CHAPTER XVI
THE NINE DAYS ENDED
YOU'RE just in time to prevent Hoskins from undermining my taste in dress," said Drewitt, who, garbed in a wonderful silk dressing-gown of an eccentric pattern of black and white, was lolling back in a chair.
Beresford had arranged to pick him up on his way to keep the luncheon engagement with Lola.
Hoskins smiled with a deprecating air that plainly said, "You know his lordship's little way, sir!"
"He wants me to wear this tie," holding out a black poplin tie with white spots, "with these trousers," indicating the trousers he was wearing, black with thin white perpendicular lines.
"Well, why not?" enquired Beresford.
"There are some men," said Drewitt, looking reproachfully at Beresford, "so supremely oblivious of their social obligations as to be capable of wearing spotted trousers with a striped tie. You see, Hoskins," he continued, turning to his man, "I'm to meet Mr. Deacon Quelch, who is psychic. Now it's impossible to tell what might be the effect of a sartorial indiscretion upon a highly psychic mentality. You follow me?"
"Not exactly, my lord."
"There must be much comfort in a pose," said Beresford.
Drewitt took a cigarette from the box, lit it, smiling at his cousin over the flame.
"Realities are uncomfortable bedfellows, Richard," he remarked. "Have you ever studied the night-side of London?"
"A bit," acknowledged Beresford.
"Can you imagine what it would be on lemonade and dry ginger-ale?"
"So your pose is to you what alcohol is to vice?"
"My finished demeanour as a man of the world," corrected Drewitt, "is to me what drink is to immorality. It prevents me from getting tired of myself. And now for Mr. Deacon Quelch." He passed out of the room, reappearing a few minutes later ready for calling.
"Now, Richard, I am, as good old Sir Thomas says, 'ready to be anything in the ecstacy of being ever.' I hope you are always careful in crossing the road," he said, as he took the hat and stick Hoskins handed to him.
"Crossing the road, my lord?"
"I mean that you take no undue risks. Remember, Hoskins, your life is not your own. It is inextricably linked up with my destiny, the link being your coffee. Now, Richard, I am at your service."
As they were about to enter the Belle Vue, they were conscious of a strange figure just in front of them.
"Mr. Deacon Quelch," murmured Drewitt, in a low voice.
Beresford nodded, and they entered just behind Mr. Quelch.
As they waited while their names were taken up, Beresford and Drewitt sat watching the figure of their fellow-guest. He was a curiously furtive-looking creature, rather above middle height, with bulgy boots, baggy trousers and a shapeless frock-coat. On his head he wore a top-hat that had worn itself to a frenzy of despair, its glossiness no longer amenable to anything but liquid persuasion. His tie was a voluminous dab of black, and his waistcoat a combination of green and purple, with a broad, black braid border. His cuffs started forward hysterically from the sleeves of his coat, and had obviously to be kept in place by the wrists being carried at a definite angle. He looked hungry and obsequious. Apparently he did not remember Drewitt, as he made no sign of recognition.
A flurry of skirts and a stream of talk announced the arrival of Mrs. Crisp. Lola followed a few paces behind.
"Ah! here you are. All arrived together. Dear Mr. Quelch. How charming of you to come. Lord Drewitt, and Mr. Berry. Lord Drewitt, Mr. Deacon Quelch. You ought to know each other. How stupid of me, you've met." She trailed off into a string of interjections; Drewitt and Beresford turned to greet Lola, and the party walked towards the dining-room.
Lola's frock reminded Beresford of the dense plumes of smoke from the chimney of a newly-stoked furnace. A touch of colour was supplied by a row of orange beads round her neck. Her movements, the carriage of her head, her general bearing were
"And how is your chest, Mr. Berry?" Mrs. Crisp suddenly turned her jet upon Beresford. "Have you tried camphorated-oil? So good for a cold. I always use it, and liquorice too. Rubbed in night and morning. Oil, I mean, not the liquorice. We've missed her so much, haven't we, Mr. Quelch. Yes, you sit there and you here, Lord Drewitt," indicating the seat next to Lola, "and you next to Lola, Mr. Berry."
"Why will people make life ugly with camphor, eucalyptus and peppermint?" said Lola to Beresford with a moue of disgust.
"And flannelette," interpolated Drewitt. "I had a great-aunt who spent half her money and all her time in making flannelette garments for harmless negroes. It's such an impertinence."
"Are you serious?" asked Lola, turning to him doubtfully.
"The negroes were," said Drewitt. "I believe those garments produced a revolution."
"You are laughing at me," she said reproachfully.
"To place flannelette garments upon limbs that hitherto have been gloriously free is," continued Drewitt, "as bad as"
"I see," she laughed.
Beresford took little part in the conversation. He was accustomed to having Lola to himself, and found it difficult to reconcile himself to sharing her with others. Mrs. Crisp fascinated him. He had never met any one of such undammable loquacity. Words streamed from her lips as water from a hose. A chance word would send her off at a tangent. Sometimes he found it difficult to control his features as, in her haste, she occasionally transposed the initial letters of two words, as, for instance, when complaining of the off-hand manner of one of the porters, instead of describing him as she intended as "nearly rude," she informed Drewitt that he was "really nude."
"You must come to one of our séances," she cried to Drewitt. "I've never known any one like Mr. Quelch, so psychic."
Drewitt screwed his monocle into his eye and gazed at Mr. Quelch with grave interest, as if he had been a specimen of some unknown fauna. Mr. Quelch fidgeted under the scrutiny as, by a dexterous movement of the backs of his hands, he readjusted his cuffs, which had slipped down.
"Are you interested in psychical research?" enquired Lola, looking from Beresford to Drewitt.
"I'm afraid," said Drewitt, "that I'm too pre-occupied with the substance of this world to have time for the shadow of the next."
"But think, Lord Drewitt," cried Mrs. Crisp, "you can talk to all your friends who have passed over. Only the other night my dear sister came. She was drowned. It was such a comfort. So fond of the water. She was quite a famous digh-hiver. So embarrassing, you know. The costume I mean. I should blush all over."
"I am afraid I could not take the risk," said Drewitt. "One is at such disadvantage with a spirit. Fortunately in this world people have the grace to say behind your back what a spirit would most likely say to your face."
Mr. Quelch shook his head dolefully, as he laid his black moustache affectionately upon a spoonful of white soup.
As Lola continued to chat with Drewitt, Beresford found his thoughts slipping back to the days at Folkestone. She seemed so different here from the gay, irresponsible girl he had known during the last three or four days of their stay.
"Suicide is a harsh name for a disinclination to wear something that we have grown out of," he heard Drewitt say.
He looked across. Drewitt was toying with a saltspoon, whilst Lola was engaged in crumbling a piece of bread between her fingers.
"Such a dreadful thing, suicide," burst in Mrs. Crisp. "A man died in my bath at Brighton. At least, the bath I used. Thrut his coat one morning. So thoughtless for others. Some people read in them. So bad for the books, and they are so cross at the libraries if there is a page or two missing." She turned to Mr. Quelch and proceeded to spray him.
"But surely you don't think we have a right to take our own lives?" asked Lola, turning to Drewitt.
"If any one gave you a hat that didn't suit you, would you wear it?" enquired Drewitt.
"Noooooo," she said hesitatingly.
"Then why should you continue to wear the mantle of existence when it doesn't fit?"
"But life is so different," she protested. "It's not ours to dispose of."
"Suppose Richard put a rhinoceros In your bath-room, would you hesitate to have it removed because it was not yours to dispose of?" Drewitt looked at her with a smile.
"How absurd," she laughed.
"That," said Drewitt, "is a feminine confession of defeat."
"Schopenhauer says that when the sum total of misery exceeds the sum total of happiness suicide is inevitable," said Beresford, who had been listening with interest to Drewitt's exposition on the ethics of suicide.
"Never quote Schopenhauer to a woman, Richard," said Drewitt. "If she's heard of him she doesn't like him; if she hasn't heard of him she won't know whether he's a Bolshevist or a German helmet."
"But," said Beresford, turning to Lola, "do you mean that when a man sees all that he most desires in life quite out of his reach, that he must go on making the best of things?"
"Certainly," said Lola, with decision. "He should try and win what he wants, work for it."
"Do you see that little waiter over there?" asked Drewitt, indicating a curious little man with bulging eyes and a receding chin.
Lola nodded.
"Suppose he were to fall violently in love with you, Miss Craven," he continued. "Suppose that you became absolutely necessary to him, and inspired his every thought and action. He saw you in every soup-plate, you got mixed up with the fish, flavoured the entrée, crept into the roast. Suppose he were prepared to become a Napoleon of waiters for your sake. What"
"Oh! but that is so absurd," she laughed.
"But just now you said that a man must try and win what he wants."
"Oh, but I didn't mean" she paused.
"When you make a statement," smiled Drewitt, "you must always be prepared to have it carried to its logical conclusion. The waiter is the logical conclusion of your statement, that all have a right to aspire to any and everything."
"But we have rather wandered away from suicide," suggested Beresford.
"On the contrary we are now approaching it," continued Drewitt. "The little waiter spends every moment that is not occupied in collecting tips in showing his devotion to you, and endeavouring to obtain the object of his desires, your hand, Miss Craven. Life has ceased to mean anything to him without you. You follow me?"
"I don't," she confessed. "I feel absolutely giddy."
"There are only two courses open to the waiter: one is to gain his ends, the other is to fail to gain his ends. If he fails, then you would deny him the soothing alternative of suicide."
Beresford waited eagerly for her reply; but Mrs. Crisp burst in upon them.
"I've just remembered," she cried; "it was at Bournemouth, not Brighton. So relaxing. It was the year that girl ran away with a man in a car over a cliff. So romantic."
"I wonder why you always speak as if nothing mattered," said Lola, looking up at Drewitt, her head slightly on one side, her eyebrows puckered.
"Do I?" He gave her a friendly little smile that he kept for his particular friends and intimates. "Perhaps it's because I'm devoid of romance."
"But are you?" she asked seriously.
"When I read Malory or Froissart I endeavour to picture myself touring the country on a cart-horse with a long pole, like an exaggerated boy scout, engaged in the rescue of forlorn maidens and the destruction of fire-eating dragons. I confess I cannot see myself doing it."
"But you approach everything from the ridiculous aspect," she said smiling. "Those stories always thrill me."
"Because you don't see their artificiality," he replied. "You see only the handsome and gallant knight seated on a swift charger, risking his life; but when you remember that knights were sometimes plain, that their horses were heavy, lumbering creatures, and that their combats were no more deadly than a football-match or a glove-fight"
"Please don't," she laughed. "You would strip romance from a honeymoon."
"To me a honeymoon is as unromantic as a German dinner," continued Drewitt. "It's the stripping of the tinsel from the idol. It is intimacy that ruins marriage, intimacy and carelessness."
"Carelessness?" she queried.
"Yes," replied Drewitt, polishing his monocle with great care. "I've heard of men selecting for a honeymoon a place that involved a sea voyage. The risk is criminal."
"I wish I weren't so stupid," she said in mock despair. "What risk?"
"The risk of your adored one having a queasy stomach."
"Oh, please don't," she protested. "What a dreadful expression."
"As the boat gets further from land, the beloved grows greener and greener, until at last she makes a bolt"
"Stop ! Oh, please, stop!" cried Lola.
"I'm sorry if I have undermined your belief in the romantic," said Drewitt, "but there are certain facts in life that must be faced."
"I'm afraid you'll never see a woman with a lover's eyes."
"On the contrary," he replied, "I should see her always with a lover's eyes. In an east wind, I should resent the redness of her nose, in the summer, the flaming patch on the front of her chest, symbolical of the kisses of June. Imagine, Miss Craven, what must be the feelings of a Romeo when he discovers that his Juliet has a bilious attack, or the agony of a Pelléas when he finds that Mélisande wears false teeth, or again, think of the emotion of an Abelard on hearing that Héloise has chilblains."
Lola laughed; but before she had time to speak Mrs. Crisp broke in
"Such dreadful things, Lord Drewitt. I have them in the winter. Mr. Quelch has them also. Don't you, Mr. Quelch? I've tried everything. They're really most painful. Somebody once told me it was eating too much meat. And it's so difficult to get. I believe vegetarians never have them."
"Vegetarians never have anything, Mrs. Crisp," said Drewitt, "except babies, shapeless clothing, and garden-cities."
Mrs. Crisp laughed. Her laugh was a thing of startling suddenness. Half closing her eyes and depressing her brows, she gave the impression of one about to burst into tears. Beresford dreaded her amusement; it was so depressing in its expression.
"Do you believe in romance, Mr. Quelch?" enquired Lola, looking across at the medium, who had been singularly quiet throughout the meal, devoting himself to the more serious occupation of eating.
Mr. Quelch shook a gloomy head.
"There is no romance in heaven," said Drewitt. "That is why marriages are made there."
"Romance as you understand it," said Mr. Quelch, looking at Lola. "No; the great romance is on the Other Side."
"The shady side," suggested Drewitt; but Mr. Quelch again shook his head with an air of settled gloom, as he proceeded to attack the pêche Melba before him.
"Oh, dear!" said Lola, "everybody seems to be either gloomy or cynical. There's auntie and Mr. Quelch half in the other world, and Lord Drewitt and Mr. Beresford trying to prick every bubble in this. Poor me," she cried in simulated despair. "I feel like a child who sees its toys being destroyed before its very eyes. You make me feel I shall never have a beautiful idea or feeling again."
"My dear Miss Craven," said Mr. Quelch, swallowing a lump of ice in such haste that his Adam's apple darted about wildly, "my dear Miss Craven."
Drewitt gazed across at Mr. Quelch, who had once more become engrossed with his pêche Melba.
Beresford pictured Mr. Quelch dashing after Lola on the sands at Folkestone as he had done a few days previously. He smiled.
"Why are you smiling, Mr. Beresford?" she asked. "Won't you share the joke with us?"
"Richard is a joke unto himself," said Drewitt, unconsciously coming to the rescue. "He's the only ass in London who is conscious of his ears. Aren't you, Richard?"
"You speak as if you were really fond of the species," she smiled.
"I suppose I am," admitted Drewitt. "I always have to stop and rub the muzzle of a donkey whenever I see one."
A moment later she turned to Beresford and murmured,
"I think it must run in the family; don't you remember the other day you wanted to rub my muzzle?"
"Rub your muzzle!" he repeated, as if not quite sure that he had heard correctly.
"Yes," she laughed. "When I said I was glad I was not a cow."
Before Beresford had time to reply they were drawn once more into the general conversation.
"We'll take coffee in the ginter-warden," cried Mrs. Crisp. "So pleasant. I love music. You must come and talk to me, Mr. Berry. I've seen nothing of you. Now, Mr. Quelch."
Once in the winter-garden, Mrs. Crisp seemed to forget her desire to converse with Beresford, who sat watching the others talk. Lola made several ineffectual efforts to draw him into the conversation; but Mrs. Crisp continued to ignore him, devoting herself to Drewitt and Mr. Quelch.
A sudden hush in the talk seemed to remind her of Beresford's presence. She moved over to where he sat.
"I've just been scolding Lola," she said, lowering her voice and with an artificial smile; "so indiscreet of her. Most indiscreet. What must they have thought at the hotel. I'm very cross with her. She should have come back at once. Poor Miss Brock. Such a great sufferer. She has it so badly in her legs."
What it was that Miss Brock had so badly in her legs Beresford was not to know, as Mrs. Crisp broke off to fire a short burst at Mr. Quelch. A moment later she turned once more to Beresford.
"And I blame you, Mr. Berry." Again Mrs. Crisp turned upon him an automatic smile of immaculate dentistry. "You should have sent her home. She's so wrong-stilled. What must the servants have thought? And the papers? Such odious people. Journalists, I mean. I hope she didn't bathe."
"I'm sure" began Beresford, his head in a whirl.
"So dreadful," she continued without waiting for a reply. "So lacking in refinement. You never know when there's a tan with a melescope. Odious creatures. I'm sure the Queen would disapprove. I'm told they sit there all day. The men with the telescopes, I mean. So sweet and gentle. Such a mother. Fancy bathing with strange men. She ought to have been more careful. Lola, I mean."
"But," interpolated Beresford, "Miss Craven didn't bathe."
"I mean staying down there with you. Mr. Quelch was shocked. I hardly liked to tell him. He's so sensitive. I remember once" Mrs. Crisp was interrupted in her reminiscences by Drewitt rising to go. She turned upon him full of regrets, gush and assurances that she was certain he was psychic.
As he was shaking hands with Lola, Beresford managed to tell her that he felt a relapse coming on, and asked if she would spare him an hour or two.
She shook her head, a little sadly, he thought.
"I'm in disgrace," she pouted, "and I must be nice to auntie to make up for Folkestone." She gave him a mischievous glance. "I've been having such a lecture on the proprieties."
That was all. No word of when he was to see her.
"I don't know which I most dislike about Mr. Quelch," said Drewitt, as they passed down the steps of the Belle Vue, "his name, his moustache, or his accent. I like cockneys; but not in frock-coats," he added.
Beresford smiled vaguely; but made no reply.
"I wonder," continued Drewitt, as they walked down Piccadilly, "why it is that all men with generous moustaches seem to have a passion for thick soup." Then after a pause he added, "Those with dark moustaches apparently prefer white soups, whilst those with light moustaches select the darker fluids. It's interesting."
But Beresford was not listening. He was thinking of the void he had just discovered in his life. Hitherto he had been aware that the end was inevitable; but without actually visualising it. He had frequently thought about the time when everything would be—well, ended; yet somehow he seemed now to realise for the first time facts as they were. This, then, was the end. Folkestone had been just an episode, a nine days' wonder. She
"That's the third time you have failed in your social duty, Richard," said Drewitt, reproachfully, as he lifted his hat. "That was Lady Peggy Bristowe."
"Damn Lady Peggy Bristowe!" snapped Beresford petulantly.
"Certainly, if you wish it;" and Drewitt relapsed into silence.
"I'm sorry, Drew," said Beresford with a laugh.
"I was afraid she might not approve of you, Dickie," said Drewitt, in a tone that caused Beresford to look at him sharply.
"She! Who?"
"The aunt," was the reply. "Aunts are the very devil; camels are love-birds in comparison," he added as he hailed a taxi. "Now I'll leave you. I've promised Bowen to explain to Lady Peter why vegetarianism seems to encourage polygamous instincts among its votaries," and with a wave of his hand Drewitt entered a taxi and drove off.
Yes, that was it, Beresford mused as he continued down Piccadilly. Mrs. Crisp disapproved of him and he was to be dropped—he was being dropped. Had not Lola refused to see him? Had not Mrs. Crisp's attitude been entirely devoid of cordiality? Had not? It was all over. He had been a fool to come back to London. He should have turned resolutely to the open road, and have tried to forget her. It was all due to that idiotic something in him that he had never been able quite to analyse nor understand. Anyway, it was too late now. After all, what did it matter?
He walked on aimlessly, following the path of the least resistance. When at last he looked about, he found himself in unaccustomed surroundings. On asking where he was of a tired little man in a still more weary-looking frock-coat, he was told Pimlico. The man regarded him curiously, as if to be in Pimlico without knowing it were unusual. It seemed to take Beresford quite a long time to disembarrass himself of Pimlico, and to reach a spot near Victoria Station where he found an empty taxi.
Late into that night he sat, before him a sheet of paper on which were written a few figures. He was face to face with a problem—THE problem. There was still a week or two left, however, he decided, as he knocked the ashes out of his pipe and prepared for bed.