"We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman."—Colley Cibber: "Love's Last Shift."
"We shall find no fiend in hell can match the fury of a disappointed woman."—Colley Cibber: "Love's Last Shift."
Henley Regatta was something of a disappointment to me. I had furbished up the memories of twenty years before—which was one mistake—and was looking forward to it—which was another. In great measure the glory had departed from the house-boats, every one poured into the town by train or car, and the growth ofad hocriverside clubs had reduced the number of punts and canoes on the river itself. Being every inch as much a snob as my neighbour, I regretted to find Henley so deeply democratised....
I think, in all modesty, my own party was a success. Our houseboat was the "Desdemona," a fair imitation of what the papers call "a floating hotel": we brought my brother's cook from Pont Street and carried our cellar with us from town. And there was a pleasant, assiduous orchestra that neither ate nor slept in its zeal to play us all the waltzes we had grown tired of hearing in London. A Mad Hatter's luncheon started at noon and went on till midnight. Any passing boat that liked the "Desdemona's" looks, moored alongside and boarded her: no one criticised the food or cigars, manydropped in again for a second or third meal in the course of the afternoon, and if they did not know Gladys or myself, they no doubt had a friend among my guests or waiters.
Both those that slept on board and those that visited us at their stomachs' prompting were cheery, light-hearted, out to enjoy themselves. I admit my own transports were moderated by the necessity of having to dance attendance on Lady Roden. The air became charged with Rutlandshire Morningtons, and our conversation showed signs of degenerating into a fantastic Burke's Auction Bridge. Two earls counted higher than three viscounts; I called her out with one marquis, she took the declaration away with a duke, I got it back again with a Russian prince: she doubled me.... Apart from this, I enjoyed myself. All the right people turned up, except Gartside who was kept in town discussing Governorships with the India Office.
There were Rodens to right of us, Rodens to left of us: in a field behind us, unostentatiously smoking Virginia cigarettes, loitered a watchful Roden bodyguard. The Regatta started on July 3rd and on the previous day Rawnsley had given the House its time-table. There would be no Autumn Session, but the House would sit till the end of the third week in August to conclude the Third Reading of the Poor Law Bill; no fresh legislation would be introduced. The New Militants had their answer without possibility of misconstruction, and the families of Cabinet Ministers moved nowhere without a lynx-eyed, heavy-booted, plain-clothes escort.
I summoned Scotland Yard out of its damp, cheerless meadow, gave it bottled beer and a pack of cards, and told it to treat the "Desdemona" as itsown and to ring for anything likely to contribute to its comfort. Though we had never met before and were only to meet once again, I felt for those men as I should feel for any one deputed to bear up the young Rodens lest at any time they dashed their feet against stones....
Sylvia was laconic and decisive. She had engaged and defeated her father, met and routed her brothers. Any one who guarded her reckless person did so at their peril; she declined to argue the point. I fancy Lady Roden accepted a detective more or less as part of her too-often-withheld due; Philip was constitutional, guided by precedent, anxious to help peace and order in the execution of their arduous duties. The only active molestation came from Robin: left to himself he would have ignored the detectives' very existence, but at the fell suggestion of Culling I discovered him whiling away the morning by bursting into the guard-room at five-minute intervals with hysterical cries of "Save me! Oh, my God! save me!"
The saturnine, enigmatic Michael pursued his own methods. How he had escaped from Winchester in the midst of the terminal examinations, I never discovered. His telegram said, "What about me for Henley, old thing? Michael." I wired back, "Come in your thousands," and he came in a dove-grey suit, grey socks and buckskin shoes, grey tie, silk handkerchief and Homburg hat. I appreciated Michael more and more at each meeting. Of a detached family he was the most detached member. Observing me staring a trifle unceremoniously at his neck-tie, he produced a note-book and pencil and invited my written opinion. "On Seeing my New Tie" was inscribed on the front page, and the comments—so far as I remember the figures—were:—
(1) "Oh, my God!" (forty per cent.).
(2) "Haveyou seen Michael's tie?" (forty per cent.).
(3) "Michaeldarling!" (Sylvia'scri de cœur, ten per cent.).
(4) "It's a devilish good tie" (my own verdict, perhaps not altogether sincere). (Ten per cent.).
"Come and shew yer ticket o' leave," urged Culling with derisory finger outstretched to indicate the forces of law and order.
"No bloody peelers for this child," Michael answered in a voice discreetly lowered to keep the offending epithet from his sister's ears.
I noticed an exchange of glances between Culling and himself, but was too busy to think much of it at the time. Eleven minutes later, however, the majesty of Scotland Yard had been incarcerated in its own stronghold. Culling sat outside their door improvising an oratorio on an accordion. "The Philistines are upon thee," I heard him thunder as I passed that way. Michael was lying prone on the deck of the house-boat, dangling at safe distance the key of the cabin at the end of a Japanese umbrella.
"Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" he asked, as an official hand shot impotently out of the cabin window. The question may have been imperfectly understood.
"Sanguineos quis custodes custodiet ipsos?" he ventured.
As there was still no answer, common humanity ordained that I should possess myself of the key and hold a gaol delivery. The detectives were near weeping with humiliation, but I comforted them in some measure, won a friendship that was to serve me in good stead, and was at length free to resume my duties as host.
From time to time perfunctory racing took place, without arousing either interest or resentment. We all had our own ways of passing the time between meal and meal; one would study the teeth and smile of a musical-comedy star, another would watch Culling at the Three Card Trick, a third would count the Jews on a neighbouring house-boat.... There was no sign of Elsie or the Seraph, but that was only to be expected. He was to provide her with luncheon and publicity at Phyllis Court, and give the "Desdemona" a wide berth. Those, at least, were his sailing orders if he came; but Elsie had been over-tired and over-excited for some weeks past, and I should not have been surprised to hear she had stayed in town at the last moment.
It is one thing to set a course, and another to steer it—of Henley this is probably truer than of any other stretch of water in the world. When half the punts are returning from island to post after luncheon, and the other half paddle down stream to look at the house-boats, the narrow water midway between start and finish becomes hopelessly, chaotically congested. One or two skiffs and dinghies—which should never be allowed at any regatta—make confusion worse confounded till a timely collision breaks their sculls, or the nose of a racing punt turns them turtle; and with the closing of the booms, three boats begin to sprout where only one was before.
Through a forest of dripping paddles, I watched punt, dinghy and canoe fighting, pressing, yielding; up-stream, down-stream, broad side on, they slid and trembled like a tesselated pavement in an earthquake. The fatalists shipped their poles and paddles, and abandoned themselves to the line of least resistance. Faces grew flushed, but tempers remained creditably even....
"Mary, mother of God! it's our sad, bad, mad Seraph!"
Having exhausted the possibilities of the Three Card Trick, and being unable to secure either a pea or two thimbles, Paddy Culling had wandered to my side and was watching the crowd like a normal man.
I followed the direction of his eyes. The Seraph had turned fatalist and was being squeezed nearer and nearer the "Desdemona." A last vicious thrust by a boatload of pierrots jammed the box of his punt under our landing-stage. He waved a hand to me and began distributing bows among my guests.
"Droppit sthraight from Hiven," cried Culling with unnecessary elaboration of his already strong brogue. "The tay's wet, Mrs. Wylton, and we waiting for some one would ask a blessing. Seraph, yer ambrosia's on order."
They would not leave the punt, but we brought them tea; and a fair sprinkling of my guests testified to the success of our last few weeks' campaign by coming down to the raft and being civil to Elsie. There was, of course, no commotion or excitement of any kind; of those who lingered on deck or in the saloon, fully half, I dare say, were unconscious of what was going on below. Such was certainly the case with Sylvia. While Paddy and I served out strawberries to the crew of the punt, she had been washing her hands for tea, and as we crowned a work of charity with a few cigars and a box of matches, she came out onto the raft for assistance with the clasp of a watch-bracelet.
Paddy volunteered his services, I looked on. Her eyes travelled idly over the crowded segment of river opposite my boat, and completed their circuit by resting on the punt and its occupants. Elsie bowed and received a slight inclination of the headin return. The Seraph bowed, and was accorded the most perfect cut I have ever witnessed. Sylvia looked straight through him to a dinghy four yards the other side. It was superbly, insolently done. I have always been too lazy to cultivate the art of cutting my friends, but should occasion ever arise, I shall go to Sylvia for the necessary tuition.
As soon as the congestion was in some measure relieved, the Seraph waved good-bye to me and started paddling up stream towards Henley Bridge. Elsie had seen all that was to be seen in the cut, and—womanlike—had read into it a variety of meanings.
"I hope you're not tired," the Seraph said, as they landed and walked down to the station.
"I've had a lovely time," she answered. "Thanks most awfully for bringing me, and for all you've done these last few weeks. And before that." She hesitated, and then added with a regretful smile, "We must say good-bye after to-day."
"You're not going away?"
"Not yet; but you've got into enough trouble on my account without losing all your friends," she answered.
"But I haven't."
"You're risking one."
"On your account?"
She nodded.
He had not the brazenness to attempt a direct denial.
"Why should you think so?" he hedged.
"Seraph, dear child, I couldn't help seeing the way she took your bow. I got you that cut."
"She doesn't cut Toby," he objected. "And he and I are equally incriminated."
"There is a difference."
"Is there?"
"She's quite indifferent how muchhesoils his wings."
The Seraph was left to digest the unspoken antithesis. His face gradually lost the flush it had taken on after their encounter at the raft, his eyes grew calmer and his hands steadier; on the subject of their contention, however, he remained impenitent.
"I shan't say good-bye till you honestly tell me you don't want to see me again."
"You know I can't say that, Seraph."
"Very well, then."
"But it isn't! The good you do me is simply not worth the harm you do yourself. It didn't matter so much till Sylvia came to be reckoned with."
The Seraph shifted impatiently in his corner.
"Neither Sylvia Roden nor any other woman or man in the world is going to dictate who I may associate with, or who I mayn't."
"You must make an exception to the rule in her case."
"Why should I?"
"Every man has to make an exception to every rule in the case of one woman."
His chin achieved an uncompromising angle.
"To quote the Pharisee of blessed memory," he said, "I thank God I am not as other men."
Elsie was well enough acquainted with his moods to know nothing was to be gained by further direct opposition.
"I should like you to come to Chester Square," she compromised; "but you mustn't be seen with me in public any more."
"I shall ride in the Park to-morrow as usual," he persisted.
"I shan't be there, Seraph."
A surprise was awaiting me when Gladys andI returned to Pont Street in the early hours of Sunday morning, after waiting to see the fireworks—by immemorial tradition—extinguished by a tropical downpour. Brian notified me by wireless that he was on his way home and halfway through the Bay. He was, in fact, already overdue at Tilbury, but had been held up while the piston of a high-compression cylinder divested itself of essential portions of its packing.
"Who's going to tell him about Phil?" Gladys asked in consternation when I read her the message. We were getting on so comfortably without my brother that I think the natural affection of us both was tinged with resentment that he was returning by an earlier boat than he had threatened.
"As you are the offender," I pointed out.
"You were responsible for me."
"Why not leave it to Phil?" I suggested, with my genius for compromise.
"That's mean."
"Well, will you tell him yourself? No! I decline to be mixed up in it. I shan't be here. The day your parents land, I shall shift myself bag and baggage to an hotel. Isn't the simplest solution to break off the engagement? Well, you're very hard to please, you know."
I really forget how we settled the question, but the news was certainly not broken by me. The Seraph dropped in to dinner on the last night of my guardianship, and I asked him whether he thought I could improve on the Savoy as my next house of entertainment.
"But you're coming to stay withme," he said.
"My dear fellow, you've no experience of me as a guest. I don't know how long I'm staying in London."
"The longer the better, if you don't mind roughing it."
I knew there would be no "roughing it" in his immaculate mode of living, but the question was left undecided for the moment as I really felt it would be better for us both to run independently. Ten weeks of domesticity shared even with Gladys gave me a sensation of clipped wings after my inconsiderate, caravanserai existence, and—without wishing to be patronising—I had to remember that he was a man of very moderate means and would feel the cost of housing me more than I should feel it myself. The following afternoon I called round at Adelphi Terrace to acquaint him with my decision, but something seemed to have upset him; he was gazing abstractedly out of the window and I had not the heart to bother him with my own ephemeral arrangements. At the door of the flat his man apologetically asked my advice on the case; his master was eating, drinking, and smoking practically nothing, wandering about his room instead of going to bed, and gazing out into space instead of his usual daily writing.
I thought over the symptoms on my way to the Club, and decided to employ a portion of the afternoon in playing providence with Sylvia. It is a part for which I am unfitted by inclination, instinct, experience, and aptitude.
Some meeting of political stalwarts was in progress when I arrived at Cadogan Square, but I was mercifully shewn into Sylvia's own room and allowed to spend an interesting five minutes inspecting her books and pictures. They formed an illuminating commentary on her character. One shelf was devoted to works of religion, the rest to lives and histories of the world's great women. Catherineof Siena marched in front of the army, Florence Nightingale brought up the rear; in the ranks were queens like Elizabeth, Catherine of Russia, and Joan of Arc, the great uncrowned; writers from Madame de Sévigné to George Eliot, actresses from Nell Gwyn to Ellen Terry, artists like Vigée le Brun, reformers like Mary Woolstonecraft. It was a catholic library, and found space for Lady Hamilton among the rest. My inspection was barely begun when the door opened and Sylvia came in alone.
"'Tis sweet of you to come," she said. "Have you had tea? Well, d'you mind having it here alone with me? I'm sure you won't want to meet all father's constituents' wives. I hope I wasn't very long."
"No doubt it seemed longer than it was," I answered. "Still, I've had time to look at some of your books and make a discovery about you. If you weren't your father's daughter, you'd be a raging militant."
From the sudden fire in her eyes I thought I had angered her, but the threatening flame died as quickly as it had arisen.
"There's something in heredity after all, then," she said with a smile. "Do I—look the sort of person that breaks windows and burns down houses?"
So far as looks went the same question might have been asked of Joyce Davenant. That I did not ask it was due to a prudent resolve to keep my friendship with Rodens and Davenants in separate watertight compartments.
"You look the sort of person that has a great deal of ability and ambition, and wants a great deal of power."
"Without forgetting that I'm still a woman."
"Some of the militants are curiously feminine."
"'Curiously,' is just the right adverb."
"Joan of Arc rode astride," I pointed out.
"Florence Nightingale didn't break windows to impress the War Office."
"As an academic question," I said, "how's your woman of personality going to make her influence effective in twentieth-century England?"
"Have you met many women of personality?"
"A fair sprinkling."
"So I have; you could feel it as if they were mesmerising you, you had to do anything they told you. But they'd none of them votes."
The arrival of tea turned our thoughts from politics, and at the end of my second cup I advanced delicately towards the purpose of my call.
"You like plain speaking, don't you, Sylvia?" I began.
"As plain as you like."
"Well, you're not treating the Seraph fairly."
I leant back and watched her raising her little dark eyebrows in amused surprise.
"Has he sent you here?" she asked.
"I came on my own blundering initiative," I said. "I don't know what the trouble's about."
"But whatever it is, I'm to blame?"
"Probably."
Sylvia was delighted. "If a man doesn't think highly of women I do like to hear him say so!"
"As a matter of fact I'm not concerned to apportion blame to either of you. You're both of you abnormal and irrational; as likely as not you're both of you wrong. I wanted to tell you something about the Seraph you may not have heard before."
In a dozen sentences I told her of my first meeting with him in Morocco.
"Thanks to you," I said, "he's pretty well got over it. Remember that I saw him then, and youdidn't; so believe me when I tell you he was suffering from what the novelists call a 'broken heart.' He won't get over it a second time."
"You're sure it was broken?" she asked dispassionately. "Um. It sounds to me like a dent; press the other side, the dent comes out."
I produced a cigarette case, and flew a distress signal for permission.
"I should like you to be serious about this," I said.
"I? Where do I come in?"
I searched vainly for matches, and eventually had to use one of my own.
"He's in love with you," I said.
Sylvia dealt with the proposition in a series of short sentences punctuated by grave nods.
"Gratifying. If true. Seems improbable. Irrelevant, anyway. Unless I happen to be in love with him."
"I was not born yesterday," I reminded her. "Or the day before."
"You might have been."
I bowed.
"I mean, you're so deliciously young. Do you usually go about talking to girls as you've been talking to me?"
I buttoned up my coat, preparatory to leaving. "Being a friend of you both," I said, "if a word of advice——"
"But you haven't given it."
Literally, I suppose that was true.
"Well, if your generosity's greater than your pride, you can apologise to him: if your pride's greater than your generosity, waive the apology and sink the past. I've a fair idea what the quarrel's about," I added.
"I see." Sylvia brought flippancy into her tone when speaking of something too serious to be treated seriously: the flippancy was now ebbing away, and leaving her implacable and unyielding. "Is there any reason why I should do anything at all?" she asked.
I stretched out my hand to bid her good-bye. "I've not done it well," I admitted, "but the advice was not bad, and the spirit was really good."
"Admirable," she answered ironically. "I should be glad of such a champion. Have you givenhimany advice?"
"What d'you suggest?"
Sylvia knelt on the edge of a sofa, clasping her hands lazily behind her head.
"I ride in the Park every morning," she began. "I ride alone because I prefer to be alone. My father objects, and Phil doesn't like it, because they don't think it's safe. I think I'm quite capable of taking care of myself, so I disregard their objection. Your friend also rides in the Park every morning, sometimes with a rather conspicuous woman and the last few mornings alone. I don't know whether it's design, I don't know whether it's chance—but he rides nearer me than I like."
I waited for her to point the moral, mentioning incidentally that England was a free country and the Park was open to the public.
"He may have the whole of it," she answered, "except just that little piece where I happen to be riding at any given moment."
"I'm afraid you can't keep him out of even that."
Her eyes broke into sudden blaze. "I can flog him out of it as I'd flog any man who followed me when I forbade him."
There was nothing more to be said, but I said it as soon as I dared.
"We're friends, Sylvia?" She nodded. "And I can say anything I please to you?"
"No one can do that."
"Anything in reason? Well, it's this—you're coming a most awful cropper one of these fine days, my imperious little queen."
"You think so?"
"I do. You're half woman, and half man, and half angel, and three-quarters devil."
Sylvia had been counting the attributes on her fingers.
"When I was at school," she interrupted, "they taught me it took only two halves to make a whole."
"I've learnt a lot since I left school. One thing is that you're the equivalent of any three ordinary women. Now I really am going. Queen Elizabeth, your most humble servant."
Her hand went again to the bell, but I was ready with a better suggestion.
"It would be a graceful act if you offered to show me downstairs," I said. "It'll be horribly lonely going down two great long flights all by myself."
She took my arm, led me down to the hall, and presented me with my hat and stick.
"Are you walking?" she asked as we reached the door. "If not, you may have my private taxi. Look at him." She pointed to an olive-green car at the corner of the Square. "I believe I must have made a conquest, he's always there, and whenever I'm in a hurry I can depend on him. I think he must refuse to carry any one else. It's an honour."
I ran through my loose change, and lit upon a half-sovereign, which I held conspicuously between thumb and first finger.
"He'll carry me," I said.
"I doubt it."
"Will you bet?"
"Oh, of course, if you offer to buy the car!"
"You haven't the courage of your convictions," I said severely. "Good-bye, Queen Elizabeth."
It was well for me she declined the wager. I walked to the corner and hailed the taxi; but the driver shook his head.
"Engaged, sir," he said.
"Your flag's up," I pointed out.
"My mistake, sir."
Nonchalantly pulling down the flag, he retired behind a copy of theEvening News. I was sorry, because his voice was that of an educated man, and I am always interested in people who have seen better days; they remind me of my brother before he was made a judge. I had only caught a glimpse of dark eyes, a sallow complexion and bushy black beard and moustache. England is so preponderatingly clean-shaven that a beard always arouses my suspicions. If the wearer be not a priest of the Orthodox Church, I like to think of him as a Russian nihilist.
After dinner the following night I mentioned to the Seraph that I had run across Sylvia, and hinted that his propinquity to her in the Park each day was not altogether welcome.
"So she told me this morning," he said.
"I thought you wouldn't mind my handing on an impression for what it was worth," I added with vague floundering.
"Oh, not at all. I shall go there just the same, though."
"You'll annoy her."
He shrugged his shoulders resignedly. "That's as may be. This is not the time for her to be running any unnecessary risks."
"You can hardly kidnap a grown woman—onhorseback—in broad daylight—in a public park," I protested.
"The place is practically deserted at the hour she rides."
The following day the Seraph rode as usual. Sylvia entered the Park at her accustomed time; saw him, cut him, passed him. For a while they cantered in the same direction, separated by a hundred and fifty yards; then the Seraph gradually reduced the distance between their horses. His quick eyes had marked a group of men moving furtively through a clump of trees to the side of the road. Their character and intentions will never be known, for Sylvia abruptly drew rein—throwing her horse on his haunches as she did so—then she turned in her own length, and awaited her gratuitous escort. The Seraph had to swerve to avoid a cannon. As he passed, her hand flashed up and cut him across the face with a switch; an instinctive pull at the reins gave his horse a momentary check and enabled her to deal a second cut back-handed across his shoulders. Then both turned and faced each other.
Sylvia sat with white face and blazing eyes.
"It was a switch to-day, and it will be a crop to-morrow," she told him. "It seems you have to be taught that when I say a thing I mean it."
The Seraph bowed and rode away without answering. Physically as well as metaphorically he was thin-skinned, and the switch had drawn blood. Three weeks passed before his face lost the last trace of Sylvia's castigation. A purple wale first blackened and then turned yellowish green. When I saw him later in the day, his face was swollen, and the mark stretched diagonally from cheekbone to chin, crossing and cutting the lips on its way. He gave me the story quietly and without rancour.
"I can't go again after this," he concluded, "but somebody ought to. If you've got any influence with her, use it, and use it quickly. She doesn't know—you none of you know—the danger she's in at present!"
He jumped up to pace the room in uncontrollable nervous excitement.
"What's going to happen, Seraph?" I asked, in a voice that was intended to be sympathetic, sceptical, and pacifying at one and the same moment.
"I don't know—but she's in danger—I know that—I know that—I'm certain of that—I know that."
His overstrung nerves betrayed themselves in a dozen different ways. It occurred to me that the less time he spent alone in his own society the better.
"I'll see if I can do anything," I said in off-hand fashion. "Meantime, I dropped in to know if your invitation held good for a bed under your hospitable roof-tree."
"Delighted to have you," he answered; and then less conventionally, "it's very kindly intended."
"Kindness all onyourside," I murmured, pretending not to see that he had plumbed the reason for my coming.
The old, absent thought-reading look returned for an instant to his eyes.
"All my razors are on my dressing-table," he said. "Don't hide them. I shan't commit suicide, but I shall want to shave. I never keep firearms."
I had intended to supervise my removal from Pont Street in person; on reflection I thought it would be wiser to send instructions over the telephone, and give the Seraph the benefit of my company for what it was worth.
"When we two partedIn silence and tears,Half broken-heartedTo sever for years,Pale grew thy cheek and cold,Colder thy kiss;Truly that hour foretoldSorrow to this."
"When we two partedIn silence and tears,Half broken-heartedTo sever for years,Pale grew thy cheek and cold,Colder thy kiss;Truly that hour foretoldSorrow to this."
Lord Byron:When We Two Parted.
Though the flat in Adelphi Terrace became my home from this time until the end of my residence in England, I saw little of the Seraph for the week following my change of quarters. I think he liked my company at meals, and whenever we were together I certainly worked hard to distract his mind from the unhappy quarrel with Sylvia. But I will not pretend that I sat by him day and night devising consolatory speeches; I am no good at that kind of thing, he would have seen through me, and we should speedily have got on one another's nerves. For the first day or two, then, I purposely measured out my companionship in small doses; later on, when he had got used to my presence, I became more assiduous. Those were the days when I could see reflected in his eyes the fast approaching nightmare of his dreams.
My one positive achievement lay in persuading him to resume the curious journal he had started atBrandon Court and continued in Oxford. I called—and still call—it the third volume of Rupert Chevasse's life, or, more accurately, "The Child of Misery"; for though it will never be published, its literary parentage is the same, and its elder brothers are Volumes One and Two. I count it one of the great tragedies of the book-world that—at least in his life-time—the third volume will never be given to the public; in my opinion—for what that is worth—it is the finest work Aintree has ever accomplished. At the same time I fully endorse his resolution to withhold it; it has been a matter of lasting surprise that even I was allowed to read the manuscript.
He worked a great many hours each day as soon as I had helped the flywheel over dead-point. Half-way through the morning I would wander into the library and find a neat manuscript chapter awaiting me; when I had finished reading, he would throw me over sheet after sheet as each was completed. It was an interesting experience to sit, as it were, by an observation hive and watch his vivid, hyper-sensitive mind at work. I had been present at half the scenes and meetings he was describing. I had heard large fragments of the dialogue and allowed my imagination to browse on the significance of each successive "soul-brush." Yet—I seemed to have heard and seen less than nothing! His insight enabled him to depict a psychological development where I had seen but a material friendship. It was one-sided, of course, and gave me only the impression that a vital, commanding spirit like Sylvia's would leave on his delicate, receptive imagination. When at a later date Sylvia took me into her confidence and showed me reverse and obverse side by side, I felt like one who has assumed a fourth dimension and looked down from a higher plane into the very heartsof two fellow-creatures. It was a curious experience to see those souls stripped bare—I am not sure that I wish to repeat it—there comes a point where a painful "study of mankind is man."
While the Seraph worked, I had plentiful excuse for playing truant. Decency ordained that after my twenty years' respite I should spend a certain amount of time with my brother and his wife, and since Sylvia's edict of banishment, I was the sole channel of communication between Cadogan Square and Adelphi Terrace. It was noticeable—though I say it in no carping spirit—that Philip sought my company a shade less assiduously when I ceased to watch over the welfare of Gladys. Finally, I devoted a portion of each day to Chester Square. Elsie adhered to her decision that the Seraph must be no more seen in company with her in public, and even a private call at the house was impossible so long as his face carried the marks of Sylvia's resentment.
The burden of the publicity-campaign fell on my shoulders, though it came to be relieved—to his honour be it said!—by Gartside. I gave him my views of Elsie's behaviour, brought the two of them together at dinner, and left his big, kind heart to do the rest. He responded as I knew he would, and his adhesion to our party was matter of grave offence to Elsie's detractors, for his name carried more weight with the little-minded than the rest of us put together. Culling enrolled himself for a while, but dropped away as he dropped out of most sustained efforts. Laziness brought about his defection more than want of faith or the pressure of orthodox friends; indeed I am not sure that his strongest motive in joining us was not a passing desire to confound Nigel Rawnsley. In this as in other things, we never treated him seriously; but with Gartside it wasdifferent. At a time when Carnforth's resignation of the Bombay Governorship was in the hands of the India Office—and it was an open secret that Gartside's name stood high on the list of possible successors—it required some courage to incur the kind of notoriety that without doubt we both of us did incur. He ought to have been lunching with Anglo-Indians and patting the cheeks of Cabinet Ministers' children, instead of trying to infect Society with his belief in a divorced woman's innocence.
In the course of the campaign I began to see a little, but only a little, more of Joyce than I had been privileged to do during the time when I was supposed to be watching over the destiny of Gladys. I am not sure that I altogether enjoyed my new liberty of access to her house; it worried me to see how overworked and tired she was beginning to look, though I had the doubtful satisfaction of knowing that nothing I could say or do would check her. She risked her health as recklessly as she had been risking her liberty since the inauguration of the New Militancy. I had to treat her politics like a cold in the head and allow them to run their nine days' course. Though I saw she was still cumbered with my scarab ring, we never referred to our meeting in Oxford. I am vain enough to think that she did not regard me even at this time with complete disfavour, but I will atone for my vanity by saying I dared do next to nothing to forward my suit. My foothold was altogether too precarious; an attempt to climb higher would only have involved me in a headlong fall.
And yet, before I had been a week at Adelphi Terrace, I made the attempt. Elsie telephoned one evening that she was going out, but would have to leave Joyce who was too tired to face a restaurantand theatre. She would be dining alone; if I had nothing better to do, would I look in for a few minutes and see if I could cheer her up? I had promised to dine with Nigel, but it was a small party and I managed to slip away before ten. Joyce was half asleep when I was shown into the drawing-room; she did not hear me announced, and I was standing within two feet of her before she noticed my presence.
"I've run you to earth at last," I said.
Then I observed a thing that made me absurdly pleased. Joyce was looking very white and tired, with dark rings round the eyes, and under either cheekbone a little hollow that ought not to have been there. When she opened her eyes and saw me, I could swear to a tiny flush of pleasure; the blue eyes brightened, and she smiled as children smile in their sleep.
"Very nearly inside it," she answered, with a woebegone shake of the head. "Oh, Toby, but I'm so tired! Don't make me get up."
I had no thoughts of doing so. Indeed, my mind was solely concerned with the reflection that she had called me Toby; it was the first time.
"What have you been doing to get yourself into this state?" I asked severely.
"Working."
"There you are!" I said. "Something always happens when people take to work. I shall now read you a short lecture on female stamina."
"You're sure you wouldn't prefer to smoke?"
"I can do both."
"Oh, that's not fair."
Joyce Davenant and Sylvia Roden have only two characteristics in common; one is that I am very fond of both, the other, that I can do nothing with either. I capitulated, and selected a cigarette.
"A live dog's worth a good many dead lions," I reminded her as a final shot.
"Areyoutrying to convince me of the error of my ways?"
"I am not your Suffragan Bishop," I answered in the tone Robert Spencer adopted in telling a surprised House of Commons that he was not an agricultural labourer.
"I'm so glad. I couldn't bear an argument to-night."
The effort she had made on my arrival had spent itself, and I was not at all certain whether I ought to stay.
"Look here," I said, "if you're too tired to see me, I'll go."
"Please, don't!" she laid a restraining hand on my sleeve. "I'm all right if you don't argue or use long words; but I've had such a headache the last few days that I haven't been able to sleep, and now I don't seem able to fix my attention properly, or remember things."
I had met these symptoms before; the first time in India with men who were being kept too long at work in the hot weather.
"In other words, you want a long rest."
She nodded without speaking.
"Why don't you take it?"
"I simply can't. I've put my hand to the plough, and you know what we are. Obstinate, hard-mouthed brutes, the whole family of us. I've got other people to consider, I mustn't fail them."
"And the benighted, insignificant people who don't happen to be your followers? Some of them may cherish a flickering interest in your existence."
"Oh! they don't count."
"Thank you, Joyce."
She held out a pacifying hand. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean to be ungracious. But those women—— You know, you get rather attached to people when you've spoken and fought and been imprisoned side by side with them. I always feel rather mean; any one of them 'ud die for me, and I'm not at all sure I'd do the same for them. Everything's been different since Elsie got her freedom; it's easier to fight for a person than a principle."
"Are you weakening?"
"Heavens! No! I'm just showing you I should be honour-bound to stand by my fellows even if I lost all faith in the cause. I say, don't go on smoking cigarettes; ring the bell and make Dick give you a cigar. He's in the house somewhere. I heard him come in a few minutes ago."
"I came to see you," I pointed out.
"But I'm dreadfully poor company to-night."
"I take you as I find you, in sickness and health, weal and woe——"
"Mr. Merivale!"
Her voice was very stern.
"You remember our wager?" I said, with a shrug of the shoulders.
"It was a joke," she retorted. "And not in very good taste. Oh, I was as much to blame as you were."
"But I was quite serious."
"Did you seriously think I should give up the Cause?"
"I offered very long odds. A twopenny ring—but you remember what they were."
"Are you any nearer winning?"
"I should like to think so."
"Because we haven't answered Mr. Rawnsley's time-arrangements in the House?"
"Oh, I've no doubt the reply has been posted."
She nodded significantly. "And they haven't found their hostages yet."
"But they've paid no ransom."
"It's an indurance test."
I got up to find myself a match. As I did so, I caught a glimpse of her left hand, wearing the scarab-ring; it disappeared for a moment, and to my surprise reappeared without the ring.
"Suppose we call the bet off?" she suggested. "It was all rather silly."
"Odds offered and taken and horses running. It's too late now. How did you find out the secret?"
"I didn't. My finger shrank and the ring came off three days ago when I was washing my hands."
"You didn't pull?"
"No."
"Show me."
"It was like this," she began, slipping the ring back on to the third finger. "Rather loose——"
I tightened the couplings before she saw what I was about.
"That's soon remedied. Come to me when the finger's nice and plump again, and I'll let it out."
A shadow of annoyance crossed her face.
"Now I shall have it cut," she said.
"You could have had that done three weeks ago. You could have thrown the thing away three days ago. You didn't do either."
A smile dimpled its way into her cheeks. "How old are you? Over forty?"
"What a way of looking at things!" I exclaimed. "Marlborough was fifty before he started his campaigns, Wren nearer fifty than forty before ever he put pencil to paper. You don't know the possibilities of virgin soil."
"I was wondering how long it was since you left school."
I got up and dusted the flecks of cigarette ash from my shirt.
"I'm going now," I said. "It's time you were in bed. Just one word before I go. You want to win this wager, don't you? So do I. Well, if you don't give yourself a holiday, you're going to break down and lose it."
Smiling mischievously, she got up and took my proffered hand.
"It'll be an ill-wind, then——"
"Damn the wager!" I burst out. "I don't want to win it at that price. Joyce, if I say I'm beaten, will you be a good girl and go to bed and stay there? Win or lose, I can't bear to see you looking as ill as you are now."
She shook her head a little sadly. "I can't take a holiday now."
"You'll lose the wager."
She looked up swiftly into my face, and lowered her eyes.
"I don't know that I mind that much."
"Joyce!"
"But I can't take a holiday," she repeated.
I opened the door, and on the threshold waved my hand in farewell.
"Won't you wait till Elsie comes back?" she asked.
"I will wait for no one."
"But where are you off to?"
I scratched my chin, as one does when one wishes to appear reflective.
"I am going to break the Militant Suffrage Movement."
"A good many people have failed," she warned me.
"They never tried."
"How will you begin?"
I walked downstairs thoughtfully, weighed Dick's tall hat in the balance, and decided in favour of my own.
"I have no idea," I called back to the figure at the stair-head.
The Seraph had marked his confidence in me by the bestowal of a latch-key. I let myself in at Adelphi Terrace and wandered round the flat in search of him. He was not in the library or dining-room, but at length I discovered him in pyjamas sitting in the balcony outside his bedroom, and gazing disconsolately out over the river. He knew where I had been before I had time to tell him, and was able to make a fairly accurate guess at the nature of my conversation with Joyce. Perhaps there was nothing very wonderful in that, but it fitted in with the rest of his theory: I remember he summarised her mental condition by saying that a certain sub-conscious idea was coming to be consciously apprehended. It was a cumbrous way of saying that both Joyce and I had made rather an important discovery; what puzzled me then, and puzzles me still, is that at my first meeting with her either of us should have given him grounds for forming any theory at all. Even admitting that I may have been visibly impressed, I could see no response in her; but I have almost given up trying to understand the Seraph's mind or mode of thought.
"You've not got her yet," he warned me.
"No one knows that better than I do."
"Her mind's still very full of her cause."
"Yes, damn it."
"Almost as full of it as of you. She's torn between you, and you'll have to fight if you want to keep your foothold."
I told him, as I had told Joyce, that I proposed to break the Suffrage movement.
"How?" he asked.
"I thought you might be able to help. Whatisgoing to be the end of it?"
He shook his head moodily, and picked up a cigarette.
"I'm not a prophet."
"You've prophesied to some purpose before now," I reminded him.
He paused to look at me with the cigarette in one hand and a lighted match in the other.
"Guesswork," I heard him murmur.
"But it worked out right?"
"Coincidence."
"Youdon't think that."
"I may think the world's flat if it amuses me," he answered, blowing out the match.
The abruptness of his tone was unusual.
"What's been worrying you, Seraph?" I asked.
"Nothing. Why?"
I lay back in my chair and looked him up and down.
"You've forgotten to light your cigarette," I pointed out. "You're shaking as if you'd got malaria, and wherever your mind may be, it's not in this room and it's not attending to me."
"I'm sorry," he apologised, sitting down. "I'm rather tired."
To belie his words he jumped up again and began pacing feverishly up and down before the open balcony window.
"Let's hear about it," I urged.
"You can't do any good."
"Letmejudge of that."
He paused irresolutely and stood leaning hishead against the frame of the window and looking out at the flaming sky-signs on the far side of the river.
"It won't do any good," he repeated over his shoulder. "Nobody 'ud believe you, but—I don't know, you might try. She must be warned. Sylvia, I mean. She's absolutely on the brink, and if some one doesn't save her, she'll be over. I can't interfere, I should only precipitate it. Will you go, Toby? She might listen to you. It's worth getting your face laid open to keep her out of danger. Will you go?"
He turned and faced me, wild-eyed and excited. His lips were white, and his fingers locked and unlocked themselves in uncontrollable nervous restlessness.
"What's the danger?" I asked, with studied deliberation.
"I don't know. How should I? But it's there; will you go?"
"I don't mind trying," I answered, taking out my watch.
"You must go now!"
It was a quarter to one, and I told him so. Nobody can be less sensitive than I to the charge of eccentricity, but I refuse to disturb a Cabinet Minister's household at one in the morning to proclaim that an overstrung nervous visionary has a premonition that peril of a vague undefined order is menacing the daughter of the house.
"We must wait till Christian hours," I insisted.
"Ah, you don't believe it; no one does!"
At eleven o'clock next morning—as soon, in fact, as I had drunk my coffee and was comfortably shaved and dressed—I drove round to Cadogan Square in search of Sylvia. I had no very clear idea what warning I was to give her when we met;indeed I felt wholly ridiculous and slightly resentful. However, my word had gone forth, and I was indisposed to upset the Seraph by breaking it. I left him in the library, silent and pale, writing hard and accumulating an industrious pile of manuscript against my return. By morning light no trace remained of his overnight excitement.
To my secret relief Sylvia was not in when I arrived. The man believed she was shopping and would be out to luncheon, but if I called again about three I should probably find her at home. It hardly seemed worth my while to return to Adelphi Terrace, so I ordered some cigars, took a turn in the Park, lunched at the Club, and talked mild scandal with Paddy Culling. At three I presented myself once more in Cadogan Square.
The door stood open, and Sylvia appeared in sight as I mounted the steps.
"Worse and worse!" she exclaimed as she gave me a hurried shake of the hand. "I was so sorry to be out when you called this morning. Look here, will you go inside and tell mother you're coming to dinner to-night."
"But I'm dining out already."
"Oh, well, when will you come? Ring up and fix a night. I must simply fly now."
"It won't take a minute."
"Honestly I can't wait! I've got to go down to Chiswick of all unearthly places! My poor old darling of a fräulein's been taken ill and she's got no one to look after her. Imustjust see she's got everything she wants. It's horribly rude, but you will forgive me, won't you? She rang up at half-past twelve, and I've only just got back."
Touching my hand with the tips of her fingers, she flashed down the steps before I could stop her.The bearded Orthodox Church retainer was waiting at the kerb, and I heard her call out "Twenty-seven, Teignmouth Road, Chiswick," as he slammed the door and clambered into his seat. I caught my last glimpse of her rounding the corner into Sloane Street, the same black and white study that I had admired when I first visited Gladys—white dress, black hat; white skin, dark hair, and soft unfathomable brown eyes; a splash of red at the throat, a flush of colour in her cheeks. Then I hailed a taxi on my own account and drove back to Adelphi Terrace.
The Seraph was still in the library, sitting as I had left him more than four hours before. An empty coffee cup at his elbow marked the only visible difference. He was writing quicker than I think I have ever seen a man write, and allowed me to enter the room and drop into an armchair by the window without raising his eyes or appearing to notice my presence. I had been there a full five minutes before he condescended—still without looking up from his writing—to address me.
"You couldn't stop her, then?"
"No."
"But you saw her?"
"Just for a moment."
"'Just for a moment.' Those were the words I had used."
He stopped writing, drew a line under the last words, blotted the page and threw it face-downwards on the pile of manuscript. Then for the first time our eyes met, and I saw it was only by biting his lips and gripping the arms of the chair that he could keep control over himself.
"You'd like some tea," he said, in the manner of a man recalling his mind from a distance. "Can you reach the bell?"
"Is this the end of the chapter?" I asked as he tidied the pile of manuscript and bored it with a paper fastener.
"It's the end of everything."
"How far does it carry you?"
"To your parting from Sylvia."
"Present time, in fact?"
"Forty minutes ago."
I checked him by my watch. "And what now?" I asked.
He looked up at me, looked through me, I might say, and sat staring at the window without answering.
The next two hours were the most uncomfortable I have ever spent. If in old age my guardian angel offers me the chance of living my whole life over again, I shall refuse the offer if I am compelled to endure once again that silent July afternoon. The Seraph sat from four till six without speech or movement. As the sun's rays lengthened, they fell on his face and lit it with cold, merciless limelight. He had started pale and grew gradually grey; the eyes seemed to darken and increase in size as the face became momentarily more pinched and drawn. I could see the lips whitening and drying, the forehead dewing with tiny beads of perspiration.
I made a brave show of noticing nothing. Tea was brought in; I poured him out a cup, drank three myself, and ostentatiously sampled two varieties of sandwich and one of cake. I cut my cigar noisily, damned with audible good humour when the matches refused to strike, picked up a review and threw it down again, and wandered round the room in search of a book, humming to myself the while.
At six I could stand it no longer.
"I'm going to play the piano, Seraph," I said.
"For pity's sake don't!" he begged me, with a shudder; but I had my way.
When theCity of Pekinwent down in '95 as she tried to round the Horn, one of my fellow-passengers was a gigantic, iron-nerved man from one of the Western States. I suppose we all of us found it trying work to sit calm while the boats were lowered away: no one knew how long we could keep our heads above water and we all had a shrewd suspicion that the boat accommodation was insufficient. We should have been more miserable than we were if it had not occurred to the Westerner to distract our minds. In spite of a thirty-degree list he sat down to the piano and I helped hold him in position while we thundered out the old songs that every one knows without consciously learning—"Clementine," "The Tarpaulin Jacket," "In Cellar Cool." We were taking a call for "The Tavern in the Town" when word reached us that there was room in the last boat.
I set myself to distract the Seraph's mind, and gave him a tireless succession of waltzes and ragtimes till eight o'clock. Then the bell of the telephone rang, and I was told Philip Roden wished to speak to me.
"It's about Sylvia," he began. "She hasn't come back yet, and we don't know where she is. The man says you had a word with her as she started out: did she say where she was going?"
I told him of the message from Chiswick, and repeated the address I had heard her give the chauffeur.
"I don't know what the matter was," I added. "Sylvia may have found the woman worse than she expected. Hadn't you better inquire who took the message and see if he or she can throw any light on the mystery?"
I was half dressed for dinner when Philip rang me up again, this time with well-marked anxiety in his voice.
"I say, there's something very fishy about this," he began. "I've just rung up the Chiswick address and the Fräulein answered in person. She wasn't ill, she hadn't been ill, and she certainly hadn't sent any message to Sylvia."
"Well, but who——?" I started.
"Lord knows!" he answered. "It might be any one. The address is a boarding house with a common telephone: any one in the house could have used it. You said twelve-thirty, didn't you? The Fräulein was out in Richmond Park at twelve-thirty."
"What about Sylvia?" I asked.
"That's the devil of it: Sylvia hadn't been near the place. When was it exactly that you saw her? Three-five, three-ten? And she turned into Sloane Street? North or South? Well, North's the Knightsbridge end. And that's all you can say?"
I mentioned the invitation she had given me, and asked if I could be of any assistance in helping to trace her. Philip told me he was going at once to Chiswick to investigate the mystery of the telephone, and promised to advise me if there was anything fresh to report. Then he rang off, and I gave arésuméof our conversation to the Seraph. He had just come out of the bath and was sitting wrapped in a towel on the edge of the bed. I remember noticing at the time how thin he had gone the last few weeks: he had always been slightly built, but the outline of his collarbones and ribs was sharply discernible under the skin.
"I think it would be rather friendly if I went round after dinner to see if there's any news of her," I concluded.
"There won't be," he answered.
"Well, that of course we can't say."
"Ican. They won't have found her, they don't know where she is."
"Philip may hear something in Chiswick; it looks like a silly practical joke."
"But you know it isn't."
"I don't know what to think," I answered, as I returned to my room and the final stages of my toilet. I soon came back, however, to tie my tie in front of his glass and propound a random question. "I supposeyoudon't know where she is?"
"How should I?"
"You sometimes do."
"So do other people."
"You sometimes know where she is when other people don't—and when you've no better grounds for knowing than other people."
He was still sitting on the bed indéshabille, his hands clasped round his bare knees and his head bowed down and resting on his hands. For a moment he looked up into my face, then dropped his head again without speaking.
"You remember what happened at Brandon Court?" I persisted.
"Guess-work," he answered.
"Nonsense!"
"Well, what other explanation do you offer?"
"I don't know; you've got some extra sensitiveness where Sylvia's concerned. Call it the Sixth Sense, if you like."
"Thereisno Sixth Sense. I thought Nigel disposed of that fallacy at Brandon."
"Not to my satisfaction—or yours."
The Seraph jumped up and began to dress.
"Well, anyway I don't know where she is now," he observed.
"Meaning that you did once?"
"YousayI did."
"You know you did."
"There's not much sign of it now."
"May be in abeyance. It may come back."
I watched him spend an unduly long time selecting and rejecting dress-socks.
"It won't come back as long as the connection's broken at her end," I heard him murmur.