Fancies and Goodnights Part 20

I went into the Den. Snug little cubbyhole. Mixed myself a peg. "Hullo! What's this? Poetry's getting stronger!" Had a good look round; caught sight of my mustache in the looking gla.s.s. "Wicked mustache, eh?" That was the word. Gave it a pat. "Well," I said, "d.a.m.n it!" Very nearly burst out laughing.

In she came with the tea. Ten minutes past five; the moment my life changed completely. Here had I been going about with a streak of poetry all my life; this was the woman it was meant for. Woman, did I say? Little more than a girl. Slip of a girl. Yet, mind you, a touch of the G.o.ddess.

I was down. I was out. "Jack," I said, "You're done for." Talk about poetry - I tell you I saw that girl, nude, on a beach, in a sort of dawn. The impression was overwhelming. Do you know what I very nearly said? I very nearly said, "Look here, my dear! Bathing costume, please! Might be trippers about."

Of course I said nothing of the sort. But I looked it. She seemed to understand. You know what I mean. G.o.ddess - all very well. Mustache - all very well. But if a woman doesn't understand a man, and if a man doesn't understand a woman, there isn't much in it, is there? Still, she seemed to. If it wasn't for these b.l.o.o.d.y Bolsheviks --- Anyway, there I was, sparring for time, fighting like a madman to get on my feet, face up to it, grip the controls, anything. I said, "What's your name?" She said, "Gladys."

After that neither of us said anything for a while. There we were.

Then she said, "Please, sir, shall I pour out your tea?"

I said, "Yes. Always." Just that, you see? Nothing about the beach. Nothing about anything. Just "Always."

And all she said was, "Very well, sir."

You see the delicacy? I thought, "That girl's got breeding." I'm the true democrat, you see. Or was, rather. I thought, "There was some young dog of a subaltern hovering round the cottage where you were born, my dear." But I didn't say so, naturally. Might have been someone in the Diplomatic, anyway. "Very well, sir."

That was all. She went out. Went up to her little room, I expect. I was left alone, staring at the fire, like a fellow in a play.

I heard Adela going upstairs. "Good G.o.d," I thought, "there's Adela!" I'd forgotten her. "And the kids!" Clean, decent youngsters. "G.o.d," I thought, "there's the Carrington-Joneses, too!" b.i.t.c.h of a woman. Tongue like a Gurkha's kukri. I thought of the old General, over at Lucknow Grange; dear old boy! Thought of the regiment; young chaps in the mess, keen as mustard, lead 'em to h.e.l.l and back. What would they say? Thought of my round in eighty. Thought of a fellow called Uglow. Met him one day in the bar of the Chutna Club. Never saw him again. Don't know why I thought of him.

But Adela was in my thoughts all the time, dodging in and out among the others. Then there was a sort of mirage, only not upside down, of this little G.o.ddess, on a beach, as it were. Pretty hard to concentrate.

Shall I tell you the words that came into my mind then? "Play the game!" Woman's heart broken, life ruined, old campaigner like Adela. No! Thought of the day we found a snake in the bed up at Chundrapore. That's another story. Still, it's a link, you know, that sort of thing. Only what's a snake against a G.o.ddess? If it wasn't for these blasted agitators --- I did my best. I ignored her all Sunday. Monday morning I came out into the hall. There she was, sweeping the stairs. With a dustpan and broom. You know what I mean. I found Adela in the drawing-room. I said, "Adela, I've got to go up to town. I've got to see Doggie Weaver."

She saw something was up. When I'm in a tight place I like to see Doggie Weaver. Been in tight places together. "You go," she said. "Come back on the eight-forty-five." I said, "All right, I will."

So I went up to town. I saw Doggie. I told him everything. I said, "I've got to choose. And I can't face it." He said, "I advise a compromise." I said, "What?" He gave a sort of wink. He said, "Least said, soonest mended." I said, "What?" He said, "What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't grieve for." I said, "Doggie, you and I have been in some tight places. Now I think you're a dirty rotten cynic. You don't know what a good woman is, and I wish I'd never been in a single tight place with you."

So I went out. Then I thought of Piggy Hawkins. Can't say he was ever the most popular man in our mess; still I had an idea Piggy was all right - a sort of intuition. I looked him up. I told him everything. "Jack," he said, "there's nothing for it. There it is - as clear as daylight. You've got to play the game."

You see? The very words I'd said to myself. So I knew he was right. I shook hands with him. I said, "Piggy, we've never been in very many tight places together, but if ever I'm in a tight place again, I hope you'll be there beside me."

I went back. I had another look at her, just to make sure. I called Adela into the Den. I said, "Adela, keep a stiff upper lip. You're a soldier's daughter."

She said, "Yes, Jack. A soldier's wife, too."

I said, "Well, yes. Up to the present."

She said, "Don't tell me it's another woman."

I said, "I won't. It's a G.o.ddess."

She said, "I see. Now I'm just the mother of a couple of soldier's children."

I said, "Clean, decent kids, Adela. Keen as a couple of well-bred, sporting terriers."

She said, "Yes, clean. I must have them, Jack. I'll keep them - clean."

I said, "Take them, Adela."

She said, "Keep a stiff upper lip, Jack. They've got to have the right sort of school."

I said, "Yes, Adela."

She said, "And the right sort of home to come home to. The right sort of mother, too. Do you know what they call me?" she said. And she almost broke down as she said it. "They call me their 'lovely mother.' I can't be a 'lovely mother,' Jack, in a ragged old last-season's frock, can I?"

I said, "All right. I want nothing. I shall be living at Waikiki or somewhere. On a beach."

She said, "You must have your baccy, Jack." The way she said it - I almost broke down myself.

Then, of course, there was her family, and her lawyers, and resigning from everything, and being cut, and the Carrington-Joneses - b.i.t.c.h of a woman - everything. I kept a stiff upper lip, signed everything, never said a word, kept my eyes to myself in the house - didn't want to drag the little G.o.ddess into it. Time enough for that when we got to Waikiki or wherever it was.

In the end they took all the furniture out. There I was with my polo cup and a bag of golf clubs in the old Den. Never mind - off to Waikiki or somewhere before you could say knife. d.a.m.n these reptiles from Moscow - they're un-English.

I called for Gladys. She came in. I gave her a look. Suddenly the words burst out of me. Did you ever see a light drumfire barrage moving briskly forward in advance of a battalion of the best men G.o.d ever made? That's how it sounded to me.

"Here I am," I said. "Take me. Play with my mustache. Cut it off if you like. It's yours. So's all the rest of me."

She said, "What?"

I said, "I've given it up. Everything. Adela. Children. The old General - dear old boy, but never mind. Carrington-Joneses. Cheltenham. Club. Regiment. Money. Even a fellow called Uglow - met him in the Chutna Club - nevermind him, either. I'm yours. I saw you, nude, on a beach - dawn, everything. Get your hat on, Gladys. We're going into that dawn. We're going to find that beach. Not a tripper for miles!"

She looked at me. Of course I knew she'd be surprised. Hadn't liked to say anything, not while Adela was in the house. Kept it clean, you know. Still, there was that word "Always." And "Very well, sir."

I thought she was going to say it again. Going to say it, not as she'd said it before, like a mouse talking out of a hole with all the cats of wealth, rank, station, convention, and G.o.d knows what prowling about the room, if you know what I mean, but loudly, triumphantly, and with a sort of spring at the end of it.

She was loud enough. Did you ever see a buzz bomb go off? With some poor fellow under it? That's how it seemed to me. I thought, "Jack, you're knocked out. You're done for." I looked round. She was gone.

I saw what it was. They'd been at her. The sc.u.m! From Moscow. The blasted agitators. The cursed Reds. n.o.body's too young for 'em, or too pure. d.a.m.n it, they're in the Sunday schools - everywhere. G.o.ddess - what's that to them? Eyes, little ears, everything - they don't give a d.a.m.n. Cla.s.s against cla.s.s, that's their motto. Cla.s.s hatred. Cla.s.s war.

THE DEVIL GEORGE AND ROSIE.

There was a young man who was invariably spurned by the girls, not because he smelt at all bad, but because he happened to be as ugly as a monkey. He had a good heart, but this soured it, and though he would grudgingly admit that the female kind were very agreeable in shape, size, and texture, he thought that in all other respects they were the most stupid, blind, perverse, and ill-natured b.i.t.c.hes that had ever infested the earth.

He expressed this view very forcefully, and on all possible occasions. One evening he was holding forth to a circle of his cronies: it was in the Horseshoe Bar, at the bottom of the Tottenham Court Road. He could not help noticing that his remarks attracted the interest of a smart and saturnine individual seated at the next table, who had the rather repulsive look of a detective dressed up in evening clothes for the purpose of spying on a night-club.

Our friend was in no wise abashed by this scrutiny, but continued to say exactly what girls were, and what they did whenever they got the chance. He, who had least evidence for it of any man in the world, seemed to think they were unduly inclined to lasciviousness. "Or else," said he, "in the other extreme, they are mercenary prudes, or s.a.d.i.s.tical Dianas, whose delight it is to kindle the fires of h.e.l.l in a man's bosom and elsewhere, and triumphantly to describe his agonies to their little friends. I speak of the fires of h.e.l.l - I wish they existed in reality, so that these harpies and teasers might be sent there, and I myself would go willingly, if only I could watch them frizzle and fry."

With that, he got up and went home. You may imagine his astonishment, when he had climbed the high stairs to his poor student's room, to find the dark and cynical stranger, who had been watching him in the bar, now standing very much at his ease upon the hearth-rug. At the very first glance, he realized this was none other than the Devil himself, in whom for many years he had had no belief at all. "I cannot easily describe," said that worthy, with the easy air of a man of the world, "the pleasure it gives me to meet one of such insight and intelligence as Mr. George Postlethwaite."

George made several sorts of protest, but the Devil smiled and bowed like an amba.s.sador. In the end he had b.u.t.tered up George to some effect, and carried him off to supper in a little restaurant in Jermyn Street. It must be admitted, he stood a superb bottle of wine.

"I was vastly intrigued," said he, "by the views I heard you expressing earlier this evening. Possibly, of course, they were born of a mere pa.s.sing petulance, pique, wounded vanity - call it what you will?"

"The devil take me if they were!" cried George.

"Splendid!" said his companion. "We are getting on like a house on fire. Now, my dear chap, my little difficulty is this. The domain over which I have the honour and pleasure to preside was designed originally on the most ample scale, but, nevertheless, certain recent tendencies are fast rendering its confines too narrow, and its supervision too onerous, for one who is not as young as he was."

"Sorry to hear that," said George.

"I could cope with the increase of the population of this planet," said the Devil. "I might have coped even with the emanc.i.p.ation of women. But unfortunately the two are connected, and form a vicious circle -"

"I see exactly what you mean," said George.

"I wish I had never invented that particular sin," said the Devil. "I do indeed. There are a thousand million women in the world at this moment, and, with one or two negligible exceptions, every single one of them is d.a.m.ned."

"Fine!" said George.

"Very fine indeed," said the Devil, "from the artistic point of view. But consider the pressure on s.p.a.ce, and the ceaseless strain of organization."

"Squeeze 'em in!" cried George with enthusiasm. "Pack 'em tight. That's what I say."

"They would then imagine themselves at a party," replied his new friend, "and that would never do. No, no. Everyoue who comes to me must have individual attention. I intend to open a new department. The site is chosen. The builders are at work. All I need is a superintendent of iron personality."

"I should like to know a little about the climate, salary, and prospects," said George, in a business-like tone.

"The climate, much like that of Oxford Street on a summer afternoon," replied the Devil. "The salary is power, and the prospects are infinite. But if you are interested, my dear fellow, allow me to show you over the place. In any case, I should value your opinion on it"

No sooner said than done. They sank into the bowels of the earth, and came out in a suburb of Sydney, N.S.W.

"Here we are, then!" cried George.

"No, no," said the Devil "Just a little farther on."

They proceeded with the speed of rockets to the northeast corner of the universe, which George now perceived to be shaped exactly like a pint of beer, in which the nebulae were the ascending bubbles. He observed with alarm a pair of enormous lips approaching the upper rim of our s.p.a.ce. "Do not be alarmed," said the Devil. "That is a young medical student called Prior, who has failed his exam three times in succession. However, it will be twenty million billion light years before his lips reach the gla.s.s, for a young woman is fixing him with her eye, and by the time he drinks all the bubbles will be gone, and all will be flat and stale."

"Poor fellow!" cried our hero. "d.a.m.n these women!"

"Do not pity him," said the Devil very tolerantly. "This is his fifth pint, and he is already as drunk as a lord, and closing time draws near. What's more, our destination is at hand."

George saw that they were nearing what is sometimes called a "fish" in this considerable pint of beer. As they approached it, he saw it was a dark star of gigantic proportions, about which circled a satellite many hundred times larger than the earth.

"That satellite," said his conductor, "is the spot I am proposing to colonize with my new department. We will go straight there, if you have no objection."

George a.s.senting, they landed in a sterile and saturnine country, close by a palace of black basalt, which covered about a square mile of ground.

"That's a snug-looking box!" observed our hero. "Merely a pioneer's hut," said his companion. "My future overseer will have to rough it there until something better can be fixed up for him."

George, however, noticed a prodigious number of barrels being run down into a cellar on the hinder side of this palace. What's more, he saw several groups of fiends, who should have been at their work, squatting in one of the unfinished galleries, with cards in their hands.

"You actually play poker here?" said he, in tones of the liveliest satisfaction.

"We are connoisseurs of every pleasure," replied the Devil, with a smile. "And when we play cards, everyoue has an excellent hand."

He showed George a number of masterly pictures; some of them were a little indecent. There were also very splendid kitchens, already staffed with cooks; kennels, stables, falconries, gun rooms, music rooms, grand halls, little cosy rooms, rooms devoted to every sort of pastime, and gardens laid out rather like those of Versailles, only very much larger. There was a whole cellar full of fireworks of every description. Not only these, but there were a number of other delights, of a nature entirely new to the visitor. There was an observatory, for example, from which the behaviour of any young woman in the world could be closely inspected. "This is really a very interesting device," murmured our hero.

"Come!" said the fiend. "We must not stay here all day. Doubtless you will want to see the rest of your domain."

"Yes, indeed," said George. "Show me where the prisoners are to be confined. I suppose that now and then I can have one haled up for special admonishment."

The Devil then flew with him over the whole surface of the planet, which, once they were clear of the palace and its lands, proved to have an aspect not unlike that of the Great West Road, where it approaches London. On every hand, rows of cells were being run up. To add the final refinement of misery, they were designed exactly like houses in a modern building project. Imitation husbands, who could neither speak nor hear, were planted in armchairs with their feet on the mantelpieces. The wardrobes were full of unfashionable garments. Small imps disguised as children were already rehearsing by dozens in all the upper rooms. The peculiar property of the walls was to translate the noise of those next door into the sound of a party going on, while the windows were so designed as to make the dowdiest pa.s.ser-by appear to be arrayed in the very latest mode.

Vast bunion factories belched smoke among the crazy villas; lorryloads of superfluous hair clattered along the streets. George was shown the towering gasometers of the halitosis works, and a number of other things I do not dare imagine. He saw a great concourse of fiends being instructed in door-to-door salesmanship; others were being fitted out as relations-in-law, rent-collectors, and bailiffs. He himself made two suggestions that were immediately put into force: one was for a stocking ladderer, and the other for an elastic that would break in the middle of any crowded thoroughfare.

As a final encouragement, the Devil took him over to the mainland of h.e.l.l itself, which is girdled by the Styx as Saturn by his ring. Charon's vast liner had just come to dock, and our hero had the pleasure of seeing a mult.i.tude of film stars, baby blondes, unfaithful wives, disobedient daughters, frivolous typists, lazy serving-maids, wantons, careless waitresses, cruel charmers, naggers, sirens, clogs, unpunctual sweethearts, bridge-playing grandmas, extravagant helpmeets, mischief-making gossips, tantalizers, female novelists, crazy debutantes, possessive mothers, neglectful mothers, modern mothers, unmarried mothers, would-be, should-be, in fact all who could be, mothers; they were all there, as naked as your hand, and they filed down the gangway, some weeping, some brazen, and some in att.i.tudes of affected modesty.

"This is a magnificent sight," remarked our hero.

"Well, my dear sir," said the Devil, "are you the man for the job?"

"I will do my best!" cried George enthusiastically.

They shook hands on it. All the little details were arranged. Before evening George was installed as princ.i.p.al va.s.sal of all the Devil's host, and overlord of a planet populated only by women and fiends.

It must be admitted he enjoyed himself with a vengeance. Every day he would go out, having donned his cap of invisibility, and regale himself upon his subject's endeavours to cope with the hardships he had designed for them. Sometimes he would hold up the ceaseless self-dirtying of plates, put the children to sleep, and amuse them with the prospect of a matinee. He saw to it, though, that they had to queue up for the cheap seats, and arranged for it to rain. In the end, he would announce that the show was postponed.

He had a thousand other ways of tantalizing them; I shall not enumerate them all. One of the best was to send for any newly arrived young thing who was reported to be vain of her beauty, and give her the impression for an hour or two that she had made a conquest of him, and then (as far as was possible) undeceive her.

When the day's work was done, he sat down to cards with his princ.i.p.al officers, and sure enough everyoue had a good hand, but his was the best. They drank like champions; the Devil was constantly sending over the choicest delicacies from h.e.l.l; the word "fine" was continually upon our hero's lips, and the time pa.s.sed like lightning.

One day, toward the end of the second year, our potentate had just got through his levee, and was refreshing himself with a stroll on a little private terrace which he much affected, when word was brought to him that the senior port official desired an audience. Our hero was the easiest fellow in the world to approach, never stood upon his dignity: "Send the old chap along here," said he. "And, hi! Bring a bottle and a couple of gla.s.ses back with you when you come."

The fact is, George dearly loved a chat with these old petty officers, who occasionally brought him reports of diverting little incidents at the Ellis Island of h.e.l.l, or sc.r.a.ps of gossip concerning the irrelevant affairs of the world, such as sometimes strayed in among Charon's cargo, as lizards or b.u.t.terflies travel to Covent Garden among the bananas.

On this occasion, however, the harbour-master's face bore an extremely worried expression. "I'm afraid, sir," he said, "I've got a little irregularity to report."

"Well, we all make mistakes sometimes," said George. "What's the trouble?"

"It's like this here, sir," replied the old salt. "Young gal come along o' the last cargo - seems as if she didn't ought to be here at all"

"Oh, that'll be all right," cried George. "Bound to be. It's understood we take the whole issue in these days. She's a woman, and that's enough. What's on her charge-sheet, anyway?"

"Lot o' little things, sir, what don't amount to much," replied the honest fellow. "Fact is, sir, it ain't added up." And he pursed his lips.

"Not added up?" cried George in amazement "That's how it is, sir," said his subordinate glumly. "This young gal ain't properly dead."

George was absolutely bowled over. "Whew!" said he. "But this is serious, my man."

"It is serious, sir," said the old chap. "I don't know what's to be done, I'm sure."