Lady Surplice said: “I detest self-conscious people. No one was ever
self-conscious until the middle classes were invented. Oscar Wilde
invented the middle classes so that he could make fun of them, as he
would not have dreamt of making fun of his betters, like that Somerset
Maugham man. Unfortunately Oscar died without making a will, and as no
one knew what to do with his invention we let them, with usual English
slackness, grow until they have swamped the whole country.”
“The other day,” said the Lady Amelia Peep, “I went into my father’s
study to tell him that I was engaged to be married----”
“But, Amelia, you are not!” cried Lady Pynte.
“True,” said the Lady Amelia. “But to say one is engaged when one is not
and to be married without being engaged are the only parlour games open
to a _jeune fille_ of any real modesty. ‘Father,’ I said, ‘I am engaged
to be married. What do you know about that?’ He was busy writing a
letter, but absent-mindedly he stretched a hand out towards a volume of
Debrett, saying: ‘What initials, child?’ I thought that so sweet.”
“Personally,” said Lady Pynte, “I adore snobs. They are at least
faithful to their principles.”
“Faithful!” cried my Lady Surplice. “Did you say _faithful_, Cornelia?
Is there such a thing as fidelity?”
“_Dans un sauvage_,” bitterly said M. des Beaux-Aces. He would, said
Dwight-Rankin.
“But what is fidelity?” cried my lady. “Your Highness, why do you not
amuse us? I ask, what is fidelity? Is this a time for silence?”
“‘Fidelity’ is the title of a new novel,” said a young gentleman who had
not spoken before and who was requested not to speak again.
“Fidelity,” bitterly said Dame Warp, “is the only game of which a decent
woman--I said a _decent_ woman--never tires. I except, of course,
auction bridge.”
“Fidelity would be such fun,” sighed Fay Paradise, “if only one could
ever decide whom to be faithful to.”
“Amelia,” cried Lady Surplice. “I hear you were at Martha Putney’s ball
last night. What was it like?”
“Lousy, dear,” sighed the Lady Amelia.
“Fidelity,” said Lord Marketharborough, “is a beautiful talent, if I may
say so. Unfortunately, however, I am not a man of talent. I am a
genius.”
“I,” complained the Lady Amelia Peep, “know nothing of fidelity or
infidelity, as I have so far been a martyr to virginity.”
“Fidelity,” said Captain Charity, “is an art. But, surely, _ars est
celare artem_!”
“Fidelity is fiddlesticks,” snapped M. des Beaux-Aces.
“I beg your pardon!” cried Lady Pynte. “My good man, I myself know
several women who have gone through incredible ordeals in the Divorce
Courts and the Press owing to their fidelity to their lovers. Heavens,
allow us to retain _some_ virtue!”
“Fidelity,” said the young gentleman who had spoken only once before,
“is an affectation prevalent among musical-comedy actresses and
generally directed towards wealthy Jews.”
“Talking of Jews,” said M. des Beaux-Aces, “I hear that all the best
Jews are becoming Roman Catholics.”
“And what, sir, has that to do with the point?” thundered the Lord
Chancellor.
“Nothing, thank God!” said M. des Beaux-Aces. “I detest points.”
“Amelia,” bitterly said Dame Warp, “I hear you were at Martha Putney’s
ball last night. What was it like?”
“Divine, dear,” sighed the Lady Amelia.
Thus, said Dwight-Rankin, the dinner proceeded with a degree of
animation, of gaiety, that was unusual even about Lady Surplice’s
memorable table. The _morale_ of the diners was excellent: their address
polite, their appetites suave, their wit easy and swift: their _ton_, in
fine, irreproachable. While even His Highness the Prince de
Finaleauseltz was so agreeably affected by the swift interchange of
repartee and back-chat that, Dwight-Rankin assured me, he contributed
on two separate occasions to the entertainment. However....
All was, therefore, going beautifully when the Lady Fay Paradise
remarked, with amusement not untinged with repulsion, that someone had
spilled the salt.
“La!” cried Lady Pynte.
“Who has spilled the salt?” cried Lady Surplice.
“The Lord Chancellor has spilled the salt,” said Mr. Warp.
“Hell!” said the Lord Chancellor.
“Over your shoulder, over your shoulder!” cried Lady Pynte.
“Oh, Percy!” cried my lady. “To spill the salt is _most_ unlucky!”
“Oh, pouf!” said the Lady Amelia.
“Oh, dear!” said Pamela Star.
“I’m really very sorry,” said the Lord Chancellor.
“_Need_ you have spilled the salt?” bitterly said Dame Warp.
“Really, why all this fuss?” sighed Fay Paradise.
“Fuss indeed!” cried Lady Surplice.
“I’m really very sorry,” said the Lord Chancellor.
“My father,” said His Highness, “lost his crown on the day he spilled
some salt.”
“Then to spill salt must be lucky,” remarked de Travest, “for your
grandfather, sir, lost his head without having the chance to spill any
salt.”
“Well, all I can say is,” sighed my lady, “that I thank Heaven we are
not dining thirteen.”
“I’m really very sorry,” said the Lord Chancellor.
It was exactly at that moment, said Dwight-Rankin, that someone at the
table let out a yell. Who it was, no one can tell to this day. But
someone, even as Lord Marketharborough spoke, sobbed:
“But we are! We are thirteen!”
You can’t, said Dwight-Rankin, describe in so many words the effect of
that sob of terror. It must have been as though someone had turned a tap
somewhere and let out the blood from all their faces. One might imagine
them, said Dwight-Rankin, as all eyes, blanched eyes, staring
frantically at the empty chair on which had been but a moment before the
person of him who called himself Captain Charity.
“But this is too much!” sobbed Lady Pynte.
Lord Marketharborough, however, appeared to be quite unmoved. He said:
“When is a chap not a chap? When he falls under the table before even
the port has been round.”
But Captain Charity wasn’t, said Dwight-Rankin, under the table. He
wasn’t, in fact, anywhere to be seen in the large room. They looked
everywhere, while the bewildered silence was broken only by the
breathing of Dame Warp, who had notable adenoids.
“Talbot!” cried Lady Surplice.
“I’m afraid poor Talbot won’t be much use on _this_ occasion,” murmured
Shelmerdene.
“But the man can’t have disappeared!” cried my lady. “Talbot, did you
see Captain Charity leave the room? Answer me at once, Talbot. Is this a
time for silence?”
It needed, said Dwight-Rankin, only the base terror on the man Talbot’s
rugged face to seal the terror of the company.
“For God’s sake, man, speak up!” snapped the young gentleman who had
spoken only twice before.
“I saw him go!” whispered the man Talbot. “Saw ’im, I did, with these
eyes! One second he was on that chair, and the next--gorn, phut! Begging
your pardon, my lady----”
And then, said Dwight-Rankin, came perhaps the worst blow of all. It was
only then that Shelmerdene grew really, sharply, terrified. For on the
immovability, the valiancy, of my lord Viscount de Travest all who were
privileged to know him were wont to rely, as on a very column of
courage. Whereas now, what could they think? For, as the man Talbot made
an end to his craven whispering, Guy de Travest was seen to be rising in
his chair, his eyes as though frozen to some point of the room, his
forehead, glistening with those clean drops of sweat that add to the
charm of officers of the Household Cavalry and distinguish them from
those genteel persons who “perspire.” However....
“The deuce!” whispered de Travest. “Oh, the deuce! Look!”
“Oh!” screamed the Lady Amelia Peep, and, screaming, fainted.
He didn’t, said Dwight-Rankin, know much about furniture: but
along the wall towards the doors was a long sort of antique
whatdoyoucallem--anyhow, there was an antique arrangement there, and on
it, at intervals of a foot or so apart, stood a noble line of a dozen
candles in tall candlesticks.
“Guy!” cried Fay Paradise. “Guy, what is it?”
De Travest, now standing high above the company, was staring at the line
of twelve candles on the whatdoyoucallem. He murmured: “I don’t know.”
“Percy,” shrilled Lady Surplice, “what do you think?”
“There’s some trickery here!” sternly said the Lord Chancellor, who had
followed the direction of de Travest’s eyes. “Tell Talbot to keep that
door closed.”
“I daren’t, my lady!” the man Talbot trembled.
Someone laughed.
“Who laughed?” cried Shelmerdene.
De Travest snapped: “Why are you going, man? What’s your hurry?”
“But who is he talking to?” sobbed Lady Pynte.
“I don’t believe in ghosts,” said Dame Warp bitterly.
“You there, who are you?” snapped de Travest.
“Gently, Guy, gently!” said Mr. Warp. “Let us not provoke him. Let us
not provoke anyone.”
“Oh!” screamed Lady Surplice, and then it was that everyone realised to
the full what ghastly portent it was that held the grim attention of the
Lord Chancellor and Guy de Travest. For, said Dwight-Rankin, the flames
of the twelve candles on the whatdoyoucallem were one by one being
obscured before their very eyes, as by a presence passing between them
and the candles towards the door; and as the presence passed on its way,
so each small flame was again visible.
“But I can’t bear this!” sobbed Lady Surplice. “What does it mean? Why
doesn’t someone speak? Is this a time for silence?”
Slowly, slowly, the presence passed between their eyes and the candles
towards the door: the eighth candle, the ninth, tenth, eleventh----
“Talbot, hold that door!” cried de Travest.
Someone laughed.
“Who laughed?” sobbed Lady Pynte.
Lord Marketharborough spoke: “What is this absurdity, sir? Who the devil
are you? Speak up now!”
They saw the door-knob turn, they heard it turn.
“Not so quickly!” cried de Travest. “We can’t let you go so quickly!”
“Gently, Guy, gently!” said Mr. Warp. “Let him go. We can then discuss
the matter at our leisure.”
They saw the door open, an inch, a little further....
“The word ‘devil,’” said a voice from the opening door, and the very
voice, said Dwight-Rankin, seemed to smile in a cold but charming way,
“the word ‘devil,’ my lord, comes very apt to this moment; and is, if
you but knew it, more precisely organic to the occasion than at any
previous time in the life which you have dedicated to me with such high
scholarship, iron principle and lofty ardour. But I must take this
opportunity to protest,” warmly continued the voice of Captain Charity,
“against the present frivolous use of such major expletives as ‘hell,’
‘damnation’ and ‘devil.’ They were created only for occasions of deep
corruption, for moments of incredible baseness, for profound and
monstrous annoyances, and, in particular, for use during times of
inconceivable boredom. For instance, I might with propriety apply each
one of them severally to different aspects of Lady Surplice’s charming
dinner-party; but courtesy forbids. I give you farewell, my lord, ladies
and gentlemen.”
“You might apply, sir! You give us farewell, sir! How, sir!” cried my
Lord Marketharborough, who was not less fearless as a man than he was
puissant as a lawyer. “And you dare to say, young man, that I have
dedicated my life to you!”
“’Tis a point that seems to me self-evident, Lord Marketharborough.
Since when have you been taught in your schools that the laws, which
you, my lord, so vigorously interpret, come from Jehovah? The only laws
that Jehovah ever gave to the world were the tribal laws that may have
been good enough for a pack of grubby Jews in the dawn of understanding
but have been broken ever since at Satan’s instigation by every
self-respecting person: laws that encourage cruelty, exact poverty,
condemn beauty, deride chivalry, proscribe joy, deplore elegance, and
insist on a sordid and indiscriminate chastity. But was it Jehovah who
gave you the divine consolation of Divorce? Or is it not He, the jealous
God, who is ever so envious of Satan’s suggestions for greater happiness
between men and women that He has imbued His priests on earth with a
ferocious enmity to everything that can untie a man and a woman from the
intolerable ordeal of an unhappy union. Jehovah has given you the sword,
the rack, pestilence, Christianity, The King’s Proctor and Prohibition.
Satan gave you the glorious beauty of Greece, the Pax Romana and the
genius of invention. Jehovah gave you that ill-favoured lout, Martin
Luther. Satan gave you Voltaire, who was a fallen archangel incarnate.
Jehovah gave you the Cross. Satan gave you Chivalry. O Chivalry, poor
broken-winged angel of light! She was the dark one’s favourite child,
but your dour civilisation of the past ten centuries has been maiming
her until she now lies broken and dying, her tears washing over the
ruins of the past, her soul agonised by visions of the holocausts of the
future, her eyes set with despairing prayer only on the few scientists,
inventors and artists who are the hope of this rapacious and saintly
world.”
The agreeable and scholarly voice of Mr. Warp broke the silence:
“Your utterances, sir, appear to me to show a decidedly anti-Semitic
bias. Are you sure that is quite wise?”
“Socially, yes; politically, no. And I believe, Mr. Warp, that all good
Englishmen have been accommodating themselves to that dilemma for the
last fifty years. By inclination, however, I am naturally an
anti-Semite, since Hebrew is the language current in Paradise.”
“For pity’s sake,” said M. des Beaux-Aces, “don’t say that English is
the language current in Hell. They have already all the richest
colonies.”
“In the Scriptures,” said Dame Warp bitterly, “it is written, if I
remember aright, that persons with such unconventional views as yours
are consigned forever with appropriate torments to a place which it ill
befits a decent woman--I said a _decent_ woman--to call Hell. I can see,
however, no traces of the chastening effect of so proper a punishment in
your form of address to people to whom you have been scarcely
introduced. Indeed, you seem to be an unpleasantly self-assured young
man.”
“Gently, my love,” Mr. Warp admonished her. “We are not yet precisely
informed as to who the creature is. Should he be Lucifer himself a
certain arrogance is permitted to him by the unanimous authority of all
the best scholiasts. I incline to think, however, that he is only an
inferior demon, such as plague the shrill imaginations of minor French
agnostics and continually prick the Conservative Party into a senseless
antipathy to Free Trade. But let us wait----”
The door, which had all this while been held ajar, closed sharply. De
Travest started. Had the presence gone? Cries my Lord Marketharborough:
“Have you run away, you inferior demon you?”
“Dear me, no!” sighed the Other wearily. “But I must confess that I am
astounded at the ease with which you charming people put up with this
kind of thing night after night. You might, I do assure you, just as
well be locked in the perpetual shadows of Eblis. But I suppose I must
stay until I have fulfilled my promise----”
“Your promise!” cried Lady Surplice. “What promise? What is the dreadful
man talking about now?”
De Travest spoke sternly: “Sir, may I remind you that we of our
generation are not easily frightened by invisible presences, phantoms,
imps, ghosts, vampires and demons?”
“Oh, come!” laughed the Other. “Your generation, nay, your century, is
more susceptible of superstition than any that has gone before. It is
merely that you have altered the angle, and are now enslaved by the
meanest superstition of all, which is common sense.”
“That may or may not be,” said the Lord Chancellor; “but may I point out
to you, young man, that it is considered neither polite nor manly to sit
at a lady’s table only to distress her?”
“A lady?” said the Other.
“A lady, certainly!” snapped my lord.
“What lady?”
“Lady Surplice, sir.”
“Well, she may be a lady,” said the Other severely, “but she is
certainly no gentlewoman.”
“What!” cried Lady Surplice, her terror on the instant supplanted by
anger. “Are you referring to me, you low man? Talbot! Where is Talbot?
Talbot, show this person the door! If you cannot see him, you can see
the door. Open it.”
“That will do, Lady Surplice!” said the Other sharply; and now for the
first time, said Dwight-Rankin, the voice of him who called himself
Captain Charity was informed with a degree of severity quite unusual in
polite society. “You cannot hope, Lady Surplice, with your worldly quips
and cunning impertinences, to impress one of my condition and
experience. You forget that I, had I no other claim to distinction, am
the supreme host of all time.”
“You forget Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts,” said the Lord Chancellor, who
had had a good education.
“My friend,” said de Travest, “are you imp, god, or devil? You are too
self-confident for an imp, you attach too much importance to your social
position to be a god, so you are probably, as Mr. Warp suggested, some
inferior demon in search of cheap distraction. What is your name,
fellow?”
“I am that which is so dark that beside me darkness is radiance, and I
am that which walks in such brightness that I darken the sun and stars.
I am that which is stronger than God and more enduring than stone, and I
am that which is frailer than a flower and more destructible than glass.
I am that which cannot be killed, and I am that which dies a thousand
deaths every day. I am the spirit of man. But the interpreters of your
God, in their illiterate fulminations, have made my name familiar to you
under many vile disguises, the better to sacrifice the spirit of man to
the savagery of mankind.”
“Young man,” said the Lord Chancellor severely, “are you seriously
implying that you are the Prince of Darkness?”
“We do not recognise that title!” cried Lady Surplice. “Prince, indeed!
It is not in Burke, Debrett or the Almanack de Gotha----”
“Under how many vile disguises, woman!”
“What I want to know is,” said de Travest mildly, “why you insist on
calling me Michael? since, you know, my name is Guy.”
“Merely in moments of forgetfulness, de Travest. In appearance you
remind me of one whom I once loved as a brother, in the days before time
was. How calm and beautiful he was, in his golden cuirass and diamond
helmet! Only my love for the beautiful archangels Michael, Gabriel and
Raphael, kept me so long in subjection to the Lord of Hosts. But the
time came when I, the most favoured captain of the empyrean, the prince
of the hierarchy of archangels, with only the wings of the terrible and
adorable choir of cherubim and seraphim between my eager youth and the
thunderbolts of Jehovah, could no longer brook His ignorant and warlike
complacency. As you have been taught, I raised the black standards of
revolt; was at last defeated by Michael, Captain of the Hosts; and was
plunged into Hell for eternity. I turned to Nature. I watched this
planet come into being from the boiling elements. I watched this world’s
virginity. Then, after many æons, I observed the growth of mankind. At
first I was appalled at the misery in store for these helpless
creatures. Then, as I perceived mankind’s blind will to live and savage
instinct to conquer, to acquire, to destroy, I lay for long ages in fear
of the wretchedness in store for Nature, how it would be desecrated,
perverted and ravished by these creatures who could dominate all other
animals merely because of an opposable thumb. I conceived a plan to
avert this calamity; and, walking the earth in many shapes, I directed
mankind to fulfil its most childish dreams and to sink into Nature’s
bosom, wherein only can be found true joy, true love, and perfect peace.
I succeeded. The Greeks were beautiful because I taught them to adore
beauty: they made things of beauty because I taught them to worship
their own beauty: and the gods they served were beautiful because they
made their gods after their own image. I nearly succeeded with the Roman
world. But my ancient enemy sent the man Paul to revive the savagery in
men and women and to wither the love of Nature in the hearts of
children. Since then my enemy has ruled the world. Yet, only the other
day, I thought I saw a fit opportunity for my beneficial interference:
with my heart afire with love of mankind, which I have helped through so
many trials, I inspired certain noble minds with the crusade of the
League of Nations. But mankind has preferred the dictates of its cruel
God, the Lord of Hosts, who has long since given up trying to govern men
through Christianity and now leads them by the nose with the childish
superstition of common sense; and I have now no more hope for the
happiness of a world that will deride the audacious gentleness of a
Woodrow Wilson and countenance the rapacious insolence of a Poincaré,
the vulgar dictatorship of a Mussolini, the unnatural charm of a Winston
Churchill, and the complacent gracelessness of a gentleman who only too
obviously rejoices in the name of Elihu Root.”
The agreeable and scholarly voice of Mr. Warp broke the silence:
“Your utterances, sir, appear to me to show a decidedly anti-Chauvinist
bias. For my part, since the invasion of the Ruhr by the French and the
assault on Corfu by the Italians, I have never been able to think of
Poincaré or Mussolini without a grave disorder of mind. May I ask, sir,
if you favour the Liberal school of thought? We would be far from
disdaining your assistance in our imminent campaign for convincing the
people of the essential truths of Liberalism.”
“I incline, if anything, to Labour, Mr. Warp; and hope to assist that
party to very considerable success at your next elections; for, if I may
say so, you cannot sweep a party out of existence for long by talking
like a pack of silly schoolboys of biscuits, motor-cars and secret
documents.”
“Hear, hear!” said the Lord Chancellor, who had gone to sleep and was
dreaming that he was listening to a speech against Prohibition.
“On the other hand,” mildly said de Travest, “we are still awaiting an
explanation of your sickening intrusion into Lady Surplice’s house.”
“Mrs. Amp sent me,” said the Other wearily.
“Mrs. Amp!” cried Lady Surplice. “Mrs. Amp? That low woman!”
“How can you bring yourself to know such women?” said Dame Warp
bitterly. “Particularly when, through sundry minor faults, there must
be so many decent women--I said _decent_ women--in your, well,
environment.”
“She amuses me,” said Satan. “However,” the voice went on, “as I have
fulfilled my promise, I will now, with your permission, take my leave.”
“But, Prince,” cried Lady Surplice, “what was your promise? What have
you fulfilled? What has that low woman to do with it? I insist on
knowing, Prince. Is this a time for silence?”
“My promise was merely this, Lady Surplice. At a recent dinner-party of
Mrs. Amp’s, at which the guests of honour were Julius Cæsar,
Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys, Balzac and myself, I was reckless enough to
promise Mrs. Amp that I would ascend to earth one evening and spoil a
dinner-party of yours. I will report to her, however, that a
dinner-party so brilliant as yours would need the dulness of Jehovah
himself to spoil it. _Monseigneur_, I give you farewell. Ladies,
good-bye. _Adieu, caballeros!_”
“Stop, stop, stop!” cried Lady Surplice, frantically starting from her
chair. “Just one moment, my dear Prince----”
“Well, just one,” sighed the archangel of sin, “for I promised Mrs. Amp
to be back in time to hear Napoleon’s after-dinner speech on the
intellectual obesity of soldiers, and successful soldiers in particular.
What have you to say?”
“But am I to understand,” cried my lady indignantly, “that this
monstrous woman is allowed to give all the parties she likes in Hell?”
“Naturally, madam. Else why should it be called Hell?”
“Then,” flashed my lady with a brilliant smile, “when I die, I shall
also be able to give----”
“When you die, Lady Surplice, you will go to Heaven. For you are a good
woman. You have a kind heart. You have cared for your husband and your
children, and you have always given freely to the sick, the halt, the
blind, the deaf and the dumb. In fact, Lady Surplice, I am very glad to
have allowed myself this opportunity of congratulating you. You and your
butler are perhaps the only two people in this room who will ascend to
salvation. The odour of your sanctity already shames me, Lady Surplice.
The saints in Paradise shall find in you a matchless companion. Talbot,
the bosom of Abraham awaits you. I hope you will like it. Your only
crimes, Lady Surplice, have been those of snobbery and vulgarity; and as
the Bible was written before the existence of modern England, France and
America, the very possibility of snobbery and vulgarity was unthought
of, and thus they escaped inclusion among the heinous sins----”
“But look here,” protested Guy de Travest, “what reason but cruelty can
you have for altering Lady Surplice’s destiny? It appears to me a gross
case of prejudice, since, after all, Mrs. Amp has been allowed to ascend
to Hell----”
“_De_scend, Guy,” said the Lord Chancellor. “All authorities combine in
agreeing that the movement, if any, is downwards.”
“Mrs. Amp,” said the Other wearily, “has a claim to my hospitality
because she poisoned her husband. Now, upon my word, I really must
go----”
“But you mustn’t, you can’t!” sobbed my lady in distraction. “Am I to
understand that when I die I must go to Heaven--while all my friends,
all these charming people, are enjoying themselves in Hell at Mrs. Amp’s
parties? Oh, is that just, Prince, is that reasonable, is it even
gentlemanly?”
“You know, it really is not my fault,” protested the Prince of Darkness.
“It is the will of God. Good-bye, Lady Surplice. To you others I need
only say _au revoir_, for you are all miserable sinners.”
The company, said Dwight-Rankin, were sore distressed at Lady Surplice’s
plight, for the good lady was dear to them; and they would fain have
done all they could to ease her mind as she whimpered, in an access of
helplessness and despair: “Prince, cannot you--Oh!--can’t you prevail on
God to let me--Oh, dear!--to let me waive the distinction just this
once? I simply can’t face the idea of being parted from my
friends--please, Prince, won’t you be a dear and prevail on Him to----”
“Enough, madam!” thundered the voice of the fallen child of light. “Go
you to salvation! Behold, am I not the enemy of Jehovah? These are my
final words, Lady Surplice. Prepare yourself for your ascent. Let your
soul yearn for Heaven and your spirit accommodate itself to the idea of
walking forever in the groves of Paradise to the songs of the harp and
the lyre. Begone!”
“Begone?” said the Lady Amelia indignantly. “That is a harsh word to
give a lady in her own house!”
“Surely,” snapped de Travest, “you are not so wanting in manners as to
drink a lady’s wine and then kill her!”
“What can I do, my friend? It is the immemorial curse of thirteen, and
the super-added curse of the spilled salt. And I thought, as Lady
Surplice is the only one among you who is going to Heaven, that it would
be appreciated in me as an act of courtesy to allow her precedence in
death.”
“Please, may I say one word?” begged Shelmerdene, her eyes pitifully on
the despairing face of her hostess. “I have been Muriel Surplice’s
friend for many years, she has on several occasions been very kind and
good to me, and I cannot sit calmly by and watch her being wronged.
Sir,” said Shelmerdene to Satan, “this lady you would so recklessly
consign to Heaven has committed a crime every bit as heinous as that for
which Mrs. Amp is now suffering indigestion.”
“A crime?” cried Lady Surplice gladly. “Bless you, Shelmerdene dear! But
what crime was it?”
“Shelmerdene,” said Satan gently, “are you mocking me? Was it to be
mocked by you that I gave you charm, beauty and good sense, such a
combination of virtues as never was known before? Was it to be mocked by
you that I inspired a youth to give you a name which, although it is not
your real name, becomes you better than any real name could?”
“This lady,” cried Shelmerdene, “once had a lover----”
“Scarcely a crime,” said Lucifer. “Heaven has long since given up
rejecting women who have had lovers. The angels protested that they
found none but plain women wherever they walked in Paradise.”
“But she killed him!” cried Shelmerdene.
“Come, Shelmerdene!” said Dame Warp bitterly: “No decent woman--I said
no _decent_ woman--ever kills her lover.”
“Shelmerdene, are you sure I did?” sighed Lady Surplice. “Are you quite
sure, dear? Did I really kill him?”
“You did, darling, I assure you,” said Shelmerdene. “You bored him to
death. He begged me with his dying breath not to tell you, and I
wouldn’t have if I weren’t so fond of you.”
“Then,” sighed the Prince of Darkness, “she may go to Hell.”
And, said Dwight-Rankin, even as the door was seen to close, it was also
seen how all colour was instantly ravished from Lady Surplice’s face and
how she sat in her chair still and cold. But even in death, said
Dwight-Rankin, a smile of such happiness lit her face that her many
friends, who never could think of her departure from among them but with
the deepest regret, found solace in the certainty of the good lady’s
contentment in the other world. However....
At the inquest it was naturally given out that Lady Surplice had died in
some natural way: for who, asked Dwight-Rankin, would believe the tale
of what had actually happened, who would believe the tale of him who
called himself, with infinite mockery, Captain Charity? And who,
continued Dwight-Rankin, would believe that, but for the kindly
intervention of Shelmerdene, the spiritual parts of poor Lady Surplice
would even now and forever be arranged in that position over the ivory
parapets of Paradise in which she could most comfortably stare down,
with intolerable longing, at the social gaieties of another place?
“Who, indeed!” I echoed gloomily.
V
Dwight-Rankin fell silent. The restaurant was emptying. Voices from
distant tables approached ours and perished against the wall of silence
that had risen upon the end of Dwight-Rankin’s relation. I could say
nothing. At last Dwight-Rankin said: “Had poor Lady Surplice been alive
now, she would have been staying at this very hotel. I would have been
lunching with her. At this very moment I would have been enjoying a
cigar over a nice spot of brandy.”
I ordered cigars and liqueurs. At that moment a lady entered the
restaurant. She appeared to be a person of consideration. Waiters rushed
towards her, _maîtres d’hôtel_ bowed down before her. She waived them
away. Her present concern appeared to have nothing to do with food,
although her proportions were not those of one who had in the past
indulged any aspirations to asceticism. Her face was large and
good-humoured. When she smiled, her face was very large and very
good-humoured indeed. She smiled now, bearing down on Dwight-Rankin.
Silence perished around her. I prepared to fly. She enveloped the void
about our table. The pearls about her throat were larger than her eyes,
but her eyes shone more brilliantly than the diamonds on her hands. She
strode into the silence like a warrior from Babel; and a forest of
laughter stood on the site of the Ritz Hotel. She cried: “Dwight-Rankin!
The very man I am looking for! Now I want you to be certain and come
to----”
Dwight-Rankin indicated my presence.
“Mr.----” he said. “Mrs. Amp.”
“Say, listen, that’s not true! Mr.----, I certainly am glad to know you.
How do you do, how do you do? You must come too, Mr.----. I have read
your books. They are amazing, enchanting, universal. You are a genius. I
tell the world so. I was telling the Duke of Mall and the Grand Duke
Charles so only the other night. I said: ‘He is a genius.’ Now I want to
tell you boys that to-morrow night I am throwing the finest party that
has ever been dreamt of. It’s going to be just great. You boys have just
got to come. I’ll tell the world that there’s nothing that’s not going
to happen at that party. Muriel Surplice will be green. All her friends
are coming. Everyone is coming. Say, listen, I have taken the whole
Château de Madrid for the night and have changed it into a Venetian
lagoon and at midnight I have engaged just the most complete circus to
come and amuse us, as my point is, boys, that when one goes on a party
one should just have everything from Mah Jongg to marmosets----”
She went, at last.
Dwight-Rankin said dreamily: “Have a spot of brandy?”
I choked. “You dare!” I said. “You dare to sit there and talk to me
about spots of brandy after having palmed off on me that abominable
rigmarole----”
“But it might have happened,” said Dwight-Rankin dreamily, waving a hand
around the restaurant. “Perhaps it will happen. It certainly ought to
happen. To all these charming people. Even lions will turn. However....”
_The end of the book called May Fair, in which
are told the last adventures of
These Charming People._
Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:
be impertient=> be impertinent {pg 207}
he caught a crab=> he caught a cab {pg 276}
those inexorable twin sister=> those inexorable twin sisters {pg 327}