Part 1

Chapter 13,912 wordsPublic domain

LAST ADVENTURES OF THESE CHARMING PEOPLE

_May Fair_

By Michael Arlen

_Author of “These Charming People,” “The Green Hat,” “The London Venture,” etc._

Being an Entertainment Purporting to Reveal to Gentlefolk the Real State of Affairs Existing in the Very Heart of London During the Fifteenth and Sixteenth Years of the Reign of His Majesty King George the Fifth: Together with Suitable Reflections on the Last Follies, Misadventures and Galanteries of These Charming People

_Among which Episodes May be Found_ THE REVOLTING DOOM OF A GENTLEMAN WHO WOULD NOT DANCE WITH HIS WIFE THE BATTLE OF BERKELEY SQUARE THE ACE OF CADS THE GENTLEMAN FROM AMERICA TO LAMOIR THE GHOUL OF GOLDERS GREEN THE PRINCE OF THE JEWS THE THREE-CORNERED MOON A ROMANCE IN OLD BRANDY WHERE THE PIGEONS GO TO DIE

_Jacket Design by Edmund Dulac_

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY _Publishers_ New York

_May Fair_

MICHAEL ARLEN

_By_ MICHAEL ARLEN

_May Fair_ _The Green Hat_ _These Charming People_ “_Piracy_” _The London Venture_ _The Romantic Lady_

_May Fair_

BEING AN ENTERTAINMENT PURPORTING TO REVEAL TO GENTLEFOLK THE REAL STATE OF AFFAIRS EXISTING IN THE VERY HEART OF LONDON DURING THE FIFTEENTH AND SIXTEENTH YEARS OF THE REIGN OF HIS MAJESTY KING GEORGE THE FIFTH: TOGETHER WITH SUITABLE REFLEC- TIONS ON THE LAST FOLLIES, MIS- ADVENTURES AND GALANTERIES OF THESE CHARMING PEOPLE BY

_Michael Arlen_

_NEW YORK_ GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

_Copyright, 1925, By George H. Doran Company_

MAY FAIR --B-- PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

CONTENTS

PAGE

PROLOGUE 9

I A ROMANCE IN OLD BRANDY 36

II THE ACE OF CADS 59

III WHERE THE PIGEONS GO TO DIE 95

IV THE BATTLE OF BERKELEY SQUARE 116

V THE PRINCE OF THE JEWS 133

VI THE THREE-CORNERED MOON 166

VII THE REVOLTING DOOM OF A GENTLEMAN WHO WOULD NOT DANCE WITH HIS WIFE 202

VIII THE GENTLEMAN FROM AMERICA 224

IX TO LAMOIR 251

X THE GHOUL OF GOLDERS GREEN 276

XI FAREWELL, THESE CHARMING PEOPLE 327

MAY FAIR

PROLOGUE

Once upon a time in London there was a young gentleman who had nothing better to do one afternoon, so what should he do but take a walk? Now he did not set out as one on pleasure bent, but with an air of determination that would have surprised his friends, saying between his teeth: “I have always heard that walking is good exercise. I will try a bit.” However, he had not walked far before circumstances compelled him to abate his ardour, for it was an afternoon in July and quite warm for the time of the year.

Eastward our young gentleman strode, by Sloane Street, through Knightsbridge, across Hyde Park Corner, he strode even from Chelsea to Mayfair; for he was by way of being a writer and lived in Chelsea, whereas his people lived in Mayfair and understood nothing.

Now while we are about it we may as well add that the young writer’s father was a baronet who had for some years been a perfect martyr to bankruptcy, and had called his son to him on this afternoon to impress upon him the fact that in future he, the young writer’s father, could not and would not be a victim to his, the young writer’s, extravagances. So much, then, for the young writer’s father; but with himself we must continue yet a while, although what this tale is really about is a hand and a flower.

For that is what he chanced to see on the afternoon we tell of, a hand and a flower; and since it was inconceivable that the hand could belong to a man, so white and delicate it was, he put two and two together and decided that it could only belong to a lady. Further, there was that about the droop of the hand which fired him to think of it as the hand of an unhappy heart. While as for the flower, it was scarlet, and of the sort that anyone can buy at any florist’s by just going in and saying: “I want some carnations, please, but not white ones, please, thank you, good-day.”

Now the sun was so high and bright over London that day that the voices of Americans were distinctly heard rising above the polished tumult of the Berkeley Hotel, crying plaintively for ice; and when at last our young writer came into Mayfair he was grateful for the cool quiet streets, but being still at some discomfort from the effects of the heat on his person, he thought to turn into Mount Street Gardens and rest a while beneath the trees.

This, however, he was not to do that afternoon; for it chanced that he had not walked far towards that pleasaunce when, at that point of the pretty quarter of Mayfair where South Street becomes North Street and Grosvenor Square is but a step in the right direction, he was drawn to admire a great house that stood in a walled garden. Quite a country-house this looked like, and right in the heart of the town, so that our young gentleman thought: “Now I wonder whose house that is. Ah, to be rich! Or, at least, to be so attractive that rich people would take one to their hearts on sight!”

In this wise relishing the deplorable charms of money, he had stared long over the wall at the house in the garden had not something happened which instantly gave his fancies a prettier turn: for what should he suddenly espy through the curtain of leaves but a hand drooping from one of the upper windows, and what should he espy in the hand but a scarlet flower?

Now that made a delightful picture of innocence, of dreaming youth and fond imagining, and not at all the sort of thing you see every day, especially in Mayfair, where motor-cars grow from the cracks in the pavements and ladies recline in slenderness on divans, playing with rosaries of black pearls and eating scented macaroons out of bowls of white jade.

Presently a policeman happened by, and the young gentleman thought to turn from the wall and greet him in a friendly way with a view to further conversation.

“And what,” he asked, “is the name of the lady who lives in the house with the garden?”

“Young sir,” said the policeman severely, “that will do from you.”

“I beg your pardon!” said the young writer with spirit.

“Granted,” said the policeman severely.

“But this is absurd! I am an honest man and I have asked you an honest question.”

The policeman unbent his expression so far as to say, with a significant look at the great house in the walled garden: “Young sir,” said he, “there danger lies for the likes of you. For the likes of her is not for the likes of you.”

“Oh, nonsense!” cried our young gentleman. “This is a free country. This is not America!”

“Is it swearing at me you are?” said the policeman severely. “Now move on, young man, move on.”

“I will not!” cried our hero.

“Well, I will!” said the policeman, and walked away, while the young gentleman turned away from this unsatisfactory conversation just in time, alas, to see the scarlet flower drop from the white fingers; and the hand was withdrawn.

Now such was the effect of the hand and the flower on the young writer’s susceptible mind that he quite forgot to go and see his father, who thereupon cut him off with a shilling, which he sent to the young writer in the form of postage stamps. But the occasion was not without some profit, albeit of the spiritual sort, to the young man; for that very night he dreamed he was kissing that very hand, and who shall say that that was all he dreamed, for surely he is a sorry young man who cannot kiss more than a lady’s hand in a dream.

The Court Chronicles of the Grand Duchy of Valeria report the following conversation as having taken place between the reigning Duke and his consort. That the conversation took place in London is undoubtedly due to the fact that the Royal Duke and his Duchess were at the time on a state visit to that capital, with a view to taking a turn around the Wembley Exhibition.

“We will give a ball,” said His Highness the Hereditary Grand Duke of Valeria. “In fact, we must give a ball. And everyone in London will come to it.”

“Why should they?” said Her Highness.

“Now try not to be disagreeable, my dear. I have no idea why they should, but I am positive they will. They always do.”

“But, Frederick, what is the matter with you to-night? Why do you want to give a ball, since you cannot dance? Upon my word, if I danced like you I should be ill at the very idea of a ball! So be sensible, my love, and go to sleep again.”

“Now try not to be unpleasant, Ethelberta. You do not seem to understand that people in our position _must_ every now and then give a ball. That is undoubtedly what balls are for, that people in our position should give them. I have worked out the matter very carefully.”

“Then you are quite wrong, my love. Balls are for something quite different. I assure you that I have also worked out the matter very carefully. Balls are for English people to give, Americans to pay for, and Argentines to dance at.”

“Now try not to be tiresome, my dear. It will seem extremely peculiar in us not to give at least one ball while we are in London. The Diplomatic Corps will not fail to remark our ill-timed economy. Do you forget that we are Royalty?”

“Fiddledidee!” said the Duchess.

“Now,” said the Duke, “try not to be----”

“Bother Royalty!” said the Duchess. “I’ve never got anything by being Royal except to be treated like a village idiot all my life. And now you want me to give a beastly ball, at which I shall have to dance with a lot of clumsy Ambassadors. Frederick, I tell you here and now that I will not give a ball. And if you want to know my reasons for not giving a ball, they are, briefly, as follows.”

They followed.

“Whereas,” said His Highness, “_my_ reasons for wishing to give this confounded ball are not entirely social. Our daughter----”

“You are not going to pretend, my love, that the happiness of our only daughter is influencing you in the least! You will not dare to pretend that, Frederick, considering that ever since we have been in London you have kept the poor child locked in her room.”

“You know very well,” said the Duke hotly, “that we both decided that in the circumstances----”

“Well, I think it’s most insanitary,” said the Duchess, “keeping the poor child locked in her room day in and day out! In the end all that will happen will be that she will lose her figure and no one will marry her at all and _then_ where are we?”

“Ethelberta!” cried His Highness, leaping from the bed and looking sternly down at her. “I did not think you could carry levity so far. Woman, would you compromise with our honour and the honour of Valeria?”

“If there was any money in it, my love, I would of course ask your advice first, as you know so much more than I do about selling things. I really don’t know where we would be now if you hadn’t been so clever about our neutrality during the war. Now, my love, stop being silly and get back to bed. You look too ridiculous in those bright pink pyjamas. What the Lord-in-Waiting was doing to let you buy them I can’t imagine!”

“Ethelberta,” said His Highness sternly, “understand this! We are in England, at considerable expense----”

“Naturally, my love, if you will buy pyjamas like that!”

“---- to avenge a mortal insult to our honour. Woman, would you have our innocent daughter be spurned by the villain who seduced her?”

“These are strong words!” said the Duchess.

“I feel strongly about it,” said the Duke.

“And anyhow, she can’t be as innocent as all that,” said the Duchess thoughtfully, “now. I know girls. Oh, dear, what fun girls have!”

“Ethelberta, this English lord must die!”

“All English lords must die, my love, in due course. It is a law of nature. Now come back to bed.”

“I have worked the matter out very carefully, and that is why I am giving this ball. We cannot kill this coward out-of-hand by hiring some low assassin, for he is, after all, a gentleman. And besides, in this confounded country,” His Highness continued warmly, “you cannot fire a revolver without every policeman in the neighbourhood wanting to know why you did it. Therefore, the ball.”

“What, are you going to fire revolvers off at our ball? My love, are you sure that will be quite safe?”

“My idea is that the noise of the ball will screen the rattle of musketry. For that purpose I shall engage the most violent saxophone-player in the country. I have already taken advice on that point. The firing-party will, of course, be in the garden. So now, Ethelberta, you understand why we must give this----”

“Oh, give your rotten ball!” said Her Highness sleepily.

III

The red carpet stretched from the doors of the great house in the walled garden to the broad pavement where South Street meets North Street and Grosvenor Square is but a step in the right direction; and up the red carpet walked the flower of England’s quality and fashion and the loftiest dignitaries of the Church and Press. Came, too, all the circumstance of diplomacy and the first among the burgesses. Decorations were worn. Art and literature were represented only by a painter with a beard who had forgotten to wear a tie, a young reporter with a boil on his neck, and a rugged novelist with a large circulation who liked hunting. Came, too, all the first actors of the day, talking about themselves to each other and thinking about each other to themselves. All the most intelligent young ladies of Society were present, murmuring hoarsely to each other: “One really cannot understand _how_ one can come to a party when one might be reading a book by Maurice Baring.” Footlight favourites by Royal Appointment. Astorias and his band of the Loyalty Club were engaged to play. The reception given to the honourable company in every way accorded with the ancient dignity of the Grand Duchy of Valeria. The guests passed between two lines of the Hussars of Death or Honour, brilliant in white uniforms with crimson facings, epaulettes of gold and cloaks of black gabardine lined with ermine, under the command of Baron Hugo von Müsselsaroffsir. Champagne by G. H. Mumm.

Not among the last to arrive was my lord Viscount Quorn, a young nobleman whose handsome looks and plausible address were fated to be as a snare and a delusion to those who were not immediately informed as to his disordered temperament and irregular habits. Yet, although many a pretty young lady had lived to regret with burning tears the confidence she had been persuaded to misplace in that young gallant’s code of chivalry, not a man in England could be found to impugn my lord’s honour; for was he not renowned from Ranelagh to Meadowbrook for his incomparable agility, did not Australian cricketers wince at the mere mention of the name of Quorn, and did any soldier present on the high occasion we tell of wear pinned across his breast braver emblems of gallantry in war?

With him to the Duke’s ball came his boon companion, Mr. Woodhouse Adams, a gentleman whose claim to the regard of his familiars was based solidly on the fact that he knew a horse when he saw one; yet so great was his reserve that what he knew when he did not see a horse was a secret which Mr. Woodhouse Adams jealously guarded from even his most intimate friends. On this occasion, however, as they walked up the red carpet to the open doors of the house in the walled garden, Mr. Woodhouse Adams appeared to be unable to control a particular indignation, and presently spoke to the following effect:

“If you ask my opinion, Condor, I think you are putting your jaws into the lion’s head.”

“I gather,” said Lord Quorn, whose nickname took the peculiar form of Condor for reasons which are quite foreign to this story, “that you mean I am putting my head into the lion’s jaws. It may be so. But I tell you, Charles, that I am in love with this girl. At last, I am in love. And I am not going to miss the most slender chance of seeing her again--not to speak of my desire to take this unrivalled opportunity of paying my respects to her father with a view to a matrimonial entanglement.”

“You’re not going to do that!” incredulously cried his friend.

“Almost at once,” said Lord Quorn.

“Gentlemen’s Cloak-Room on the left,” said a Hussar of Death or Honour.

“Am I speaking to milord Quorn?” asked a page bearing a salver of gold.

“You are, boy.”

“Then I have the honour, milord, to be the bearer of a note to milord from my mistress, Her Select Highness the Princess Baba.”

“Well, don’t shout the glad news all over the Cloak-Room,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“Go tell Her Highness,” said my lord to the boy, “that I shall beg the honour of the first dance with her.”

“Milord, I go!” said the page, and went.

“I don’t like that boy,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“This note,” said Lord Quorn, “touches me very nearly.”

“Good Lord, Condor, she doesn’t want to borrow money from you already! Gad, my father was right when he told me on his death-bed never to have any financial dealings with Royalty. His exact words were: ‘It takes four Greeks to get the better of a Jew, three Jews to deal with an Armenian, two Armenians to a Scot, and the whole damn lot together to withstand the shock of Royalty in search of real-estate.’”

“My friend, there is but a line in this letter, yet I would not exchange this one line for all the rhapsodies of the poets. For in this one line,” sighed Lord Quorn, “the Princess Baba tells me that she loves me.”

“No girl,” gallantly admitted his friend, “can say fairer than that.”

“It is certainly very encouraging,” said my lord.

“Gentlemen’s Cloak-Room to the right!” said a Hussar of Death or Honour.

“Thank you, we’ve been,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“This way, _messieurs_!” said Baron Hugo von Müsselsaroffsir. “His Highness the Hereditary Grand Duke of Valeria will receive you at the head of the stairs.”

At the head of the stairs, indeed, His Highness was receiving his guests with all the circumstance of Royalty. He held great state, this puissant prince who had so notably enriched the land of his fathers by an heroic neutrality throughout the war. He wore the blue cordon of the Order of Credit and, over his heart, the Diamond Cross of Discretion. He said:

“How do you do, Lord Quorn?”

“Thank you, sir, I am very well,” returned my lord.

“And you, Mr. Woodhouse Eves?”

“Adams to you, sir,” said that gentleman. “But otherwise I am well, thank you.”

“Lord Quorn,” His Highness cordially continued, “I am really most pleased that you could accept my invitation.”

“You do me too much honour, sir. And may I take it that your courtesy in selecting me for an invitation for your probably enjoyable ball is a sign of your gracious forgiveness?”

“You may, Lord Quorn.”

“Then I have the honour, sir, to declare myself, without any reserve whatsoever, to be your Highness’s most obedient servant.”

“And I, sir,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“Gentlemen,” said His Highness, “you are very kind.”

“Your condescension, sir, but points our crudity,” protested my lord. “May I, however, further trespass on your indulgence by asking to be allowed to enroll myself as the humblest among your daughter’s suitors?”

“We can talk this matter out more comfortably,” said His Highness agreeably, “in my study. Ho, there! Ho, page!”

“_Altesse!_”

“Conduct milord Quorn and Mr. Woodhouse Eves to my study, and see to it that they have suitable refreshment. Lord Quorn, I will join you not a moment after I have received my guests.”

“I’m not sure I like this study business,” said Mr. Woodhouse Adams as they followed the page through many halls and corridors to a distant part of the house in the walled garden. They passed through marble halls radiant with slender columns and crystal fountains, through arcades flaming with flowers in vases of Venetian glass, beneath sombre tapestries of the chase after fabulous beasts, by tables of satinwood and cabinets of ebony, jade and pearl: until at last they were conducted to a quiet-seeming door, and were no sooner within than what appeared to be a regiment of Hussars of Death or Honour had pinioned their arms to their sides.

“This is outrage!” cried my lord with very cold eyes.

“Gentlemen, you are under arrest,” said an officer with moustachios whose name the chronicler has unfortunately overlooked.

“We’re under what?” cried Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

“And you will await His Highness’s pleasure in this room,” said the officer with moustachios, but he had no sooner spoken than the Duke entered, followed by a lean young officer with pitiless eyes.

“_Altesse!_” saluted the Hussars of Death or Honour.

Not so Lord Quorn. “Sir,” cried he, “this is outrage and assault on the persons of King George’s subjects. Do you forget that you are in England, sir?”

“Silence!” thundered the officer with moustachios.

“Silence be damned!” cried Mr. Woodhouse Adams. “Your Highness, what can this piracy mean? I wish to lodge a formal complaint.”

“Sir, take it as lodged,” said His Highness graciously, but it was with lowered brows that he turned to address my lord.

“Lord Quorn,” said he, “it was my first intention to have you shot like a dog. But I have suffered myself to be dissuaded from consigning you to that ignominious fate at the intercession of this gentleman here. I present Captain Count Rupprecht Saxemünden von Maxe-Middengräfen.”

“Oh, have a heart!” gasped Mr. Woodhouse Adams.

But Lord Quorn, being a much-travelled gentleman whose ears were hardened against the most surprising sounds, merely said: “How do you do?”

“Such information, sir, is not for scum!” snapped the lean young officer with the pitiless eyes.

“Were I to hit you once,” said Lord Quorn gently, looking at him as though he smelt so bad that he could readily understand why the dustman had refused to remove him, “your mother would not know you. Were I to hit you twice, she would not want to. Think it over.”

“Your differences will soon be arranged,” sternly continued His Highness. “Count Rupprecht has very properly put before me certain reasons which give him an undoubted right to be the agent of your destruction. The course of this night, Lord Quorn, shall see you as a duellist. And I can only hope that you have some knowledge of swordsmanship, for Count Rupprecht Saxemünden von Maxe-Middengräfen is the first swordsman of Valeria.