The Road to Mandalay | Page 8

quarters for several excellent reasons. Here she had no giggling young rivals and was, even at forty-five, the best-looking and best-dressed of all the lady boarders. Moreover, she had found a friend and admirer in her neighbour at meals--a certain Mr. Manasseh Levison, a widower, with a stout figure, a somewhat fleshy nose, and a pair of fine piercing black eyes. He was the proprietor of a fashionable and flourishing antiquities and furniture business in a well-known thoroughfare, and was considered one of the best judges of old silver and china in the trade.
It exasperated Shafto to listen to his mother's "table talk," and he made a point of sitting as far as possible from her vicinity. She liked to impress Levison and other with highly-coloured reminiscences of her grand acquaintances; even the Tremenheeres--with whom she had quarrelled so bitterly--were dragged in and shown off as intimates. More than once Shafto had felt his face burn, as exaggerations and glorifications were unfolded in his parent's far-carrying and assertive treble.
Besides Mr. Manasseh Levison, were the two Misses Smith--twins--genteel, middle-aged spinsters, who, until the arrival of the sprightly and attractive widow, had alternately cherished high hopes of the wealthy Jew. Their chief energies were devoted to the task of blowing one another's trumpets, thereby drawing attention to particular virtues and modestly hidden accomplishments. For example, the elder would say:
"Darling Ella is so clever at cooking, as good as any French chef, her sauces and savouries are too wonderful."
They were!
And Ella, in repayment, assured her listeners that Jessie had a perfect genius for gardening and housekeeping; and yet it was whispered that this effusively fond couple, when alone, quarrelled and wrangled as cruelly as the notorious Kilkenny cats.
Among other patrons at "Malahide" were two quiet, polite little Japanese gentlemen, Mr. Den and Mr. Yabe; Madame Galli, a shrivelled old woman in a cheap wig, with sharp rat's eyes that nothing escaped, the soul of good nature, rich, miserly and incredibly mischievous. There were several boarders who were in business in the City, and Mr. Hutton, a careworn man of fifty, who spent his days working in the British Museum. Next to him at table sat Douglas Shafto, now a well set-up, self-possessed young fellow, who still retained something of the cheery voice and manner of the Public School boy. Thanks to his steadiness and fair knowledge of French and German, he was drawing a salary of a hundred and fifty per annum.
His neighbour on the left happened to be his own cousin, Sandy Larcher, older by three years, and in the same office, but receiving a lower "screw," Sandy was of the "knut" tribe, a confident authority on dress, noisy, slangy, and familiar; much given to cigarettes and music-halls, a slacker at work, but remarkably active at play and, on the whole, rather a good sort.
Sandy's mother, Mrs. Larcher, the widow of a cab proprietor, was Mrs. Shafto's only sister, and in the days of that sister's glory had never obtruded herself; but now that poor Lucilla had come down in the world, she had advanced with open arms, and at "Monte Carlo," the abode of the Larcher family, Mrs. Shafto occasionally spent a week end. The "go-as-you-please" atmosphere, late hours, breakfast in bed, and casual meals, recalled old, and not unhappy times. Mrs. Larcher, who had never been a beauty, was now a fat woman past fifty, lazy, good-natured, and absolutely governed by her children. Besides Sandy, the dandy, she had two daughters, Delia and Cossie.
Delia was on the stage (musical comedy), petite, piquant, and very lively; a true grasshopper, living only for the summer; a loud, reckless but respectable young woman, who, having but thirty shillings a week salary and to find her own "tights," was ever ready to accept motor drives, dinners, or a smart hat, or frock, from any of her "boys." Cossie, the stay-at-home, was round-faced and plump; a tireless talker and tennis player. She managed the house, held the slender purse, accepted her sister's cast-offs, and always had a "case" on with somebody. Cossie was exceedingly anxious (being the eldest of the family) to secure a home of her own, and made this alarmingly obvious.
To "Monte Carlo" Douglas, the highly presentable cousin, was frequently commanded by both mother and aunt. At first he had hated this duty, but nevertheless went, in order to please and silence his parent, whose hand plied the goad and who otherwise "nagged" at him in public and in private. In private she pointed out that the Larcher family were his own blood relations, "so different from his father's side of the house, which, since his death, had ignored both her and him, and never even sent a wreath to the funeral!" By slow and painful degrees Douglas became accustomed to "Monte Carlo";