One morning not long ago a gentleman was engaged in killing worms in the
gardens of Berkeley Square when it was forced on his attention that he
had a pain. The pain, which was offensive, was on his left side, but
thinking at first that it was no more than a temporary stitch brought
about by the unwonted exercise, he dismissed it from his mind as a pain
unworthy of the notice of an officer and a gentleman and went on killing
worms according to the directions on the tin.
This was a large tin; and, held at an angle in the gentleman’s right
hand, a white powder issued therefrom and covered the blades of grass,
whilst with his left hand he manœuvred a syringe in such a way that a
brownish liquid was sprayed upon the ground.
An entirely new and nasty smell was thus brought into the world; nor did
there appear to be any such good reason for it as is generally brought
forward on behalf of a novel smell, such as industry, agriculture, the
culinary necessities of certain foods or the general progress of
civilisation. Mean, however, though our gentleman’s physical position
was, for he needs must bend low to the end that not a blade of grass
might escape his eagle eye, mentally he took his stand on a lofty
ideal; and, dismissing the stares of passers-by as unworthy of the
notice of an officer and a gentleman, continued to misbehave according
to the directions on the tin.
The chemist who had sold him the tin and the syringe had sworn a
pharmaceutical oath to the effect that, on sprinkling the grass with the
powder and spraying it with the lotion, not a worm in Mayfair but would
instantly arise from the bowels of the earth and die. Nor was the
chemist’s prophecy in vain; for the powdering and spraying had not been
going on for long, when behold! a multitude of worms arose and passed
away peacefully. So great, indeed, was the massacre that a Turkish
gentleman who was passing by stood at attention during a five minutes’
silence, but that is quite by the way and has nothing to do with George
Tarlyon’s pain, which was growing more offensive with every moment.
Thinking, however, that it could be no more than an attack of lumbago,
and therefore dismissing it from his mind as a pain unworthy of the
notice of an officer and a gentleman, he went on killing worms because
he wanted to stand well with a pretty girl he had met the night before
at a party who had said she was a Socialist and that there were too many
worms in Mayfair.
Major Cypress now enters the story, and the fact that this is a true
story makes it so much the more regrettable that therein the Major is
presented in a tedious, not to say a repellent, light. Poor Hugo. About
a year before these happenings he had entered upon matrimony with
Tarlyon’s little sister Shirley, and he loved her true, even as she
loved him. We will now talk a while of Hugo and Shirley.
Shirley was a darling and Hugo had no money above that which he earned,
which was nothing, and that is why they lived in a garage in the Mews
behind Berkeley Square, had breakfast late, went out for dinner and on
to supper. Not that the garage wasn’t delightful. The garage was
charming. Shirley herself had supervised the architects, builders,
decorators and plumbers, and by the time rooms had been added, kitchens
hollowed out, bathrooms punched in--by the time, in fact, the garage had
been converted into a house, it had cost Hugo more money at rates of
interest current in Jermyn Street than the lease of a fine modern
residence in Berkeley Square. Poor Hugo.
Every morning at about this hour he would emerge from the garage into
the Mews, pat his tie straight in the gleaming flanks of the automobiles
that were being washed to the accompaniment of song and rushing water,
pass the time of day with a chauffeur or two, and walk into Berkeley
Square where, in the pursuit of his profession, he would loiter grimly
by the railings of the gardens until the clocks struck twelve. The word
“profession” in connection with Major Cypress doubtless needs some
explanation. Hugo’s profession was the most ancient in the world bar
none, that of an inheritor: he was waiting for his father to die. This
was a cause of great distress to his mother, as it must be to everyone
who likes Hugo. But, as Mistress Moll Flanders says, I am giving an
account of what was, not of what ought or ought not to be.
All doctors are agreed that waiting has a lowering effect on the mind,
but this morning Major Cypress looked, as has been stated, even more
depressed than usual. And long he leant against the railings watching
his brother-in-law’s extraordinary behaviour before opening his lips:
when, a noise of a friendly nature being created, he waited patiently
for an answer, which he did not get. He then tried to attract Tarlyon’s
attention by making a noise like money, but in vain.
“George,” he shouted at last, “may I ask why you are behaving in that
peculiar way?”
“You may,” snapped Tarlyon, and, approaching him with a look of
absent-minded savagery, cast a little of the powder over his breeches,
squirted him with the syringe, and continued with his labours. Poor
Hugo.
“George,” said Major Cypress, disregarding the man’s rudeness, “I am
depressed this morning. Guess why.”
“Hugo,” said Tarlyon bitterly, “I would be depressed every morning if I
were you. Now please go away at once. These worms aren’t rising half so
well since you came. And I have a pain in my left side.”
“A pain, George? I thought you looked sick, but I didn’t like to say
anything. What sort of a pain?”
“A hell of a pain,” said Tarlyon. “It gets me when I breathe.”
“I don’t wonder,” said Hugo. “I too have a pain. And it gets me when I
eat, drink, breathe and sleep. George, my pain is in my heart.”
“I don’t want to hear about it,” snapped Tarlyon, “and I hope it gives
you such a swelling in the feet that you can’t follow me about like a
moneylender after a dud cheque.”
“George, I am not, and never was, a moneylender. I am, by the grace of
God, a money-lendee. But to return to your pain, I shouldn’t wonder if
you had pneumonia. You have been very liable to pneumonia ever since you
took that bath on Armistice Day. And merely from the way your face has
all fallen in I should say pneumonia, quite apart from the fact that
your breath is coming in painful gasps.”
Tarlyon threw down the worm-killers and joined his friend. “I believe
you’re right, Hugo. It hurts me to breathe. I must have pneumonia. What
treatment would you advise?”
“Pyjamas,” said Hugo. “Nice, new, amusing pyjamas. You will be in bed at
least six weeks with the violent form of pneumonia you’ve got, and it
will be a comfort to you to think of your new pyjamas.”
“Suppose I die,” Tarlyon muttered.
“I am supposing it, George. The pyjamas will then, I hope, revert to
me.”
Together they strode up the narrow defile of Berkeley Street towards
Piccadilly, two men of grave mien and martial address; and, although it
was a bitter December morning, neither wore an overcoat, which is a
polity of dress calculated to reveal, by the very action of a
lounge-suit on the eye on a bitter morning, the hardy frame of ships
that pass in the night and the iron constitution of publicans,
wine-bibbers, chaps, guys, ginks, bloods, bucks and _beaux_.
Nevertheless, such was the stress of the distemper within him that
George Almeric St. George Tarlyon threw away his cigarette with a
gesture of distaste and said: “Hugo, I am in pain. It gets me when I
breathe.”
“Try not to breathe,” said Hugo. “In the meanwhile I will tell you why I
am depressed. My wife----”
“Hugo, I am very hot. I do believe I am sweating!”
“You look awful, George. You have probably a very high temperature.
Presently you will break out into a rash owing to the unclean state of
your blood brought about by your low habits. You can’t breakfast all
your life off a gin-and-bitters and two green olives and hope to get
away with it. I was telling you, George, that I am depressed because my
wife is presenting me with an heir.”
“It’s just cussedness, Hugo. I shouldn’t take any notice. Women are
always the same, forever letting one in for some extravagance. Just take
no notice, Hugo.”
“George, you don’t understand! She is in terrible pain, and I can’t bear
it, old friend, I simply can’t bear it.”
“I’m sorry, Hugo, really I am. Poor little Shirley. But I am feeling
very ill myself. Call me an ambulance, Hugo.”
“Pyjamas first, my honey. Ah, here we are! Ho there, Mr. Sleep! Ho
there, Mr. Sluis! Shop!”
For by this time the two gentlemen had arrived within the establishment
of Messrs. Sleep and Sluis, gents’ shirt-makers, which is situate where
the Piccadilly Arcade swoops falcon-like into Jermyn Street to be as a
temptation to mugs in search of a manicure. Mr. Sleep was a small man
with a round face who was a tie-specialist and Mr. Sluis was a small man
with a long face who was a shirt-specialist, while both were
accomplished students of masculine _lingerie_ in every branch and could,
moreover, as was told in the adventure of the Princess Baba, build a
white waistcoat about a waist in a way that was a wonder to the eye. By
Royal Appointment, and rightly.
“My lord,” said Mr. Sleep, stepping forward two paces and standing
smartly at ease, “what can we do for you this morning? These new ties,”
said he, “have just this moment come in. They are delicious.”
“Mr. Sleep,” said Lord Tarlyon, “you know very well that I detest new
ties. I can think of nothing more common than wearing a new tie. Observe
my tie, Mr. Sleep. I have worn it six years. Observe its rugged
grandeur. Where is Mr. Sluis this morning?”
“My lord,” said Mr. Sluis, stepping forward three paces and bowing
smartly from his self-made waist, “what sort of pyjamas do you fancy?”
“What varieties have you this morning, Mr. Sluis?”
“We have many, my lord. Pyjamas can be used for various purposes.”
“You shock me, Mr. Sluis. I am not, however, going to Venice just yet.
I merely want some pneumonia pyjamas.”
“In _crêpe-de-chine_, my lord?”
“Your innuendoes are amazing, Mr. Sluis! Far from being that kind of
man, I have always adhered to the iron principle of once an adult always
an adult. The very manhood of England is being sapped by these vicious
luxuries, as one glance at my friend Major Cypress will show. Away with
these _crêpe-de-chine_ pyjama suitings! And I take this opportunity, Mr.
Sleep, of crying woe and woe to the pretty and the effeminate of our
sex, for their lack of manly sins shall surely find them out and the
odour of their overdrafts shall descend to hell. For my own pyjamas, a
homely quality of antiseptic silk will do very well. I will have
half-a-dozen suits in black silk.”
“I say, George,” said Hugo, “black is very lowering. Mr. Sluis, make
them a lovely pale blue with a dash of maroon. They revert to me, you
see.”
“Black, Mr. Sluis. I fight Death with his own weapons. Send these
pyjamas at once, and put them down to my account.”
“Certainly, my lord. You will have them at once.”
“Gentlemen,” said Lord Tarlyon, “I have had forty years’ experience of
owing money and never yet met with such simple faith as yours. I am
touched. Let me assure you that my executors will repay your courtesy,
if only in kind. Good-day, Mr. Sleep, and you, Mr. Sluis. Don’t, by the
way, send these pyjamas to my house, as the bailiffs are in, which is
why I went out in the dewy dawn and caught this pneumonia. Send them to
Major Cypress’s.”
“But you can’t have pneumonia in my place!” cried Hugo. “If you should
die it will depress my wife, and that,” said he indignantly, “will have
an effect on my unborn heir’s character.”
“He will be lucky, Hugo, if he has a character at all, from what I know
of you. Mr. Sleep, and you, Mr. Sluis, you might telephone to some
doctors to come round instantly to Major Cypress’s garage, as there will
shortly be a nice new pneumonia of two cylinders on view there. Hugo,
call me a taxi at once. I cannot have pneumonia all over Jermyn Street.”
“I don’t care where you have it,” said Hugo bitterly, “so long as you
don’t let the last agonies of your lingering death disturb my wife.
Here’s an idea, George! Why don’t you go and have pneumonia at
Fitzmaurice Savile’s place near by?”
But Tarlyon was not without a keen sense of what was proper to a
stainless gentleman: he put generosity, when he thought of it, above all
things: and protested now that he could not very well seek Fitzmaurice
Savile’s hospitality as Fitzmaurice Savile owed him money and would
think that he, Tarlyon, was taking it out of him in pneumonia.
“Well, lend me a fiver, then,” said Hugo desperately, but he hadn’t a
hope. However, he need have had no fear for his wife’s comfort, for
never was a sick man quieter than the last of the Tarlyon’s, the way he
lay with closed eyes among the damp dark clouds of fever, the way he
would smile now and then as at a joke someone was whispering to him
from a far distance, so that the nurse said to the doctor: “I never saw
a man appear to enjoy pneumonia so. You would think,” said she, “that he
was hungry for death. He is not fighting it at all, doctor. Are you sure
he will not die?”
That is what the nurse said to the doctor, and the doctor looked grave
and punched Tarlyon in the lungs with a telephone arrangement, but
Tarlyon took no notice at all, still smiling to himself at the thought
that in his life he had done every silly thing in the world but die of
pneumonia in a converted garage, and maybe he would presently be doing
that and the cup of folly be drained to the dregs. And every now and
then Hugo would come in and take a glass of the iced wine by Tarlyon’s
bed and look depressed, saying that Shirley was in pain and that he
couldn’t bear it.
Then one day, or maybe it was one night, Tarlyon seemed to awake from a
deep sleep that had taken him to a far distance, and from that far
distance what should he seem to be seeing but two shadows bending over
his bed and the calm shadow of the nurse nearby? Now he tried to speak,
but he could not, and from the far distance he could hear one of the
shadows saying: “You called me in not a moment too soon, Dr. Chill. Lord
Tarlyon’s is an acute case of appendicitis. Weak as he is, it is
imperative that we operate at once.”
“Right,” said Dr. Chill.
Now Tarlyon recognised the shadow that had spoken first for Ian Black,
the great surgeon, and a great friend of his since the distant days
when he had operated on Tarlyon’s unhappy dead wife, Virginia, she who
had lived for pleasure and found only pain. And Tarlyon spoke out in a
dim voice and said:
“Ian Black, much as I like having you about you must not operate on me
for appendicitis in this house, which is but a garage. Remember I am
staying with Hugo, and I came to stay with him on the distinct
understanding that I was to have only pneumonia. Not a word was said
between us about appendicitis, and I am sure that Hugo would be annoyed
at my abusing his hospitality, so will you kindly put that beastly knife
away?”
But at that very moment Hugo came in and took a glass of iced wine and
looked depressed, saying that his wife was in terrible pain and that he
couldn’t bear it and that the whole garage was strewn with doctors
murmuring among themselves; but as to a spot of appendicitis, said Hugo,
poor old George could go ahead and make himself quite at home and have
just what he liked. Whereupon Tarlyon at once closed his eyes again, and
then they put something over his mouth and he passed away, thinking,
“_That’s_ all right.” But it could not have been quite all right, he
thought on waking suddenly, for although he could not see very well he
could hear quite distinctly, and the voice of Dr. Chill was saying:
“My dear Mr. Black, I am sorry to have to say this, but I certainly do
not consider this among your most successful operations. My patient’s
pulse is entirely arrested, and I am afraid there is now no hope. Are
you sure, Mr. Black, that the coroner will think you were quite wise to
operate when he was in so low a condition? And I am sure,” says he,
“that you are not at all wise to sew up that wound with the sponge still
inside.”
“Oh, shut up!” says Mr. Black, for the same was a short-tempered man
much addicted to over-calling at bridge.
Tarlyon did not hear any more before he went off again; but when he
awoke this time he did not feel the sickly after-effects of chloroform,
he did not feel anything at all except that he was very weak and had a
tummy-ache. The room seemed much lighter, too, than when he had seen it
last, and many more people were in it, and then he heard a squealing
noise and thought: “Good God, where am I?”
And he tried to speak but could not, he tried hard but all he could
achieve was a sort of mewing noise similar to the squealing noise, and
then the blood simply rushed to his head with rage, for there was Hugo’s
tiresome face bending over him and there were Hugo’s tiresome eyes
simply running with tears.
He tried to turn his head away in disgust at the loathsome sight, but
could not move, and then he went almost raving mad, for Hugo was trying
to kiss him! Tarlyon tried to swear and failed for the first time in his
life, whereupon he made to raise his hand to catch Hugo a clout on the
ear, but all he did was to pat Hugo’s cheek, which the foul man took for
a caress encouraging him in his damp behaviour. But in raising his hand
Tarlyon did at least achieve something, for he saw that his hand had
changed considerably during his illness, it must have, for it was now a
frail and milk-white hand with a diamond ring on the third finger, so
that he thought in despair: “Good God, I’ve died under the operation and
been born again as an Argentine!”
Hugo never left the bedside until at last the doctor got him by the
scruff of the neck and, with silent cheers from Tarlyon, hurled him from
the room. But even as he went through the door he turned his repulsive
face towards Tarlyon and blew him a kiss, and then the fattest nurse
Tarlyon had ever seen shoved a bundle under his nose and said in an
idiotic voice which he supposed was meant to be cheering: “There, there,
my dear, it’s a little boy you’ve got now. Isn’t he a duck, fat as a
peach and all!”
Bits of the bundle were then pulled about and Tarlyon was shown what he
considered was the most depressing little boy he had ever seen, with its
face all wrinkled up and an entirely bald head of an unpleasant colour.
Tarlyon’s first impression was that the little boy must have been
drinking too much to get that colour; and he tried to wave the bundle
away, but he was quite helpless, he could not move nor utter, and the
fat nurse shoved the wretched little boy’s bald head against his mouth
so that he simply had to kiss it as he had not the strength to bite it.
Meanwhile everyone in the room was smiling idiotically, as though
someone had just done something clever, so that, speechless with rage as
he already was, he became doubly speechless and thought to himself:
“This is what comes of having pneumonia in a garage!”
Not for minutes, it seemed not for years, was the full terror of what
had actually happened revealed to him. He must have been making a face
of some sort, for the fat nurse brought a mirror and held it to him,
saying: “There, there, don’t fret. See how well you look!” And the face
that Tarlyon saw in the mirror was the face of his little sister
Shirley, a pretty little white face with cheeky curled lips and large
grey eyes and a frantic crown of curly golden hair.
Tarlyon tried to stammer: “Some awful mistake has been made,” but not a
word would come, and for very terror at what had happened he closed his
eyes that he might, even as though he verily was Shirley, sob in peace.
It was for Shirley more than for himself that he was distracted with
grief, for he realised only too well what must have happened. Shirley,
the poor darling, must have been having terrible trouble in
childbirth--and all for that foul Hugo’s wretched heir with the bald
head--while he had died of pneumonia-cum-appendicitis in the next room.
His soul having left his body--while Ian Black and Dr. Chill were still
arguing about it--he had, or it had, wandered about between the two
rooms for a while and then, while Shirley wasn’t looking, had slipped
into her body and expelled her soul into the outer darkness.
That his supposition was only too accurate was presently proved beyond
all doubt. Hugo had managed to sneak into the room again, and when
Tarlyon opened his eyes he looked at Hugo beseechingly for news,
whereupon the wretched man at once kissed him. But Tarlyon must have
looked so furious, even with Shirley’s pretty face, that the fat nurse
at once stopped Hugo from clinching again; and when Tarlyon again looked
beseechingly towards the wall of the room in which he had had pneumonia
Hugo nodded his head cheerfully and said: “Yes, he’s dead, poor old
George. Doctor said he would have lived if he hadn’t been such a hard
drinker. Poor old George. They are embalming the corpse in Vichy Water
at the moment.”
Tarlyon lost count of time, of days and nights, he lost count of
everything but the number of his discomforts and fears. He spent hours
with closed eyes enumerating the terrors in store for him as a woman, as
a pretty woman, as Hugo’s wife. It would be no use his saying that he
was not really Shirley but her brother George, for people would only
think he was mad. Of course he would divorce Hugo as soon as he was
better; it was too revolting to have Hugo’s face shoved close to his own
on the slightest provocation. Heavens, how well he now understood the
many ways in which men can infuriate women! And then, chief among the
terrors of his new life, must be the bringing-up of that awful baby with
the bald head. As it was, he was seeing a great deal too much of it, the
fat nurse would always be bringing it to him and pushing it at him, but
as to taking it into bed with him Tarlyon wasn’t having any, not even
for the look of the thing when his mother came into the room. For one
day his mother did come, and she in deep mourning for his death, and
she stood above him with sad eyes, and as she held the wretched baby she
whispered: “Poor George! How he would have loved his little nephew!” Fat
lot she knew, poor old mother.
But always it was Hugo and his repellently affectionate face who was the
last straw. One evening he managed to get into the room in his pyjamas,
in Tarlyon’s pyjamas, in Tarlyon’s black pyjamas, and saying to the fat
nurse: “I must just kiss her once,” furtively approached the bed. But
Tarlyon was ready, and now he was just strong enough to lash out at Hugo
as he bent down----
“Oi!” said Ian Black’s voice. “Steady there, you Tarlyon!”
Tarlyon said something incredibly wicked and Ian Black said: “You’ll be
all right soon. In fact you must be quite all right now, if you can
swear like that. But don’t land me one on the head again with that
hot-water bottle else I’ll operate on you for something else. And I
haven’t left a sponge inside you, either. Hullo, here’s Hugo with a
smile like a rainbow!”
“I should think so!” cried Hugo. “Chaps, I’ve got a son! What do you
know about that?”
“Everything!” gasped Tarlyon. “He’s bald.”
“Bald be blowed, George! All babies are bald. In my time I was the
baldest baby in Bognor, and proud of it. He’s a wonder, I tell you.”
“He’s awful!” sighed Tarlyon. “Go away, Hugo, go away! I’ll explain
later, but at the moment I am _so_ tired of your face. And in future,”
said he sharply, “don’t dare to try to kiss Shirley more than once a
day.”
The rest of this story is not very interesting, and nothing more need be
said but that Tarlyon nowadays makes a point of advising a man never to
kiss his wife without first making quite certain that she wants to be
kissed, which is quite a new departure in the relations between men and
women and one to be encouraged as leading to a better understanding and
less waste of temper between the sexes.
As for the bald baby, he now has some hair of that neutral colour which
parents call golden, and four teeth, and Hugo shows off his scream with
pride. Hugo and Shirley think he is marvellous. Maybe he is. Maybe all
babies are. But it is certain that all women are, by reason of what they
put up with in men one way and another. That is what Tarlyon says, and
if he does not speak on the matter with authority then this is not a
true story and might just as well not have been written, which is
absurd.