with blunt feelers. . . . All her vitality 
 was only aware of Larry; responsive, though in 
 hatred; thrilling to him, though in scorn and in- 
 tolerance. 
 
 "Well, take me to see the gangway, and we'll chuck 
 the island. Of course, as it's a dangerous transit, I 
 don't dream of allowing you to attempt it." 
 
 Larry's well-timed bout of authority had the desired 
 effect of immediately sending Barbara in the direction 
 of the last arch. 
 
 "Babs! Babs! Perhaps we'd better not even 
 look at it . . ." gracelessly he spurred her on — her 
 slim legs and flying hair darted from my view; and 
 then his sweater sharply white for an instant against a 
 sawn-out triangle of dark peacock sea. I was alone. 
 They would not come back — just yet. Not till the 
 tension of the past days was violently snapped. Not 
 till Barbara had enlightened him as to why he was an 
 imwelcome guest, "Kevin told us " 
 
BROKEN CHINA 155 
 
 He was hearing it now — somewhere hidden among 
 the vast craggy masonry. I started in the direction 
 they had gone — stared. . . . 
 
 Presently I went home. Nothing was to be gained 
 by waiting; and I did not care to see them return 
 together; there had been that in Larry's follow- 
 ing gaze after the girl, which was neither mirth nor 
 battle. ... 
 
 The rocks were tolerably kind again — ^now. 
 
 Larry and Barbara walked in halfway through 
 supper — he very pale, and she flushed, and con- 
 spicuously intent on something alive she carried in the 
 palm of her hand. 
 
 "It's a baby field-mouse — I found him at the foot 
 of a slope, squealing for his mother; he must 
 have rolled down, and — oh. Mummy, he's still blind, 
 the darling!" 
 
 Kate and Ned and Micky crowded round her — 
 they were all fanatical animal lovers, and Barbara 
 even more so than the rest. She pored lovingly over 
 the tiny grey creature, in its improvised bed of cotton- 
 wool, coaxing it to lick a little warm milk off her 
 finger. To be nearer her tender, absorbed face, 
 I joined the group, and off'ered "Nebuchadnezzar" as 
 a befitting title for the new baby. 
 
 "Neb — oh. Neb, you've got such a delicious wee 
 pink tongue — Micky, you don't think he'll die of 
 being indoors, do you? Ought I perhaps to take him 
 back and hunt for his mother? I couldn't bear to 
 hurt him " 
 
156 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 Larry laughed outright, lounging apart from us all, 
 against the staircase, at the far end of the room. She 
 could not bear to hurt the field-mouse! — Barbara's 
 look at him was spun of quivering fury, and Kate 
 Seton said coldly, "Mr. Munro is tired of waiting for 
 his supper. Come back to the table, children — 
 the mouse is all right for the moment." 
 
 But the laugh scraped my guilty nerve painfully — 
 so Babs had given him a bad time. 
 
 I was so sick of my part of unconscious breeziness 
 — insensibility to an atmosphere that was almost 
 visible in its opacity. . . . Dead sick of it. But it 
 would certainly play itself out this evening . . . 
 things were beginning to happen violently, and pre- 
 tence was toppling to right and left — Babs had 
 decreed it so; Babs saw no reason for pretence. 
 
 She and Larry were in wild spirits for the remain- 
 der of the meal. He looked like an alert and wrath- 
 ful young faun — and his vengeful insolence on the 
 Setons for their rudeness of days had a point and a 
 sting pointing clearly, to me at least, that now he was 
 informed of the cause. 
 
 "I've finished the book!" K. B. Seton announced 
 suddenly. "The last chapters are a sheer waste — 
 
 I was demoralized just at the critical stages " 
 
 This was for Larry . . . how she disliked him! 
 "As for you, my daughter, you were such a failure 
 as the heroine that I've sent you back to school on 
 the last page but one!" 
 
BROKEN CHINA 157 
 
 "Mummy, I wish you wouldn't put me in your 
 novels. You'd know how uncomfortable it was, if 
 somebody did it once to you!" 
 
 "Every author's family gets butchered to make a 
 publisher's holiday," retorted her mother, tranquilly 
 ladling out custard. 
 
 "I believe I shall use you up in a book one day, 
 Barbara," mused Larry. 
 
 "What will you call it?" For an instant pleased 
 curiosity put her off the defensive. 
 
 "The China-shop!" 
 
 Dear little Micky chortled, "I see! you mean that 
 Babs is a sort of bull!" 
 
 "The whole world's a china-shop, and innocence 
 is the bull," I supplied sententiously — to give the 
 girl time to recover from the buffet. "Put that on 
 your title-page, Larry." 
 
 "What about 'ignorance' for 'innocence'?" 
 
 "Not so pretty." 
 
 "It won't be a pretty book." 
 
 "It won't ever be a book at all!" Barbara returned 
 headlong to the fray. "You only talked about 
 it for effect. That sort of speechifying is part of 
 your — your theatrical equipment." 
 
 It was a taunt delivered at random; she hadn't 
 heard of Larry Munro, the romantic actor. And 
 behind her wrestling anger, she stood forth, the one 
 very young girl in the world, symbolizing a whole 
 army of hoydens, frank and sweet and challenging: 
 in their name she demanded that their mates shall 
 
158 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 bring them first love like their own, as clear and as 
 wondering; hotly disappointed, wilfully intolerant 
 of the women-robbers who have been beforehand to 
 spoil for them their young and passionate adventure. 
 . . . "And Kevin's mother, too!" added Barbara's 
 personal condemnation. 
 
 And silently, desperately, Larry pleaded back for 
 the men: "Ah, do, please, understand better than 
 that. We knew about you all the time, but we 
 dared not trust to our luck; you might have been 
 an illusion and then we should have had nothing. 
 We weren't as vicious or as horrid and depraved as 
 you imagine — only young cowards who dared not 
 believe that what we wanted could ever come true. 
 The divine thing is spoilt — we've spoilt it for our- 
 selves. And you don't even begin to understand how 
 hard it is. . . ." 
 
 "And what does it matter whose mother she was?" 
 answering Barbara's scornful postscript — "She was 
 just a woman who loved me. You've won without 
 even trying — can't you be generous?" 
 
 Meanwhile: "You're never natural for one 
 moment, are you?" Barbara Went on, resuming 
 the covering attack — obviously in their intense 
 consciousness one of the other, they could not refrain 
 from mutual badgering. "Don't you ever get sick of 
 being a mountebank? Or haven't you noticed yet 
 how it jars on us? We found it fairly amusing at 
 first." 
 
BROKEN CHINA 159 
 
 "Ned, it's time that you and Barbara did some 
 solid holiday reading; you've idled long enough!" 
 Mrs. Seton regarded her daughter with anxious eyes, 
 aware that some catastrophic shattering of china- 
 ware must have occurred to have brought the girl to 
 such an emotional pitch. She glanced questioningly 
 at me — I opposed a blank front. But indeed we 
 were all listening acutely, but with ears variously 
 attuned, to the echoes of a recent smash. . . . Micky 
 interjected thoughtfully: "Isn't it somehow funny to 
 think that today a week ago Larry was a stranger to 
 us?" The remark sounded irrelevant, but could best 
 have been interpreted as a significant comment on his 
 family's easy manners on short acquaintance. No- 
 body took any apparent notice of Micky; and I asked 
 Barbara of what her holiday reading consisted. 
 
 "Ned's is for his matric, isn't it?" 
 
 "Yes — but I passed mine last year, so I'm ahead. 
 Only I can't just do nothing at all in London — it's 
 so dull during the day, even if I go to a dance every 
 night," hopefully. "There's Art, of course — but I 
 haven't quite made up my mind just what sort of art 
 I'm going to study." 
 
 "Then why not study the art of welcoming a 
 guest?" Delicately, deliberately, Larry broke this 
 selected item of china. It was so done that there was 
 no excuse for one of us to ignore the crash and the 
 after-silence. . . . Larry was leaning a little forward 
 from his seat, rather mournfully smiling at Barbara, 
 who sat next to me — but his eyes made me think 
 
160 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 of goat-legs prancing. ... I wondered if it would 
 be possible for anybody at that table ever to speak 
 again. ... 
 
 Henry Seton's voice, exuberantly trumpeting from 
 the threshold of the garden door, solved the problem: 
 "Kate! Kate! Congratulate me! My guinea-pig 
 has just given birth to seven little guinea-pigs!" 
 
 His wife, under stress of the situation, startled 
 him by the lack of womanly sympathy displayed in 
 her retort. 
 
 "Well," she snapped, "you didn't suppose it would 
 give birth to seven little alligators, did you?" 
 
 [10] 
 
 And after that the evening became syncopated. 
 The dislocation in the rhythm, the stop and the missed 
 beat and the forward jerk, attributable to those uneasy 
 seconds when one or the other of us remembered that 
 the other had or had not been told of what ourselves 
 were secretly aware and the third person dubitably 
 knew — or not, if the other after all were only pre- 
 tending to knowledge, or had not, as suspected, be- 
 trayed a confidence. . . . 
 
 Thus Mrs. Seton to herself: "What has that 
 young libertine been saying to my Barbara this after- 
 noon? Is he attracted by her? Does she care a 
 snap of the fingers for him? No — certainly not. 
 And yet — she's disgracefully over-excited. Is this 
 going to spoil my nice plan for her and Kevin? I 
 
BROKEN CHINA 161 
 
 shall be extremely annoyed if it does. Has Babs 
 let out that Kevin let out about his mother? 
 And has Kevin himself any idea that anything is 
 wrong anywhere? Gracious Heaven! If only 
 people were a little more indecently communicative, 
 none of this ta-ra-ra-boom-de-ay need have occurred 
 — I'm sure it's upsetting Micky, psychically. Well, 
 well, I suppose it will make quite a good book one day 
 and that's all that need matter to me. But decidedly 
 this evening hasn't done its damndest with us 
 yet. . . ." 
 
 And Micky. . . . "Yes — wait a minute — I 
 believe I've got it all parcelled up and sealed and 
 addressed, now: This Munro chap is keen on 
 Babs, and she's just sprung on him that she and Mums 
 and Ned and the pater know he's a rotter. What do 
 they know? That's not important — but how did 
 they know? Quite simple. . . . Kevin told them. 
 Not like Kev, though, to mess up another 
 fellow's chances. . . . No — wait a minute — he must 
 have spouted it by accident after he fell on his head. 
 And they're keeping that from him. But he knows, 
 all the same — I sort of feel he knows — ^he's 
 only faking this what-the-dickens-is-up-with-you-all 
 stunt. ... I must watch Kevin very, very carefully 
 . . . for the moment he's more interesting than Larry. 
 But I'd better not let Mums see that I've twigged 
 anything wrong, or she'll send me to bed and 
 foozle the whole caboodle. I must see what 
 happens this evening, . . . though it's a horrid 
 
162 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 evening . . . horrid. . . . I — I almost want to 
 howl. . . ." 
 
 "I was right — I was right — I know I was right to 
 have it out with him — why should I consider his 
 feelings? That sort of man is a beast ... we 
 decided long ago at school that we girls need jolly 
 well not put up with that sort of thing in a man. . . 
 And Ned says he's a bounder too. Only I hope 
 he won't tell that I've told what Kevin told, because 
 it's a shame to make Kevin miserable just when he's 
 in such good spirits. ... I like Kevin. . . . Will 
 Nebuchadnezzar live through the night, the darling? 
 Oh, he mustn't, he mustn't die — Ought I to have 
 brought him home? Ought I to have said . . . 
 that, on the island? Larry was frightfully rude at 
 supper — I'll never forgive him! Much he cares! 
 If only he hadn't come this summer. And yet . . . 
 mother's so headlong, inviting him like that. Has 
 mother guessed that I've been such an idiot? No, 
 I wasn't an idiot, I was right, perfectly right. The 
 boys will say so, and they'd have said so at school. 
 But this evening's queer and I wish it were safely 
 over. . . ." Barbara's mental tumult was all too 
 candidly expressed in her riotous behaviour; in her 
 eyes, more grey than blue tonight, questioning, 
 sorrowful, lightening to fury. 
 
 Only Larry's state of mind was to me an inter- 
 rogation — he was no Seton, and I could not read him 
 like a Seton. He seemed the only one of us not 
 
BROKEN CHINA 163 
 
 desperately straining to have crossed the dangerous 
 zone of the next few hours; out of his climax of 
 popular disgrace had oddly crept an evanescent 
 element of popular favour; he sounded one 
 tune for all of us — it was syncopation. 
 
 How else to describe the apparently inconsequent 
 result on our action, of various sets of over-excited 
 nerves jerking and pinging? We rioted in groups, 
 and separately, and discordantly against each 
 other, or in rare harmonious spasms of unity. 
 We bawled choruses sufficiently out of date and for- 
 gotten to give youngsters the satisfactory yearning 
 melancholy of having passed beyond the threshold 
 of their youth! We scuffled; swarmed up and 
 down the stairway, from kitchen to garden, and back 
 again; capered madly in rag time and no time 
 and any time; burlesqued melodrama and pathos — 
 "There's a broken-hearted widow tends the grave of 
 mahdd Currew" — this was Larry as a tenth-rate 
 platform elocutionist 
 
 "Shut up, Larry — she's been tending that old grave 
 now since a quarter-past eight!" 
 
 "Well — geraniums and calceolarias do need to be 
 properly planted and regularly watered, if they're to 
 make any sort of a show! — 'And the yellow gahdd 
 looks down upon it arl. . . .'" He had scrambled on 
 to the high stone rim of the well just outside the wide- 
 swung kitchen door, squatted with an evil, immobile 
 grin just showing above his hunched knees: "Tableau: 
 
164 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 the one-eyed yellow idol, yellowly exultant. . . . 
 Tableau: Rachel waiting for Jacob — " with a swift 
 change of personality he stood shyly expectant, arms 
 upraised to support a great earthenware pitcher upon 
 his shoulder. A mountebank, Barbara had called 
 him? . . . well, for the first time since knowing 
 Larry Munro, I was reminded that the first Larry 
 Munro had been a famous actor. 
 
 "Kev, come and be Jacob — d'you think I can wait 
 here all day?" 
 
 "You can wait seven years, while Jacob carries on 
 with Leah behind the tent-door," I said. "That's the 
 Bible up to date." 
 
 "Short scena in a few vigorous cantos: The Re- 
 turn of Rachel from the Well, or A Sister to a Sis- 
 ter," Larry announced. " 'Ello, dearie ..." his tone 
 compounded in equal parts of beeriness and honey- 
 dem, became at once reminiscent of a certain popular 
 comedian — "Any one called while I've been fetchin' 
 in a drop o' water?" 
 
 "Water! — so you say!" 
 
 "There now! Look for yourself, you nosy thing. 
 Never satisfied, are you? Think I spend my time at 
 the ' Palm and Concubine ' like you do?" 
 
 "What's a concubine?" shrilled Micky, deeply 
 enjoying the performance. 
 
 "A sDecies of Eastern vegetation now extinct. 
 Micky," I threw in an explanatory aside — "Been long 
 enough, anyway." 
 
 "I may have been passin' the time of day with some 
 
BROKEN CHINA 165 
 
 one. I'm sure shut up all day here with you 
 and Pa " 
 
 "Might have had more chance of meeting the some 
 one you mean if you'd stopped quiet at home and not 
 stood about in the sun spoilin' what complexion 
 you've got, Rachel dear,^' ^ 
 
 "Has Mr. Jacob been — an' gone?" in violent 
 consternation. 
 
 I smirked, as I am certain Leah would have 
 smirked. 
 
 "Oh, you sly thing. ..." 
 
 "I can't very well help it, can I, if he finds it agree- 
 able to drop in for a bit of a chat while you're out. . . 
 But I'm sorry you should have waited at the 
 well, dearie!" 
 
 At this juncture of the vituperation, Rachel hurled 
 herself upon Leah, and the scena terminated in a wild- 
 flung medley of arms and legs. 
 
 "I can't have Micky miseducated in the Scriptures 
 in this fashion," expostulated Micky's mother; "go 
 to bed, my youngest." 
 
 "Oh, Mums! Mayn't I sleep indoors tonight?" 
 
 "No, my son." 
 
 "Mums, am I never going to sleep in a bed again?" 
 
 "I cannot tell, my son. Probably not." 
 
 Micky sighed. "I'd like to stop up and see Larry 
 and Kev do more Bible pictures." 
 
 "It's a most excellent method of impressing the 
 Scriptures on Micky's mind, Mrs. Seton. We'll work 
 up a complete Revue on those lines, called: 'Try It 
 
166 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 In Your Bath!' — attractive title, that! Ought to draw 
 the masses. Scene two : Joseph and Potiphar's wife 
 — Kev, you can be Joseph, since you show such talent. 
 Scene, the pantry — Joseph conscientiously counting 
 the currants. Enter Mrs. Potiphar. . . . The audi- 
 ence had better come along to the pantry — ^this is 
 to be a realistic spectacle." 
 
 From Potiphar's wife in semi-Egyptian garb, Larry 
 had presently whirled the entire company into the 
 hysteria of dressing-up. Attired as that insolent 
 young scapegrace, Rupert of Hentzau, he initiated 
 Micky, whom he had coaxed off the threatened banish- 
 ment to bed, into the stage technicalities of the death- 
 duel between Rupert and Rudolf Rassendyll. 
 
 "I once knew a Rupert who snicked a bit off 
 Rudolf's ear in the excitement of a first-night." 
 
 "On purpose?" 
 
 "Lord, no! not rehearsed it often enough, I 
 suppose." 
 
 "But" — ^Micky's lashes curled up in astonished 
 enquiry — "when people fight on the stage, do they 
 rehearse it beforehand? I mean — I thought " 
 
 He was interrupted by scoffing shouts from his 
 elders. 
 
 "Oh, Micky, you fathead!" guffawed his brother. 
 "Why, they jolly well have to practise till they get 
 every stroke word-perfect. Look here, Munro, bet 
 you can't do this!" seizing a weapon and making 
 passes at a ham which dangled from the raftered 
 ceiling. 
 
BROKEN CHINA 167 
 
 "Nevertheless, there's a lot to be said for Micky's 
 idea of haphazard stage-duelling," laughed Larry, 
 easily disarming Ned. "From the actor's point of 
 view, it lends a fine gambling element. Imagine 
 Henry Ainley making his entrance with the glorious 
 uncertainty upon him as to whether he'll live to make 
 an exit; and Robert Loraine never quite sure if he or 
 the eleven-hired-ruffians-who-set-upon-him are going 
 to emerge victorious, even though he's the hero!" 
 
 Kate suggested that Micky's principle might be 
 elongated further: "A rubber of bridge upon the 
 stage, for instance, would be far more interesting to 
 the actors if instead of having it all cut-and-dried, they 
 don't know how the cards will be dealt, or what points 
 are to be scored, or how long the rubber may last; 
 if the audience are bored bye-and-bye, let 'em rise and 
 go home!" 
 
 But I lazily negatived the application of this new 
 principle to all contingencies: "Too much nervous 
 strain altogether. In social drama as played 
 up to date, is Irene Vanbrugh, cowering, white-faced, 
 behind the bedroom door, never to know from night to 
 night whether her brute of a husband is going to 
 smash through that panel or not? She'd be a wreck 
 by the hundredth performance. 
 
 "Kevin, my dear boy, your conversation is not fit 
 for the young; if you can't look divinely appro- 
 priate in the costume of a Spanish buccaneer without 
 getting demoralized, I shall have to send Micky 
 to bed." 
 
168 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "Ow — ow — ow!" yelped Micky, dodging up the 
 stairs, and reeling from contact with Barbara, who 
 leapt upon us from the upper floor, arrayed in pale 
 green stockings and trunks (I suspected 'part of 
 a bathing-costume), a white frilled shirt, a broad 
 yellow sash, and a yellow silk kerchief knotted 
 carelessly round her head. 
 
 "I'm a desperado pirate!" she announced, in 
 braggadocio emulation of Larry and myself, swag- 
 gering natives of Ruritanian drama and the Spanish 
 Main. 
 
 . . . And she looked more than ever an ideal 
 vision of young English maidenhood, exquisitely 
 fresh and lissom, dainty and sedate. . . . Larry 
 and I gazed at her in silence, but K. B. Seton quite 
 frankly remarked — 
 
 "Not you, my dear! A thoroughly nice girl from 
 the Vicarage is all you'll manage to pull off — in 
 your appearance, anyway." 
 
 "Mother!" with crimson blushes of alternate rage 
 and mortification — and perhaps sudden confusion 
 born of the hose impulsively donned — Barbara faith- 
 fully portrayed her mother's description. 
 
 "I do look like a pirate!" childishly she stamped 
 her foot. Then wheeled round appealing to me 
 "Kevin!" 
 
 But I was not to be beguiled: 
 
 " *A primrose by a river's brim 
 A yellow primrose was to him, 
 And nothing more^ " — firmly. 
 
BROKEN CHINA 169 
 
 "She shan't be called a primrose if it upsets her," 
 teased Larry in his turn. "She's our own little pet 
 hedgehog!" 
 
 We all tried to remain serious, and not one of us 
 succeeded . . . the simile was all too apt of Bar- 
 bara's lapses into prickliness. She stood in the 
 centre of the room, one slender hand on the hip, 
 uncertain whether to cry or to join in the laughter 
 against herself; underlip bitten in; small head 
 thrown defiantly backwards, the swathed yellow silk 
 defining its perfect shapeliness. ... A primrose — 
 no, not quite — a primrose crouched too closely to the 
 earth. The dance of the golden harebells, if that 
 could exist — or a cowslip swung frailly on its stem. 
 
 Suddenly, in startling interpretation of my thoughts, 
 Larry began to whistle Mendelssohn's Spring 
 Song. 
 
 "Don't!" cried Barbara passionately . . . she 
 had been teased enough. 
 
 But he took no heed of her — nor of us . . . and 
 the mischievous melody persisted — it seemed to en- 
 circle her, twine her about and about with its elusive 
 gaiety — darted away only to return again . . . 
 tweaking her spirit in invitation; taunting her pride; 
 mocking her silly efforts to escape from April's own 
 youthfulness. 
 
 How he whistled! as he leant nonchalantly against 
 the balustrade, hardly looking in her direction — ^but 
 wooing her, wooing her all the time in his own fash- 
 ion. . . . The girl was frightened, put up her hands 
 
170 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 to her ears, moved away as though by so doing she 
 could break through the well-nigh tangible beset- 
 ing of melody. . . . All round her, green tassels a- 
 sway in a flimmer of pale sunshine . . . three sticks 
 crossed — ^bring a bit of twine — now gather some 
 small dry twigs for the lighting — ^that's capital! . . . 
 mush of last autumn's leaves underfoot . . . damp 
 moss and earth and sharp sweet smells ... a wisp 
 of blue smoke. Babs, Babs, forgive me that I did 
 not trust in your -coming . . . look, I am here, your 
 mate, young as you and as crazy with the spring . . . 
 dear . . . dearest. . . . 
 
 Thus the melody whispered and coaxed — then 
 danced away again in a fury at her lack of response 
 — little chit! little schoolgirl! and she thought she 
 could be a pirate; a dashing dare-devil pirate! What 
 — she? she? she? pixie fingers pointing in derision. 
 She a pirate? Why has she knotted a rag of yellow 
 silk round her head? To look like a pirate! ha — 
 ha-ha — ha-ha-ha . . . the motes staggered into 
 irresponsible merriment at the mere idea — trilled up 
 and up with liquid, inhuman laughter. . . . 
 
 Bewildered, terrified beyond all control, Barbara 
 suddenly threw herself on her knees in front of her 
 mother, and with head buried in her arms, burst 
 into a storm of sobs. 
 
 Larry stopped whistling. 
 
 Presently Micky said: "She's crying because she 
 
BROKEN CHINA 171 
 
 thinks Nebuchadnezzar'ull die before morning. He 
 is looking pretty bad. Babs is such an ass about 
 mice!" 
 
 I mentally assigned Micky a high post in the 
 diplomatic service. 
 
 "Neb — Oh, Mums, he mustn't die — he shan't die 
 — I couldn't bear it. I'll stop up all night with 
 him. . . ." And I cannot tell in what after form 
 Barbara displayed her gratitude to her small brother. 
 
 "Will you indeed? Not being sufficiently over- 
 excited already, I suppose!" Kate Seton's tone was 
 semi-humorous; part-angry — ^but she could hardly 
 vent her anger on Larry for . . . what had he done? 
 — for whistling a song. So she let her humour 
 triumph, and continued: "You're all of you behav- 
 ing like bad children who have sat up too late at a 
 party. We'll have a nice quiet round game of cards 
 to settle you down — and then bed for the lot of you!" 
 She drew a pack from the table-drawer — "I found 
 these in the cupboard the other day. 
 
 I glaced at them — and broke down helplessly. 
 
 "Now it's you, Kevin! I thought at least 
 you. . . . Well, what's the joke, anyhow?" 
 
 "Your nice quiet game of cards to settle us down, 
 happens to be — Pit, that's all!" I gasped, as soon 
 as I could exchange laughter for speech. "You've 
 never played Pit? Well, you shall play it now . . . 
 it'll be a revelation to you, Kate. Here, I'll 
 deal!" 
 
 "Old Robinson left 'em here, four years ago, as a 
 
172 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 sort of farewell present, I believe," Ned explained, 
 referring to a schoolmate who had previously stayed 
 at The Shoe. 
 
 Henry Seton peered in at us. 
 
 "Gome and join, Henry." 
 
 Lugubriously he shook his head: "No — my 
 youngest guinea-pig is dying. I intend to sit up with 
 it all night." 
 
 "And / intend not to be made miserable a second 
 longer by this awful plague of dying pets, engulf- 
 ing my family's nights. Come and join us, Henry. 
 Be bright. Smile. There are your cards, and Ned 
 will tell you the rules of the game. It's very 
 pleasant, so far." 
 
 "The pit is open!" I declaimed maliciously. 
 
 And even Kate looked astonished by the horrible 
 clamour which followed my simple announcement. 
 
 Making a noise — a causeless, yelping, incessant 
 unmusical noise, was what we all most needed to 
 give vent to the suppressed hysteria which had been 
 accumulating since Larry's arrival. Now, by dint 
 of "Two— two— two" "Ono— one" "Three— three- 
 three — three" bawled just beyond the utmost limit 
 of our shouting capacities, we relieved ourselves 
 somewhat . . . though if K. B. Seton imagined 
 from the noise that we were the roomful of healthy, 
 happy, rowdy youngsters we seemed to the casual 
 ear, her sense of atmosphere was, as usual, at fault. 
 
 The first round continued interminably, with ever 
 more of din. . . . Something was wrong with the 
 
BROKEN CHINA 173 
 
 machinery of the game — The winning shout of: 
 "Comer in wheat" or straw — or oats — ought to have 
 been raised long ago. Then we discovered Henry- 
 clutching with obstinate pertinacity to his original 
 share of cards — refusing to allow a single one of 
 them to circulate. No wonder, then, that the barter 
 was endless. 
 
 Barbara and Ned hurled themselves upon him, 
 expostulating: "But, Dad " 
 
 "Henry dear " 
 
 "Look — these wheats — you want to get rid of 
 them — ^you must call 'two — two — two ' " 
 
 "No," said Henry gloomily. "I don't want to." 
 
 "That closes the argument, I think," and I flung 
 down my cards. "Come on, Larry — I'll see you 
 home to Tremmerrith. I want some fresh air after 
 this." And indeed, our packed, flushed circle of 
 faces, seen round the lamp, might have belonged to in- 
 tent gamblers in a sub-world of sensational fiction. 
 
 As the door closed behind us, we heard Barbara 
 and Henry finally and hysterically and in the face of 
 Mrs. Seton's prohibitions, asserting that they meant to 
 sit up till dawn — and it was already past midnight — 
 with their ailing baby mouse and youngest guinea- 
 pig respectively. 
 
 "Mum, it's raining, and I do want to sleep in a 
 bed for once . . ." squealed Micky. 
 
 And then no more. . . . The splash of our own 
 feet over a squiggle of track through the dim clover- 
 field. 
 
174 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 Larry said, as though continuing a conversation 
 started long ago: "I always knew I'd spoil some- 
 thing good for myself by what I did. Kev, I told 
 Barbara I loved her, and that I wanted her to marry 
 me, today, climbing up the island." 
 
 "And you told her that you loved her, and that 
 she could go to Hell, tonight, sitting on the balus- 
 trade. . . ." 
 
 "And only you picked up the message — as if you 
 were any good!" Larry laughed ruefully, and 
 whistled the opening bars of the Spring Song, then 
 subsided again into his previous dejection. His mad 
 gaiety, which ever since supper had swirled every- 
 thing and everybody into burlesque, was easily prov- 
 ing its flimsy quality now we were well away from 
 the Setons. 
 
 "I say" — he recommenced abruptly — "have you 
 gathered why they've been treating me in this abom- 
 inable fashion all the week? Babs had it out with 
 me — what is it, Kev?" 
 
 "Nothing." 
 
 Our faces were invisible to each other, under the 
 mournful starless sky. 
 
 "They know — she knows — all about Felicity." 
 
 I wondered with what indifference I might have 
 listened to Larry's self-reproach on the score of his 
 past, had the past been "Constance" or "Helen" or 
 "Louise"? any one name more impersonal to me than 
 "Felicity." 
 
 That he should speak of her as his discarded 
 mistress — a phase, an incident that he regretted. . . . 
 
BROKEN CHINA 175 
 
 "Found dead in a field" . . . sensational enough 
 in the local newspaper — but I remembered that I 
 had done Larry an injury, and so could not kill 
 him. . . . 
 
 "We had quite a pleasant little scene," Larry went 
 on. "So frank and natural. Babs began: 'I hate 
 pretending, and I'm not going to pretend any more. 
 You may as well hear right out that I detest and 
 despise you; we've all loathed you from the moment 
 you came into the house, and even before; mother's 
 deadly sorry she ever invited you. We were 
 perfectly happy before you came. But what we 
 know about you makes us sick!' I asked, as politely 
 as the occasion warranted, what they knew about 
 me? . . . and she told me." 
 
 "And how did she know?" 
 
 "Somebody told her, I suppose." 
 
 "I suppose you think / did." 
 
 "Yes. While you were delirious." 
 
 A pause; then, "Look here, you mustn't let her 
 know that I've told you that she told me you told her 
 ... no, don't laugh — I promised I wouldn't, 
 because she doesn't know that you know." 
 
 "When did you guess that I had let it out?" 
 
 "From the minute I set foot in the place — and sh^ 
 
 treated me like a leper " he broke off — "oh, 
 
 but I do love her so . . ."he whispered half under 
 his breath. 
 
 "I was not delirious," I said slowly and de- 
 liberately. 
 
 And Larry replied, "I knew that, too." 
 
176 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 [11] 
 
 We had passed his house by now, and were trudg- 
 ing steadily onwards between the steep hedges of the 
 lane. . . . Somewhere was a china-shop and a bull 
 banging about in it, and still the shatter and crash of 
 broken crockery, more broken crockery, crockery 
 which had stood intact upon the shelves for years. 
 . . . "I knew that, too," said Larry. "Surprised? 
 Why? Of course you queered my pitch; hating 
 each other as we do, it would hardly be human if you 
 hadn't." 
 
 I was guilty of the ingenious query, "Do you 
 hate me, too?" 
 
 "Well, what did you suppose was the reflex action 
 of your hatred upon me?" 
 
 "I didn't think of you." 
 
 "Oh, surely — quite a lot!" he mocked. "I 
 wonder you ever thought of anything else. 
 I tell you, Kev, it got to be an obsession of mine 
 — your dogging, ferocious, persistent jealousy. . . . 
 Till I discovered that it was — fun, making things 
 worse for you — butting in where you didn't want me, 
 and so on. You imagined that it was my blatant, 
 unconscious idiocy, didn't you? I took a sort of 
 cussed delight in seeing you suffer . . . from this 
 same idiocy. You — twanged a nerve in me. . . ." 
 
 "Banjo solos for two," I remarked grimly. 
 
 "You should have left me alone — and then I'd 
 have left you alone," he burst out, as though from a 
 
BROKEN CHINA 177 
 
 long pent-up sense of injury. "You began it . . . 
 whatever I achieved, you resented it; whoever liked 
 me, you grudged it. Your jealousy clogged up the 
 very pores of the world." 
 
 I was shaken with a fit of mad, ironic laughter 
 — Larry's point of view — Larry's point of view. 
 
 "I'd have killed you, if I hadn't found relief in 
 just — annoying you," he finished his confession, and 
 jerked back his head with an air of defiance. 
 
 "Dear little lad, aren't you?" 
 
 "I'm not that sort of beast with any one else. 
 Kev, I'm not. If I were, I'd shoot myself as unfit 
 for society. It's only just where you're concerned. 
 That one nerve — When I see the sullen slouch of 
 your body . . . hating me with every line of ;it 
 — then I turn vicious. You're always there. . . . 
 Why can't you stop hating me? You're responsible 
 for — for the banjo solo, as you call it. That two 
 men shouldn't find it decently possible to keep out 
 of each other's way " 
 
 "My dear old Larry, if I set up house in Kams- 
 chatka and you in Southern Tibet, we should be 
 irresistibly drawn and drawn . . . until we jostled 
 again in PorthgoUan." 
 
 "But what is it, Kev?" 
 
 "The construction of things. There isn't room 
 for both of us." 
 
 He stopped dead, facing me, "I say — ^that's rather 
 awful." 
 
 His comment, solemn and stricken — and somehow 
 
178 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 irresistibly chubby, on a state of psychology with 
 which I was familiar even unto nausea, twitched 
 afresh at my risible sense — it was in an exposed 
 condition of late. Besides, my particular banjo solo 
 was in abeyance for the moment; it never twanged 
 when Larry was dejected or unsuccessful. 
 
 "Rather awful," I repeated. "Perhaps we had 
 better try the Tibet-Kamschatka experiment after 
 these confidences. It's a dark night . . . but, you 
 know, we shall find it difficult to look each other in 
 the face, over a narrow but sunshiny breakfast-table." 
 
 "Yes, awkward they should have placed us so 
 exactly opposite. The typical Seton touch about 
 the situation, though. So it's good-bye for ever, 
 Kev, old pal! Funny that I should feel it a 
 wrench. . . . Kev, I helieve I'm confoundedly fond 
 of you." 
 
 "You are," I tranquilly assured him. "As I of 
 you. That's the whole point of the joke. Well, 
 well . . . the best of friends must part " 
 
 "But how small the world is!" Larry capped my 
 platitude. 
 
 "It is — ^with you in it!" 
 
 "You needn't give way to your sardonic humour 
 just at the last." 
 
 "On the contrary, I've half a mind to indulge 
 myself and be bad for you, by confessing all that 
 I've most admired in you, during our seventeen years 
 of acquaintance." 
 
 "Strike a bargain. If you do, I will." 
 
BROKEN CHINA 179 
 
 We spent the next ten minutes vying mutual com- 
 pliments and generosity. And then after all I vetoed 
 the South Tibet expedition. 
 
 "Oh, curse your vacillating temperament! Is it 
 likely that I'd have revealed to you my admiration 
 for your manly qualities, if I supposed I was ever 
 going to see you again?" 
 
 "You can set off, against that, my enthusiasm for 
 your more scintillating fascination. Oh, Lord, I wish 
 we hadn't! it's a perilous pastime — you'll be 
 unbearable henceforward." 
 
 "Barbara says I'm unbearable already." 
 
 "Oh, but then Barbara is quite, quite sure of what 
 is absolutely and definitely wrong. It's the blessed 
 creed of seventeen." 
 
 "Especially blessed — for me. She's the type 
 who'll go on being seventeen and unforgiving. 
 According to Barbara, there's nothing to be said for 
 me ... a libertine, a wastrel, the sort of a man a girl 
 hears about, but hopes she'll never meet — ah God, 
 Kevin! is there nothing to be said for a mere fool?" 
 
 Seventeen must have punished him cruelly for — 
 forty-two. I had never before heard that inflection of 
 dragging wretchedness in any man's tone. . . . Sud- 
 denly my focus shifted, swung round as though on a 
 pivot; and instead of my bitter resistance to the 
 Larry-dynasty robbing me of my due, it appeared 
 that Larry had been robbed, and that Felicity and I 
 were separately guilty of it. 
 
 "There are one or two things to be said for a fool 
 
180 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 and Barbara requires to hear them — crude little 
 ignoramus! Leave her to me, Larry — it'll be all 
 right." 
 
 "But you care for her yourself." 
 
 "That's beside the point. ..." But it was 
 obviously time I adjusted my conception of Larry 
 as an unconscious happy-go-lucky. And here we 
 stood outside The Shoe once more, having tramped 
 a complete circle. 
 
 "Hullo! I thought you were going to see me 
 home." 
 
 "Well, I'm not — once is enough, in one evening. 
 Hush — Micky may be awake." The shadowy 
 outline of a camp-bed on the grass, indicated that 
 the youngest Seton, in spite of his pleadings, was 
 still forbidden the luxury of indoor slumber. 
 
 After Larry had swung off across the same clover- 
 field that had squelched to our footsteps a couple of 
 hours ago, I turned my back on the cottage, and took 
 the sea-road, and walked, and walked in a drizzle 
 of rain until the grey sky tore into streaks of amber. 
 
 "Sh — I say — The mouse is dead." 
 
 Ned lounged, an outpost, a few paces up the lane, 
 to warn all comers. 
 
 "Babs is no end cut up. And Mater's as snappy 
 — says she had hardly any sleep. So don't put your 
 foot in it." 
 
 At the garden gate, K. B. Seton furtively waylaid 
 me. 
 
BROKEN CHINA 181 
 
 "That nasty little brute died at 2.15 A.M. I was 
 startled out of my best sleep by Barbara hurling 
 herself, sobbing, into my bed; she had been 
 lying on the kitchen dresser till then, so as to be 
 sure to keep awake and feed it every two hours." 
 
 "That's the Maternal Instinct coming out in her, 
 Kate." 
 
 "I'd rather it didn't, then, at unholy hours of the 
 night. You'd better not mention his name." 
 
 I made a slip: "Larry's?" 
 
 "Nebuchadnezzar, of course — don't be a fool. I 
 can't stand it in my present state of temper." 
 
 Snubbed, I walked on; ori the very threshold 
 of the kitchen I was confronted by a portentous 
 Micky. 
 
 "Neb's dead," in whispered warning. "Sh — Babs 
 is inside. Behave as though nothing had happened." 
 
 I reassured him as to my capacity for behaving as 
 though nothing had happened, and greeted Barbara 
 with a boisterous: "Hullo! I'm starving for my 
 breakfast — Been for a long walk already." 
 
 "I thought you would have overslept yourself, we 
 were so late last night. . . ." She made gallant 
 effort to respond. Her eyes were heavy-lidded, 
 and her lips wan . . . poor baby, weeping half the 
 night for Larry, and having to pretend it was for a 
 field-mouse. 
 
 Larry appeared late; and jauntily proposed his 
 departure the next day. Nobody commented. I saw 
 Bar^bara's look flit searchingly from his face to mine. 
 
182 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 . . . She did not at all know whether or not Larry- 
 had kept his word and not told me, on our homeward 
 ramble the night before, that she had told him what 
 I must not know I had told. 
 
 Nebuchadnezzar, animals in general, mice in par- 
 ticular, death and funerals, were topics strenuously 
 tabooed by each and all of us, during breakfast. 
 Then Henry appeared from the garden, with, as usual, 
 a completely devastating announcement: 
 
 "The youngest guinea-pig is dead. I found him 
 lying on the floor of the hutch, his little nose blue 
 and his little feet curled up like this . . ." he tried 
 to illustrate. 
 
 Barbara broke down, and fled, choking, from the 
 table. And Mrs. Seton said: "You're not supple 
 enough for trapeze acrobatics, Henry. Here's your 
 pilchard. Eat it and keep quiet." 
 
 She confided in me afterwards, sighing for Henry's 
 great foolishness, that the nose and feet as des- 
 cribed were exactly Nebuchadnezzar's attitude in 
 death. 
 
 [12] 
 
 Twenty-four uncomfortable hours later, I found 
 Barbara prone on her face among the spongy cushions 
 of the sea-thrift, fading now to a withered brown. 
 
 I thought of the china-shop . . . and took the 
 bull by the horns. 
 
BROKEN CHINA 183 
 
 "You'll miss saying good-bye to Larry, if you lie 
 out here." 
 
 "Don't care!" in stifled defiance. 
 
 "When he came, you began supper without him. 
 Your welcome was on the negative side. You hustled 
 Ned into that disgraceful trick of driving the cart 
 through Lobb Lane — Yes, you did — I guessed it from 
 the start," I recapitulated, sitting down beside her, 
 my back against a solid chunk of granite. "You 
 were ruder to Larry than I've ever seen anybody to 
 anybody ; you set yourself up as a judge of his private 
 aff'airs ; and finally you hide away from his departure 
 to avoid the necessity of holding his hand for a 
 second or two ... as though he were loathsome 
 because he loves you " 
 
 "Don't! How dare you, Kevin! I mean, I don't 
 want him to . . . that sort of man!" 
 
 "Babs, infant of all the world, nearly every sort 
 of man is that sort of man. I am; Micky will be, 
 one day — and as for your Prince Charming . . . 
 do you really dare to suppose, when you meet, that 
 there will be nothing to forgive in him? Pah — 
 it'll be a hard, dry, blue-chilly thing, your perfect 
 love-aff*air — I don't envy the man." 
 
 "You're too abominably rude for words," she 
 stormed at me. Then subsided to a whisper of 
 amazed contrition: "Kev, Kev, how can you stick 
 up for him . . . when it's your own mother?" 
 
 "And how do you know that?" 
 
 "You " she stopped. Eyed me doubtfully. 
 
184 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 I suppose my expression gave her no help, for she 
 
 cried: "Then he didnt " and stopped again, 
 
 wholly at a loss. 
 
 "Yes, he did." 
 
 "Then he's got no sense of honour, not one scrap." 
 
 "And what made you give me away to him?" in 
 my most wooden voice. 
 
 Her face flamed and flamed. . . . "Oh, I'm 
 sorry" — piteously. 
 
 But I could not let her off yet: "It's the first 
 bit of china wantonly broken, that counts. The rest 
 kind of slips off* the shelf by itself." 
 
 And Barbara might so easily have reminded me 
 here that it was I, not she, responsible for the original 
 damage. I risked that. . . . Her sweet mouth set 
 itself firmly, and she uttered not a word. 
 
 "Larry didn't tell me, Babs. At least, he did, 
 but only because he guessed from the beginning that 
 I was — consciously unconscious." 
 
 I was gazing rather intently, while I spoke, at a 
 steamer on the horizon. Presently I heard little 
 plaintive sounds beside me, like a child crying its 
 heart out for very weariness. 
 
 "Don't be a goose, Barbara," sternly. 
 
 "Oh, I don't want, I don't want people to be so 
 c-c-clever. ... Is it always going to be all tangled 
 up like this?" suddenly forlorn and terrified 
 in a universe where her cocksure young poise and 
 swinging honesty were inadequate equipment. 
 
 "You see, Barbara," I argued slowly, "your whole 
 
BROKEN CHINA 185 
 
 attitude towards Larry was just a piece of colossal 
 conceit. From what standpoint of wisdom and ex- 
 perience have you judged and condemned him? 
 You haven't even begun your study of such trifling 
 matters as human nature, temptation, sex, and so on. 
 There's not one single element in Larry's past history 
 where you can understand or criticize or — presume 
 to be shocked. I dare say a lot of silly little school- 
 girls have sat on their desks and sucked toff*ee and 
 put together the sort of world which suited their 
 stage of crude ignorance — but you can't expect grown 
 persons to inhabit that world . . . not till you 
 enlarge its boundaries a bit." 
 
 Barbara rose and would have walked away, but 
 I caught hold of her wrist: 
 
 "You may as well sit down — I haven't finished 
 yet." 
 
 "You're — preaching ! " 
 
 "I'm not. I'm being too rude to preach. I'm 
 being almost as rude as you've been — By God, Bar- 
 bara, I've grown hot all over with shame, on 
 occasions, at the way you've treated Larry; hot to 
 think that he should have to make allowances for you. 
 Your guest. Had you no sort of code of hospitality? 
 Whatever he was, whatever he is, he arrived here, 
 invited by you — ^well, your mother — same thing. By 
 all the existing laws, he was entitled to common 
 civility, if not to a warm welcome. And — no, I 
 won't say you behaved like a savage, because savages 
 are notoriously hospitable. You just — blundered! 
 
186 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 If he was a libertine, he was your guest. If he was 
 a criminal, he was your guest. And if he was a 
 leper, he was still . . . your guest!" 
 
 That my peroration had shaped itself into a slightly 
 mutilated version of the big dramatic scene from 
 "Lady Windermere's Fan," hardly mattered; since 
 my sole aim was to produce an effect upon Barbara. 
 Though I marvelled again that throughout such a 
 tirade, the girl should make not one attempt to shield 
 herself by referring to my own confessed betrayal 
 of Larry Munro. I was prepared to reply, with 
 what cold detachment I could muster, that I was 
 well aware my act had placed me outside the pale of 
 decency and honour, and was therefore beyond dis- 
 cussion; her blunderings, however, were as yet re- 
 trievable. 
 
 But — could it be indeed that Barbara was learn- 
 ing? She was white as foam; her eyes full of a 
 hurt perplexity . . . and she only said: "Yes — 
 but — Kevin, isrCt there right and wrong? And isn't 
 it up to a girl to show from the start that it matters? 
 . . . Or people could do anything!" 
 
 "And the greatest of these is tolerance" I mur- 
 mured, plucking up the dry thrift blossoms. 
 
 "Charity," she corrected. 
 
 "D'you suppose Larry has any use for your 
 'Charity'? The 'good angel who stoops to forgive' 
 sort of mush? Charity! — it's your fellowship that's 
 needed — good fellowship that understands, and might 
 easily have done likewise, and frankly owns it. If 
 
BROKEN CHINA 187 
 
 all you can do is to forgive, Babs — then Larry had 
 better pass on." 
 
 Again I waited, apparently engrossed in the 
 horizon line . . . till a cold, small hand curled itself 
 into my palm. 
 
 "Will you tell me all about it, Kevin? About 
 . . . your . . . mother — and him? Tell me 
 properly, I mean — and I'll try to be a good 
 fellow." 
 
 Well — Heaven knows it was not easy . . . but 
 I spun a fairy-tale out of the pale-haired princess who 
 lost her man three days before she was to wed him; 
 and ten years later magically found him again, even 
 younger and more gallant and debonair than before. 
 
 And the little goose-girl, sitting in a heap among 
 the sea-thrift, right in the middle of her own fairy tale, 
 listened with lips parted, and soft chin tilted upwards 
 in breathless attention. . . . 
 
 The steadfast friendship of Prue and Felicity drew 
 from her a quick: "Oh, but how could they share 
 him?" 
 
 "He was dead, Barbara. It's not hard to share a 
 
 dead man 
 
 9? 
 
 "/ won't . . ." with a decisive little nod. 
 
 "I mean, I wouldn't, if — and they shared Larry as 
 well as his father." 
 
 "Prue doesn't know that she has ever shared her 
 son with Felicity." 
 
 "Then she ought to know!" the old Barbara flared 
 into being. "Somebody ought to tell her." 
 
188 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "To make her unhappy? And to spoil a thing 
 beautifully and rarely created . . . with one thrust 
 of fact? Child, there are some lies and some secrets 
 that are wiser than truth, and sometimes truer." 
 
 Barbara sighed: "You say so — but I can't quite 
 believe it," she murmured. 
 
 And she would never quite believe it, essentially 
 a Seton in her sturdy decision not to acquiesce and 
 be tangled into any phantasmal and intricate con- 
 spiracy towards which I, fatalist, might beckon 
 her. 
 
 "Go on!" she conunanded. 
 
 The later development of my tale was harder 
 to translate into simple Barbara-language; but I did 
 my best with Larry's reactionary longing for a girl, 
 young and impulsive; young enough to pick up sticks 
 with him and to help him light a gipsy fire . . . here 
 a puff of blue wood-smoke blew across the story, 
 just in time to dim Barbara's vision of Larry's 
 behaviour to Felicity, which was not pretty and there- 
 for hard to englamour. Indeed, I had for a long 
 time groped in vain after the nursery-wall-paper-mood 
 of my arrival in Cornwall. Perhaps because I still 
 felt it myself so vividly, did I cause her to realize 
 the pathos of that drawing-room, with the absurd 
 little gold chairs standing empty ; Felicity, in sprigged 
 muslin and corals, being vaguely charming and 
 hospitable to Miss Beech and Miss Hilda Beech. . . . 
 
 No need for emphasis here — Barbara's neck and 
 cheeks were for an instant a glow of crimson. . . . 
 
BROKEN CHINA 189 
 
 Of the subsequent incident with the photograph, 
 I mentioned nothing; there are some lies and some 
 secrets that are wiser than truth. . . . 
 
 "And Larry came to The Shoe and fotmd Barbara." 
 She whispered: "I was horrid to him." 
 And laconically I said, "Never mind; the cart was 
 to call for him at a quarter to ten; he's gone by now 
 — aren't you glad?" 
 
 "Aren't you glad" was sarcasm wasted — Barbara 
 was already on her feet . . . flying up the white 
 road between the sand-hummocks. I reckoned she 
 would be at Tremmerrith before ten o'clock — and the 
 cart was not due to call for Larry until a quarter to 
 eleven, 
 
 [13] 
 
 I am well aware that my traditionally noble action 
 in bringing about the engagement of my rival to the 
 girl I loved myself, ought to have lifted me to the 
 traditional mood of pale exultation; a mood half- 
 humorous, semi-wistful, demi-tender: "I'm so glad, 
 Larry, old man, about you and Barbara — ^why yes, 
 really glad — could you doubt it?" and then the 
 traditional exit into the night or on to the scaffold — 
 the example of Sydney Carton is responsible for 
 much. 
 
 But not, thank goodness, for me, at this juncture. 
 
 The sight of the happy, handsome pair bounding, 
 light of heel, through a solar system which obviously 
 
190 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 belonged to them and where the rest of us were just 
 admitted on sufferance, reduced me to a state of out- 
 ward ill-humour and mental savagery that did me 
 credit as a human being and not a god of abstract 
 benevolence. 
 
 Any impulse to friendliness that I may have felt 
 for Larry dejected, unsuccessful with Barbara, and 
 solitary in battle against the united Setons, was in- 
 stantaneously metamorphosed into the old sick hatred 
 — a degree worse than ever — for the new Larry. His 
 quick perceptions reacted instantly to my dogging 
 envy and begrudgement. And now, in the after-light 
 of our discussion, I beheld clearly how the young 
 ruffian took conscious pleasure in provoking my self- 
 control to the utmost, by subtle parade of his happi- 
 ness; why, his every poise, his every gesture and 
 remark and inflexion, wryly drew together the palate 
 of my soul . . . and he knew it! I marvelled that 
 I could ever have been dense enough to imagine him 
 oblivious. I was something less than man just 
 now — mere incarnate resentment of his very right to 
 existence. Was my presence in any wise rasping his 
 smooth days? I was afraid not — they were beyond 
 my jealous reach. And: "You did it yourself! 
 Yah! yah! yah! You did it yourself" — the gnome- 
 chorus again, jeering and pointing. . . . Oh, I had 
 done it myself, beyond a doubt; but not for Larry's 
 sake nor for Barbara's; conscience demanded to be 
 squared over that delirium business, that was all. 
 
THE CHINA SHOP 191 
 
 My fool's tongue had committed an error which re- 
 quired for only adequate atonement my scene with 
 Barbara on the morning of Larry's proposed depar- 
 ture. . . . "You did it yourself — yah! yah! yah! 
 did it yourself." 
 
 I arranged with what precipitation self-respect per- 
 mitted, to be recalled to London. Kate spoke no 
 word to detain me — it was blatantly unnecessary that 
 both Larry and I should stop on at The Shoe; but she 
 seemed grieved, nevertheless, at destiny's choice; she 
 never cared violently for Larry, and all his charm 
 could not win her; though she was relieved, I think, 
 that the "fast young man" should have meant so 
 honourably by Barbara; and glad, it is certain, that 
 Barbara was to be married. What she had feared, 
 on my disclosure, was a summer flirtation — exit 
 Larry whistling — daughter, broken-hearted, and with 
 consumption, left permanently under her mother's 
 roof. 
 
 [14] 
 
 "Off today, Kev? I hadn't realized it. I shall 
 miss you." 
 
 "I don't doubt it. It's not so much fun to exhibit 
 when I'm not there." 
 
 "Excuse me — ^when you're not there I've no 
 desires that way. A certain aspect of your person- 
 ality evokes — exhibition. It annoys you to see me 
 happy, doesn't it, Kev?" 
 
192 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "I'd rather see you . . . dead than happy V And 
 till I had actually burst out with this, I had not 
 known it to be true. I knew now. . . . 
 
 "Do you mean that?" Larry was momentarily 
 sobered. 
 
 "Yes — I'm afraid I do." I sat down on a boulder 
 of rock and bowed my head on to my hands. . . . 
 Presently I looked up again at Larry; his eyes were 
 troubled. 
 
 "Well?" 
 
 "You'll go mad one day about me," he fore- 
 told abruptly. 
 
 "I suppose so. Perhaps I'm mad already. It 
 isn't only you, it's your father and your son . . . 
 the dynasty ... I may still have to see your son's 
 son. There are so many of you — Larry Munro. 
 I'm shut up in the world with you and can't get 
 away. . . ." 
 
 "Feeling like this, why did you put things right 
 for me with Barbara?" 
 
 "It happens I had to put things right for me with 
 myself; d'you imagine you had anything to do with 
 it?" I growled. 
 
 "I suppose I ought to return the act of sacrifice by 
 offering to yield her up to you." 
 
 "Only that she's a sentient thing of pulse and 
 heart-beatings — not to be handed about between us 
 like a bale of goods." 
 
 Larry's smile was baffling: "Why not wreck my 
 
BROKEN CHINA 193 
 
 cause by telling her about ... the kids? Another 
 spasm of delirium " 
 
 "Thank you." The burning shame stung my fore- 
 head. After a pause, I forced myself to discussion 
 of the incident which had lain between us all this 
 while more or less inert; since Larry wanted to 
 punish me for it by open speech, he might as well do 
 so before I left Cornwall: 
 
 "It's rather odd, though, isn't it, that Barbara 
 should have relied so absolutely on the truth of what 
 was to her a phrase let fall in delirium?" 
 
 "Oh well, you repeated it and amplified it and 
 insisted upon it so often in your second bout of 
 raving " 
 
 "My — second — bout. What do you mean? Larry, 
 what do you mean?" 
 
 He appeared genuinely astonished. "Then you 
 were really unconscious . . . after the first give- 
 away? I'm sorry, Kev; I thought you knew what 
 you were about all the time." 
 
 The inside of my head was grinding red-hot 
 machinery ... I wrenched it to coherent recollec- 
 tion . . . "Larry's mistress is my mother" — and be- 
 fore that and after that, it had been endless pas- 
 sages between high black walls, sand under the run- 
 ning foot, Larry behind me with a grotesque bladder 
 swung aloft. So after that one lucid interval, I had 
 unconsciously betrayed again and again the secret I 
 had so longed to betray unconsciously. My remorse 
 
194 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 was for nothing — and my atonement. I need not have 
 influenced Barbara into making Larry happy — I was 
 not guilty of treachery; since the main treachery had 
 occurred when will and reason were wholly 
 irresponsible. I need not — I need not 
 
 "What's the joke, Kev?" 
 
 ... I discovered that I was laughing. And 
 stopped. And silently contemplated Larry, whom I 
 had made happy. . . . 
 
 "Look here, old man, if you want to pitch me over 
 the cliff", do it now and quickly. You may not get 
 another chance, as you're leaving today. It would 
 be awkward if the desire came over you as strongly in 
 — the Cromwell Road, let's say, where there are no 
 facilities." 
 
 "Only," he went on, "stop looking murder at me 
 . . . it's uncomfortable." 
 
 I got up and walked away inland, Larry beside me, 
 chatting pleasantly: 
 
 "Afraid of the temptation? But what a successful 
 ghost I'd be, howling and moaning round your 
 pillow after you had married Babs. . . . 
 
 " 'Yes, lad, I lie easy, 
 
 I lie as men would choose; 
 
 I cheer a dead man's sweetheart, 
 
 Never ask me whose!' . . . 
 
 Or — no — what was the special stunt of Hamlet's 
 father? I'd appear to young Larrikin and exhort 
 him to make a painful end of you, with Felicity in 
 
BROKEN CHINA 195 
 
 the part of Ophelia. . . . There's something wrong 
 with that, somewhere." 
 
 "There is indeed. Have you thought yet of telling 
 Felicity about your engagement?" 
 
 "Won't you, Kev?" 
 
 "Do your own filthy work." 
 
 "But I'm so clumsy and you're so tactful," he 
 wheedled. 
 
 I halted, smitten by a sudden idea: "You've let 
 Prue know?" 
 
 "The mater? Yes. Of course. Heard from her 
 yesterday. She's awfully pleased. Barbara's just 
 the sort of girl " 
 
 "5/ie7/ tell Felicity, so you needn't worry any 
 further. She'll expect her to take a maternal interest 
 in the engagement." 
 
 "M'yes. Yes, I suppose so." Larry's outrageous 
 buoyancy was checked for the moment. "But Fel 
 will go down to Thyme Croft, where the kiddies are, 
 before I come back and bring Babs back to the 
 mater." 
 
 "Funny that I shouldn't have jumbled in the kid- 
 dies when I fell a-raving again." 
 
 "Oh, you did. But you fortunately omitted to 
 mention where they connected with the main line. 
 Babs must have supposed 'Larrikin' was me. 
 She asked if I'd ever known — or loved, in brackets — 
 any one called 'Yo'? So I used up the cue for the 
 incident of the flapper in the Cafe Royal — ^you 
 
196 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 remember? Her name happened to be Peggy, but 
 stiU " 
 
 I considered this quite an unnecessary complica- 
 tion, though trivial. And told him so. 
 
 "Oh, where's the harm? Babs wanted a con- 
 fession, so I gave her one ready-made — bless her! 
 I didn't quite know how to account for Yo, otherwise." 
 
 "She's hardly accounted for now, in the fullest 
 sense of the word. Nor Larrikin either." 
 
 He sighed impatiently, "My good man, I owe you 
 more than my life, but I consider you both a bore and 
 a prig. They've got a mother who adores them; and 
 who has great wealth " 
 
 "Thanks to my father." I could not resist the 
 return thrust for his "bore and a prig." If I had 
 murdered him, as a few seconds ago was highly 
 possible, he might have called me any name under 
 \he sun — ^but not a bore, certainly. This was all 
 the thanks my forbearance received. I complained 
 of it. . . . He interrupted me, "I'm enjoying our 
 chat tremendously, Kev, but you'll be late for your 
 train. As the darling of all the Setons, they'll want 
 to make you the object of lengthy good-byes." 
 
 I could have dispensed with Barbara's embrace 
 . . . but she meant well. Perhaps, after all, Larry's 
 deliberately cool and ungrateful attitude best suited 
 the demands of my temper, for the moment. K. B. 
 Seton sorrowed visibly at my departure; and dropped 
 her last imperceptible hint by remarking, with a warm 
 squeeze of my hands, and a reproachful look at Larry 
 
BROKEN CHINA 197 
 
 and Barbara, that certain matters had not turned out 
 in the least as she had originally hoped. 
 
 Micky drove me into St. Catts. He had claimed 
 the right to do so. Among the gifts I seemed acci- 
 dentally to have won for myself while occupied in a 
 totally different direction, was Micky's passionate 
 loyalty and devotion. Which rendered me proud and 
 yet sorrowful; undeserving as a Stuart might have 
 felt towards an adherent of his lost cause. He was 
 distinctly public-school boy during the drive, and as 
 we paced the platform; remaining so until I leant 
 from the window of my compartment to thank him 
 politely for his safe conduct. Then he said, with an 
 effort : 
 
 "Good-bye. Rotten it was Larry . . . and not you." 
 
 . . . But I was being carried away from Larry, 
 space between us widening and stretching with every 
 forward leap of the express. Larry was left behind 
 me in Cornwall — Cornwall — ^had I indeed once 
 thought of that packed darkness of happenings, as an 
 escape from reality into enchantment? 
 
 Cornwall meant Larry's letter; and the arrival of 
 Larry; and a whole family speaking, thinking, hating, 
 loving, obsessed by Larry; and Larry's white sweater 
 sharp-cut against the sombre rock archway; and 
 Larry's insolent, oblique eyes as he said, "Why not 
 study the art of welcoming a guest?"; and Larry 
 whistling the Spring Song to Barbara; and Larry 
 walking beside me across dark, warm clover-fields, "I 
 knew that, too" . . . and Larry, the triumphant 
 
198 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 wooer, standing in a group of Setons at the gate of 
 The Shoe, watching me drive off. . . . 
 
 Devon now, and everywhere clumps of foxgloves 
 empurpling the woods with their delicate spotted 
 trumpets. But further on these would give way 
 to rows of bunched-up little houses new and hectic, or 
 else resigned to their sallow hue, heralding London's 
 approach — my final escape from reality into enchant- 
 ment. ... By then I would have left Larry far 
 behind me in Cornwall. Restlessly I shifted my seat 
 from one window-comer to another — the carriage was 
 empty. But on this side were fresh battalions of 
 foxgloves, vivid where the afternoon sun slanted 
 dustily between the larch-stems. . . . How I loathed 
 the west-country for its easy loveliness; longed for 
 the dingy litle houses. . . . 
 
 "And you say she's a nice girl, Kevin?" 
 
 "Oh, thoroughly nice." 
 
 Prue beamed at me affectionately; "I hoped you 
 would say so. Larry, of course, has written me a 
 pack of rubbish about her, but as you're not in love 
 with her, I can take your word for it better than his." 
 
 Such cheap irony as this could not be accorded 
 even a sardonic grin. ... I remained mentally 
 rigid. 
 
 "Such a pity she has a writer mother. . . ." 
 
 Felicity, sitting beside us under the sycamore in 
 Prue's garden, interrupted fretfully: 
 
 "Larry can always retaliate with an actor father!" 
 
BROKEN CHINA 199 
 
 "Oh, my dear, he made a dreadful husband! never 
 at home, and not caring a bit when I had chilblains, 
 though he was always ready enough to have his chest 
 rubbed and poulticed." 
 
 It was not often that Prue allowed herself to be 
 betrayed into comment on the first Larry Munro; 
 but when she did dip into the store of memories so 
 sacredly enwinded, it was usually to bring forth an 
 incident of so astoundingly practical a nature as com- 
 pelled marvel that musing on them should light her 
 droll little face to such beauty. 
 
 "Oh, but next time you have them, remind me 
 to hunt up that perfectly wonderful recipe for chil- 
 blains that Lady Barclay gave me last winter; only I 
 never get them." And indeed it was as incredible to 
 imagine Felicity with chilblains in winter, as Prue 
 without them! "Or was it that mushroom entree I 
 asked for at her dinner-party?" Felicity went on. 
 Then, lazily vindictive, "Larry will be exactly the 
 
 same." 
 
 "We've brought him up better than that." Prue's 
 smile deliberately included her friend in the "we" 
 . . . and Felicity twitched her chair deeper into the 
 shade. She suffered from the other woman's 
 assumption that as a matter of course the joyous 
 details of Larry's engagement concerned them both, 
 and in equal measure, maternally; suffered, and could 
 utter no sound. ... I said quickly: 
 
 "If you could see K. B. Seton sternly yet amiably 
 bargaining for a pair of rabbits, and always getting 
 
200 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 the best of it, you'd never dream she was a novelist," 
 contesting Prue's contempt for the writer-mother. 
 
 "Good thing too. Then she'll have taught the 
 child to feed a man sensibly, and not on cocoa and 
 buns and tinned fish — I know what girls are nowa- 
 days! I expect, though, there'll be fuss and tears 
 bye-and-bye at parting with her only daughter — and 
 not yet eighteen! she probably hoped to keep her at 
 home a good six years still." 
 
 I grinned into my pipe, well pleased with a private 
 vision of Kate's dismay at any prospect of retaining 
 her daughter at home for another six months. 
 
 "Oh, Mrs. Seton's not sentimental." 
 
 "Neither am I sentimental," said Prue super- 
 fluously; "but it's a bit of a twist to give up that 
 young scapegrace of mine, even to such a nice, suita- 
 ble girl; though, mind, I wouldn't let anybody know it 
 but you two ; I've no patience with the sort of mother- 
 in-law who makes a song-and-dance and to-do all 
 about a widow bereft of her only joy, till the poor girl 
 feels worse than a burglar. Why, I've invited Bar- 
 bara to stay with me for a fortnight in September 
 when they come back to Town; and I'm looking for- 
 ward to it immensely. I dare say there are lots of 
 little household things I can teach her, without being 
 too brusque about it. When it comes to facts, a writer 
 is only a writer, rabbits or not!" 
 
 Felicity rose, pushed back a weary hand through 
 the soft amber flop of her hair, "That sounds immoral, 
 
BROKEN CHINA 201 
 
 Prue darling — ^no, I don't know why, I suppose it's 
 the rabbits . . . rabbits do always convey that idea, 
 don't they? . . . I'll send you over that recipe for 
 the mushroom entree at once — didn't you say you 
 wanted it in time for a dinner-party? I must go now; 
 I'm expecting some people to tea." 
 
 "Anybody I know? What a lot you entertain 
 lately, Felicity! it must come so expensive when you 
 reckon it up." 
 
 "I never do." 
 
 "And you get nothing for it in the end." 
 
 "You get nothing for anything in the end, do you, 
 Kevin? Thank God, I have a son who is a cynic and 
 an unbeliever." 
 
 She so rarely called me her son, or even casually 
 referred to our relationship, that my heart throbbed 
 quickly. 
 
 "Sorry to hear it. If Kevin is a misanthropist, 
 it's because he hasn't enough work to do." 
 
 " 'Misanthropist' is very pleasant," I murmured. 
 "And I've had two briefs since Christmas." 
 
 "Oh— is that a lot?" 
 
 But Prue's delicate snort signified that she was 
 exactly aware how many briefs per week were the due 
 of a successful barrister, and that she regarded Felic- 
 ity's question as feeble-minded. 
 
 " Who did you say you were expecting?" 
 
 "People ... I don't know their names. A 
 sister and two brothers and another girl — They all 
 
202 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 share a studio and give dancing-lessons. . . . No, 
 let me see — I think it was a brother and two sisters 
 and another man. They seem quite charming 
 anyhow, and asked if they might call. They wear 
 jumpers with that curious draught-board effect. . . . 
 Are you coming in too, Kevin? Do!" 
 
 "Think I ought to be exposed to the dangers of a 
 draught-board effect?" I hoisted myself with appar- 
 ent unwillingness out of the deck chair . . . but it 
 really did seem, since my return from Porthgollan, as 
 though Felicity were slightly less indifferent to my 
 presence than of yore. 
 
 "Come in again soon, Kevin; I want to hear all that 
 you can tell me about my future daughter-in-law. 
 . . ." and suddenly, Prue added, in what was for her 
 a tone of sheer passion: "Larry must be made 
 happy." 
 
 Felicity, trailing downwards from a slender height 
 to receive, as wontedly, an affectionate peck on the 
 cheek, drew back . . . her look at me was appealing, 
 and at the same time dimly appreciative of humour 
 in the situation. 
 
 But she asked me no questions about Barbara, 
 then or ever. 
 
 Felicity's life, as it appeared to me during the 
 next two or three months, continued to be a scattered 
 and perplexing pageant of charming young people 
 whose names she did not know. . . . Unable to 
 find youth within her, she was clutching feverishly 
 at youth outside — as though a sick soul could better 
 
BROKEN CHINA 203 
 
 its condition by picking primroses — ^holding it for an 
 instant — letting it go, perhaps in realization of the 
 futility of such contact . . . again in panic at her 
 slackened grasp, laying hold of another fleeting figure 
 in the dance — the same? — diff'erent? — what matter? 
 They were all alike. . . . "Was it you last time? 
 Oh dear, I thought — but never mind, do come in . . . 
 this is such good fun!" 
 
 The drawing-room had altered its character; the 
 little gold chairs were no longer empty, as in Felicity's 
 transition stage from entertaining her guests, to "rag- 
 ging" with them. But that subtle quality of stateli- 
 ness and wit and courtesy blended; the reposeful 
 feeling of duration and leisure, of one generation 
 assembled and in harmony, were all so much of the 
 past as to be less than the phantoms I had thought 
 them when the gold chairs were vacant. Felicity's 
 house reminded me now of a hostelry where a crowd 
 of ill-mannered jesters tumbled their hectic exits and 
 entrances at all hours in the twenty -four; callously 
 unaware of their hostess save in spurts of fascinated 
 attention. Indeed, it would have been strange if they, 
 with their sharp, high-coloured edges, had fully 
 understood her pearliness, her misty brilliance, the 
 haunted sub-cry in her talk, as of a bell incessantly 
 pealing, pealing, fathoms imder ocean. Nor could 
 they quite grasp what she wanted of them; nor why 
 she invited them so profusely, and muddled the dates 
 and times, and blurred her appointments, and begged 
 them to bring their friends, and let them all slip for- 
 
204 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 gotten in a fresh elusive quest after some fresh person- 
 ality with fresh aims and excitements; and left that 
 phase unfinished, returning to seek what she had 
 recently lost . . . and so lost the new victim and the 
 old alike . . . replaced them threefold, plagued and 
 fearful of missing one atom of the unessential, in 
 her being's vague quest for essential rest and deep 
 content; all the while collecting more and more and 
 ever more human turmoil around her — let's all he 
 young together! 
 
 Oh, my dear, why not get old and be still adorable? 
 don't struggle like this. While you play rough-and- 
 tumble with these noisy babes you have gathered 
 round you, Prue, next door, is already busy with 
 sensible socks for her grandchildren ... it is her 
 way of dreaming. . . . 
 
 But Felicity faintly ridiculous, was to me always 
 the Felicity most to be loved. . . . 
 
 [15] 
 
 While still at Porthgollan, Larry received orders 
 from his firm to go to Scotland for three or four 
 months, to overlook some machinery in the process of 
 erection. He could not afford, even for love's sake, 
 to neglect his career; his financial condition was 
 far inferior to mine, who had inherited a tolerably 
 comfortable income from my father Gilbert Somers. 
 So, grumbling, he went. 
 
 When he returned to London, in September, 
 Felicity was away at Thyme Croft; and Barbara had 
 
BROKEN CHINA 205 
 
 just arrived on her fortnight's visit to his mother. 
 
 "Larry and Barbara are in the garden," whispered 
 Wentworth, when I called one evening — why I can- 
 not say. 
 
 "Remarkable!" I retorted irritably — but I might 
 have known the little man would treat the 
 affair as a Royal Betrothal. "Hullo, Prue dear, 
 how's the daughter-in-law shaping?" 
 
 Barbara, it seems, had found favour; I learnt that 
 she was a well-mannered, healthy, unaffected girl; 
 high spirited, of course — one expected that, but with 
 no morbid, die-away rubbish about her; she 
 showed a pretty deference towards Wentworth, 
 and was willing to learn whatsoever Prue had to teach 
 her: "Look at this patch," displaying a pair of 
 worn grey pants to my shocked gaze; "I showed her 
 how to put it on this morning, and she's done it very 
 nicely indeed." 
 
 "My dear Prue, do you really think that you ought 
 — that she ought — I mean ... do you consider it's 
 quite — after all, she's only eighteen." 
 
 "Don't be absurd, Kevin!" Prue's cheeks were 
 like two bright red apples — "Of course these are 
 Wentworth's ... do you suppose for a moment I 
 would let her learn on Larry's?" 
 
 I was informed that the wedding was settled for 
 the early spring — how appropriate to Barbara! — and 
 that Larry had wonderfully improved and settled 
 down since his engagement: "Would you like me to 
 call them in?" 
 
206 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "God forbid! The spectacle would bore me to 
 tears. Any message for Felicity? I'm running 
 down there for the week-end." 
 
 "She's staying a long time at that cottage of hers; 
 is she still alone there?" 
 
 "Not she; people all the time." 
 
 Prue's expression showed her both offended and 
 worried, as she always was at any mention of the 
 retreat to which she was never invited. 
 
 "Wentworth, that child has thin stockings on, I 
 noticed them at supper; and these September nights 
 are chilly. Call her in." 
 
 They were duly called in. 
 
 The demure and rapt demeanour of Babs and Larry 
 nowadays, denied possibility that they had ever quar- 
 relled more ferociously than the proverbial Kilkenny 
 cats. Nowadays, they were as futile and as lacking 
 in personality as any other idiots in their condi- 
 tion. ... I inquired tenderly after Micky, and de- 
 parted. 
 
 Barbara's fortnight with Prue lengthened to a 
 month and to six weeks — Kate was obviously in no 
 hurry to call her home; and as long. Felicity's exile 
 lasted. I was frequently at Thyme Croft; the third 
 of the dynasty welcomed me with joyous shouts. . . . 
 In whimsical contradiction to the laws of Wicked 
 Step-brother, which demanded that I should at least 
 smother him with pillows. Larrikin and I were quite 
 good pals; he was a pleasant small boy, thin, with a 
 
BROKEN CHINA 207 
 
 long upper lip and tiny pointed ears, resembling more 
 closely Larry Munro his grandfather than Larry 
 Munro his father; his eyes, of course, were hazel- 
 green, roguishly inset; and his ways were the well- 
 known ways of all the Larrys. 
 
 "Larrikin, bring me that green vase." Felicity 
 stood at the French window, her arms full of garden 
 flowers, her gaze adoring this son of hers. . . . 
 
 Larrikin, aged five, conveyed by his expression that 
 he had not quite caught the purport of his mother's 
 request, but that it was probably of no importance. 
 
 "The green vase, darling." 
 
 Larrikin suddenly had never heard of a green vase. 
 His obstinate shoulders curved yet more obstinately 
 over the combined train-boat-motor in which I worked 
 my way as stoker-mate-and-under-chauffeur. 
 
 "Larry dear, I spoke to you. No, don't get it, 
 Kevin; he must use his intelligence." Felic- 
 ity decided, once a fortnight or thereabouts, that she 
 would unexpectedly try stem systems of education 
 on the children. 
 
 "Now, Larry, bring me the green vase; it's on the 
 mantelpiece." 
 
 Sighing wearily, he fetched the waste-paper basket 
 and tendered it to her upside down. 
 
 "No — not that — don't be foolish. You know what 
 green is? The grass is green. ..." 
 
 Yes, he knew that. 
 
 "And you know what a vase is? One puts flowers 
 
208 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 in a vase, and water, so that they don't die." 
 
 A vivid intelligence dawned in the uplifted eyes — 
 obviously Larry knew what a vase was. 
 
 "Then" — Felicity enunciated slowly — "bring — 
 me — the — green — vase." 
 
 Larrikin brought her a black velvet cat belonging 
 to Yo. 
 
 The lesson went on. I sprawled in the middle 
 of overturned table, umbrella-masts, and string-work, 
 and thoroughly enjoyed myself. Gradually the 
 entire contents of the room were piled up round 
 Felicity . . . till, by a process of elimination, 
 nothing was left for transport save the green vase. 
 Then Larrikin brought her the green vase, and she 
 said to me — or to God — one could never quite tell — 
 that it just proved one must always work on a child's 
 intelligence. 
 
 But Larry the third reminded me poignantly of 
 Larry the second during this scene. ... No 
 wickeder or more exasperating little scamp ever tod- 
 dled this earth — save one. 
 
 Yolande was a different type altogether; a throw- 
 back to some forgotten ancestor. You described her 
 best by the word "farouche." Her short mop 
 of yellow hair fell heavily to her eyebrows, even 
 sometimes obscuring her eyes; it was enormously 
 thick and strong, like a young lion's mane. Her 
 mouth was sullen, and for the most part mute. Yet 
 all at once, the child could cast off her enmuffling 
 silences, and be fascinating, irresistible even . . . 
 
BROKEN CHINA 209 
 
 occasionally she would reward me with such a mood, 
 when I told her jungle and desert stories — her 
 favourite variety. But the beast had always to 
 triumph over the traveller and explorer, to suit Yo; 
 not because he was a bad man and deserved to be 
 eaten — I would not have dared insert such boresome 
 morality — ^but because Yo frankly preferred four feet 
 to two. Insensibly we fell into the habit of acting 
 these stories as they were being told. ... Yo dis- 
 played a talent for prowling and ramping that was 
 positively uncanny. Though silent and heavy-lidded, 
 she did not in the least belong to that variety of 
 demure little bookworm with gentle ways, beloved 
 of Victorian writers of children's fiction; she ab- 
 horred reading, and her self-invented games were all 
 boisterous and even thrilling. I had an easier 
 time as a slave in Larrikin's galley, than as the 
 human hero in a tiger-hunt stage-managed by Yo. 
 With Felicity she was haughtily aloof; nor could I 
 discover then if this attitude concealed love unre- 
 quited, or not. 
 
 Felicity was — I must say it — an absolute ass in 
 her behaviour with Yo; she used to quarrel with this 
 fierce little atom as though it were an adult and a 
 contemporary. I remember an occasion when 
 accidentally she ate off Yolande's own special 
 pictured plate, and Yo, a natural baby for once, 
 lifted up her voice and protested, stretched out her 
 hand and snatched; . . . Felicity, incomprehensible 
 as it may seem, was genuinely — offended: "I do think 
 
210 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 it silly and selfish of her to mind so much!" . . . 
 They resented each other for days, over that in- 
 cident. 
 
 But to Larrikin, his mother was all that she had 
 once been to the small Larry Munro, and more. Him 
 also she treated as an equal — but she was child to 
 his child . . . adoring him, romping with him, 
 passionately encircling him from harm. . . . 
 Larry's son; flesh and blood of his flesh and blood; 
 treasure of which, years ago, kneeling beside a dead 
 man's bed, she had thought herself irrevocably 
 cheated. Larry's son. . . . 
 
 "Get into my train, Muwer!" 
 
 "Certainly, Guard. What time does it go? Oh, 
 now directly; I see — Well, reserve me a comer seat, 
 and oh, porter," recognizing me with ticket-puncher 
 and cap several sizes too small, "bring along the 
 lunch-basket!" 
 
 "Tain't my job," I argued stolidly. But Larrikin 
 would allow no false pride among his employees, 
 and straightway robbed me oJp the ticket-puncher 
 and my highest privilege, and sent me along to fetch 
 Felicity's luggage on a truck; then, recognizing 
 that there were elements of fun in this also, hastily 
 punched her ticket, bereft me of the truck, waved 
 the green flag, and, suddenly transformed into the 
 engine-driver, sprang into the front portion of the 
 train and tooted lustily. 
 
 "I'm the charger in the loose box!" cried Yo, 
 
BROKEN CHINA 211 
 
 shaking herself about in a confined space of chairs, 
 and thudding ecstatically with her heels. 
 
 Felicity, as lady passenger, drew out her 
 embroidery. And I, bitterly, asked Larrikin if he 
 would allow me to be the bit of orange-peel on the 
 line, or if that role too were coveted by himself? 
 
 "Toooooo-ooo!" he hooted genially. Then, blow- 
 ing out his cheeks, "Puff -puff -puff " 
 
 On the threshold of the open French window 
 Barbara stood, staring at Felicity, at Yo and at me, 
 last of all at Larrikin ... he was fairly unmistak- 
 able — her look set into horror. . . . An exclama- 
 tion choked in her throat . . . she rushed stumbling 
 away. . . . 
 
 It was all so soon over, that I remained motionless 
 and bewildered, till Felicity roused me from trance. 
 
 "Was that the girl?" :she questioned gently — t 
 "Larry's . . . fiancee?" 
 
 "Yes. I'd better go after her." 
 
 Larrikin's shouts of protest followed me down the 
 garden. I overtook Barbara running headlong up 
 the country road in the opposite direction from the 
 station. 
 
 "Here's your cap," I said; it had fallen, a patch 
 of blue, amongst the drifts of dead brown leaves. 
 
 I seized her hands and pulled her towards me . . . 
 no one was in sight. 
 
212 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "What's all this, Babs?" 
 
 "Let me alone — let me alone, Kev — I won't go 
 back — I won't go near her. . . . You too, you 
 ought to have told me. ... I hate you — I hate you 
 all . . . everybody in the world. . . . Nobody 
 tells the truth. . . ." She wrestled with me — 
 yielded, and dropped down in a little heap on the 
 grass and leaves by the side of the road, trembling in 
 all her limbs — but she did not cry, and her voice, 
 between the gasps, was hard and defiant. 
 
 "I'll tell you the truth. Those, the little girl and 
 boy, are Larry's children — ^you guessed it from the 
 likeness, didn't you?" 
 
 "Prue — his mother " 
 
 "Knows nothing about it." 
 
 "I'm going to tell her." 
 
 And again to my listening ears, the world was 
 a-tinkle with broken china. 
 
 "Must you, child? It will hurt her unbelievably." 
 
 "I don't care. She ought to know. And I've 
 been hurt too. You told me about — her; never that 
 there were . . . babies — Oh, a baby boy that looks 
 like Larry!" 
 
 I saw now why Barbara could not and would not 
 forgive. . . . Larrikin belonged by right to her, not 
 to Felicity. Out of all her childishness burst that 
 woman's cry. 
 
 "You shan't talk me over this time, Kevin." 
 
 I did not try. But quietly held her in my arms 
 . . . and she suffered it. 
 
BROKEN CHINA 213 
 
 "Don't tell Prue," I whispered. 
 
 "I must. She'll ask me why I'm breaking off the 
 engagement." 
 
 "Do you mean to do that, Babs?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 Slim young body, that a man might so easily have 
 crushed; lips softly curved as apple-blossom petals 
 . . . but the grey eyes were inflexible. 
 
 "How dare you not tell me, Kevin? I thought 
 you were different, but you're a liar and a cheat like 
 the rest of them. ..." 
 
 "I suppose so," I acquiesced, weary of the whole 
 entanglement. "What brought you down here to- 
 day?" 
 
 I was not curious — ^my thoughts, strangely, were 
 centred not on Larry, unconscious of his happiness 
 in peril and past all peril, nor on Barbara raging in 
 the china-shop, nor on Felicity . . . but Prue. . . . 
 When she heard the blurted story of Larry and 
 Felicity and Larrikin, what would Prue say or do? 
 what of the shrine over which she and Felicity 
 had for years held hands? . . . Imagination halted, 
 appalled at the tragedy so incongruously descending 
 upon the busy, brisk little soul with her housewifely 
 ways. 
 
 "What brought you down here today?" 
 
 I gathered that Felicity had always existed as a 
 menace and a spectre in one comer of Barbara's 
 idyll; and that Larry, guessing it, had teased 
 her. . . . "When I'm going to desert you, I shall 
 
214 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 just say I'm called up North on business — men always 
 do, you know." 
 
 And yesterday Larry had informed her he was 
 called up North on business . . . and had sharply 
 chidden her for a suspicious little goose, when she 
 flung out in anger. And had gone. Thereupon she 
 had asked Prue for the address of Felicity's country 
 cottage, and had rushed waywardly down to Thyme 
 Croft, meaning to "have it out" with Larry in front 
 of Felicity; and "have it out" with Felicity too: 
 "You're old; you don't want him any more, and I 
 do; I expect you've been bothering him. So 
 just leave him alone!" . . . Somewhat in this vein 
 would she have abused her rival. ... I wondered 
 by what fashion of courteous reproof would Felicity 
 have queened the situation, had it thus befallen as 
 Barbara planned it. 
 
 "Was he in the cottage? I didn't see. . . ." 
 
 "Larry? No — not a sign of him. Nor ever has 
 been — since he met you and cared for you. I expect 
 he was really called up North on business." 
 
 Barbara sighed, a quiver in her breath that warned 
 me the tears were not far off, though stubbornly 
 repressed. "He'll be astonished, won't he, when he 
 comes back — and finds out I've broken it off?" 
 Almost she was proud, in her misery, to discover 
 herself capable of taking such a sensational 
 initiative. Then, wholly baby again: "Oh, but I 
 don't want to go home and be nothing special to 
 
BROKEN CHINA 215 
 
 anybody. And Mums will be so cross at not getting 
 rid of me after all." 
 
 "Barbara, we've all spoilt Larry. Spoil him, too. 
 It's easiest for you, belonging to him. Pretend that 
 nothing is changed; nothing is changed. . . ." 
 
 I was fighting for Prue, not for her son, this time. 
 But the girl was true to her standards: "I'm not 
 going to pretend and tell lies — like the rest of you. 
 And live in a muddle of things that might be found 
 out . . . And I don't belong to Larry — they belong 
 to him" — ^with a furious little gesture towards Thyme 
 Croft. "And his mother is just going to know the 
 sort of man her wonderful Larry is. Oh, it's a shame 
 of him all these years . . . when she's such a dear. 
 A shame! . . . It's no good talking any more, Kevin 
 — I want to go back. Where's the station from 
 here?" 
 
 I gave in. Perhaps Barbara's ways were the best 
 . . . what right had I to impose upon her young 
 clarity of vision, our own grey web woven of shade 
 and subtleties? habits of tolerance that might be 
 merely ideals grown dull and torpid and springless. 
 
 Perhaps Barbara's ways were the best, even though 
 they meant broken china. 
 
 [16] 
 
 Broken china . . . and afterwards Barbara went 
 home to her mother. And Larry went to South 
 America. 
 
216 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 Justly viewed, it was their tragedy and no one 
 else's . . . but I could not feel it mattered poignantly 
 . . . they were so very young — we were all young 
 together, Larry, and Babs, and I. . . . But Prue 
 refused ever to forgive Felicity, ever to see her again. 
 And though they were only two women, and though 
 lovers count infinitely more than friends when parting 
 and agony are in the air, yet I saw Larry off at the 
 docks, and left Barbara in the taxi while I told Kate 
 the painful news of her daughter returned to her, with 
 a strange absence of emotion, considering what Larry 
 and Babs had meant to me in the way of love and 
 hatred, hatred and love. My thoughts were fixed on 
 Prue Munro in her sudden and violent enlightenment. 
 She sent for me that I might corroborate Barbara's 
 wild statements — and I went, ridiculously the man 
 whom everybody sent for in every crisis. 
 
 Why could / not send for somebody? I, too, had 
 a point of view, and my little heap of shattered 
 china. . . . Supposing I sat squarely planted in 
 Middle Inn Gardens, and sent for Prue and Larry and 
 my mother and Babs and K. B. Seton and Wentworth 
 . . . how disconcerting to the general acceptation of 
 a static arrangement! 
 
 Childishly I wanted to send for somebody. . . . 
 I have never in all my life dreaded anything as I 
 dreaded that interview with Prue. 
 
 She was quite hard and snappish, and — and horrid 
 about it all. She said inadequate things . . . that 
 Felicity ought to be ashamed of herself, for instance 
 
BROKEN CHINA 217 
 
 . . . because it is difficult to find words all at once 
 that are up to the level of a big sorrow and dis- 
 appointment; and the necessity found Prue barren 
 of words save of the kind I suppose she habitually- 
 used when complaining of the quality of the beef. I 
 recognized that she was too real and genuine — and 
 too stricken — ^to indulge in dramatic, poignant, or 
 beautiful effects. The commonplace, facile little 
 sentences in which she gave account of her tragedy 
 made it sound worse than awful — made it sound 
 trivial. 
 
 Nothing was Larry's fault. She still vehemently 
 defended her son: "Poor old boy — ^who could blame 
 him? — at that age ... he was just a baby still!" 
 And "He'd have told me right enough, only she 
 wouldn't let him . . . Larry was never deceitful." 
 
 "Going on all this time — and pretending to be my 
 friend — why, any little thing I could ever do for her 
 . . . I've put off my own concerns again and again 
 to attend to Felicity's." 
 
 Her round troll face was rough and scrapy with 
 continuous crying, and I could hardly see her eyes for 
 the swollen pink around them. She deplored bitterly 
 the rupture of the engagement between Larry and the 
 girl "who would have looked after him and made 
 him happy. But I expect she^s satisfied, now that 
 she's brought about the end of it." 
 
 "Felicity wasn't responsible for the breaking off 
 of Larry's engagement; if Barbara had not seen the 
 children " 
 
218 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 Prue's mouth set into chill iron. . . . She would 
 not speak of Larrikin and Yo, would not hear them 
 mentioned. And she never wished to see Felicity 
 again. "Tell her I said so, Kevin, and that I mean 
 it." 
 
 But was she impelled to such drastic unforgiveness 
 from anger at the friendship suddenly shown to her, 
 rotted through and through with deception? Or by 
 her outraged mother- love for Larry? Or by respecta- 
 bility shocked? ... Or else was it — I could not 
 help wondering . . . did it also contain a quiver of 
 protective jealousy for Larry Munro dead? "I be- 
 lieved that she loved you, my husband whom I loved 
 . . . and so I honoured her by a place of equal vigil 
 and mourning. She has betrayed my belief. . . . 
 Now I am left alone beside the shrine. . . ." 
 
 Was this what was in Prue's soul? Had it been 
 an audible plaint, I might have combated it. . . . 
 On Felicity's part it was surely no mere faithlessness 
 towards Larry Munro to have lavished herself on 
 Larry Munro's repeated features, and voice, and fasci- 
 nation . . . why, Larry the second may even have 
 besought her with the same words as his father, 
 eighteen years ago. Was there truly romance in this, 
 or was I a young fool to feel it so vitally, and to 
 condemn Prue for her bitter, withered little judg- 
 ments? 
 
 Ah, no, I did not condemn her, God knows! But 
 my pity was all over the place at this time. . . . 
 Prue had lost a friend and a son and an illusion and 
 
BROKEN CHINA 219 
 
 the grandchild for whom she was knitting small 
 woolly socks. But I was alike haunted by Felicity's 
 poignant: "I must see her, Kevin. Tell her — I 
 must see her. Why won't she at least see me? . . ." 
 And by Larry's eyes, hard and miserable and self- 
 mocking, just before he went aboard at Southampton: 
 "Lucky the firm offered me this job just about now, 
 wasn't it? I'd have refused it, of course, if — 
 Well, good-bye, Kevin, old man — come out and join 
 me if you get fed up with the Bar; and we'll form a 
 syndicate for the promotion of minor revolu- 
 tions." . . . 
 
 "Potter," I said, "have you anything in the nature 
 of a confidence to make to me?" 
 
 Potter, thank God, responded in the negative. I 
 inserted my toe in the fat creases of his flesh and 
 gratefully rolled him about. 
 
 "All lonely bachelors talk to their dogs. Potter. 
 Or to their pipes, or to a photograph; futile, I grant 
 you, but quite the accepted thing. So you must bear 
 with me." . . . 
 
 "Barbara had the best of it, you know — of the five 
 of us. She at least had the fun of ramping about the 
 china-shop. Potter, I've had damned little fun — in 
 fact, none at all." . . . 
 
 When I had left Prue, that afternoon, she first 
 pressed me to stay to tea, vaunting Martha's cakes. — 
 And then: "Has Felicity engaged that new cook yet? 
 — I must remind her not to offer a penny more than 
 
220 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 irty-five. ..." 
 Bvin. . . ," 
 I told Felicity. 
 
 thirty-five. . . ." Then, after a pause: "Tell her, 
 Kevin. ..." 
 
PART III —THE DYNASTY 
 
[1] 
 
 AND I did not see Larry again until May, 1915, 
 two years after the chaotic results of innocence 
 let loose in the china-shop. 
 
 He came to visit me then in the convalescent 
 hospital at Brighton — and already I had been to 
 France, and had come back, and would not go out 
 again. Larry, who as soon as he received belated 
 news of the war, had pelted home to England from 
 an obscure little State in South America, landed soon 
 after I had been ordered out, about January of the 
 new year. Now, with a commission in the Royal 
 Flying Corps, he was expecting to take a flight across 
 the Channel at any moment. As I swung clumsily on 
 my recently fitted crutches across an empty ward, to 
 meet the lithe, alert stripling with the wings on his 
 left breast, the sight of his face made me feel old and 
 battle-scarred and disillusioned. 
 
 "Hullo, Hermes!" 
 
 "Hullo, Vulcan!" 
 
 "That's tactless. You should have carefully not 
 noticed that I was lame — ^kept up a cheery pretence 
 that I was in hospital for fun or a rest-cure." 
 
 "Is it permanent?" 
 
 I nodded. 
 
224 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "How disgustingly picturesque of you, Kev!" in 
 petulant complaint. 
 
 "You may be able to pull off something more hide- 
 ously realistic for yourself — ^but I should hardly have 
 called a fractured femur and snicked heel so con- 
 foundedly picturesque." 
 
 "Achilles, not Vulcan! my mistake. You should 
 have worn thick knitted socks." 
 
 "Who's to knit 'em for me?" 
 
 "Doesn't Felicity fulfil her duties as a mother?" 
 
 "Excellently — to Larrikin." 
 
 With which the first bout of conversation between 
 two comrades re-united, may be said to have ended. 
 
 I sat down heavily and Larry surveyed me in si- 
 lence. I may have looked a bit haggard and scare- 
 crowish, for he broke out: 
 
 "If only you'd been in the Flying Corps — I might 
 have looked after you." And struck a match 
 viciously on his boot, to light a cigarette. 
 
 I laughed. " 'You shall not hurt my little bruvver' 
 — fourth act, twenty-seventh scene of Babes in the 
 Wood pantomime." . . . 
 
 "Well — I'm older than you," in pugnacious tones 
 from the man standing at the fireplace, with his back 
 towards me. 
 
 It struck me for the first time in our joint career 
 that Larry was indeed my senior; for the first time I 
 distinctly felt him my senior — experienced a weak 
 and altogether idiotic yearning to put my head down 
 on his shoulder and howl stormily, because I was cut 
 
THE DYNASTY 225 
 
 off from all the fun out there, and because I would 
 never climb rocks again, and because nobody cared 
 . . . and so forth; howl, and be comforted. 
 
 I pulled myself together, and began to yam a bit 
 about my impressions during a month (rather less) in 
 the fighting line. These consisted mostly of monoto- 
 nous tracks squirming monotonously across monoto- 
 nous mud — and were not, therefore, of a highly thril- 
 ling nature. About my most sensational exploit had 
 been to drop into peaceful slumber one night with 
 my bare head confidently nestled on the parapet; lit 
 by floods of silver moonlight, and in full range of 
 every Hun sniper. 
 
 Larry made the ward ring with his shouts of 
 appreciation: "Great Scot! You priceless cherub! 
 And after that concussion in Cornwall too, one might 
 imagine a fellow'd take more care of his curly little 
 cocoa-nut. . . . Heard anything, by the way, of our 
 pals the Setons?" 
 
 "Barbara came to see me the other day — last 
 Thursday, I think it was." 
 
 We had mentioned Felicity and Larrikin ... it 
 was inevitable that our conversation should take its 
 present turn. Not that Larry seemed at all dis- 
 concerted. 
 
 "Babs? Did she? V.A.D. I suppose?" 
 
 "Yes." 
 
 "Well, and when are you and she going to get 
 spliced?" 
 
 I shifted uneasily — Curse the man, why must he 
 
226 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 needs be — indecorous? But the gay, teasing voice 
 continued : 
 
 "Waiting in silent heroism for my sandtion, I 
 suppose? Oh, I know your painful sense of honour, 
 Kev " 
 
 "Is that sarcasm?" I asked. "Were you by any 
 chance remembering that I gave your show away 
 at Porthgollan, a couple of years ago?" 
 
 Larry swore at me. 
 
 "Besides," I went on, drearily facetious, "I was 
 under a sort of delusion that Babs was in love with 
 you. Correct me if I'm wrong." 
 
 "My dear old chap, Babs doesn't know one man 
 from another yet." 
 
 Was he right? I wondered. Such a child still 
 — ^nineteen last birthday. It had been raining all 
 the morning, but now a ray of pale amber sunshine 
 danced across the floor of the ward, and one bird 
 began to trill from the tree in the courtyard outside, 
 ... I was in the silly mood to find pleasure in 
 cheap symbolism. 
 
 But she had heard Larry whistle the Spring Song 
 . . . and would she ever forget it? How he had 
 wooed her, that night; queer night; we had all been 
 unbalanced . . . and Barbara had wept. 
 
 "Well — what's the result of the reverie?" Larry's 
 grin was freakish. 
 
 "If I— what about you?" 
 
 He understood me: "Oh, I've still got my faithful 
 
THE DYNASTY 227 
 
 old bus — what more can an airman want? 'We bin 
 together nah for forty years'! pity for the sentiment 
 of the thing that they turn us on to a fresh one every 
 few days. I've got to be off, Kev — so long! Stuff 
 yourself up with plenty of butter and cream — you 
 look as if you needed it. And I'll try and get leave 
 to be your best man." 
 
 "Good-bye, old son. Good luck." 
 
 No, he did not care about Babs anymore. He 
 cared about nothing save the adventure ahead; I 
 had never seen him more radiant and mercurial 
 than now, on the eve of active service. 
 
 "Larry," I called him back when he was starting 
 to the door, and blurted out: "Has your mother 
 — will your mother see Felicity . . . now? 
 
 "Why now? Because I'm on my last leave? 
 Don't be a sentimental ass. Mater's sensible as any- 
 thing about things, thank goodness. I took her out 
 on the bust last night — revue and supper, fright- 
 fully immoral — and booked her up for an encore on 
 my next first night in Blighty; she's as good a sport 
 to trot round as any girl, and not so bunged up with 
 tears and misery and promise-me-you-will-come- 
 back." Suddenly he burst into whole-hearted 
 laughter: "Remember the flapper you saw with me 
 in the Cafe Royal? What was her name? Phyllis 
 ... no, Peggy." s 
 
 "Lord, yes. I remember her every time I see 
 'Beattie and Babs' on the bill." But I was heartily 
 glad that Prue had been selected for special dis- 
 
228 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 tinotion. Somehow, I could not bring myself to ask 
 whether he had been equally kind to Felicity . . . 
 it seemed too pitiful that she should be at the mercy 
 of his lordliness. 
 
 [2] 
 
 Prue visited me shortly afterwards, with nourishing 
 food in such large quantities as to reveal that Larry 
 must have led her to believe the worst about my 
 looks. With her natural aptitude for busy-ness, 
 bounty and economy, the war was a godsend. She 
 was "women of England" concentrated into one firm, 
 tight, competent little bundle; her practical gifts were 
 in full play on about a dozen committees of organ- 
 ization; her warm-heartedness took her the round 
 of a dozen hospitals; her fingers were perpetually 
 sewing or knitting; her household was conducted on 
 a sparse method which would have given new life 
 and hope to a harassed Government perpetually urg- 
 ing "patriotism in the home" ; she never let herself be 
 needlessly carried away to enthusiasm or panic by 
 the daily bulletins from the Front; did not neglect 
 Wentworth in her accumulation of fresh interests; 
 and talked about Larry mainly from the point of view 
 of demand and supply, and how to meet his require- 
 ments cheerily renewed in every letter, and how best 
 to pack them and send them, and how soon would 
 they arrive. . . . Larry was "all right" now . . . 
 her voice had a relieved note when she mentioned 
 
THE DYNASTY 229 
 
 him; in hourly peril he might be, but it was normal 
 healthy peril, shared by an entire nation of his 
 contemporaries; and tradition sanctioned and 
 approved. The passionate episode of Larry and 
 Felicity had an apart quality, wild and vaporous, that 
 appalled Prue, as not at all included in her scheme 
 of things. But Larry was "all right" now ... he 
 was doing his duty. 
 
 Or so I read her demeanour. Again I dared not 
 mention the children or Felicity. Felicity was 
 pushed by every one into a shadowy corner of dis- 
 grace. 
 
 But I knew, triumphantly, that through all the bustle 
 and patter of war-work, Prue missed her. 
 
 And directly I was dismissed from hospital, and 
 in my old rooms in Middle Inn Gardens, permanently 
 discharged from the Army as unfit for further 
 service, I sought her in vain at the West End hotel, 
 where she was fitfully to be found between bouts of 
 country-house visiting, and expensive vagrancy, and 
 her periods of holiday at Thyme Croft, when Yo 
 and Larrikin were home from school. The house 
 in St. John's Wood had been relinquished after her 
 quarrel with Prue, — no, quarrel was the wrong term 
 for it, quarrel conveyed something snappish and 
 verbal . . . but it was obviously impossible under 
 the circumstances that Felicity could continue to live 
 side by side with Larry's mother, seeing her and 
 passing her a dozen times a day. The "To be Sold" 
 board which still creaked from the front garden wall 
 
230 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 of my old home, was a minor result of the energy of 
 a certain young bull. 
 
 [3] 
 
 "Here, shove 'em over to me; I'll drop 'em 
 in the rack!" Micky was as usual sublime in his 
 tactful method of treating my crutches as though 
 they were a walking-stick ; fortunately for the success 
 of his tactics, I was able to limp along in fair 
 comfort without support. 
 
 K. B. Seton was sitting in a turmoil of blankets 
 and sheets and pillows on the sitting-room sofa, writ- 
 ing. I gathered from her explanations that she took 
 a flat in town on the same odd but hopeful principles 
 of space as were in force at The Shoe: always have 
 exactly one bed too little, in case one of your family 
 should happen to be away. The game of musical 
 chairs was governed by this system, and had provided 
 amusement for thousands; so that I really do not see 
 why it should not take a perpetual place in the home 
 — "Only," as Kate remarked petulantly, "they so 
 very rarely are away — any of them. Such an exas- 
 perating set of people! Mick goes into camp some- 
 times, and of course it looked once as though Barbara 
 were going to be married, but even then I suppose 
 she'd have wanted to sleep at home while he was at 
 the Front. And as for Henry, nothing will induce 
 him to spend a night away from home — and there 
 you are!" 
 
THE DYNASTY 231 
 
 I sympathized. Then: "Where is Babs?" 
 
 "Babs is a bit done up with hospital work and 
 has joined a week-end party on the river. She went 
 off with her suit-case after lunch. Four of them in 
 a bungalow: two girls, two men. It sounds pleasant, 
 doesn't it?" 
 
 "It sounds mathematically perfect!" I was 
 annoyed at having missed Babs, but sought con- 
 solation with Micky, who demanded my war exper- 
 iences, and sat at my feet asking sage questions, 
 listening with faintly parted lips and solemn, attentive 
 eyes: "The Boyhood of Raleigh" up-to-date. 
 
 We were disturbed by another visitor — a handsome 
 breezy girl in V.A.D. uniform. 
 
 "How are you, Mrs. Seton? Is Babs in? I want 
 to see her rather specially." 
 
 "Don't be ridiculous, Edith. Babs is with you at 
 Bray, isn't she? At Vemie Frome's bungalow." 
 
 The girl looked puzzled. "That party was put off 
 till next week-end — didn't Babs tell you? We had a 
 lot of fresh cases in last night, and I couldn't get 
 away. I said I'd let the Oliver boy know on my 
 way home, if she sent a wire to Vernie." 
 
 Kate said slowly: "She said nothing to me about 
 a change of plans, when she went off with her suit- 
 
 case." 
 
 And there was a lull in the room, while we all 
 racked our brains for something absolutely harmless 
 which Barbara might be doing with her suit-case. 
 Kate's peculiar insistence on that suit-case lent it a 
 
232 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 sinister aspect. But I had not yet fully grasped the 
 situation, nor why the appearance of the V.A.D. 
 should have had so catastrophic an effect. Henry 
 ceased his game of chess with Ned, and complained in 
 weeping accents: 
 
 "You should go about with her more yourself, 
 Kate. I always said so. You and your novels! If 
 you kept her bright and amused, she wouldn't have 
 fallen into low company," which contribution, besides 
 being hardly polite to Edith, roused Kate to a semi- 
 humorous frenzy. 
 
 "Where is Barbara?" I asked, when I thought 
 she had sufficiently mutilated Henry's self-respect. 
 I realized now quite clearly that she was to have gone 
 with this Edith friend of hers and an Oliver boy 
 to a bungalow belonging to one Vemie Frome. Also 
 that yesterday Edith had perforce withdrawn herself 
 and Oliver from the appointment and had left it to 
 Babs to cancel the tryst with Frome. Instead of 
 which she had said nothing at home, but had departed 
 directly after lunch as though the week-end party 
 were still a fact. . . . What sort of a man was this 
 Frome? 
 
 "I don't like Captain Frome," said Micky, answer- 
 ing my unspoken question telepathically. 
 
 Micky was a good judge. His inflexion 
 instantly described to me the type of man in 
 question. 
 
 "It's queer she didn't tell you " Edith began, 
 
 and left it at that. 
 
THE DYNASTY 233 
 
 "You're all of you being quite ridiculous and 
 melodramatic." Kate Seton scattered our unspoken 
 suspicions, briskly thumping the bolster, "Babs is 
 enough of an up-to-date girl to walk out of the house 
 for a day or two without fifty explanations and apolo- 
 gies. I'm very glad she has so much spirit and 
 independence ' ' 
 
 "So am I," echoed Henry, currying favour. "It 
 would be a queer thing nowadays if a high-spirited 
 girl couldn't spend a week-end at a pleasant young 
 friend's bunglow without all the world and her own 
 family condemning her for it because he happens to 
 be a male. Especially if she's in uniform," he 
 added fatuously. 
 
 "My dear good man, of course Barbara wouldn't 
 dream of spending a week-end at Captain Frome's 
 bungalow under the circumstances. What in the 
 sacred name of George Shaw are you babbling 
 about?" 
 
 Henry perceived that he had gone wrong somehow. 
 "Then where is she? She isn't here?" 
 
 "Oh, I expect she's run away with Frome and 
 married him," Ned threw in. "Your move, Pater. 
 Or do you want me to go after him with a horse- 
 whip?" 
 
 "I'll come too, if you do." Micky evidently began 
 to realize some distant prospects of entertainment in 
 the affair. 
 
 "He's a great pal of my brother's," Edith said 
 hesitantly. 
 
234 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "That's nothing to do with it," roared Henry, 
 whom circumstance was rapidly peeling of his skin 
 of advanced culture, to expose the well-known pater- 
 familias beneath. "Where's my daughter?" 
 
 "I'm going home." 
 
 They all turned and stared at me. My firm thrust 
 into the argument sounded so entirely irrelevant. 
 But I had received sudden and absurd assurance of 
 Barbara's whereabouts. She was in my "den" at 
 Middle Inn Gardens. That being so, it was 
 ridiculous for me to remain here listening to futile 
 conjecture on the subject. Nor could I give the 
 others access to a certainty for which I had no sound 
 or valid reasons to offer. 
 
 London, faintly bloomed by the June evening, was 
 a hum and a glitter of beauty to me, from the windows 
 of my taxi. My blood was throbbing, and I per- 
 petually urged the chauffeur to go faster. Barbara 
 is coming to mie . . . Barbara has come to me. 
 . . . The rush past of traffic down Kingsway was 
 a triumphal pageant — Barbara is at home — Barbara 
 is waiting 
 
 It was a shock, after all this tingle of expectation, 
 to find the den empty of occupants save Potter, who 
 had turned exasperatingly pathetic about me since 
 my absence at the Front, obedient as the child in a 
 Sunday-school tract story, and sensitive to the verge 
 of tears when I tried to goad him into a display of 
 manhood. 
 
THE DYNASTY 235 
 
 [4] 
 
 Presently Barbara came. Her peal at the bell 
 was defiant; and her entrance, when shown in by- 
 Thompson, was decidedly overdone : "Hullo, Kev — I 
 just thought I'd drop in on you. . . ." 
 
 "You 'dorable 'diculous darling!" mentally. 
 Aloud I remarked, imitating her casual tone, that it 
 was most awfully decent of her; that a fellow did get 
 rather pipped, mewed up by himself; and (sternly) 
 was she aware of the time? 
 
 Barbara sat on the edge of the desk and laughed at 
 me, and impertinently swung her pretty silk 
 ankles. She had abandoned uniform for river 
 costume — a short white serge skirt, and white silk 
 shirt wide-flung at the throat, and an emerald jersey 
 and cap. The eff'ect of the attitude, costume, and 
 voice were all assistant props to the daringly informal 
 tone of this visit, but her hand, grabbing ner- 
 vously at the edge of the desk, gave her away; little 
 trembling hand. . . . 
 
 "Kev, isn't this fun?" 
 
 "Great fun. Do you always pay calls with your 
 suit-case?" 
 
 "Oh, that was to shock you. You used to lecture 
 me for being narrow-minded. Well, I'm broad- 
 minded now — I do all sorts of things. . . . Besides, 
 my people think I'm spending the week-end with a 
 perfectly respectable party at Bray. My best friend, 
 Edie Conway, invited me. But I thought this would 
 be more exciting." 
 
236 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "On the contrary, Babs, your people know there is 
 no such thing as a perfectly respectable party at Bray. 
 And because you probably found it rather too 
 exciting, is why you are here now!" 
 
 She stared at me, her pupils dilating. "You've 
 seen them — you know — but how do they know? . . • 
 Oh, it's not fair — you should have told me before 
 I — ^before I — Oh, Kev, I'm in a scrape. Must I go 
 home?" 
 
 "Tell me all about it," I whispered. I dared not 
 touch her at that moment of her soft surrender . . . 
 but she crumpled into my arms and buried her face in 
 my sleeve, and what could I do? 
 
 "Babs . . . Babs ... I love you, Babs." 
 
 A sigh was her only answer. Then: "Even 
 though — I've — ^been — ^wicked? You can't possibly 
 — Kevin, I used to say such horrid things about 
 people who told lies, and were wicked; and 
 now. ..." 
 
 Well, I was not seriously alarmed at this mysterious 
 "wickedness'^ at which she hinted. Contact with 
 anything crude or real would have left more tragic, 
 more pitiable traces on such a headlong young 
 idealist, than just this childish fit of crying, and 
 childish impulse to confession. Babs still sobbed 
 her heart out with as much ease as a year ago on the 
 sands at PorthgoUan. 
 
 . . . "And mother always laughed at me and 
 never bothered, and said I wasn't the sort of girl who 
 had adventures because I'm a prig. And you called 
 
THE DYNASTY 237 
 
 me all sorts of names — and I suppose I was, to send 
 Larry away because he'd had adventures once, but I 
 still think it's horrid, and wanted to stop thinking like 
 that because I did want some fun myself — and they 
 called me the 'Little Nun' in the hospital — ^but it 
 isrCt cricket when the men are ill, is it? I mean to 
 flirt with them. The boys say it isn't, and it still 
 seems sometimes that Micky is more right than most 
 people, though he's only a kid and can't know what 
 girls feel like. . . ." 
 
 She paused for breath. And I told her, to help 
 her out, that I had accidentally been at St. John's 
 Wood that very evening, when Edith Conway had 
 arrived to see her, and that thus had transpired the 
 fact of the week-end postponed. 
 
 "Edith is an ass. . . ." Barbara became thought- 
 ful. "What must Micky have thought — and Mums? 
 What I wanted them to think, I suppose; only I — I 
 meant to explode it on them myself. You see, when 
 Edie told me to let Vemie Frome know, I didn't. I 
 just didn't. I made up my mind I'd meet him at the 
 station as we'd arranged, and go down to Bray with 
 him. Nobody could have called me a prig after that, 
 could they? Not even you, Kevin." Suddenly her 
 face became a confusion of wavering crimson; she 
 slipped from my arms on to her knees beside the 
 chair, and gabbled on. 
 
 "Directly I told him the others weren't coming — 
 on the platform — he looked sort of pleased that I 
 should have turned up after all — as though ... oh 
 
238 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 ... as though it were because of him — I couldn't 
 bear that he should think so — any man"; the stung 
 pride vibrated in her tone. "Oh, Kevin, I ran 
 away!" she finished simply. 
 
 "To me . . ." 
 
 "Yes. But you've made love to me, too, Kevin, in 
 a way." 
 
 "I've made love to you because I love you." 
 
 "Do you? Truly?" with gaze as frank and 
 direct as while together we had chased Lulu among 
 the corn. "Like Vernie Frome?" 
 
 "No. Not a bit like Vernie Frome. Babs, will 
 you marry me?" 
 
 I waited for her to mention Larry — and indeed, 
 despite his careless permission and blessing, I felt a 
 shade the traitor in this wooing of Barbara. But she 
 did not mention Larry. 
 
 "I suppose even if I married you, I couldn't stop 
 here straight away? But I don't want to go home and 
 face them, one bit. It's such a muddle — ^they know 
 now, thanks to that idiot Edie, that I knew what I 
 was doing this morning and lied — or at least didn't 
 say anything; and they'll wonder why, and I'll have 
 to explain my motives; and then, even if they ap- 
 proved or — or admired me at all, they'd wonder why 
 I'd come back already; and then I. shall have to 
 explain that I was such a duffer that I couldn't pull it 
 through. Kevin, I have made a mess of it!" 
 
 There certainly did seem to be an alarming amount 
 of her private psychology which Barbara would have 
 
THE DYNASTY 239 
 
 to lay bare for family analysis, before the Setons 
 would suffer her to depart to bed — I winced sen- 
 sitively in anticipation of some of Kate's choicer 
 remarks. 
 
 "Shall I say that I had invited you to do a show 
 and supper with me this evening? And specially 
 asked you not to say anything to them because I 
 intended to propose to you, and was feeling shy about 
 it? So you reluctantly consented, wondering why. 
 And therefore took your suit-case, allowing them to 
 suppose you were going for the week-end. And I 
 had made a mistake in the appointment. And be- 
 came alarmed. And turned up to fetch you. And 
 then suddenly adjusted my mistake and dashed off 
 to the right meeting-place — I did leave rather sud- 
 denly. And we'll walk in now, quite happily, and 
 kneel before Micky and ask his blessing. Shall we, 
 Barbara?" 
 
 "Do you mean to say," said she, in a stunned 
 whisper, "that you just made up all that story while 
 we were sitting here?" 
 
 It was plain that my imaginative proficiency 
 appalled her; and not without justice, I accused her 
 of being an unreasonable young woman. Here I was 
 ready to perjure myself to any lengths by good stout 
 lying, solely in order to extricate her from a predica- 
 ment which in itself was compounded all of false- 
 hood. 
 
 "Yes," argued Barbara, "but then nobody believed 
 me, and it's all been found out." 
 
240 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "So you are prepared to assert that a lie which 
 comes off is more vile in substance than a lie which is 
 bungled?" 
 
 She nodded, her mouth mutinously curved. 
 
 "Henceforth, Barbara," I exclaimed in polite 
 wrath, "you shall be allowed to stew in your own juice 
 — of an inferior make and quality. I have spoken." 
 
 Barbara's lips quivered slightly — was it pathos or 
 in misplaced humour? 
 
 "Kevin!" 
 
 Deeply occupied with my tobacco-pouch, I took no 
 notice. 
 
 "Kevin, I know I'm right. But we'll pretend I'm 
 wrong, if you like. Because I have been wrong once 
 or twice, and may be this time, perhaps, though I'm 
 sure I'm not." 
 
 "Your apology is insufficient. Continue therefore 
 to stew." 
 
 "Oh dear!" A lengthy pause followed the 
 sigh. Then, as though in self-communion: "And 
 Mums said he could be so easily managed. . . ." 
 
 "Your mother's psychology, as usual, was in error 
 — nor is it any good trying to 'manage' me by playing 
 winsomely with Potter, my child. You merely give a 
 Coloured Xmas Supplement effect to a room other- 
 wise in good taste; and Potter and I remain un- 
 moved. He's not that sort of dog! Neither am I," 
 as Barbara, with a delicious gurgle of mirth, trans- 
 ferred her caress from the bulldog to me. 
 
 "I do rather love you, Kevin." 
 
THE DYNASTY 241 
 
 "Think I want to be 'rather' loved?" 
 
 She interpreted that as a snub, to the effect that 
 her lips rubbed against my cheek was a sensation 
 distasteful to me. All the sparkle and the mischief 
 and the coax passed out of her. Downcast, yet with a 
 forlorn air of dignity, she let fall her arms, withdrew 
 her friendliness, crossed the room, and picked up her 
 suit-case. 
 
 "Good-bye. You've been very kind to me. It 
 was very good of you to have proposed what you did. 
 But I've decided to tell them the truth at home. 
 Good-bye." 
 
 I limped after her and caught her at the door: 
 "You little goose in a china-shop!" 
 
 The suit-case dropped — fell open — a revolver 
 clattered out. 
 
 I picked it up in utter astonishment, and recog- 
 nized it as the one with which Ned used to threat- 
 en our community at Porthgollan. "What's this 
 for?" 
 
 "Vemie Frome," she answered simply. "I thought 
 I'd better take it with me." 
 
 I bit back a storm of laughter at the Motion: 
 maidenhood, determined to redeem itself from an 
 accusation of priggishness, lightly tripping forth to 
 light adventure — and all the while heavily armed to 
 the teeth against a complacent and unconscious 
 Captain Frome. 
 
 "And do you carry a bayonet concealed, when 
 you're invited out to afternoon tea, Babs?" 
 
242 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 "It wasn't for tea, this time," she rebuked me 
 gravely. 
 
 "I'm sorry, dear" — I was suddenly fiercely glad of 
 the revolver . . . and of the intention which had 
 been in her soul. Her sincerity swept away melo- 
 drama. There was a straight flung, a royal element 
 in it. Royal? — I asked her if she remembered 
 when we sat on the Minneys, and were King and 
 Queen of Cornwall. 
 
 "Yes. Wasn't I an infant still, then? Kev, were 
 you serious when you asked me to marry you?" 
 
 " 'M! Fairly serious. . . ." 
 
 "Because Mums would be most awfully pleased. 
 And Micky, too." 
 
 "And I'd be most awfully pleased, too. . , . 
 There remains you, Barbara. You're an important 
 accessory before the fact, you see." 
 
 "Do I love you, Kev?" 
 
 "Do you? Think it over quietly, child?" But I 
 was wondering how much longer I could control my- 
 self to this calmly impersonal strain. 
 
 I picked up the revolver; and while she thought it 
 over quietly at the window, her back to the room, I 
 amused myself by loading the chambers from the bag 
 of cartridges which had likewise rolled out of the 
 suit-case. 
 
 "I'd rather marry you than anybody else I know, 
 Kev." 
 
 I was not elated by the concession. 
 
THEDYNASTY 243 
 
 "And — and it would be an easy way out of all the 
 fuss if we went back home to-night with the lie — 
 with the explanation you so cleverly invented just 
 
 now." 
 
 "The fruits of my imaginative faculties are at your 
 
 service." 
 
 With hands clasped behind her back, and soft chin 
 tilted upwards, she gravely surveyed me, while she 
 enumerated the various points in favour of our union. 
 The sight of her thus, cool and adorable, provoked 
 me to the same impulse of worshipping destruction 
 as sometimes the first sight of a wild cherry tree in 
 blossom, its pure snows quite serenely unaware of a 
 black, screaming March sky behind it. 
 
 "And I feel safer with you than with anybody, 
 Kev." 
 
 I silently handed her the revolver. 
 
 "Why — why do you give me this?" 
 
 "Why were you taking it with you to the bunga- 
 low?" 
 
 "But — you're different from . . . me/i," she 
 pleaded. 
 
 "Men are only one man and another man and an- 
 other, put together. I'm one man, Babs . . . and I 
 love you." 
 
 Slowly she laid down the weapon on the desk, to 
 free her hands; held them out towards me. 
 
 "I'm not sure, Kevin. But I'd like to try. Will 
 that do? Is that good enough?" 
 
244 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 [5] 
 
 "It's what I wanted for Babs, all along!" 
 
 The Seton children, including Henry and Barbara, 
 had been sent off to bed ; and Kate and I were left to 
 discussion of a confidential nature. 
 
 'It's what I wanted the whole time we were in Porth- 
 gollan together." 
 
 "And you never even let me ever so remotely sus- 
 pect it!" I exclaimed in Henry Jamesian wonderment. 
 
 She withered me with a glance: 
 
 "Sarcasm doesn't go with your looks, young man!" 
 
 [6] 
 
 We were married in September of 1915. I had 
 applied for and been allotted a job in the War Office, 
 suitable to my decrepit condition; and swept Barbara 
 off for a fortnight's honeymoon in North Devon, be- 
 fore harsh walls, filmed and speckled windows, the 
 smell of blotting-paper, and the voices of old men bid- 
 ding other old men file an application for future ref- 
 erence, finally encompassed me. 
 
 . . . Great slopes of bracken, down the low hills, 
 and breaking across the level path, and slanting away 
 again to the sea's edge; russet and amber 
 shadows, and orange tips aflame, and over it all the 
 tremble and shimmer of purple. Bracken waist-high, 
 shoulder-high, brushed and broke against Barbara's 
 
THE DYNASTY 245 
 
 headlong trample from the hills down to a strip of 
 sand invisible from above — it looked as though the 
 tawny waves and the blue-green waves met and 
 mingled. I lay half-way, contentedly prone on the 
 oasis of moss and boulder and sawn, damp pine-logs, 
 and watched her . . . swift, beautiful creature of 
 whom I had actually cheated the Larry-dynasty. 
 Our honeymoon was drunk with bracken, with the 
 colour of it, and the warm, reeking fragrance of it. 
 And I gained again what two or three times before 
 had been mine — playing at kings and queens, for in- 
 stance, among the pink sea-thrift on the Minneys — a 
 sense of perfect immunity from my obsession of 
 Larry Munro, and the exaggerated perception of a 
 conspiracy which would ever award him what was my 
 due. Was not Barbara, crashing towards me through 
 the bright sway of fern-forest, proof of such immun- 
 ity? Barbara had been beside me along the sea- 
 thrift too; hers was the healing magic; but then she 
 had evaded me, and become Larry's property. Now 
 she was all mine, and the healing would endure. I 
 exulted in my mind's lightness and liberation . . . 
 and once or twice it seemed, quaintly, as though I only 
 desired still the presence and comradeship of Larry 
 himself, as token that I could love him without hate — 
 young dragon-slayer whom I had last seen so careless 
 of love, and taut for battle. I was aware quite clearly 
 that I had been close to madness that time in Cornwall. 
 It was just as well that my mania had passed 
 
246 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 away in a medley of war and wounds, and later happi- 
 ness; for with every attack it had bitten a greater area 
 of sanity — I dared not contemplate re-visitation. 
 But the more I thought of Larry, the less I could 
 realize my sullen morbid, raging hostility — 
 
 I was eager to talk about him to Babs, to test my 
 new freedom, stretch my cramped limbs in it and 
 luxuriate. But she was sensitive of hearing 
 the name of her one-time lover; linked on to Larry 
 were certain youthful exploits in the broken-china 
 line which she was only too anxious to forget . . . 
 and accustomed to Seton tact in the bulk, she would 
 watch me, in sidelong apprehension of an un- 
 forgivable reminder, till, as in amused mercy I 
 drew away from the subject, she breathed thank- 
 fulness. 
 
 I wonder if Barbara minded that I could not race 
 with her, buffeting aside with our bodies the rigid 
 stems and feathery tufts of bracken, down and down 
 through all that golden and red-brown splendour, to 
 the sea's edge. 
 
 "Let us rather be philosophical than maudlin, 
 Potter. And reflect with profit upon the utter nui- 
 sance of a slow, painful, laborious, and tiring up- 
 ward passage against the leaning bracken, which is the 
 penalty of all creatures whose legs of identical length 
 and strength primarily tempt them to the folly of de- 
 scent!" 
 
 I understood Potter to say, "Yes, that was all very 
 well, but " 
 
THE DYNASTY 247 
 
 [7] 
 
 As Larry's one-time financee, Barbara would have 
 been an embarrassing and embarrassed guest at the 
 house of either Prue or Felicity; and steadily refused 
 to visit either. I mentioned Felicity once as her 
 "mother-in-law," and Barbara stared perplexed at 
 me, unaware at the moment to whom I was referring. 
 Obviously Felicity was still "that horrid woman," who 
 had destroyed her first romance. And I am con- 
 vinced that had I spoken of "your daughter-in-law" to 
 Felicity, she would also have been unable to locate an 
 allusion to "that girl" . . . face which was a smudge 
 of white horror suddenly slipped into the frame of 
 French windows between herself and the garden be- 
 yond ; wide, staring eyes fixed on Larrikin . . . gone 
 . . . and beyond the window, nothing more than a 
 tangle of sunlit greenery. This was all Felicity knew 
 about the wife of her elder son — "She's quite pain- 
 fully young, isn't she, Kevin?" — yes, she remembered 
 that. 
 
 "Twenty." 
 
 "And does she still adore Larry? How typical of 
 you to become a mari complaisant, Kevin," presup- 
 posing my reply in the affirmative; "especially as 
 they're so out-of-date. You always remind me of the 
 Tate Gallery . . . quite good pictures, but nobody 
 goes to see them unless they can't afford a ticket for 
 the 'New Group' exhibition." 
 
 I offered my heartfelt if belated sympathy to Prue, 
 for those disconcerting moments when in mutual vigil 
 
248 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 over the shrine, Felicity would waywardly scatter the 
 sacred silence by irrelevant and not wholly respectful 
 allusion to the late Larry Munro; it was her fash- 
 ion not to preserve an atmosphere of hush round the 
 names of the two men she had loved. She rambled 
 on now, rather as one takes a walk without a fixed 
 destination, about Larry, his doings in France, the 
 possibilities of his passionate return to her, and the 
 reasons for his desertion; torturing the simple, cruel 
 truth of the matter into such ornate complexity that, 
 tragically, she ceased to be tragic and became weari- 
 some. Then, abstractedly and quite without malice, 
 she knifed me again : 
 
 "I suppose you won't let your wife see Larry, when 
 he gets his leave? No, you're quite right . . . much 
 better not. If he keeps away, she may learn to care 
 for you in time, with your looks ; and it's 
 not as though you were stolid or unintelligent . . . 
 on the contrary; I wonder how it is Nina Barclay was 
 always crazy about you? — but the witch who cursed 
 you at birth must have laid down a law 'he shall love 
 where he is not loved.' Are you in love with her, by 
 the way?" 
 
 "The Hon. Nina? No. She pesters me to buy 
 flags." 
 
 Felicity had meant Barbara, of course, but she had 
 forgotten this by the time I came to the flags. 
 
 "Is it Nina who works up her sales by displaying a 
 placard with: 'What about Albania?' on it? It 
 worries me so because I'm not sure what about it — I 
 
THE DYNASTY 249 
 
 mean whether I ought to look revengeful or commis- 
 erating. I suppose it does as well if I gave her four- 
 pence? It seems silly, though, to the daughter of a 
 millionaire-peer. Have you noticed how bewil- 
 dered a man looks, poor thing, when he walks away 
 after the purchase? as though he were a brute but not 
 quite sure why, or whether the girls are martyrs of- 
 fering themselves up for sacrifice to him or to the cold 
 weather or to Gallant Little Bosnia, or if he ought to 
 have accepted her and refused her change, or both, or 
 wrapped her in half his overcoat like the saints. . . . 
 Why will they dress them in white muslin in a high 
 wind? It's really asking for it in a way; a nice man 
 walking away is bound to feel rather like the answer 
 to the old riddle — 'No, thanks, I don't do that either!' 
 It wasn't a riddle, though — it was heard in a railway- 
 carriage " 
 
 "Which reminds me, when is the children's half- 
 term holiday? I thought of running down to Thyme 
 Croft." 
 
 (A slightly hysterical version of my impolite reply 
 to the Hon. Nina Barclay when she offered me a 
 flag: "No thanks," etc., was soon in circulation 
 throughout London; I suppose I clouded Felicity's 
 accuracy by my abrupt interruption.) 
 
 "Oh, I've arranged for Larrikin to be brought up 
 for the half -holiday; I've promised him Maskelyne 
 and Devant's, with ices before and after. The 
 monkey! he actually dares to stipulate his own terms. 
 He can't write yet, so he dictates them to Yo." 
 
250 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 I raised my brows. "And does Yo likewise stipu- 
 late, or only draw up the treaty?" 
 
 "Two children are a nuisance to take out," said 
 Felicity evasively. "Has Prue got the workmen out 
 of her house yet?" 
 
 "Why — ^how did you know?" 
 
 "I passed there. She'll be cross if they hang about 
 too long . . . the stair-carpet — Prue was always so 
 funny about that ugly old stair-carpet. . . ." 
 
 [8] 
 
 "Babs!" 
 
 "Yes, dear?" She looked up inquiringly at my 
 impetuous return from a visit to Thyme Croft. 
 
 "Babs." Again I halted. And if ever a mono- 
 syllable implied guilt, embarrassment, confession, 
 shame, and a plea for pardon, my double pronounce- 
 ment of her name must have done so. 
 
 "You've backed a horse," asserted Barbara posi- 
 tively, "and it has lost, heavily." She prepared 
 herself to face ruin. 
 
 "War-time? You're mediaeval, my child. Look 
 here, Babs." I crossed the room, bent over her 
 from behind, and took her hands. Some difficult 
 negotiation lay before me, and miust not be 
 unduly rushed. . . . "Do you remember Neb- 
 uchadnezzar?" 
 
 One might have thought, after two years, that the 
 topic of the late field-mouse, however abruptly 
 
THE DYNASTY 251 
 
 brought into conversation, was a safe one. But Bar- 
 bara's lips quivered — "The darling, oh, the darling! 
 it died. . . . Oh, Kev, the way its rough wee pink 
 tongue scraped my finger! and its little blue shrivelled 
 nose!" 
 
 "Quite so. Well — I've brought Yo home and 
 adopted her," impatiently in a phrase scattering my 
 own diplomacy. 
 
 "Yo?" 
 
 "My little step-sister." 
 
 "I didn't know you had a step-sister, Kevin." 
 Barbara was utterly perplexed. 
 
 "My dear — think a minute." 
 
 "Larry's?" she whispered after a pause. From 
 my lounging attitude over the back of her chair I 
 could only see her cheek's pure inexpressive curve — 
 but her hands had pulled away from mine. 
 
 "Can't you trust me, dear? Babs — you brought 
 Nebuchadnezzar home with you that time." 
 
 I may have been relying ignominiously on a dead 
 field-mouse of tender years — but my memory of 
 Barbara's one introduction to Yo was not encourag- 
 ing. And when a man is married, he cannot very well 
 introduce stray children as a permanency into the 
 home, without some little approval from his wife. I 
 was feverishly anxious to gain Barbara's approval for 
 an act of which I could not possibly explain to her 
 the full significance. 
 
 For the conspiracy was working downwards 
 through the generations — and as I in childhood had 
 
252 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 suffered from Larry's absorption of the love due to 
 me, here again was Yo, mute and fierce and dogged, 
 in the like situation. Easy for me to divine what 
 it cost her to see Felicity metaphorically bleeding 
 tenderness over Larrikin — son of her second love, 
 who was son of her first love; for there was no 
 one but Larry and Larry and again Larry . . . but 
 the pressure against Yo's very existence must have 
 been suffocating. And if I did not rescue her, who 
 would? Who but I could divine to a fraction of 
 detail the waxing exasperation of the Larry-saga 
 perpetually sung, Larry-idolatry perpetually prac- 
 tised? ... Yo came in nowhere, had no chance, 
 was not studied, received no petting, was never 
 assigned the occasional throne of importance so sooth- 
 ing to one's infant self-esteem. Yo was superfluous — 
 not even the victim of active cruelty. Oh, I knew — I 
 knew life up against Larry was one eternal bruise. 
 And in a very passion of pity, a final surge of hot 
 indignation at some trivial neglect of her which I 
 had today witnessed, I announced my intention to 
 Felicity of adopting the child — "What curious things 
 you do, Kevin!" — and swept her off with me then and 
 there. Indeed, free of the web as I was myself, 
 it seemed my plain 'duty — if the word "plain" could 
 be used at all in connection with our ravelled desti- 
 nies. Also it pleased me to think that I had baffled the 
 conspiracy of its victim. And it was not until we 
 were in Middle Inn Gardens, and practically pn the 
 
THE DYNASTY 253 
 
 tlireshold of my door, that I remembered how special 
 strands of the web had once knotted and stretched and 
 snapped between Barbara Seton and Felicity and 
 those babes of Larry Munro. . . . 
 
 What would Barbara say? 
 
 But Barbara astonished me by a show of impulsive 
 common sense: "Well, as you say she wasn't happy 
 at home, she mustn't stop at home, poor baby! — and 
 that's an end of it. And now," triumphantly, "we 
 can move out of these smoky, poky dens of yours, into 
 an 'airy and commodious residence' with a garden, fit 
 for children to romp in. Hempstead Heath would 
 be jolly." 
 
 "Rather too large, surely?" 
 
 She routed my sarcasm with energy: "I'll go 
 and rent a house tomorrow, and take Yo with me — 
 and then we'll go and buy a cot and ices, and a 
 rocking-horse and some rabbits — it's a good thing 
 you're fairly rich, Kevin, and it's no good grumbling 
 at expense — you'll never be able to do that again now 
 — " as though I had ever dared to do so before! 
 "How old is she, by the way? and has she got any lug- 
 gage? Oh, and where is the kiddie herself? 
 Kevin," furiously stamping her foot at me, "you 
 haven't been idiot enough to leave her standing down- 
 stairs as though she wasn't wanted? How could 
 you?" My wife flew out of the front door, and I 
 limped after her . . . then, smiling, halted on the 
 first landing — and listened. . . , 
 
254 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 I legalized our adoption of Yo, so that there should 
 be no future interrogation about it. Queer that there 
 was no need to change the name — officially she was 
 already Yolande Somers, my father's name. But 
 Gilbert Somers stood so far away in time and in 
 humanity from this scrap of a child, that "Yo 
 Somers," still struck me with a sense of inapplication 
 and shock. 
 
 Yo throve in transplantation, but rendered up 
 neither her fierceness nor her reticence. We all 
 respected each other's secrets, however, and so got on 
 capitally. I was not sure if she missed Larrikin, if 
 she had hated or loved him — or both, as one was 
 wont to do with all the Larrys. Certainly she never 
 demanded to go home; never spoke of home, nor 
 of Felicity; and scowled rather less defiantly at the 
 outer world than of yore, through her shaggy gold 
 mop. 
 
 And once or twice, bathed and flushed and ready 
 for bed, I saw her as a mere naked, cuddlesome 
 baby on Barbara's lap; her toes kicking rapturously 
 at the prospect of a romp; or else too drowsy even 
 to appreciate the story on which her latent sense 
 of privilege sternly insisted. 
 
 "Not wild beasts tonight; it makes her dream, 
 Kev." 
 
 "But, Babs, she doesn't like any other kind." 
 
 "Try her with a fairy tale — not too priggish, of 
 course, but — Oh, green and gold, with three wishes 
 
THE DYNASTY 255 
 
 and a red rose-bud, and a talking frog, and a glass 
 mountain, and a happy ending. Try it, it's quite 
 easy!" 
 
 I promised miserably to do my best. But under 
 Yo's subtle tutelage, the talking frog permitted to 
 us became a sweet little grey squirrel; and the sweet 
 little grey squirrel became a friendly grey wolf, 
 and the friendly part of it somehow became 
 hungry. . . . 
 
 "And so nothing was left of the gallant young 
 prince except a few splinters and shreds which Beauty 
 gathered up and gave decent burial under the red 
 rose-bush " 
 
 ''Kevin!'''' a horrified Barbara entered with the 
 night-light, and stood like a reproaching angel above 
 the small bed across which I lay, recumbent but 
 unrepentant. 
 
 "You told me to bring in a red rose-bush, and I 
 did. And the three wishes came in quite handy — 
 the hungry grey wolf wished most ardently for the 
 prince's heart, and the prince's lungs, and the prince's 
 liver " 
 
 "And he got 'em, too!" put in Yo, with a shriek 
 of retrospective delight. 
 
 "So you see it wus a happy ending — from 
 the wolf's point of view. And you're doing me a 
 bitter injustice." 
 
 Babs put down the night-light beside the cot; and 
 slipped one arm round Yo's warm body, excitedly 
 
256 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 plunging up and down in my defence, the other arm 
 about my shoulders. "You're nothing but a big 
 brown baby . . ." she whispered. 
 
 [9] 
 
 Our son was born in the autumn of 1916. 
 
 John Roger Somers, during the first year of his 
 undistinguished babyhood, did not, I confess, enchain 
 me greatly. I had expected that the helpless, feeble 
 clutch of his wee fingers would tug at my heart and 
 arouse it to an unspeakable ecstasy of tenderness — 
 as happens among the Very Best Fathers. But . . . 
 well, Barbara had nearly died against the wall of 
 that brutal cul-de-sac down which Nature forces her 
 women. And I fancied that her involuntary look 
 at me when I entered the room afterwards, held a 
 child's reproachful: "Why did you let it be as bad 
 as this?" ... By the time she was well again, 
 forgetfulness had folded petal-wise over the agony 
 of those hours. . . . But I remembered — and 
 frankly, I did not consider John Roger worth it. 
 
 Neither did Yo. She stated, when pressed for an 
 opinion, that she could just pnt up with John Roger 
 by assuming that he would one day figure usefully in 
 her games as an animal cub. And as Cub, or Cubby, 
 he was henceforth known to the household. 
 
 I cannot account for the bog of utter depression 
 in which I found myself stuck during the spring and 
 summer and autumn of 1917. Logically I was quite 
 
THE DYNASTY 257 
 
 unjustified. With a wife I adored; a pleasant home; 
 a fine son; no money worries; a serene consciousness 
 of having done my bit in the war, with just sufficient 
 damage to cancel necessity of future effort, and not 
 sufficient to render existence an actual misery. 
 
 Oh, yes, yes . . . but all this . . . while the 
 Germans were retreating from the Somme battle- 
 fields back to their much-vaunted Hindenburg line. 
 While the Vimy and Messines ridges had fallen. . . . 
 Later, when the bells pealed our victory at Cambrai — 
 our defeat at Cambrai. . . . 
 
 And Larry's letters, short, urgent, slang-bitten 
 letters, crammed with that unfailing exultation which 
 the airman especially seems to have wrung for him- 
 self out of Armageddon — made me feel as though I 
 had never been in the war; that my one month's grey 
 bubble, blown from froth and glimmer of soapsud 
 dreams, had collapsed so long ago as to be forgotten, 
 uncounted in any contemporary reckoning or future 
 acclamation of the dragon-slayers. 
 
 Legend had already sprung out of a certain fasci- 
 nating fantastic quality in these mere boys from 
 school and college, who invertedly had become 
 immortal while they still lived and battled; far-away 
 heroes of romance in the very stress and zenith of 
 their enjoyment of being. 
 
 In the old days a man fought and was mostly 
 inarticulate; one hailed him as a soldier merely. 
 Or else he was a poet, weak in body but great in 
 
258 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 creation, whose sole task was beautifully to exploit 
 the soldier. But nowadays, strangely, it seemed that 
 the young soldier and the young poet had established 
 a communion of one; blended strength of limb and 
 unashamed imagination. They could join up, and 
 proudly hail their very selves as chosen, privileged 
 and glorious; they could vaunt their own Crusade in 
 the midst of conflict; and eventually sing their own 
 requiem. The youth of the Great War was still 
 youth as it had always been — careless of danger, 
 impatient of "swank," keen on "stunts." They had 
 their creed and their jargon, in the old way — but 
 in a queer new way they were inspired to detached 
 vision of themselves as a picked and exalted brother- 
 hood of dragon-slayers. It was an age of restless 
 brains and consciousness sharpened to a point; even 
 before the war, youth had been in an impassioned 
 turmoil, alternately philosophic, questioning, and 
 rebellious; ambitions broken off at the start for very 
 haste to achieve the end ; feverish digging for beauty, 
 as though a cold whisper were already astir that 
 beauty lay too deep for their predestined limited 
 time on earth. And then, an answer to the question 
 of frank, mutinous eyes under their thoughtful 
 brows, this vital necessity to say all that was to be said 
 as rapidly and as simply as possible ... or they 
 would be lost; for an invitation had arrived to enlist 
 for Death in Good Company ; and must unhesitatingly 
 be accepted. 
 
THE DYNASTY 259 
 
 And we went — God, yes — at least I was in that! — 
 the first thronging rush to arms; those first weeks of 
 blindfold enthusiasm, of lean and arduous training, 
 of readiness poised for whatever contingency. But — 
 I had soon forfeited my place in the good company — 
 left without even the stale comfort of wheezing and 
 chuckling about my entirely ordinary experiences, 
 with my fellow- veterans ; experiences that were over- 
 laid, fifty times overlaid by now, with names and 
 news perpetually dropping; for people in war-time 
 ride on the swift edge of the present hour . . . and 
 reminiscences of a month in the quiet part of the line 
 in 1915 could be wedged nowhere into the packed 
 chronicles of 1917. 
 
 My useful job at the War Office might receive due 
 printed acknowledgment from, posterity — but it had 
 very little apparent bearing on the war itself. 
 
 I would grow old and prosy and slothful in a world 
 for which the dragon-slayers had died; their moment 
 of death would harden and get fixed into a glorious 
 frieze round the very rim of the world . . . and so 
 their vivid youth would endure, and their gallantry. 
 But dragons would rear their heads again, as dragons 
 are bound to do. And I, grown older, grown old, 
 would merely yawn in forgetfulness of effort, and 
 bid the lads go into the strife, and leave me to the 
 benefits of my years. And finally I would die, die 
 and be dead, as the dragon-slayers had never 
 died. . . . 
 
260 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 [10] 
 
 I was saved from this swamp of selfish melancholy 
 — which must have been excessively trying for all 
 those who had perforce to live with me — by the fact 
 of the Cub going into knickerbockers. "He won't 
 be two till September, and this is only March — ^but 
 look at the size of him, Kevin ! he's going to be as big 
 and broad as you. And he's simply ridiculous in 
 dainty muslin frocks." 
 
 I duly looked at my son; at his sturdy, round, 
 brown limbs bursting out of their confining brown 
 jersey suit; at his smooth, round, brown head; an air 
 of indifferent challenge in the round, brown, back- 
 curve of him, as he bent over a wooden horse on 
 wheels. And I discovered that the Cub was irresist- 
 ible, and that the Cub was mine. 
 
 I suppose this sudden conversion on my part, 
 corresponded with the heart-throb that ought to have 
 occurred when the feeble clutch of baby fingers, etc. ; 
 I was a year and a half late with my paternal 
 emotions. It was not the Cub's helplessness which 
 appealed to me, however, — it was an emanation from 
 him of solemn trust that the world was good, trust that 
 it was my obvious business to preserve whole and un- 
 chipped. 
 
 Even when passionate, Cubby somehow gave an 
 impression of deep inner serenity which was sure 
 that this annoying surface vexation would soon right 
 itself. And his uncontrollable gurgles of mirth, and 
 deep baying shouts when enthusiasm was aroused. 
 
THE DYNASTY 261 
 
 Oh — call me a fool! call him an ordinary small 
 boy like other small boys, as no doubt he was. But, 
 witness Micky and Larrikin, the genus at all ages held 
 a special attraction for me ; and Cubby was mine, 
 made in my image — and out of my love for Barbara. 
 
 He was very much a Seton by temperament. 
 There was no fantasy about the Setons; they were 
 real; likewise Cubby. I should have been bitterly 
 ashamed of a child who was wistful and frail and 
 misunderstood. . . . 
 
 Through Cubby, my peevish outlook on the war 
 adjusted itself: We were fighting for the next 
 generation; Cubby was the next generation. Even 
 the war was simple, whittled down to personal 
 application. And though I still chafed at my in- 
 action, I would not willingly have missed this precious 
 development of Cubby into a man and a brother. 
 
 "Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor." 
 
 "Which?" Kate asked, beaming on a son-in-law 
 who had shown sufficient intelligence not to encumber 
 the Seton family with yet another nice, normal girl. 
 I shudder to think how our novelist would have 
 blasphemed had Barbara dared to repeat her sex! 
 
 "Tinker, I think!" 
 
 We were spending a week's holiday, vouchsafed 
 me by my department, at The Shoe — Kate and Henry, 
 Babs, Yo, Cubby and myself. Ned was in Meso- 
 potamia, and Micky drilling vigorously in the O.T.C. 
 
 "Soldiers will be extinct, a rara-avis in the great 
 
262 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 World-Peacd following this great World-War — 
 I dorCt fink, as Yo would say. Sailor? — sailors are 
 bound to be agile, for the hauling of ropes and the 
 dancing of hornpipes. The Cub, you may have 
 observed, is fundamentally slow-moving." 
 
 "I'm glad of it," said Kate; "he is not far from 
 the edge of the cliff now, and advancing steadily 
 towards it, but if, as you say, he's slow-moving, it 
 may give Babs time to reach him. . . ." 
 
 We lay among the sandhills, and watched Barbara, 
 with flying hair spread to dry after bathing, and in 
 appearance still very much the goose-girl of nursery 
 rhymes, running swiftly in the distance to the rescue 
 of her offspring. 
 
 "We won't look," Kate remarked cheerily; "it's 
 best not; pull your hat over your eyes, Kevin; I'll 
 tell you when the worst has happened. What about 
 tailor?" 
 
 "If he inherits his grandam's instinct of cut and 
 colour — no. Tell me, Kate, are you now wearing 
 the identical red plush tea-gown and bare feet in 
 which you first greeted my arrival at The Shoe?" 
 
 "The same feet, but — let me see, the fourteenth of 
 a long line of tea-gowns. Why not? I detest 
 thinking out fresh fashions — and red suits me." 
 
 "And what's happened to the other thirteen?" 
 
 "Your son is saved — you miay look again. 
 Saved to be a tinker." 
 
 "A philosophic tinker. The type that rambles and 
 ruminates, of a kind that never was on land or sea, 
 
THE DYNASTY 263 
 
 but only in picaresque fiction. A shrewd and wise 
 and contented tinker. Is it my fancy, Kate, that 
 Cubby is by nature shrewd and wise and contented, 
 as well as altogether beautiful and remarkable?" 
 
 "Not a patch on Micky. But a tolerably nice 
 child. Pull yourself together, Kevin. You always 
 had a trick of over-estimating people; there was that 
 very ordinary young man, Larry Munro, for 
 instance. ..." 
 
 [11] 
 
 ^'Dear old Kev, 
 
 "Got back to the crowd here after four 
 days in Paris, to find the Bosche very active and 
 hostile, and plenty much work doing. Had a top-hole 
 time in Paris. I went down the line in a lorry, 
 officially to examine some new Ack-ack sights for the 
 Lewis gun, but really to live for a while in splendour 
 and magnificence at the Hotel Elysee. Arrived in 
 Paris and bathed luxuriously, and clad myself in my 
 most elegant gent's flying suiting. After lapping up 
 two very fine cocktails — remind me to show you how 
 to make them one day, old man — I sallied forth in 
 search of adventure. By extraordinary luck I ran 
 into Armand St. Just, Captain of Chasseurs Alpins, 
 and as smart as paint. I met him once when he was 
 pretending to be a liaison officer, and found him a 
 thoroughly stout fellow. We saluted on both cheeks 
 — like the Kaiser and the King — or isn't this tactful? 
 
264 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 'Ce cher St. Just!' 'Munro, mon gars, you have the 
 leave, yes? Then will I show you Paris.' 
 
 "He did — and with such zest that I missed my 
 
 train to B , where I had to meet a draft and take 
 
 'em along. I arrived about five hours late, and 
 sought out the R.T.O. He, of course, was nowhere 
 to be found — probably tasting rum to see it wasn't 
 too fierce for our gallant lads, etc., etc. However, 
 I found a sergeant, who was quite sympathetic, but 
 could offer no solution. The damned R.T.O. had 
 gone off in his car, the swine, or I'd have felled him 
 and pinched it. 
 
 "Eventually I slid off, and drifted into an estaminet 
 in the Rue de St. Paul; I was the only visitor, and I 
 was served by the fair hands of — Marie Blanche, her 
 name was, Kev, and not half bad! She adored me at 
 once, and by-and-bye I found myself telling her all 
 my troubles. 'Attendez, monsieur' — she rushed into 
 the back room, and returned shortly, proudly 
 wheeling a push-bike — a girl's push-bike, Kev, at 
 least a hundred years old! But it might save me — 
 I gave her 20 francs for it — all I had left — and 
 kissed her rather wistful little mouth; then I rode off 
 amid fanfares of trumpets and loud shouts of delight 
 from the populace. 
 
 "I knew the general direction, the roads happened 
 to be pretty good, and you know what troop trains are 
 in France. After four hours or so good solid 
 pedalling, I found the train lying about in a field and 
 
THE DYNASTY 26b 
 
 hooting disconsolately. I threw my trusty bike away 
 and sprang aboard . . . and that's all. 
 
 "How's Yo? I've often wondered why you 
 adopted her — you're a queer devil, Kev. But bring 
 her up not to smoke till she's in her teens, and keep 
 your language pure in her presence, and she may 
 grow up a credit to me! I heard when I was in 
 Blighty about six months ago that you were also a 
 father! My daughter to your son . . . wot about it? 
 Pity the ages don't fit. 
 
 "Love to Babs. 
 
 "Yours, 
 
 "Larry." 
 
 Somebody plucked at a muted string, and it 
 twanged once, irritably. . . . Then a voice said, 
 laughing: "Banjo solos for two. . . ." 
 
 It was a jolly letter; I read it to Barbara, and we 
 both reviled Larry for not having hunted us up when 
 on his last leave — "But these R.A.F. fellows choose 
 to have a roaring time when they get back — and we're 
 a bit domestic with our houseful of brats." 
 
 "Only one of them happens to be Larry's 
 brat," she reminded me gaily . . . Then, as though 
 at the sound of her words, the hot blood crept slowly 
 up her neck and poured into her cheeks. 
 
 The children were playing with a giant Noah's Ark 
 on the lawn quite near. She called out: "Yo, I've 
 got a treat for you — conie indoors!" The two 
 
266 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 whispered eagerly for an instant, Bab's lips pressed 
 against Yo's ear; then, the latter hurrahing at 
 the top of her pitch, they ran into the house. 
 
 Cubby, suddenly abandoned, looked round for his 
 playmate, then for his mother. Finding neither, he 
 pondered awhile; then pugnaciously decided to make 
 the best of it and not cry, . . . but there seemed 
 to me a forlorn quality in his back curve as he bent to 
 pick up the animals knocked over by Yo in her 
 flight. 
 
 Always susceptible to the Cub's back curve, I was 
 slightly annoyed with Barbara — ^Why should not the 
 treat have been equally for both babies? 
 
 The little scene, just over, re-enacted its gestures in 
 my brain as though by clockwork marionettes. . . . 
 It was entirely familiar; had happened before, a great 
 deal oftener than once; only / was Cubby and 
 
 With the shattering violence that burst apart the 
 very seams of the sky, the old sick Larry-conspiracy 
 pounced on me out of the past. . . . 
 
 Screaming, it shook me, twisted me and tore me: 
 "You did it yourself! You did it yourself!" Yes, 
 I, who in my arrogance had thought to have escaped 
 from the cursed zone, had deliberately gone back 
 into it to fetch out Yo and lift her into this established 
 sanctuary, Larry's child with my child. 
 
 Oh, the conspiracy was not by any means worn out. 
 Of far too diabolically tough and sinuous material, it 
 had merely stretched its capacity for torture into the 
 next generation. 
 
THE DYNASTY 267 
 
 Cubby. . . . 
 
 "Cub — take that poultry out of your mouth." 
 
 Sorrowfully he eyed me. I repeated my 
 command, sure that that peculiarly vivid shade of 
 cockscomb was not wholesome. He took it out of 
 his mouth and threw it at me — then sat down plumply 
 on the grass and chuckled, happy again. . . . 
 
 Cubby had got to remain happy, if I murdered Yo 
 for it. 
 
 Up till now, I had been deadly afraid that this new 
 phase of an old drama would reduce me to madness. 
 I had been near enough to it that last time in Corn- 
 wall, and through the reeling air had dinged a 
 warning. . . . But now I was no more afraid. The 
 decision had spurted with such simplicity straight out 
 of the instinct of self-preservation. For my son was 
 myself, a thousand times intensified. Wliilst the 
 conspiracy had been personally directed against ego, 
 my hate of Larry was too intricate, too tangled up 
 with love, to allow of stark action. But what 
 threatened the Cub and his peace of mind went 
 beyond all complexity ; and I was sane in his defence, 
 so sane that it felt as though the clean, steeled edges 
 of my mind could clash and cut. 
 
 If Yo were perilous to one fraction of his present 
 and his future happiness, then Yo must be eliminated. 
 Elimination, if it were to be complete, meant murder. 
 I, lonely sentry who had betrayed my vigil, was the 
 only possible murderer. 
 
268 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 This settled ("It's aU right, Cubby, old 
 man" . . .) I could begin to think matters out in 
 detail and at leisure. I was rather interested in the 
 recurring process of this Larry-conspiracy. . . . 
 
 "It isn't a personal matter at all — Prue and Felicity 
 met and broke over Larry Munro — but there were 
 two Larry s, and then a third. And three times I 
 stretched out to Felicity across Larry Munro and his 
 son and his grandson, and couldn't reach her, touch 
 her even. . . . Then Barbara came into it — Larry 
 and I, and Barbara between us. And I won. And 
 now Yo and the Cub are in it — and I've lost what I 
 won . . . that doesn't matter. Only that / of all 
 people should have tried to save Yo from being 
 cramped out of existence by Larrikin, in his well- 
 known way — The Conspirator must have intended 
 that — cynical old brute! Babs and Yo — Babs with 
 Larry's child — how could I miss the significance? — 
 I had seen a mother before with Larry's child instead 
 of her own — seen? felt it . . . and then to blunder 
 stupidly, incredibly — But the Cub wasn't bom then 
 — my son. 
 
 "My son — ^Larry's daughter — So Babs still loves 
 him — best." 
 
 That hurt for a moment. I suppressed the hurt 
 sternly. Except as they affected the Cub, my conclu- 
 sions were squandered. For this was not an aimless 
 spilling of hate upon the ground, as when in Cornwall 
 I had witnessed Larry's intrusion. He had intruded 
 again — or the symbol representing him — and I must 
 
THE DYNASTY 269 
 
 lop away incoherence and waste of emotion, concen- 
 trate on vital attack — ^that the Cub should fulfil his 
 life; that the Cub should not be drained slowly, help- 
 lessly, unknowingly as I had been drained by that — 
 that damnable abstraction! 
 
 "For it is an abstraction, the Larry conspiracy. 
 . . . You suffer it — like Fate. Or machinery, 
 grinding itself out. . . . Oh, some conspirator must 
 have originally planned the machinery — Yet it almost 
 seems too elaborate to be focussed entirely on to 
 one quivering spot of life — ours — mine — 
 
 " — Can the whole universe be worked on this 
 system? Every man with his inevitable Larry?". . . 
 
 "Kevin, you'll be late — it's a quarter to nine. 
 And the King of Cornwall is due at Whitehall. What 
 an old dreamy -head you've been, just lately!" 
 
 "Right, dear. And I'll get the seats on my way 
 back — for Saturday night do we want them? Did 
 Micky say he could manage it? Good old Micky!" 
 
 . . . "Two inside . . . full up now . . . Outside 
 only — I said outside only, sir . . . Sorry, sir, 
 didn't notice. . . . Get in. . . ." 
 
 Umbrellas, and the stuffy smell of wet skirts in 
 the omnibus. If any penalty of crippledom is un- 
 utterably boring and degrading and horrible, it's the 
 necessity for ever to ride inside — 
 
 Every man with his inevitable Larry? 
 
 I was sure now, and for several days past I had 
 
270 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 been sure, that the idea which had toppled to me out 
 of space, solved the Conspirator's perplexing riddle. 
 . . . The Mad Hatter had been the first to shriek it: 
 "No room! No room!" "There's plenty of room!" 
 said Alice — and sat down. But the Mad Hatter knew 
 best. 
 
 Where two humans existed were only space and 
 place for one; love for one; achievement for one. 
 Each man, dimly aware of this pressure, would, if 
 asked, own to a particular aversion that a certain other 
 individual should have all the luck. Few natures 
 are universally jealous. Yet jealousy is everywhere 
 rampant — people are jealous of people-in-particular. 
 "I don't grudge it her — or him" — the phrase abounds. 
 . . . No, of course you don't, when your Larry-nerve 
 isn't twanged. You, John Robinson — grumbling at 
 some lack; but your every desire is fulfilled, it is 
 the distribution of fulfilment that has gone wrong. 
 . . . William Brown has the positive to your 
 negative — if you were fitted together, the two of you, 
 one man completely satisfied would be the result. 
 
 . . And so William Brown irritates you, you 
 begrudge his apparently irrelevant strokes of luck 
 in the same measure as Harry Thompson's leave you 
 unmoved. . . . Why yes, man — don't you see? it's 
 just the old affinity belief made reversible . . . each 
 soul with its affinity on earth . . . each soul with 
 its Larry on earth — William Brown is your Larry — 
 perhaps his father and your father — perhaps his son 
 and your son — have been and will be similarly in- 
 
THE DYNASTY 271 
 
 volved in the Conspirator's plot — backwards and 
 forwards — cross-currents, and cross-relations. . . . 
 
 And this is hatred. 
 
 Hatred loose in the world; hatred usually- 
 supposed irrational. . . . Have I, set apart from 
 all men, been forewarned by a glimpse at the very 
 Machinery whence hatred comes crashing and grind- 
 ing? Indeed, it seemed to me now, standing a tiny 
 figure at the foot of realization, shunned and isolated, 
 that I was yet empowered by sudden vision to 
 brandish unawed defiance of his schemes in the 
 grinning face of the Conspirator himself. 
 
 Me you have mangled in your humorous device — 
 yes, how you must have chuckled when I stumbled 
 into fatuous guardianship of the child Yo! — Oh, I 
 grant you the fun of it — but with me it stops. You 
 made a mistake in stripping me of blindness — for, 
 now, aware and participant, I can save the Cub. 
 
 "Yes, Micky — an excellent show; what did you 
 think of the fighting bit in the last act? Du Maurier 
 wasn't expecting it, you know — it was an entirely 
 spontaneous notion on the part of the third super. 
 ... All right! Hands off! — I didn't mean it — 
 apologize. 'Fraid it's too late for supper anywhere, 
 old man. There's a European war in progress. . . . 
 Something about no drinks after you've ordered food 
 with it before half -past nine unless f'ou let the lady 
 pay for herself. I don't quite tumble to the stunt, 
 but it's the way to win the war." 
 
272 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 Child-murder. They were ugly words, especially 
 used in conjunction. And yet — I was not intending 
 to hurt Yo, only to stop her, as you might gently stop 
 the ticking of a clock by a finger laid on the pen- 
 dulum. If I let her live, would Yo ever stand, a 
 radiant, supple bit of girlhood, slightly pressing back- 
 wards against a man's hard arms, that she might 
 the more deliciously enjoy yielding? lie there with 
 hidden lips shaped to kiss, quiescent in happi- 
 ness? 
 
 Or was creation dormant under that strong, yellow 
 thatch of hers? Some divine picture unpainted 
 — an inspired poem unwritten — splendid limbs, un- 
 moulded as yet in statuary . . . she might well 
 have inherited Felicity's capricious genius. Was she 
 actress or musician in embryo? 
 
 Whatever it was — murdered. 
 
 Could that be called murder, which denied a child 
 ecstasy as yet only shadowed forth — immortality 
 unborn and only dreamt of? A negative form 
 of murder — "I can't stay to take pity for that." 
 . . . Fond of Yo — I was fond of Yo — but what 
 mere fondness could endure one second without 
 destruction in my possessive scorching passion for 
 my son? 
 
 I took very little notice of Cubby these days — 
 Mrs. Seton remarked that I was growing sensible. 
 I dared not show hinx natural petting affection 
 while I still had that to do on his behalf which was 
 — unnatural. Afterwards 
 
THE DYNASTY 273 
 
 For him, freed from the dynasty, fair running, and 
 no kick at the heels. He would grow up a dragon- 
 slayer, ardent and full of laughter. And for me, 
 what afterwards? I should, no doubt, be glad 
 enough to be hanged by the neck until I was dead, 
 which sounds a lengthy process, but is, I believe, a 
 swift drop to oblivion. But having mentally 
 promised Cubby fair running, I should hardly be 
 justified to start him with a father who had suffered 
 the extreme penalty of the law. 
 
 Easy to forget, these days, having been oneself a 
 disciple of the law. Almost all my briefs had been 
 criminal cases — minor criminals, certainly. Well, 
 I should have to arrange matters so as to be a mere 
 minor criminal; ignominious, but necessary — for 
 Cubby. Too much to hope for a verdict of 
 Accidental Death, I suppose . . . though I'll aim for 
 it. Manslaughter — three years — about that! From 
 their point of view what possible motive could I have 
 had, to murder Yo? — ^wicked, indigent step-brother 
 who lures heiress into his charge! . . . fortunately, 
 I get no obvious benefit from Yo's death. And 
 they'd all bear witness that I adopted the kid, and 
 
 If I just gave her back to Felicity? ... God, 
 I don't want to have to do murder, if I can help it. 
 
 "That's no good. Babs would never allow it . . . 
 worshipping her as she does — Larry's daughter. 
 She'd never allow it — for Larry's sake." 
 
 Babs . . . she'll think it funny that anything quite 
 so crude should happen in one's own house . . . 
 
274 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 murder is a thing that happens in the papers! or, 
 at the worst, to other people acquainted with people 
 who are acquaintances. 
 
 And Felicity? will she object? Yo happens to be 
 hers. ... I had forgotten that, too. Oh, but I 
 doubt if she ever noticed a daughter lying about — 
 she's got Larrikin. 
 
 Nobody will mind much. Barbara at first . . . 
 but when there's no rival, she'll give all she's got to 
 the Cub. Nobody will mind much — except Yo 
 herself, and she'll never know. 
 
 ril know. Three years — and then perhaps thirty, 
 forty years of knowing. Cubby, Cubby, it won't be 
 pleasant, little chap, to sleep and wake for forty years 
 with the knowledge of oneself as a child-murderer. 
 ... It was for that they denied me enrolment 
 among the dragon-slayers out there. 
 
 Never mind. Cub, my son. It's for you, instead. 
 Same thing .- . . only better. 
 
 [12] 
 
 "Bang! bang! bang!" 
 
 "Now I'm dead," said Yo, impersonating an 
 orang-outang of enormously ferocious tendencies. I, 
 Fernandez Bolingbroke, explorer, — the name was of 
 her choosing — had levelled my revolver full at the 
 brute's heart, while with the other hand I shaded my 
 eyes from the too dazzling rays of the mid-African 
 
THE DYNASTY 275 
 
 sun, and — bang! bang! bang! "I'm dead," said Yo. 
 
 Obviously she would have been, had the revolver 
 been loaded. . . . 
 
 We played the hunting game every night. It was 
 Yo's unvarying choice. Her role she altered from 
 time to time — tiger, panther, lion, bear, wild- 
 boar-constrictor (specially invented) . . . anything 
 of the deadly genus that slunk or prowled or 
 butted or gnashed or coiled. But to me was allotted 
 unwearyingly the part of Fernandez Bolingbrokje, 
 allowed an occasional success and many failures; to 
 compensate me for my failures, she pointed to the 
 fascinating weapons at my disposal, ranging from 
 paper-knife, via a skipping-rope lasso, to the actual 
 trench-dagger and Colt which had been in use at the 
 Great War. 
 
 "And I always let you come to life again after I've 
 deaded you, Kevin!" 
 
 "Of your graciousness, you do certainly, Yo. But 
 only that you may have the pleasure of deading me 
 again tomorrow." 
 
 She twinkled her white teeth at me — ^Yolande 
 Somers will one day commit lethal damage with her 
 sudden and most attractive smile! — At least, she 
 would if 
 
 Oh — if I start to be sentimental over the business 
 ... if I begin to point out effects of cheap irony — 
 Look, is it any more callous to contemplate murdering 
 a child during its playtime than during its sleep or 
 meals or walks or embraces . . . any other damned 
 
276 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 flowering innocent moment of their twenty-four hours? 
 Look, you sentimentalists, is it? 
 
 And — oh, confound it! — I like children ... I like 
 playing with Yo. . . . 
 
 Steady. . . . 
 
 It happens to be convenient to murder her while 
 she is a wild beast and I Fernandez Bolingbroke. I 
 shall be able to take deliberate aim at her heart; and 
 not, through haste, or interruption, or desire not to be 
 seen, bungle the moment and hurt her, and leave her 
 alive. And the whole incident will have an ap- 
 pearance of accident. Everybody, Barbara, the 
 nurse, Kate Seton, can testify that we were in the habit 
 of playing thus, with unloaded firearms and other 
 realistic imitations of the real thing that came handy 
 for attack. . . . "Kev was always so careful with 
 kiddies; he adored them." 
 
 How in face of this, and of my agonized denial of 
 intention — Yes, Cubby, I hate to lie about it, I'd much 
 rather not; but this is your show, not mine — ^how can 
 it be proved that I remembered Ned's old revolver was 
 loaded? . . . The very one which Barbara had 
 brought along in her suit-case that time. I was doubt- 
 ful if she had seen me load it in whimsical semi-ab- 
 stracted mood, in readiness for her use against me, 
 during that love-scene between us. . . . Captain Ver- 
 non Frome here flings a satirical comment into the 
 jumble of events and persons involved. . . . 
 
 A man can easily have forgotten to take the pre- 
 caution of looking, when in lieu of his own Colt (sent 
 
THE DYNASTY 277 
 
 away for mythical repairs to the trigger) he seizes an 
 old Webley out of the desk drawer where it had lain 
 ever since. 
 
 ("Kev — darling . . . don't give it back to Ned — 
 You'd have to explain how you got it, and — and — 
 they'd think me such a fool! Let him believe he's 
 lost it!" 
 
 "Very well, darling; but I shall have to give him 
 some irrelevant article of compensation, or I shall feel 
 like a thief all my life." 
 
 And Ned never quite understood why I suddenly 
 and fondly presented him with a neat set of hair- 
 brushes. . . . ) 
 
 A man might very easily have forgotten that 
 instant of loading. . . . Unpardonably careless? — 
 why certainly; for that, I shall do penance for three 
 years. . . . 
 
 And for what I had not forgotten — a longer 
 penance. 
 
 Babs is showing more and more partiality for Yo. 
 Soon the Cub will be of an age to become tortured by 
 it. But by that time — nothing will be left to torture 
 him. I might as well have brought one of hell's 
 demons into the house, as a child of Larry Munro ! 
 
 Yesterday I sent away my Colt for repairs to the 
 trigger. 
 
 There is no need for delay now. 
 
278 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 [13] 
 
 Jim Rollinson, from the casualty department of 
 the War Office, met me on the steps as I came out, and 
 suggested I should lunch with him. 
 
 To an old schoolmate and a cheery fellow, in spite 
 of some internal damages received in Mesopotamia, I 
 could hardly be surly. He told me, over the fish, that 
 Larry Munro, of the R. A. F., was down in that morn- 
 ing's black list. 
 
 "You remember Munro, don't you? Was he at 
 Runchester in your time? Must have been. Bril- 
 liant airman, they say — up to all sorts of stunts and 
 dodges. He was seen crashing into the Hun trenches 
 with his machine in flames, after he had taken on 
 about four Bosches single-handed. Tanner, V.C. was 
 his observer and, of course, got done in at the same 
 time — Awful pity! Two of our best chaps." . . . 
 
 And I should have to tell Barbara. 
 
 Larry had beaten me again. A swift and insolent 
 climax — literally blazing out of the skies — Oh, 
 cursedly pictoral! — and he was a figure on the frieze 
 of dragon-slayers, fixed into an immortality for ever 
 . . . alert and young and heroic . . . beautiful. 
 Well done, Larry! — and you've trumped me with an 
 ace, final and irrevocable. 
 
 Your death over my life. 
 
 I shall have to tell Barbara, who loves yon . 
 
THE DYNASTY 279 
 
 And after that . . . something else, something un- 
 pleasant, to be done . . . I've forgotten ... but it 
 was not heroic, like Larry's end. . . . 
 
 "Babs, Larry is killed." 
 
 She stared at me, with grey-blue eyes dilating, as 
 they always did in a moment of shock. Then: "Oh, 
 Kev, Kev, supposing it had been you!" 
 
 And both her arms flung round my neck; her body 
 quivering close, close against mine. . . . 
 
 [14] 
 
 There is a fairy tale about three bands of iron 
 bound about a man's heart, and the bursting of them 
 asunder. . . . 
 
 How long my brain had been clamped in iron, I 
 cannot tell, nor of its gradual tightening till I was as 
 near to madness as a man can go without betraying 
 himself to an unsuspecting world. But Barbara's one 
 simple cry from the very spring of spontaneity, set 
 me free again, free as I had never been before, from 
 hate and obsession and . . . yes, I had remembered 
 now, but with a sense of distant amazement . . . 
 from murder. 
 
 "Oh, Kev, Kev, supposing it had been you!" 
 
 All my life long the cry had been reversed. Now 
 and at last the evil spell was pierced, and I was to 
 slip into my place as some one who mattered more, 
 
280 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 intensely more than Larry. . . . Barbara's sob of 
 sheer relief was that in losing Larry she had kept me. 
 
 Why, then, Babs, you love me? Indisputably, you 
 love me. In an instant of crisis the truth rushes up 
 to the surface. 
 
 And loving me, you love my child best? Do you? 
 ... I asked her. And she replied, wonderingly: 
 
 "0/ course I'm fondest of Cubby. That's why I 
 always tried so hard to give Yo a specially good time 
 . . . because it would have been so hateful for her to 
 feel the difference. Wasn't it to save her from that, 
 you brought her to live with us? But . . . you 
 knew, didn't you, Kev? — ^Wby . . . Kevin . . . 
 Cubby's ours." 
 
 "No. I didn't quite know. Never mind, dear 
 . . . never mind that now." 
 
 There would be a bad hour for me presently, when 
 I should have to force realization until I came face to 
 face with the intention which squatted low and hideous 
 in the centre of my late madness ... no shirking for 
 Childe Roland, till he stood opposite the very Dark 
 Tower itself. . . . 
 
 But just at first and for a little while, to know my- 
 self free, to know that Barbara loved me . . . loved 
 me best, that was the glory of it; to know that the Cub 
 was safe without my performance of (face the Dark 
 Tower, if you can!) of child-murder; and that the 
 Larry-thing did not exist, had never existed save in 
 grotesque imagination. To know that the Conspira- 
 tor was God! 
 
THE DYNASTY 281 
 
 It was enough. 
 
 I wanted to shout aloud my gratitude from a chok- 
 ing throat — gratitude for this gift of myself once 
 more, myself burst from the yellow wrinkled skin of a 
 sloughed obsession. Gratitude to Barbara; who 
 loved me, and had told me so in time — just in time, 
 little ignorant, innocent bull in a china-shop — she 
 never would understand how her last bout had sent 
 the sombre heavens reeling and rocking and crashing 
 about me, in a hail of black, broken china, fragments 
 and splinters of black china . . . and beyond, blue, 
 washed spaces. The world and the heavens were 
 mine in this new exultant hour. Barbara and I were 
 King and Queen of Cornwall, lying high among the 
 pink sea-thrift, the sun stammering its last gold upon 
 the sea and upon us — the dark waters pouring away 
 into the cold, shadowy clefts and caverns among the 
 rocks below. King? — I was a conqueror, a prisoner 
 acquitted, a child reborn, a dazed, incoherent 
 lunatic. . . . 
 
 "Kevin, you're hurting me . . . Kev — ^why, 
 what's the matter? 
 
 . . ."You've never kissed me like that before," 
 said Barbara, rather breathless, a little reproachful, 
 as I released her. But her bruised lips quivered to a 
 smile, and she added, lest perhaps I should never kiss 
 her like that again: "I don't mind. Only — ^Larry's 
 dead, and . . ." 
 
 Well, I was not likely to misunderstand anew. 
 She simply felt as a child feels, that it is not right 
 
282 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 to be joyous after fresh tidings of death . . . for 
 awhile at least, a conventional lowering of general 
 atmosphere must be maintained. 
 
 But her reminder smote me as though I were hear- 
 ing for the first time that my friend Larry Munro had 
 been killed ; for indeed, it had been another man who 
 had heard the news from Jim Rollinson. Larry — 
 Larry — sorrow was fifty, a hundred degrees more 
 poignant than I had ever dreamt possible, but it was at 
 least no isolated horror, but shared by two continents 
 mourning their losses; I could grieve with my kind, 
 now, as I could love with them, and achieve with them 
 . . . after twenty years' exile. 
 
 Larry himself had once said: "You'll go mad be- 
 cause of me, Kev." . . . Larry — dear old fellow — 
 if you had been returning on leave once, only once 
 again, I could show you that your prophecy had come 
 true, and would come true never any more; I could 
 show you at last a true and decent and straightfor- 
 ward friendliness . . . love, if you like. Men are 
 allowed to talk of having loved each other, when one 
 of the two is dead. That particular nerve has twanged 
 finally, and is broken. . . . Larry, I swear, it only 
 needed one human creature to disperse the conspiracy 
 by placing me before you, to show me that there was 
 indeed no conspiracy. . . . Oh, Larry — ^Larry 
 Munro ! 
 
 And Babs murmured, sadly, her head against my 
 arm; "He was so alive in that letter." 
 
THE DYNASTY 283 
 
 [15] 
 
 I waited till the next evening before I summoned 
 courage and went to Prue. 
 
 She had lost — well, as though I had lost Cubby, 
 with twenty-seven years' added accumulation of 
 tenderness. 
 
 Wentworth opened the door to me; his eyes were 
 red, and his dishevelled hair pointed to a crest; so 
 that, in opposition to his neat beard, it was ludicrously 
 like a head and its reflection in water, a beard at each 
 end. 
 
 "Come in, come in, Kevin. No, you can't see her, 
 my boy. No, she's not alone. Felicity is with her." 
 
 "Felicity?" a sudden gladness shot my gloom. 
 
 "My sister sent for her at once. Strange — after 
 they had quarrelled so definitely — let me see, already 
 before the war, wasn't it? About four years now. I 
 never quite grasped the reason. But Felicity came 
 immediately; I must say her speed did credit to her 
 good heart, but she was fond of Larry, poor boy! 
 poor boy! we were all so fond of him. And they've 
 been shut up together ever since. I went in once, to 
 see if Prue would like a fire — sometimes a fire is a 
 comfort in great grief — even in summer. And there 
 they were, not exactly crying, but talking . . . about 
 . . . about. ..." 
 
 Wentworth stopped. He seemed agitated and un- 
 happy, as though some element in the reconciliation 
 
284 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 were, to quote his favourite phrase, "irregular." 
 
 "About Larry?" I suggested. 
 
 "Yes — about Larry, certainly. But — I'm not sure 
 — I stayed a little while — the fire was obstinate . . . 
 it's a bad grate, and I didn't want a servant to disturb 
 them. But I'm not sure that they weren't talking 
 about Larry Munro as well — Prue's late husband, 
 you never knew him, of course. Did you? 
 Ah, yes, yes, I remember. But so long ago, and from 
 the very first we could never get her to mention him; 
 it seems so queer, now, . . . They talked, and I 
 could really hardly distinguish which Larry they 
 meant." . . . 
 
 [16] 
 
 I walked home to Barbara, to a jolly nursery tea, 
 and a romp with Yo and the Cub, with a feeling 
 upon me as though the streets' fret and bustle had 
 been unwontedly quenched to serenity. Somewhere 
 out there men were blindly dealing pain, and a 
 young dragon-slayer had been violently hurled out 
 of life . . . but here, at home, you could still 
 occasionally stumble across beauty, a quiet thing in 
 its scooped-out niche among noise and raw misery. 
 
 Two women, friends again, sitting together and 
 talking of Larry Munro. . . . 
 
 How they had loved him! And loving him, each 
 other! And yet it seemed again as though they could 
 
THE DYNASTY 285 
 
 meet only over Larry Munro dead. As flesh and 
 blood, he awoke in them bitter rivalry; as flesh and 
 blood, they strove for him, and were hard in forgive- 
 ness. As a memory, they found tender comfort 
 in their companionship of sorrow, each rejoicing 
 proudly in the acknowledgment of Larry's peerless- 
 ness, paid him by the other's grief. It had happened 
 twenty years ago ; it was happening now. And twenty 
 years hence ? 
 
 Whether the Larry-conspiracy driven against me 
 had ever existed or not, I cannot say — ^but this much 
 of settled fate is undeniable: that for Prue and 
 Felicity could be no other child or boy or man signif- 
 icant to them than this one mobile, insolent, mis- 
 chievous Larry repeated down the dynasty . . . how 
 often? 
 
 There was still Larrikin. 
 
 Wentworth had mentioned, before I left, that 
 Felicity was taking Prue with her to Thyme Croft 
 the next day. Once more, two women and a shrine 
 and a small boy ... I was glad to the very core 
 of my heart that I had rescued Yo from her position 
 as me, in this reminiscent phase of an old story. 
 
 Yes, we were cut away and adrift from it now, 
 Barbara and I and Yo and the Cub; but . . . would 
 the queer lilt and break in the saga inevitably recur? 
 and presently, when Larrikin was older, would they 
 yet again find it impossible to share him? Wife 
 and bride, mother and lover, grandmother and 
 mother, group it how you will, the essence of their 
 
286 THE CHINA SHOP 
 
 passion remains the same, faithful and fierce, denying 
 the other's claim. 
 
 No matter. For the moment there they sit to- 
 gether, talking of Larry. . . . 
 
 THE END 
 
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