I
That was on the fifteenth afternoon of February, as I remember well.
Now those who are sensitive to any extreme condition of our climate will
not have forgotten that towards the end of July of the year 1923 there
was a week or ten days when the heat in London was so oppressive that
frequent complaints were made at the confectioners and Soda Fountains on
the ground that their ices were warm; nor were the nights less
uncomfortable--“uncomfortable,” that is, to quote from a gentleman who
wrote to _The Times_ about it, “in a country so unprepared for any
extreme of temperature that, if I do not seem too fanciful, on a cold
winter’s day there is nothing warm but the drinking-water and on a hot
summer’s day nothing cool but the sun.” Of course he did seem too
fanciful, but, however that may be, the nights were certainly stifling,
and one in particular I remember very well.
It was towards eleven o’clock, and Hilary, Guy and I, having sat long
over dinner upstairs at the Café Royal, were returning towards our homes
down Piccadilly, walking as slowly as we might for the prodigious heat.
We had, however, barely touched the corner of Saint James’s Street when
Guy ceased even to pretend that he was walking, and said: “Just a
moment, will you, while I go into White’s to see if Napier’s there, to
remind him about dinner to-morrow night.” But Guy never in his life
looked less like running, and Hilary said: “The idea of eating in this
weather! Hm. And what is this party, Guy?”
“Children’s party,” said Guy, whose frozen blue eyes might conceivably
have made one feel cool had one only been tall enough to be able to look
into them ... and just at that moment, as Guy turned away, and the three
of us facing down towards the Palace, Napier came swiftly down the steps
of White’s, about ten yards down. At the curb a taxi was waiting, its
door swung open.
“Naps! Napier!” Guy called, thinking to catch him with as little
exertion as possible in that stifling heat. But Napier, swift as a
shadow, that greyhound of a Napier, was already in the taxi, the door
was slammed-to, and round it swept by the Devonshire Club to turn
northwards up the slope of Piccadilly.
“Drat the boy!” said Guy, as we made to cross the road. “Catch him on
the rebound as we cross....” But when, as the three of us stood by the
island under the arch-lamp, the taxi rushed past us with screaming
gears, he made no effort to hail Napier.
“Well?” Hilary grinned, as the taxi tore up Albemarle Street.
“Oh, ring him up,” said Guy shortly, and in silence we walked towards
Hyde Park Corner.
I only knew from Guy’s look that he had seen her in the light that fell
through the open window of the passing cab. She had seemed to be in a
black dress and her head wrapped in a tight silver turban, and I had
almost gasped not only with the surprise of seeing her at all, but the
small face in that second of light had seemed so dazzling. “Naturally,”
I thought. “She’s happy....”
Hilary hadn’t, of course, seen her, for he was always at his most
thoughtful when crossing the street. Nor had those two in the cab seen
us, I was certain: they were talking too eagerly. Guy, Hilary and I
walked on in silence, as slowly as we might for the heat. Maybe, I
thought, Guy did not know I had seen her. As for himself, he never gave
away gratuitous information about other people. And Guy loved Napier
like his younger brother.
We were passing by the great gates of Devonshire House that now more
becomingly adorn the Green Park when Hilary muttered “Bed-time” and left
us, crossing towards Half-Moon Street. I found myself walking on with
Guy, despite the economy in walking I might have made by going with
Hilary, for my flat also lay in that direction. But I might cut up Down
Street. Guy said, as though for some minutes past he had been giving his
whole mind to the matter: “Not bad weather, really, if one was dressed
for it....”
“If!” I said.
“Of course,” said Guy, “these infernal stiff shirts....”
“Quite,” I said.
“Although,” said Guy, “I think they’re cooler than those sickening soft
things....”
“I’m wearing one,” I said.
“I said what I said,” said Guy.
Once upon a time, as he had stood at the foot of her bed in a dim room,
Iris had called him by a name that was not his name. “But Guy would
defend a secret not only against the angels of God but also against
himself.” Yes, Iris, yes ... but was it necessary, Iris, to remind him
of it? For Napier was Guy de Travest’s friend, and as dear to him as a
younger brother.
“To swim,” Guy murmured from deep reflection, “would be very pleasant
just now. Very pleasant indeed.”
“Yes. But where? I’m not for the Loyalty, in water debauched by
face-powder....”
“I thought,” Guy murmured, “that I would swim at the Bath Club this
afternoon. I get ideas, quick as you like. But every one else had also
been thinking on the same lines, so you can imagine the crowd. A man
there told me that the best way to get in was to pick on the fattest man
in the water and as he came out slip into the hole he’d made. But I
couldn’t even see the water....”
Tall as a tree, his hat swinging lazily in his hand near his thigh, he
lounged on....
“Sickening,” he murmured.
Bus after bus, laden with the people from the theatres, thundered past
us and up and down the switchback, embracing us with waves of heat so
that one’s very skin felt like a sticky garment....
“Yes,” I said.
“London’s all right,” said Guy thoughtfully, “as London....”
“Of course,” I said, “as London....”
The wide sweep of Hyde Park Corner lay ahead of us like a bright
handkerchief in the night. The buses trumpeted across it and around it
and down it and up it, but one and all looked as snails beside Bus No.
16, which is beyond compare the fastest bus in London, making the voyage
from Grosvenor Place to Hamilton Place and back again at a speed to
astonish the eye of man.
The din that night makes in closing its doors on London was as though
muted by the still, stifling air, and I envied the lofty calm of the
Duke of Wellington where he rides for ever amid his pleasaunce of small
trees. The lights or Constitution Hill glowed like fire-flies between
the leafy valley of the Green Park and the dark gardens of His Majesty
the King.
“Trouble about London is,” said Guy thoughtfully, “that people are
always expecting it to be Paris or Rome or some other place. Always
wanting something else, people are....”
“Anything,” I agreed, “so long as it’s not their own....”
“That’s about it,” Guy murmured. “Sickening....”
We thought about that for a while.
“Guy, one almost might go down to some part of the river. Near
Maidenhead. Now. And swim.”
“Haven’t been to Maidenhead,” Guy reflected deeply, “well, it must be
ten years. Difficult, isn’t it, to realise it’s almost ten years since
that war started? I haven’t been--let me see--not since the night that
poor boy got himself drowned....”
“Only an hour or so by car,” I said, “and you can relive your youth.”
A smile flickered across the stern, small profile. “A long time to waste
to relive a wasted youth. What about a game of squash instead? Makes us
enjoy a drink. Come along.”
And so it came to pass that we bathed quite differently than in the
river by playing squash-racquets by electric-light. Guy has a court in
the basement of his house, and when he beats you, which is always, he
says: “Sickening.”
“Where,” I asked, when we had bathed sufficiently and were enjoying long
tumblers of the stuff that such good jokes are made from, whilst from
upstairs came the faint notes of a piano and a thing they call a
saxophone, for Lady de Travest was “throwing” a small party; “where are
we dining to-morrow night? And, now I come to think of it, why this
sudden children’s party?”
Guy had happened on Venice playing tennis the other day, when she had
said she was feeling perhaps a little depressed. “The heat,” she had
said....
“Whereupon,” said Guy, imitating Cherry-Marvel, “it came to me as not a
bad idea if we had a party for the child. Real good girl, Venice. Hope
that young man of mine will find some one only half so good....”
“Yes,” I said.
“Be a sort of family party, I thought. Hugo and Shirley, Napier and
Venice, some clean and wholesome young woman I’ll find for you, while I,
thank the Lord, will be odd man out. But as to _where_ we should
dine....”
“In this heat....”
“God, yes, too hot for dancing. Just listen to them upstairs! Even the
ceiling’s sweating....”
The faint, slow lilt of the tango, pleasantest of all dances but one
that is so seldom danced in London because nobody in London can dance
it, which seems a pity....
“Might almost dine here,” Guy murmured, “if Moira doesn’t want the
place. And we might, now you’ve suggested it, and if it’s still so hot,
go and bathe somewhere afterwards instead of sitting up in some stuffy
place till all hours. See how we feel about it, and if Venice would
enjoy that....”
“Imagine Venice not enjoying that!”
“Well, we’ll see,” said Guy, but more seriously now. “If we do, it will
mean no cocktails before dinner, no more than a glass of wine apiece
over dinner, and not a thimbleful after. I’m not going to have that
river play any more tricks on my friends, I can tell you.”
“And decency, Guy, will be more than served, for there’s no moon and the
nights are pitch-black....”
“That’s right,” said Guy thoughtfully, and then, as he saw me to the
door, he said thoughtfully: “By the way, you any idea if Venice has ever
met Iris?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “But I’m not sure....”
There is never any harm in saying one isn’t sure. One should never be
sure, conversationally.
“I just had an idea,” Guy murmured, looking out over the heavy trees of
the great square, “that Iris might conceivably be passing through
London, as I heard from Eve Chalice to-day that old Portairley was lying
near death. The last Portairley, dear, dear.”
“Gerald won’t be sorry to have missed his turn, I’ve no doubt.”
“Poor young devil! But what I was thinking of was, just in case Iris is
in London, that we might get her for the third woman to-morrow
night....”
“Oh,” I said. “I see....”
“You’d quite like that, wouldn’t you?”
“Oh, I’d like it!”
“Just had an idea,” Guy murmured vaguely, “that she and Venice might
meet, if they haven’t already met, and see how they like each other.
That is, if Iris is in London. Different types ... you never know. Tell
Iris, if by any chance you hear anything of her to-morrow. My idea, tell
her....”
“All right, if she should give me a ring. Good-night, Guy.”
“Good-night, boy. Sorry about the squash. Sickening. My idea, tell her.”
As I looked back from that wide corner of Belgrave Square which sweeps
suavely up to Hyde Park Corner, I could see the very tall figure of the
friend of his friends still framed against the lighted doorway. Across
the four open windows above him figures passed slowly.
But what, what in the world, could suddenly have happened to Iris, she
whom I had last seen, whom I had last heard, saying she would nevermore
return to England, promising ...? And one realised, in wondering that
with so deep a bewilderment, how very literally one would take Iris’s
word, how completely one had believed in her promise, as one would have
believed in any promise made by that Iris March who, as Hilary had
reluctantly to confess, did not lie. But now ... nevermore, nevermore!
And as I let myself into my flat, I found myself picturing Guy de
Travest and Iris face to face in a place where no people were, Guy and
Iris completely alone with each other and God. And it was Guy whom I
heard speaking, Guy’s low cold voice telling Iris of certain things, how
he had been shocked that dim morning to hear her whisper a name like a
kiss, a name that was already pledged to another, and how, when he had
long since forgotten her whispering of that name, he had chanced on a
night to see her no further than the span of that name apart from him
who bore it, and how he couldn’t but think that she was committing the
one unpardonable crime of stealing a man from his wife, like a mean
little thief in the night. And I could imagine Iris in her tight silver
turban, like a star it would be in that lonely place where she faced
Guy, and her tiger-tawny curls dancing formally on each small check, and
all about her that dazzling brilliance which will suddenly enwrap a very
fair woman in a black dress, whilst the blood would be clean emptied
from her small grave face as she listened to the judgment of the slender
giant with the cold eyes and the quiet, so quiet, savage voice. They
were of the same people, Guy and Iris, of the same blood, of the same
landscape, and you couldn’t help but wonder how she would face his
judgment, she who had for so long outlawed herself, she who so
profoundly impressed you as not caring the tremor of an eyelash for the
laws of her fathers. Would she, faced by the warrior of conduct, still
not care, or would she be ashamed and afraid, would she be as though
seeing England, her England, the very soil of her England, turning from
her in contempt? I simply could not tell what she would feel, so little
did I know of the nature of that shameless, shameful lady. And that was
again the thought that came to me the very next night to the one I am
telling of, whilst I sat beside her in her car, and we in the van of the
children’s party’s raid on the river. A torment of heat lay over England
that July night, but that is not why we who sped through the countryside
will remember it.
She was driving, and when I dropped a word into the silence of our
drive, for Iris and I were at enmity now--for Venice!--a curious smile
seemed to devour the white profile, to devour it quite: a very witch of
a smile that was, I thought, and more than adequate to meet my word, for
the word I had dropped was what the raven quoth: “Nevermore!”
But as she smiled so, she drove that menacing bonnet ever more furiously
along the road to Maidenhead, so that corners perished like midgets
before our head-lights and Hugo and Shirley, who sat behind, murmured
against her driving, saying that it would be bad for their reputation as
a happily-married couple to be found dead on the road to Maidenhead. “A
friend of mine,” yelled Hugo, “was asked to resign from Buck’s for being
found dead on the Maidenhead road....”
But Iris drove faster and ever faster, and suddenly I realised that the
rare devouring smile that was like my enemy on her face was new to me
who had never before seen Iris smile happily.