Profound depression subsequent to port-poisoning. An iniquitous plot and
its consequences. Insubordination of Miss Botterill. I retire from
the firm of Mr. Chrysostom Lorton. A crushing rejoinder and its
repetition. Second journey to Enfield. Transformation of Mrs.
Chrysostom’s boudoir. Unexpected repentance of Mrs. Chrysostom.
Unfortunate results of this for myself. Fruitless termination of
interview.
SUCH was the cross that had suddenly been imposed upon me—a cross so
gigantic and of such a character that only the most prolonged and
assiduous training could have enabled me to bear it. Indeed, for some
little time it seemed only too likely that it would prove too crushing
even for me; and had not Nature intervened with a period of merciful
unconsciousness, this would almost certainly have been the case.
Fortunately I arrived home, however, as my father has assured me, in a
deep though stertorous slumber, and did not awake until nearly eleven
o’clock on the following Monday morning. There was thus accorded me an
opportunity for the recuperation of those vital reserves that would even
then, as I slowly began to realize, be desperately hard put to it to
give me adequate support.
I say slowly because, when I first woke, my physical nausea was so great
that I was totally unable to form a clear judgment upon the events of
the previous evening. Nor was my mother, never a fluent speaker, more
communicative than usual. I had been brought home, she said, by two
young gentlemen, whose names she did not know, and a doctor had been
called in, at my father’s request, who had made a diagnosis with which
my father disagreed. Indeed my father, I gathered, had been considerably
upset, and had spent a restless night in consequence, and my mother had
been obliged on three separate occasions to prepare him a cup of malted
milk. She then awaited my orders for breakfast. But this was a meal that
I was compelled to omit. And it was only after she had left me that my
memory began to recover itself and to lay its sombre offerings at the
feet of my judgment. Then I rang the bell again and enquired of my
mother the exact terms of the doctor’s diagnosis. But she shook her head
and referred me to my father, who would be able to tell me, she said,
when he returned from business.
“Not that it much matters,” she added, “for you’d be sure to disagree
with it.”
“I certainly should,” I replied, “and I certainly shall. I was
poisoned—deliberately poisoned—by the wicked woman with whom I had my
supper.”
“An actress, I believe,” said my mother.
“Whom I was prepared to save,” I said, “from a deserved perdition.”
My mother was silent for a moment.
“Is that all?” she said.
“How do you mean, all?” I asked.
“I mean, may I go now?”
“Oh, yes, yes,” I said. “Shut the door quietly, please; and I should
like my shaving water in about an hour.”
Then I lay back quietly, closing my eyes in pain and rehearsing such
speeches as would be necessary to put both Mr. Chrysostom Lorton and
Ezekiel Stool in the full possession of the facts of the case. It would
also be essential, I foresaw, to call a further special meeting of the
Anti-Dramatic and Saltatory Union and to make a point of addressing, at
the earliest opportunity, the Society for the Prevention of the Strong
Drink Traffic. It would be equally important too, in my capacity of
gap-filler, to prepare an explanatory petition for use at the local
prayer-meetings, the majority of which had contributed members to last
night’s audience in the Porter Street Drill Hall. Yes, it was all coming
back to me in its devilish ingenuity (for it had evidently been a plot
on the part of Mr. Maidstone’s daughter), and she might depend upon it
that if legal redress were possible, it should be extracted from her to
the last farthing.
But was it possible? The more I considered it, the more doubtful I
became. And even were it possible, would it be expedient? The condition
of my head forbade an immediate answer. Indeed I was now the subject of
a thirst so overwhelming that without pausing to summon my mother, I was
obliged to quench it from the various receptacles within easy reach upon
my wash-hand stand. I was profoundly shocked, too, by the aspect of my
countenance, as this was disclosed to me by my looking-glass; and
accustomed as I was to a frequently concealed tongue, I had never before
seen it so deeply obscured. Even after I had shaved and dressed, indeed,
I was a little doubtful as to whether I should be able to complete the
journey to town. But I was determined if possible not only to make the
attempt, but to perform my usual afternoon duties. After a cup of tea
therefore, and a fragment of dried herring, I ventured into the street
and mounted an omnibus, arriving in Paternoster Row at about two o’clock
to find Miss Botterill in charge of the show-room.
“Good afternoon,” I said. “I have been the victim of a dastardly plot,
or I should have been in my place this morning as usual.”
“Good afternoon,” she replied, “and please, Mr. Chrysostom said, would
you go up to his room as soon as you arrived.”
“Certainly,” I said, “and when I come down, Miss Botterill, I should
like to see that counter looking a little tidier.”
Miss Botterill hesitated.
“I’m just rearranging it,” she said. “I propose in future to have it
less crowded.”
I stared at her.
“You propose what?” I asked.
“I propose in future,” she said, “to have a bowl of flowers upon it and
merely a very few of our latest books.”
Depleted as I felt, I yet retained command of myself.
“But, my dear Miss Botterill,” I said, “permit me to remind you that
your duty is to obey and not propose. You will therefore kindly restore
the counter to its previous appearance and remember in future that you
are not show-room manager.”
“But I am,” she said.
She continued her rearranging.
Deprived of breath, I could only stand and watch her.
Then I leapt forward and gripped her shoulder.
“Oh, how dare you?” I cried. “How dare you, woman?”
She began to scream. But I declined to let her go until several of the
clerks had emerged from the correspondence room. Then I flung her from
me heavily, turned upon my heel, and instantly proceeded to Mr.
Chrysostom’s office. He was standing at the door.
“What’s all this screaming?” he said.
“I regret to say,” I replied, “that Miss Botterill has been
insubordinate.”
“Insubordinate?” he said. “And to whom, please?”
“To myself,” I replied, “as your representative.”
“Then kindly understand,” he said, “kindly understand, sir, that after
last night——”
I waved my hand.
“One moment,” I said. “It is to explain about last night that I have
managed to force myself to come and see you.”
He distended his cheeks.
“Then you could have spared yourself the trouble,” he said. “I don’t
want to see your face again.”
“But, my dear sir,” I said.
“I’m not your dear sir,” he shouted. “I’m not your dear anything. I’ve
no further use for you.”
But I held up my hand again.
“I must beg you to control yourself,” I said, “until this unfortunate
mishap has been fully explained to you.”
“Mishap?” he said. “Do you call it a mishap, sir, to invite your
employer to a religious gathering and leave him to be received by a
thing like a stunted gorilla, because you’re too drunk to stand by
yourself?”
“But, my dear sir,” I began.
“Don’t say that again,” he said. “Don’t say anything again. I don’t want
to hear it. You were drunk, sir. You were damnably drunk. You were so
drunk that you fell off the platform.”
Involuntarily I winced, as who would not have done? But once more I held
up my hand.
“Mr. Lorton,” I said, “you have forgotten who I am, or such words could
never have escaped you. And I was neither drunk, nor would have such a
thing have been possible. I was merely suffering from deliberate
port-poisoning.”
If anything, however, he became more violent.
“Port-poisoning?” he bawled. “What’s port-poisoning? Port isn’t poison,
sir. I drink it myself. In fact I was obliged, sir, to drink some of
your own—an excellent port, sir, that probably saved my life.”
“I regret to hear it,” I said. “But allow me to point out to you that
the fluid you mention was not my own, and that I had been informed by
its donors that it was a species of fruit squash, imported from Portugal
and known as Portugalade.”
“But, good God, sir, there’s no such thing.”
“Precisely,” I replied. “That’s my point.”
“Your point?” he cried. “What do you mean by your point?”
“Why, that I was refreshed,” I said, “and subsequently disabled by a
beverage that has no existence.”
“Then you’re a fool,” he said. “You’re either a knave, sir—a drunken
knave—or a fool.”
“Then am I to understand,” I said, “that I am no longer show-room
manager?”
“You’re no longer anything,” he said, “in any business of mine.”
I leaned against the wall.
“And you call yourself a Xtian gentleman?” I said.
“I certainly do,” he said, “and I thank God for it.”
Then I stood erect again, dashing the tears from my eyes. He pulled out
his handkerchief.
“Don’t wet me,” he said.
“It was inadvertent,” I said.
“I’m glad to hear it,” he replied.
“And I apologize,” I said, “to the moisture.”
For a moment he gaped at me, and little wonder. It was perhaps the
crushingest remark in human history.
“I apologize,” I said, “to the moisture.”
Yes, it must have cut him to the quick.
It was so crushing, indeed, that I repeated it to Miss Botterill.
“Miss Botterill,” I said, “I am leaving.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “I knew before you came.”
“May I beg,” I replied, “that you won’t interrupt me.”
She was silent and I continued.
“And one of my tears,” I said, “fell on Mr. Chrysostom.”
“Oh dear,” she said. “Poor Mr. Chrysostom.”
“So I apologized,” I said.
“Quite right,” she said.
“But not to Mr. Chrysostom,” I said. “I apologized to the moisture.”
“To the moisture?” she said. “What moisture?”
“Why, to the moisture,” I explained, “of the tear.”
She stared at me with her mouth open.
“But what was the good of that?” she asked. “The moisture couldn’t hear
you.”
“No. It couldn’t hear me,” I said, “it couldn’t hear me, Miss Botterill.
But don’t you see that by apologizing to the moisture, I was conveying
to Mr. Chrysostom, in the most trenchant way possible, my own opinion of
his character.”
“No, I don’t,” said Miss Botterill. “I don’t see it at all.”
“Then I’ll explain it,” I said, “over again.”
Just at that moment, however, a customer entered the show-room, and
although I waited for several minutes, another customer entered the
show-room just as the first was departing. I therefore decided to leave
the premises, spurning them, as I did so, with my right foot, and it was
not until I had already turned into Ludgate Hill that I suddenly
remembered my unused weapon. Mrs. Chrysostom Lorton—I had utterly
forgotten her. Indeed I had never seen her since my first interview. But
she had always been there, of course—there in the background—ready to be
used in an emergency like this. I stopped short. Yes, I had forgotten
her. But to have remembered her was to act at once. For there could be
no doubt about it. It would be wholly impossible for her to afford to
sit still and have me dismissed. I therefore advanced to the kerb-stone
and hailed an omnibus, and within half an hour of conceiving the idea
was in a third-class carriage leaving Liverpool Street Station upon my
second visit to Enfield. Depressed as I was, too, both physically and
mentally, in spite of my crushing rejoinder to Mr. Chrysostom, my
spirits perceptibly rose as I neared my destination, stimulated by the
memory of my previous triumph. For though a good many years had now
elapsed since I last stood in that lascivious boudoir, Time had not
dimmed the spiritual victory that it had been my privilege to gain
there.
It was with an eye, therefore, comparatively clear that I once more
approached Paternoster Towers and with a hand almost steady that I again
knocked at its front door. Nor was the strange parlourmaid that received
my card and presently conducted me to Mrs. Chrysostom’s room appreciably
less respectful in her demeanour than the gentle domestic that had first
received me. But the room itself, apart from its floor, which was now
almost lecherous in its degree of polish, was so transformed that for
several moments I could scarcely believe myself in the same apartment.
Gone was the French-looking writing-table with its reflected legs. Gone
was the nude huntress with the splinter in her calf. Gone was the oval
mirror with its indelicate Cupids. Gone even was the photograph signed
Your aff. Chrysostom. Nay, gone was the very couch with its sensuous
cushions, and in its place stood a low divan, padded it was true, and
not uncomfortably, but cushioned and draped with the sombrest purple.
There hung upon the walls, too, what were apparently lists of
commandments, engraved upon parchment in foreign characters, while in
each angle of the room stood a sort of shrine containing an alabaster
image and an electric candle. Moreover, although it was still daylight,
the curtains were drawn; a casket of incense swung from the ceiling; and
between the lists of commandments, hung various religious implements,
phylacteries, wands, and sacrificial knives.
Profound, and indeed disturbing, however, as were the changes in the
room, those in Mrs. Chrysostom were even more remarkable, although in
actual appearance she had altered very little since I had last been
obliged to interview her. It was just conceivable, in fact, that for
less disciplined eyes she might still have retained a certain
attraction, not unenhanced by the severity of her gown and the sober
arrangement of her hair. Parted at the side, this now fell over her brow
in a single yellowish-coloured wave, while her dark dress—it was still
clinging, I noticed—was unadorned in every respect. Her whole mien, too,
was entirely different, and as she drooped, as it were, into the room,
she extended her hand to me with a sort of grave surprise, as if I had
been some stranger whom she had never seen.
“How do you do?” she said, sinking upon the divan. “This is my little
temple. Won’t you sit down?”
I glanced about me.
“I can’t offer you a chair,” she said. “But you’ll find my prayer-mat
just behind you.”
Just as I put my heel upon it, however, it began to slip, and leaning
over, she put her finger upon it.
“Let me hold it,” she said, “while you lower yourself. I once had a
visitor who lost two of his trouser-buttons.”
“It was myself,” I said.
She looked at me steadfastly.
“But surely,” she said, “I haven’t seen you before?”
I bowed to her gravely.
“You certainly have,” I said.
She lifted her eyebrows a little.
“But can that be possible?” she asked.
“It is not only possible,” I said, “but it actually happened.”
Her tapering forefinger touched my knee.
“Then forgive me,” she said, “but, if I may venture to say so, hasn’t
Time been exceedingly kind to you?”
I stared at her.
“I don’t quite follow,” I said.
“No, of course not,” she said, “your modesty would forbid it. But I can
scarcely conceive that, if such had not been the case, I should have
failed to remember you.”
“Of course I have matured,” I said.
She nodded imperceptibly.
“That is what I meant,” she said. “I think you must have.”
“But it is rather about the future,” I said, “than the past that I have
been obliged to call upon you this afternoon.”
Her eyes became dreamy, although they were still fixed upon me.
“Ah, the future,” she said, “the unknown future.”
“And you will be sorry to hear,” I said, “that owing to a
misunderstanding, Mr. Chrysostom has requested me to leave.”
“Do you mean my husband?” she asked.
“Why, of course,” I replied.
“Dear Chrysostom,” she said. “This is some of his hair.”
She showed me a small locket containing the article mentioned.
“I am compelled to remind you,” I said, “that you were not always so
affectionate.”
“No, that’s true,” she said, “that’s very true. But happily I also have
matured.”
I stared at her again, a trifle uneasily.
“Then perhaps you have forgotten,” I said, “your friend Septimus?”
“Completely,” she said. “Was there one?”
Had the floor been less slippery, I should have risen to my feet.
“Mr. Septimus Lorton,” I said, “your husband’s brother.”
“You mean the one,” she said, “that’s just passed on?”
“Passed on?” I replied. “Where to?”
She waved her hands towards several of the shrines.
“Ah, if we but knew,” she said, “if we but knew, Mr. Carp.”
“But do you mean to tell me,” I cried, “that he’s defunct?”
“Run over,” she said, “last week.”
For a moment, I must confess, I was a little taken aback.
“But that doesn’t alter the fact,” I said, “that he was your lover.”
“Very likely not,” she said. “I don’t remember. But I daresay you’re
right. There have been so many.”
“But do you mean to say,” I asked, “that there has been more than one?”
“Oh far, far more than one,” she said.
I began to rise again, and she put her finger on the mat.
“Let me hold it,” she said, “while you get up.”
This she did, and after a certain amount of difficulty, I once more
towered above her.
“But your husband?” I said. “Does your husband know?”
“Everything,” she said. “In fact, all.”
I took a deep breath, followed by another.
“But what did he say?” I asked at last.
She closed her eyes for a moment.
“I’m afraid I oughtn’t to tell you,” she said. “You see, since then I’ve
embraced religion.”
“Religion?” I said. “What religion?”
“Every religion,” she said. “I’ve embraced them all.”
“But how could you do that?” I asked.
“Oh, there was no difficulty,” she said. “It has always been natural to
me to embrace.”
I glanced round the room.
“But certain religions,” I said, “involve the slaughter of human
beings.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “I’ve included them. That’s why those knives
are hanging on the wall.”
“But surely you don’t practise them?” I said.
“No, they’re cancelled out,” she said, “by the religions that forbid the
taking of life.”
“But it seems to me,” I said, “that, at that rate, all your religions
cancel each other out.”
“Yes,” she replied. “That’s what it often seems to me.”
“But then you haven’t a religion at all?”
“Well, I sometimes doubt it,” she said. “I often wonder if I did the
right thing in embracing them?”
It was not to discuss her religion, however, that I had journeyed to
Enfield, as I was now somewhat tartly obliged to remind her.
“And you seem to be forgetting,” I added, “that I’ve just been dismissed
from the employment you were compelled to find me.”
“Yes, I know,” she said. “But why should I remember it?”
“Because you might prefer,” I said, “to get the decision altered.”
She lifted her eyes to me.
“Prefer it to what?” she enquired.
“Why, to permitting your husband,” I said, “to hear from my lips the
story of your relations with his brother Septimus.”
“Oh, but I don’t mind that,” she said, “now that I’ve repented. And
besides, as I told you, I’d forgotten all about it.”
With growing uneasiness, I took another deep breath.
“But surely you’re not prepared,” I said, “to let me tell him?”
“On the contrary,” she said, “I should welcome it, though I doubt if it
would interest him after all the others.”
I began to sway a little.
“But, my dear Mrs. Chrysostom,” I said, “if you behave like that, I
shall remain dismissed.”
“But surely, Mr. Carp,” she answered, “and I can see you’re a good man,
it’s the only behaviour consistent with repentance.”
I pulled out my handkerchief and wiped my forehead.
“Then you wouldn’t speak a word,” I asked, “on my behalf?”
She shook her head gently.
“It is one of my rules,” she said, “never to interfere with dear
Chrysostom’s business.”
I glanced round the room again. My hat was on one of the shrines.
“And you haven’t yet told me,” she said, “that you’re glad I’ve
repented.”
“Oh, I am,” I said. “I am glad.”
“Then I mustn’t detain you,” she said. “Mind the polish.”
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