Part 22

“In the Scriptures,” said Dame Warp bitterly, “it is written, if I remember aright, that persons with such unconventional views as yours are consigned forever with appropriate torments to a place which it ill befits a decent woman--I said a _decent_ woman--to call Hell. I can see, however, no traces of the chastening effect of so proper a punishment in your form of address to people to whom you have been scarcely introduced. Indeed, you seem to be an unpleasantly self-assured young man.”

“Gently, my love,” Mr. Warp admonished her. “We are not yet precisely informed as to who the creature is. Should he be Lucifer himself a certain arrogance is permitted to him by the unanimous authority of all the best scholiasts. I incline to think, however, that he is only an inferior demon, such as plague the shrill imaginations of minor French agnostics and continually prick the Conservative Party into a senseless antipathy to Free Trade. But let us wait----”

The door, which had all this while been held ajar, closed sharply. De Travest started. Had the presence gone? Cries my Lord Marketharborough:

“Have you run away, you inferior demon you?”

“Dear me, no!” sighed the Other wearily. “But I must confess that I am astounded at the ease with which you charming people put up with this kind of thing night after night. You might, I do assure you, just as well be locked in the perpetual shadows of Eblis. But I suppose I must stay until I have fulfilled my promise----”

“Your promise!” cried Lady Surplice. “What promise? What is the dreadful man talking about now?”

De Travest spoke sternly: “Sir, may I remind you that we of our generation are not easily frightened by invisible presences, phantoms, imps, ghosts, vampires and demons?”

“Oh, come!” laughed the Other. “Your generation, nay, your century, is more susceptible of superstition than any that has gone before. It is merely that you have altered the angle, and are now enslaved by the meanest superstition of all, which is common sense.”

“That may or may not be,” said the Lord Chancellor; “but may I point out to you, young man, that it is considered neither polite nor manly to sit at a lady’s table only to distress her?”

“A lady?” said the Other.

“A lady, certainly!” snapped my lord.

“What lady?”

“Lady Surplice, sir.”

“Well, she may be a lady,” said the Other severely, “but she is certainly no gentlewoman.”

“What!” cried Lady Surplice, her terror on the instant supplanted by anger. “Are you referring to me, you low man? Talbot! Where is Talbot? Talbot, show this person the door! If you cannot see him, you can see the door. Open it.”

“That will do, Lady Surplice!” said the Other sharply; and now for the first time, said Dwight-Rankin, the voice of him who called himself Captain Charity was informed with a degree of severity quite unusual in polite society. “You cannot hope, Lady Surplice, with your worldly quips and cunning impertinences, to impress one of my condition and experience. You forget that I, had I no other claim to distinction, am the supreme host of all time.”

“You forget Jehovah, the Lord of Hosts,” said the Lord Chancellor, who had had a good education.

“My friend,” said de Travest, “are you imp, god, or devil? You are too self-confident for an imp, you attach too much importance to your social position to be a god, so you are probably, as Mr. Warp suggested, some inferior demon in search of cheap distraction. What is your name, fellow?”

“I am that which is so dark that beside me darkness is radiance, and I am that which walks in such brightness that I darken the sun and stars. I am that which is stronger than God and more enduring than stone, and I am that which is frailer than a flower and more destructible than glass. I am that which cannot be killed, and I am that which dies a thousand deaths every day. I am the spirit of man. But the interpreters of your God, in their illiterate fulminations, have made my name familiar to you under many vile disguises, the better to sacrifice the spirit of man to the savagery of mankind.”

“Young man,” said the Lord Chancellor severely, “are you seriously implying that you are the Prince of Darkness?”

“We do not recognise that title!” cried Lady Surplice. “Prince, indeed! It is not in Burke, Debrett or the Almanack de Gotha----”

“Under how many vile disguises, woman!”

“What I want to know is,” said de Travest mildly, “why you insist on calling me Michael? since, you know, my name is Guy.”

“Merely in moments of forgetfulness, de Travest. In appearance you remind me of one whom I once loved as a brother, in the days before time was. How calm and beautiful he was, in his golden cuirass and diamond helmet! Only my love for the beautiful archangels Michael, Gabriel and Raphael, kept me so long in subjection to the Lord of Hosts. But the time came when I, the most favoured captain of the empyrean, the prince of the hierarchy of archangels, with only the wings of the terrible and adorable choir of cherubim and seraphim between my eager youth and the thunderbolts of Jehovah, could no longer brook His ignorant and warlike complacency. As you have been taught, I raised the black standards of revolt; was at last defeated by Michael, Captain of the Hosts; and was plunged into Hell for eternity. I turned to Nature. I watched this planet come into being from the boiling elements. I watched this world’s virginity. Then, after many æons, I observed the growth of mankind. At first I was appalled at the misery in store for these helpless creatures. Then, as I perceived mankind’s blind will to live and savage instinct to conquer, to acquire, to destroy, I lay for long ages in fear of the wretchedness in store for Nature, how it would be desecrated, perverted and ravished by these creatures who could dominate all other animals merely because of an opposable thumb. I conceived a plan to avert this calamity; and, walking the earth in many shapes, I directed mankind to fulfil its most childish dreams and to sink into Nature’s bosom, wherein only can be found true joy, true love, and perfect peace. I succeeded. The Greeks were beautiful because I taught them to adore beauty: they made things of beauty because I taught them to worship their own beauty: and the gods they served were beautiful because they made their gods after their own image. I nearly succeeded with the Roman world. But my ancient enemy sent the man Paul to revive the savagery in men and women and to wither the love of Nature in the hearts of children. Since then my enemy has ruled the world. Yet, only the other day, I thought I saw a fit opportunity for my beneficial interference: with my heart afire with love of mankind, which I have helped through so many trials, I inspired certain noble minds with the crusade of the League of Nations. But mankind has preferred the dictates of its cruel God, the Lord of Hosts, who has long since given up trying to govern men through Christianity and now leads them by the nose with the childish superstition of common sense; and I have now no more hope for the happiness of a world that will deride the audacious gentleness of a Woodrow Wilson and countenance the rapacious insolence of a Poincaré, the vulgar dictatorship of a Mussolini, the unnatural charm of a Winston Churchill, and the complacent gracelessness of a gentleman who only too obviously rejoices in the name of Elihu Root.”

The agreeable and scholarly voice of Mr. Warp broke the silence:

“Your utterances, sir, appear to me to show a decidedly anti-Chauvinist bias. For my part, since the invasion of the Ruhr by the French and the assault on Corfu by the Italians, I have never been able to think of Poincaré or Mussolini without a grave disorder of mind. May I ask, sir, if you favour the Liberal school of thought? We would be far from disdaining your assistance in our imminent campaign for convincing the people of the essential truths of Liberalism.”

“I incline, if anything, to Labour, Mr. Warp; and hope to assist that party to very considerable success at your next elections; for, if I may say so, you cannot sweep a party out of existence for long by talking like a pack of silly schoolboys of biscuits, motor-cars and secret documents.”

“Hear, hear!” said the Lord Chancellor, who had gone to sleep and was dreaming that he was listening to a speech against Prohibition.

“On the other hand,” mildly said de Travest, “we are still awaiting an explanation of your sickening intrusion into Lady Surplice’s house.”

“Mrs. Amp sent me,” said the Other wearily.

“Mrs. Amp!” cried Lady Surplice. “Mrs. Amp? That low woman!”

“How can you bring yourself to know such women?” said Dame Warp bitterly. “Particularly when, through sundry minor faults, there must be so many decent women--I said _decent_ women--in your, well, environment.”

“She amuses me,” said Satan. “However,” the voice went on, “as I have fulfilled my promise, I will now, with your permission, take my leave.”

“But, Prince,” cried Lady Surplice, “what was your promise? What have you fulfilled? What has that low woman to do with it? I insist on knowing, Prince. Is this a time for silence?”

“My promise was merely this, Lady Surplice. At a recent dinner-party of Mrs. Amp’s, at which the guests of honour were Julius Cæsar, Shakespeare, Samuel Pepys, Balzac and myself, I was reckless enough to promise Mrs. Amp that I would ascend to earth one evening and spoil a dinner-party of yours. I will report to her, however, that a dinner-party so brilliant as yours would need the dulness of Jehovah himself to spoil it. _Monseigneur_, I give you farewell. Ladies, good-bye. _Adieu, caballeros!_”

“Stop, stop, stop!” cried Lady Surplice, frantically starting from her chair. “Just one moment, my dear Prince----”

“Well, just one,” sighed the archangel of sin, “for I promised Mrs. Amp to be back in time to hear Napoleon’s after-dinner speech on the intellectual obesity of soldiers, and successful soldiers in particular. What have you to say?”

“But am I to understand,” cried my lady indignantly, “that this monstrous woman is allowed to give all the parties she likes in Hell?”

“Naturally, madam. Else why should it be called Hell?”

“Then,” flashed my lady with a brilliant smile, “when I die, I shall also be able to give----”

“When you die, Lady Surplice, you will go to Heaven. For you are a good woman. You have a kind heart. You have cared for your husband and your children, and you have always given freely to the sick, the halt, the blind, the deaf and the dumb. In fact, Lady Surplice, I am very glad to have allowed myself this opportunity of congratulating you. You and your butler are perhaps the only two people in this room who will ascend to salvation. The odour of your sanctity already shames me, Lady Surplice. The saints in Paradise shall find in you a matchless companion. Talbot, the bosom of Abraham awaits you. I hope you will like it. Your only crimes, Lady Surplice, have been those of snobbery and vulgarity; and as the Bible was written before the existence of modern England, France and America, the very possibility of snobbery and vulgarity was unthought of, and thus they escaped inclusion among the heinous sins----”

“But look here,” protested Guy de Travest, “what reason but cruelty can you have for altering Lady Surplice’s destiny? It appears to me a gross case of prejudice, since, after all, Mrs. Amp has been allowed to ascend to Hell----”

“_De_scend, Guy,” said the Lord Chancellor. “All authorities combine in agreeing that the movement, if any, is downwards.”

“Mrs. Amp,” said the Other wearily, “has a claim to my hospitality because she poisoned her husband. Now, upon my word, I really must go----”

“But you mustn’t, you can’t!” sobbed my lady in distraction. “Am I to understand that when I die I must go to Heaven--while all my friends, all these charming people, are enjoying themselves in Hell at Mrs. Amp’s parties? Oh, is that just, Prince, is that reasonable, is it even gentlemanly?”

“You know, it really is not my fault,” protested the Prince of Darkness. “It is the will of God. Good-bye, Lady Surplice. To you others I need only say _au revoir_, for you are all miserable sinners.”

The company, said Dwight-Rankin, were sore distressed at Lady Surplice’s plight, for the good lady was dear to them; and they would fain have done all they could to ease her mind as she whimpered, in an access of helplessness and despair: “Prince, cannot you--Oh!--can’t you prevail on God to let me--Oh, dear!--to let me waive the distinction just this once? I simply can’t face the idea of being parted from my friends--please, Prince, won’t you be a dear and prevail on Him to----”

“Enough, madam!” thundered the voice of the fallen child of light. “Go you to salvation! Behold, am I not the enemy of Jehovah? These are my final words, Lady Surplice. Prepare yourself for your ascent. Let your soul yearn for Heaven and your spirit accommodate itself to the idea of walking forever in the groves of Paradise to the songs of the harp and the lyre. Begone!”

“Begone?” said the Lady Amelia indignantly. “That is a harsh word to give a lady in her own house!”

“Surely,” snapped de Travest, “you are not so wanting in manners as to drink a lady’s wine and then kill her!”

“What can I do, my friend? It is the immemorial curse of thirteen, and the super-added curse of the spilled salt. And I thought, as Lady Surplice is the only one among you who is going to Heaven, that it would be appreciated in me as an act of courtesy to allow her precedence in death.”

“Please, may I say one word?” begged Shelmerdene, her eyes pitifully on the despairing face of her hostess. “I have been Muriel Surplice’s friend for many years, she has on several occasions been very kind and good to me, and I cannot sit calmly by and watch her being wronged. Sir,” said Shelmerdene to Satan, “this lady you would so recklessly consign to Heaven has committed a crime every bit as heinous as that for which Mrs. Amp is now suffering indigestion.”

“A crime?” cried Lady Surplice gladly. “Bless you, Shelmerdene dear! But what crime was it?”

“Shelmerdene,” said Satan gently, “are you mocking me? Was it to be mocked by you that I gave you charm, beauty and good sense, such a combination of virtues as never was known before? Was it to be mocked by you that I inspired a youth to give you a name which, although it is not your real name, becomes you better than any real name could?”

“This lady,” cried Shelmerdene, “once had a lover----”

“Scarcely a crime,” said Lucifer. “Heaven has long since given up rejecting women who have had lovers. The angels protested that they found none but plain women wherever they walked in Paradise.”

“But she killed him!” cried Shelmerdene.

“Come, Shelmerdene!” said Dame Warp bitterly: “No decent woman--I said no _decent_ woman--ever kills her lover.”

“Shelmerdene, are you sure I did?” sighed Lady Surplice. “Are you quite sure, dear? Did I really kill him?”

“You did, darling, I assure you,” said Shelmerdene. “You bored him to death. He begged me with his dying breath not to tell you, and I wouldn’t have if I weren’t so fond of you.”

“Then,” sighed the Prince of Darkness, “she may go to Hell.”

And, said Dwight-Rankin, even as the door was seen to close, it was also seen how all colour was instantly ravished from Lady Surplice’s face and how she sat in her chair still and cold. But even in death, said Dwight-Rankin, a smile of such happiness lit her face that her many friends, who never could think of her departure from among them but with the deepest regret, found solace in the certainty of the good lady’s contentment in the other world. However....

At the inquest it was naturally given out that Lady Surplice had died in some natural way: for who, asked Dwight-Rankin, would believe the tale of what had actually happened, who would believe the tale of him who called himself, with infinite mockery, Captain Charity? And who, continued Dwight-Rankin, would believe that, but for the kindly intervention of Shelmerdene, the spiritual parts of poor Lady Surplice would even now and forever be arranged in that position over the ivory parapets of Paradise in which she could most comfortably stare down, with intolerable longing, at the social gaieties of another place?

“Who, indeed!” I echoed gloomily.

V

Dwight-Rankin fell silent. The restaurant was emptying. Voices from distant tables approached ours and perished against the wall of silence that had risen upon the end of Dwight-Rankin’s relation. I could say nothing. At last Dwight-Rankin said: “Had poor Lady Surplice been alive now, she would have been staying at this very hotel. I would have been lunching with her. At this very moment I would have been enjoying a cigar over a nice spot of brandy.”

I ordered cigars and liqueurs. At that moment a lady entered the restaurant. She appeared to be a person of consideration. Waiters rushed towards her, _maîtres d’hôtel_ bowed down before her. She waived them away. Her present concern appeared to have nothing to do with food, although her proportions were not those of one who had in the past indulged any aspirations to asceticism. Her face was large and good-humoured. When she smiled, her face was very large and very good-humoured indeed. She smiled now, bearing down on Dwight-Rankin. Silence perished around her. I prepared to fly. She enveloped the void about our table. The pearls about her throat were larger than her eyes, but her eyes shone more brilliantly than the diamonds on her hands. She strode into the silence like a warrior from Babel; and a forest of laughter stood on the site of the Ritz Hotel. She cried: “Dwight-Rankin! The very man I am looking for! Now I want you to be certain and come to----”

Dwight-Rankin indicated my presence.

“Mr.----” he said. “Mrs. Amp.”

“Say, listen, that’s not true! Mr.----, I certainly am glad to know you. How do you do, how do you do? You must come too, Mr.----. I have read your books. They are amazing, enchanting, universal. You are a genius. I tell the world so. I was telling the Duke of Mall and the Grand Duke Charles so only the other night. I said: ‘He is a genius.’ Now I want to tell you boys that to-morrow night I am throwing the finest party that has ever been dreamt of. It’s going to be just great. You boys have just got to come. I’ll tell the world that there’s nothing that’s not going to happen at that party. Muriel Surplice will be green. All her friends are coming. Everyone is coming. Say, listen, I have taken the whole Château de Madrid for the night and have changed it into a Venetian lagoon and at midnight I have engaged just the most complete circus to come and amuse us, as my point is, boys, that when one goes on a party one should just have everything from Mah Jongg to marmosets----”

She went, at last.

Dwight-Rankin said dreamily: “Have a spot of brandy?”

I choked. “You dare!” I said. “You dare to sit there and talk to me about spots of brandy after having palmed off on me that abominable rigmarole----”

“But it might have happened,” said Dwight-Rankin dreamily, waving a hand around the restaurant. “Perhaps it will happen. It certainly ought to happen. To all these charming people. Even lions will turn. However....”

_The end of the book called May Fair, in which are told the last adventures of These Charming People._

Typographical errors corrected by the etext transcriber:

be impertient=> be impertinent {pg 207}

he caught a crab=> he caught a cab {pg 276}

those inexorable twin sister=> those inexorable twin sisters {pg 327}

Then, after may æons=> Then, after many æons {pg 359}