"And yet, my dear Raney," I said, as I lit a cigar and walked arm in arm with him along the deck, "you are the man who chastises us for our want of discipline."
"I felt I owed myself a smack at Turkey," he answered, gazing over the sapphire-blue Ægean to the vanishing coastline of Greece. "It must be kept quiet or you'll get me into rather serious trouble."
And from that day to this I have never asked or answered where O'Rane went when he left London in the late summer of 1912 and stayed away till the winter of the following year. It is now too late to harm him by putting the facts on paper.
Mayhew left us at Trieste and went by way of Vienna to Budapest. O'Rane and I returned to England, and two days after our arrival in town I invited him to dine with me. His man told me by telephone that he had sailed that morning for Mexico, and I gathered was trying to realize his property before the smouldering disorder there burst into a flame of civil war. He was absent from England all the summer of 1913, and, when he returned, it was in company of the so-called James Morris, and the Mexican oil venture was at an end. I never learned the terms on which they had sold out, but there was a heavy sacrifice. O'Rane, with characteristic optimism, expressed satisfaction at getting anything at all and sent Morris to Galicia and northern Italy to sink his experience and the proceeds of the sale in fresh oil speculations. In the late autumn they set up a joint establishment in Gray's Inn, selected, after due deliberation, as the place where an American citizen who had broken off diplomatic relations with his family was least likely to be molested.
After the weariness of my imprisonment in Sofia I felt entitled to spend the summer of 1913 in seeking relaxation. With O'Rane and Loring abroad I fell back for companionship on my cousin, Alan Hunter-Oakleigh. He was home from India on leave, and, as nothing would induce him to bury himself in Dublin, the family came over and took a flat in town—to the mortification of his wild young brother Greville, who held the not uncommon view that a man should not belong to the same club as his father or inhabit the same capital as his mother. Violet came protesting, as the conventional delights of the Season were beginning to pall on her, and the only member of the family who extracted profit from the change of home was the youngest brother, Laurence, who could now spend his Leave-out days from Melton in an orgy of dissipation for which one or other of his relations was privileged to pay.
I always count myself an Irishman until fate flings me into the arms of my cousins. Then I grow conscious of respectability, middle age and the solid seriousness of the Anglo-Saxon. A day with one of them was an adventure; a night with more than one almost invariably a catastrophe. For the early weeks of the season I shepherded Alan through half a hundred crowded and entirely blameless British drawing-rooms; we dined in all the approved restaurants and saw the same revue and musical comedy under a score of different names. Then he grew restless.
"This is too much like Government House," he complained of an Ascot Week ball at Bodmin Lodge with Royalty present. "I want a holiday from knee-breeches and twenty-one gun salutes. Low Life, George! Have you no Low Life to show me?"
I referred the question to Summertown, who was wandering about with a cigarette drooping from his lips and an anxious eye on the time.
"Wait just ten minutes," he begged us. "Greville and Fatty Webster have gone off to cut the electric-light wires."
"But why?" I asked.
"To cheer these lads up a bit," he answered, pointing adisgusted finger at the stiff, formal ballroom.
"Then I propose to leave at once," I said, making for the staircase.
"Oh, you'd better stay," he called after me. "Why, for all you know, you may get your pocket picked by a third-class royalty. Not everyone can say that, you know, and some of to-night's lot look proper Welshers. Just as you like, though, and, if you'd really rather go, I'll give you a scrambled egg at the 'Coq d'Or.'"
My cousin brightened visibly at the suggestion, and the three of us drove to a silent, ill-lit street off Soho Square. An impressive commissionaire admitted us to a small oak-panelled hall with a cloakroom on one side and a new mahogany counter on the other. A Visitors' Book lay open, and Summertown gravely inscribed in it the names of J. Boswell, Auchinleck; S. Johnson, Litchfield; and R. B. Sheridan, London. We descended to a glaring white and gold room, as new as everything else, with tables round the wall, a negro orchestra at one end and in the middle an open space for dancing. Replace the negroes with Hungarians, and the room was an exact replica of any cabaret in Budapest or Vienna.
As cicerone, Summertown enjoyed himself. By dint of addressing the waiters as 'Gerald,' the ladies as 'Billy' and demanding 'my usual table,' he secured us kidney omelettes, sweet champagne and the company of two lightly clad and strangely scented young women, whose serious occupation in life was twice daily to shuffle on to the Round House stage by way of a platform through the stalls, to the refrain of "Have you seen my rag-time ra-ags?" A swarthy Creole hovered within call and was urged to complete the party.
"Je suis femme mariée, m'sieur," she sighed, shaking her head.
"That's all right, old thing," Summertown reassured her. "We're all married—more or less—and we're only young once. Waitero! Uno chairo immediato damquick, what what! Well, lads, this is the 'Coq d'Or.' What about it?"
"It is an impressive scene," I replied.
The room was half empty when we arrived, but filledrapidly during the next hour. I observed Sir Adolf Erckmann presiding over a large party and saw numerous rather elderly young men whose lined faces and watchful eyes were familiar to me from music-hall promenades. A handful of professionals executed the Tango and Maxixe with much of the suggestiveness of which those dances are capable, but it was only when the twanging banjos changed to rag-time that the majority of our neighbours sheepishly unbent and put forth an assumption ofjoie de vivre.
"This is It," cried Summertown, jumping up excitedly with arched back and hunched shoulders. "Come on, Billy!"
In a moment they were locked in each other's arms, swaying slowly and shuffling down the length of the blazing gold and white room. The Creole proposed that she and Alan should follow Summertown's example, and, when he excused himself, made successful overtures to the other Round House lady whom we had been privileged to entertain.
"The metropolisiswaking up," commented Alan as he watched the scene.
Elderly women were being navigated by anxious young men, elderly men pranced conscientiously with shrill young girls, whom they seemed to envelop in waves of shirt front and human flesh. Three rather intoxicated boys, with their hats on, gravely linked hands and circled unsteadily to a hiccoughed refrain of 'Nuts in May'; girls danced with girls, and a thin, long-haired man performed apas seulwith the aid of a banjo purloined from a member of the orchestra who had withdrawn in search of refreshment.
"There's been rather a boom in night-clubs lately," I explained. "People were tired of being turned out of the restaurants at half-past twelve."
"Do ladies come here?"
"You see them," I said.
Alan wrinkled his nose and turned his eyes to Sir Adolf Erckmann, who was dancing with a girl of about sixteen. Her little face with its powdered nose and painted lips was squeezed against his chest, one great arm twined round her waist and gripped her body to his own, the other circled herneck and rested ponderously on her left shoulder. Bald and scarlet from collar to scalp, Sir Adolf drooped top-heavily over her head; a cigar extended jauntily from the upper tangles of his beard, and a pair of rimless eyeglasses flapped at the end of their cord against the bare back of his partner.
"And who is our friend who has been through hell with his hat off?" Alan inquired.
I told him.
"They do these things better in Port Said," he observed.
Our evening was not hilariously amusing, and I am afraid Summertown must have caught us yawning and consulting our watches. Certainly he was as prompt with apologies as we with speeches of reassurance, and we reached Oxford Street and a cab rank in so great an odour of amity that Alan and I found ourselves pledged to dine with him and be introduced to every night-club of which he was a member.
And on four several occasions we repeated the desolating experience. By the end of a month I could pose as an authority and recognize the subtile differences that distinguished one from another. At the 'Azalea,' for example, the hall was oblong; at the 'Long Acre' there was a Hungarian orchestra; and the conventional white and gold of the others gave place to white and green at the 'Blue Moon.' For all their variety, however, there came a day when Alan and I decided that we would not eat another kidney omelette, nor drink another glass of sweet champagne, nor watch the gyrations of another free-list chorus girl.
"But you simplymustcome to the 'Cordon Bleu,'" cried Summertown, when I broke the news as we dined and played shove-ha'penny with the King's Guard in St. James's Palace. In his eyes we figured as two middle-aged converts who were showing a disposition to recant. "It's the cheeriest spot of all; you'll have no end of a time there."
"Why didn't you take us there before?" I asked, with resentful memory of my late endurance.
"The police were expected to raid it," he explained. "It's all right, that's blown over. I'll take you on Tuesday."
Rather than wound his feelings, we passed our word.The 'Cordon Bleu' was the epitome of all the others, and with Erckmann, Lord Pennington, Mrs. Welman and a train of little pink and white girls in short tight skirts, seemed to be weighted with more than a fair share of Apaches. Wearily we seated ourselves at one of the little tables and watched the party swelling. It was eighteen strong when we entered, with nine men who made a business-like supper and nine women who smoked endless cigarettes, talked in penetrating tones and called each other by unflattering nicknames. As a new couple came in, one of the girls jumped up to make way and began to dance. I was too short-sighted to recognize her at first, but, as she came nearer, our eyes met for a moment, and I bowed. Not very skilfully she pretended not to see me, but by ill-luck the music stopped a few minutes later when she was opposite our table.
"Miss Dainton and Fatty Webster of all people!" cried Summertown.
Sonia turned slowly and surveyed the group.
"George! And Captain Hunter-Oakleigh!" she exclaimed, with a fine start of surprise. "And Lord Summertown! I say, youaregoing it! I thought you were much too heavy for a night-club, George!"
"My cousin wanted to see Low Life," I explained, as I brought up a chair.
"Butthisisn't low! All the best people come here. Has anybody got a cig.?"
Alan offered her his case, and she leant back with her hands clasped behind her head and her eyes half closed, inhaling the smoke and languidly blowing it out through her nose. For the "Cordon Bleu" her costume was admirably chosen—a tight-fitting dove-grey skirt slashed open to the knee on one side and revealing transparent stockings and satin shoes laced criss-cross up to the shin; the waist was high, and at the waist the dress stopped short, leaving arms and back bare to the shoulder blades; she wore no gloves, and the remains of a grey net scarf protruded from her partner's tail-pocket. Out of the Russian ballet I hardly remember seeing a girl more sparingly attired.
Webster was in his customary condition of silence and sticky heat. I sometimes wonder how a man whose utterance was restricted to four words at a time could have been involved in an action for breach of promise, yet there has never been any doubt that he paid substantial compensation. Apoplectically he grunted "Thanks," when Summertown plied him with champagne, and sat thoughtfully drinking until Sonia expressed a wish to go on dancing. Without having spent an unduly vicious youth I knew by a certain glaze over Webster's eyes that he would be imprudent to undertake such violent exercise. At Sonia's bidding, however, he clutched the table and rose with an effort to his feet. Only when he continued to stand there rocking gently from side to side did she turn a rather scared face to me with the words:
"Fatty's tired. Come and dance, George. It's a waltz; you can manage that."
Lest a worse thing befall her, I threw myself into the breach and waltzed to a couple of unoccupied chairs at the far end of the room.
"Are you going to be a sport, George?" she inquired a little uncertainly as we sat down.
"What exactly does that mean?" I asked.
She looked at me with her head on one side.
"I shan't be popular if you tell mother you've seen me here," she explained.
"But you said all the best people came here," I reminded her. "Where are you supposed to be—officially?"
"Surrey House. I'm going back there in a minute. It was frightfully dull, but we did our best until Mrs. Wemley—it's her ball, you know—had the cheek to come up and say she didn't like to see the one-step done. That put the lid on! These old frumps will be going back to lanciers and barn-dances next. Fatty and I wandered out to smoke a cig. when a taxi drifted providentially by and brought us here."
I got up and looked at my watch.
"And now I'm going to take you back there," I said.
"I must wait till Fatty's sobered down a bit," she answered, looking across the room at her somnolent partner. "Ifthe worst comes to the worst, I can always say that Sir Adolf invited me."
"You're coming now," I said. "It's the price of my silence."
She lay comfortably back in her chair with her legs crossed, swinging one foot.
"Rot! You wouldn't be such a sneak," she began.
"Now, Sonia," I repeated.
She looked at me, shrugged her shoulders and walked up the stairs in silence. I scribbled a note to Alan, put her in a taxi, and drove to Surrey House.
"I suppose you're not in a mood for good advice?" I asked, as we drove along Oxford Street.
"No-p," she answered shortly, and I held my peace. Curiosity, however, got the better of her, and she inquired whether I imagined she was not capable of looking after herself.
"I was wondering whether you appreciated what kind of woman frequents a place like the 'Cordon Bleu'?" I said.
"My dear George, I wasn't born yesterday," she answered.
"But if you dress in the same way, go to the same places, sup with the same men——"
"The difference is that I know where to stop, George."
"That knowledge is not common with your sex. In any case, the people who see you there——"
"Oh,damnpublic opinion!" she interrupted irritably. "People who know me know I'm all right; people who don't know me don't matter. And that's all."
"And here's Surrey House," I said, as the taxi slowed down. "I haven't been invited, so I won't come in. If I were you, I should avoid men who don't know when they've drunk as much as is good for them."
"Good night, grandpapa!" she answered, as she ran up the steps and disappeared inside the house.
The autumn and winter of 1913 I divided between Ireland and the Riviera. When I came back to London the following spring, Amy Loring told me that her brother had returned.Ostensibly his yacht had to be fitted with new engines, and while in England he was taking the opportunity of attending to a little business. At the time of our conversation he was at House of Steynes, and, as soon as the tour of inspection was over, there would be nothing to keep him.
"Do see if you can knock some sense into him," Amy begged me despairingly. "It's perfectly ridiculous his wandering about all over the world like this. Mother feels it frightfully."
"What is he like now?" I asked.
She brushed back the curls from her forehead and made a gesture of impatience.
"I don't know. He's horribly ironical. Nothing in life is worth doing, according to him. He smiles politely and sneers politely.... And all the time, you know, I'm sure he's as lonely and melancholy as can be. That engagement was an awful business, George. He was very much in love with her——"
"And she treated him abominably," I said, lighting a cigarette.
"Yes, I think she did," Amy answered deliberately. "It wasn't his fault. Of course, it's not every woman who could marry him, he's—difficile; but the way he behaved to her was perfectly angelic. Now he's lost faith in everything.... Do see if you can't do anything for him; he's bored to the verge of distraction, being by himself all this time."
I promised to do what I could, and on the night of his return to London we dined together. It was the last evening of the Melton holidays, and I had organized a small theatre party for my cousin Laurence,—Violet and Amy were with us,—and, as the ordering of the arrangements was in Laurence's youthful but self-confident hands, we sat in the deafening neighbourhood of a powerful coon band and dined incongruously off unlimitedhors d'oeuvres, a Nesselrode ice-pudding and—so far as I can remember—nothing else. Still at his order we drank sparkling Burgundy, variously described by him as a 'pretty tipple' and by Loring as 'warm knife-wash.' We spent the evening in a theatre where we wereforbidden to smoke and supped off Strasbourg pie and iced cider-cup in a restaurant where two persistent dancers whirled their bewildering way in and out of the tables.
"A pretty useful evening," said my cousin, as we dispatched him to bed; and I had not the heart to undeceive him.
"Remember me to Burgess, Laurie," said Loring, and turning to Violet, "I wonder if you keep a little brandy in this flat? My digestion is not what it once was."
Life is a tangle of incongruities, and at one o'clock in the morning, in a St. James's Court flat, with Mrs. Hunter-Oakleigh sleeping on one side of us and Laurence on another, we formally welcomed Loring back to London over a supplementary meal of bread, cheese and liqueur brandy. Warming to the work, we summoned O'Rane by telephone from Gray's Inn. It was half-past three, and dawn was lighting up the sky, when Amy broke up the party by demanding to be taken home to bed.
"And now you're back in England, you're going to stay here?" Violet inquired, as she and Loring shook hands.
"I can't get away for a bit," was the answer. "What with this engine——"
"Will you stay long enough to make your apologies?" she asked, looking at him through narrowed lids.
"But what have I done?" he inquired anxiously.
"A halfpenny postcard—any time—just to show you were still alive——"
"But I didn't write to anyone——" he protested.
Violet laughed and turned to the door. In the subdued yellow light her grave beauty was very attractive. Though she smiled still, her eyes were wistful, and I chose to fancy she had not outgrown her old affection so quickly as Loring.
"My dear, I'm not jealous!" she said. "As a mark of friendship, though——"
"Violet, I'm frightfully sorry!" he exclaimed, taking an eager step towards her. "Will that do?"
"Are you going off again?"
"I shall stay as long as there's anything to stay for."
The direct and obvious route from St. James's Court eitherto Princes Gardens or Gray's Inn is perhaps not by Curzon Street, but it was so long since we had been together that O'Rane and I sat talking in the library of Loring House until there was barely time for a Turkish bath before breakfast. The Yately seat was vacant, and Raney proposed to begin his canvass in two days' time. He was full of rhetoric and indignation on the condition of Ireland and rehearsed his election speeches at some length.
"It's as bad as you like," Loring interrupted, "but it won't come to anything."
"Are you in the Special Reserve?" O'Rane asked suddenly.
"I believe I've got an honorary rank of some kind as a Lord Lieutenant," answered Loring, "but I'm not on the active list. What's the Special Reserve been doing?"
"I hear they received secret preparatory mobilization orders in March," said O'Rane. "It's not supposed to be known, but one of the military attachés told me. This is April. What's it all about?"
"The Government won't mobilize the Regular Army for a row of this kind," said Loring contemptuously.
"Well, what are they doing it for, then?"
But O'Rane's question was unanswered for another four months.
Loring accompanied me to the Turkish Baths, and we lay on adjoining couches sipping coffee and lazily discussing what had taken place during his absence from England. If ever a man was bored and dissatisfied, that man was Loring. A certain pride kept him away from the House of Lords, he had neither the age nor the energy to qualify him for a Governorship and was yet too old and substantial in mind to be amused by a purely social life.
"Old Burgess was right, you know, George," he yawned. "I've had a damned wasted experience. And the Lord knows how it will end. What is there to do?"
"I should spend a few weeks in town," I suggested. "You've probably had enough of your own company."
"God! Yes! Only London, you know.... D'you seemuch of the Daintons? You can speak quite freely. After all I was engaged to her for nearly a year, and it's been broken off for three."
I finished my coffee rather deliberately and lit a fresh cigarette.
"She has not improved, Jim," I said.
He lay back and stared at the ceiling.
"I used to think.... You know, George, I've got to an age when Ioughtto marry."
"So has she," I observed, tucking my towels round me and beginning to brush my hair. "I'm coming round to Bertrand's view that an unmarried woman of five-and-twenty is a public danger, particularly when husband-hunting is conducted with its present healthy absence of restraint. The spinster is not so much an object of pity as an offence against nature, and Nature punishes any liberty you take with her. In the old days we had our convents where superfluous women could retire with dignity. That at least whited the outside of the sepulchre. The present London Season is a pathological study. You'll see for yourself."
He rose slowly from the bed and began to get into his clothes.
"I don't think I shall be much in town if I'm going to run into the Daintons everywhere," he answered.
Only three days later I was able to tell him that this last danger had been removed. Bertrand and I had arranged to hear "Parsifal" at Covent Garden, and, as his box was large, he offered a seat to Violet—the one woman of his family whom he treated with paternal kindness. There was still room for another, and I invited Loring to join us. Nothing is more repugnant to my taste than to interfere with the destinies of others, but when Amy petitioned me in person I could not decently refuse.
"He can't tell one note from another," I expostulated, "and the thing starts at five. He'll be reduced to tears."
"If he doesn't want to come, he needn't accept," she answered. "All I ask you to do is to give him the invitation."
"Well, willyouinvite him—from me?"
"No, I want you to send him a note. The time, and where to meet, and the arrangements for dinner—and who's to be there."
Without further protest I sat down and wrote as I was bid.
"Tell him not to talk through the Good Friday music," I begged.
"I shan't tell him anything," said Amy. "I don't know anything about the plan; it's just a thought that's casually occurred toyou——"
"I knew I should have the blame put on me," I answered resignedly.
When the night arrived there was little blame to apportion, and Loring thanked me effusively for my invitation. Between the acts we dined at the Savoy and were returning to our box when I caught sight of Sonia waiting for her party in the hall. Fortunately the others had gone on ahead before our, eyes met.
"I haven't seen you for an age," she began pleasantly, in apparent forgetfulness of a peevish meeting at the 'Cordon Bleu' the previous summer.
"Are you up for the season?" I asked.
"No, I'm going abroad next week. Sir Adolf's getting up a motor tour through France and Italy, ending up at Bayreuth in time for the Festival. Lord Pennington, Mrs. Welman, Sir Adolf, his sister,—the Baroness, you know,—Fatty Webster and me. I'm with Fatty to-night."
"Are your people in town?" I asked, as I prepared to follow my party. Webster is a man I do not go out of my way to meet.
"Father is, but mother's tired of London, so I'm staying with Mrs. Ilkley. She's a model chaperon and all that sort of thing, but shewilllive out in the Cromwell Road. It's a fearful bore."
"A most respectable quarter," I commented.
"It's a rotten hole when you've got an hour and a half to dine and dress and get back here in," she grumbled. "I didn't try. I just changed in Fatty's flat; that's why he's late. The poor soul's only got one bedroom, so I monopolized it while hewas gorging. By the way, that's not necessarily for publication, as they say."
"Why on earth did you tell me?" I asked, with the mild exasperation of a man who resents youthful attempts to shock his sense of propriety.
"I thought you wanted cheering up," Sonia answered airily. "You're so mid-Victorian."
"You're getting too old for this eternalingénuebusiness, Sonia," I said. "And yet not old enough to avoid coming a very complete cropper. Don't say I didn't warn you?"
When I got back to the box Loring was raking the stalls with his opera-glass. As Sonia and Webster came in, he gave a slight start and sat far back in his chair. No one else noticed the movement, but I had time to scribble, "She is going abroad immediately," on my programme and hand it to him before the lights were lowered. At supper he announced without preface that he proposed to spend at least part of the Season in London.
With the detachment of one who has never taken even social dissipation with the seriousness it deserves, it flatters my sanity to describe the condition of England in these years as essentially neurotic. In retrospect I see stimulus succeeding stimulus, from the Coronation year—when all expected a dull reaction after the gaiety of King Edward's reign—to 1912, when an over-excited world feared a reaction after the Coronation year. This dread of anti-climax caused the carnival of 1912 to be eclipsed in the following spring, and, when Loring invited me to assist him in "one last fling before we settle down," we found that 1914—with its private balls and public masquerades, its Tango Teas andSoupers Dansants, its horseplay and occasional tragedies—was bidding fair to beat the records of its predecessors.
For three and a half months we seemed hardly to be out of our dress-clothes. Valentine Arden, as usual, let his flat and took a suite at the Ritz, from which he descended nightly at the invitation of a seemingly inexhaustible stream of people with sufficient money to spend fifteen hundred pounds on a single night's entertainment. Nightly there came the samehorde of pleasure-seekers, some of them girls I had been meeting regularly for ten years, at first sight no nearer to any settled purpose in life. I think it is not altogether the fancy of an ageing and jaundiced eye to see a strain of vulgarity spreading over Society at this time; for, though Erckmann chanced to be abroad, his flashy followers had established their footing and remained behind to prove that money can open every door. Lady Isobel Mayre, daughter of the Minister of Fine Arts, gave them an entrée to Ministerial society; the poverty of Lord Roehampton enabled them to add a Marquess's scalp to their belt, and the old distinction between smartness and respectability broke down. The prohibited dances and fashions of one year struggled to become the next year's vogue. To be inconspicuous was to bedémodé.
"The fact is, we're too old to stay the course," Loring said regretfully at supper one morning towards the end of June. "George, let me remind you that you and I are as near thirty-five as makes no odds. Amy, you're thirty. Violet, you're—well, you look about nineteen."
"Add ten to it," Violet suggested.
"We're all too old; we must give it up. You're all coming to Hurlingham with me next week, aren't you? And then we'll ring down the curtain and say good-bye to London."
"One must live somewhere," I said, with an uneasy feeling that his new way of life might involve my spending the greater part of the year in County Kerry.
Loring lit a cigarette and gazed with disfavour round the garish room.
"Either I shall marry," he said, "or else go and live abroad."
The Hurlingham Ball at the beginning of July 1914 was the last of its kind I ever attended—probably the last I shall ever attend. We went a party of eight, as Loring wanted to offer O'Rane a complimentary dinner after his election at Yately, and Mayhew conveniently arrived in London for hissummer leave as the tickets were being ordered. To an outsider we must have presented a curious study in contrasts. Amy Loring had confided to me her certainty that her brother would propose to Violet before the evening was out, and four of us were therefore in a state of watchful anxiety. Of the other four, the two girls spent their time affecting interest in a heated political discussion in which O'Rane and Mayhew, with a fine disregard of fitness, were volubly engaged.
"Well, I'll tell you something youdon'tknow," said Mayhew, when we were by ourselves at the end of dinner and the last of a dozen preposterous stories had been exploded by O'Rane. "The Archduke Franz Ferdinand has gone with his wife for a tour through Bosnia——"
"Even I knew that," I said, as I cut my cigar.
"Don't interrupt," Mayhew urged. "I'll lay anybody a hundred to one they don't come back alive."
There was a suitably dramatic pause as he sat back with hand extended waiting for his wager to be taken.
"He's the heir, isn't he?" Loring inquired. "Is this some beastly new riddle?"
"It's the solution of a very old one," said O'Rane gravely. "The Archduke married a morganatic wife who'll be Queen of Hungary and can't be Empress of Austria. It'll save a lot of complication if they're put out of the way. After all, it's only two human lives."
"But—is this known?" I asked Mayhew in astonishment.
"It's being openly discussed in Budapest——"
"And London," O'Rane put in.
"Confound you, Raney," Mayhew cried. "You hear everything."
"It's a pretty story, even if it isn't quite new," said O'Rane. "I shan't take your bet, though, Mayhew; you're too likely to win. You see," he went on, turning to us, "the Bosnians simply hate the Archduke, so it'll look quite plausible if anyone says they've blown him up on their own initiative. And then Austria will have a wolf-and-lamb excuse for saying Servia was responsible and annexing her, just as she did with Bosnia and Herzegovina six years ago. This is the wayPowers and Potentates go to work in our enlightened twentieth century."
The discussion was interrupted by a footman entering to say that the cars were at the door. It was still daylight when we began to motor down, but we arrived to find the gardens lit with tiny avenues of fairy lights and to be greeted with music borne distantly on the warm, flower-laden breeze. For an hour I danced or wandered under the trees watching the whirl of bright dresses through the open ballroom windows. Loring and Violet had disappeared from view and only returned to us at supper-time so exaggeratedly calm and self-possessed that Amy squeezed my arm warningly as we entered the Club House.
"George, I've come to the conclusion that we must have one more ball before we settle down," he said, as we drew our chairs in to the table.
"This is about the last of the season," I warned him.
He waved away the objection.
"I'll give one myself—just to a few friends and neighbours at Chepstow—some time about the end of the month before everybody's scattered. I'm giving it in Violet's honour."
We turned to look at her, and the self-possession gradually faded out of her face.
"Violet, is it true?" Amy asked, jumping up in her excitement.
She nodded, with very bright eyes.
"I willnothave a scene!" Loring exclaimed. "Amy, sit down! If you try to kiss me in public.... Now, do try to look at the thing reasonably. It might have happened to anyone; it has, in fact, happened to a number of people. As for speeches and glass-waving.... Look how well George takes it! No nonsense about being glad to have me as a cousin, no grousing because he'll have to be best man—oh, we've arranged all that, my son—he just sits and drains a second bumper of champagne before anyone else has finished his first.... Amy, I shan't speak about it again!"
"My dear, I'm so happy," said his sister, subsiding with moist eyes into her chair.
"We're tolerably satisfied ourselves," Loring admitted. "Aren't we, Violet?"
But Violet made no reply beyond a quick nod of the head that was not yet quick enough to hide the trembling of her lips.
"Now, this had proved the dry-rot of the raceHe ruled o'er, that, i' the old day, when was needThey fought for their own liberty and life,Well did they fight, none better: whence, such loveOf fighting somehow still for fighting's sakeAgainst no matter whose the libertyAnd life, so long as self-conceit should crowAnd clap the wing, while justice sheathed her claw,—That what had been the glory of the worldWhen thereby came the world's good, grew its plagueNow that the champion-armour, donned to dareThe dragon once, was clattered up and downHighway and by-path of the world at peaceMerely to mask marauding, or for sakeO' the shine and rattle that apprized the fieldsHohenstiel-Schwangau was a fighter yet..... . . Then must the world give us leaveTo strike right, left, and exercise our armTorpid of late through overmuch repose,And show its strength is still superlativeAt somebody's expense in life or limb: ...Such devil's doctrine so was judged God's law....""Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society."Robert Browning.
"Now, this had proved the dry-rot of the raceHe ruled o'er, that, i' the old day, when was needThey fought for their own liberty and life,Well did they fight, none better: whence, such loveOf fighting somehow still for fighting's sakeAgainst no matter whose the libertyAnd life, so long as self-conceit should crowAnd clap the wing, while justice sheathed her claw,—That what had been the glory of the worldWhen thereby came the world's good, grew its plagueNow that the champion-armour, donned to dareThe dragon once, was clattered up and downHighway and by-path of the world at peaceMerely to mask marauding, or for sakeO' the shine and rattle that apprized the fieldsHohenstiel-Schwangau was a fighter yet..... . . Then must the world give us leaveTo strike right, left, and exercise our armTorpid of late through overmuch repose,And show its strength is still superlativeAt somebody's expense in life or limb: ...Such devil's doctrine so was judged God's law....""Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society."Robert Browning.
"Now, this had proved the dry-rot of the raceHe ruled o'er, that, i' the old day, when was needThey fought for their own liberty and life,Well did they fight, none better: whence, such loveOf fighting somehow still for fighting's sakeAgainst no matter whose the libertyAnd life, so long as self-conceit should crowAnd clap the wing, while justice sheathed her claw,—That what had been the glory of the worldWhen thereby came the world's good, grew its plagueNow that the champion-armour, donned to dareThe dragon once, was clattered up and downHighway and by-path of the world at peaceMerely to mask marauding, or for sakeO' the shine and rattle that apprized the fieldsHohenstiel-Schwangau was a fighter yet....
"Now, this had proved the dry-rot of the race
He ruled o'er, that, i' the old day, when was need
They fought for their own liberty and life,
Well did they fight, none better: whence, such love
Of fighting somehow still for fighting's sake
Against no matter whose the liberty
And life, so long as self-conceit should crow
And clap the wing, while justice sheathed her claw,—
That what had been the glory of the world
When thereby came the world's good, grew its plague
Now that the champion-armour, donned to dare
The dragon once, was clattered up and down
Highway and by-path of the world at peace
Merely to mask marauding, or for sake
O' the shine and rattle that apprized the fields
Hohenstiel-Schwangau was a fighter yet....
. . . Then must the world give us leaveTo strike right, left, and exercise our armTorpid of late through overmuch repose,And show its strength is still superlativeAt somebody's expense in life or limb: ...Such devil's doctrine so was judged God's law....""Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society."
. . . Then must the world give us leave
To strike right, left, and exercise our arm
Torpid of late through overmuch repose,
And show its strength is still superlative
At somebody's expense in life or limb: ...
Such devil's doctrine so was judged God's law...."
"Prince Hohenstiel-Schwangau, Saviour of Society."
Robert Browning.
Robert Browning.
The first five-and-thirty years of my life were singularly unemotional. My father died when I was too young to appreciate the loss, and I had never seen death at close quarters nor known the breathless thrill of a great triumph or the bitterness of a great disappointment. There was nothing to change the tolerant scale of values, to bring about an intenser way of life or a harsher manner of speech. My world was comfortably free from extremes, and it hardly occurred to me that the architects of civilization would attack their own handiwork, or that a man's smooth, hairless fingers would ever revert to the likeness of a gorilla's paw.
The "Five Days" changed all that. On the thirty-first of July I left London for Chepstow with no greater troubles than a sense of uneasiness at the breakdown of the Buckingham Palace Conference on the Irish deadlock. My uncle Bertrand, a pedantic Constitutionalist, drove me to Paddington, and from his speech I could see he was undecided whether to lament the failure of the negotiations or rejoice that a constitutional innovation had proved ineffective. With many others he felt the situation in Ireland must be very grave to allow of the Sovereign summoning the party leaders to his Palace; equally, so drastic a course could in the eyes of ordinary men only be justified by success.
And it had failed. And the next news might well be that shots were being exchanged on the borders of Ulster.
Such a possibility brought little embarrassment to the holiday makers who thronged the station. Fighting my way through the Bank-holiday crowd, I found the nucleus of our party sitting patiently on suitcases and awaiting a train that was indefinitely delayed by the extra traffic and a minor strike of dining-car attendants. As the time went by and the crowd increased, Summertown, Mayhew and O'Rane built the luggage into a circle and sat contentedly talking, while I,who was responsible to Loring for the full complement, wandered about, list in hand, ticking off the names of the new arrivals.
"Adsum!" called out Mayhew, when I reached him. "Aren't you glad you didn't take my bet about the Archduke, George?"
"I nearly did," I said. "I thought we'd left that sort of thing behind with the Borgias."
"It was a wonderful opportunity," he observed, with the air of a connoisseur in political crime. "You've seen the Austrian ultimatum? Well, Servia's going to be mopped up like Bosnia and Herzegovina."
He nodded omnisciently and raised his eyebrows interrogatively at O'Rane, who was seated on the next suitcase with his chin on his hands, lost in thought.
"They told me at the Club that Russia was mobilizing," I said.
"She'll climb down all right," Mayhew assured me. "You remember the 'Shining Armour' speech? It's no joke taking on Austria and Germany, especially if you can't mobilize under about two months. It might be different if France came in, but she's unprepared. They've been having quite a pretty dust-up in the Senate the last few days over army equipment."
Summertown scrambled down from his suit-case and strutted importantly across to us.
"I don't mind telling you fellows there's been a run on the Bank to-day," he said. "I don't know what a run on the Bank is, but there's been one. So now you know."
"There'll be a run on a number of banks if Austria declares war," Mayhew predicted. "And such a financial smash as the world has never seen. Our system of credit, you know.... I put it to a big banker last night, and he said, 'My dear Mayhew, I entirely agree with you——'"
"All big bankers talk to Mayhew like that," Summertown interrupted.
Mayhew sighed resignedly.
"Thank the Lord, here's the train," he said. "I'm wastedon Guardee subalterns. Come be useful with the luggage, Raney."
O'Rane had not spoken a word since we shook hands an hour before; the sound of his name roused him, however, and he jumped up with the words:
"If you're thanking the Lord about anything, you might thank Him that we're an island."
"Have you got anything up your sleeve, Raney?" I asked.
"Oh, a number of things. For one, the Fleet sailed from Portsmouth two days ago with coal piled up like haystacks on deck."
"What the deuce for?" I asked.
"Fresh air and exercise, I suppose," he answered. "If you want to try your hand again at war correspondence, I make no doubt you'll have the chance."
"This is devilish serious," I said. Experience had taught me that news from O'Rane was not to be lightly set aside.
"As serious as you like," he agreed. "Don't pull too long a face, though, or you'll spoil Jim's party."
And with that word his manner changed. Loring Castle lies between Chepstow and Tintern on a high ridge of hills overlooking the Severn. In normal times I have lunched in town, taken tea on the train and reached my destination after a run of four or five hours. On this occasion the strike and holiday traffic caused us to stop at countless wayside stations; it was after eight when we reached Chepstow, but, thanks to O'Rane, the journey was the most hilarious I have ever undertaken. Panic and disorder indeed descended upon us when at last the train steamed in and our two reserved coaches yielded up their sixteen men, twelve girls and nine maids; to this day I cannot explain how I fitted the party and its luggage into the different cars and delivered all at the Castle without loss or mishap, but, when Loring entered my room as I was dressing, he informed me that not so much as a jewel-case had gone astray.
"Any news in town?" he asked, and I gave him the gossip of Mayhew and O'Rane. "I meant about Ireland," he went on. "This Austrian business won't come to anything, butthere's trouble brewing in your sweet island. We're all rather depressed down here."
O'Rane, who had scrambled along the balcony, appeared at the open window in time to catch the last words.
"The only man who has the right to be depressed," he said, "is the luckless devil who's put his money into Austrian oil."
Loring turned to him swiftly.
"Are you hit, Raney?"
"Well, of course, as a Member I get four hundred a year less income-tax," he answered cheerfully.
"Talk seriously, you idiot."
O'Rane tossed a silver-topped bottle into the air and caught it again.
"I can't take myself seriously just now, Jim," he said. "We haven't earned a penny since Austria mobilized and our men were called up——"
"You save your wage-bill," I put in.
"We've got contracts, old man, and we've got penalties. Morris spent his morning raising every last penny he could lay hands on; we've been buying in the open market with the price soaring against us—and we shall just be able to supply the Ubique Motor and Cab Company to the end of our term. We were rather pleased to get that contract, too," he added, with a laugh. "As for the others——"
"What others?"
"Half a dozen more. Just enough to break us very comfortably."
"Rot, Raney!"
"So be it! We've sold the spare furniture in Gray's Inn,—Morris has developed wonderfully the last few years—and, unless Austria demobilizes within a week, I don't see us paying twenty shillings in the pound. Still, he's thirty and I'm only thirty-one...."
He strolled to the door, but Loring caught one shoulder and I the other.
"Look here, Raney——" we began together.
"Dear souls! save your breath!" he laughed. "I wasn't touting. I've been in warmer corners than this in mymis-spent youth, and while I'm frightfully grateful——" He paused and dropped his voice as though he were talking to himself: "Why, my God! if I can't keep afloat at one-and-thirty with all my faculties.... Hi, let me go! There's Amy, and I want to tell her how ripping she looks!"
He strained forward, but we kept our grip on his arms.
"Little man!" said Loring. "D'you remember the first time I thrashed you at Melton?"
"You brute, you nearly cut me in two!"
"I was rather uncomfortable about it," Loring admitted. "I wasn't sure that you were accountable for your actions. Now I know you're not."
With a sudden jerk he broke away and bounded to the hall, three stairs at a time, for all the world like a child at its first party.
Half-way through dinner Amy turned to me in perplexity, holding in her hand a worn gold watch with a half-obliterated L. K. worked into an intricate monogram.
"Is Davidquitemad?" she inquired. "I've been given this to keep until he asks for it back."
"It belonged to Kossuth," I explained. "He gave it to Raney's father, and I fancy Raney values it rather more than his own soul."
"But why——?" she began.
"He's afraid of losing it, I suppose."
"But if he's kept it all these years——"
"You'll be doing him a favour, Amy," I said, and without another word she slipped the watch into her waistband. It was true that the watch and its owner had faced some severe trials in different continents, but O'Rane had never up to that time undergone the humiliation of bankruptcy proceedings with the last indignity of being compelled to empty his pockets in court.
When dinner was over Loring gave him the alternative of sitting still or being turned out of the dining-room. I have never seen a man so indecently elated by the consciousness of his insolvency. The port had hardly begun to circulate before he jumped up and ran to the window in hopes that theguests were arriving and while we smoked and talked he was shifting restlessly from chair to chair, inquiring the time at two-minute intervals.
"But for your strictly sober habits——" I began.
"There's lightning in the air!" he exclaimed, his black eyes shining with excitement. "All these years I've been waiting—I never forget, George—waiting.... I won't be smashed! By God, I won't be smashed!"
"I'm glad I'm not one of your creditors," I said.
"Bah! They're all right. It's my beloved Austrians. I don't trust you a yard, old man, but unless I tell somebody I shall burst. If Austria makes war, she'll find a Foreign Legion fighting with the Servians; I've fixed the preliminaries, and a wire from town.... Ye gods! why don't they start the music? I want to dance with Violet, and the next time we meet I may not have any legs!" A chord several times repeated sounded from a distant piano—violins, followed by the deep note of a 'cello, began to tune up and along the drive below our open windows came the beat of throbbing engines, a sudden scrunch of tyres slowing down on gravel, a slamming of doors and a hum of voices. "At last!" cried O'Rane, springing to the door and running headlong into the ballroom.
We threw away our cigars, drew on our gloves and walked into the hall. Lady Loring and Amy stood at the stairhead and were joined a moment later by Violet and Jim, who took up their position a pace behind to one side. It was a small party, but for twenty minutes a procession of slight girls and smooth-haired, clean-shaven men ascended the stairs—curiously and characteristically English from the easy movements of the girls and the whiteness of their slender shoulders to the sit of the men's coats and the trained condition of their bodies. Good living, hard exercise and fresh air seemed written on every face; there was a wonderful cleanliness of outline and clarity of eye and skin; the last ounce of flabbiness had been worked away. And, like any consciously self-isolated section of society, they were magnificently at ease and unembarrassed with one another; sixty per cent. wererelated in some degree, and all appeared to answer to diminutives or nicknames.
"There's nothing to touch them in any countryIknow," murmured Mayhew, unconsciously giving expression to my thoughts. "Shall we go up?"
"In a moment," I said.
For a while longer I watched them arriving, the girls pattering up the steps with their skirts held high over thin ankles and small feet; their eyes showed suddenly dark and mysterious in the soft light of the great electric lamps, and eternal youth seemed written in their pliant, immature lines and lithe movements. Outside, the sky was like a tent of blue velvet spangled with diamonds. The Severn far down the valley side swirled and eddied in its race to open sea, and the moon reflected in the jostling waters shivered and forked like silver lightning. A scent of summer flowers still warm with the afternoon sun and gemmed with falling dew rose like a mist and enfolded the crumbling yellow stone and blazing windows behind me.
When the last car had panted away into the night, I heard a light step on the flagstones of the terrace, and Amy Loring slipped her arm through mine; the far-off hum of voices for a moment was still, and there followed an instant of such silence as I have only known in the African desert.
"There is an Angel of Peace," she whispered, "breathing his blessing over the house."
Then the band broke into the opening bars of a waltz.
We walked back and found Violet and Loring at the door of the hall, standing arm in arm and gazing silently, as I had done, on the tumbling waters of the Severn. We smiled, and on a common impulse he and I shook hands. Violet nodded as though she understood something that neither of us had put into words, and as we entered the hall Amy turned aside to kiss her brother's cheek.
"They're very happy," said Lady Loring when I met her at the stairhead.
"You mean Jim and Violet?"
"Everybody, bless them!" she answered, pointing with her fan through the door of the ballroom.
In an alcove looking on to the terrace Valentine Arden was smoking a cigarette and idly watching the pageant. There was a ghostly, 'end-of-season' look about his white face and the dark rings round his eyes.
"One was wondering if you brought any news from town?" he drawled. "You came to-day?"
"I suppose so," I said. It seemed more than eight hours since we held our council of war on the rampart of suitcases.
"One assumes there will be no actual fighting," he went on.
"I shouldn't assume anything," I said.
A shadow of annoyance settled on his weary young face.
"One intended bringing out another book this autumn," he observed.
"Oh, that'll be all right," I said. "Weshan't be dragged in."
I danced till supper-time and met him again by appointment for a small cigar on the terrace. We had been seated there for some ten minutes when a white touring car, driven by an elderly man in a frieze overcoat and soft hat, drew up opposite our chairs. As he came into the triangle of light by the open doors I recognized him as Colonel Farwell, the younger brother of Lord Marlyn and a frequent guest of my uncle in Princes Gardens.
"I wonder whether you gentlemen can tell me where Lord Loring's to be found?" he began. "Hallo, Oakleigh! I didn't see it was you. This is providential. You needn't bother Loring, but I should be greatly obliged if you could lay hands on my young nephew."
"I'll find him for you," I said. "I hope there's nothing wrong."
"There's no fresh news, if that's what you mean, but things are looking pretty serious. I hear that Germany has declared herself in a state of war."
"The Fleet's been ordered to take up war stations," I told him.
"You've heard that too? Well, the Army will be the next thing, and I should rather like to get Jack back to London. I can't come in with these clothes, but if you'd take him a message—— Don't make a fuss to frighten the women, of course."
I found Summertown finishing a bachelor supper with Charles Framlingham of the Rifle Brigade. Farwell's message seemed equally applicable to both and was received by both with equal disfavour.
"To declare war in the middle of supper is not the act of a gentleman," Framlingham pronounced.
He came out on to the terrace, notwithstanding, while I ran upstairs to warn Loring what was afoot. When we returned, it was to find six dutiful but protesting young officers pulling coats and rugs over their evening dress and struggling for corner seats in the car.
"I'm dreadfully sorry to break up your party, Loring," Farwell called out as they glided away amidst a subdued chorus of apologies and adieux.
Loring turned to me interrogatively.
"The Duchess of Richmond's Waterloo Ball," I remarked.
"We must keep things going upstairs," he said, turning back into the house. "On my soul, I can't see what it's all about. What's it got to do with us? If Servia and Austriawantto fight, and we aren't strong enough to stop them, why! good heavens! let's keep out of it like gentlemen! Why the deuce are we being so officious with our Fleet?"
It was one o'clock when we re-entered the ballroom, and so successfully did we keep things going that we supped for the last time in broad daylight, and our guests left at five.
O'Rane insisted on a march-past in honour of Loring and Violet, and we ran down a line of sixteen cars with a tray of glasses and five bottles of champagne. As each car passed the door, there was a burst of cheering and the glasses flashed to the toast; from Loring on the top step, standing arm in arm with Violet, came an acknowledging cheer, and the cars swept forward to the turn of the drive, where O'Rane and I were posted. A shower of champagne glasses poured fromthe windows, to describe a dazzling arc in the morning sunlight and fall with greater or less precision into our hands or on to the flower-beds behind us. Above the cheering and the throb of the engines came the sound of a piano and Valentine Arden's voice: