“But, my dear child,” cried Beau Maturin, “I’m afraid your film can’t have come out very well.Trevor and I will look perfectly ghastly, as we neither of us had any make-up on.”
“But it’s that kind of film!” smiled Miss Kettlewell. “You see, you and your friend are supposed to be corpses who by some powerful psychic agency are digging your own graves—— Heavens, what’s that!”
There, at the open door, stood an apparition with a dreadful face. He appeared, says Mr. Trevor, to have some difficulty in choosing among the words that his state of mind was suggesting to him.
“And me?” gasped the taxi-driver hoarsely. “Wot abaht me? ‘Angingabahtallnight! ‘Oo’s going to pay me, that’s wot I want to know? There’s four quid and more on that clock——”
Mr. Maturin swept his empty coffee-cup round to indicate the family Kettlewell.
“My friends will pay,” sighed Mr. Maturin.
NOW, at last, the entertainment moves towards its end, the curtain is atremble for its fall, the affair calledMay Fairis on tiptoe to make a last bow and retire forever into those anxious shades where all that is not of the first excellence must come to the foul embrace of limbo. So let the curtain fall, that we may get back to the serious business of life. But, oh, it is easy enough to say that! The rub is, a curtain has to be contrived. Action is demanded; and all the world loves a climax. In fine, ladies and gentlemen, those inexorable twin sisters, Finale and Farewell, have still to be served. And how shall that be done?
It happened that I was in Paris when I was thinking upon this matter with some urgency. How shall the farewell be contrived, thought I, how indeed? For, by the waters of the Thames, there never was such a trouble put upon mankind as this confounded business of leave-taking! Haven’t we all, to be sure, been sometime harassed by the saying of farewell? by the fumbling of that pitiful, pitiless occasion? Indeed, find us the man or woman who can say good-bye with ease, and he or she shall instantly have a clear start toour friendship. How often we have been distressed by the agonies of someone’s incapable departure! And you may rifle all diplomacy for ways and means to help some people take their leave, and still their glassy, fevered eyes will search your face as though for the ultimate word, still their aggressive nervousness will not permit you to put them and yourself out of their agony. While as for those poor wretches whom it is our dread delight to “see off” at railway stations, what confusion of mind is theirs, and ours! He is at the window of his carriage, smiling: we on the platform, smiling: others are nearby, smiling: hands are shaken, good-byes are said ... and does the train go? It does not. Wouldn’t we then, if we but dared, implore the departing wretch to withdraw his tormented head from the window, sit back in his seat, hide himself behind a paper and send us all to the deuce? We would, but we don’t, and he can’t, so fumble, fumble, fumble, until at last the train takes him—or her, why not?—from us who had once thought we were sorry he was going. Oh, no, this business of saying farewell is not like saying “Jack Robinson”: it needs, without a doubt, a touch of inhumanity, which, if it does not make the whole world kin, can at least help to make a good part of it comfortable, as the humane gentleman now honoured as Lord Balfour found when he was Secretary of State for Ireland.
It was, then, with such thoughts as these that my mind was vexed during my stay in Paris, much to the disorder of my pleasures, when whom should I meet but my friend Dwight-Rankin!Gratified, I was yet surprised almost beyond endurance. I had been at school with the man, but later we had lost sight of one another, and still later I had heard of his death on Gallipoli. I had been sorry.
Dwight-Rankin was a blood, and I have an intellectual leaning towards bloods. They may have only the most moderate aspirations towards a state of grace, theirs may be only the most superficial grasp of the culture of the ages, but theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do nothing and die. They may not Achieve, they may have nothing to Give to the world, but nevertheless they serve several useful purposes and are decidedly a good market for British-made and Dominion-made goods; such as golf-links, foxes, spats, plover’s eggs, chorus girls, kippers, the Conservative party, night-clubs, bookmakers, whisky, the Army, etc. They are also decorative and are frequently used at balls and at our Embassies abroad.
Dwight-Rankin remarked with gratification upon my pleasure at the fact that he was still alive and invited me to take a glass of wine with him at the Ritz, which we were at that moment passing. Nothing could have been more agreeable to me, in my troubled state of mind. We then indulged in conversation. It had rained the day before, and we spoke of the rain. There was a rumour that it had been snowing in England, and we spoke of the snow. Dwight-Rankin had just returned from Monte Carlo, where he had lost money, and I had just returned from Rome, where I had lost my luggage. We confounded MonteCarlo and Rome. Then Dwight-Rankin said that the report of his death on Gallipoli was a gross exaggeration and that one should not believe all one hears. His younger brother, Dwight-Rankin said, had believed the report with an agility surprising in one who was a confirmed sceptic in all religious matters, had stepped into the property and had gone bankrupt before Dwight-Rankin could say “knife.” Dwight-Rankin said he was now a broken man. I extended him my sympathy, for which he thanked me.
“Talking of death,” he added, “that was a nasty end for Mrs. Amp, wasn’t it?”
“Mrs. Amp!” I said. “Mrs. Amp? Who was Mrs. Amp?”
Dwight-Rankin said: “Rheumatism and Roosevelt, you’ve never heard of Mrs. Amp! Nor of the death? Nor of the Lady Surplice?”
“Lady Surplice?” I said. “Oh, yes, I’ve heard of the Countess of Surplice! And how is she?”
“She can’t be at all well,” said Dwight-Rankin. “She’s dead. Tummy trouble, theysaid. By the way, one doesn’t say ‘the Countess of’ Surplice. One says ‘Lady Surplice.’ Do you mind?”
“Not in the least,” I said.
“Then don’t say it or write it, will you?” begged Dwight-Rankin. “All you writers are very vague about your titles. No, not vague—you are malinspired. It puts people against you, I assure you. I often had a mind to tell Miss Marie Corelli about that, but I never had a chance.”
I said: “You see, Dwight-Rankin, I never hear any of these things, as I am not in society.”
“That’s all right,” said Dwight-Rankin. “Hang on to me.”
“Waiter!” I said. “Two Martinis, please.”
“Dry,” said Dwight-Rankin. “Dry, waiter. And with a dash.”
It was luncheon time, and the foyer was crowded with people waiting for each other whilst they passed the time of day with someone else. There were many women with eager eyes and low heels. Dwight-Rankin said they were American. There were many women with good complexions and large feet. Dwight-Rankin said they were English. There was a young man who looked like a pretty girl, except that his hair was long. Dwight-Rankin said he was known as the Venus de Marlow and that his friends thought him too marvellous. Pacing up and down was a French gentleman with drooping ginger moustachios, a gardenia and a dog. Dwight-Rankin said that he wore stays and that the dog was called “Hélöise and Abélard,” and when I asked him how one dog came to be called “Hélöise and Abélard” Dwight-Rankin said severely that even a dog must be called something.
“The man who owns him, her, it or them,” said Dwight-Rankin, “is the Marquis des Beaux-Aces. He married a very rich American, but she turned out to be a girl of strong character and instead of letting him spend her money she spent all his and then divorced him for being incompetent. He has never been the same man since, but he manages to make an honest living by selling fancy needlework to Argentine polo-players. But youwill hear more of him when I tell you of the strange affair of Mrs. Amp and Lady Surplice—of the late Mrs. Amp,” said Dwight-Rankin gloomily, “and the late Lady Surplice. A great pity. By the way, are you lunching with anyone?”
I said: “No, but——”
“That’s all right,” said Dwight-Rankin; “I will lunch with you. I am supposed to be lunching with some people, but I am so short-sighted that I can’t see them. If you should remark two beautiful women looking at me with more than usual interest, just don’t take any notice. This short-sightedness of mine is developing into a nuisance. The other day I was having a clean-up at the club and when I came to wipe my face I found it was quite dry for the simple reason that I had been washing the face of the man next to me.”
I said: “In the meanwhile, shall we——”
“This is on me,” said Dwight-Rankin. “Waiter, two Martinis, please.”
“Dry,” I said.
“That’s all right,” said Dwight-Rankin. “They always wipe them for me first.”
The death of Mrs. Amp, said Dwight-Rankin, was the sensation of Paris in the spring of the year 1924. Who Mr. Amp was, it appeared, no one knew for certain. But it was said that he had fallen in love with a photograph of an English gentlewoman in Arab costume, had plungedinto the desert to commune with his passion and had been kidnapped by a sheikess in plus-fours who had a fancy for bald Americans with bulging eyes. However....
Mrs. Amp, said Dwight-Rankin, died suddenly and terribly; and her mangled remains were the subject of discussion in society for many a day. It was a Friday evening, and all Paris was dressing itself to be present at a dinner-party that Mrs. Amp was to give that evening at the Ritz Hotel. “Just here, where we are sitting now,” said Dwight-Rankin, turning a glassy eye about the restaurant and accepting an invitation hurled at him by the Duchess of Putney to dine next Thursday to meet the Shah of Pongistan on the occasion of his having lost his job.
On that Friday evening, said Dwight-Rankin, there was only one person of note in Paris who was not dressing to be present at Mrs. Amp’s dinner-party. That, said Dwight-Rankin, was Lady Surplice. Mrs. Amp and Lady Surplice did not speak. That is to say, said Dwight-Rankin, they spoke to everyone about each other; but when they met, had you dropped a pin between them it would have made a noise like a bomb, and had you lit a match there would have been a cascade of water from the melting ice.
Lady Surplice, said Dwight-Rankin, had been the greatest hostess in Europe for twenty years. London dined with her when she was in London, Paris dined with her when she was in Paris, Mussolini met her at the station when she went to Rome, New York hailed her as the Duchess of Mayfair, while Palm Beach was her rouge-potand over Ascot she cast her lorgnette. Naturally all this was very encouraging for Lady Surplice, and she bitterly resented any interference with her habits. However....
Lord Surplice—only technically known, said Dwight-Rankin severely, as “the Earl of”—did not assist at his wife’s entertainments. He was understood to be taking the waters for diabetes at a hydropathic establishment near Woodhall Spa. Or maybe, said Dwight-Rankin, it was liver trouble and Tunbridge Wells, but one can’t know everything.
Then one day, when Lady Surplice was at the height of her success, Mrs. Amp fell on Europe. Nay, said Dwight-Rankin, Mrs. Amp obliterated Europe. Without Mr. Amp, but with Mr. Amp’s millions. Mrs. Amp, said Dwight-Rankin, was a large woman: a very large woman: and hearty. Her face was not that of Aphrodite: her figure not that of Mrs. Vernon Castle: but she had, said Dwight-Rankin, a certain Charm. Her descent on Europe was catastrophic. She enveloped Europe. And Europe loved it. She laid one hand on London and one on Paris, threw Venice over one shoulder and hung Deauville about her neck, and people just fell on to her lap. And what a lap, said Dwight-Rankin. However....
For days and days people went about saying: “I say, what’s all this about a Mrs. Amp? Who is Mrs. Amp? What?” Then for days and days people went about saying: “Have you met Mrs. Amp? The devil, what a woman! These Americans! What?” Then for days and days people went about saying: “Are you dining with Mrs.Amp to-night? Am I? Good Lord, no! Why should one dine with Mrs. Amp? What?” Then for ever and ever people went about saying: “I’m sorry, but I must be going now. I am dining with Mrs. Amp to-night. What? Oh, you are too! Good, we’ll meet over dinner.”
Lady Surplice, however, stood firm. She wouldn’t, said Dwight-Rankin, accept Mrs. Amp. “Mrs. Amp,” said Lady Surplice, “is a Low woman. One does not know Mrs. Amp.” But thousands did, said Dwight-Rankin. So Lady Surplice tore between London and Paris, giving luncheons, dinners, dances and receptions right and left in the hope that no one would have time to go to any of Mrs. Amp’s parties. But people always had time, said Dwight-Rankin, to go to Mrs. Amp’s parties. Mrs. Amp’s parties were like that. Unavoidable, inevitable, eternal. And, said Dwight-Rankin, uncommonly amusing. One met all one’s friends at them, and the champagne was always dry.
Mrs. Amp was American, and Lady Surplice was born in Notting Hill of Nonconformist parents. And so, said Dwight-Rankin, they carried the same weights in the blue-blood stakes. But Mrs. Amp was the larger woman, the larger personality. Lady Surplice was very tall, very thin, dark, brittle, brilliant. Mrs. Amp enveloped, and could touch the ceiling of a sleeping-car with her hips when she lay on her side. Lady Surplice was relentless in her generosity and indomitable in her indiscretion. Mrs. Amp was as mean with money as a temperance hotel with matches; but even so she could stay the stars in their courses,anyhow for at least five courses and then make them sing and dance to her guests on top of it. Lady Surplice was very tall. But Mrs. Amp stood six-feet-two in her tiara. Lady Surplice undoubtedly put up a gallant fight. But Mrs. Amp undoubtedly won. Lady Surplice said: “That low, beastly woman!” Mrs. Amp said: “Muriel Surplice is proud of having discovered Europe. I am amused at having discovered Muriel Surplice.”
It gradually dawned on people, said Dwight-Rankin, that this between Mrs. Amp and Lady Surplice was not an affair which could be settled by a duel at Mah Jongg, that this was a case of war to the death. Mrs. Amp died first.
On that Friday evening, Mrs. Amp was dressing for dinner in her house near the Champs Élysées. She sat at her toilet-table, and whilst her maid did this and that to her hair, which, said Dwight-Rankin, aspired doggedly rather than beautifully to the mode, Mrs. Amp passed the time by looking out of the windows upon the noble trees of the Champs Élysées; and presently drew her maid’s attention to the fact that a circus was at that moment taking its station beneath them. “I want to tell you,” said Mrs. Amp to her maid, “that I am just crazy about circuses. Don’t forget to remind me to engage one the next time I pull a party.”
Those, her maid later told Dwight-Rankin, were almost the last words Mrs. Amp spoke in this world. For even as she uttered them an uproar became audible from without: the air was filled with screams, yells and curses: while theroars of savage beasts struck terror into the most stable heart and convinced the maid, she told Dwight-Rankin, that the end of the world was at hand.
With a cry to Mrs. Amp, who sat staring out of the window as though transfixed, the maid fled; for the uproar from the circus was caused by nothing less than the escape of the lions from their cages; and these, their maddened nostrils attracted by Heaven knows what odour, were rushing furiously on Mrs. Amp’s house, vainly pursued by their keepers. For the keepers, said Dwight-Rankin, appeared to be quite helpless: their whips lashed the air with inconceivable energy, but there seemed to be a grave lack ofententebetween their commands and the lions’ movements; which was later only half-explained by the fact that they were Italian keepers in charge of French lions.
The lions, with a bound, with a series of bounds, passed theconcierge’slodge, wherein theconciergewas clinging to an excrescence from the ceiling; and when the mangled corpse of poor Mrs. Amp was later found, it was recognisable, said Dwight-Rankin, only by the perfume which the poor lady was used to affect and which gave proof of its quality by rising superior even to the lively odour of the lions. However....
In such manner, said Dwight-Rankin, did Mrs. Amp give up the spirit. Nor was the sensation caused by her nasty death at all soothed by the evidence of her tremblingconcierge, who, before the Conference of Ambassadors that sat to enquire on the great hostess’s death, gave testimonyto the effect that as the lions rushed into her bedroom Mrs. Amp was distinctly heard to cry: “This is the doing of Muriel Surplice! I will be revenged, if I roast in hell-fire for it!”
Theconcierge, of course, said Dwight-Rankin, gave his evidence in French; and when the interpreters had translated it for the benefit of the Conference of Ambassadors, those distinguished gentlemen were not a little disturbed by the ominous, if extravagant, burden of Mrs. Amp’s dying words. And, said Dwight-Rankin, rightly.
It was when we came to the second and last part of the affair of Mrs. Amp and Lady Surplice, which took place in London nearly a year later, that he himself, said Dwight-Rankin, entered upon the scene. He was, in point of fact, quite definitely responsible for the awful end to my Lady Surplice’s last dinner-party, a circumstance which would prey on his mind to his dying day. For, said Dwight-Rankin, had he not at the last moment been compelled, by some force outside himself, to take a bird out for a spot of dinner, and therefore to cancel his engagement to dine with Lady Surplice, nothing untoward could possibly have happened to that poor lady.
He had, however, been able to piece together every detail of the terrible events of that dinner-party with the help of the relations of those of his friends who were present: the most reliable among these being Shelmerdene (that lovely lady), Guy de Travest, most upright of men, andPercy Wentworth, 1st Marquess of Marketharborough, the Lord Chancellor of England, who was, said Dwight-Rankin, a very hearty man and a devil for accuracy whether on the Woolsack or the roundabouts.
It was Christmas Eve, and a dirty night. A violent wind distracted the town, hurling the rain with idiot fury against the windows of swift limousines and, no doubt, said Dwight-Rankin, greatly inconveniencing those thoughtless persons who had gone abroad without their limousines. But since Lady Surplice’s dinner was in honour of royalty, in the person of Son Altesse le Prince de Finaleauseltz, of the Royal house of Bonbon de Jambon-Parme, her guests, with that polite servility which distinguishes the freedom-loving peoples of England and America, were within the house in St. James’s Square by a quarter-to-nine o’clock.
Dinner was not yet announced: the conversation, easy and elegant, embraced the topics of the day: while the more youthful wandered, as though aimlessly, towards the far corners of the spacious drawing-room, where stood the busts of notable men by Epstein and Mestrovic. Now Lady Surplice never would have cocktails served in her house since a friend of hers, an honouraryattachéat the Bulgarian Legation, had succumbed to a ptomaine poisoning gotten from swallowing a cherry in a Manhattan cocktail. But my lady’s butlers were wont, such is the ingenuity of the lower sort, to secrete cocktails behind the busts of notable men by Epstein and Mestrovic, thus killing two birds with one stone; for while, onthe one hand, they satisfied the reasonable thirst of the company, they also, on the other hand, gave Lady Surplice much real pleasure in seeing how her friends were enamoured of the most advanced art of the day. Lady Surplice herself loved the most advanced art of the day. And the most advanced art of the day loved Lady Surplice. Playwrights, for instance, doted on her. One had put her into a play as a courtesan for money (1205 performances), one as a courtesan by temperament (2700 performances), another as a courtesan by environment (still running), and lastly another as a courtesan to pass the time. This last, however, was never produced, as the Lord Chamberlain had banned it on the ground that it was too cynical. However....
Imagine, said Dwight-Rankin, with what consternation Lady Surplice suddenly discovered that the company was thirteen in number! She was livid. She said: “It is the fault of that Dwight-Rankin man. I had forgotten that he had put me off at the last moment. That low, detestable man! Howrudepeople with two names can be! But what shall we do? We cannot dine thirteen, and on Christmas Eve! Your Highness, what would you advise? I am quite unable, my dear Highness, to sit down thirteen at meat. I detest meat, but you know what I mean. It would quite destroy my luck.”
“His Highness,” said Guy Godolphin Greville Hawke, 21st Viscount de Travest, “might very possibly prefer to have his luck completely destroyed; for the present luck of Royalty in Europe is, if I may say so, sickening.”
Lord Marketharborough had been for some time examining the busts of notable men by Mestrovic and Epstein, and had therefore not heard what had gone before; but that did not deter him from asking one of those pertinent questions which came naturally to his fearless mind. “Since,” said the Lord Chancellor, “we are thirteen, are we a woman too many or a man? Let us first get that quite clear.”
“There is always a woman too many,” snapped Lady Surplice, whereupon Dame Warp strode forward and said bitterly between her teeth: “I see I am not wanted. Let it never be said that a decent woman—I said adecentwoman—ever stood in the way of her friends’ enjoyment. I will go.” She was, however, soothed by Monsieur des Beaux-Aces, whilst the other gentlemen very properly laughed the superstition to scorn. In particular Mr. Warp, who was eminent in private life for his researches into the defunct branch of political thought once known as Liberalism, but was better known in public as the husband of Dame Warp, distinguished himself by the elegant scholarship of his scepticism.
Nor, said Dwight-Rankin, were the ladies—to wit, Shelmerdene, the Lady Fay Paradise, Lady Pynte, Miss Pamela Star and the Lady Amelia Peep, who was a young lady of the highest fashion with her hair parted at the side, a talent for writing poetry, and a governing-classes voice—nor were they behindhand with their ridicule of so childish a fancy as Lady Surplice’s, that they could be susceptible of the least harm through sitting thirteen at table.
“Dinner,” said thedoyenof the butlers from the door, “is served, my lady.”
“Talbot!” cried Lady Surplice. “How dared you not warn me that we were thirteen for dinner? Why do you not answer me? Is this a time for silence?”
“Decidedly,” said the Lord Chancellor. “For I am hungry.”
“My lady,” said the wretched Talbot, “I am sorry. It quite escaped my notice. I will send in my resignation in the morning.”
Says my lady with a high look: “Talbot, you will expiate your sin now. You will at once leave the house. You will walk round St. James’s Square. And you will invite the first person you meet in to dine with me. Go.”
The conversation after the butler had gone became, said Dwight-Rankin, rather strained; and only the polished genius of Lady Surplice could have sustained it at anything approaching a well-informed level, as when, turning to the Lady Amelia Peep, she said: “And what, my child, is your father doing to-night? I had asked him to dine with me, but he said he was engaged. I hope it is not serious.”
“Wearing,” said the Lady Amelia, “rather than serious. He is in S. W. 1 district, in the queue outside Buck House, waiting to be made a Duke in the New Year’s Honours. He is so old-fashioned in his tastes! He will be wanting to learn dancing soon.”
“Dukes,” said Lady Surplice, “are not a fit subject for conversation. One should avoid being a Duke. They are low. Look, for instance,how they took up with that Amp woman! Look how that handsome but ill-mannered Duke of Mall made a fuss of that dreadful Mrs. Omroy Pont! And look at the Duke of Dear! One cannot know that man. He has actually been divorced time over again. England is getting simply flooded with ex-Duchesses of Dear. And while the Duke indulges his almost violent partiality for middle-class indiscretions, his only son has invented a rod with which he can catch smoked salmon. Is that patrician, is it even gentlemanly? Answer me, your Highness. Is this a time for silence? Then look at the Duchess of Sandal and Sand! She is in Paris now, and I hear she has lovers right and left and sits up every night at theJardin de Ma Sœurstaring at people through an emerald monocle and drinking pink champagne through a straw. Is that just, is it reasonable, is it even decent? Monseigneur, what do you think? Is this a time for silence?”
“Yes, please!” pleaded Fay Paradise. “For just look at what’s happening!”
But it was Shelmerdene, said Dwight-Rankin, who had first seen the great doors opening. And Shelmerdene was very favourably impressed.
“Captain Charity,” announced Talbot.
Lady Surplice, said Dwight-Rankin, was also very favourably impressed. She cried: “My dear Captain Charity, how kind of you to come to a perfectly strange house! But you are so good-looking that I feel I ought to have known you all my life.”
Now he who was called Captain Charity did not appear to be of those who suffer from nervousness.His lean presence, indeed, radiated a certain authority. And he smiled at Lady Surplice in a cold but charming way. But one can’t do better, said Dwight-Rankin, than take Shelmerdene’s swift first impression of the man. Shelmerdene said that he was a tall, lean, young man, dark and beautiful; his air was military, but with a pleasing suggestion of culture; and as he came towards the company he appeared to look at nobody but Guy de Travest, and always he smiled, Shelmerdene had told Dwight-Rankin, in a cold but charming way.
“Haven’t we,” doubtfully said de Travest to the teeth of that faint smile, “met before somewhere?”
One must imagine those two, said Dwight-Rankin, as making as brave-looking a pair of men as one could wish to see: the stranger, dark and beautiful, and Guy de Travest, quiet and yellow-fair: the lean dark dandy with the mocking mouth and the fair thunder-god of dandies with the frozen eyes.
“I think not,” said Captain Charity, and he said: “But you are very like Michael.”
“Michael?” quoth my lord. “And who, pray, is your Michael?”
“The archangel,” said Captain Charity, and that was that, for Lady Surplice, who was fairly taken with the dark beauty of the stranger, could no longer brook these masculine asides. She said: “My dear Captain Charity, you must be introduced. It is quite usual. I have already presented you to His Highness. He is charming. Here are Dame Warp and Lady Pynte, who buysher shoes at Fortnum and Mason’s and rides to hounds four days in the week all through the summer just to set a good example. While this is Miss Pamela Star, who was left many millions by an Armenian. Armenians are rather difficult, my dear Captain Charity, but she is charming. And this is Shelmerdene, who has no surname because she has no surname, but who is becoming the heroine of all the ladies in all the suburbs because a misguided young man once put her into a book. Ah, and Fay! My dear Captain Charity, this is Lady Fay Paradise, the most beautiful woman in England. She never eats with her meals and never uses the same lover twice. Do you, darling? Whereas here is Lady Amelia Peep, who is as yet unmarried but she writes poetry about birds and her father wants to be made a Duke. You will like her. She is appointed with every modern convenience. And here—Percy, where are you? Ah, there he is, always admiring works of art! Look at the back of his head—the strength, the charm, the moral poise of it! Percy, come here at once! This, my dear Captain Charity, is Lord Marketharborough, who is a Lord Chancellor, you know. Aren’t you, Percy? But why do you not answer me? Is this a time for silence?”
“Dinner,” said the man Talbot, “is served, my lady.”
“Good!” said Lord Marketharborough.
Now the high position that Lady Surplice had won for herself in the hierarchy of hostesses was due to nothing so much as to the fact that she would not ever tolerate any but general conversation about her table. Whereas, said Dwight-Rankin, at every other dinner in London one must be continually blathering in whispers to one’s right or left to women who have nothing to say and don’t know how to say it, so that there never can be any conversational give-and-take about the table. But Lady Surplice most properly insisted on conversational give-and-take at her parties. She gave, you took. She gave, said Dwight-Rankin, magnificently.
Lady Surplice said: “I detest self-conscious people. No one was ever self-conscious until the middle classes were invented. Oscar Wilde invented the middle classes so that he could make fun of them, as he would not have dreamt of making fun of his betters, like that Somerset Maugham man. Unfortunately Oscar died without making a will, and as no one knew what to do with his invention we let them, with usual English slackness, grow until they have swamped the whole country.”
“The other day,” said the Lady Amelia Peep, “I went into my father’s study to tell him that I was engaged to be married——”
“But, Amelia, you are not!” cried Lady Pynte.
“True,” said the Lady Amelia. “But to say one is engaged when one is not and to be married without being engaged are the only parlour games open to ajeune filleof any real modesty. ‘Father,’ I said, ‘I am engaged to be married. What do you know about that?’ He was busy writinga letter, but absent-mindedly he stretched a hand out towards a volume of Debrett, saying: ‘What initials, child?’ I thought that so sweet.”
“Personally,” said Lady Pynte, “I adore snobs. They are at least faithful to their principles.”
“Faithful!” cried my Lady Surplice. “Did you sayfaithful, Cornelia? Is there such a thing as fidelity?”
“Dans un sauvage,” bitterly said M. des Beaux-Aces. He would, said Dwight-Rankin.
“But what is fidelity?” cried my lady. “Your Highness, why do you not amuse us? I ask, what is fidelity? Is this a time for silence?”
“‘Fidelity’ is the title of a new novel,” said a young gentleman who had not spoken before and who was requested not to speak again.
“Fidelity,” bitterly said Dame Warp, “is the only game of which a decent woman—I said adecentwoman—never tires. I except, of course, auction bridge.”
“Fidelity would be such fun,” sighed Fay Paradise, “if only one could ever decide whom to be faithful to.”
“Amelia,” cried Lady Surplice. “I hear you were at Martha Putney’s ball last night. What was it like?”
“Lousy, dear,” sighed the Lady Amelia.
“Fidelity,” said Lord Marketharborough, “is a beautiful talent, if I may say so. Unfortunately, however, I am not a man of talent. I am a genius.”
“I,” complained the Lady Amelia Peep, “know nothing of fidelity or infidelity, as I have so far been a martyr to virginity.”
“Fidelity,” said Captain Charity, “is an art. But, surely,ars est celare artem!”
“Fidelity is fiddlesticks,” snapped M. des Beaux-Aces.
“I beg your pardon!” cried Lady Pynte. “My good man, I myself know several women who have gone through incredible ordeals in the Divorce Courts and the Press owing to their fidelity to their lovers. Heavens, allow us to retainsomevirtue!”
“Fidelity,” said the young gentleman who had spoken only once before, “is an affectation prevalent among musical-comedy actresses and generally directed towards wealthy Jews.”
“Talking of Jews,” said M. des Beaux-Aces, “I hear that all the best Jews are becoming Roman Catholics.”
“And what, sir, has that to do with the point?” thundered the Lord Chancellor.
“Nothing, thank God!” said M. des Beaux-Aces. “I detest points.”
“Amelia,” bitterly said Dame Warp, “I hear you were at Martha Putney’s ball last night. What was it like?”
“Divine, dear,” sighed the Lady Amelia.
Thus, said Dwight-Rankin, the dinner proceeded with a degree of animation, of gaiety, that was unusual even about Lady Surplice’s memorable table. Themoraleof the diners was excellent: their address polite, their appetites suave, their wit easy and swift: theirton, in fine, irreproachable. While even His Highness the Prince de Finaleauseltz was so agreeably affected by the swift interchange of repartee and back-chat that,Dwight-Rankin assured me, he contributed on two separate occasions to the entertainment. However....
All was, therefore, going beautifully when the Lady Fay Paradise remarked, with amusement not untinged with repulsion, that someone had spilled the salt.
“La!” cried Lady Pynte.
“Who has spilled the salt?” cried Lady Surplice.
“The Lord Chancellor has spilled the salt,” said Mr. Warp.
“Hell!” said the Lord Chancellor.
“Over your shoulder, over your shoulder!” cried Lady Pynte.
“Oh, Percy!” cried my lady. “To spill the salt ismostunlucky!”
“Oh, pouf!” said the Lady Amelia.
“Oh, dear!” said Pamela Star.
“I’m really very sorry,” said the Lord Chancellor.
“Needyou have spilled the salt?” bitterly said Dame Warp.
“Really, why all this fuss?” sighed Fay Paradise.
“Fuss indeed!” cried Lady Surplice.
“I’m really very sorry,” said the Lord Chancellor.
“My father,” said His Highness, “lost his crown on the day he spilled some salt.”
“Then to spill salt must be lucky,” remarked de Travest, “for your grandfather, sir, lost his head without having the chance to spill any salt.”
“Well, all I can say is,” sighed my lady, “that I thank Heaven we are not dining thirteen.”
“I’m really very sorry,” said the Lord Chancellor.
It was exactly at that moment, said Dwight-Rankin, that someone at the table let out a yell. Who it was, no one can tell to this day. But someone, even as Lord Marketharborough spoke, sobbed:
“But we are! We are thirteen!”
You can’t, said Dwight-Rankin, describe in so many words the effect of that sob of terror. It must have been as though someone had turned a tap somewhere and let out the blood from all their faces. One might imagine them, said Dwight-Rankin, as all eyes, blanched eyes, staring frantically at the empty chair on which had been but a moment before the person of him who called himself Captain Charity.
“But this is too much!” sobbed Lady Pynte.
Lord Marketharborough, however, appeared to be quite unmoved. He said: “When is a chap not a chap? When he falls under the table before even the port has been round.”
But Captain Charity wasn’t, said Dwight-Rankin, under the table. He wasn’t, in fact, anywhere to be seen in the large room. They looked everywhere, while the bewildered silence was broken only by the breathing of Dame Warp, who had notable adenoids.
“Talbot!” cried Lady Surplice.
“I’m afraid poor Talbot won’t be much use onthisoccasion,” murmured Shelmerdene.
“But the man can’t have disappeared!” criedmy lady. “Talbot, did you see Captain Charity leave the room? Answer me at once, Talbot. Is this a time for silence?”
It needed, said Dwight-Rankin, only the base terror on the man Talbot’s rugged face to seal the terror of the company.
“For God’s sake, man, speak up!” snapped the young gentleman who had spoken only twice before.
“I saw him go!” whispered the man Talbot. “Saw ’im, I did, with these eyes! One second he was on that chair, and the next—gorn, phut! Begging your pardon, my lady——”
And then, said Dwight-Rankin, came perhaps the worst blow of all. It was only then that Shelmerdene grew really, sharply, terrified. For on the immovability, the valiancy, of my lord Viscount de Travest all who were privileged to know him were wont to rely, as on a very column of courage. Whereas now, what could they think? For, as the man Talbot made an end to his craven whispering, Guy de Travest was seen to be rising in his chair, his eyes as though frozen to some point of the room, his forehead, glistening with those clean drops of sweat that add to the charm of officers of the Household Cavalry and distinguish them from those genteel persons who “perspire.” However....
“The deuce!” whispered de Travest. “Oh, the deuce! Look!”
“Oh!” screamed the Lady Amelia Peep, and, screaming, fainted.
He didn’t, said Dwight-Rankin, know much about furniture: but along the wall towards thedoors was a long sort of antique whatdoyoucallem—anyhow, there was an antique arrangement there, and on it, at intervals of a foot or so apart, stood a noble line of a dozen candles in tall candlesticks.
“Guy!” cried Fay Paradise. “Guy, what is it?”
De Travest, now standing high above the company, was staring at the line of twelve candles on the whatdoyoucallem. He murmured: “I don’t know.”
“Percy,” shrilled Lady Surplice, “what do you think?”
“There’s some trickery here!” sternly said the Lord Chancellor, who had followed the direction of de Travest’s eyes. “Tell Talbot to keep that door closed.”
“I daren’t, my lady!” the man Talbot trembled.
Someone laughed.
“Who laughed?” cried Shelmerdene.
De Travest snapped: “Why are you going, man? What’s your hurry?”
“But who is he talking to?” sobbed Lady Pynte.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” said Dame Warp bitterly.
“You there, who are you?” snapped de Travest.
“Gently, Guy, gently!” said Mr. Warp. “Let us not provoke him. Let us not provoke anyone.”
“Oh!” screamed Lady Surplice, and then it was that everyone realised to the full what ghastly portent it was that held the grim attention of the Lord Chancellor and Guy de Travest. For, saidDwight-Rankin, the flames of the twelve candles on the whatdoyoucallem were one by one being obscured before their very eyes, as by a presence passing between them and the candles towards the door; and as the presence passed on its way, so each small flame was again visible.
“But I can’t bear this!” sobbed Lady Surplice. “What does it mean? Why doesn’t someone speak? Is this a time for silence?”
Slowly, slowly, the presence passed between their eyes and the candles towards the door: the eighth candle, the ninth, tenth, eleventh——
“Talbot, hold that door!” cried de Travest.
Someone laughed.
“Who laughed?” sobbed Lady Pynte.
Lord Marketharborough spoke: “What is this absurdity, sir? Who the devil are you? Speak up now!”
They saw the door-knob turn, they heard it turn.
“Not so quickly!” cried de Travest. “We can’t let you go so quickly!”
“Gently, Guy, gently!” said Mr. Warp. “Let him go. We can then discuss the matter at our leisure.”
They saw the door open, an inch, a little further....
“The word ‘devil,’”said a voice from the opening door, and the very voice, said Dwight-Rankin, seemed to smile in a cold but charming way, “the word ‘devil,’ my lord, comes very apt to this moment; and is, if you but knew it, more precisely organic to the occasion than at any previous time in the life which you have dedicated to me withsuch high scholarship, iron principle and lofty ardour. But I must take this opportunity to protest,” warmly continued the voice of Captain Charity, “against the present frivolous use of such major expletives as ‘hell,’ ‘damnation’ and ‘devil.’ They were created only for occasions of deep corruption, for moments of incredible baseness, for profound and monstrous annoyances, and, in particular, for use during times of inconceivable boredom. For instance, I might with propriety apply each one of them severally to different aspects of Lady Surplice’s charming dinner-party; but courtesy forbids. I give you farewell, my lord, ladies and gentlemen.”
“You might apply, sir! You give us farewell, sir! How, sir!” cried my Lord Marketharborough, who was not less fearless as a man than he was puissant as a lawyer. “And you dare to say, young man, that I have dedicated my life to you!”
“’Tis a point that seems to me self-evident, Lord Marketharborough. Since when have you been taught in your schools that the laws, which you, my lord, so vigorously interpret, come from Jehovah? The only laws that Jehovah ever gave to the world were the tribal laws that may have been good enough for a pack of grubby Jews in the dawn of understanding but have been broken ever since at Satan’s instigation by every self-respecting person: laws that encourage cruelty, exact poverty, condemn beauty, deride chivalry, proscribe joy, deplore elegance, and insist on a sordid and indiscriminate chastity. But was it Jehovah who gave you the divine consolation of Divorce? Or is it not He, the jealous God, who is ever so envious of Satan’s suggestions for greater happiness between men and women that He has imbued His priests on earth with a ferocious enmity to everything that can untie a man and a woman from the intolerable ordeal of an unhappy union. Jehovah has given you the sword, the rack, pestilence, Christianity, The King’s Proctor and Prohibition. Satan gave you the glorious beauty of Greece, the Pax Romana and the genius of invention. Jehovah gave you that ill-favoured lout, Martin Luther. Satan gave you Voltaire, who was a fallen archangel incarnate. Jehovah gave you the Cross. Satan gave you Chivalry. O Chivalry, poor broken-winged angel of light! She was the dark one’s favourite child, but your dour civilisation of the past ten centuries has been maiming her until she now lies broken and dying, her tears washing over the ruins of the past, her soul agonised by visions of the holocausts of the future, her eyes set with despairing prayer only on the few scientists, inventors and artists who are the hope of this rapacious and saintly world.”
The agreeable and scholarly voice of Mr. Warp broke the silence:
“Your utterances, sir, appear to me to show a decidedly anti-Semitic bias. Are you sure that is quite wise?”
“Socially, yes; politically, no. And I believe, Mr. Warp, that all good Englishmen have been accommodating themselves to that dilemma forthe last fifty years. By inclination, however, I am naturally an anti-Semite, since Hebrew is the language current in Paradise.”
“For pity’s sake,” said M. des Beaux-Aces, “don’t say that English is the language current in Hell. They have already all the richest colonies.”
“In the Scriptures,” said Dame Warp bitterly, “it is written, if I remember aright, that persons with such unconventional views as yours are consigned forever with appropriate torments to a place which it ill befits a decent woman—I said adecentwoman—to call Hell. I can see, however, no traces of the chastening effect of so proper a punishment in your form of address to people to whom you have been scarcely introduced. Indeed, you seem to be an unpleasantly self-assured young man.”
“Gently, my love,” Mr. Warp admonished her. “We are not yet precisely informed as to who the creature is. Should he be Lucifer himself a certain arrogance is permitted to him by the unanimous authority of all the best scholiasts. I incline to think, however, that he is only an inferior demon, such as plague the shrill imaginations of minor French agnostics and continually prick the Conservative Party into a senseless antipathy to Free Trade. But let us wait——”
The door, which had all this while been held ajar, closed sharply. De Travest started. Had the presence gone? Cries my Lord Marketharborough:
“Have you run away, you inferior demon you?”
“Dear me, no!” sighed the Other wearily. “But I must confess that I am astounded at theease with which you charming people put up with this kind of thing night after night. You might, I do assure you, just as well be locked in the perpetual shadows of Eblis. But I suppose I must stay until I have fulfilled my promise——”
“Your promise!” cried Lady Surplice. “What promise? What is the dreadful man talking about now?”
De Travest spoke sternly: “Sir, may I remind you that we of our generation are not easily frightened by invisible presences, phantoms, imps, ghosts, vampires and demons?”
“Oh, come!” laughed the Other. “Your generation, nay, your century, is more susceptible of superstition than any that has gone before. It is merely that you have altered the angle, and are now enslaved by the meanest superstition of all, which is common sense.”
“That may or may not be,” said the Lord Chancellor; “but may I point out to you, young man, that it is considered neither polite nor manly to sit at a lady’s table only to distress her?”
“A lady?” said the Other.
“A lady, certainly!” snapped my lord.
“What lady?”
“Lady Surplice, sir.”
“Well, she may be a lady,” said the Other severely, “but she is certainly no gentlewoman.”
“What!” cried Lady Surplice, her terror on the instant supplanted by anger. “Are you referring to me, you low man? Talbot! Where is Talbot? Talbot, show this person the door! If you cannot see him, you can see the door. Open it.”
“That will do, Lady Surplice!” said the Othersharply; and now for the first time, said Dwight-Rankin, the voice of him who called himself Captain Charity was informed with a degree of severity quite unusual in polite society. “You cannot hope, Lady Surplice, with your worldly quips and cunning impertinences, to impress one of my condition and experience. You forget that I, had I no other claim to distinction, am the supreme host of all time.”
“You forget Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts,” said the Lord Chancellor, who had had a good education.
“My friend,” said de Travest, “are you imp, god, or devil? You are too self-confident for an imp, you attach too much importance to your social position to be a god, so you are probably, as Mr. Warp suggested, some inferior demon in search of cheap distraction. What is your name, fellow?”
“I am that which is so dark that beside me darkness is radiance, and I am that which walks in such brightness that I darken the sun and stars. I am that which is stronger than God and more enduring than stone, and I am that which is frailer than a flower and more destructible than glass. I am that which cannot be killed, and I am that which dies a thousand deaths every day. I am the spirit of man. But the interpreters of your God, in their illiterate fulminations, have made my name familiar to you under many vile disguises, the better to sacrifice the spirit of man to the savagery of mankind.”
“Young man,” said the Lord Chancellor severely, “are you seriously implying that you are the Prince of Darkness?”
“We do not recognise that title!” cried Lady Surplice. “Prince, indeed! It is not in Burke, Debrett or the Almanack de Gotha——”
“Under how many vile disguises, woman!”
“What I want to know is,” said de Travest mildly, “why you insist on calling me Michael? since, you know, my name is Guy.”
“Merely in moments of forgetfulness, de Travest. In appearance you remind me of one whom I once loved as a brother, in the days before time was. How calm and beautiful he was, in his golden cuirass and diamond helmet! Only my love for the beautiful archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, kept me so long in subjection to the Lord of Hosts. But the time came when I, the most favoured captain of the empyrean, the prince of the hierarchy of archangels, with only the wings of the terrible and adorable choir of cherubim and seraphim between my eager youth and the thunderbolts of Jehovah, could no longer brook His ignorant and warlike complacency. As you have been taught, I raised the black standards of revolt; was at last defeated by Michael, Captain of the Hosts; and was plunged into Hell for eternity. I turned to Nature. I watched this planet come into being from the boiling elements. I watched this world’s virginity. Then, after many æons, I observed the growth of mankind. At first I was appalled at the misery in store for these helpless creatures. Then, as I perceived mankind’s blind will to liveand savage instinct to conquer, to acquire, to destroy, I lay for long ages in fear of the wretchedness in store for Nature, how it would be desecrated, perverted and ravished by these creatures who could dominate all other animals merely because of an opposable thumb. I conceived a plan to avert this calamity; and, walking the earth in many shapes, I directed mankind to fulfil its most childish dreams and to sink into Nature’s bosom, wherein only can be found true joy, true love, and perfect peace. I succeeded. The Greeks were beautiful because I taught them to adore beauty: they made things of beauty because I taught them to worship their own beauty: and the gods they served were beautiful because they made their gods after their own image. I nearly succeeded with the Roman world. But my ancient enemy sent the man Paul to revive the savagery in men and women and to wither the love of Nature in the hearts of children. Since then my enemy has ruled the world. Yet, only the other day, I thought I saw a fit opportunity for my beneficial interference: with my heart afire with love of mankind, which I have helped through so many trials, I inspired certain noble minds with the crusade of the League of Nations. But mankind has preferred the dictates of its cruel God, the Lord of Hosts, who has long since given up trying to govern men through Christianity and now leads them by the nose with the childish superstition of common sense; and I have now no more hope for the happiness of a world that will deride the audacious gentleness of a Woodrow Wilson and countenance the rapacious insolence of aPoincaré, the vulgar dictatorship of a Mussolini, the unnatural charm of a Winston Churchill, and the complacent gracelessness of a gentleman who only too obviously rejoices in the name of Elihu Root.”
The agreeable and scholarly voice of Mr. Warp broke the silence:
“Your utterances, sir, appear to me to show a decidedly anti-Chauvinist bias. For my part, since the invasion of the Ruhr by the French and the assault on Corfu by the Italians, I have never been able to think of Poincaré or Mussolini without a grave disorder of mind. May I ask, sir, if you favour the Liberal school of thought? We would be far from disdaining your assistance in our imminent campaign for convincing the people of the essential truths of Liberalism.”
“I incline, if anything, to Labour, Mr. Warp; and hope to assist that party to very considerable success at your next elections; for, if I may say so, you cannot sweep a party out of existence for long by talking like a pack of silly schoolboys of biscuits, motor-cars and secret documents.”
“Hear, hear!” said the Lord Chancellor, who had gone to sleep and was dreaming that he was listening to a speech against Prohibition.
“On the other hand,” mildly said de Travest, “we are still awaiting an explanation of your sickening intrusion into Lady Surplice’s house.”
“Mrs. Amp sent me,” said the Other wearily.
“Mrs. Amp!” cried Lady Surplice. “Mrs. Amp? That low woman!”
“How can you bring yourself to know such women?” said Dame Warp bitterly. “Particularly when, through sundry minor faults, there must be so many decent women—I saiddecentwomen—in your, well, environment.”
“She amuses me,” said Satan. “However,” the voice went on, “as I have fulfilled my promise, I will now, with your permission, take my leave.”
“But, Prince,” cried Lady Surplice, “what was your promise? What have you fulfilled? What has that low woman to do with it? I insist on knowing, Prince. Is this a time for silence?”
“My promise was merely this, Lady Surplice. At a recent dinner-party of Mrs. Amp’s, at which the guests of honour were Julius Cæsar, Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys, Balzac and myself, I was reckless enough to promise Mrs. Amp that I would ascend to earth one evening and spoil a dinner-party of yours. I will report to her, however, that a dinner-party so brilliant as yours would need the dulness of Jehovah himself to spoil it.Monseigneur, I give you farewell. Ladies, good-bye.Adieu, caballeros!”
“Stop, stop, stop!” cried Lady Surplice, frantically starting from her chair. “Just one moment, my dear Prince——”
“Well, just one,” sighed the archangel of sin, “for I promised Mrs. Amp to be back in time to hear Napoleon’s after-dinner speech on the intellectual obesity of soldiers, and successful soldiers in particular. What have you to say?”
“But am I to understand,” cried my lady indignantly, “that this monstrous woman is allowed to give all the parties she likes in Hell?”
“Naturally, madam. Else why should it be called Hell?”
“Then,” flashed my lady with a brilliant smile, “when I die, I shall also be able to give——”
“When you die, Lady Surplice, you will go to Heaven. For you are a good woman. You have a kind heart. You have cared for your husband and your children, and you have always given freely to the sick, the halt, the blind, the deaf and the dumb. In fact, Lady Surplice, I am very glad to have allowed myself this opportunity of congratulating you. You and your butler are perhaps the only two people in this room who will ascend to salvation. The odour of your sanctity already shames me, Lady Surplice. The saints in Paradise shall find in you a matchless companion. Talbot, the bosom of Abraham awaits you. I hope you will like it. Your only crimes, Lady Surplice, have been those of snobbery and vulgarity; and as the Bible was written before the existence of modern England, France and America, the very possibility of snobbery and vulgarity was unthought of, and thus they escaped inclusion among the heinous sins——”
“But look here,” protested Guy de Travest, “what reason but cruelty can you have for altering Lady Surplice’s destiny? It appears to me a gross case of prejudice, since, after all, Mrs. Amp has been allowed to ascend to Hell——”
“Descend, Guy,” said the Lord Chancellor. “All authorities combine in agreeing that the movement, if any, is downwards.”
“Mrs. Amp,” said the Other wearily, “has a claim to my hospitality because she poisoned her husband. Now, upon my word, I really must go——”
“But you mustn’t, you can’t!” sobbed my lady in distraction. “Am I to understand that when I die I must go to Heaven—while all my friends, all these charming people, are enjoying themselves in Hell at Mrs. Amp’s parties? Oh, is that just, Prince, is that reasonable, is it even gentlemanly?”
“You know, it really is not my fault,” protested the Prince of Darkness. “It is the will of God. Good-bye, Lady Surplice. To you others I need only sayau revoir, for you are all miserable sinners.”
The company, said Dwight-Rankin, were sore distressed at Lady Surplice’s plight, for the good lady was dear to them; and they would fain have done all they could to ease her mind as she whimpered, in an access of helplessness and despair: “Prince, cannot you—Oh!—can’t you prevail on God to let me—Oh, dear!—to let me waive the distinction just this once? I simply can’t face the idea of being parted from my friends—please, Prince, won’t you be a dear and prevail on Him to——”
“Enough, madam!” thundered the voice of the fallen child of light. “Go you to salvation! Behold, am I not the enemy of Jehovah? These are my final words, Lady Surplice. Prepare yourself for your ascent. Let your soul yearn for Heaven and your spirit accommodate itself to the idea of walking forever in the groves of Paradise to the songs of the harp and the lyre. Begone!”
“Begone?” said the Lady Amelia indignantly. “That is a harsh word to give a lady in her own house!”
“Surely,” snapped de Travest, “you are not so wanting in manners as to drink a lady’s wine and then kill her!”
“What can I do, my friend? It is the immemorial curse of thirteen, and the super-added curse of the spilled salt. And I thought, as Lady Surplice is the only one among you who is going to Heaven, that it would be appreciated in me as an act of courtesy to allow her precedence in death.”
“Please, may I say one word?” begged Shelmerdene, her eyes pitifully on the despairing face of her hostess. “I have been Muriel Surplice’s friend for many years, she has on several occasions been very kind and good to me, and I cannot sit calmly by and watch her being wronged. Sir,” said Shelmerdene to Satan, “this lady you would so recklessly consign to Heaven has committed a crime every bit as heinous as that for which Mrs. Amp is now suffering indigestion.”
“A crime?” cried Lady Surplice gladly. “Bless you, Shelmerdene dear! But what crime was it?”
“Shelmerdene,” said Satan gently, “are you mocking me? Was it to be mocked by you that I gave you charm, beauty and good sense, such a combination of virtues as never was known before? Was it to be mocked by you that I inspired a youth to give you a name which, although it is not your real name, becomes you better than any real name could?”
“This lady,” cried Shelmerdene, “once had a lover——”
“Scarcely a crime,” said Lucifer. “Heaven has long since given up rejecting women who havehad lovers. The angels protested that they found none but plain women wherever they walked in Paradise.”
“But she killed him!” cried Shelmerdene.
“Come, Shelmerdene!” said Dame Warp bitterly: “No decent woman—I said nodecentwoman—ever kills her lover.”
“Shelmerdene, are you sure I did?” sighed Lady Surplice. “Are you quite sure, dear? Did I really kill him?”
“You did, darling, I assure you,” said Shelmerdene. “You bored him to death. He begged me with his dying breath not to tell you, and I wouldn’t have if I weren’t so fond of you.”
“Then,” sighed the Prince of Darkness, “she may go to Hell.”
And, said Dwight-Rankin, even as the door was seen to close, it was also seen how all colour was instantly ravished from Lady Surplice’s face and how she sat in her chair still and cold. But even in death, said Dwight-Rankin, a smile of such happiness lit her face that her many friends, who never could think of her departure from among them but with the deepest regret, found solace in the certainty of the good lady’s contentment in the other world. However....
At the inquest it was naturally given out that Lady Surplice had died in some natural way: for who, asked Dwight-Rankin, would believe the tale of what had actually happened, who would believe the tale of him who called himself, with infinite mockery, Captain Charity? And who, continued Dwight-Rankin, would believe that, but for the kindly intervention of Shelmerdene, the spiritual parts of poor Lady Surplice would even now and forever be arranged in that position over the ivory parapets of Paradise in which she could most comfortably stare down, with intolerable longing, at the social gaieties of another place?
“Who, indeed!” I echoed gloomily.
Dwight-Rankin fell silent. The restaurant was emptying. Voices from distant tables approached ours and perished against the wall of silence that had risen upon the end of Dwight-Rankin’s relation. I could say nothing. At last Dwight-Rankin said: “Had poor Lady Surplice been alive now, she would have been staying at this very hotel. I would have been lunching with her. At this very moment I would have been enjoying a cigar over a nice spot of brandy.”
I ordered cigars and liqueurs. At that moment a lady entered the restaurant. She appeared to be a person of consideration. Waiters rushed towards her,maîtres d’hôtelbowed down before her. She waived them away. Her present concern appeared to have nothing to do with food, although her proportions were not those of one who had in the past indulged any aspirations to asceticism. Her face was large and good-humoured. When she smiled, her face was very large and very good-humoured indeed. She smiled now, bearing down on Dwight-Rankin. Silence perished around her. I prepared to fly. She enveloped the void about our table. The pearls about her throat were larger than her eyes, buther eyes shone more brilliantly than the diamonds on her hands. She strode into the silence like a warrior from Babel; and a forest of laughter stood on the site of the Ritz Hotel. She cried: “Dwight-Rankin! The very man I am looking for! Now I want you to be certain and come to——”
Dwight-Rankin indicated my presence.
“Mr.——” he said. “Mrs. Amp.”
“Say, listen, that’s not true! Mr.——, I certainly am glad to know you. How do you do, how do you do? You must come too, Mr.——. I have read your books. They are amazing, enchanting, universal. You are a genius. I tell the world so. I was telling the Duke of Mall and the Grand Duke Charles so only the other night. I said: ‘He is a genius.’ Now I want to tell you boys that to-morrow night I am throwing the finest party that has ever been dreamt of. It’s going to be just great. You boys have just got to come. I’ll tell the world that there’s nothing that’s not going to happen at that party. Muriel Surplice will be green. All her friends are coming. Everyone is coming. Say, listen, I have taken the whole Château de Madrid for the night and have changed it into a Venetian lagoon and at midnight I have engaged just the most complete circus to come and amuse us, as my point is, boys, that when one goes on a party one should just have everything from Mah Jongg to marmosets——”
She went, at last.
Dwight-Rankin said dreamily: “Have a spot of brandy?”
I choked. “You dare!” I said. “You dare tosit there and talk to me about spots of brandy after having palmed off on me that abominable rigmarole——”
“But it might have happened,” said Dwight-Rankin dreamily, waving a hand around the restaurant. “Perhaps it will happen. It certainly ought to happen. To all these charming people. Even lions will turn. However....”
The end of the book called May Fair, in whichare told the last adventures ofThese Charming People.