At a quarter past four in the afternoon, two days after the
memorable dinner-party at which Lord Marshmoreton had behaved with
so notable a lack of judgment, Maud sat in Ye Cosy Nooke, waiting
for Geoffrey Raymond. He had said in his telegram that he would
meet her there at four-thirty: but eagerness had brought Maud to the
tryst a quarter of an hour ahead of time: and already the sadness
of her surroundings was causing her to regret this impulsiveness.
Depression had settled upon her spirit. She was aware of something
that resembled foreboding.
Ye Cosy Nooke, as its name will immediately suggest to those who
know their London, is a tea-shop in Bond Street, conducted by
distressed gentlewomen. In London, when a gentlewoman becomes
distressed--which she seems to do on the slightest provocation--she
collects about her two or three other distressed gentlewomen,
forming a quorum, and starts a tea-shop in the West-End, which she
calls Ye Oak Leaf, Ye Olde Willow-Pattern, Ye Linden-Tree, or Ye
Snug Harbour, according to personal taste. There, dressed in
Tyrolese, Japanese, Norwegian, or some other exotic costume, she
and her associates administer refreshments of an afternoon with a
proud languor calculated to knock the nonsense out of the cheeriest
customer. Here you will find none of the coarse bustle and
efficiency of the rival establishments of Lyons and Co., nor the
glitter and gaiety of Rumpelmayer's. These places have an
atmosphere of their own. They rely for their effect on an
insufficiency of light, an almost total lack of ventilation, a
property chocolate cake which you are not supposed to cut, and the
sad aloofness of their ministering angels. It is to be doubted
whether there is anything in the world more damping to the spirit
than a London tea-shop of this kind, unless it be another London
tea-shop of the same kind.
Maud sat and waited. Somewhere out of sight a kettle bubbled in an
undertone, like a whispering pessimist. Across the room two
distressed gentlewomen in fancy dress leaned against the wall.
They, too, were whispering. Their expressions suggested that they
looked on life as low and wished they were well out of it, like the
body upstairs. One assumed that there was a body upstairs. One
cannot help it at these places. One's first thought on entering is
that the lady assistant will approach one and ask in a hushed voice
"Tea or chocolate? And would you care to view the remains?"
Maud looked at her watch. It was twenty past four. She could
scarcely believe that she had only been there five minutes, but the
ticking of the watch assured her that it had not stopped. Her
depression deepened. Why had Geoffrey told her to meet him in a
cavern of gloom like this instead of at the Savoy? She would have
enjoyed the Savoy. But here she seemed to have lost beyond recovery
the first gay eagerness with which she had set out to meet the man
she loved.