I
Now as I come to that last night of all, a night that was as though set
on a stage by a cunning but reckless craftsman of the drama, and as I
look every way I may at the happenings that were staged on the platform
of that night, I do sincerely thank my stars that it is no novel I have
set my hand to, but a faithful chronicle of events. For it would seem
that the novelist, so he is an honest man and loves his craft, must work
always under a great disadvantage in his earnest wish to tell of life
truthfully; since, as the old, old saying is, he never can dare to be so
improbable as life. He may, to be sure, be as dingy as life, according
to the mode of the day, or he may even achieve the impossible and be
more dingy than life, also according to the mode of the day, but to be
as improbable as life will be as far beyond the honest novelist’s
courage as it must be against the temper of his craft; for should his
characters have to “break out,” should the novelist be so far gallant as
to concede something to the profligate melodrama of life, his people may
only “break out” along lines which the art of their creator has laid out
and made inevitable for them; whereas you and I know that living men
will do queer things which are desperately alien from what we had
thought their possibilities--nay, impossibilities--to be, living men
will defy the whole art of characterisation in the twinkling of an eye
and destroy every canon of art in a throb of a desire: so that we may
make no count or chart of the queer, dark sides of our fellows, nor put
any limit, of art, psychology, romance or decency, to the
impossibilities which are, within the trembling of a leaf, possible to
men and women.
It is not often that I see Venice nowadays, for she lives for the most
part with her father in the country, but now and again she will ask me
to luncheon in her house in Upper Brook Street, or maybe I will call
there on a sudden and find her sitting alone with an unopened book. We
do not ever talk of that night, nor of the two chief players of that
night, but the other day it came about that I found her sitting absorbed
in the shadows of a dying fire, and I somehow said: “Waiting, Venice,
waiting!”
She was crouched like a child in the gloom of a Dorothy chair, and as I
sat in another nearby a friendly flame darted through the twilight and
made toys of her eyes. They were looking at me with every appearance of
deep reflection, but now it was a woman who was looking out at me from
Venice’s eyes, and the woman seemed to smile, and she said: “He is in
India, with Bruce’s expedition. He will be coming home soon.”
And then for the first time we spoke of that tempestuous night in July,
the night but one after the children’s party. But of course I did not
tell Venice all, particularly about the last part, according to the
promise sworn between Sir Maurice Harpenden, Hilary and me.
My clock was about to strike nine o’clock, as I very well remember for I
had nothing to do but stare at it, when the telephone-bell beat it, may
I say, by a short head, and Iris’s voice said:
“Is that you?”
“And who should it be,” I said, “but me? I am so glad you rang up,
Iris.”
“Oh, you are lonely!”
They shout on the telephone, people do, so that one cannot always hear
them very, very well. But this fell lady’s slightly husky voice was
considerate and clear.
“But fancy,” she said, “finding you at home now, and all the world at
dinner or the play! Dear, are you, too, a social outcast? I am so sorry
you have had to dine alone.”
“Iris, you should have brought up the friends of your childhood to a
better understanding of the arts of peace. I was to have dined with
Hilary to-night, and because of my engagement with him I did not go to a
dinner where I was to sit beside a woman who has studied the Yogi
philosophies and was divorced last year in New York with nine
co-respondents, the tenth being disqualified on the ground that he was a
black man weighing seventeen stone in his boots. And then Ross rings me
up at half-past seven to say that Hilary has been called to the
country!”
“Yes, I knew you had been put off for dinner. I was so shocked.”
“Thank you. But, Iris, you knew?”
“Oh, I know everything! But listen, I am ringing you up to ask you a
plain question, and I would like, please, a plain answer. Does it mean
anything to you that I am leaving England to-morrow at dawn?”
“You depress me, Iris Storm.”
“But I, oh I am so gay!”
“Yes, that is what depresses me. My friends are wretched, but you are
gay! Iris, we are all of us miserable sinners, but you are a very
captain of wickedness. Iris, you are a wrecker of homes, and you say you
are gay! I am not being flippant. I have dined alone.”
“Dear, I understand. I do respect your disapproval, you must believe me,
or else I would answer that we begin to die when we are born, that all
comes from God and goes to the devil, and so what does anything matter?
But listen, O father and brother of disapproval, would you like to see
me before I leave England to-morrow at dawn?”
“Yes,” I said, “I would.”
“‘See’ me, I said, not ‘murder’ me!”
“But, Iris, I can qualify nothing to-night!”
“My idea is to take you into the country to-night. We go _à deux_. We go
into a darkness. My friend, there is a sun-dial in a certain garden, and
it is written that you and I shall stand by that sun-dial before we part
to meet nevermore.”
“Iris, your voice is laughing, but you are not laughing. What does that
mean?”
“But I am afraid! I am laughing with fear....”
“And we are driving into the country to escape your fear?”
“Oh, but that hurts! I was never before accused of being a coward....”
“Iris, I’m sorry.”
“Sir Maurice Harpenden knows me better than you do, my friend. Ah, he is
very clever, is Sir Maurice! But you will see. We are driving into the
country, let me tell you, to meet my fear. And when we meet it I shall
not mock, nor tremble, nor quail, but I shall be a very Saint George for
steadfastness. That is the programme, so far. And you, will you be my
esquire?”
“You speak of darkness, of sun-dials, of fear, of Sir Maurice Harpenden,
whom I do not know, of Saint George of Cappadocia, whom, alas, one sees
only too little of these days. I think that you, too, must have dined
alone. And you have gone mad. Else why must we drive into the country?”
“But we go to keep high company to-night, that’s why! Are you afraid of
_that_? The captains and the kings of the countryside are our
adversaries. Sweet, you and I shall stand arrayed against the warriors
of conduct.”
“Not I, Iris! I am for conduct.”
“You lie, dear. You are for love! Oh, why do you lie?”
“Because one must be reasonable, Iris.”
“Oh, because this, because that, because of the persecution of men, the
savagery of beasts, the malice of gods! Free me of your becauses! Lies,
all lies! One must be truthful, there is no other law, all other laws
are lies. We are educated by lies, we live with lies, we worship lies,
we fight for lies, we die bearded with lies. God made men out of clay,
countries out of mud, and what can the son of a marriage between clay
and mud be but Master Lie? Oh, let us have just one look at the
Demoiselle Truth!”
“Unfortunately, Iris, that demoiselle shows a different figure to all of
us. Now I may like her with a trivial ankle, tawny hair, boyish breasts,
but another may like her with golden hair and spacious loins, as Rubens
painted women----”
“I will say this for you, that when you insult one you do it with
kindness. It is kind of you to have described me as your idea of the
demoiselle. I am proud of my breasts, because they are so beautiful.
Life is generally so rude to a woman’s breasts, but it has only kissed
mine----”
“Iris, you are shocking the girl at the exchange!”
“No, no, Miss Dell has prepared her for anything! But you haven’t yet
said if you will be my esquire into the country? Why are you so silent?”
“But, Iris, I don’t understand a word of this!”
“Sweet, do we need to wait on your understanding! Chivalry?”
“Away with that from me to you! You always chose the man’s part.”
“Gallantry?”
“But I shall be gallant to another in being ungallant to you!”
“Friendship?”
“You are driving me very hard, Iris. I do not want to say what is in my
mind.”
“Can you stand there with your lips to the receiver, which I hope your
servants keep clean for you, and tell me you are not my friend? Can you
stand there facing me across Queen Street, Curzon Street, Hertford
Street, Hamilton Place, Hyde Park Corner and Knightsbridge, and tell me
that you are not my friend? I am sitting here on the edge of the bed, in
the next room is Mrs. Oden trying to pretend she is not listening to
every word I say, all round me are trunks and boxes, about me is a
leather jacket with a collar of a few minks, and on my head is one green
hat. Are you not my friend? Answer me! Answer me, I say! Dear, a woman
must have one friend! It is usual.”
“But the emerald is gone, Iris. So you are not the Iris I knew. You were
Iris Storm, you are Iris March, and I never have met Iris March.”
“The emerald was wise. There’s a _galanterie_ in jewels unknown to men,
I see that. So you won’t come for a drive with me? Our last?”
“I never said that, Iris!”
“Ah, I have frightened him! Well, I will come round for you in five
minutes. How are you dressed? In black and white? Maybe I would have
preferred you in something less formal, in something more----”
“Enough of _pour le sport_, Iris! Oh, enough, enough!”