"I don't see why you want to go to Ireland," she exclaimed, as she handed a cup of tea to him.
"I've told you why," he said.
"Oh, but that isn't a reason. And why does Gilbert want to go? He isn't Irish."
"I suppose!..."
"It's so absurd to go rushing about like this. I should have thought Gilbert would want to stay in town now that his play is on. Is it a success? I haven't looked at the papers, but then I never do. I can't read newspapers ... they're so dull. This tea is nice. And it's much nicer in town now than it can possibly be in Ireland. Besides, I don't want you to go!"
He let her chatter on, hoping that she would exhaust her interest in his visit to Ireland and begin to talk of something else, but he did not know that Cecily had greater tenacity than might appear from the incoherence of her conversation. She held on to a subject until it was settled irrevocably. She looked very charming as she sat opposite to him, and he wondered how Jimphy could be so careless of her loveliness. The sunlight shining through the window above her head kindled her hair so that theripples of it shone like gold, and the delicate sunburnt flush of her cheeks deepened in the soft glow. He put out his hand and touched her fingers. "Beautiful Cecily!" he said, and she smiled because she liked to be told how beautiful she was.
"But you're going to Ireland," she said.
He did not answer.
"You say you'd do anything for me," she proceeded, "but when I ask you not to go to Ireland, you refuse. If you really love me!..."
"I do love you, Cecily!"
"Well, why don't you stay in town! It's so queer to go away the moment you get to know me!" She began to laugh.
"What's the joke?" he asked.
"Oh, I've just remembered how little we know of each other. You kissed me the first time you came to my house!"
"I loved you the moment I saw you ... that day in the Park when I was with Gilbert ... I loved you then. I didn't know who you were, but I loved you. I couldn't help it, Cecily. You were looking at Gilbert and then your eyes shifted and you looked at me, and I loved you, dear. I worried Gilbert to tell me about you!..."
"What did he say?" she interrupted eagerly, leaning her elbows on the table and resting her chin in the cup of her hands.
"He told me who you were," Henry answered awkwardly.
"But didn't he say anything else?... didn't he?..."
"I've forgotten what he said.... Then I saw you at the St. James's ... he told me you often went to first-nights, and I went specially, hoping to see you!..."
"Dear Paddy," she said, "and you were so shy!"
"And so jealous and angry because you talked all the time to Gilbert, and ignored me. You made me go out ofthe box with Jimphy, and as I went, I saw you putting your hand out to touch Gilbert, and I heard you calling him, 'Gilbert, darling.' ..."
She laughed, but did not speak.
"And I was frightfully jealous. Gilbert's my best friend, Cecily, but I hated him that night. I suppose ... oh, I don't know!"
"What were you going to say!" she asked.
He looked at her intently for a few moments. Her grey eyes were full of laughter, and he wondered whether she would answer his question seriously.
"Well?" she said.
"Do you still love Gilbert, Cecily! Am I ... just some one to fill in the time ... until Gilbert!..."
She sat back in her seat, and the laughter left her eyes.
"Let's go!" she said.
But he did not move. "You do love him," he persisted, "and you don't love me...."
"Are you going to Ireland with him?" she demanded.
"Yes!"
"Very well, then!" The tightened tone of her voice indicated that there was no more to be said, but he would not heed the warning, and persisted in demanding explanations.
"If you go to Ireland with Gilbert," she said, "I'll never speak to you again!"
She closed her lips firmly, and he saw the downward curve of them again, and while he pondered on what she had said, the thought shot across his mind that that downward curve would deepen as she grew older. "She'll get very bad-tempered!..."
"I mean it," she said, interrupting his thought and compelling him to pay heed to her. "I'll never speak to you again if you go away now."
"But I've promised, Cecily!" he protested.
She shrugged her shoulders. "I don't see what that's got to do with it," she answered.
They came out of the inn, and stood for a few moments before the door.
"Shall we go back to the Heath?" he said.
"No," she replied. "Let's go home."
"Very well!"
He felt broken and crushed and tongueless. Cecily did not speak to him as they walked towards the Spaniards' Road, nor did he speak to her. The angry look on her face deterred him.
He hailed a taxi, and they got into it and were driven down Fitzjohn's Avenue and homewards. Once she turned to him and said again, "Are you going to Ireland with him?" but when he answered, "I must, Cecily, I said I would!" she turned away again and did not speak until the taxi drew up before her door.
"Perhaps you'd rather I didn't come in?" he said, expecting that she would dismiss him, but she did not do so.
"Jimphy may be at home," she said, "and probably he'd like to see you!"
"I thought he'd gone away for the day!"
"He may have returned."
She went up the steps of the house while he paid the driver of the taxi-cab, and spoke to the servant who had opened the door.
"He's not in," she said to Henry when he joined her.
"Then I won't ..."
"Come in," she interrupted. "I want to say something to you!"
He followed her into the hall and up the stairs to the drawing-room, where she left him while she went to her room to take off her outdoor garments. He moved aimlessly about until she returned. She had changed her clothes, and was wearing a loose golden silk teagown with a girdle round it, and the gold in her hair seemed to be enriched by the gold in her dress. She went up to himquickly, putting her hands on his shoulders and drawing him close to her.
"Paddy!" she said, and her voice was very tense.
"Yes?" he answered.
"I've never asked you to do anything for me, have I?" She put her arms round his neck and kissed him. He tried to answer her, but could not because her lips were tightly pressed on his.
"You won't go, will you?" she murmured, closing her eyes and tightening her hold on him.
He struggled a little.... "Why don't you want me to go with Gilbert?" he said.
But she did not answer his question. She drew him back to her again, whispering, "I love you, Paddy, I love you. I don't love any one else but you!"
He threw his arms about her, and they stood there forgetful of everything....
She moved a little, and he led her to the sofa where they sat down together. She laid her head on his shoulder, and he put his arms around her and drew her warm, yielding body close to his. He could feel the beating of her heart....
"You won't go, will you, Paddy?" she whispered.
"No," he answered, bending over her and kissing her.
She drew herself closer to him. "Dear Paddy!" she said.
He went up to Gilbert's room immediately after he returned home. All the way back from Lady Cecily's, he had told himself that he must tell Gilbert at once that he was not going to Ireland because he was in love with Cecily "and because she's in love with me!" and he had repeated his resolution many times to himself in the hope that by thinking exclusively of it, there would be no opportunity for other thoughts to come into his head. He shrank fromthe meeting with Gilbert, for his conscience hurt him because of his betrayal of Gilbert's love and friendship. He had palliated his conduct by saying to himself that Gilbert had given Cecily up, but the excuse would not serve to absolve him from the sense of unfriendly behaviour.
"I'm making excuses for myself," he murmured.
"That's all I'm doing. The decent thing is to go to Gilbert and tell him everything ... or ... or I could write it. I could write a long letter to him and get Magnolia to give it to him.... Perhaps that 'ud be better than telling him. It'll be difficult to get a chance to say anything to him with Roger and Ninian about...."
He broke off his thoughts and spoke out loud. "You're funking it," he said. "Damn you, you're funking it!"
"I must tell him myself," he went on. "I must stand up to some one. I can't go on funking things forever...."
It was odd, he thought, that he had no feeling for Jimphy. He had not any sense of shame because he had made love to Jimphy's wife. Jimphy appeared to him only in a comic light. Yet Jimphy had professed friendship for him. "Of course," he said, "they don't love each other!" but in this mood of self-confession which held him, he admitted that he would have felt no contrition even if Jimphy had been devoted to Cecily.
"He's a born cuckold!" he went on. "I might be afraid to take his wife from him, but I wouldn't be ashamed to do it. No one would...."
He had opened the door and gone quickly up the stairs, hoping that he would not meet any of the others. Gilbert would probably be in his study or in his bedroom, and so he could talk to him at once and get the thing over. He knocked on the study door, and then, receiving no answer, opened it and looked in. Gilbert was not there. He went to the bedroom and called "Are you in, Gilbert?" but there was no response. "I suppose he's downstairs," he said to himself, and he walked part of the way down tothe dining-room, stopping midway when he saw Magnolia.
"Tell Mr. Farlow I want to speak to him," he called to her. "Up in my study!"
He went to his room, and stood staring out of the window until Gilbert came.
"Hilloa, Quinny, what's up?" Gilbert said, as he entered the study.
Henry turned to him. He couldfeelthe pallor of his cheeks, so nervous was he.
"Gilbert," he said desperately, "I want to talk to you!"
"Yes?..."
"I'm not going to Ireland with you!"
"Not going!... Why?"
He moved mechanically towards Gilbert and stopped at the table where he wrote. He stood for a few moments, fingering things, turning over pieces of foolscap and tapping the table with a paper knife.
"What is it, Quinny?" Gilbert said again, and as he spoke, he came up to Henry and touched him. "Is it ... is it anything about Cecily?" Henry nodded his head. "I thought so," Gilbert continued. He moved away and sat down. "Well, tell me about it," he said.
"I'm in love with her, Gilbert!"
"Yes."
"I ... I asked her to run away with me!..."
Gilbert laughed. "You have hustled, Quinny," he said. "And she wouldn't, eh?"
"No!" Gilbert's laughter stimulated him, and he spoke more fluently. "But she's in love with me. She told me so. I've just come from her. And she wants me to stay in town."
"To be near her?"
"Yes. Yes, I suppose so. I had to tell you. I felt that I must tell you. Gilbert, I'm ashamed, but I can't help it. I love her so much that I'd ... I'd do anything for her."
Gilbert did not move nor did he speak. He sat in his chair, looking very intently at Henry.
"I can't understand myself," Henry went on. "My feelings are hopelessly mixed up. I want to do decent things and I loathe cads, but all the same I do caddish things myself. I want to be straight, but I'm not straight. ... It's awfully hard to explain what I mean, but there's something in me that seems to keep pulling me out of line, and I haven't enough force in me to beat it. I suppose it's the mill in my blood. My grandfather was a mill-owner."
Gilbert shook his head and smiled. "I don't think your notions of heredity are sound, Quinny. Is that all you have to confess?"
"All?"
"Yes. There isn't anything else?"
"No. I wanted to tell you that I'm ashamed, but I must tell you, too, that although I'm ashamed, I shan't stop loving Cecily. I can't...."
Gilbert got up and went over to him. He sat on the edge of the table so that Henry, when he looked up, had to gaze straight at him.
"You're a rum bloke, Quinny," he said. "I'm always telling you that, aren't I? But you were never so rum as you are now. It's no good pretending that I don't feel ... feel anything about Cecily. I do. But I've known about you and her for some while. I knew you'd fall in love with her that day in the Park when you were excited about her beauty and were so anxious that I should introduce you to her. Of course, I knew you'd fall in love with her. I'm not a dramatist for nothing. So what you say isn't news. I mean, it doesn't surprise me. Quinny, I'm awfully fond of you, old chap, much more than I am of Ninian or Roger. I expect it's because you're such a blooming baby. I'm not really upset about your being in love with Cecily. That had to be. But I'm awfully upset about you!"
"Me, Gilbert?" Henry said, looking up in astonishment.
"Yes. You haven't got much resolution, have you? Cecily has only got to blub a little or kiss you a few times,and you're done for ... she can do what she likes with you. You haven't got the courage to run away from her, and you haven't the power to stand up to her and say 'Be-damned to you'!"
"No, I know that!"
"So, I think I'll just kidnap you, Quinny. I think I'll make you come to Ireland with me...."
"You can't do that, Gilbert!"
"Can't I, by God!" Gilbert's voice had changed from its bantering note to a note of resolve. "Do you think I'm going to let my best friend make an ass of himself, and do nothing to prevent him? Quinny, you're an ass! You're too fond of running about saying you can't help this and you can't help that ... and spilling over! And what do you think's going to be the end of this business? I suppose you imagine that Cecily'll change her mind some day, and run away with you? Do you think she'll run away withyouwhen she wouldn't run away with me? Damn you, you've got a nerve to think a thing like that...."
"I don't think that, Gilbert," Henry interjected.
"Oh, yes, you do! Of course, you do! That's natural enough. I wouldn't mind so much if I thought there were a chance that she would run away with you, but she won't!"
"You wouldn't mind!..."
"No. Why should I? If she won't run away with me, she couldn't do better than run away with you. And there'd be a chance then that you'd get on with your job. You'd soon shake down into some sort of balance if you were together, but you'll never get level if you go on in the way you're going now. You'll run up into one emotional crisis and down into another, and you'll spend the time between them in ... in recovering. That's all. And your work will go to blazes. Iknow, Quinny. You see, I was your predecessor...."
"But Cecily's proud of my work...."
"She was proud of mine. So she said. Look here, Quinny,buck up! How much of your new novel have you written since you knew her!"
"Not very much, of course, but!..."
"Exactly. I couldn't work either when ... when I was your predecessor. Cecily's greedy, Quinny! She wantsallof you ... and she has the power to make you give the whole of yourself to her. If you think that 'all for love and the world well lost' is the right motto for a man ... then Cecily's your woman. But is it? Hang it all, Quinny, you haven't done your work yet ... you've only begun to do it!"
He got off the table and began to search among Henry's papers.
"What are you looking for?" Henry asked.
"I want the manuscript of 'Turbulence.' Where is it?"
"I'll get it. What do you want it for?"
He opened a drawer and took out the few sheets of the novel that were written.
"Is that all?" said Gilbert.
"Yes," Henry answered.
"Cecily doesn't seem to inspire you, Quinny, does she, any more than she inspired me? You haven't written a whole chapter yet.... Do you remember what we swore at Rumpell's?"
"We swore a whole lot of things!..."
"Yes, but the most important thing? We swore we'd become Great. I don't know that any of us ever will be Great.... I get the sensation now and then that we're frightfully crude, even Roger, but we can become something better than one of Cecily's lovers, can't we?"
"I don't know that I want to be anything else...."
"For shame, Quinny!"
Gilbert put the manuscript back into the drawer from which Henry had taken it.
"You'll come to Ireland with me?" he said.
"No, Gilbert, I won't!"
"You will. I'll break your jaw if you don't come. I'll knock the stuffing out of you if you don't come. We can catch the night train and be in Dublin to-morrow morning!..."
"I promised Cecily I wouldn't go...."
"And you promised me you would go. I've packed all the things I want, and it oughtn't to take you long to pack a trunk. I'll come and help you after dinner ... there's the gong ... well just have time if you hop round quickly. Ninian can telephone for a taxi to take us to Euston!"
"It's no good, Gilbert...."
"Come on. I can smell onions, and I'd risk my immortal soul for onions. Boiled, fried, stewed or roasted, Quinny, there's no vegetable to beat them...."
"I'm not going, Gilbert!..."
"You are going!"
They had finished dinner and were now in Henry's bedroom. Gilbert had instructed Ninian to telephone for a taxi. Then, shoving Henry before him, he had climbed the stairs to Henry's room and started to pack his trunk.
"You can't make me go!..."
Gilbert took an armful of shirts from the chest of drawers and dropped them into the trunk. "Once, when I was wandering in Walworth," he said, "I heard a costermonger threatening to give another costermonger a thick ear, a bunged-up eye and a mouth full of blood. That's what you'll get if you don't hop round. What suits do you want!"
Henry did not answer. He walked to the window and stood there, peering out at the trees in the garden. A taxi-cab drove up to the door and presently Ninian came bounding up the stairs to tell them of its arrival.
"Tell him to wait," said Gilbert, and Ninian hurried back to do so. "If you won't choose your suits yourself," he went on to Henry, "I shall have to do it for you. Socks, socks, where the hell do you keep your socks?..."
It seemed to Henry that he could see Cecily's face shining out of the darkness. He could feel her arms about him and hear her beautiful voice telling him that she loved him. "I won't go," he said to himself. "I won't go!..."
"If you'd only help to pack, we'd save heaps of money," Gilbert grumbled. "It's sickening to think of that taxi sitting out there totting up tuppences. Come and sit on the lid of this trunk, will you?"
Henry did not move from the window. Gilbert straightened himself. For a moment or two he could not see clearly because he was giddy with stooping. Then he crossed the room and took hold of Henry's arm.
"Come on, Quinny," he said, pulling him towards the trunk.
"What's the good of fussing like this, Gilbert, when I've told you I won't go...."
"Well, sit on the trunk anyhow. I may as well close the thing now I've filled it...."
He called Ninian, and between them they carried the luggage downstairs to the cab.
"Now then, Quinny!" said Gilbert.
"I'm not going, I tell you...."
"Get into the cab, damn you. Go on!"
He shoved him forward so that he almost fell against the step of the taxi, and Ninian caught hold of him, and they lifted him and heaved him into the taxi.
"Get in, Ninian," said Gilbert. He turned and shouted up the hall to Roger. "Come on, Roger! You'd better come and see us off!"
None of them spoke during the short drive to Euston. Henry sulked in a corner of the cab, telling himself that it was monstrous of Gilbert to treat him in this fashion, and vowing that nothing would induce him to get into the train ... and then, his mind veering again, telling himself that perhaps it would be a good thing to go to Ireland for a while. Cecily had chopped and changed with him. Why should he not chop and change with her?... Neither Ninian nor Roger made any remark on the peculiarity of the journey to Ireland. They had known in the morning that Gilbert and Henry were going away that night, but it was clear that something had happened since then, that Gilbert was more intent on the journey than Henry.... No doubt, they would know in good time. Probably, Ninian thought to himself, that woman Jayne is mixed up in it....
"You get the tickets, Ninian," Gilbert said when they reached Euston. "Firsts. Democracy's all right in theory, but I don't like it in a railway carriage!"
"Where's the money?" said Ninian.
"Money! What do you want money for? All right! Here you are! You can pay me afterwards, Quinny!"
They had only a few minutes in which to get into the train, and Gilbert, putting his arm in Henry's and hurrying him towards the Irish mail, was glad that the wait would not be long.
"It's ridiculous to behave like this," said Henry, as they shoved him into a carriage.
"I know it is," Gilbert answered. He turned to Roger. "We may want grub during the night. Get some, will you! Sandwiches will do and hard-boiled eggs, if you can get 'em...."
He turned to Henry. "You're my friend, Quinny," he said, "I can't let you make a mucker of everything, can I?"
Henry did not answer.
"I know exactly how you feel," Gilbert went on. "Ishould feel like it myself if I were in your place, but if I were, Quinny, I'd be damned glad if you'd do the same for me!"
"Good Lord!" Gilbert exclaimed, as the train drove out of London, "I forgot to pack your toothpaste...."
... quitted all to saveA world from utter loss.Paradise Lost.
... quitted all to saveA world from utter loss.Paradise Lost.
As the boat turned round the end of the pier and moved up the harbour to her berth, Gilbert, eyeing the passengers, caught sight of Henry and instantly hallooed to him. The passage from Kingstown had been smooth, and Henry, heartened by the sea air and sunshine, pressed eagerly through the throng of passengers so that he might be near the gangway and so be among the first to descend from the steamer. He called a greeting to Gilbert, and then, the boat being berthed, hurried forward to the gangway. He could not get off the steamer as quickly as he wished for the number of passengers on board was very large, and he fidgeted impatiently until he was able to get ashore.
"We'll send this bag on by the waggonette," Gilbert said, when they had shaken hands and congratulated each other on their healthy looks, "and walk over to Tre'Arrdur, and we'll gabble on the way. Here," he added, taking a letter out of his breastpocket, "you can read that while I find the man. It's from Ninian. It came this morning!..."
He seized Henry's bag and hurried off with it, leaving Henry to follow slowly or remain where he was, as he pleased, and then, before Henry had time to do more than take the letter from its envelope and glance carelessly at the first page of it, he came quickly back. "Come up," he said, putting his arm in Henry's. "You can read it as you go along. There's not much in it!"
They left the pier and passed through the station into the street.
"Holyhead," said Gilbert, "is a good place to get drunk in! We won't linger!..."
They took the lower road to Tre'Arrdur Bay because it was quieter than the upper road, and as they walked, Henry read Ninian's letter.
"He seems to like South America," he said, returning the letter to Gilbert when he had finished with it.
Gilbert nodded his head. "That old Tunnel of his doesn't get itself built, does it? But it must be great fun building a railway in a place like that. There's a revolution on the first and third Tuesdays of the month, and the President of the Republic and the Emperor of the Empire are in power for a fortnight and in exile for another one. So Ninian says. He told Roger in his last letter that he had had to kick the emperor's backside for him for interfering with the railway contract.... Oh, by the bye, Rachel's produced an infant. She says it's like Roger, but Roger hopes not. He says it's like nothing on earth. He came to see me off from Euston yesterday and when I asked him to describe it to me, he said he couldn't ... it was indescribable. It looksraw, he says. It must be frightfully comic to be a father, Quinny!"
"I don't see anything comic about it," Henry replied. "I'd rather like to be a father myself."
"Well, why don't you become one. They say it's easy enough. First, you get a wife...."
"What sort of an infant is it? Is it a boy or a girl?"
"Great Scott!" said Gilbert, "I forgot to ask that. That was very careless of me. Look out, Quinny, here's a motor, and that's Holy Mountain on the right. We'll go up it to-morrow, if you like. It's not much of a climb. Just enough to jig you up a bit. There's a chap in the hotel who scoots up mountains like a young goat. He asked me to go up Snowdon with him, but when I asked him what the tramfare was, he was slightly snorty in his manner. How's the novel getting on?"
"It'll be out in September. I corrected the final proofs last month. I think it's rather good."
"Better than 'Turbulence' or 'The Wayward Man'?"
"Yes, I think so. I'm calling it 'The Fennels.' That's the name of the people it's about. I've taken an Ulster family and ... well, that's what I've done. I've taken an Ulster family and just shown it. My father likes it much better than anything else I've done, although he was very keen on 'Turbulence.'"
"How is your father?"
"Oh, much better, thanks, but still a bit shaky. He hates all this Volunteer business in Ireland. You remember John Marsh, don't you, and Galway? You saw them in Dublin that time!..." Gilbert nodded his head and so Henry did not complete his sentence. "Well, they're up to their necks in the opposition Volunteers. I saw John in Dublin yesterday for a few minutes. He was very excited about the gun-running in Ulster! Damned play-acting! He could hardly spare the time to say 'How are you?' to me, he was so anxious to be off to his drilling. He hasn't done any writing for a long time now. He's become very friendly with Mineely!..."
"Is that the Labour man?"
"Yes. I liked him when I met him, but he's frightfully bitter since the strike. He's got more brains than all the others put together, and he influences John tremendously. I don't wonder at his bitterness. The employerswerebrutal in that strike, Gilbert, and Mineely will never forget it. He'll make trouble for them yet, and they'll deserve all they get. He said to me 'They won't deal reasonably with us, so they can't complain if we deal unreasonably with them. They set the police on to us....'"
"What's he going to do then?"
"I don't know, but he's drilling his men as hard as ever he can. He means to hit back. After he'd spoken about the police, he said, 'The next time we go to them, we'll have guns in our hands. Mebbe they'll listen to us then!' He's like John ... he doesn't care what happens to himself. All those people, John and Galway and Mineely,have a contempt for death that I can't understand. I loathe the thought of dying ... but they don't seem to mind. It's their religion partly, I suppose, but it's something more than religion. If they were poor, like the slum people, I could understand it better. You can't frightenthemby threatening to kill them. Their life is such a rotten one that they'd be much better off if they were dead, even if there were no heaven, and I suppose they feel that ... and of course the Catholic religion teaches them to despise life! But it isn't all religious fervour or the apathy of people who're too poor to mind whether they live or die. Marsh and Galway and Mineely are moved by a sort of nationalistic ecstasy ... Marsh and Galway more than Mineely, I think, because there's a bitterness in him that isn't in them. They think of Ireland first, and he thinks of starving workmen first. They're Ireland mad. They really don't value their lives a happorth. They'd love to be martyrised for Ireland. It's a kind of lust, Gilbert. They get a sensual look on their faces ... almost ... when they talk of dying for Ireland."
"It's a little silly of us English people who love life so much to try and govern a people like that," said Gilbert.
Much had happened to them in the two years that had elapsed since the day on which Gilbert carried Henry off to Dublin. The Bloomsbury household had come to an end. Suddenly and, as it seemed to them, inexplicably, Mrs. Clutters had died. It had never occurred to any of them that Mrs. Clutters could die. They seldom saw her. The kitchen was her domain, and Magnolia was her messenger. If they had any preferences or prejudices concerning food, they made them known to Magnolia, and Magnolia made them known to Mrs. Clutters. Ninian returning home in an epicurean mood, might announce that he had seen mushrooms in a greengrocer's window. "Magnolia," he wouldsay, "let there be mushrooms!" and Magnolia would answer, "Yes, sir, certainly, sir!" and behold in the morning there would be mushrooms for breakfast. Or Gilbert would give their opinion of a dish. "Magnolia, we do not like scrambled eggs. We like our eggs boiled, fried, poached, beaten up in milk, Mr. Graham even likes them raw, but none of us like them scrambled!..." and Magnolia would say, "Yes, sir, certainly, sir!" and so scrambled eggs ceased to be seen on their breakfast table. Magnolia always said, "Yes, sir, certainly, sir!" If they had informed her that the Judgment Day was to begin that afternoon at three o'clock, Magnolia, they felt sure, would say, "Yes, sir, certainly, sir!" and go on with her work.... There seemed to be no adequate excuse for Mrs. Clutters' death ... "an' everythink goin' on so nice an' all!" as Magnolia said ... and yet she had died. There had been delay in serving breakfast, and Roger, anxious to catch a train, had been impatient.
"Magnolia!" he shouted from the door, "Magnolia!"
"Yes, sir!" Magnolia answered in an agitated voice.
They waited for her to add "Certainly, sir!" but she did not do so, and they looked oddly at each other, feeling that something unusual had happened.
"We're waiting for breakfast," Roger said in a less impatient voice.
"Yes, sir, I'm comin', sir!..."
Magnolia appeared at the door, very red in the face and very worried in her looks, and placed a covered dish in front of Roger who was the father of the four, appointed to carve and to serve.
"What's this?" Roger demanded when he had removed the cover.
"Please, sir, it's eggs, sir! Fried eggs, sir! That's what it's supposed to be, sir!" Magnolia replied dubiously.
"It's a bad imitation, Magnolia!" Gilbert said. "I think I'll just have bread and marmalade this morning!"
He reached for the marmalade as he spoke, and Henry,eyeing the eggs with disrelish, murmured, "After you, Gilbert!"
"Tell Mrs. Clutters I want her," Roger said to Magnolia.
"Please, sir, she's not very well in herself this mornin'...."
"Not very well!"
"Do you mean to say she's ill?" Ninian shouted.
"Yes, sir. It was me fried the eggs, sir!"
"But ... but she can't be ill," Ninian continued.
"Well, she is, sir. That's what she says any'ow. 'You'll 'ave to cook the breakfis yourself', she says to me, an' when I said I didn't know 'ow, she said 'Well, you must do the best you can, that's all!' an' I done it, sir. She don't look well at all!..."
"How long has she been ill?" Roger asked.
"I don't know, sir. She didn't tell me. She was groanin' a bit yesterday an' the day before, but she wouldn't give in. I said to 'er, 'If I was you, Mrs. Clutters, I'd 'ave a doctor an' chance it!' an' she told me to 'old me tongue, so of course I wasn't goin' to say no more, not after that. I mean to say, I can take a 'int as good as any one...."
"We'd better send for a doctor," Roger said, interrupting Magnolia. "I'll telephone to Dunroon. He lives quite near!" Then he remembered his county court case. "You'd better telephone, Quinny! Imustcatch this train. Take these ... eggs away, Magnolia. We won't say anything more about them. You did your best!"
"Yes, sir, I did, but I told 'er I didn't know 'ow...."
"All right!" said Roger, passing the dish to her.
Dr. Dunroon suggested that they should send for Mrs. Clutters' friends.
"Is it serious, doctor?" Henry asked, and the doctor nodded his head. "She's dying," he said.
"Dying!"
Magnolia, disregarding the conventions, had stood by, openly listening to what they were saying, and when she heard the doctor say that Mrs. Clutters was dying, she let a howl out of her that startled them. The doctor turned to her quickly.
"Hold your tongue," he said, "or she'll hear you. Anybody 'ud think you were dying by the noise you're making!"
Magnolia blubbered away. "I 'ate to 'ear of anybody dyin'," she said. "I never been in a 'ouse before where it's 'appened, an' besides she's been good to me!" Her mind wandered off at a tangent "Any'ow," she said, wiping her eyes, "I done me best. No one can't never say I ain't done me best, an' the best can't do no more!"
"Has she got any friends, Magnolia?..."
It seemed to them to be extraordinary that this woman had lived in their house, had worked and cared for them, and yet was so much a stranger to them that now, in this time of her coming dissolution, they did not know where her friends were to be found, whether indeed, she had any friends. "That's very English," Henry thought; "in Ireland we know all about our servants!"
"Well, Ithink'e's 'er 'usband," Magnolia replied. "Any'ow, 'e was drunk when 'e come!..."
They had assumed that Mrs. Clutters was a widow, a childless widow....
"I've seen 'im 'angin' about two-three times, an' when I said to 'er, 'Mrs. Clutters, there's your friend 'angin' about the corner of the street, she tole me to mind me own business, an' then she 'urried out. Of course, it 'adn't got nothink to do with me, 'oo 'e was, an' when she tole me to mind me own business, I took the 'int...."
"Do you know where he lives?" Gilbert asked.
"No, sir, I don't. When she told me to mind me own business!..."
The approach of Death had made Magnolia amazingly garrulous. She said more to them that morning than she had said to them all the rest of the time she had been in their service ... and mixed up with her reminiscences of what Mrs. Clutters had said to her and what she had said to Mrs. Clutters, there was a continual statement of her fear and dislike of death, followed by the assertion that no one 'ad ever died in a house she'd worked in before.
"You'd think she was blaming us for it," Gilbert said afterwards.
"Well, you'd better go and ask her to tell you where her husband lives," Henry said to her, but she shrunk away from him when he said that.
"Oh, I couldn't go near no one what was dyin'," she said. "I ain't used to it, an' I don't like it!"
Ninian shoved her aside. "I'll go," he said.
"We'd better get some one to look after her," Gilbert proposed when Ninian had gone. "Magnolia's no damn good!..."
"No, sir, I ain't ... not with dead people I ain't!"
"Clear out, Magnolia!" Gilbert shouted at her. "Go and make the beds or sit in the kitchen or something!"
"Yes, sir, certainly, sir!" Magnolia answered, and then she left the room.
"I've never felt such a helpless ass in my life before," Gilbert went on when she had shut the door behind her. "I simply don't know what to do!"
"We can't do anything," Henry murmured. "Dunroon said he'd come in again in a short while. Perhaps if we were to get a nurse or somebody. There's sure to be a Nurses' Home near to. Can't we ring up somebody?"
He got hold of the telephone book and began to turn over the pages rapidly.
"What are you looking for?" Gilbert asked.
"Nursing Homes," he answered.
"That's no good. Let's send round to Dunroon's!..."
"He won't be there!"
"Some one'll be there. We'll ring 'em up!..."
Dr. Dunroon's secretary was there, and she knew exactly what to do. "Oh, very well," she said in a voice so calm that Gilbert felt reassured. "I'll send some one round as soon as possible!"
Ninian came down the stairs before they had finished telephoning to Dr. Dunroon's secretary.
"I'm going to fetch her husband," he whispered to Henry, and then he left them.
"Let's go out," Gilbert said suddenly to Henry.
The nurse had arrived, and was busy in attendance on Mrs. Clutters. Magnolia, full of the antagonism which servants instinctively feel towards nurses, was maintaining a grievance in the kitchen. "Givin' 'er orders, as if she was some one!" she was mumbling to herself. "Too bossy, she is!..."
"It's no good trying to do any work to-day," Gilbert went on. "I ... I couldn't make up things with her ... up there!"
They told Magnolia that they would have their meals out, and that she need not trouble to cook anything for them, and they sent for the nurse and explained their circumstances to her. "That's all right," she said cheerfully, "I'll look after myself!"
They set off towards Hampstead, but after a while they found themselves returning to Bloomsbury. They could not keep away from the house.... They tried to eat a meal at the Vienna Café, but they could not swallow the food, so they paid their bill and went away. They wandered into the British Museum, and tried to interest themselves in Egyptology....
"This female," said Gilbert, pointing to the mummy ofthe Priestess of Amen-Ra, "is supposed to bring frightful ill-luck to you if you squint at her. There was a fellow at Cambridge who was cracked about her ... used to come here in vac. and make love to her ... sit here for hours spooning with a corpse. I often wanted to smack his face for him!"
"Pose, I expect!" Henry replied. "I should have thought it was rather dull to get smitten on a woman who's as dead as this one is...."
They remembered Mrs. Clutters....
"Let's go back and see what's happened," Gilbert said, turning away from the case which held the Priestess....
Ninian met them in the hall. "She's dead," he said. "Her husband's in the kitchen. I found him in a lodging-house in Camden Town, and I should say he's a first-class rotter!"
They sat together that evening without speaking. There was to have been a meeting of the Improved Tories to talk over Roger's plan for enlarging the Army and mitigating the problem of unemployment. They could not get messages to people in time, and so part of the evening was spent in whispered explanations at the door to those who turned up.
"I think I'll go to bed," Ninian said, but he did not move, nor did any of them move. It was as if they wished to keep together as long as possible.
Magnolia, red-eyed from weeping, had come to them earlier in the evening, declaring that she was frightened.
"What are you afraid of?" Roger snapped at her.
"'Er!" she answered.
"But she's dead!..."
"Yes, sir," Magnolia said, "that's why! I don't like goin' upstairs be meself, sir!..."
"Oh, rubbish, Magnolia!" Roger exclaimed.
"I can't 'elp bein' afraid, sir. I know she's dead an' can't do me no 'arm ... not that she'd want to do me any 'arm ... I will say that for 'er ... but some'ow I'm afraid all the same, sir. I can't 'elp it!"
"I want to get a book out of my room," Henry interjected, "so I'll go upstairs with her!"
"Oh, thank you, sir," said Magnolia gratefully. "I know she wouldn't 'arm me if she could 'elp it, not if she was alive any'ow, but they're different when they're dead!..." She broke down, blubbering hopelessly. "Oh, I wish I was 'ome," she moaned.
"Come on, Magnolia!" Henry said, opening the door for her.
"That girl's getting on my nerves," Gilbert murmured when she had gone.
Magnolia followed Henry upstairs. They had to pass the room in which the dead woman lay, and Magnolia, when she reached the door, gave a little squeal of fright and ran forward, thrusting past Henry.... "Don't be a fool, Magnolia!" he said, catching hold of her arm and steadying her.
"I'm frightened, sir!" she moaned, looking up at him with dilated eyes.
"There's nothing to be afraid of. Come along!"
He took her to her room and opened the door for her.
"You're all right now, aren't you?" he said, switching on the light.
"Yes, thank you, sir!"
"Good-night, then!"
"Good-night, sir!"
When she had shut the door, he heard her turning the key in the lock, and he smiled at her precaution. "That wouldn't hinder Mrs. Clutters' ghost if she ... if she started to walk!" he thought to himself, as he descended the stairs to his room. He had switched off the light on Magnolia's landing, but there was a light showing dimly up the stairs from the landing beneath. It shone faintlyon the door of the room in which Mrs. Clutters' body was lying. He went down the stairs towards the door, and then, half-way down, stopped. He could not look away from the door ... he felt that in a moment or two it would open, and Mrs. Clutters, in her grave-clothes, would stand in the shadow and look at him with fixed eyes....
"Don't be a fool!" he said aloud, shaking his head and dashing his hand across his eyes as if he were trying to sweep something away. "I'm nervy, that's what it is," he went on, still speaking aloud. "I'm worse than Magnolia!..."
He descended the rest of the stairs, determined not to show any sign of fear, and then, as he passed the door, he shut his eyes and hurried by. He ran down the next flight of stairs, afraid to look back, and did not pause in his running until he had reached the ground floor. He stood still in the hall for a few minutes to recover himself, and then he entered the room where the others were sitting.
They looked up at him.
"All right?" Ninian asked, and Henry nodded his head.
"You haven't brought the book," Roger said.
"No," he answered, "No ... I changed my mind. I didn't really want the book. I just said that to ... to get Magnolia out of the room!"
Mrs. Clutters' husband insisted on seeing them after the funeral because, he said, he wished to thank them for all they had done for "'er!" He made a jerk over his shoulder with his thumb when he said "'er," and they gathered that he was indicating the direction of Kensal Green cemetery. He was very maudlin and drunk, and Ninian thought that he ought to be kicked.
"I'm shorry," he said, "to be thish con ... condish'n, gemmem, but y'see it's like this. A gemman said to me, y'see, 'Bert,' 'e says ... thash my name ... Bert, calledafter Queen's 'usban' ... Gaw' bless 'er!... Alber' the Goo' they called 'im... not me, oh, Lor' no!... thish gemmam, 'e says to me, 'Bert,' 'e says, 'come an' 'ave one!' an' so o' course I 'adto 'ave one. Thash 'ow 'twas, see! Shorry to be in thish disgrashful state ... thish sad occas'n, gemmem. Very shorry!Ithank you!" He turned to leave them, staggering towards the door. "I ain't been a good 'usban' to 'er," he went on, again making the jerking gesture over his shoulder with his thumb. "Thash a fac'. I ain't. But I 'pologise. I'm shorry! Can't say no more'n that, can I? Goo'-ni', gemmem!"
And then he staggered out.
"Somebody ought to do him in," said Ninian, going to see that he left the house as quickly as possible.
"Well," said Roger, when Ninian had returned, "what are we going to do next?"
"Sack Magnolia," said Gilbert.
"And then?" Roger went on.
"I don't know," Gilbert replied.
"I suppose we can get another housekeeper," Henry suggested.
"Yes, we could do that," said Gilbert.
Roger got up and moved about the room for a few moments. "I think I shall get married," he said at last. "I've got to get married some time, and I might as well get married now. This ... this business seems to provide an opportunity, don't you think?"
"It's a pity to break up the house," Gilbert murmured.
"It'll have to be broken up some day," Roger retorted.
Ninian joined in. "There's talk of a big railway contract in South America, and I might have to go. Hare spoke of sending me. In about six months' time...."
"We might let the house furnished for the remainder of the lease," Roger went on. "Perhaps some one would take the furniture over altogether.... I could use some of it, of course, for my house when I get married!"
"You've settled it then!" said Gilbert.
"Not exactly. I haven't said anything to Rachel yet. The idea occurred to me in the chapel while the parson was saying the Burial Service!"
"I could have hit that fellow," Gilbert exclaimed. "Gabbling it off like that! I suppose he was in a hurry to get home to tea!"
They sat in silence for a while, each of them conjuring up the vision of the cold little service in the cemetery chapel. Magnolia, clothed in black, had sobbed loudly, while Mr. Clutters sniffed and said "A-men" very emphatically, and the parson, regarding the little group of mourners with the curiosity of a man who is bored by death and the ritual of burial, gabbled away:NowisChristrisen fromthedeadandbecomethefirstfruitsofthemthatsleptforsince
Bymancamedeathbymancamealso
Theresurrectionofthedead....
"It means breaking up everything," Gilbert still protested.
"Things are always breaking up," said Roger.
"I suppose so," Gilbert replied.
Henry had not taken part in the conversation, but had lain back in his chair, with his hands clasped behind his head, lazily listening to what they were saying.
"I don't think I'd like to go on living here," he exclaimed, "particularly if Roger and Ninian go away. Perhaps we could share a flat or something, Gilbert?"
"That's a notion," Gilbert answered.
"There's no reason why the Improved Tories should collapse just because I'm going to get married," Roger asserted. "This house really isn't the most convenient place to meet. We might hire a room in a hotel near the Strand and meet there...."
The house was let unfurnished. The incoming tenant was willing to take on the remainder of their lease and continue in occupation of the house after its expiry, but he had furniture of his own, and so he had no use for theirs. Roger took his furniture to a small house in Hampstead, and offered to buy most of what was left, but they would not listen to his proposals. "We'll give it to you as a wedding present," they insisted. "If there's anything you don't want, well sell it!" Magnolia was presented with a couple of months' wages and a new dress, and bidden to get another home as soon as she could conveniently do so ... and then the house was abandoned.
"It's funny," said Gilbert, as they shut the door behind them for the last time, "it's funny that we hardly ever thought of that old woman, and yet, the minute she dies, we sort of go to pieces. We didn't even know she'd got a husband. Her name was Jennifer. I saw it on the coffin lid!..."
Their arrangements for quitting the house were not completed for a month after the burial of Mrs. Clutters, and before they finally settled their affairs, Ninian was told that he was to proceed to South America with the junior partner. He was to have a couple of months' leave ... "I shall go down to Boveyhayne," he said ... after which he would leave England for a lengthy while. "And then there were three!" said Gilbert, when Ninian told them of his appointment. "Three little clever boys," he went on, "going up to fame. One little clever boy got married and then there were two!..."
Until they could make some settlement of their future, they decided to live in a boarding house in Russell Square.
"We shall loathe it," Gilbert said, "but that will be good for us!"
And then Roger and Rachel got married. They walked into a Registrar's office, with Gilbert and Ninian andHenry to bear them company, and made their declarations of fealty to each other.
"My father would have been horrified," Roger said at luncheon afterwards. "If he'd been alive, Rachel, we'd have had to get married in a church!"
Rachel smiled. "I shouldn't have minded, Roger!" she answered. "You'll laugh, I know, when I tell you that half-way through the service I began to long for a surplice and the Voice that Breathed O'er Eden. A marriage in a church is a lot prettier than one in a Registrar's office!..."
"If only the Mayor of the Borough had performed the ceremony," Gilbert lamented. "In his nice furry red robes and cocked hat, joining you two together in the name of the Borough of Holborn, he 'd have looked rather jolly! Roger, we ought to get the Improved Tories to consider the question of Civil Marriage. We want more beauty in it. Rachel, my dear, I haven't kissed you yet. I look upon myself as Roger's best man, and I ought to kiss you!"
"Very well, Gilbert," she answered, turning her face towards him.
"You've deceived us all, Rachel," he said as he kissed her. "We'd made up our minds to hate you because you were taking our little Roger from us, and at first we thought we were right to hate you because you were so aggressive to us, but you've deceived us. We don't hate you. We like you, Rachel!"
"Do you, Gilbert?" She turned to Ninian and Henry. "Do you like me, too?" she said.
"I shouldn't mind marrying you myself," Ninian replied.
"I don't see why Gilbert should get all the kisses," said Henry. "After all, I more or less gave you away, didn't I? I was there anyhow!...."
So she kissed Ninian and Henry too. Then, a little later, Roger and she went off to spend a honeymoon in Normandy.
"I feel horribly lonely somehow," said Gilbert to Henry. Ninian, in a hurry to catch the train for Boveyhayne at Waterloo, had left them at Charing Cross.
Henry nodded his head.
"This marrying and giving in marriage is the devil, isn't it?" Gilbert went on. "We ought to cheer ourselves up, Quinny!"
"We ought, Gilbert!"
"Let's go and see my play. Perhaps that'll make us feel merry and bright!..."
"No," said Henry. "It wouldn't. It 'ud depress us. We'd keep thinking of Ninian and Roger. I think we ought to get drunk, Gilbert, very and incredibly drunk...."
"I should feel like Mrs. Clutters' husband if I did that," Gilbert answered. "Aren't there any other forms of debauchery? Couldn't we go to a music-hall or a picture-palace or something? Or we might discuss our future!..."
"I'm sick of this boarding house we're in," Henry exclaimed.
"So am I, but I don't feel like setting up house again. I'm certain you'd go and get married the moment we'd settled into a place...."
"I'm not a marrying man, Gilbert," Henry interrupted.
"Well, what are you, Quinny?"
"I don't know!"
They were wandering aimlessly along the streets. They had drifted along Regent Street, and then had drifted into Oxford Street, and were going slowly in the direction of Marble Arch.
"Quinny!" said Gilbert after a while.
"Yes?" Henry answered.
"Have you ... have you seen Cecily since you came back?"
"Yes. Twice!"
Gilbert did not ask the question which was on the tip of his tongue, but Henry was willing to give the answer without being asked.
"She didn't appear to know I'd been away," he said.
"She knew all the same!..."
"She just said, 'Hilloa, Paddy I' and went on talking to the other people who were there too. I tried to outstay them, but Jimphy came in the first time, and there was a painter there the second time, who wouldn't budge. He's painting her portrait. I've not seen her since...."
"You're glad, aren't you, that I kidnapped you, Quinny?"
"In a way, yes!"
"You got on with your book, anyhow. You'd never have done that if you'd stayed in town, trailing after Cecily!"
"I can't quite make you out, Gilbert," Henry said, turning to his friend. "Are you in love with Cecily?"
Gilbert nodded his head. "Of course, I am, but what's the good? Cecily doesn't love me any more than she loves you. She doesn't love any man particularly. She's ... just an Appetite. You and I are no more to her than ... than the caramel she ate last Tuesday. The only hope for us is that we shall grow out of this caramel state or at all events get the upper hand of it.... In the meantime, what are we going to do?"
"Work, I suppose. 'Turbulence' is nearly finished, and I'm itching to get on with a new story I've thought of. I'm calling it 'The Wayward Man.' ..."
"We might go into the country...."
"Or hire a furnished flat for a while...."
"Or do something.... Lordy God, Quinny, we're getting frightfully vague and loose-endy. We really must pull ourselves together. There's a bun-shop somewhere about. Suppose we have tea?"