but I elected to pass the winter in England. "Of course," was Mr.
Charteris's annotation--"because it is precisely the most dangerous
spot in the world for you. And you are to spend October at Negley? I
warn you that Jasper Hardress is in love with his wife, and that the
woman has an incurable habit of making experiments and an utter
inability to acquire experience. Take my advice, and follow Mrs.
Monteagle to the Riviera, instead. Cissie will strip you of every
penny you have, of course, but in the end you will find her a deal
less expensive than Gillian Hardress."
"You possess a low and evil mind," I observed, "since I am fond, in
all sincerity, of Hardress, whereas his wife is not even civil to me.
Why, she goes out of her way to be rude to me."
"Yes," said Mr. Charteris; "but that is because she is getting worried
about her interest in you. And what is the meaning of this, by the
way? I found it on your table this morning." He read the doggerel
aloud with an unkindly and uncalled-for exaggeration of the rhyming
words.
"We did not share the same inheritance,--
I and this woman, five years older than I,
Yet daughter of a later century,--
Who is therefore only wearied by that dance
Which has set my blood a-leaping.
"It is queer
To note how kind her face grows, listening
To my wild talk, and plainly pitying
My callow youth, and seeing in me a dear
Amusing boy,--yet somewhat old to be
Still reading _Alice Through the Looking-Glass_
And _Water-Babies_.... With light talk we pass,
"And I that have lived long in Arcady--
I that have kept so many a foolish tryst,
And written drivelling rhymes--feel stirring in me
Droll pity for this woman who pities me,
And whose weak mouth so many men have kissed."
"That," I airily said, "is, in the first place, something you had no
business to read; and, in the second, simply the blocking out of an
entrancingly beautiful poem. It represents a mood."
"It is the sort of mood that is not good for people, particularly for
children. It very often gets them shot too full of large and untidy
holes."
"Nonsense!" said I, but not in displeasure, because it made me feel
like such a devil of a fellow. So I finished my letter to Bettie
Hamlyn,--for this was on the seventh,--and I went to Negley precisely
as I had planned.
7
"We were just speaking of you," Mrs. Hardress told me, the afternoon
of my arrival,--"Blanche and I were talking of you, Mr. Townsend, the
very moment we heard your wheels."
I shook hands. "I trust you had not entirely stripped me of my
reputation?"
"Surely, that is the very last of your possessions any reasonable
person would covet?"
"A palpable hit," said I. "Nevertheless, you know that all I possess
in the world is yours for the asking."
"Yes, you mentioned as much, I think, at Nice. Or was it Colonel
Tatkin who offered me a heart's devotion and an elopement? No, I
believe it was you. But, dear me, Jasper is so disgustingly healthy
that I shall probably never have any chance of recreation."
I glanced toward Jasper Hardress. "I have heard," said I, hopefully,
"that there is consumption in the family?"
"Heavens, no! he told me that before marriage to encourage me, but I
find there is not a word of truth in it."
Then Jasper Hardress came to welcome his guest, and save from a
distance I saw no more that evening of Gillian Hardress.
10.
_He Samples New Emotions_
It was the following day, about noon, as I sat intent upon my Paris
_Herald_ that a tiny finger thrust a hole in it. I gave an inaudible
observation, and observed a very plump young person in white with
disfavour.
"And who may you happen to be?" I demanded.
"I'm Gladys," the young lady responded; "and I've runned away."
"But not without an escort, I trust, Miss Gladys? Really--upon my
word, you know, you surprise me, Gladys! An elopement without even a
tincture of masculinity is positively not respectable." I took the
little girl into my lap, for I loved children, and all helpless
things. "Gladys," I said, "why don't you elope with me? And we will
spend our honeymoon in the Hesperides."
"All right," said Gladys, cheerfully. She leaned upon my chest, and
the plump, tiny hand clasped mine, in entire confidence; and the
contact moved me to an irrational transport and to a yearning whose
aim I could not comprehend. "Now tell me a story," said Gladys.
So that I presently narrated to Gladys the ensuing
_Story of the Flowery Kingdom_
"Fair Sou-Chong-Tee, by a shimmering brook
Where ghost-like lilies loomed tall and straight,
Met young Too-Hi, in a moonlit nook,
Where they cooed and kissed till the hour was late:
Then, with lanterns, a mandarin passed in state,
Named Hoo-Hung-Hoo of the Golden Band,
Who had wooed the maiden to be his mate--
For these things occur in the Flowery Land.
"Now, Hoo-Hung-Hoo had written a book,
In seven volumes, to celebrate
The death of the Emperor's thirteenth cook:
So, being a person whose power was great,
He ordered a herald to indicate
He would blind Too-Hi with a red-hot brand
And marry Sou-Chong at a quarter-past-eight,--
For these things occur in the Flowery Land.
"And the brand was hot, and the lovers shook
In their several shoes, when by lucky fate
A Dragon came, with his tail in a crook,--
A Dragon out of a Nankeen Plate,--
And gobbled the hard-hearted potentate
And all of his servants, and snorted, _and_
Passed on at a super-cyclonic rate,--
For these things occur in the Flowery Land.
"The lovers were wed at an early date,
And lived for the future, I understand,
In one continuous tete-a-tete,--
For these things occur...in the Flowery Land."
Gladys wanted to know: "But what sort of house is a tete-a-tete? Is it
like a palace?"
"It is very often much nicer than a palace," I declared,--"provided of
course you are only stopping over for a week-end."
"And wasn't it odd the Dragon should have come just when he did?"
"Oh, Gladys, Gladys! don't tell me you are a realist."
"No, I'm a precious angel," she composedly responded, with a flavour
of quotation.
"Well! it is precisely the intervention of the Dragon, Gladys, which
proves the story is literature," I announced. "Don't you pity the poor
Dragon, Gladys, who never gets a chance in life and has to live always
between two book-covers?"
She said that couldn't be so, because it would squash him.
"And yet, dear, it is perfectly true," said Mrs. Hardress. The lean
and handsome woman was regarding the pair of us curiously. "I didn't
know you cared for children, Mr. Townsend. Yes, she is my daughter."
She carried Gladys away, without much further speech.
Yet one Parthian comment in leaving me was flung over her shoulder,
snappishly. "I wish you wouldn't imitate John Charteris so. You are
getting to be just a silly copy of him. You are just Jack where he is
John. I think I shall call you Jack."
"I wish you would," I said, "if only because your sponsors happened to
christen you Gillian. So it's a bargain. And now when are we going for
that pail of water?"
Mrs. Hardress wheeled, the child in her arms, so that she was looking
at me, rather queerly, over the little round, yellow head. "And it was
only Jill, as I remember, who got the spanking," she said. "Oh, well!
it always is just Jill who gets the spanking--Jack."
"But it was Jack who broke his crown," said I; "Wasn't it--Jill?" It
seemed a jest at the time. But before long we had made these nicknames
a habit, when just we two were together. And the outcome of it all was
not precisely a jest....
2
She told me not long after this, "When I saw Gladys loved you, of
course I loved you too." And I hereby soberly record the statement
that to have a woman fall thoroughly in love with him is the most
uncomfortable experience which can ever befall any man.
I am tolerably sure I never made any amorous declaration. Rather, it
simply bewildered me to observe the shameless and irrational
infatuation this woman presently bore for me, and before it I was
powerless. When I told her frankly I did not love her, had never loved
her, had no intention of ever loving her, she merely bleated, "You are
cruel!" and wept. When I attempted to restrain her paroxysms of
anguish, she took it as a retraction of what I had told her.
I would then have given anything in the world to be rid of Gillian
Hardress. This led to scenes, and many scenes, and played the very
devil with the progress of my second novel. You cannot write when
anyone insists on sitting in the same room with you, on the irrelevant
plea that she is being perfectly quiet, and therefore is not
disturbing you. Besides, she had no business in my room, and was apt
to get caught there.
3
I remember one of these contentions. She is abominably rouged, and
before me she is grovelling, as she must have seen some actress do
upon the stage.
"Oh, I lied to you," she wailed; "but you are so cruel! Ah, don't be
cruel, Jack!"
Then I lifted the scented woman to her feet, and she stayed
motionless, regarding me. She had really wonderful eyes.
"You are evil," I said, "through and through you are evil, I think,
and I can't help thinking you are a little crazy. But I wish you would
teach me to be as you are, for tonight the hands of my dead father
strain from his grave and clutch about my ankles. He has the right
because it is his flesh I occupy. And I must occupy the body of a
Townsend always. It is not quite the residence I would have chosen--
Eh, well, for all that, I am I! And at bottom I loathe you!"
"You love me!" she breathed.
I thrust her aside and paced the floor. "This is an affair of moment.
I may not condescend to sell, as Faustus did, but of my own volition
must I will to squander or preserve that which is really Robert
Townsend."
I wheeled upon Gillian Hardress, and spoke henceforward with
deliberation. You must remember I was very young as yet.
"I have often regretted that the colour element of vice is so oddly
lacking in our life of to-day. We appear, one and all, to have been
born at an advanced age and with ladylike manners, and we reach our
years of indiscretion very slowly; and meanwhile we learn, too late,
that prolonged adherence to morality trivialises the mind as
hopelessly as a prolonged vice trivialises the countenance. I fear
this has been said by someone else, my too impetuous Jill, and I hope
not, for in that event I might possibly be speaking sensibly, and to
be sensible is a terrible thing and almost as bad as being
intelligible."
"You are not being very intelligible now, sweetheart. But I love to
hear you talk."
"Meanwhile, I am young, and in youth--_il faut des emotions_, as
Blanche Amory is reported to have said, by a novelist named Thackeray,
whose productions are now read in public libraries. Still, for a
respectable and brougham-supporting person, Thackeray came then as
near to speaking the truth as is possible for people of that class. In
youth emotions are necessary. Find me, therefore, a new emotion!"
"So many of them, dear!" she promised.
"I do not love you, understand,--and your husband is my friend, and I
admire him. But I am I! I have endowments, certain faculties which
many men are flattering enough to envy--and I will to make of them a
carpet for your quite unworthy feet. I will to degrade all that in me
is most estimable, and in return I demand a new emotion."
4
Well, but women are queer. There is positively no way of affronting
them, sometimes. She had not even the grace to note that I had taken a
little too much to drink that night.... But over all this part of my
life I prefer to pass as quickly as may be expedient.
5
I remembered, anyway, after Gillian had gone from my room, to write
Bettie Hamlyn a post-card. It was no longer, strictly speaking, the
twenty-third, but considerably after midnight, of course. Still, it
was the writing regularly when I loathed writing letters that counted
with Bettie, I reflected; and virtually I was writing on the twenty-third,
and besides, Bettie would never know.
6
And thereafter Gillian Hardress made almost no concealment of her
feeling toward me, or employed at best the flimsiest of disguises. All
that winter she wrote to me daily, and, when the same roof sheltered
us, would slip the scribblings into my hand at odd moments, but
preferably before her husband's eyes. She demanded an account of every
minute I spent apart from her, and never believed a syllable of my
explanations; and in a sentence, she pestered me to the verge of
distraction.
And always the circumstance which chiefly puzzled me was the host of
men that were infatuated by Gillian Hardress. There was no doubt about
it; she made fools of the staidest, if for no better end than that the
spectacle might amuse me.
"Now you watch me, Jack!" she would say. And I obediently would watch
her wriggling beguilements, and the man's smirking idiocy, with
bewilderment.
For in me her allurements aroused, now, absolutely no sensation save
that of boredom. Often I used to wonder for what reason it seemed
impossible for me, alone, to adore this woman insanely. It would have
been so much more pleasant, all around.
But, I repeat, I wish to have done with this portion of my life as
quickly as may be expedient. I am not particularly proud of it. I
would elide it altogether, were it possible, but as you will presently
see, that is not possible if I am to make myself intelligible. And I
find that the more I write of myself the more I am affected by the
same poor itch for self-exposure which has made Pepys and Casanova and
Rousseau famous, and later feminine diarists notorious.
Were I writing fiction, now, I would make the entire affair more
plausible. As it stands, I am free to concede that this chapter in my
life history rings false throughout, just as any candid record of an
actual occurrence does invariably. It is not at all probable that a
woman so much older than I should have taken possession of me in this
fashion, almost against my will. It is even less probable that her
husband, who was by ordinary absurdly jealous of her, should have
suspected nothing and have been sincerely fond of me.
But then I was only twenty-two, as age went physically, and he looked
upon me as an infant. I was, I think, quite conscientiously childish
with Jasper Hardress. I prattled with him, and he liked it. And so
often, especially when we three were together--say, at luncheon,--I
was teased by an insane impulse to tell him everything, just casually,
and see what he would do.
I think it was the same feeling which so often prompted her to tell
him, in her flighty way, of how profoundly she adored me. I would
wriggle and blush; and Jasper Hardress would laugh and protest that he
adored me too. Or she would expatiate upon this or that personal
feature of mine, or the becomingness of a new cravat, say; and would
demand of her husband if Jack--for so she always called me,--wasn't
the most beautiful boy in the world? And he would laugh and answer
that he thought it very likely.
7
They were Americans, I should have said earlier, but to all intents
they lived abroad, and had done so for years. Hardress's father had
been thoughtful enough to leave him a sufficient fortune to
countenance the indulgence of this or any other whim, so that the
Hardresses divided the year pretty equally between their real home at
Negley and a tiny chateau which they owned near Aix-les-Bains. I
visited them at both places.
It was a pleasant fiction that I came to see Gladys. Regularly, I was
told off to play with her, as being the only other child in the house.
It was rather hideous, for the little girl adored me, and I was
beginning to entertain an odd aversion toward her, as being in a way
responsible for everything. Had Gillian Hardress never found me
cuddling the child, whose sex was visibly a daily aggrievement to
Jasper Hardress, however conscientiously he strove to conceal the
fact,--so that in consequence "I have to love my precious lamb for
two, Jack,"--Gillian would never, I think, have distinguished me from
the many other men who, so lightly, tendered a host of gallant
speeches.... But I never fathomed Gillian Hardress, beyond learning
very early in our acquaintance that she rarely told me the truth about
anything.
Also I should have said that Hardress cordially detested Charteris,
just as Bettie Hamlyn did, because for some reason he suspected the
little novelist of being in love with Hardress's wife. I do not know;
but I imagine Charteris had made advances to her, in his own ambiguous
fashion, as he was apt to do, barring strenuous discouragement, to
every passably handsome woman he was left alone with. I do know he
made love to her a little later.
Hardress distrusted a number of other men, for precisely the same
reason. Heaven only is familiar with what grounds he had. I merely
know that Gillian Hardress loathed John Charteris; she was jealous of
his influence over me. But me her husband never distrusted. I was only
an amusing and ingenuous child of twenty-two, and not for a moment did
it occur to him that I might be in love with his wife.
Indeed, I believe upon reflection that he was in the right. I think I
never was.
8
"Yes," I said, "I am to meet the Charterises in Genoa. Yes, it is
rather sudden. I am off to-morrow. I shall not see you dear good
people for some time, I fancy...."
When Hardress had gone the woman said in a stifled voice: "No, I will
not dance. Take me somewhere--there is a winter-garden, I know--"
"No, Jill," said I, with decision. "It's no use. I am really going. We
will not argue it."
Gillian Hardress watched the dancers for a moment, as with languid
interest. "You fear that I am going to make a scene. Well! I can't.
You have selected your torture chamber too carefully. Oh, after all
that's been between us, to tell me here, to my husband's face, in the
presence of some three hundred people, without a moment's warning,
that you are 'off to-morrow!' It--it is for good, isn't it?"
"Yes," I said. "It had to be--some time, you know."
"No, don't look at me. Watch the dancing, I will fan myself and seem
bored. No, I shall not do anything rash."
I was uncomfortable. Yet at bottom it was the theatric value of this
scene which impressed me,--the gaiety and the brilliance on every side
of her misery. And I did not look at her. I did just as she ordered
me.
"I was proud once. I haven't any pride now. You say you must leave me.
Oh, dearest boy, if you only knew how unhappy I will be without you,
you could not leave me. Sweetheart, you must know how I love you. I
long every minute to be with you, and to see you even at a distance is
a pleasure. I know it is not right for me to ask or expect you to love
me always, but it seems so hard."
"It's no use, Jill--"
"Is it another woman? I won't mind. I won't be jealous. I won't make
scenes, for I know you hate scenes, and I have made so many. It was
because I cared so much. I never cared before, Jack. You have tired of
me, I know. I have seen it coming. Well, you shall have your way in
everything. But don't leave me, dear! oh, my dear, my dear, don't
leave me! Oh, I have given you everything, and I ask so little in
return--just to see you sometimes, just to touch your hand sometimes,
as the merest stranger might do...."
So her voice went on and on while I did not look at her. There was no
passion in this voice of any kind. It was just the long monotonous
wail of some hurt animal.... They were playing the _Valse Bleu_, I
remember. It lasted a great many centuries, and always that low voice
was pleading with me. Yes, it was uncommonly unpleasant; but always at
the back of my mind some being that was not I was taking notes as to
precisely how I felt, because some day they might be useful, for the
book I had already outlined. "It is no use, Jill," I kept repeating,
doggedly.
Then Armitage came smirking for his dance. Gillian Hardress rose, and
her fan shut like a pistol-shot. She was all in black, and throughout
that moment she was more beautiful than any other woman I have ever
seen.
"Yes, this is our dance," she said, brightly. "I thought you had
forgotten me, Mr. Armitage. Well! good-bye, Mr. Townsend. Our little
talk has been very interesting--hasn't it? Oh, this dress _always_
gets in my way--"
She was gone. I felt that I had managed affairs rather crudely, but it
was the least unpleasant way out, and I simply had not dared to trust
myself alone with her. So I made the best of an ill bargain, and
remodeled the episode more artistically when I used it later, in
_Afield_.
11.
_He Postures Among Chimney-Pots_
I met the Charterises in Genoa, just as I had planned. Anne's first
exclamation was, "Heavens, child, how dissipated you look! I would
scarcely have known you."
Charteris said nothing. But he and I lunched at the Isotta the
following day, and at the conclusion of the meal the little man leaned
back and lighted a cigarette.
"You must overlook my wife's unfortunate tendency toward the most
unamiable of virtues. But, after all, you are clamantly not quite the
boy I left at Liverpool last October. Where are your Hardresses now?"
"In London for the season. And why is your wife rushing on to Paris,
John?"
"Shopping, as usual. Yes, I believe I did suggest it was as well to
have it over and done with. Anne is very partial to truisms. Besides,
she has an aunt there, you know. Take my advice, and always marry a
woman who is abundantly furnished with attractive and visitable
relations, for this precaution is the true secret of every happy
marriage. We may, then, regard the Hardress incident as closed?"
"Oh, Lord, yes!" said I, emphatically.
"Well, after all, you have been sponging off them for a full year. The
adjective is not ill-chosen, from what I hear. I fancy Mrs. Hardress
has found you better company after she had mixed a few drinks for you,
and so--But a truce to moral reflections! for I am desirous once more
to hear the chimes at midnight. I hear Francine is in Milan?"
"There is at any rate in Milan," said I, "a magnificent Gothic
Cathedral of international reputation; and upon the upper gallery of
its tower, as my guidebook informs me, there is a watchman with an
efficient telescope. Should I fail to meet that watchman, John, I would
feel that I had lived futilely. For I want both to view with him the
Lombard plain, and to ask him his opinion of Cino da Pistoia, and as to
what was in reality the middle name of Cain's wife."
2
Francine proved cordial; but John Charteris was ever fickle, and not
long afterward an Italian countess, classic in feature, but in coloring
smacking of an artistic renaissance, had drawn us both to Switzerland,
and thence to Liege. It was great fun, knocking about the Continent
with John, for he knew exactly how to order a dinner, and spoke I don't
know how many languages, and seemed familiar with every side-street and
back-alley in Europe. For myself, my French as acquired in Fairhaven
appeared to be understood by everybody, but in replying very few of the
natives could speak their own foolish language comprehensibly. I could
rarely make head or tail out of what they were jabbering about.
I was alone that evening, because Annette's husband had turned up
unexpectedly; and Charteris had gone again to hear Nadine Neroni, the
new prima donna, concerning whom he and his enameled Italian friend
raved tediously. But I never greatly cared for music; besides, the
opera that night was _Faust_; the last act of which in particular, when
three persons align before the footlights and scream at the top of
their voices, for a good half hour, about how important it is not to
disturb anybody, I have never been able to regard quite seriously.
So I was spending this evening sedately in my own apartments at the
Continental; and meanwhile I lisped in numbers that (or I flattered
myself) had a Homeric tang; and at times chewed the end of my pencil
meditatively. "From present indications," I was considering, "that
Russian woman is cooking something on her chafing-dish again. It
usually affects them that way about dawn."
I began on the next verse viciously, and came a cropper over the clash
of two sibilants, as the distant clamour increased. "Brutes!" said I,
disapprovingly. "Sere, clear, dear--Now they have finished, '_Jamais,
monsieur_', and begun crying, 'Fire!' Oh, this would draw more than
three souls out of a weaver, you know! Mere, near, hemisphere--no, but
the Greeks thought it was flat. By Jove! I do smell smoke!"
Wrapping my dressing-gown about me--I had afterward reason to thank the
kindly fates that it was the green one with the white fleurs-de-lis,
and not my customary, unspeakably disreputable bath-robe, scorched by
the cigarette ashes of years,--I approached the door and peeped out
into the empty hotel corridor. The incandescent lights glimmered mildly
through a gray haze which was acrid and choking to breathe; little
puffs of smoke crept lazily out of the lift-shaft just opposite; and
down-stairs all Liége was shouting incoherently, and dragging about the
heavier pieces of hotel furniture.