The car rushed on, up a wide slope that curved handsomely so that the light played on meadows and startled the beasts of the fields.
“And you are so sure, Iris, that these three men, who have known you all your life and one of whom has loved you with all his heart ever since he saw you walk down South Audley Street, all brown stockings and blue eyes—you are so sure, Iris, that nothing they can say will touch you?”
The lights swept over great lodge-gates standing wide open before a curving avenue of tall trees. We passed beneath them, showering gold on their trunks. The drive shone like a yellow carpet beneath our lights.
“I tell you,” Iris whispered, “I shall be a very Saint George for steadfastness!”
The stork fled up the curving avenue of Sutton Marle. It seemed, to me, to crouch with fear beneath the noble line of trees. They stood above us like towers. I was afraid.
“This is the lion’s den, Iris!”
“Well, I have killed lions, and tigers too, in twelve years’ wandering through hell.”
“But this is the den of the king of lions, Iris! This is the den of the lion of England!”
“Love smiles at lions. Love can never be a clown, but a lion can wear an ass’s skin. Darling, I’m no good at natural history, but I have studied history.”
“You couldn’t mock it so unless you loved it very deeply. You are like a child, dear Iris, daring her father and mother. These trees——”
“But I laugh at the trees of Sutton Marle! I always did, I never could play with them, not even believe in them. I tell you, there is no tree but Harrod’s, my servant, and my master and my playmate tree, Harrod’s. Oh, how Harrod’s hates Sir Maurice! It makes me afraid, to think how Harrod’s hates Maurice Harpenden. Let him beware as he walks beneath it!”
Then the trees parted from above us and we came into an open place where stood a fountain, and round the fountain we swept a circle and came before the doors of a long white manor house. De Travest’s car stood there. As we drew up beside it the doors of the white house opened and a fat old man stood at the head of the steps. His hair was like his house, quite white.
“Truble, we will go round by the garden,” Iris said.
The fat old butler looked very gravely down at Iris. She was like a small knight at the foot of the broad steps, he a kindly old dragon up above. Oh, he looked so grave!
Iris said to me: “Mr. Truble is my oldest friend. He is a very nice man. Truble, what have you to say to that?”
“Sir Maurice did not expect you, Miss Iris.”
“How, Truble! Sir Maurice knew I was coming!”
“But he did not think you would come, Miss Iris. But his lordship expected you. The gentlemen are in the library.”
“His lordship, Truble, does me too much honour in thinking I can keep my word.... Truble, my dear!”
I had been looking round me when that sudden cry shook me like the cry of a bird in pain. The fat old butler was weeping, there was not a doubt of it. There at the head of the broad steps, quite motionless, a broad black shape under his white hair. Iris had him by the shoulder, was shaking him, her hat like a toy against that black shape.
“Truble,” she said, so huskily, “that I should ever have made you cry! My dear, my dear!”
“Sir,” the old man appealed to me down below with a funnily out-flung hand. “I never was so ashamed of myself in my life! But it came on me all of a sudden hearing Miss Iris say, here at the doors of Sutton Marle, in a voice as hard as that ash she was always in love with, that abouthis lordship doing her too much honour about her keeping her word. I held Miss Iris in my arms, sir, when she wasn’t above a year old, and now—I’m sure I beg your pardon, sir. And yours, Miss Iris. I’m sure I don’t know what’s come over me to-night....”
One leather arm had the old man by the shoulder. Iris’s face seemed painted white.
“Truble,” she said, so huskily, “I am so sorry to have upset you. You have been faithful to me, Truble, for thirty years, and now, I suppose, you mustn’t love me any more. You don’t love me any more, Truble?”
“Miss Iris, Miss Iris! There’s no good comes from loving, I see that!”
“Then, Truble, I here and now do release you from giving me a thought ever again. Adieu, Truble.”
Her face painted white, her eyes absorbed in what they did not see, she came down to where I stood. “Come,” she said, expressionless. She could make her words into pieces of iron, and I did not dare to look at the motionless old man at the head of the steps. We skirted the house in silence. I supposed we were on a lawn. The rains of yesterday had not softened the drought, the grass was hard as stone under the feet. I said: “Iris, you are moved already—you who were not to be moved by anything that was said!”
I felt her fingers tightening round my arm. Hers were strong white fingers. “I hadn’t bargained for Truble. He should have been in bed by now. Often in moments of self-hatred and contempt I have taken a little heart from thatold man’s devotion. And he would always send me wishes on my birthday. No, I hadn’t bargained for Truble.... Look!”
“Why, they are playing bridge!”
“And, dear, how grimly! See, Hilary is looking quite young, he must have a bad hand. And Guy Apollo Belvedere—Oh, he’s thinking!—and then he plays the wrong card! Ah, poor Guy! He always did treat his trumps as though they were tulips, with too much respect. And Sir Maurice! Now, dear heart, what do you think of Sir Maurice? Isn’t he the handsome soldier!”
“Oh, handsome! Napier with a gay sinner’s face....”
“Judge him for me! Oh, do! Here we are, conspirators, whispering. Now, judge me, first, Mr. Townshend of Magralt.”
“Iris, must I! Can I? I can’t!”
“Of course you must, can, will! Speak without thinking. It is only thus that truth is made.”
“He is a good man. His goodness is supported by his principles, his kindness is rebuked by his prejudices. He is not a weak man, but he is the weakest man in that room. He has loved but one woman in his life, and she has crucified his heart on a hundred carnal Calvarys. But he still loves her, and that is why he is the weakest man in that room.”
“And you, satyr, you are the cruellest man I ever met in my life! But judge me, secondly, my lord Viscount de Travest.”
“He is the elder brother of honour. He is that rarest of men, a schoolboy who has grown out of his schooldays but remains, by strength of will,a schoolboy. He prefers to be that. He never did an unworthy thing, and has thought less mean ones than most people. Like all decent Englishmen, he is like a woman: he knows everything without ever having been taught anything. He has a profound sense of obedience, therefore he is a good commander. He never thinks when he is alone, lest thoughts should undermine his sense of obedience and paralyse his habit of command. One day a thought will strike him, and instantly he will cease to be the captain of his soul. He is the only man in England who actually believes in obeying the King.”
“Oh, how horrified the King would be! And of Sir Maurice, enemy to Iris March, what have you to say? Besides the fact that he is the cleverest man in that room. Oh, he is clever, that Maurice! It was he who had old Truble waiting for me. Judge me that man!”
“But I don’t know him, Iris!”
“His face is there, man—the proconsular features, the cunning Norman nose, the smile—Oh, my God, the smile! And you won’t, my friend, take my opinion of him?”
“Iris, how can you ask me to do that! We can’t take any woman’s opinion of any man. They find evil in good men, they overlook the vices of cads....”
“Oh, Maurice is not good, not bad! Only immemorially infantile, like all successful men....”
Where we stood now the lawn was damp and velvet-soft, the air whispered of flowers. The light that fell across the lawn from the three tallFrench-windows reached almost to our feet. It was a long, oak-panelled, scholarly room in which the three men sat, towards one side, about a card-table. They were absorbed in their game, silent figures of black and white. Yes, the fine profile of Sir Maurice seemed apt to smile. Iris murmured: “We will wait for them to finish their game.”
As my hand moved to throw away a cigarette I touched a cold stone, and I saw that we were standing by a sun-dial. Iris was looking at me, and clearest of all the happenings of that night I remember that long moment of Iris’s looking, and how, as I looked into her eyes, her beauty seemed to enwrap itself with the whisper of the flowers and enter into my being, so that I cared not for right nor wrong. My hand rested on the sun-dial. She laid her hand on mine, and her hand was colder than the sun-dial.
Sir Maurice received me very kindly. I had thought, seeing him at the card-table, that he was a tall man; but he was small, slight, taut; very ready to smile. He offered me a cigar, which I was very pleased to take. Iris said she would not smoke just yet. No one sat down, but every one seemed at his ease. It was as though Iris and I were paying an evening call. Hilary apologised to me about dinner. I forgave him. Somehow, suddenly, I found myself absorbed by Guy and Hilary. I found that Iris was alone. It was as though her green hat stamped her alonenesswith a light. How bright that green hat looked in that scholarly room, like a green flower, like a green flame! Iris stood by the card-table, on which the cards were scattered face-upwards.
“Good of you to come, Iris,” the General said. He smiled very easily. He was one of those young old men who are very old when you look close. He was charming.
Iris looked up from the cards across the room to Hilary. Her eyes were untroubled and clear, she was very still, and her lips were silken red. She said: “Hilary asked me. So I came.”
“It was my idea, Iris,” Sir Maurice said, and he smiled. He was fidgeting with a black ebony paper-knife. “My idea entirely. Hilary was against it. Very glad you brought our young friend. Sit down, Iris. We are all of the world here, we are civilised people. Let’s talk about this like civilised people.”
Iris did not sit down. Maybe some one sat down, but I don’t remember. Iris picked up the ace of clubs from the table and looked at it thoughtfully.
“That was really why I came, Maurice. Because it must have been your idea. You are a very clever man. It was thoughtful of you to give me a chance of saying good-bye to Truble.” She looked up from the ace of clubs to Guy with her untroubled eyes. She had not once looked at Sir Maurice. “Guy, what have you to say to me? I think you have wanted to say something to me for a long time. It would have been cowardly to leave England for good without giving you the chance.”
“Iris,” said Hilary sharply, “Guy has always been very kind about you. Hm. Much kinder than I’ve been.”
“Yes, dear,” she smiled so suddenly at Hilary. That was a surprising, complete smile. It excluded us all, it excluded even Iris and Hilary, it excluded every one but the friend of childhood and a long little thing, all brown stockings and blue eyes. That was a true smile. “Hm,” said Hilary.
Sir Maurice put a whisky-and-soda into my hand, but I do not remember tasting it. The slight, poised old gentleman’s smile troubled me. His was too fine a face to smile like that. He had clever, darting eyes. I felt that Iris was making an effort to keep her eyes from him. And I felt that the two enemies were each terrified of the other.
Guy spoke for the first time, he murmured: “It was brave of you to come, Iris. I don’t know much about using words, but I think it was noble of you to come. I don’t know any other woman who would have even thought of accepting Maurice’s invitation. But we, your friends, have never compared you to other women. In some things to their disadvantage. We have always admired your pluck. But we have admired your candour and honesty even more. That is why this sickening business baffles us so. Maurice and I just thought it might be fair both to us and to you if we were to try to clear it up a little.” And then Guy snapped: “I’m damned if I want to hate you, Iris.”
Iris broke the back of the ace of clubs anddropped it among the others on the green cloth, where it lay cruelly curled.
“Steady, Iris, steady!” said Sir Maurice. And he tried with the black ebony paper-knife to straighten out the ace of clubs. And he smiled. But Iris looked at Guy, and she seemed very tall.
“Iris,” Hilary said gently, “we loved you too much as a child not to be able to hate the woman who has gone out of her way to kill every memory of that child....”
“That’s it, Iris,” Guy murmured, restrained, amiable. “You see, as a child and as a girl you were very much in our hearts. Much more than any other child and girl has ever been. I don’t know why. And in spite of all things you’ve done we’ve always ... well, we’ve always kept one side of us which was yours for the asking. I mean, Iris, we couldn’t believe in you as a ... well, as a decent woman, but we’ve just stayed fond of you. Even when we’ve had to hear your name being pitched about by vile women and ghastly cads. Until now. But now....”
“A moment, Guy!” The clever, darting eyes, the neat figure, the iron-grey hair, waving just a little. He smiled. He waved the black ebony paper-knife at Iris as though she was a naughty girl. He knew Iris inside-out, did Sir Maurice. She wasn’t all bad, not she. Iris looked at him for the first time, and the clear untroubled look seemed now to be fixed stonily. I wondered if she was afraid. The General spoke quickly, brittle-bright: “Guy has just said, Iris, that we’ve known you all your life. But there’s more than that, much more. That’s why I wantedyou to come here to-night. I wanted to show you us, Iris. This isn’t an ordinary elopement, Napier’s and yours. It’s a stab in the back——”
“Maurice, am I stabbing you in the back by coming here?”
“You were always a strange, unfrightened girl, Iris. But the stab in the back is made. It’s stabbing us, your people, in the back. Venice’s people aren’t in this as we are. But that isn’t what I want to tell you. Is it, Guy? And I’ve no intention of trying to beg Napier from you. I’m not even yet old enough to beg favours from a woman. No, it seems settled about you and Napier, as he told me this morning. And I tell you, Iris, it wasn’t my son who spoke to me this morning. It was an enchanted boy——”
“We are both of us enchanted, Maurice.” And Iris smiled. Her lips looked very red, silken red.
“Very good, very good! Well, you go to-morrow. That’s fixed. But I just wanted to show you us, Iris. I think you have forgotten us on your travels. You are of us. I think you have forgotten that. And you are stabbing us in the back. I’m not talking of Napier now as my son, my only son. Am I, Guy? Hilary? I’ve taken great pride in the boy’s career, I haven’t married again for his sake—but let all that go. I’m talking of Napier now just as one of us here, the us that you belong to, of the England that we stand for. We, Iris—you and us—we aren’t made only of flesh-and-blood. There’s a little devil of slackness who stands waiting for any of us who thinks he or she is only made of flesh-and-blood. We are made of air, too—this air, Iris, that we arebreathing now. We are made of this air, you and us. We were born in it, our fathers and mothers were born in it. Guy, Hilary, I, you, Napier, we were all of us born within a hundred miles of this room, Guy at Mace, Hilary at Magralt, Napier and I here at Sutton Marie, and you not two miles away across the fields. We are of this soil, Iris, of this air, of this England which is still our England. My God, we haven’t much left, but we still have this. That is all I have to say, Iris. I just wanted to show you us, because I thought you must have forgotten us. You have decided, Iris, that you will break into our lives, and break up our lives. Why, Iris? What sort of hell is your ambition in the next world? Tell me that.”
“No, Maurice!” said Hilary sharply. “Keep to this world.”
Cold as stones were Iris’s eyes on Sir Maurice. She hated him beyond words or looks. “Don’t let’s talk of hell, Maurice,” she whispered. “It would shock even you if I were to tell you how much I know about it. I am leaving hell behind at last. And do you know, Maurice, that hell looks at me with your face? But I am leaving it behind now.”
“Listen, Iris. Just this one question.” Those clever, darting eyes were curiously, strangely kind. I could not understand Sir Maurice. It was as though he loved, feared, hated, indulged, Iris. He waved the black ebony paper-knife at her. “Now I am a man of the world, Iris. Unlike Napier, as you know. And what sort of a woman are you? Tell me that. I have known many bad women. I have liked some. I have liked you, Iris. Youknow that. But this isn’t badness. Damn it, girl, this is evil! There aren’t any words in English to describe what we think of a woman who comes wantonly between a man and his wife, a man and his career. I’m not saying anything of your having come between Napier and me. He looked at me this morning as though he hated me. But leave me out. You are smashing a man’s career and you have stolen a man from his wife. What sort of a woman are you, Iris? Tell us that.”
“Maurice!” And Iris smiled, and those very white teeth bit the moment into two pieces with their smile and dropped the pieces into limbo. “You are a baby sometimes, Maurice. You never dream of asking a woman ‘what sort of a woman are you?’ so long as she keeps to the laws made by men. But the first time you see a woman being a woman, you are surprised.”
“But what we don’t understand,” Guy murmured amiably, “is how you’ve come by an entirely different set of ideas from ours. I mean ... well, ideas about loyalty and treachery and things like that. You see, Iris, we’ve suddenly found to-day that we simply don’t begin to understand you. Isn’t that so, Hilary? I mean, we just don’t seem to think in the same sickening language.”
“Exactly,” Sir Maurice rapped out, with the black ebony paper-knife. “That’s it exactly, Iris. You see, this isn’t just your business and Napier’s business. This concernsus. This stabs at the roots of our life, Iris. But you and I don’t seem to think in the same language. I think in English.”
Iris whispered, with eyes of stone: “Unfortunately, I think in English, too....”
“Oh, come, Iris!” Guy murmured.
“If she didn’t think in English,” I said, “would she be here?”
Sir Maurice started. I was surprised, too.
“That’s true,” said he. “Quite true, boy. Yes.” And he smiled. I wished he wouldn’t smile.
“In that case,” Guy murmured, “all I can say is, Iris, that yours must be a very odd dialect of English. I mean, in yours there doesn’t seem to be any distinction between words which—well, they mean rather a lot to us. We’ve never even learned how to spell most of them, they’re so inevitably part of our lives, or should be. I’m not sure to this day if there’s an s in decency. One’s born knowing them....”
“Guy, I’ve had twelve years’ unhappiness. You talk to me of those words we are born knowing. I have had twelve years’ unhappiness through not being able to forget those words.”
“Unhappiness!” Sir Maurice rapped out. “Oh, come, child! You seem to have done exactly as you pleased all these years. I’m not saying you haven’t had bad luck—we’re all sorry about that. But if you have been unhappy can you blame any one but yourself?”
Iris’s face was very stern as she looked at Sir Maurice. I could not have thought that a beautiful woman could look so stern. And she made not one gesture of womanhood. She could have made but one, and asserted her right to live according to her womanhood. But that would have seemed to her to be playing not fair. She mustmeet men on their own ground always, always, and she must keep herself on their own ground without showing the effort she made. She would advantage herself neither with her womanhood nor her beauty. She seemed to look for a long time at Sir Maurice. Her lips were silken red, and I thought just then that to kiss them would be to kiss the infinite.
“Yes, Maurice. I can put the blame on three words.”
The General threw the paper-knife on to a small table, where it fell with a crash. “Weakness? Wickedness? Wantonness?”
“The three words I was thinking of make Sir Maurice Harpenden.”
Then, curiously, Sir Maurice darted a look at Hilary, as though to see how he stood with Hilary. Hilary was white. He said: “I’ve told you, Maurice, that you’re not free from blame. You’ve been too damned imperious with these children.”
“All this,” Guy murmured, “has got me beat, I’m afraid.”
“It hasn’t got you beat at all, Guy,” snapped Hilary. White he was. “Maurice, years ago, didn’t realise that in our time we are not our children’s masters. Their ideas are not ours, their ambitions are not ours. And there’s no reason why they should be, since ours have sent all Europe to the devil.”
Then Iris’s voice slashed the room like a sharp knife: “Maurice, did you understand what I said? I am here to-night that you should understand what you have done.”
“My dear Iris!” said Sir Maurice, again pickingup the paper-knife. One saw why he had been so successful a soldier. He could evade any issue. “Boy and girl love!” he said helplessly to Guy. He looked at me. “Boy and girl love!” he said helplessly.
“You mustn’t despise it, Maurice,” Iris suddenly smiled, and I had a fancy that her smile was one of protecting a child from a man’s good-sense. “It won’t do to despise that boy and girl love, Maurice. It has lasted nearly all my life so far. And it will last me until I die.” She looked at Guy, and as soon as she looked away from the General the clear, untroubled, boyish look came back into those enormous eyes. “Napier and I were in love at eighteen, Guy. Napier and I have always been in love. But Sir Maurice had other ideas for Napier, and this is the result of them. I am sorry, Guy, but I am also human.”
“Love!” rapped out Sir Maurice. He was not smiling now.
“Love!” Iris whispered. “Love, Maurice! You daren’t look into my eyes and say you doubt my love for Napier. You daren’t say that my love is not the only thing in this room that is made in the image of God. You talk to me of your England. I despise your England, I despise the us that is us. We are shams with patrician faces and peasant minds. We are built of lies, Maurice, and we toil for the rewards of worms. You would have Napier toil for a worm’s reward, you are sorry I have broken Napier’s career in the Foreign Office. Maurice, I am glad. To you, it seems a worthy thing for a good man to make a success in the nasty arena of national strifes and international jealousies. To me, a world which thinks of itself in terms of puny, squalid, bickering little nations and not as one glorious field for the crusade of mankind is a world in which to succeed is the highest indignity that can befall a good man, it is a world in which good men are shut up like gods in a lavatory. Maurice, there are better things, nobler things, cleaner things, than can be found in any career that will glorify a man’s name or nationality. You thought to bully me with our traditions. You are right, they are mine as well as yours. May God forgive you the sins committed in their name! And may He forgive me for ever having believed in them....”
With one darting stride Sir Maurice had his hand sharply on her shoulder, that leather shoulder. And at that moment, when she had seemed at her strongest, her eyes seemed to flutter from his unsmiling face. Her eyes were flooded with gentleness, and they seemed to flutter, to want to fly from that stern, handsome face. Yet Sir Maurice’s eyes were curiously kind. Perhaps that was why she had suddenly wilted. She hated him so, and his eyes were curiously kind. That was a clever man, Sir Maurice. Then, in a second, with an effort she superbly hid from our eyes, she was calm again. Always she must meet a man on his own ground.
“Iris,” Sir Maurice said quietly, his hand on her shoulder, “I am sorry I caused you unhappiness when you were a child. I admit I wanted a different alliance for Napier. And you must admit, child, that the March blood is not a very encouraging prospect for a father. But I am sincerely sorry I was unkind to you. But you must see, Iris, that yours was an unusual case. You were mature at eighteen, but I could realise neither that nor the depth of your feelings. Really, child, you mustn’t blame me too much. We can’t always tell when a boy and girl friendship is serious——”
“Maurice, why do you lie? I didn’t think you would lie to-night. You knew very well that it was serious. That was why you made Napier promise never to see me again. And your son kept his promise.”
“But why didn’t you come and tell me about it frankly, Iris? I had other plans for Napier, yes, but apart from that I was always your friend. You should have come and told me about it——”
“Oh, I was proud then! As I am not proud now....”
“What!” We started at the odd snap in Guy’s voice. “What, Iris?” And he laughed, desperately, helplessly. Guy! “Iris, that’s the first lie I’ve ever known pass your lips. Why, you’re as proud as an archangel!” We stared at him, somehow staggered by him, as he suddenly strode forward, the fair, slender giant. “Just a moment, Maurice,” said he, and bent down and kissed Iris’s cheek.
“Oh!”
This moment I can hear that despairing cry. “Oh!”
And then she tried to catch back her cry, she sobbed: “Judas!”
Guy had caught her as she started back from him like a frightened animal. “Judas nothing,” he murmured. Her face streamed with tears. Guy held her, his eyes strangely sad. “Judas nothing, my Iris,” he murmured. “You’ve won, girl. Go away and play at your lovely game of love. You’ve got me again, as you had when you were a child. I must say I like some one who really loves and really hates. I’m proud of you, Iris.”
Somehow, somehow, as Guy held her, Iris’s eyes looked through the mist towards me, and I moved my lips to make two words: Saint George. Somewhere in the mist she smiled....
She whispered: “Unfair, unfair, unfair! Guy, to kiss me like that, sweet, forgiving Guy! Oh, unfair, unfair, unfair! And I was so sure I wouldn’t cry to-night....”
Sir Maurice was fidgeting with the black ebony paper-knife. Hilary said “hm” and blew his nose. It was very funny now that it was Sir Maurice who seemed to be alone. I was glad. Iris had at last been forced to retreat from that proud battlefield on which she met men on their own ground. She had made her one gesture of womanhood; and now it was Sir Maurice who stood alone. Clever Guy. He was looking towards the General, smiling....
“Maurice,” he smiled, “the girl’s right. You were rather a sickening ass....”
“My dear Guy,” said the General with a tremendous helplessness; and he smiled. “How on earth was I to know then that a boy and gir——”
“Oh, phut!” Guy smiled like a boy. “You don’t catch me interfering with any of my boy’s friendships, I can tell you. Not that I’ve ever reallythought about these things before. One just goes driving along never giving these things a thought until one day we all go off the deep end just because we never have given them a thought. I fancy Hilary’s right about this father and child business. I mean, people have been having sons, I suppose, since the year one, and the relation between them is still a mess. In this century, for instance, all we people have been bucking no end about being brotherly with our sons, as though being a fat-headed brother was any good if you don’t understand what the cub is driving at. I just thought of that this very moment. For instance, my boy told me the other day that Kipling wrote true-blue miracles calculated to increase the blood-pressure in men who were too old to fight. I gave him a thrashing with the gloves for his infernal cheek, especially as he must have got it out of some book, for the boy hasn’t what you could call a brain, which is just as well, for it will keep him from going over to Labour. But, after all, our cubs can’t make more of a mess of everything than we and our fathers have done. That’s the point to hang on to.”
“Good God, man!” snapped Hilary. “I’ve been saying that to you for twenty years, and you’ve——”
“That’s right, Hilary,” Guy grinned. “But you’ve got a way of saying things....”
Iris was looking from one to the other of us. It was as though she was in a dream, looking at faces in a dream. Soft she was now, soft and white and small. And her eyes were clouds of blue mist. She stared at Sir Maurice, who stoodfidgeting with the paper-knife. “Maurice,” she whispered, “good-bye.”
Sharply he looked up from the paper-knife. He flipped the paper-knife on to the card-table. Then I saw that Sir Maurice hated his ancient enemy.
“Good-bye, Iris,” he said. “But you must not expect me to wish you happiness. You have taken from me my only son.”
“Maurice,” she said desperately, “isn’t that special pleading? Haven’t you any pity, any understanding, of what I have been through?”
“Understanding! Yes, I have understanding, Iris. But I can’t let it stretch across the wide gulf that should separate you from my son.”
“But you made the gulf, Maurice! You, you!” She seemed passionately to want his understanding now!
“I!” cried Sir Maurice. “Good God, woman, I merely parted a boy and a girl. But you could have found each other again—if you hadn’t been you!Imade the gulf! Iris, did I murder Boy Fenwick!”
“Maurice, you take that back!”
“Hilary, never mind.” It was a faint, husky whisper. “Just don’t mind, Hilary.” She was staring at Sir Maurice as at a snake. She was calm. “Did you say murder, Sir Maurice? Murder?”
Sir Maurice made the most helpless gesture. He looked very old. “I apologise, Iris, I apologise! I take it back completely. I was carried away. I apologise, child. Of course, murder was much too strong——”
“Too strong?” Guy echoed softly. “If you ask me, sir, it was so damned strong that it’s a wonder to me that it hasn’t blown us all out of the house.”
“I have apologised, Guy!” snapped Sir Maurice.
Iris was looking at me. She seemed lost in some thought, she was very still. Her lips said: “Dear, take me away.”
Sir Maurice darted for his paper-knife, fumbled among the cards for it, got it, rapped out: “Just one moment, Iris. I didn’t mean to say that. You must see that. I apologise sincerely.”
“I cannot hear your apology, Maurice. Because of that gulf.”
“I never thought of saying that,” Guy murmured. “Damn!”
“Just a moment, just a moment!” the General waved the paper-knife fretfully. “Ever since Napier came to see me this morning I have been thinking of these things. I saw Venice this afternoon. She is mad, I think, or enchanted. She believes in your love for Napier. I can only see the helpless ruin you have made of my son. And you say you love him! Let’s forget if we can all the other men you have ‘loved.’ Just take this one fact. Not two years after parting from Napier for good, which you say broke your heart, you marry Boy Fenwick. And when Boy Fenwick died you yourself said he had died ‘for purity.’ What did that mean if not that even before you married him ... you yourself, I say, said that he had died ‘for purity’!”
“For hell, sir! That was why Boy Fenwick died!”
“Napier!” There was a long, long silence.“Napier!” Iris whispered frantically. “My darling, why are you here!”
“To get you....” Napier’s voice trembled pitifully. He controlled it by whispering. “To get you from these ... men!”
“Steady, Naps!” Guy murmured. “We began the evening by bucking about being civilised.”
Again, as in the obscure silence of the Paris night, the white face, the lost eyes ... facing us from the middle French-window.
“Napier!” Iris pleaded. She seemed to be pleading against something which only she could see in those two dark ruins of eyes. And they made ruins of all, those eyes, but saw only one of us. And behind his shoulder, in the garden, pale, wide-eyed, steady as a judgment, stood Venice....
“Good God, man!” Sir Maurice rapped out. “Why bring Venice into this!”
“He didn’t. I came.” And Venice smiled in a sort of way.
Napier said in a scarcely audible voice: “Let Venice alone. I think she is my only friend.” As he stepped into the room Iris made a step towards him, two, three. Her eyes were dilated, beseeching. But never once, since the shock of his first words had turned us to the windows, had he taken his eyes from his father. The dark, fevered, lost eyes. He was passing Iris. She snatched at his arm, pulled at him. “Napier, don’t, don’t. Napier, please, my sweet! Venice, for pity’s sake stop him. You don’tknowwhat he’s going to say!”
The thin white fingers of the so naked righthand were buried round the black-covered arm, holding him in his stride; but still Napier looked only at his father. His face was so white that we all looked red and swollen. But Sir Maurice was not put out by his son’s fixed stare. He had his black ebony paper-knife.
“Well, Naps? What does this mean?”
Iris cried: “Napier!” Then she turned passionately to Venice. “Don’t you see, Venice! He doesn’t know what he’s saying!”
“It means, sir,” Napier said quietly, “that if you weren’t my father I would call you a cad.”
“Don’t!” Hilary snapped. “Hm. Run away now, all of you. Together or separate. Just run away.”
Iris pulled at Napier’s arm. He did not see her. He said very quietly, his voice imperceptibly trembling: “Venice and I called after dinner at Montpellier Square. Venice wished to say good-bye to Iris. What is between Iris and Venice is their business. They make me feel a lout, they make you look like.... We found Mrs. Oden upset. She said Iris had come here, and....” His voice broke, and he passed a hand over his mouth as though to steady it. He scowled.
Venice, still by the window, was wearing a leathercoat like Iris’s, but it looked much newer and lighter. She had her hands dug deep into the pockets. Iris cried: “Venice, for pity’s sake help me make Napier come away! Oh, you don’t understand! He’s no idea what he’s saying!”
For the first time Napier took his eyes from his father. His mouth twitched funnily, and he scowled. “Yes, I have, Iris. But I want to clearup this business once and for all. It’s gone on long enough, this—this Boy Fenwick business. What?”
“But, Napier, you promised!”
He scowled. “I don’t care, Iris. I’m awfully tired of all these pretences. It can’t ... it can’t go on, this slandering of you. It can’t. I can’t bear it. And the first thing I hear as I come into this room is my father chucking that slime at you—-”
“Napier, don’t you see that it’s me you hurt, not them! You hurt me deeply, Napier. Listen to me, my dear, listen!”
But Napier seemed able to hear nothing, to see no one but his father. Again he put his hand to his mouth to stop it twitching. Venice, a flame in a leather jacket, suddenly threw an arm round Iris. “Darling, darling,darling! How dared you come here! But how dared you! Oh!” she stamped her foot, “these beasts of men, these beasts, beasts!”
“Venice,” Guy murmured, “take these two children of yours away at once. Go along now.”
Napier started at Guy’s voice. He had admired and worshipped Guy always. Guy smiled faintly, helplessly, was about to say something when Napier said bitterly: “Guy, I know it wasn’t your idea to bring Iris down here and throw that mud at her. I know that——”
“It was mine,” Sir Maurice rapped out with the paper-knife. “And it’s over now. You may go, Napier. I am asking you to go, boy! And you, Iris March. You and I, Napier, must part from to-night. For some time, at least. You willprefer that, too. You have every right to be angry with me, according to your lights. I gambled—for your future, boy—and I have lost. I am not sorry to have tried. I am sorry to have lost. Now you may be as angry as you like—but go!”
Napier’s voice trembled: “Before I go, sir, I’d like to say——”
“Naps, enough of this!” Guy snapped. “The more we talk the worse we make it. Go along, for God’s sake.”
Napier shouted: “I will not go!”
And in the deep, startled silence that must always follow a shout in an English house, he said, livid quiet, to his father: “I’ve ceased to be a boy of eighteen, sir. And I’ve ceased to want to be any of the things you seem to admire. This last year it has seemed to me that not one of the things that have made my life as you directed it have any reality. You’ve only got to think once and the whole ghastly pretence of a life like mine drops to the ground. And I’ve been trying lately to understand the point of view that makes men admirable in your eyes, sir—and I can’t get near it. It seems to mean sacrificing all the things that are worth while to all the things that aren’t worth while. You sacrificed Iris for what you call my future, my career. Weigh Iris on one side and on the other my future, my career, now that I am thirty! You sacrificed my happiness to the ghastly vanity of making our name something in this world. You call that ‘working for my future,’ sir. And I call it the cruel sort of humbug which has dragged God knows how many decent people into a beastly, futile unhappiness. Here I am at thirty,a nothing without even the excuse of being a happy nothing, a nothing liked by other nothings and successful among other nothings, a nothing wrapped round by the putrefying little rules of the gentlemanly tradition. And, my God, they are putrefying, and I bless the England that has at last found us out. And if they hadn’t been putrefying, sir, and if we hadn’t been going rotten with them, you couldn’t have taken advantage of the fact that Iris never funked anything in her life to bring her down here and drag her through the slime——”
“Napier, you must allow me at least the quality of patience. My one desire, boy, was to protect your happiness. I do not take what you say in the least seriously, for it isn’t you speaking but Iris with your voice. You are enchanted——”
“And I should jolly well think he was enchanted!” cried the boy that was Venice, her arm round Iris. A warrior was Venice then, and her leather jacket like a shining breastplate. “And I’m enchanted, too—and if you really want to know what’s the matter with the whole lot of you, you’re all enchanted—by the love of Napier and Iris. I’d stuff all our marriage-laws down a drain-pipe rather than keep them apart for another minute. And I think you must be mad and bad not to see the loveliness of a love like Iris’s—and after all this time she’s beaten you all in the end, and I’m so glad, so glad, so glad!”
“Maurice,” said Hilary gravely, “you are getting more like God every moment. You’re in a minority of one.”
Napier stood in the middle of the room, lookingfrom one to the other of us, scowling, seeing no one, hearing nothing. He was a man lost in an obsession, trying to find his way out. His back was to Iris. Some great man, Balzac, maybe, has said that women do not love with their eyes, but there was a blinding love in her eyes, and her lips trembled, tried to smile at the lost thing that Napier was. Only she seemed to know the obsession in which Napier wandered, and she just managed to say: “Come, Napier. Come....”
Napier turned to her vaguely, seemed about to go with her, then pulled himself round to his father again: “Before I go, sir, I’d like to tell you—I’d like to say that—that it was a foul thing to do to throw Fenwick at Iris——”
“Napier,” Sir Maurice said quietly, “I have apologised for that——”
“But have you apologised for us all, sir?” Napier seemed at last to awake from his obsession. He looked happy at that moment. “Have you apologised for the opinion we’ve all had of Iris for ten years? Because all these slanders about her go back to——”
“Napier, my Napier, you please mustn’t!”
“Iris, I must put this right! You’ve never had enough respect for yourself——”
“But I have now, dear! Let me ... keep it....”
Napier seemed to appeal to Guy. There was a curious understanding in Guy’s look. He said: “Go on, Naps, let’s have it all now. What’s this about Fenwick?”
“Guy, don’t encourage him!” Iris cried passionately. Venice held her tight. Iris looked atme once just then, and I think that is the last time she ever saw me.
Napier seemed to appeal to Guy: “Iris has always put her friends before herself. And the only time in her life she ever told a lie we all rushed to believe her. And that’s why Iris and I never saw each other after Fenwick’s death until three nights before I married Venice. I wasn’t to know then that I was marrying an angel, and so I couldn’t tell her what had happened to me and Iris. Iris told me about Fenwick that night. I made her. You see, until then I’d never wanted to see her, because the Iris that Boy had killed himself for wasn’t the Iris I’d loved as a boy——”
“But she is now, Napier,” Iris whispered bitterly. “Why can’t you let be, why can’t you!”
“Because,” Napier flashed, “I love you, and I’m damn well going to have these people respect you as I do.... That lie Iris spread about the reason for Boy’s death was because she didn’t care what happened to her. She just didn’t care. But she wanted people to think as well of Boy as people can of a suicide. She wanted Gerald to keep his little tin-god hero. And she had it all her own way because the doctor at the hotel in Deauville was a friend of hers and let nothing out. She just didn’t care what people thought of her, and so she said that Boy had died ‘for purity.’ That might mean anything, and so of course we all took it to mean the worst thing as regards Iris. Oh, she knew we would. Well, so Boy did die ‘for purity.’ He was mad with love for Iris, and from the moment she had to give me up he pestered her to marry him. Then one day she surprised him by sayingshe would. I suppose she surprised him by giving way in the end, and instead of the cad saying he couldn’t, he took her while he had the chance. He——”
“Napier!”
“He had syphilis when he married her, and went mad when he realised what he had done. That’s all. There’s your Boy Fenwick. There’s Iris, that’s Iris!” He turned to her blindly. She was staring, so thoughtfully, at the carpet. “Come, Iris. We’ll go now. And we’ll begin again from the time you and I said good-bye under Harrod’s.”
“You’ve taken from me,” the husky voice whispered to the carpet, “the only gracious thing I ever did in my life. Yes, let’s go.”
They were going in silence. Iris had one foot in the garden when across the silence darted the neat figure of Sir Maurice. He touched her shoulder. “Iris,” he said. She looked round at him with huge, sleep-walking eyes.
“Iris,” Sir Maurice said. He was holding out his hand.
“I can’t,” she whispered. “I’ve hated you so bitterly, so long. I can’t. Maurice, please don’t ask me.”
“I do ask you, Iris. I beg it from you. You are good.”
Iris’s eyes were as though transfixed over the taut old gentleman’s shoulder. Iris’s eyes were on Venice. Napier had touched Venice’s hand, and somehow as he had made to kiss her cheek she had started back frantically ... and had instantly smiled ... brightly. Iris’s eyes seemed to dilate. Then she took Sir Maurice’s hand.“Thank you, Maurice. But it is Venice who is good. Venice is good. Good-bye.”
They went silently. For a second the green hat flamed in the mist of the light that fell on the lawn, and then the green hat was gone. I stared out into the garden.
I remember a “hm” just at the very moment when behind me there was a thud of some one falling, and Guy’s murmur: “Hand me that brandy, Maurice.”
Venice sat very erect in a great leather armchair. Her eyes were closed.
Sir Maurice darted about. He waved at me that black ebony paper-knife. He smiled that ancient smile. “Boy, we shouldn’t make hard-and-fast rules for any one but ourselves. And not even for ourselves. Leads to no good....”
“She’s all right,” Guy murmured to Hilary. De Travest was one of those men who always know how to deal with any physical emergency. He knew tricks....
“Poor child, poor child!” sighed Sir Maurice.
“She’s all right now,” said Hilary. He was very white and young-looking, Hilary. Oh, the hm’s that dropped from Hilary that night!
It was Guy’s face that Venice saw when she opened her eyes. Suddenly, she was crimson.
“Your first words should be,” Guy smiled, “‘Where am I?’ I may or may not tell you.”
“Guy, where am I?” She was crimson, like a child found out.
“With your friends, Venice, who love you. And Napier has gone.
“But he hasn’t!” she screamed, and caught herscream to her mouth with the palm of her hand. We followed her terrified eyes to see Napier where we had first seen him that night. He stared at Venice. And just at that moment the silence was shattered by the roar of the Hispano. That shattering roar held us all still, bewildered. From beneath the trees of Sutton Marle it swept on us like the roar of a thousand rifles.
“That car’s gone mad!” rose to my lips.
I saw Venice bite the back of her hand, staring at Napier. The roar of the car had held him at the open window. As he came in Guy spoke savagely. “Napier, what the hell does this mean? Can’t you see what you’re doing to Venice?”
Napier said wearily, and he tried to smile, his eyes on Venice: “All right, Guy. I thought Venice was my friend. I was wrong——”
“Naps,” rapped out Sir Maurice, “what does this mean!”
As Napier approached near to Venice she jumped up from her chair and started away from him.
“Napier, I don’t understand!” she tried not to sob. “Why have you come back? Napier!”
He said wearily: “Why didn’t you tell me, Venice? I can’t understand. God knows I’ve no opinion of myself left, but I’m not such a pitiful blackguard as——”
“But what is it, Naps!” And she bit the back of her hand. “I don’t know what you’re talking about! Why are you looking at me like that?” “You told Iris, but not me, in case it might interfere with my happiness! My God, Venice, what do you think I am, not to have told me!Do you think I can leave you when you are with a child of mine! Iris said she had promised you not to tell me, but she broke down at the last moment——”
“But it’s a lie!” Venice screamed. “It’s a bloody lie! I never told her anything! It’s not true! Oh, God, it’s not true!”
What was said then, what was done, how they looked, I can’t remember. I remember only that as Venice sobbed the roar of the car seemed to lessen. The stork had passed from under the trees of Sutton Marle. I think Napier was holding Venice, she was sobbing as though with a breaking heart. “She’s sent you back,” she sobbed. “The beast, the beast! She’s sent you back to show she loved you more than I do....”
Sir Maurice darted across at me, rapped me on the shoulder with the paper-knife.
“Boy, what was that you said about that car going mad?”
I stared at him. I hadn’t the faintest idea what I had meant. The distant roar still filled the room like a menace. “I don’t know,” I said. “Sounds mad....”
“Come along,” the old gentleman rapped out, and darted through the window. I have a confused picture of Guy towering over Napier and Venice with a brimming glass in his hand, of Hilary staring whitely after us. Like a young lover, I see Hilary at that moment. I caught the General up as he was starting-off Guy’s car.
“After her, boy. After her. Feel sick, her going like that. Feel sick.”
“Can’t catch her in this car, sir.”
“We’ll see. Try, anyway. Must catch her. Must beg her forgiveness.” He looked at me as the car started off. He was smiling. Those clever darting eyes were wet. Then Hilary, hatless like ourselves, jumped on to the footboard and into the back.
“What’s this, Maurice?”
“After her, man. Iris suddenly thrown her hand in. Listen to that hell’s own racket!”
Sir Maurice rushed that ancient Rolls breakneck up the winding drive. From the distance came that menacing roar. “Can do seventy-six if you like,” I heard the husky whisper above the roar, I saw the dancing tawny curls through the darkness, boy’s head, curly head, white and tiger-tawny....
“Can’t catch her in this,” I cried again.
Hilary was leaning forward from behind, his chin by my shoulder. He whispered through the rushing air: “Afraid of her happiness in the end. You beat her, Maurice. You beat her, you and your mouldy old England. And your son wasn’t worthy of her love. Good God, he cared whether we respected her or not! She wasn’t enough for him as she was. Maurice, it’s on your head, all this. She’ll be in despair. You’ve got to catch her.”
We swept headlong round a corner. We were on the crown of the several small slopes that I remembered ascending from Harrod’s to Sutton Marle.
“There!” yelled Sir Maurice. And he laughed like an excited boy. “We’ll catch her yet.”
Far down the slope, winding, killing the darkness, rushed the lights of the Hispano. Sir Maurice kept his thumb on the button of the electric-horn, and we drove headlong down that slope with a wild cry of warning to Iris.
“She can’t hear!” I yelled.
“Go on, let her know we’re here!” yelled Hilary.
The General’s silver hair waved frantically in the wind. He was driving like a madman. He was smiling. The two great lights ahead lit the countryside. Then they seemed to shorten, and Harrod’s stood like a pillar of light against the darkness. The silver leaves, the giant trunk ... in the lights of Iris’s car. The stork screamed hoarsely, once, twice, thrice....
“Iris!” Hilary sobbed. “Stop her, man! Stop her! Not that——”
“Iris, not that!” Sir Maurice whispered. “Child, not that!”
I was blind, sick. There was a tearing crash, a tongue of fire among the leaves of Harrod’s. Our car had stopped. “Iris!” Sir Maurice whispered. “Iris!” Once again the great tree was lit by a shivering light, then from the darkness there came a grinding, moaning noise as of a great beast in pain. I stood beside Sir Maurice on the road. At the angle at which we had stopped our lights did not fall on the throbbing wreck. He was staring into the darkness.
“But that death!” Hilary stammered. “That death!”
My foot touched something on the grass beside the road, and I picked up the green hat.
Sir Maurice said hoarsely: ‘Chose the only way to make it look like an accident to those two children....”
“Here’s her hat.” I muttered, and as Sir Maurice turned to it his face was puckered like a child’s.
Suddenly the moaning of the wrecked car ceased, and in the silence Hilary walked into the darkness about the great tree.
THE END OF THE ROMANCE CALLEDThe Green Hat