The Parts Men Play | Page 4

her task of drafting the new
Resolution to be presented to Parliament by the League of Equal Sex
Rights and Complete Emancipation for Women, as a diminutive,
half-starved servant brought in a letter on a tray.
Mrs. Jennings took the missive, and frowning threateningly at the girl,
who withdrew to the dark recesses of the servants' quarters, opened it
by slitting its throat with a terrific paper-knife.
'8 CHELMSFORD GARDENS.
'DEAR MRS LE ROY JENNINGS,--An American author is coming to
dinner next Friday. There will just be a few unusual people, and I have
asked them for 8.30. I want him to meet one of England's intellectual
women, and I know he will be interested to hear of your ideas on the
New Home.
'My daughter joins with me in wishing you every success.--Until Friday,
dear,
'SYBIL DURWENT.'
Mrs. Jennings, who had made a complete failure of her own home, and
consequently felt qualified to interfere with all others, scribbled a hasty
note of acceptance in a handwriting so forceful that on some words the
pen slid off the paper completely.
Then, with a look of profundity, she resumed the Resolution.
VI.
And so, by the medium of His Majesty's mail, a little group of actors
were warned for a performance at Lady Durwent's house, No. 8
Chelmsford Gardens.
Through the November fog the endless traffic of the streets was
cautiously feeling its way along the diverging channels of the
Metropolis--a snorting, sliding, impatient fleet of vehicles perpetually

on their way, yet never seeming to get there. Taxi-cabs hugged the
pavements, trying to penetrate the gloom with their meagre lights;
omnibuses fretted and bullied their way, avoiding collision by inches,
but struggling on and on as though their very existence depended on
their reaching some place immediately or being interned for failure.
Hansom-cabs, with ancient, glistening horses driven by ancient,
glistening cabbies, felt for elbow-space in the throng of motor-vehicles.
And on all sides the badinage of the streets, the eternal wordy conflict
of London's mariners of traffic, rose in cheerful, insulting abundance.
On the pavements pedestrians jostled each other--men with hands in
their pockets and arms tight to their sides, women with piqued noses
and hurrying steps; while sulky lamps offered half-hearted resistance to
the conquering fog that settled over palaces, parks, and motley streets
until it hugged the very Thames itself in unholy glee.
And through the impenetrable mist of circumstance, the millions of
souls that make up the great city pursued their millions of destinies,
undeterred by biting cold and grisly fog. For it was a day in the life of
England's capital; and every day there is a great human drama that must
be played--a drama mingling tragedy and humour with no regard to
values or proportion; a drama that does not end with death, but renews
its plot with the breaking of every dawn; a drama knowing neither
intermezzo nor respite: and the name of it is--LONDON.
CHAPTER II
CONCERNING LADY DURWENT'S FAMILY.
I.
Lady Durwent was rather a large woman, of middle age, with a high
forehead unruffled by thought, and a clear skin unmarred by wrinkles.
She had a cheerfulness that obtruded itself, like a creditor, at
unpropitious moments; and her voice, though not displeasing, gave the
impression that it might become volcanic at any moment. She also
possessed a considerable theatrical instinct, with which she would
frequently manoeuvre to the centre of the stage, to find, as often as not,

that she had neglected the trifling matter of learning any lines.
She was the daughter of an ironmonger in the north of England, whose
father had been one of the last and most famous of a long line of
smugglers. It was perhaps the inherited love of adventure that prompted
the ironmonger, against his wife's violent protest, to invest the savings
of a lifetime in an obscure Canadian silver-mine. To the surprise of
every one (including its promoters), the mine produced high-grade ore
in such abundance that the ironmonger became a man of means.
Thereupon, at the instigation of his wife, they moved from their little
town into the city of York, where he purchased a large, stuffily
furnished house, sat on Boards, became a councillor, wore
evening-dress for dinner, and died a death of absolute respectability.
Before the final event he had the satisfaction of seeing his only child
Sybil married to Arthur, Lord Durwent. (The evening-clothes for dinner
were a direct result.) Lord Durwent was a well-behaved young man of
unimpeachable character and family, and he was sincerely attracted by
the agreeable expanse of lively femininity found in the fair Sybil. After
a wedding that left her mother a triumphant wreck and appreciably
hastened her father's demise, she was duly installed as the mistress of
Roselawn, the Durwent family seat, and its