It was when we came to the second and last part of the affair of Mrs.
Amp and Lady Surplice, which took place in London nearly a year later,
that he himself, said Dwight-Rankin, entered upon the scene. He was, in
point of fact, quite definitely responsible for the awful end to my Lady
Surplice’s last dinner-party, a circumstance which would prey on his
mind to his dying day. For, said Dwight-Rankin, had he not at the last
moment been compelled, by some force outside himself, to take a bird out
for a spot of dinner, and therefore to cancel his engagement to dine
with Lady Surplice, nothing untoward could possibly have happened to
that poor lady.
He had, however, been able to piece together every detail of the
terrible events of that dinner-party with the help of the relations of
those of his friends who were present: the most reliable among these
being Shelmerdene (that lovely lady), Guy de Travest, most upright of
men, and Percy Wentworth, 1st Marquess of Marketharborough, the Lord
Chancellor of England, who was, said Dwight-Rankin, a very hearty man
and a devil for accuracy whether on the Woolsack or the roundabouts.
It was Christmas Eve, and a dirty night. A violent wind distracted the
town, hurling the rain with idiot fury against the windows of swift
limousines and, no doubt, said Dwight-Rankin, greatly inconveniencing
those thoughtless persons who had gone abroad without their limousines.
But since Lady Surplice’s dinner was in honour of royalty, in the person
of Son Altesse le Prince de Finaleauseltz, of the Royal house of Bonbon
de Jambon-Parme, her guests, with that polite servility which
distinguishes the freedom-loving peoples of England and America, were
within the house in St. James’s Square by a quarter-to-nine o’clock.
Dinner was not yet announced: the conversation, easy and elegant,
embraced the topics of the day: while the more youthful wandered, as
though aimlessly, towards the far corners of the spacious drawing-room,
where stood the busts of notable men by Epstein and Mestrovic. Now Lady
Surplice never would have cocktails served in her house since a friend
of hers, an honourary _attaché_ at the Bulgarian Legation, had succumbed
to a ptomaine poisoning gotten from swallowing a cherry in a Manhattan
cocktail. But my lady’s butlers were wont, such is the ingenuity of the
lower sort, to secrete cocktails behind the busts of notable men by
Epstein and Mestrovic, thus killing two birds with one stone; for while,
on the one hand, they satisfied the reasonable thirst of the company,
they also, on the other hand, gave Lady Surplice much real pleasure in
seeing how her friends were enamoured of the most advanced art of the
day. Lady Surplice herself loved the most advanced art of the day. And
the most advanced art of the day loved Lady Surplice. Playwrights, for
instance, doted on her. One had put her into a play as a courtesan for
money (1205 performances), one as a courtesan by temperament (2700
performances), another as a courtesan by environment (still running),
and lastly another as a courtesan to pass the time. This last, however,
was never produced, as the Lord Chamberlain had banned it on the ground
that it was too cynical. However....
Imagine, said Dwight-Rankin, with what consternation Lady Surplice
suddenly discovered that the company was thirteen in number! She was
livid. She said: “It is the fault of that Dwight-Rankin man. I had
forgotten that he had put me off at the last moment. That low,
detestable man! How _rude_ people with two names can be! But what shall
we do? We cannot dine thirteen, and on Christmas Eve! Your Highness,
what would you advise? I am quite unable, my dear Highness, to sit down
thirteen at meat. I detest meat, but you know what I mean. It would
quite destroy my luck.”
“His Highness,” said Guy Godolphin Greville Hawke, 21st Viscount de
Travest, “might very possibly prefer to have his luck completely
destroyed; for the present luck of Royalty in Europe is, if I may say
so, sickening.”
Lord Marketharborough had been for some time examining the busts of
notable men by Mestrovic and Epstein, and had therefore not heard what
had gone before; but that did not deter him from asking one of those
pertinent questions which came naturally to his fearless mind. “Since,”
said the Lord Chancellor, “we are thirteen, are we a woman too many or a
man? Let us first get that quite clear.”
“There is always a woman too many,” snapped Lady Surplice, whereupon
Dame Warp strode forward and said bitterly between her teeth: “I see I
am not wanted. Let it never be said that a decent woman--I said a
_decent_ woman--ever stood in the way of her friends’ enjoyment. I will
go.” She was, however, soothed by Monsieur des Beaux-Aces, whilst the
other gentlemen very properly laughed the superstition to scorn. In
particular Mr. Warp, who was eminent in private life for his researches
into the defunct branch of political thought once known as Liberalism,
but was better known in public as the husband of Dame Warp,
distinguished himself by the elegant scholarship of his scepticism.
Nor, said Dwight-Rankin, were the ladies--to wit, Shelmerdene, the Lady
Fay Paradise, Lady Pynte, Miss Pamela Star and the Lady Amelia Peep, who
was a young lady of the highest fashion with her hair parted at the
side, a talent for writing poetry, and a governing-classes voice--nor
were they behindhand with their ridicule of so childish a fancy as Lady
Surplice’s, that they could be susceptible of the least harm through
sitting thirteen at table.
“Dinner,” said the _doyen_ of the butlers from the door, “is served, my
lady.”
“Talbot!” cried Lady Surplice. “How dared you not warn me that we were
thirteen for dinner? Why do you not answer me? Is this a time for
silence?”
“Decidedly,” said the Lord Chancellor. “For I am hungry.”
“My lady,” said the wretched Talbot, “I am sorry. It quite escaped my
notice. I will send in my resignation in the morning.”
Says my lady with a high look: “Talbot, you will expiate your sin now.
You will at once leave the house. You will walk round St. James’s
Square. And you will invite the first person you meet in to dine with
me. Go.”
The conversation after the butler had gone became, said Dwight-Rankin,
rather strained; and only the polished genius of Lady Surplice could
have sustained it at anything approaching a well-informed level, as
when, turning to the Lady Amelia Peep, she said: “And what, my child, is
your father doing to-night? I had asked him to dine with me, but he said
he was engaged. I hope it is not serious.”
“Wearing,” said the Lady Amelia, “rather than serious. He is in S. W. 1
district, in the queue outside Buck House, waiting to be made a Duke in
the New Year’s Honours. He is so old-fashioned in his tastes! He will be
wanting to learn dancing soon.”
“Dukes,” said Lady Surplice, “are not a fit subject for conversation.
One should avoid being a Duke. They are low. Look, for instance, how
they took up with that Amp woman! Look how that handsome but
ill-mannered Duke of Mall made a fuss of that dreadful Mrs. Omroy Pont!
And look at the Duke of Dear! One cannot know that man. He has actually
been divorced time over again. England is getting simply flooded with
ex-Duchesses of Dear. And while the Duke indulges his almost violent
partiality for middle-class indiscretions, his only son has invented a
rod with which he can catch smoked salmon. Is that patrician, is it even
gentlemanly? Answer me, your Highness. Is this a time for silence? Then
look at the Duchess of Sandal and Sand! She is in Paris now, and I hear
she has lovers right and left and sits up every night at the _Jardin de
Ma Sœur_ staring at people through an emerald monocle and drinking pink
champagne through a straw. Is that just, is it reasonable, is it even
decent? Monseigneur, what do you think? Is this a time for silence?”
“Yes, please!” pleaded Fay Paradise. “For just look at what’s
happening!”
But it was Shelmerdene, said Dwight-Rankin, who had first seen the great
doors opening. And Shelmerdene was very favourably impressed.
“Captain Charity,” announced Talbot.
Lady Surplice, said Dwight-Rankin, was also very favourably impressed.
She cried: “My dear Captain Charity, how kind of you to come to a
perfectly strange house! But you are so good-looking that I feel I ought
to have known you all my life.”
Now he who was called Captain Charity did not appear to be of those who
suffer from nervousness. His lean presence, indeed, radiated a certain
authority. And he smiled at Lady Surplice in a cold but charming way.
But one can’t do better, said Dwight-Rankin, than take Shelmerdene’s
swift first impression of the man. Shelmerdene said that he was a tall,
lean, young man, dark and beautiful; his air was military, but with a
pleasing suggestion of culture; and as he came towards the company he
appeared to look at nobody but Guy de Travest, and always he smiled,
Shelmerdene had told Dwight-Rankin, in a cold but charming way.
“Haven’t we,” doubtfully said de Travest to the teeth of that faint
smile, “met before somewhere?”
One must imagine those two, said Dwight-Rankin, as making as
brave-looking a pair of men as one could wish to see: the stranger, dark
and beautiful, and Guy de Travest, quiet and yellow-fair: the lean dark
dandy with the mocking mouth and the fair thunder-god of dandies with
the frozen eyes.
“I think not,” said Captain Charity, and he said: “But you are very like
Michael.”
“Michael?” quoth my lord. “And who, pray, is your Michael?”
“The archangel,” said Captain Charity, and that was that, for Lady
Surplice, who was fairly taken with the dark beauty of the stranger,
could no longer brook these masculine asides. She said: “My dear Captain
Charity, you must be introduced. It is quite usual. I have already
presented you to His Highness. He is charming. Here are Dame Warp and
Lady Pynte, who buys her shoes at Fortnum and Mason’s and rides to
hounds four days in the week all through the summer just to set a good
example. While this is Miss Pamela Star, who was left many millions by
an Armenian. Armenians are rather difficult, my dear Captain Charity,
but she is charming. And this is Shelmerdene, who has no surname because
she has no surname, but who is becoming the heroine of all the ladies in
all the suburbs because a misguided young man once put her into a book.
Ah, and Fay! My dear Captain Charity, this is Lady Fay Paradise, the
most beautiful woman in England. She never eats with her meals and never
uses the same lover twice. Do you, darling? Whereas here is Lady Amelia
Peep, who is as yet unmarried but she writes poetry about birds and her
father wants to be made a Duke. You will like her. She is appointed with
every modern convenience. And here--Percy, where are you? Ah, there he
is, always admiring works of art! Look at the back of his head--the
strength, the charm, the moral poise of it! Percy, come here at once!
This, my dear Captain Charity, is Lord Marketharborough, who is a Lord
Chancellor, you know. Aren’t you, Percy? But why do you not answer me?
Is this a time for silence?”
“Dinner,” said the man Talbot, “is served, my lady.”
“Good!” said Lord Marketharborough.
Now the high position that Lady Surplice had won for herself in the
hierarchy of hostesses was due to nothing so much as to the fact that
she would not ever tolerate any but general conversation about her
table. Whereas, said Dwight-Rankin, at every other dinner in London one
must be continually blathering in whispers to one’s right or left to
women who have nothing to say and don’t know how to say it, so that
there never can be any conversational give-and-take about the table. But
Lady Surplice most properly insisted on conversational give-and-take at
her parties. She gave, you took. She gave, said Dwight-Rankin,
magnificently.