Simon the Jester Part 3

"What does that matter? Say you'll come."

"Alas! my dear Mrs. Glenn," I said, with a smile, "I have an engagement at Easter--a very important one."

"I thought the wedding was not to take place till June."

"It isn't the wedding," said I.

"Then break the engagement."

"It's beyond human power," said I.

She held up her bracelet, from which dangled some charms.

"I think you're a ----" And she pointed to a little golden pig.

"I'm not," I retorted.

"What are you, then?"

"I'm a gentleman in a Greek tragedy."

We laughed and parted, and I went on my way cheered by the encounter.

I had spoken the exact truth, and found amus.e.m.e.nt in doing so. One has often extracted humour from the contemplation of the dissolution of others--that of the giant in "Jack the Giant-killer" for instance, and the demise of the little boy with the pair of skates in the poem. Why not extract it from the contemplation of one's own?

The only disadvantage of my position is that it give me, in spite of myself, an odd sense of isolation from my kind. They are looking forward to Easters and Junes and summers, and I am not. I also have a fatuous feeling of superiority in being in closer touch than they with eternal verities. I must take care that I do not play too much to the gallery, that I do not grow too conceited over the singularity of my situation, and arrive at the mental att.i.tude of the criminal whose dominant solicitude in connection with his execution was that he should be hanged in his dress clothes. These reflections brought me to Eccleston Square.

Lady Kynnersley is that type of British matron who has children in fits of absent-mindedness, and to whom their existence is a perpetual shock. Her main idea in marrying the late Sir Thomas Kynnersley was to a.s.sociate herself with his political and philanthropic schemes. She is the born committee woman, to whom a home represents a place where one sleeps and eats in order to maintain the strength required for the performance of committee duties. Her children have always been outside the sphere of her real interests, but, afflicted, as such women are, with chronic inflammation of the conscience, she had devoted the most scrupulous care to their upbringing. She formed herself into a society for the protection of her own children, and managed them by means of a committee, which consisted of herself, and of which she was the honorary secretary. She drew up articles of a.s.sociation and regulations. If Dale contracted measles, she applied by-law 17. If Janet slapped Dorothy, by-law 32 was brought into play. When Dale clamoured for a rocking-horse, she found that the articles of a.s.sociation did not provide for imaginative equitation. As the children grew up, the committee had from time to time to revise the articles and submit them to the general body for approval. There were many meetings before the new sections relating to a University career for the boy and the coming out for the girls were satisfactorily drafted. Once given the effect of law, however, there was no appeal against these provisions. Both committee and general body were powerless. Dale certainly owed his methodical habits to his mechanical training, but whence he derived and how he maintained his exuberance and spontaneity has often puzzled me. He himself accounts for it on the score of heredity, in that an ancestress of his married a highwayman who was hanged at Tyburn under William and Mary.

In person Lady Kynnersley is lean and blanched and grey-haired. She wears gold spectacles, which stand out oddly against the thin whiteness of her face; she is still a handsome, distinguished woman, who can have, when she chooses, a most gracious manner. As I, worldling and jester though I am, for some mysterious reason have found favour in the lady's eyes, she manifests this graciousness whenever we foregather. Ergo, I like Lady Kynnersley, and would put myself to much inconvenience in order to do her a service.

She kept me waiting in the drawing-room but a minute before she made her appearance, grasped my hand, proclaimed my goodness in responding so soon to her call, bade me sit down on the sofa by her side, inquired after my health, and, the G.o.ds of politeness being propitiated, plunged at once into the midst of matters.

Dale was going downhill headlong to Gadarene catastrophe. He had no eyes or ears or thoughts for any one in the world but for a certain Lola Brandt, a brazen creature from a circus, the shape of whose limbs was the common knowledge of mankind from Dublin to Yokohama, and whose path by sea and land, from Yokohama to Dublin, was strewn with the bodies of her victims. With this man-eating tigress, declared Lady Kynnersley, was Dale infatuated. He scorched himself morning, noon, and night in her devastating presence. Had cut himself adrift from home, from society.

Had left trailing about on his study table a jeweller's bill for a diamond bracelet. Was committing follies that made my brain reel to hear. Had threatened, if worried much longer, to marry the Scarlet One incontinently. Heaven knew, cried Lady Kynnersley, how many husbands she had already--scattered along the track between Dublin and Yokohama.

There was no doubt about it. Dale was hurtling down to everlasting bonfire. She looked to me to hold out the restraining hand.

"You have already spoken to Dale on the subject?" I asked, mindful of the inharmonious socks and tie.

"I can talk to him of nothing else," said Lady Kynnersley desperately.

"That's a pity," said I. "You should talk to him of Heaven, or pigs, or Babylonic cuneiform--anything but Lola Brandt. You ought to go to work on a different system."

"But I haven't a system at all," cried the poor lady. "How was I to foresee that my only son was going to fall in love with a circus rider?

These are contingencies in life for which one, with all the thought in the world, can make no provision. I had arranged, as you know, that he should marry Maisie Ellerton, as charming a girl as ever there was.

Isn't she? And an independent fortune besides."

"A rosebud wrapped in a gold leaf," I murmured.

"Now he's breaking the child's heart----"

"There was never any engagement between them, I am sure of that," I remarked.

"There wasn't. But I gave her to understand it was a settled affair--merely a question of Dale speaking. And, instead of speaking, he will have nothing to do with her, and spends all his time--and, I suppose, though I don't like to refer to it, all his money--in the society of this unmentionable woman."

"Is she really so--so red as she is painted?" I asked.

"She isn't painted at all. That's where her artful and deceitful devilry comes in----"

"I suppose Dale," said I, "declares her to be an angel of light and purity?"

"An angel on horseback! Whoever heard of such a thing?"

"It's the name of a rather fiery savoury," said I.

"In a circus!" she continued.

"Well," said I, "the ring of a circus is not essentially one of the circles in Dante's Inferno."

"Of course, my dear Simon," she said, with some impatience, "if you defend him--"

I hastened to interrupt her. "I don't. I think he is an egregious young idiot; but before taking action it's well to get a clear idea of the facts. By the way, how do you know she's not painted?"

"I've seen her--seen her with my own eyes in Dale's company--at the Savoy. He's there supping with her every night. General Lamont told me. I wouldn't believe it--Dale flaunting about in public with her.

The General offered to take me there after the inaugural meeting of the International Aid Society at Grosvenor House. I went, and saw them together. I shall never forget the look in the boy's eyes till my dying day. She has got him body and soul. One reads of such things in the poets, one sees it in pictures; but I've never come across it in real life--never, never. It's dreadful, horrible, revolting. To think that a son of mine, brought up from babyhood to calculate all his actions with mathematical precision, should be guilty of this profligacy! It's driving me mad, Simon; it really is. I don't know what to do. I've come to the end of my resources. It's your turn now. The boy worships you."

A wild appeal burned in her eyes and was refracted oddly through her near-sighted spectacles. I had never seen her betray emotion before during all the years of our friendship. The look and the tone of her voice moved me. I expressed my sympathy and my readiness to do anything in my power to s.n.a.t.c.h the infatuated boy from the claw and fang of the syren and hale him to the forgiving feet of Maisie Ellerton. Indeed, such a chivalrous adventure had vaguely pa.s.sed through my mind during my exalted mood at Murglebed-on-Sea. But then I knew little beyond the fact that Dale was fluttering round an undesirable candle. Till now I had no idea of the extent to which his wings were singed.

"Hasn't Dale spoken to you about this creature?" his mother asked.

"Young men of good taste keep these things from their elders, my dear Lady Kynnersley," said I.

"But you knew of it?"

"In a dim sort of way."

"Oh, Simon--"

"The baby boys of Dale's set regard taking out the chorus to supper as a solemn religious rite. They wouldn't think themselves respectable if they didn't. I've done it myself--in moderation--when I was very young."

"Men are mysteries," sighed Lady Kynnersley.

"Please regard them as such," said I, with a laugh, "and let Dale alone.

Allow him to do whatever irrational thing he likes, save bringing the lady here to tea. If you try to tear him away from her he'll only cling to her the closer. If you trumpet abroad her infamy he'll proclaim her a slandered and martyred saint. Leave him to me for the present."

"I'll do so gladly," said Lady Kynnersley, with surprising meekness.

"But you _will_ bring him back, Simon? I've arranged for him to marry Maisie. I can't have my plans for the future upset."

By-law 379! Dear, excellent, but wooden-headed woman!