But how futile the whole thing was, how wet and miserable and vile! It must have been something like this in the trenches, only worse. What was that going past? A bottle, a Bass bottle with a screw stopper, bobbing about like an old man walking. Ha-ha! What would he do when he found Emily? What the devil would he do? Sink her again? But he had no anchor now—nothing. Put her ashore on the Island? But somebody would find her. Take her out of the sack—the incriminating sack? If she was found by herself, a mere body, in a night-dress.... In a night-dress? The night-dress wouldn't do. She mustn't be found in a night-dress. He would have to get rid of that too—that and the sack. Then any one might find her, and it would be a mystery. And Stephen's stories ... Stephen's stories about her levity and light conduct—they would come in useful. People like Mrs. Bantam would quite understand, now they knew what sort of person Emily had been. John realized with a sudden shame that he was feeling glad that Stephen had said those things.
But how would he be able to do it? How could he take her out of the sack, out of the night-dress, and throw her back? How could he do it? and where? Once, long ago, he had come upon a big sack drifting in the evening. It was full of kindlewood, little penny packets of kindlewood, tied up with string. He remembered the weight of it, impossible to lift into the boat. He had towed it home, very slowly. He would have to tow Emily—land somewhere. She would be clammy—and slippery—and disgusting. He couldn't do it. But hemust. The engine stopped.
The engine stopped, mysteriously, abruptly. The boat slid sideways down the river. John pulled her head round with a paddle and fiddled gingerly with the hot engine. The rain fell upon it and sizzled. He turned vaguely a number of taps, fingered the electric wires; all was apparently well. He heaved at the starting-handle, patiently at first, then rapidly, then with a violent fury. Nothing happened. The boat slid along, turning sideways stupidly in the wind. They were almost level with The House by the River.
It was no good. John took the paddle and worked her laboriously across the tide. He had done his best, he felt. The rain had stopped.
When he came to the wooden steps the lights were on in Stephen's dining-room, in Stephen's drawing-room. And against the light he saw a head, motionless above the wall. The tide was a long way down now, faintly washing the bottom of the wall.
A hoarse whisper came over the water:
"John—John—any luck?"
"None, Stephen, I'm sorry." John's voice was curiously soft and compassionate.
There was silence. Then there came a kind of hysterical cackle, and Stephen's voice, "John, it's—it's a boy!"
John stood up in the boat and began, "Congratulations, old ..."
There was another cackle, and the head was gone.
Stephen Michael Hilary Byrne had given his mother the maximum of trouble that Friday evening; and on Sunday morning she was still too feeble and ill to appreciate his beauty. Old Dr. Browning was less cheerful than Stephen had ever seen him. He shook his head almost grimly as he squeezed his square frame into his diminutive car.
Stephen went back disconsolately into the warm garden. He had seen Margery for a moment, and she had whispered weakly, "You go out in your boat, my dear," and then something about "a lovely morning ... I'm all right." Also he had seen his son and tried hard to imagine that he was two years old, a legitimate object for enthusiasm. He had helped Joan to feed her rabbits and swept the garden and tidied things in the summer-house. But he had done all these things with an anxious eye on the full and falling river. And already he had had several shocks.
Now he felt that he could not leave the river, not at least while the tide was up and there was all this muddle of flotsam quivering past. Usually, on Sunday mornings he sat in his sunny window writing, with the birds bickering in the creeper outside and the lazy sounds of Sunday morning floating up from the river. Sunday morning along The Chase was an irreligious but peaceful occasion. The people of The Chase strolled luxuriously in the hot sun from door to door, watching their neighbours' children depart with fussy pomp upon their walks. Babies slept interminably in huge prams under the trees. The old houses looked very gracious and friendly with the wistaria and ivy and countless kinds of green things scrambling about the rickety balconies and wandering through the open windows. Strangers walked in quiet couples along the path and admired the red roofs and the quaint brass knockers on the doors and the nice old names of the houses and the nice old ladies purring sleepily inside. Out on the river the owners of the anchored boats prepared them happily for action, setting sails and oiling engines and hauling laboriously at anchors. Two white cutters moved delicately about in the almost imperceptible breeze. Strenuous eights and fours and pairs went rhythmically up and down. The hoarse adjurations of their trainers came over the water with startling clearness. Single scullers, contemptuously independent, shot by like large water-beetles in slim skiffs. On the far towpath the idle people streamed blissfully along, marvelling at the gratuitous exertions of the oarsmen. Down the river there was a multitude of small boys bathing from a raft, with much splashing and shrill cries. Their bodies shone like polished metal in the distance. There were no tugs on Sundays, but at intervals a river-steamer plodded up towards Kew, a congested muddle of straw hats and blouses. Sometimes a piano tinkled in the stern, sounding almost beautiful across the water.
On all these vulgar and suburban and irreligious people the June sun looked down with a great kindness and warmth; and they were happy. And Stephen, as a rule, was happy at Hammersmith on Sunday mornings. He thought with repugnance of Sunday morning in Kensington, of stiff clothes in the High Street and the shuttered faces of large drapery stores; he thought with pity even of the promenaders in Hyde Park, unable to see the trees for the people, unable to look at the sky because of their collars. He loved the air and openness and pleasant vulgar variety of Sunday morning at Hammersmith. Here at least it was a day of naturalness and rest. On any other Sunday, if the tide served, he would have slipped out after breakfast in his boat to gather firewood for the winter. Just now there was a wealth of driftwood in the river, swept off wharves by the spring tides or flung away by bargees—wedges and small logs and box-wood and beams and huge stakes, and delicious planks covered with tar. Any one who had a boat went wood-hunting on the river.
He had a mind to go now. But it would look so odd, with his wife dangerously ill indoors, though she herself had told him to do it. But then that was like her. He must not go unless he had to—unless he saw something.... All Saturday while the tide was up he had furtively watched from window or garden, and seen nothing. Perhaps he had made a mistake on Friday.
No. He had made no mistake. Emily Gaunt was drifting somewhere in this damnably public river. Unless she was already found, already lying in a mortuary. And if she was—
Stephen looked enviously at the happy crowds on the towpath, on the steamers, in the boats. A heavy sculling-boat passed close to the wall. It seemed almost to overflow with young men and women. All of them gazed curiously at him, muttering comments on his appearance. Their easy laughter annoyed him. He went indoors.
He sat down automatically at his table in the window, and took out of a pigeon-hole a crumpled bundle of scribbled paper. It was the beginning of a long poem. He had begun it—when? Two—three weeks ago. Before Emily. He read through what he had written, and thought it bad—weak, flabby, uneven stuff—as it stood. But it was a good idea, and he could do it justice, he was sure, if he persevered. But not now. Just now he was incapable. Since Emily's night he had not written a line of poetry; he had only tried once. Not because of his conscience—it was the anxiety, the worry. He could not concentrate.
A bell rang below, and he wondered if it was John Egerton. There was the sound of conversation in the hall, Cook's voice and the voice of a man, powerful and low. Then Cook lumbered up the stairs.
"If you please, sir, there's a man brought the sack back what Mr. Egerton took, as used to 'ang in the scullery, and 'e'd like to see you."
Stephen braced himself and went down. The man in the hall was an obvious detective—square built and solid, with hard grey eyes and a dark walrus moustache, a bowler hat in his hand. In the other he held the end of a yellow sack, muddy in patches and discoloured.
"Sorry to trouble you, sir, but can you tell me anything about this sack? I'm a police officer," he added unnecessarily.
Stephen felt extraordinarily cool.
He said, "Can't say, Inspector. Sacks are very much alike. We had one in the scullery once, but—" He had the sack in his hands now, looking for the label.
"And what happened toyoursack, sir?" said the man smoothly.
"We lent it to Mr. Egerton, and—Hullo!where did you findthis, Inspector? It is ours!" And he held it out for the other to see the blurred lines of the label stitched inside the mouth of the sack. The name of Stephen Byrne, The House by the River, W. 6, was still legible.
"Very curious, sir," said the man, looking hard at Stephen. "Do you remember when you lent it to Mr. Egerton?"
Stephen made a rapid calculation. The exact period was seventeen days.
He said, "When was it, Cook? About three weeks ago, wasn't it?"
"Couldn't say, sir, I'm sure. All I knows is it went one day, and the other day we asked for it back from Mr. Egerton when the man came about the bottles, and he said—Mr. Egerton said, that is—as he was sorry he'd lost it picking up wood, or so Mabel said, and it was Mabel as went round for it."
Stephen was feeling cooler and cooler. It was all amazingly easy.
He said, "That's right, Cook; I remember now. I gave it to Mr. Egerton myself one evening; he was going out to get wood." Then, with a tone of cheerful finality as one who puts an end to a tedious conversation with an inferior, "Well, I'm sure we're much obliged to you, Inspector, for bringing it back. Where—"
"If you don't mind, sir, I'd like to keep it a little longer. Those are my orders, sir—there's a little matter we're clearing up just now—"
"Just so. Certainly, Inspector. As long as you like."
"Thank you, sir. And as I take it, sir, none of your household has seen anything of this article since you lent it to Mr. Egerton?"
"As far as I know, no one—I certainly haven't seen it myself. In fact, I was looking for it only the other day."
The Inspector thought obviously for a moment, and obviously decided to say no more. "Well, that's all, sir, and thank you."
Stephen bowed him affably out of the door. "Of course, if it's anythingimportant, I should look in and see Mr. Egerton—he's only next door."
"No, sir, it's of no consequence. I'll be off now."
The man departed, with many smiles, and "sirs," and "Thank you's," and Stephen watched him round the corner.
Then he went into the garden, full of a curious relief, almost of exultation. He could delight at last in the sun and the boats and the happy, irresponsible people. He, too, could look at the beloved river without any urgent anxiety of what it might carry into his view. The worst was over; the doubts were done with. Emily was found, and there was an end to it. And he had diddled the policeman. How cleverly, how gloriously he had diddled the policeman. Perfect frankness and easiness and calm—a gracious manner and a good lie—they had worked perfectly. He had never hoped for anything so easy. Almost without intention, certainly without plan, as if inspired he had uttered those tremendous lies about John. And, of course, he could hardly have said anything else. Cook had given John away already; one must be consistent. Poor old John! He must see John—talk to him—warn him—no, diddle him. He could manage John all right.
He went down the steps into his tiny dinghy—a minute, fragile, flat-bottomed affair, just large enough and strong enough for a single man. It flitted lightly on the surface like one of those cumbrous-looking waterflies which move suddenly on the quiet surface of ponds with a startling velocity. He called itThe Water Beetle.
With a few strokes Stephen shot out into the lovely sun, and drifted a little, faintly stirring the oars as they rested flatly on the golden water with a movement which was almost a caress. It was very delightful out there, very soothing and warm. It was inspiring, too. Stephen thought suddenly of the long poem. He must have a go at that—now that things were better, now that his mind was easier.
Then he saw John walk down to the end of his garden, smoking comfortably the unique and wonderful Sunday morning pipe. He rowed back immediately to the wall, framing smooth explanatory phrases in his head. John, he saw, was gazing with a strained look through his glasses at a muddle of wreckage drifting down from the Island.
"You needn't worry, John," he said; "it's all over—it's—it'sfound.... Come down the steps."
John came down and squatted at the foot of the steps, saying nothing. Stephen tied up the boat, but did not get out of it.
"A man's been here this morning—a policeman—with the sack ... he wanted to know if we knew anything about it.... Cook saw him first, and let out that it was ours—said we'd lent it to you—silly fool ... about three weeks back ... when I saw him it was too late to say anything else...." He stopped and looked up. Surely John was going to say something.
John looked steadily at him and said nothing.
"She said Mabel went round and asked you for it, and you said—whatdidyou say, John?"
John looked out across the river and thought. Then he said in a far-away voice:
"I said I'd taken it out to pick up wood—and lost it. Overboard ... I had to say something."
"Hell!" Stephen hoped that this exclamation had an authentic note of perplexity and distress. He was conscious of neither, only of a singular clearness and contentment.
"Well, what are we going to do now?"
There was no answer.
"Margery's very bad this morning," he went on, with seeming irrelevance. "We're very worried. The doctor ..."
John interrupted suddenly, "Whatcanwe do? What will the police do next? Will they come and see me?" He had a sudden appalling vision of himself in a stammering, degrading interview with a detective.
"No, John, they won't bother you.... I'm the man they'll bother.... There'll be an inquest, of course.... And I'm afraid you'll have to give evidence, John ... say what you said before, you know ... say you lost it ... about three weeks ago ... that's what I said ... somebody must have picked it up.... I'm awfully sorry, John—but it will be all right...." Then, doubtfully, "Of course, John ... if you'd rather ... I'll go at once and tell them the whole thing.... I hate the idea of you ... but there's Margery.... The doctor said ... I don't know what would happen...."
John was roused at last. "Of course not, Stephen ... you're not to think of it ... it'll be all right, as you say.... Only ... only ..." with a strange fierceness, "I wish to God it had never happened." And he looked at Stephen very straight and stern, almost comically stern.
"So do I," said Stephen, with a heavy sigh. For the first time since the policeman left he had the old sense of guiltiness and gloom.
"There's one thing, Stephen ..." John hesitated and stammered a little. "I've heard some awful rumours about ... about that girl ... immoral and so on ... they're not true, are they?... anyhow, don't let's encourage them, Stephen ... it's not necessary ... and I don't like it...." He stopped, and was aware that he was blushing.
It was a lame presentation of what he had intended as a firm unanswerable ultimatum: "If you want me to help you, you must drop all this." But Stephen somehow always intimidated him.
Stephen thought, "The damned old prig!" He said, "Whatdoyou mean, John? You don't imagine I ... these servants, I suppose ... but I quite agree.... I must go and see Margery now. So long, John ... and thank you so much."
John went up into his garden and into his house and sat for a long time in a leather chair thinking and wondering. Stephen walked briskly in and whispered to the nurse. Mrs. Byrne was asleep.
He sat down at the sunny table in the study window, and drew out again the long poem. It was a good idea—a very good idea. He read through what he had written; uneven, yes, but there was good stuff in it. A little polishing up wanted, a little correction. All that bit in the middle.... He scratched out "white" and scribbled over it "pale." Yes, that was better. The next part, about the snow, was rather wordy—wanted condensing; there were six lines, and four at least were very good—but one of them must go—perhaps two. He sharpened a pencil, looking out at the river.
After the inquest The Chase had plenty to talk about. Mrs. Ambrose and Mrs. Church were kept very busy. For few of The Chase had been actually present in the flesh—not because they were not interested and curious and indeed aching to be present, but because it seemed hardly decent. Since the great Nuisance Case about the noise of the Quick Boat Company's motor-boats there had been no event of communal importance to The Chase; life had been a lamentable blank. And it was an ill-chance that the first genuine excitement, not counting the close of the Great War, should be a function which it seemed hardly decent to attend: an inquest on the dead body of a housemaid from The Chase discovered almost naked in a sack by a police-boat at Barnes. Nevertheless, a sprinkling of The Chase was there—Mrs. Vincent for one, and Horace Dimple, the barrister, for another—though he of course attended the inquest purely as a matter of professional interest, in the same laudable spirit of inquiry in which law students crowd to the more sensational or objectionable trials at the High Court. There were also Mr. Mard, the architect, who was on the Borough Council, and Mr. and Mrs. Tatham, who had to visit the Food Committee that day. These, being in the neighbourhood of the Court, thought it would be foolish not to "look in." Few of them overtly acknowledged that the others were visibly there, or, if they were compelled to take notice, smiled thinly and looked faintly surprised.
But so startling and sensational was the course of the inquest that when they returned to their homes any doubts about the propriety of attending it were speedily smothered by the important fact that they had positively been there, had been eyewitnesses of the astonishing scene, whether from chance or compassion or curiosity, or wisdom, or simple power of divination, which most of them felt they must undoubtedly possess. They had known all along that there was "something fishy" about that girl's disappearance, and now, you see, they were right. They looked eagerly in the morning papers and in the evening papers as only those look who have seen something actually take place, and insanely crave to see it reported in dirty print in the obscure corners of a newspaper. So do men who happen on a day to hear part of a Parliamentary debate anxiously study on the morrow the Parliamentary reports at which they have never so much as glanced before, and are never likely to glance again.... But this is human nature, and we must not be unkind to The Chase because they were unable to depart from that high standard.
The papers reported the affair with curious brevity and curiously failed to get at the heart of it. The headlines were all about "Mr. Stephen Byrne "—"Poet's Housemaid"—"Tragedy in an Author's House"—and so on. It was only at the end of the small paragraphs that you found out there were black suspicions about a Civil Servant, one John Egerton, first-class clerk in the Ministry of Drains. And for The Chase these suspicions were the really startling and enthralling outcome of the inquest, as Mrs. Vincent and others described it. Mrs. Vincent described it after dinner in the house of the Petways, where she had dropped in casually for a chat. By a curious chance Mr. Dimple had also dropped in, so that the fortunate Petways had two eyewitnesses at once. The Whittakers came in in the middle of the story.
And they all agreed that it was a surprising story—highly surprising as it affected Mr. Egerton, and also highly unfavourable. Dear Mr. Byrne had given his evidence in his usual charming manner, very clear and straightforward and delightful: very anxious to help the Coroner and the jury, in spite of the worry about poor Mrs. Byrne. "Very pale, he was," said Mrs. Vincent. "Overstrained," said Mr. Dimple.
And it all depended on this sack, you see. The girl was tied up in the sack. Mrs. Vincent gave a little shiver. "Of course, it was allratherhorrible, you know, but—" "But you enjoyed it thoroughly," thought Whittaker.
"Mr. Byrne said he remembered lending the sack to Mr. Egerton—to collect firewood or something—you know, he'salwayspoking about in that silly boat of his, picking up sticks." (The operation as described by Mrs. Vincent sounded incredibly puerile and base.) "Then the Coroner asked him if he rememberedwhen. Mr. Byrne said it was about three weeks ago. Then they asked was it before or after the day that this young woman disappeared. You could have heard a pin drop.
"I was really sorry for Mr. Byrne; I could see he didn't like it a bit. He didn't answer for a little, kind of hesitated, then he said it wasaboutthe same day—he couldn't be sure; and that was all they could get out of him—it wasaboutthe same day. And you should haveseenMr. Egerton's face."
Mrs. Vincent paused to appreciate the effect of her narrative.
"Then there was the Byrnes' young woman, Mabel Jones or some such name. She was sent round to Mr. Egerton's to ask for the sack—one day last week. Andshesaid—what was it she said, Mr. Dimple?"
"She said Mr. Egerton was 'short like' with her, and—"
"Ah yes!" Mrs. Vincent hastened to resume the reins. "He was 'short like' and a bit 'uffy with her; and he said he'd lost the sack, picking up wood—lost it in the river....
"And then Mr. Egerton himself was put in the box and he toldexactly the same story!" Mrs. Vincent said these words with a huge ironical emphasis, as if it would have reflected credit on Mr. Egerton had he invented an entirely new story for the purposes of the inquest.
"He told exactly the same story, and he told it very badly, in my opinion—youknow, hesitating and mumbling, as if he was keeping something back—and looking at the floor all the time."
"We must remember he's naturally a very shy man," said Mr. Dimple, "and a public inquest, at the best—"
"Yes, but look what hesaid—The Coroner asked him the same question—when was it he had borrowed the sack—before or after the young woman disappeared. Mr. Egerton said he really didn't know, because he didn't know when the young woman had disappeared.... As if we didn'tallknow, the very next day...."
"Pardon me," said Mr. Dimple, "but I didn't know myself, not till one day last week—and I live two doors from the Byrnes—"
"Yes, but you're aman," said Mrs. Vincent, with a large contempt.
"So is Mr. Egerton."
Mrs. Vincent should have been a boxer. She recovered nobly.
"Anyhow, he didn't impress me, and he didn't impress the Coroner. The Coroner kept at him a long time, trying to get it out of him,howhe'd lost the sack and so on. Some of the jury asked questions too. They couldn't understand about the wood-collecting and what he wanted firewood for in the summer, and—Oh yes,Iremember. He said it must have slipped off the boat, you see, and been picked up by somebody. Then they asked him what he did with the wood when he picked it up—did he put it in the sack then and there or what? He said no, he just threw it in the bottom of the boat.Thenthe Coroner said, 'When did you put it in the sack?' Mr. Egerton said, 'In the garden, of course, to take it indoors.' And then, you see, the Coroner said, 'Why on earth did he take the sack out in the boat atall?' You could have heard a—" Mrs. Vincent thought better of it. "Mr. Egerton couldn't answer that—he just looked sheepish, and mumbled something about 'he forgot!'—forgot, indeed!"
Mrs. Vincent looked at Mr. Dimple—a triumphant, merciless look.
Mr. Dimple murmured reflectively, "Yes—thatwasodd—very odd."
"And as for that Mrs. Bantam of his, the old frump!Sheactually swore that there'd never been a sack in the house! Well, it stands to reason, if Mr. Egerton borrowed that sack to collect wood in, shemusthave seen it, unless he kept it locked up somewhere—and if he did lock it up somewhere—well, he must have had some funny reason for it...."
Mrs. Vincent shrugged her shoulders expressively.
"Sothatdidn't do him any good—especially as she cheeked the Coroner."
"And what was the verdict?"
"Oh, the jury wereveryquick—I only waited ten minutes or so, you know, just on the chance—and when they came back they said, 'Wilful murder against somebody unknown'—or something like that. I must say, I was surprised, because the Coroner wasverydown on Mr. Egerton—"
"And so were you, I gather," said Mrs. Whittaker, with forced calm; the Whittakers liked Egerton, and Mrs. Vincent was slowly bringing them to the boil.
"Well, if you ask me, I reallydon'tthink he comes out of it very well. Of course, I know the jury didn't say anything about him, but—"
"And that being so, Mrs. Vincent, if you will allow me"—Mr. Dimple at last cast off his judicial detachment; he spoke with his usual deprecating and kindly air, with a kind of halting fluency that made it seem as if his sentences would never end—"if you will allow me—er, as a lawyer—to ah, venture a little advice—that being so, I think one ought to be careful—not to say anything—which might be—ah, repeated—by perhaps thoughtless people—of course I know we are all friends here—and possibly misinterpreted—as a suggestion—that Mr. Egerton's part in this affair—though I know, of course, that there were—er—puzzling circumstances—about the evidence—I thought so myself—that Mr. Egerton's part—was—er—more serious—than one is entitled strictly to deduce—from the verdict—whichasyou say—Mrs. Vincent—did not refer to him directly in any way. You won't mind my saying so, will you?—but I almost think—"
Mr. Dimple always talked like that. He was a noble little man, with a thin, peaked, legal countenance and mild eyes that expressed unutterable kindness and impartiality to the whole world. His natural benevolence and a long training in the law had produced in him a complete incapacity for downright censure. His judgments were a tangle of parentheses; and people said that if he were ever raised to the Bench his delivery of the death sentence would generate in the condemned person a positive glow of righteousness and content. He never "thought" or "said"; he only "almost thought" or "ventured to suggest" or "hazarded the opinion, subject of course to—" And this, combined with his habit of parenthesis and periphrasis and polysyllaby (if there is a word like that), made his utterances of almost unendurable duration. He was one of those men during whose anecdotes it is almost impossible to keep awake. Polite people, who knew him well and honoured him for the goodness of his heart and the charity of his life, sometimes rebuked themselves because of this failure, and swore to be better when they met him again. At the beginning of a story (and he had many) they would say to themselves firmly, "I will keep awake during the whole of this anecdote; I will attend to the very end; I will understand it and laugh sincerely about it." Then Mr. Dimple would ramble off into his genial forest of qualifications and brackets, and the minds of his hearers immediately left him; they thought of their homes, or their work, or the food they were eating, or of the clothes of some other person, or of some story they intended to tell when Mr. Dimple had done; and they came suddenly out of their dreams, to find Mr. Dimple yet labouring onward to his climax; and they said, with shame and mortification, "I have failed again," and laughed very heartily at the wrong moment.
Yet people loved Mr. Dimple; and if it was impossible sometimes to deduce from what he actually said what it was he actually thought, one was often able to make a good guess on the assumption that he never wittingly said anything cruel or unkind or even mildly censorious to or about anybody.
Mr. Whittaker knew this, and he interrupted with:
"Thank you, Dimple—I thoroughly agree with you—but I don't think you go nearly far enough." He stood up, looking very severely at Mrs. Vincent. "I think it'sdisgustingto say such things about a man—especially about a man like Egerton. I think we ought to get home now, Dorothy. Good night, Mrs. Petway."
Mrs. Petway spluttered feebly, but was unable to utter. The Whittakers departed, trailing clouds of anger.
Mrs. Vincent assumed an air of injury.
"Well, my dear, I'm sure I'm sorry if I said anything to upset them, but really—Of course, I know I don't understand thelaw, Mr. Dimple, and I don't want to be unfair to any man, but one must use one's common sense, and what I think is that Mr. Egerton made away with that poor girl, and that's all about it."
She looked defiantly at Mr. Dimple. Mr. Dimple opened his mouth and shut it again. Then he went away.
It is to be regretted that very many of The Chase shared the views of Mrs. Vincent. Mrs. Vincent was a tireless propagandist of her own views about other people. The Whittakers, and the Dimples, and the Tathams, and all the more charitable and kindly people who were faintly shocked but unconvinced by the whole affair, preferred not to talk about it at all. So Mrs. Vincent steadily gained ground and John Egerton became a dark and suspected figure, regarded with a shuddering horror by most of his neighbours. He found this out very soon at the Underground station in the mornings. Here on the platform there were always many of The Chase, watching with growing irritation the non-stop trains thundering past, and meanwhile chattering with one another of their hopes and fears and domestic crises. John soon found that men became engrossed in advertisements or conversations or newspapers as he approached, or sidled away down the platform, or busily lit their pipes. And twice, before he realized what was in their minds, his usual "Good morning" was met with a stony, contemptuous stare. After that he took to avoiding the men himself. He noticed then that the burly and genial ticket collector had begun to withhold his invariable greeting and comment on the weather. And after that John travelled by bus to Hammersmith and took the train there. Nobody knew him there. And he left off walking up the Square, but went by Red Man Lane, which was longer. In the Square he might meet anybody. In the Square everybody knew him. In the Square he felt that every one discussed him as he passed; the women chattering at their cottage doors lowered their voices, he was sure, and muttered about him. The milk-boys stared at him unusually, and laughed suddenly, contemptuously, when he had gone. Or so he thought. For he was never sure. He felt sometimes that he would like to stop and make sure. He would like to say to the two young women with the baskets whom he passed every day, "I believe you were saying something about me.... I know what it was.... Well, it's all rot.... It was another man did it, really.... I can't explain ... but you've no right to look at me like that." He longed to be able to justify himself, for he was a warm and sympathetic soul, and liked to be on terms of vague friendliness and respect with people he met or passed in the streets or dealt with daily in shops; he liked saying "Good morning" to milkmen and porters and policemen and paper-boys. And the fear that any day any of these people might ignore him or insult him was a terrible fear.
Contrary to the common belief, it is more difficult for an innocent man, if he be shy and sensitive, to look the whole world in the face than it is for the abandoned evil-doer with his guilt fresh upon him. So John avoided people he knew as much as he could. He avoided even his friends. The kindly Whittakers made special efforts to bring him to their house. They urged him to come in on their Wednesday evenings that they might show the Vincents and the Vincent following what decent people thought of him. But he would not go. He could not face the possibility of a public insult in a drawing-room, some degrading, hot-cheeked, horrible "scene."
And after all, it was only for a little time. Mrs. Byrne was still in a bad way, but she was "out of the wood," Mrs. Bantam said. And when she was quite well, Stephen of course would somehow manage to put things right, in spite of his extraordinary conduct at the inquest. He did not see Stephen for ten days after the inquest. He had felt sometimes that he would like to see him, would like to tell him how awkward he had made things by the way he had given his evidence. But it seemed hardly fair to worry him. He must be worried enough, as it was, poor man. And John felt that he would never be able to approach the topic without seeming to be questioning Stephen's loyalty. And he did not want to do that. He was quite sure that Stephen had never meant to put things as he had. It was nervousness; and the muddle-headedness that comes from too much thinking, too much planning, and the musty, intimidating atmosphere of the Coroner's Court, and the stupid badgering of the smug Coroner. Probably Stephen had hardly known what he was saying. He himself had felt like that. And Stephen had had far more reason for nervousness in that place. When Margery was better, he would go round and see Stephen, and Stephen would "do the right thing." That was his own phrase. Meanwhile, people must be avoided, and Mrs. Bantam was a great comfort. Mrs. Bantam had shown herself a loyal and devoted soul. She, at least, had perfect faith in him. There had never been a sack inthishouse,thatshe knew. And that was all about it. Since her spirited appearance in the Coroner's Court, her inter-prandial addresses were confined to two themes—the ineptitude of the law and the high character of her employer. She was wearisome, but she was very soothing to the injured pride of a shy man who conceived himself as the detested byword of West London.
There was one other spark of comfort. The Tarrants were away in the country and had missed all this. But Mrs. Vincent was a friend of Mrs. Tarrant and would no doubt write to her. John wondered whether he ought to write to Muriel Tarrant. He did not think so. They were not really on writing terms.
And in the big room over the river, where the blinds were always down, but the sun thrust through in brilliant slices at the corners, Margery Byrne lay very still—sleeping and thinking, sleeping and thinking, of Stephen and Michael Hilary and Joan, but chiefly of Stephen. In the morning and in the evening he came up and sat with her for an hour, and he was very tender and solicitous. She saw that he was pale and weary looking, with anxious eyes, and she was touched and secretly surprised that her illness should have made him look like this. Indeed, it pleased her. But she told him that he must worry about her no more; she told him he must eat enough, and not sit up working too late. Then she would say that she wanted to sleep, lest he should become fidgety or bored with sitting in the darkened room. She would kiss him very fondly, and follow him with her eyes while he walked softly to the door. Then she would lie in a happy dream listening to the birds in the ivy, and the soft river-sounds, the distant cries of the bargemen, and the melancholy whistle of tugs, and the ripple of their wash about the moored boats; she would lie and listen and make huge plans for the future—infinite, impossible, contradictory plans. And the centre of all of them was Stephen.
And Stephen would go down into the warm study and sit down in the sunny window and write. Ever since that Sunday morning when the detective came with the sack he had been writing. It was extraordinary that he was able to write. He knew that it was extraordinary. Sometimes he sat in the evening and tried to understand it. In that fearful time before the detective came, and most of all in those terrible days when Emily Gaunt was drifting irrecoverably up and down in the river, no conceivable power could have wrung from him a single line. He could no more have written poetry than he could have written a scientific treatise. But now, amazingly, he could command the spirit, the idea, the concentration—everything; he could become absorbed, could lose himself in his work. The idea he was working on had been with him for a long time; he had made notes for the poem many weeks back, long before Emily had come to the house; he had written a few lines of it just before she left it. But one wanted more than ideas to do good work of that kind; one must have—what was it?—"peace of mind," presumably. There must be no tempers, or terrors, or worries in the mind. And, one would have thought, no remorse, no pricking of conscience. But perhaps that did not matter. For otherwise how could he now have "peace of mind"? Stephen felt that his conscience was working; he was sorry for what he had done—truly sorry. He was sorry for poor old John. But it did not trouble him when he sat down in the sunshine to write. He could forget it then. But that day when the baby came, when he had seen the sack go past and chased it in the boat, and the next day when Emily was still at large, drifting bulkily for the first police-boat to see—on those days he could not have forgotten. He had been afraid—afraid for Margery, and afraid for himself. And now, somehow, he was not afraid. Why was that? Distressing things, appalling things, might still happen, but he was not disturbed by them. The day after the inquest he had been a little disturbed; he had not been able to settle down to work that day; he had wandered vaguely up and down the house, had sat in the garden a little, had rowed in the boat a little—restless; and he had slept badly. But the next day he had worked successfully many hours. In a little diary he kept a record of work—so many hours, such and such a poem, so many hundreds of words. All these weeks he had automatically made the entries as usual, and from Sunday, 1st June, the figures moved steadily upward. After the 5th there was a distinct bound—seven hours on the 6th. June 1st was the day the policeman came—the day he had told the policeman about John—almost by accident, he felt. Yes; he had not meant anything then. And the 4th was the day of the inquest—the day he had made all those other suggestions about John—quite intentionally—and cleverly, too. That was the secret of it, of course, that was the real foundation of his peace of mind—the way he had managed to entangle John in the affair. He had John hopelessly entangled now.
It was strange how it had worked out. In the beginning he had honestly intended "to do the right thing." Or he believed he had. From the time, at any rate, that John had become seriously involved, he had really meant to "own up" as soon as Margery was well enough. Probably it would have meant suicide, he remembered—a long time ago it seemed—thinking of that; but he was going to dosomething. And then the inspiration and the chance had come hand in hand that Sunday morning to show him a better way. Itwasa better way. He knew quite certainly now that he would never own up—not even if Margery was to die. He would never say a word to clear John's character. He had a fairly clear idea now of what would happen. There would (he hoped) be no further proceedings; the evidence was too thin. All that John would suffer would be this local gossip and petty suspicion; and he would have to live that down. John would not mind—a good fellow, John. But if he did mind, if he ever showed signs of expecting to be cleared, if he ever suggested a confession or any rubbish of that sort, the answer would be simple: "Really, my dear John, the evidence is so strong against you that I don't really think I should bebelievednow if I saidIdid it. And you must remember, John, you've anyhow sworn all sorts of things on your oath that you'd have to explain away—the Civil Service wouldn't like that—perjury, you know. Of course, if youwantme, John—but I really think it would be better fromyourpoint of view—I only want to do the best foryou, John—"
He could hear himself solemnly developing the argument; and he could see John bowing to his judgment, acquiescing.
If he didn't acquiesce; if he made trouble, or if the police made trouble—but Stephen preferred not to think of that. Yet if it did happen he would be ready. If it was oath against oath, with the scales weighted already against John, he knew who would be believed.
And, after all, John Egerton, good fellow as he was, would leave but a tiny gap in the world. What were his claims on life? What had he to give to mankind? A single man, parents dead, an obscure Civil Servant, at five hundred a year—a mere machine, incapable of creation, easily replaced, perhaps not even missed. What was he worth to the world beside the great Stephen Byrne? Supposing they both died now, how would their obituary notices compare? John's—but John would not have one; his death would be announced on the front page of the newspapers. But about himself there would be half-columns. He knew what they would say: "Tragic death of a young poet still in his prime ... Keats ... unquestionable stamp of genius ... a loss that cannot be measured ... best work still unwritten ... engaged, we understand ... new poem ... would have set the seal ..." and so on.
And it would all be true. Wasn't itright, then, that if the choice had ever to be made, he, Stephen Byrne, should be chosen, should be allowed to live and enrich the world? It was curious that never before had he so clearly appreciated his own value to humanity. Somehow, he had never thought of himself in that way. This business had brought it home to him.
Anyhow, he must get on with this poem. It was going to be a big thing. The more he wrote, the more it excited him; and the more contented he became with the work he was doing, the more satisfied he was with his material circumstances, the more sure that all would be well for him with the Emily affair.
This is the way of many writers. Their muses and their moods react upon each other in a kind of unending circle. When they are unhappy they cannot write; but when they are busy with writing, and they know that it is good, they grow happier and happier. Then when they have finished and the first intoxication of achievement has worked itself out, depression comes again. And then, while they are yet too exhausted for a new effort, all their work seems futile and worthless, and all life a meaningless blank. And until the next creative impulse restores their confidence and vigour they are, comparatively, miserable.
Stephen Byrne was peculiarly sensitive to these reactions. He had that creative itch which besets especially the young writer with his wings still strange and wonderful upon him. At the end of a day in which he had written nothing new, he went to bed with a sense of frustration, of failure and emptiness. There was something missing. For weeks on end he wrote something every day, some new created thing, if it was only a single verse, apart from the routine work of criticism and review-writing and odd journalism with which he helped to keep his family alive. But ideas do not come continually to any man; and when they come, the weary mind is not always ready to shape them. There were long periods of barrenness or stagnancy when Stephen could write nothing. Sometimes the ideas came copiously enough, but hovered like maddening ghosts just out of his grasp, clearly seen, but unattainable. Sometimes they came not at all. In either case, like a good artist, Stephen made no attempt to force the unwilling growth, but let himself lie fallow for a little. But all these fallow times he was restless and half-content. He had the sense, somehow, of failure. He became moody and irritable, and silent at meals. But when the creative fit was upon him, when he had made some little poem, or was still hot and busy at a long one, the world was benevolent and good, life was a happy adventure, and Stephen talked like a small boy at dinner-time.
So this poem he was working at was an important thing. The "idea" was comparatively old. It had come to him in a fallow time, and had been stored somewhere away. When the policeman's visit restored his tranquillity, the fallow time was over. The idea was ready to hand, and he had only to take it out and sow it and water it. And as it grew and blossomed under his hand, it commanded him. It made him superior to circumstance; it decorated his fortunes and made them hopeful and benign. Nothing could be harmful or disturbing while he was doing such good work every day. It made him sure that he was right—sure that his decisions were wise. It made him see that no good purpose would be served by telling the world the truth about Emily Gaunt and about John Egerton. So he went on writing.
But there was another curious thing about this poem. It was a kind of epic, an immensely daring, ambitious affair. The war came into it, but it was not about the war. Rather it was a great song of the chivalry and courage of the men and women of our time wherever these have appeared. There were battles in it, and the sea was in it, and something of the obscure gallantry of hidden or humble men; and something also of the imperishable heroisms that did not belong to the war—Scott's last voyage and Shackleton's voyage, and the amazing braveries of the air.
And day by day, as he sat there in the sun, glorifying, page by page, the high qualities of these men, their courage and their truth and straightness, he was conscious distantly of the strange contradiction between what he was doing and what he was. He stopped sometimes and thought, "This is sincere work that I am doing; I mean it; it excites me; the critics, whatever they say, will say that it is sincere and noble writing. Parents in the days to come may make their children read it as an exhortation to manliness and truth. They may even say that I was a noble character myself.... And all the time I am doing a mean and dirty thing—a cowardly thing. And I don't care. My life is a lie, and this poem is a lie, but I don't care; it is good work."
All that June the weather was very lovely. In the busy streets the air grew heavy and stifling, full of dust and the vile fumes of motor buses. They were like prisons. But by the river there was always a sense of freshness and freedom; and when the great tide swept up in the evenings a gentle breeze came in light breaths from the west and fingered and fondled the urgent water, making it into a patchwork of rippled places and smooth places, where there swam for a little in a fugitive glow of amber and rose the small clouds over the Richmond Hills. Then it was cool and strengthening to sit in a small boat and drink the breeze, and Stephen always, when the tide was up, would row out into the ripples to see the big sun go down behind Hammerton Church. And while the boat rocked gently on the wash of tugs, he would sit motionless, trying to store the sunset in his mind. He would look at the lights in the water, the unimaginable pattern and colouring of the clouds, fretted like the sand when the sea goes out, consciously realizing, consciously memorizing, thinking, "I must remember how that looked!" For he was not naturally observant, and often, he knew, made up for his lack of observation by his power of imagining. But the critics said he was observant, and observant he was determined to be.
Or he would row across to the eastern end of the Island and tie his boat to the single willow tree that stood there. From this point, looking eastward, you saw the whole of the splendid reach, curving magnificently away to Hammersmith Bridge. You saw the huddled, irregular houses beside it glowing golden in the last sunlight, with here and there a window that blazed at you like a furnace; you saw the fine old trees on the southern bank and the tall chimneys and the distant church that had something of the grace of Magdalen Tower, and you saw the wide and exuberant stream with an impression of bigness and dignity which could never be commanded from the bank; and you saw it rich with colour and delicate lights—with steel-blue and gold—with copper and with rose. You knew that it was a thick and muddy stream, that most of the houses were squalid houses, and many of the buildings were ugly buildings. But they were all beautiful in the late sun, and Stephen loved them.
And while he sat there, the poem hovered always in the background of his mind. Everything he saw he saw as material which might somehow take its place in the poem. Sometimes half-consciously he was shaping ahead the scheme of what he had next to do, the general form and sequence of it; and sometimes there was a line that would not come right, a word or a phrase that would not surrender itself, and this problem would be always busy in his head, the alternatives chasing each other in a tumbling perpetual circle. Sometimes he would go into the house again in a vague depression, simply because this difficulty had not yet resolved itself.
But there were certain evenings of such peace and quiet dignity that he was stricken with a brief and unwilling remorse. Then the poem was at last thrust out of his mind; then he thought of Margery and the wrong he had done her, and of John and the wrong he was doing him, and shame took hold of him. At these moments he had an impulse to abandon his plans, to forget his poem and his ambitions and his love of life, and give himself up suddenly to the police. This was usually when the sun was yet warm and wonderful. But when the sun had gone, and he had come back into the dark and silent garden, this mood departed quickly. Fear came back to him then, the love of warmth and light and comfort and life, and with that the love of praise and the desire of success. And then he would think passionately again of his poem; he would snatch, as it were in self-defence, at the pride and excitement of his purpose, and comfort his soul with new assurances of his own exceeding worth.
And when he had recaptured that consoling invigorating mood, the great contradiction would smite him with a fresh and glorious force, the contradiction of his personal vileness and the beauty and nobility of the work which he was doing. Then as he sat down in the bright island of light at his table, he would think again, with a kind of conceited malice, of the blind and stupid world which judged a man by his work—which would slobber over a murderer and a liar and a betrayer of friends simply because he could write good verse about good men.
And sometimes he even formed this thought into an arrogant phrase, "They think they know me, the damned fools—but they don't!"
Then he would go on with the noble poem. And Margery Byrne lay silent alone in the cool bedroom, thinking of Stephen.
So the weeks went by. And John and Stephen saw little of each other. Indeed, they saw little of any one. Then, towards the end of June, Margery Byrne got up for the first time, and little Joan came home from her grandmother's. In a week Margery was completely and delightedly "up," full of plans and longing to take up life exactly where she had left it. Stephen found her curiously eager for company, and especially the company of old friends; it seemed to her so long since she had seen them. Very soon she asked why John Egerton was so neglecting them. "Get him to come round, Stephen," she said. "Ring him up now." Stephen had lately told her the story of the inquest, of the local feeling and faction; and Margery had at once determined that she would think nothing of it. She would do as the Whittakers did; not that she was prepared in any case to believe evil of John. Yet at the back of her mind there was just a hint of curiosity about it.
So Stephen reluctantly rang him up—reluctantly because he had wanted to work that evening, and because he feared this meeting. But he did not dare to seem unwilling.
And John Egerton came. He had known for some days that he would soon have to do it, and he, too, had been afraid. But this evening he was almost glad of the invitation. The long weeks of semi-isolation had tried him very severely. The sense of being an outcast from his fellows, suspected, despised, had grown unreasonably and was a perpetual irritant to the nerves. He had an aching to go again into a friend's house, to sit and talk again with other men. And even the house of the Byrnes and the company of the Byrnes might be a soothing relief from his present loneliness.
And now that Margery was up and well, the time was surely near when something would be done about this business. Unpleasant things had happened. The family of the Gaunts had been to see him. They had come again this evening—in the middle of supper—sly, grasping, malicious people, a decayed husband of about fifty with a drooping, ragged moustache, with watery eyes and the aspect of a wet rat, and an upright, aggressive, spiteful little wife, with an antique bonnet fixed very firmly on the extreme summit of her yellowish hair. She had thin lips, a harsh voice, and an unpleasant manner. There was also a meek son of about twenty, and Emily's fiancé, who looked conscientiously sad and respectable and wore a bowler hat. But the woman did all the talking. The men only interposed when they felt that she was going too far to be effective.
They wanted money. The men might be half-ashamed of wanting it, but they wanted it, and they clearly expected to get it. They assumed as common ground that John had made away with Emily and had only been preserved from arrest by the strange eccentricities of the law. They did not want trouble made, but there it was: Emily had been a good daughter to them and had contributed money to the household; and it was only fair that something should be done to heal the injury to their affections and their accounts. If not, of course, there wouldhaveto be trouble.
John Egerton, disgusted and humiliated, had nobly kept his temper, but firmly refused to give them a penny. They had gone away, muttering threats. John had no idea what they would do, but they filled him with loathing and fear. He could not endure this much longer for any man's sake. Stephen must release him.
But the evening at the Byrnes' house did nothing to clear things up. Rather it aggravated the tangle. Mrs. Byrne was lying on the sofa, looking more fragile yet more delicious than he had ever seen her. She greeted him very kindly and they talked for a little, while Stephen sat rather glumly in the window-seat staring out at the river.
She spoke happily of Stephen Michael Hilary Byrne, of his charm and his intelligence, and how already he really had something of Stephen about him; and as she said that she smiled at Stephen. And she leaned back with a little sigh of content and looked round at her drawing-room, rich with warm and comfortable colour, at the striped material of delicate purple, at the Japanese prints she had bought with Stephen at a sale, at the curious but excellent wall-paper of dappled grey, and the pleasant rows of books on the white shelves, at the flowers in the Chinese bowl which Stephen had bought for her in some old shop, and the mass of roses on the shiny Sheraton table; then she looked out through the window at the red light of a tug sliding mysteriously down through the steely dark and back again at Stephen. And John knew that she was counting up her happiness; and he thought with an intense pity and rage how precarious that happiness was. He realized then that he could not allow Stephen to "do the right thing"; he would not press for it. After all, it was a small thing for himself to suffer, this petty local suspicion, even the visitations of the Gaunts, compared with the suffering which this dear and delicate lady would have to bear if the truth were told. Surely it was an easy sacrifice for a man to make.
So John sat glowing with sentiment and resolution, and Margery pondered the happiness of life, and Stephen brooded darkly in the window, and they were all silent. Then Margery suggested that the two men should sing together as they used to do; and they sang. They sang odd things from an Old English song book, picked out at random as they turned over the leaves. And it seemed as if every song in that book must have for those two some hidden and sinister meaning. It was bad enough, in any case, to stand there together behind Margery at the piano, and try to sing as they had sung in the old days, when nothing had happened. But these songs had some terrible innuendoes: "Blow, blow, thou winter wind," they sang first, and "Sigh no more, ladies." And when they came to "a friend's ingratitude" and "fellowship forgot" and "Men were deceivers ever," the two men became foolishly self-conscious. They looked studiously in front of them, and each in his heart hoped that the other had not noticed, hoped that his own expression was perfectly normal and composed. It was exceedingly foolish. There were other songs like this, and after a few more Stephen said shortly that that was enough.
Then they tried to talk again; but the men could think of no topic which did not somehow lead them near to Emily Gaunt and such dangerous ground. Even when Margery began to speak of the motor-boat, the men seemed to be stricken silly and dumb. Margery wondered what ailed them, till she remembered about John's "wood-collecting" evidence, and blushed suddenly at her folly.
Stephen went down with John to the front door feeling certain that he would there and then "have it out." But John said nothing, only a quick "Good night." He did not look at Stephen. They felt then like strangers to each other. And Stephen, marvelling at John's silence and strangely moved by his coldness, became suddenly anxious to get at his thoughts.
He said, "John—I—I—I hope you're not ... hadn't I better ... I—I mean ... are you being worried much ... by this?..."
His vagueness was partly due to a new and genuine nervousness and partly to calculation—a half-conscious determination not to commit himself. But John perfectly understood.
"No, Stephen, we'll forget all that ... you're not to do anything.... It's a bit trying, but I can stand it. I don't want to upset things any more now.... Margery and you ... a fresh start, you know.... Good night." And he was gone.
Stephen went slowly upstairs, astonished and ashamed, with a confused sense of humiliation and relief. And while he felt penitent and mean in the face of this magnanimity of John's, he could not avoid a certain conceited contentment with the wisdom and success of his planning.
Yes, it was very satisfactory. And now he could get on with the poem about "Chivalry." He sat down at his table and pulled out the scribbled muddle of manuscript. But he wrote no word that night. He sat for a long time staring at the paper, thinking of the chivalry of John Egerton. And it brought no inspiration.
John went home thinking pitifully of Margery Byrne and vowing hotly that he would sacrifice himself for her sake. In the hall he found a letter from Miss Muriel Tarrant. The neat round writing on the envelope stirred him deliciously where it stared up from the floor. Almost reverently he picked it up and fingered it and turned it over and examined it with the fond and foolish deliberation of a lover for whom custom has not staled these little blisses. The letter was an invitation to a dance. The Tarrants had just come home and they were taking a party to the Buxton Galleries on Saturday. And they were very anxious for John to go. It was clear, then, that they had declined to join the faction of Mrs. Vincent, though they must have heard the story, numbers of stories, by this time. And John, as he argued thus, was almost overwhelmed with pride and tenderness and exultation. He felt then that he had known always that Muriel was different from the malicious sheep who were her mother's friends. And this letter, coming at this moment, seemed like some glorious sign of approbation from Heaven, an acknowledgment and a reward for the deed of sacrifice to which he had but just devoted himself. It was an inspiration to go on with it—though it made the sacrifice itself seem easy.
He took the letter to his bed and laid it on the table beside him. And for a long time he pondered in the dark the old vague dreams of Muriel and marriage which, since the coming of the letter, had presented themselves with such startling clearness. He had not seen her for many weeks, but this letter was like a first meeting; it was a revelation. He knew she was not clever, perhaps not even very intelligent; but she was young and lovely and kind; and she should be the simple companion of his simple heart. He was very lonely in this dark house, very silent and alone. He wanted some one who would bring voices and colour into his home, would make it a glowing and intimate place, like Margery Byrne's. Poor Margery! And Muriel would do this.
But he would have hard work to bring this about. He knew very little what she thought of him. He would be very accomplished and winning at this dance. Probably there would be four of them—Muriel and himself and her young brother George and some flame of his. They would dance together most of the evening, and he would dance with Muriel. And he must not be awkward—slide about or tread on her toes. He was not "keen on dancing," and he was not good at dancing. But he could "get round"; and Muriel would teach him the rest. She loved teaching people.
But the party was to be a larger affair than John had imagined it. There were to be at least six, if the men could be found. And in the morning Muriel Tarrant came herself to the Byrnes' house and asked if Stephen would come. It was a bold suggestion, for she did not know him very well, and she knew that he seldom danced, seldom indeed "went out" at all in the evenings. But such boldness became a virtue in the post-war code of decorum, and she was a bold person, Muriel Tarrant. This morning she looked very fresh and alluring, with her fair hair creeping in calculated abandon from a small blue hat and a cluster of tiny black feathers fastened at the side of it—tiny feathers, but somehow inexpressibly naughty. They wandered downwards over the little curls at the side of her head and nestled delicately against her face.
Margery was yet in bed, and Stephen took his visitor out into the hot garden, where little Joan was wheeling sedately a small pram and the rabbits lay panting in dark corners. And first he said that he would not go to the dance. He was busy and he did not love dancing; and anyhow Margery could not go. But Muriel perched herself on the low wall over the river, and leaned forward with her blue eyes on his, and a little pout about her lips; and she said, "Oh,do, Mr. Byrne." And there was a kind of personal appeal in her voice and her eagerness and her steady smiling eyes that woke up his vanity and his admiration. He thought, "She really thinks it is important that I should go; she likes me." And then, "And I like her." And then he said that he would go. They talked a little in the sun before she went, and when she was gone Stephen felt as if some secret had passed between them. Also he wondered why he had thought so little of her existence before. And Muriel went down The Chase, smiling at some secret thought.
They dined hurriedly at Brierleys' that Saturday. Muriel and her brother and Stephen and John, and two young sisters of the name of Atholl, to whom George Tarrant owed an apparently impartial allegiance. They were equally plump and unintelligent, and neither was exciting to the outward eye, but it seemed that they danced well. But to young George this was the grand criterion of fitness for the purpose of a dance. John's idea of a dance—and Stephen's—was a social function at which you encountered pleasant people with whom, because there was dancing, one danced. But it was soon made clear to him that these were the withered memories of an obsolete age. For this was the time of the Great Craze. A dance now was no social affair; it was a semi-gladiatorial display to which one went to perform a purely physical operation with those who were physically most fitted to perform it. Dancing had passed out of the "party" stage; it was no longer even a difficult, but agreeable and universal pastime; it was practically a profession. It was entirely impossible, except for the very highly gifted, even to approximate to the correct standards of style and manner without spending considerable sums of money on their own tuition. And when they had finished their elaborate and laborious training, and were deemed worthy to take the floor at the Buxton Galleries at all, they found that their new efficiency was a thin and ephemeral growth. The steps and rhythms and dances which they had but yesterday acquired, at how much trouble and expense, passed today into the contemptible limbo of the unfashionable, like the hats of last spring; and so the life of the devotee was one long struggle to keep himself abreast of the latest invention of the astute but commercially-minded professional teachers. "For ever climbing up the climbing wave," for ever studying, yet for ever out-of-date, he oscillated hopefully between the Buxton Galleries and his chosen priest; and so swift and ruthless were the changes of fashion and the whims of the priesthood, that in order to get your money's worth of the last trick you had learned, it was necessary, during its brief life of respectability, to dance at every available opportunity. You danced as many nights a week as was physically or financially possible; you danced on week-days, and you danced on Sundays; you began dancing in the afternoon, and you danced during tea in the coffee-rooms of expensive restaurants, whirling your precarious way through littered and abandoned tea-tables; and at dinner-time you leapt up madly before the fish and danced like varietyartistesin a highly polished arena before a crowd of complete strangers eating their food; or, as if seized with an uncontrollable craving for the dance, you flung out after the joint for one wild gallop in an outer room, from which you returned, sweating and dyspeptic, to the consumption of an iced pudding, before dashing forth to the final orgy at a night-club, or a gallery, or the mansion of an earl. But it was seldom that you danced at anybody's mansion. The days of private and hospitable dances were practically dead. Nobody could afford to give as many dances as the dancing cult required. Moreover, at private dances there were old-fashioned conventions and hampering politenesses to be observed. You might have to dance occasionally out of mere courtesy with some person who was three weeks behind the times, who could not do the Jimble or the Double-Jazz Glide, or might even have an attachment for the degrading and obsolete Waltz. On the other hand, you would not be allowed to dance the entire evening with "the one woman in the room who can do the Straddle properly," and there was a prejudice against positive indecency. So it was better from all points of view to pay a few guineas and go to a gallery or a restaurant or a night-club with a small number of selected women, dragooned by long practice into a slavish harmony with the niceties of your particular style and favourite steps. And after all, what with the dancing lessons, and the dance-dinners, and the dance-teas, and the taxis to dances, and the taxis away from dances, and the tickets for dances, and the subscriptions to night-clubs, and the life-memberships of night-clubs which perished after two years, you had so much capital invested in the industry that you simply could notaffordto have a moment's pleasure placed in jeopardy by deficiencies of technique in your guests. Away, then, with mere Beauty and mere Charm and mere Intelligence and mere Company! Bring out the Prize Mares and show us their steps and their stamina, their powers of endurance and harmonious submission, before we consent to appear with them in the public and costly arena.
A party selected on these lines, however suitable for the serious business of the evening, could be infinitely wearisome for the purposes of dinner. Stephen thought he had never beheld two young women so little entertaining as the two Misses Atholl. All they talked of and all that George Tarrant talked of was the dances they had been to, and were going to, and could not go to, and the comparative values of various mutual friends, considered solely as dancers. It was like the tedious "shop" of the more fanatical golfers; and indeed at any moment Stephen expected to hear that some brave or other had a handicap of three at the Buxton Galleries, or had become stale from over-training, or ruined his form by ordinary walking. Stephen (or Muriel) had taken care that they should be sitting together, but though she was very lively and charming, and though her talk was less restricted in range than the talk of the Atholls, Stephen began to wish intensely that he had not come. And he thought of Margery, and was sorry that he had left her alone in the house to come and listen to this futile jabbering. She had approved enthusiastically of his coming, for she thought that he went out too little; but she had looked rather wistful, he thought, when he left. She liked dancing herself.
To John, too, the talk at dinner and the personality (if any) of the Misses Atholl was inexpressibly dull; and since he was as far away from Muriel as it was possible for him to be, and since she scarcely spoke a word to any one but Stephen, he had nothing to console him but a few provocative glances and the hope of seeing more of her at the dance. And even this hope was dimmed by the presence of Stephen and the intimidating technicalities of the conversation. He did not understand why Stephen had come, and he rather resented his coming. Wherever Stephen was one of the company, he always felt himself closing up socially like an awed anemone in the presence of a large fish. And tonight in that dominating presence he could not see in himself the brilliant and romantic figure which he had determined to be at this party. It was far from being the kind of party he had expected.
The amazing language of young George and the Misses Atholl made it still less likely that that figure would be achieved at the dance. What were these "Rolls" and "Buzzes" and "Slides," he wondered. And how did one do them? The art of dancing seemed to have acquired strange complexities since he had last attempted it eighteen months ago. Then with a faint pride he had mastered the Fox Trot and something they called a Boston. They had seemed very daring and difficult then, but already it seemed they were dead. At any rate they were never mentioned. John foresaw some hideous embarrassments, and he too wished fervently that he had not come.
But Muriel at least was enjoying herself. She was feeling unusually mischievous and irresponsible. She twinkled mischief at John's glum face, and she twinkled mischief into Stephen's eyes. Only they were different kinds of mischief. She had long been fond of John "in a kind of way"; she was still fond of him "in a kind of way." But he was a slow and indefinite suitor, old John, and he was undeniably not exciting. However, there was no one she liked better, and if he should ever bring himself to the pitch of suggesting it, she had little doubt that she would take him. His income would not be large, but it would be certain.
But it was slow work waiting, and this evening she had Stephen Byrne; and Stephen Byrne was undeniably exciting. Not simply because he was a great poet,—for though she liked "poitry" in a vague way, she did not like any one poet or one piece of poetry much better than another—but because he had made asuccessof poetry, a worldly success. He had made a name, he had even made money; he was a well-known man. And he was handsome and young, and his hair was black, and that morning in the garden he had admired her. She knew that. And she knew that she had touched his vanity by her urgency and his senses by her charm, and something naughty had stirred in her, and that too he had seen and enjoyed with a sympathetic naughtiness. And she had thought to herself that it would be an amusing thing to captivate this famous young man, this married, respectable, delightful youth; it would be interesting to see how powerful she could be. And at least she might waken John Egerton into activity.
They went on to the dance in two taxis. John found himself on one of the small seats with his back to the driver, with Stephen and Muriel chattering aloofly together in the gloom of the larger seat. The small seat in a taxi is, at the best of times, a position of moral and strategic inferiority, and tonight John felt this keenly. He screwed his head round uncomfortably in his sharp collar and pretended to be profoundly interested in the wet and hurrying streets. But he heard every word they said; and they said no word to him.