his hat on to a counter at the end and mounted to a gallery overlooking
a garish green-and-gold ball-room. Dinner was being served at small
tables round three sides of the gallery; in the fourth was ensconced a
negro band. Gaymer looked and listened, forgetting himself for a moment
in his effort to classify the place and the company. Cheap and tawdry,
he decided, without even the appearance of spontaneous hilarity;
respectable, in all probability... The men looked like clerks earnestly
aping the life of gaiety and wantonness created for them in illustrated
papers and cinematograph theatres. The women, presumably, were typists,
milliners, hotel clerks, mannequins. In cut and material their clothes
were too good to have been bought new; here and there a draggled
flounce or soiled shoe hinted at long service. Gaymer had always
wondered what girls did with their cast-off finery....
It was a new world peopled by an unknown race, and he was uncertain of
the technique for gaining admittance. At the table nearest to him a
girl was sitting alone, and he asked leave to join her.
She did not know whether to be flattered or affronted that he had
addressed her; and Gaymer was confirmed in his contemptuous diagnosis
of the company’s narrow respectability. As she lacked experience and
dignity to assert herself, he decided that she would respond to
treatment which took her for granted. He smiled and sat down with
confident composure.
“I’m waiting for my friend,” the girl answered doubtfully, looking past
him to the door.
Gaymer inspected her critically. She was young, dark and anæmic with
thin arms and a thin back bare to the waist; her extravagantly low-cut
dress was incongruously rich half-covering to the meagre body which it
so generously revealed, but she had abundant hair, warm lips and
restless dark eyes. He looked away for a moment at the other women in
their neighbourhood and decided that he had done well in choosing her;
then he looked towards the door, trying to identify her “friend”.
“You’re not with that bandy-legged Yid, are you?,” he asked with
disfavour, as a man left the door and approached their table.
The girl looked at him in open-mouthed surprise.
“Please not to speak like that about my friend!,” she exclaimed.
“You’ll enjoy yourself much more with me.”
“We—haven’t been introduced... And I can’t give him the go-by,” she
answered uncertainly, impressed in spite of herself by his assurance.
“This is a table for two,” said Gaymer significantly, picking up the
wine-list. “What are you going to drink?... God, what assorted poison!
We’ll try the champagne; if it’s not fit to drink, we can fall back on
an honest brandy and soda. What are you going to eat?”
Calling to a waiter, he began ordering dinner and was still absorbed in
his task when the “friend” touched his shoulder and murmured
deferentially:
“I think you’ve taken my chair, sir.”
Gaymer glanced up for a moment and then turned to his study of the
wine-list.
“I don’t like Jews,” he observed.
“This lady... I had to see about a ticket for her—”
“I don’t like Jews,” Gaymer repeated. “Waiter! Where the devil’s our
waiter gone to? Here, a bottle of forty-three. And ice it properly
first.” Then he looked up again at the man whose chair he had taken.
“I’ve spoken about this before. Will you go away?”
The man stared at him for a moment, flushed and turned to the girl.
“We’ll find another table, Gracie,” he said with a tremble in his voice.
“Gracie’s dining with me,” said Gaymer. “She’s much too good for you.
If you go away at once, there need be no unpleasantness. If you persist
in butting in where you’re not wanted...” He paused to recollect his
encounter with the errand-boy in Piccadilly, the fruitless hours of
patrol in Ryder Street... “I shall send you to Abraham’s bosom at such
a pace that you’ll come out the other side.”
The young Jew hesitated and looked appealingly at the girl.
“I don’t want a scene—” he began.
“You’ll get one unbroken film from here to the nearest mortuary, if
you’ve not gone in fifteen seconds,” said Gaymer, laying his watch on
the table. “One, two, three, four....”
“I’m going to speak to the secretary,” said the young Jew with dignity.
“Bear witness, Gracie! _He_ started it!... Chucked out! That’s what’ll
happen to you, sir!”
As he hurried away, Gaymer breathed luxuriantly.
“It’s a pity there’s not more lynching in England,” he observed, “but
I’m glad I came in time to keep him from molesting you any further.”
“You didn’t ought to have treated him like that,” giggled the girl, who
had enjoyed every moment of the altercation and was now looking
furtively at the door in the hope of seeing her cavalier returning with
the secretary. “He’ll never speak to me again.”
“He certainly won’t while I’m here. And, if I have any trouble, he’ll
never speak to any one this side of the grave... Go to him, if you
prefer it,” he added brusquely. “So far as I know, I’ve never killed a
Jew yet. One ought to, just for the experience.”
“The things you say!,” cried the girl. “I’d—like to stay, only poor Mr.
Lewis... You scared him away, _no_ mistake... Champagne. Shall I go all
funny if I drink it?”
“I hope so,” Gaymer answered, raising his glass cautiously. “God! it’s
like treacle! Waiter, if you’ve any brandy fit to drink, bring it here!”
As his rival did not reappear, Gaymer cast about for other means of
distraction. Once again he had been disappointed of his fight; and
there was no satisfaction in accumulating the spoils of victory without
a struggle. It was something, indeed, that he could “scare away”
another man and win over a woman by a mere word; but the woman was not
worth trouble... and the man was only fit to thrash....
“What’s your other name, Gracie?,” he asked abruptly. “What d’you do
with yourself all day? Tell me all your absorbing life-history.”
Under the influence of the champagne, which he left her to drink by
herself, the girl’s tongue was loosened; and, though he paid little
attention to what she was saying, Gaymer learned before the end of
dinner that she was confidential typist to an export merchant, that she
lived at Tottenham and that she was at that moment supposed to be
spending the night with another girl from the same office and going to
a concert. The young Jew was book-keeper in a neighbouring office and
had long desired to marry her.
“But I keep him at a distance,” she confided. “I want to have a look
round before I settle down. No sprees then,” she added regretfully.
“Married life’s what you make it,” said Gaymer. “Come and dance.”
Dinner had put him in good humour, and he was now less contemptuously
critical. Gracie had a certain elemental charm, holding herself well,
walking well and, as she danced, melting into his arms until she seemed
a part of him. The champagne had brought colour into her cheeks, and
her eyes shone in ecstasy. The crash and jerk, the bleating and rumble
of the band sent a thrill of dancing madness through her nerves, and at
Gaymer’s touch she shivered and became still as though she were a bird
and his hand had closed over her fluttering wings....
After a riot of rag-time the orchestra subsided into a waltz.
“If you—could care—for me,” she hummed, “as I—could care—for you-ou....”
“Don’t!” Gaymer snapped.
She was all right until she opened her mouth; but, when she spoke,
there was commonness without depravity. He doubted whether she was
clever enough to shake off her accent, her phrases, her devastating
gentility. And, if she never spoke, there was little companionship in
the adventure. Already she was giving him a foretaste of what their
relations would be... mechanical, soulless, without intimacy or
tenderness; they danced for ten minutes and then went back to their
table in the gallery for a drink and a cigarette, then danced again.
And, whenever the music stopped, he had to keep her from talking....
“I wonder what’s happened to Mr. Lewis?,” she murmured.
“Don’t bother about him... I say, Gracie, have you had enough of this?
I’m as hot as hell in these thick clothes. Let’s get some air.”
“Where are you going to?,” she asked, as he led her into the hall.
“We’ll talk about that later. Get your cloak.”
The girl stopped short and looked at him, her eyes charged with fear.
“I... I must go home,” she stammered.
“Get your cloak,” Gaymer repeated. “I’ll try to find a taxi.”
They drove down Tottenham Court Road without speaking. Gaymer was
tired, restless and bored, the girl fascinated and terrified. Once she
laid her hand on his wrist and asked with dry lips where he was taking
her.
“Home.”
“I didn’t ought to!... I _mustn’t_,” she cried.
Gaymer put his arm round her thin shoulders and kissed her.
“Don’t you want to?,” he asked.
“I didn’t ought to.”
He withdrew his arm and lay back in his own corner:
“It’s a free country. Don’t come if you don’t like.”
There was a second silence, and the girl turned to him timidly, putting
her hands on his shoulders and looking at him through a mist of tears.
“I’m frightened,” she whispered. “Be nice to me! Do you want me?”
Gaymer kissed her mechanically and with contempt for her cheap
surrender. He had asserted himself against the young Jew and against
this girl, but the proof of power brought him no satisfaction. For a
week or two Gracie might amuse him; then they would grow tired of each
other, there would be recriminations and a scene, he would have to find
some one to take her place. And, while she was with him, she had
nothing but her meagre looks and the servile passion which he had
inspired. They might live together, but he would never deign to share
his life with her....
“Is it far?,” she asked. “I’m so tired.”
Gaymer did not care whether she was tired or not; nothing that she
could say or do would rouse him to tenderness; nothing that could
happen to her would stir him to concern. She was useful, she could
never be essential; a servant to be engaged and replaced. He despised
her because she could give him no companionship; very soon, he knew, he
would loathe her....
“If you’re tired, you’d better go home,” he said.
“You _are_ horrid to me!,” she whimpered.
“Sorry! But it’s all a mistake.” He tapped on the window until the taxi
stopped. “I’m going to get out. You take this on home. Give this to the
man. Kiss me good-bye and part friends! You _have_ enjoyed yourself, I
hope. Good-bye, Gracie.”
He thrust a note into her hand, opened the door and walked rapidly
away. The driver waited and then came to the window for orders; he was
lazily amused to see a girl sitting forward with her cloak on the floor
and her hands locked between her knees, staring in bewilderment at the
vanishing form of her late companion. Her lips were parted, her eyes
strained; she shivered and pulled the cloak over her bare shoulders and
back; the movement seemed to break a spell and she roused to give an
address. As the taxi turned, she took a last look over her shoulder,
then dropped her head between her hands to think; at the same moment
the driver looked around with a leer at her expression of perplexity,
in which a wave of disappointment was succeeded by a wave of
thankfulness and then a second wave of disappointment. She chewed
petulantly at a corner of a crumpled handkerchief, then hid her face
and began to cry.
Gaymer walked south, girding at himself. Nothing that he could do was
right... He was mercifully rid of a woman whom he might well have
strangled before morning. But he was not rid of the maddening
loneliness which had tortured him all day, racking him with an extra
twist every time that he saw a man and girl perambulating arm-in-arm....
At two o’clock he found himself once more in Ryder Street, pacing up
and down for no better reason than that he had already paced up and
down there for so many hours. Ivy could not be there at two o’clock...
He turned into St. James’ Street and crossed the Park to Eaton Place,
led thereto by instinct and well knowing that he would find no
satisfaction in staring at a blind window. It was more than time for
him to be in bed, but he could not muster courage to enter his flat.
Too many reminders of Ivy lingered to haunt him in each derisory void
room. A game thrown away through carelessness... He could have held
her; granted opportunity, he could recapture her as easily as he had
captured the yellow woman with the silly name at the counter-jumpers’
carnival off Tottenham Court Road....
It was a pity to let that young Jew escape without a hiding....
A pity that he had not thrashed that errand-boy....
Gracie was not the girl that he wanted, but she was better than
nothing. And he had let her go....
Three o’clock....
Gaymer walked to Jermyn Street in the grey chill of a summer morning.
He did not greatly want a Turkish bath, but it would be good for him
after the indifferent liquor that he had been consuming all day. And he
could sleep for a few hours. And Jermyn Street was convenient for the
parson-poet’s flat....
Before he began the bath he must remember to look up the fellow’s
address in the directory....
------------------------------------------------------------------------
CHAPTER ELEVEN
MIRAGE
Would I lose you now? would I take you then,
If I lose you now that my heart has need?
And come what may after death to men,
What thing worth this will the dead years breed?
Lose life, lose all; but at least I know,
O sweet life’s love, having loved you so,
Had I reached you on earth, I should lose not again,
In death nor life, nor in dream or deed.
ALGERNON CHARLES SWINBURNE: “THE TRIUMPH OF TIME.”
Ivy always appeared so punctually that, on the morning after their
return from Croxton, Eric was first surprised and then disquieted when
nine o’clock, half-past nine and ten struck and there was still no sign
of her. His hand was stretched to the telephone, when she came in
breathless and apologetic.
“I couldn’t get here before. Don’t be angry with me, Eric,” she begged,
as she took off her gloves and hat.
“I was only getting rather anxious,” he answered. “There’s nothing the
matter, is there, Ivy?”
“No. Yes. No... I ran into Johnnie opposite Buckingham Palace, and he
insisted on walking across the Park with me. That’s what made me late.
We sat and talked. I thought it best to thresh the thing out once and
for all and to have done with it.”
The brisk voice and businesslike manner were not wholly convincing; as
she smoothed her hair, Eric saw that she was flushed and still out of
breath.
“What did he say?,” he asked.
“Oh, he told me he could explain everything, and I’d promised to marry
him, and he wanted to marry me, and I’d _got_ to marry him... He was
frightfully in earnest. He said I was the only girl he’d ever cared for
in the least; and I hadn’t been reasonable, wanting to marry when he
hadn’t anything to marry on and then making a quarrel out of it. He
vowed that he’d never have looked at that woman or at any other woman,
if I hadn’t refused to see him. I did, you know; I wanted to punish
him, so I wouldn’t have him near me for a month; it was during that
time that I found out... He said that, after all we’d been to each
other, I _must_ marry him, I couldn’t marry any one else, I was
practically married to him already... I said I couldn’t discuss it with
him. But I wish he didn’t take it so seriously... Let’s get to work,
Eric; I don’t want to think about it.”
She shivered slightly and took her note-book and pencil from a drawer.
Eric turned to his letters without saying anything more. She had grown
suddenly pale, and her hands were trembling; obviously unfit for work,
she was still less fit for sitting still and brooding... Since Gaymer
had clearly contrived this meeting, he meant business; there was
nothing more likely than that he would contrive a second and third.
Eric stopped in the middle of a letter and looked out of the window,
but the street was empty.
“D’you feel you’ve made him see that everything’s over between you?,”
he asked.
“I’ve told him so again and again, but he simply pays no attention,”
she cried tremulously. “He keeps going back to my promise, as though
the only shadow of difference between us was that he was so slow and I
was so impatient. He says he’ll marry me as soon as Lord Poynter’s
offer is confirmed, and I can publish the engagement as soon as I like.
I told him I didn’t _want_ to, I said I wasn’t engaged to him any
longer; then we started again at the beginning... Eric, don’t let’s
talk about it.”
They returned to the letters, and he went on dictating until he
discovered that Ivy was paying no attention to him. One hand supported
her head; with the other she was drawing little patterns on the
blotting paper. Suddenly the pencil slipped from her fingers; he saw
her eyes close and her lips whiten, as she bit them.
“My child—!”
“It’s nothing! I shall be all right in a minute, but I felt so funny
all of a sudden.”
“Are you in pain?”
“I am, rather....”
She bit her lips at a new spasm, and Eric put his fingers on her pulse.
Then he picked her up and carried her into his room, leaving her there
for a moment, while he gave orders for a bed to be made up in his spare
room and telephoned for Dr. Gaisford to come round at once.
“I’m _really_ all right, I just felt funny,” she protested, when he
told her what he had done. “I think meeting Johnnie, you know... I
don’t want a doctor.”
She tried to sit upright, then fell back, covering her face with her
hands. Eric took up his stand half-way between the window and the bed
until he saw a car stopping at the door. The sight of the doctor’s
familiar, burly figure heartened him, and it was only as he ran
downstairs and found himself, white-faced and agitated, being mistaken
for the patient, that he realized how frightened he had been.
“When you’re not ill yourself, you’ll always take some one else’s
illness on your shoulders,” grumbled the doctor. “I’ve never seen such
a fellow! Where is she?”
“In my room.”
“And what’s happened?”
As best he could, Eric described Ivy’s sudden collapse. The doctor
raised his eyebrows once and grunted to himself:
“Right. Then you can go out for a nice long walk. I shan’t have you in
the room and I don’t want you fussing about outside. Come back after
lunch, and I’ll give you a new set of orders then. It’s possible that
we shan’t be able to move her for some time.”
“But is she bad? You haven’t seen her yet!,” Eric cried inconsequently.
“I can make a guess what the trouble _may_ be. Now clear out, my son,
and don’t pull a long face. It’s a thing that may happen to any one—any
one who’s fool enough to be a woman, that is. I don’t propose to let
her die, if I can help it, so you needn’t summon the relations. The
less said to them—and to every one—the better for your young friend.”
He entered the bedroom, leaving Eric mystified and fidgetting with
anxiety in the hall. There was a kindly, gruff, “Well, my dear?” and an
inarticulate answer from Ivy. Eric hovered on tip-toe outside the door,
waiting to be handed prescriptions or sent for brandy. He looked into
the spare room to see whether the bed was yet made. “Miss Maitland’s a
little faint,” he explained easily enough to the servants. Then he
started and turned away, for across the hall and through an open and a
closed door came an unmistakable moan. It was not repeated, and he
lurked uneasily in the hall, trying to distinguish the mutter of
voices. Then he went to his cellar and opened a bottle of brandy.
Gaisford was a fool to keep him out of the room; he could not possibly
know where anything was kept... Eric hurried into the library and
wrote—“_In the cupboard under my wash-hand-stand you’ll find_ sal
volatile, eau-de-cologne _and aspirin. Also bicarbonate of soda and
bismuth. I’ve got brandy here. Let me know if there’s anything else you
want._” He twisted the paper into a thin spill, pushed it under the
door and knocked gently.
Half-an-hour later Dr. Gaisford came into the library with the paper
crumpled in his hand and a smile puckering his eyes and mouth.
“I thought I said something about a nice walk,” he grunted.
“Is it anything serious?,” asked Eric, disregarding the hint.
“‘_Bicarbonate of soda and bismuth_’,” read the doctor. “How old are
you, Eric? Six? Seven? It’s a very ordinary business; and there’ll be
no danger, if we are careful; but I somehow don’t think
_eau-de-cologne_ quite meets the case, my learned colleague. I’m going
to write a note, and you’re going to take it away in a taxi and bring
back a nurse. That child’s not to move for three weeks. She won’t want
to, for a day or two, because she’s in considerable pain; and, after
that, she’ll be very weak. And, after that,—well, you may feel that
Providence has stepped in and solved a good many future difficulties
for you. It’s a curious thing—”
“Is she in danger?,” Eric interrupted, as the doctor’s meaning became
clear to him.
“We-ell, it’s worse than a cut finger and not as bad as a broken back.
Perhaps I may be allowed to point out that you do no good to any one by
getting into a panic. I’ll tell you that she needs careful handling;
and we’ll leave it at that, because that part’s my job. But you’ve to
keep your head and lend me your inventive and dramatic genius. We’ve to
concoct a convincing lie over this. What are we going to say is the
matter with her?”
Eric sat heavily on the arm of a chair, too much numbed to think.
“I leave that to you,” he answered with a helpless shake of the head.
“Then I make it appendicitis. We must study our parts; she must have
been troubled with pains and sickness, and I recommended an immediate
operation... We’ll make a good lie, while we’re about it; I happen to
know that Fitz-William is ill and Greenaway’s fishing in Ireland;
they’re the obvious men, so we’ll say we tried to get them to operate;
when they couldn’t come, I said we daren’t wait and I’d operate myself.
You, meanwhile, tried to telephone to the girl’s mother, but the line
was engaged. I think that holds water... I’ll get hold of a nurse I can
trust and explain to her... Can you pick any holes in that?”
“Is it all right as regards the law?”
“Yes, unless she’s inconsiderate enough to go and die. I don’t put my
name to a false certificate to oblige you or any one, friend Eric; and,
if it were anybody else, I wouldn’t touch the whole business with a
pole. But, if she pulls through—as she’s going to—, we don’t do any
good by telling the truth and we don’t harm any one but ourselves by
telling a good, saving lie. Give me a sheet of paper and a pen. And,
when you’ve got the nurse, go off to this girl’s mother and pitch her
this yarn. She can come and see her for a moment, if she insists, but
you can quote all my degrees and decorations to her and say that I’m
very strongly against it. Now, d’you think that’s clear?”
He dropped into a chair by the writing-table without waiting for an
answer. Eric stood for a moment, trying to remember and understand all
that he had been told; then he fetched a hat and stick and returned for
the letter.
It was six o’clock before he accomplished his last commission and drove
back to Ryder Street. On reaching the Cromwell Road, he was informed
that Ivy’s mother was at the house in Norfolk; he hurried to the Law
Courts and waited for the judge, who wasted half-an-hour before
deciding to do nothing. Then he laid siege to Eaton Place, pursued Lady
Maitland round London by telephone and eventually intercepted her
between two committees in Westminster. She wasted only twenty minutes
in a succession of agitated questions; and by that time Eric had made
his story polished and convincing, so that she accepted the doctor’s
ban without protest, only insisting that she was to be fed with morning
and evening bulletins. The nurse had by this time taken charge;
Gaisford had left and returned; Ivy was in as satisfactory a state as
could be expected.
“I suppose nothing will induce you to let me see her?,” said Eric.
The doctor shrugged his shoulders and smiled grimly:
“Yes, if you won’t excite her. We’ve carried her into your spare room,
away from your infernal telephone contraptions. Don’t try to talk to
her.”
Eric went in and returned swiftly, with a scared face.
“I say, she’s in horrible pain,” he exclaimed.
“I know. I sent you in to cure you of any desire to go back. The best
thing you can do is to keep out of the way and find some work to do;
otherwise you’ll simply fret your nerves to ribbons. It’ll be much
worse than this when you’re married, if that’s any consolation. Go and
get some dinner and find some one to take to a music-hall.”
Eric knew that the doctor was trying to keep his emotional temperature
low, but he winced involuntarily at his inhuman detachment.
“While she’s like that? Thank you, Gaisford,” he answered shortly.
“I’m trying to make a philosopher of you,” the doctor explained.