I
The cavalier of low creatures dies hard; surviving even our gesture, he
loiters dangerously in the tail of our eye, he awaits, with piratical
calm, the final stroke; and only will he fade and be forever gone,
despised, and distraught, before the face of him who bore the magic
device For Purity, whose ghost was to be raised by Mr. Townshend over
dinner on the twelfth night after the coming of the green hat. For, his
wretched Liberal being at last retrieved from somewhere beneath the foot
of the poll, that gentleman was again among us, saying “hm.”
We have so far seen but the shadow of Mr. Townshend; now, at last, this
shadow must emerge into the tale of the weak Marches as the person of
Mr. Townshend of Magralt. He emerges, as becomes a man of property who
believes in progress as though it were a pain, in a dinner-jacket, _le
smoking_, a Tuxedo; of which the bow-tie is gathered together with that
dexterous carelessness which is the affectation of elderly Englishmen
who cannot put up with any affectations whatever. Now there is no known
explanation for this phenomenon of the sickly bow-tie among Englishmen
of over forty years of age. That they are all blackguards, Mr. Shaw has
assured us. But haven’t they, God bless one’s soul, eyes! It is not, of
course, of the least importance whether a bow-tie falls straight or
crooked, particularly on a grown-up man. It is not, after all, of the
least importance whether one is clothed or naked. But one may, in
passing, be permitted to wonder on the curious dispositions of the blind
goddess Chance, whereby not once in a long lifetime, not even by one
little bit of a fluke, will one of these elderly gentlemen ever tie a
bow to fall even approximately right. They must, therefore, do it on
purpose. But for what purpose? Let them, I say unto them, tie their bows
carefully while the bow-tying is good, for voices from the Clyde are
rising loud and everywhere those snobs are dominant who affect that the
shirt of democracy should be a dishclout.
However, Mr. Townshend’s shadow does not even yet grow in substance
without some difficulty. Between him and us, towards the dinner-hour,
intrudes, knife-like, that deuce of cavaliers, he of the hat that
Frederick the Great would have envied, for that wrecker of homes liked
his hats soft and malleable, he liked to twist and torture them as
though they were no more than men. In fine, Gerald made me late for
dinner.
The clock of the Queen Street Post Office stood at three minutes before
eight o’clock as I passed on my way to Hilary’s house in Chesterfield
Street. The roar of the marching hosts of Piccadilly was as though muted
by the still evening air. The small straight streets of Mayfair lay as
though musing between the setting of the sun and the rising of the
theatre-curtain. Neat errand-boys, released for the day, kicked their
heels about on the curbs. The drivers of the sauntering taxi-cabs looked
inquiringly, impersonally, into the faces of hurrying pedestrians.
Limousines lounged softly by. Past me strode intently a tall
raven-haired woman in a bright green wrap with a high sable collar, and
moving frantically below were bright green shoes and bright green
stockings that appalled the suave dignity of the evening light. These
are not the only green properties we shall see in this tale, for women
of the mode wore very much of green in the year 1922; although, of
course, some women were not necessarily of the mode even when they wore
green. Some women should not wear green. To such, their husbands should
say: “My dear, I can’t help saying it again, but really I’ve never seen
you look as well as when you’re in black.”
It was from the Curzon Street corner, just by Jolley’s the chemist, that
I saw Gerald. He was across the road, against the entrance of the little
tunnel that leads into Shepherd’s Market, buying an evening-paper off a
friend of ours, Mr. Auk, who used to have his stand just there.
I crossed towards Gerald. I would be a few minutes late for dinner, that
was certain, but if ever I was punctual at Hilary’s he never was
dressed: a sense of conduct being the property of imperious men, who
must disregard the servile virtue of punctuality.
I could not see Gerald’s face as he stood on the curb glancing at his
paper, the brim of that hat was so low over his right eye. Mr. Auk
winked at me as I came up. “Oiled, that’s wot!” whispered Mr. Auk. Then
a friend of his came by and he and Mr. Auk retreated into the tunnel,
where I vaguely thought that Mr. Auk seemed to be telling his friend
something funny about Gerald. I never have passed the time of day with
Mr. Auk since I found what it was that he thought so funny about Gerald
that evening.
When I greeted Gerald he instantly looked up from the paper to me. I
remember now that he seemed to watch my face for something, an
expression, which he half-expected to see. But one notices those things
only later on.
“I say, seen the evening-paper?”
“No. Why?”
The dark eyes haunted with abstraction, the thin hawk’s nose, the fine,
twisted, defiant mouth....
“Why? How the hell do I know why!”
He crumpled his paper, thrust it under his arm and dug the released hand
into his pocket. Thus was Gerald Haveleur March armed cap-a-pie against
life. He had something on his mind, one could see that. But it would
take hours to make Gerald confide anything.
“I say, have a drink?”
Now I wonder how many thousands of men are at this very moment putting
that question to thousands of men; yet that, if nothing else, would have
made that night significant in my life, for never before had the
solitary asked me or, I think, any one to have a drink with him. Nor
would he, as a rule, have a drink if you suggested it. And once, at a
party I gave, he had some gingerbeer. But, even so, I had to say I
couldn’t, pleading that I would be too late for dinner. “With Hilary,” I
said, and he scowled absently in a way he had, and lounged up the road
with me. Thoughtful he was always.
That was a curious, capacious evening. The Marches were gathered
together that evening, they who were never let off anything. As Gerald
lounged beside me the great primrose car with the menacing shining
bonnet passed us as silently as though Curzon Street was a carpet. It
was empty but for a boyish chauffeur. Gerald, I suppose, did not know
it, and I did not remark on it. I wondered if Iris had surprised Mrs.
Oden by returning suddenly. Poor Mr. Oden....
“What have you been doing with yourself lately, Gerald?”
“Doing?” His eyes pierced the pavement the other side of my shoulder,
for tall was Gerald.
He grinned....
“You’d never guess,” he grinned.
I did not like this grinning. It was unusual in Gerald. It was like a
crooked mask on the fine dark face. There was by ordinary no grinning
froth about Gerald ... and, somehow, it crossed my mind that maybe
Gerald was hard-up. I asked him, oh, tentatively, if anything was “up.”
“Up? The hell’s up. O Jesu!” And he grinned....
“Yes, but besides that--anything?” Not, you know, that I thought for one
moment that anything really was “up.” It was merely that I misliked that
grinning.
I can see him this moment so clearly, the way he suddenly threw back
his head and stared from under the brim of that hat as though into the
heart of the heavens: the dark, defiant, hungry silhouette searching the
heart of the above.
We were at the corner of East Chapel Street, where the great American
pile of Sunderland House debases itself before the puny roofs of
Mayfair: it loitered clumsily against the soft evening light, reluctant
to yield to the grey embrace of London....
“God!” sighed Gerald. Like a child, like a child ... and like a fiend he
suddenly laughed up at the veiled heavens. “Imagine, you fool, just
imagine the bloody degradation of being alive!”
But I will leave out Gerald’s “bloody’s.” One is tired of saying,
hearing, reading that silly word. It is only chickenfood, after all, and
does very well on the lips of the young ladies of the day, but there is
no reason why grown-up people should use it.
“I like you,” he said, as only that devilish child could say it. “You
sit on your imagination as though it was an egg, and a nice little
chicken comes out. God, I wouldn’t be you! Look at all the pretty eggs
you’ll hatch and not one have a chance to grow up into a splendid,
lovely old hen that’ll peck at the dung you call life. Why don’t you
write about fallen archangels? They’re the only things worth writing
about, fallen archangels. Phut to you, that’s what I say....”
I managed then, for the first time in our friendship, to suggest that if
perhaps he was hard-up, well, phut to him....
“Look here, that’s not fair,” stammered Gerald. Shy himself, he made one
want to sink into the ground with shyness. “I mean, that’s putting
friendship to music, isn’t it? What?”
“Oh, nonsense, Gerald! There’s nothing so silly and mean as this
reticence about money....”
“God, but you’ve given me an idea. I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you,
as you’re late for dinner. I’ll damn well lend you a fiver.”
“But, Gerald----”
“You talk too much,” Gerald stammered. “I’d like to do you a bit of
good. And I’ve still got to thank you for chloroforming me and lugging
me off to that Home for Drunks, thanks very much. Now, am I going to
lend you a fiver or am I going to make such a rough-house just here that
all the police in London will come and arrest you for soliciting? I’ll
scream if you don’t touch me!”