Part 8

That is what the nurse said to the doctor, and the doctor looked grave and punched Tarlyon in the lungs with a telephone arrangement, but Tarlyon took no notice at all, still smiling to himself at the thought that in his life he had done every silly thing in the world but die of pneumonia in a converted garage, and maybe he would presently be doing that and the cup of folly be drained to the dregs. And every now and then Hugo would come in and take a glass of the iced wine by Tarlyon’s bed and look depressed, saying that Shirley was in pain and that he couldn’t bear it.

Then one day, or maybe it was one night, Tarlyon seemed to awake from a deep sleep that had taken him to a far distance, and from that far distance what should he seem to be seeing but two shadows bending over his bed and the calm shadow of the nurse nearby? Now he tried to speak, but he could not, and from the far distance he could hear one of the shadows saying: “You called me in not a moment too soon, Dr. Chill. Lord Tarlyon’s is an acute case of appendicitis. Weak as he is, it is imperative that we operate at once.”

“Right,” said Dr. Chill.

Now Tarlyon recognised the shadow that had spoken first for Ian Black, the great surgeon, and a great friend of his since the distant days when he had operated on Tarlyon’s unhappy dead wife, Virginia, she who had lived for pleasure and found only pain. And Tarlyon spoke out in a dim voice and said:

“Ian Black, much as I like having you about you must not operate on me for appendicitis in this house, which is but a garage. Remember I am staying with Hugo, and I came to stay with him on the distinct understanding that I was to have only pneumonia. Not a word was said between us about appendicitis, and I am sure that Hugo would be annoyed at my abusing his hospitality, so will you kindly put that beastly knife away?”

But at that very moment Hugo came in and took a glass of iced wine and looked depressed, saying that his wife was in terrible pain and that he couldn’t bear it and that the whole garage was strewn with doctors murmuring among themselves; but as to a spot of appendicitis, said Hugo, poor old George could go ahead and make himself quite at home and have just what he liked. Whereupon Tarlyon at once closed his eyes again, and then they put something over his mouth and he passed away, thinking, “_That’s_ all right.” But it could not have been quite all right, he thought on waking suddenly, for although he could not see very well he could hear quite distinctly, and the voice of Dr. Chill was saying:

“My dear Mr. Black, I am sorry to have to say this, but I certainly do not consider this among your most successful operations. My patient’s pulse is entirely arrested, and I am afraid there is now no hope. Are you sure, Mr. Black, that the coroner will think you were quite wise to operate when he was in so low a condition? And I am sure,” says he, “that you are not at all wise to sew up that wound with the sponge still inside.”

“Oh, shut up!” says Mr. Black, for the same was a short-tempered man much addicted to over-calling at bridge.

Tarlyon did not hear any more before he went off again; but when he awoke this time he did not feel the sickly after-effects of chloroform, he did not feel anything at all except that he was very weak and had a tummy-ache. The room seemed much lighter, too, than when he had seen it last, and many more people were in it, and then he heard a squealing noise and thought: “Good God, where am I?”

And he tried to speak but could not, he tried hard but all he could achieve was a sort of mewing noise similar to the squealing noise, and then the blood simply rushed to his head with rage, for there was Hugo’s tiresome face bending over him and there were Hugo’s tiresome eyes simply running with tears.

He tried to turn his head away in disgust at the loathsome sight, but could not move, and then he went almost raving mad, for Hugo was trying to kiss him! Tarlyon tried to swear and failed for the first time in his life, whereupon he made to raise his hand to catch Hugo a clout on the ear, but all he did was to pat Hugo’s cheek, which the foul man took for a caress encouraging him in his damp behaviour. But in raising his hand Tarlyon did at least achieve something, for he saw that his hand had changed considerably during his illness, it must have, for it was now a frail and milk-white hand with a diamond ring on the third finger, so that he thought in despair: “Good God, I’ve died under the operation and been born again as an Argentine!”

Hugo never left the bedside until at last the doctor got him by the scruff of the neck and, with silent cheers from Tarlyon, hurled him from the room. But even as he went through the door he turned his repulsive face towards Tarlyon and blew him a kiss, and then the fattest nurse Tarlyon had ever seen shoved a bundle under his nose and said in an idiotic voice which he supposed was meant to be cheering: “There, there, my dear, it’s a little boy you’ve got now. Isn’t he a duck, fat as a peach and all!”

Bits of the bundle were then pulled about and Tarlyon was shown what he considered was the most depressing little boy he had ever seen, with its face all wrinkled up and an entirely bald head of an unpleasant colour. Tarlyon’s first impression was that the little boy must have been drinking too much to get that colour; and he tried to wave the bundle away, but he was quite helpless, he could not move nor utter, and the fat nurse shoved the wretched little boy’s bald head against his mouth so that he simply had to kiss it as he had not the strength to bite it. Meanwhile everyone in the room was smiling idiotically, as though someone had just done something clever, so that, speechless with rage as he already was, he became doubly speechless and thought to himself: “This is what comes of having pneumonia in a garage!”

Not for minutes, it seemed not for years, was the full terror of what had actually happened revealed to him. He must have been making a face of some sort, for the fat nurse brought a mirror and held it to him, saying: “There, there, don’t fret. See how well you look!” And the face that Tarlyon saw in the mirror was the face of his little sister Shirley, a pretty little white face with cheeky curled lips and large grey eyes and a frantic crown of curly golden hair.

Tarlyon tried to stammer: “Some awful mistake has been made,” but not a word would come, and for very terror at what had happened he closed his eyes that he might, even as though he verily was Shirley, sob in peace.

It was for Shirley more than for himself that he was distracted with grief, for he realised only too well what must have happened. Shirley, the poor darling, must have been having terrible trouble in childbirth--and all for that foul Hugo’s wretched heir with the bald head--while he had died of pneumonia-cum-appendicitis in the next room. His soul having left his body--while Ian Black and Dr. Chill were still arguing about it--he had, or it had, wandered about between the two rooms for a while and then, while Shirley wasn’t looking, had slipped into her body and expelled her soul into the outer darkness.

That his supposition was only too accurate was presently proved beyond all doubt. Hugo had managed to sneak into the room again, and when Tarlyon opened his eyes he looked at Hugo beseechingly for news, whereupon the wretched man at once kissed him. But Tarlyon must have looked so furious, even with Shirley’s pretty face, that the fat nurse at once stopped Hugo from clinching again; and when Tarlyon again looked beseechingly towards the wall of the room in which he had had pneumonia Hugo nodded his head cheerfully and said: “Yes, he’s dead, poor old George. Doctor said he would have lived if he hadn’t been such a hard drinker. Poor old George. They are embalming the corpse in Vichy Water at the moment.”

Tarlyon lost count of time, of days and nights, he lost count of everything but the number of his discomforts and fears. He spent hours with closed eyes enumerating the terrors in store for him as a woman, as a pretty woman, as Hugo’s wife. It would be no use his saying that he was not really Shirley but her brother George, for people would only think he was mad. Of course he would divorce Hugo as soon as he was better; it was too revolting to have Hugo’s face shoved close to his own on the slightest provocation. Heavens, how well he now understood the many ways in which men can infuriate women! And then, chief among the terrors of his new life, must be the bringing-up of that awful baby with the bald head. As it was, he was seeing a great deal too much of it, the fat nurse would always be bringing it to him and pushing it at him, but as to taking it into bed with him Tarlyon wasn’t having any, not even for the look of the thing when his mother came into the room. For one day his mother did come, and she in deep mourning for his death, and she stood above him with sad eyes, and as she held the wretched baby she whispered: “Poor George! How he would have loved his little nephew!” Fat lot she knew, poor old mother.

But always it was Hugo and his repellently affectionate face who was the last straw. One evening he managed to get into the room in his pyjamas, in Tarlyon’s pyjamas, in Tarlyon’s black pyjamas, and saying to the fat nurse: “I must just kiss her once,” furtively approached the bed. But Tarlyon was ready, and now he was just strong enough to lash out at Hugo as he bent down----

“Oi!” said Ian Black’s voice. “Steady there, you Tarlyon!”

Tarlyon said something incredibly wicked and Ian Black said: “You’ll be all right soon. In fact you must be quite all right now, if you can swear like that. But don’t land me one on the head again with that hot-water bottle else I’ll operate on you for something else. And I haven’t left a sponge inside you, either. Hullo, here’s Hugo with a smile like a rainbow!”

“I should think so!” cried Hugo. “Chaps, I’ve got a son! What do you know about that?”

“Everything!” gasped Tarlyon. “He’s bald.”

“Bald be blowed, George! All babies are bald. In my time I was the baldest baby in Bognor, and proud of it. He’s a wonder, I tell you.”

“He’s awful!” sighed Tarlyon. “Go away, Hugo, go away! I’ll explain later, but at the moment I am _so_ tired of your face. And in future,” said he sharply, “don’t dare to try to kiss Shirley more than once a day.”

The rest of this story is not very interesting, and nothing more need be said but that Tarlyon nowadays makes a point of advising a man never to kiss his wife without first making quite certain that she wants to be kissed, which is quite a new departure in the relations between men and women and one to be encouraged as leading to a better understanding and less waste of temper between the sexes.

As for the bald baby, he now has some hair of that neutral colour which parents call golden, and four teeth, and Hugo shows off his scream with pride. Hugo and Shirley think he is marvellous. Maybe he is. Maybe all babies are. But it is certain that all women are, by reason of what they put up with in men one way and another. That is what Tarlyon says, and if he does not speak on the matter with authority then this is not a true story and might just as well not have been written, which is absurd.

V: THE PRINCE OF THE JEWS

This is the tale of the late Rear-Admiral Sir Charles Fasset-Faith, K.C.B., C.M.G., D.S.O. This distinguished torpedo officer was advanced to flag rank only last June, having previously been for two years Commodore of the First Class commanding the ---- Fleet. Throughout the war he was attached to the submarine service; and for the vigilance and fearlessness of his command his name came to be much on men’s lips. His early death, at the age of forty-five, will be regretted by all who knew him. He never married. This is also the tale of Julian Raphael the Jew and of Manana Cohen, his paramour.

One summer evening a gentleman emerged from the Celibates Club in Hamilton Place; and, not instantly descending the few broad steps to the pavement, stood a while between the two ancient brown columns of the portico. The half of a cigar was restlessly screwed into the corner of his mouth in a manner that consorted quite oddly with his uneager English eye; and that, with the gentleman’s high carriage, might have reminded a romantic observer of the President of the Suicide Club. His silk hat, however (for he was habited for the evening), was situated on his head with an exact sobriety which would seem to rebuke the more familiar relations customary between desperate gentlemen and their hats; and he appeared, at his idle station at the head of the broad steps, to be lost in peaceful contemplation.

The Admiral made thus a notable mark for any passing stranger with a nice eye for distinction: he stood so definitely for _something_, a very column of significance, of conduct. Unusually tall for a sailor, and of powerful build, his complexion was as though forged--it is the exact word--in the very smithy of vengeful suns and violent winds: his pale dry eyes, which would, even in a maelstrom, always remain decidedly the driest of created things, in their leisure assumed that kindly, absent look which is the pleasant mark of Englishmen who walk in iron upon the sea: while short brown side-whiskers mightily became the authority of Sir Charles’s looks.

The hour was about ten o’clock, and the traffic by the corner of Hamilton Place and Piccadilly marched by without hindrance. The din of horns and wheels and engines, as though charmed by the unusual gentleness of the night, swept by inattentive ears as easily as the echoes of falling water in a distant cavern. The omnibuses to Victoria and to the Marble Arch trumpeted proudly round the corner where by day they must pant for passage in a heavy block. Limousines and landaulettes shone and passed silently. The very taxis, in the exaltation of moderate speed, seemed almost to be forgetting their humble places in the hierarchy of the road. Every now and then figures scuttled across the road with anxious jerking movements.

“A fine night!” sighed the commissionaire of the Celibates Club. His face was very lined and his old eyes clouded with the stress of countless days of London fog and London rain. “A taxi, Sir Charles?”

The Admiral cleared his throat and aimed the remnant of his cigar into the gutter. “Thanks, Hunt, I think I’ll walk. Yes, a fine night.”

Omnibus after omnibus tore down the short broad slope from Park Lane and galloped gaily across the sweep of Hyde Park Corner. There was half a moon over St. George’s Hospital, and the open place looked like a park with the lamps for flowers.

“The buses _do_ speed up at night!” sighed the commissionaire.

“Don’t they! But see there, Hunt!” Sir Charles, suddenly and sharply, was waving his cane towards the opposite side of the road, towards the corner by the massive Argentine Club. “See that man?”

The commissionaire with the lined face followed the direction of the cane.

“That constable, Sir Charles?”

“No, no! That Jew!”

The commissionaire, mistrustful of his ancient eyes, peered through the clear night. He sighed: “God knows, Sir Charles, there’s Jews enough in Mayfair, but I can’t see one just there.”

The Admiral thoughtfully took another cigar from his case. His eyes were of iron, but his voice had lost all its sudden sharpness as he said: “Never mind, Hunt. Just give me a light, will you?”

But, as he made to walk down Piccadilly, to join in a rubber at his other club in St. James’s Street, Sir Charles did not let the dark lean man on the other side of the road pass out of the corner of his eye. The young Jew crossed the road. That did not surprise our gentleman. He walked on and, once on Piccadilly, walked at a good pace.

The Piccadilly scene was seldom crowded between ten and eleven: cinema-theatres, music-halls and playhouses held the world’s attention, while the night was not yet deep enough for the dim parade of the world’s wreckage. Sir Charles would always, at about this hour, take a little exercise between his clubs in Hamilton Place and St. James’s.

He had passed the opening of Half-Moon Street before the young Jew caught up with his shoulder. Sir Charles walked on without concerning himself to look round at the dark, handsome face. Handsome as a black archangel was Julian Raphael the Jew. Sir Charles vaguely supposed that the archangels had originally been Jewish, and it was as a black archangel that the looks of Julian Raphael had first impressed him. It was altogether a too fanciful business for the Admiral’s taste; but he had no one to blame for it but himself, since he had originally let the thing, he’d had to admit often, run away with him.

“Well?” he suddenly smiled over his shoulder. There was, after all, a good deal to smile about, if you took the thing properly. And it had needed more than a handsome Jew to prevent Sir Charles taking a thing properly. But Julian Raphael did not smile. He said gravely:

“When I first saw you, Sir Charles, I thought you were only a fool. But I am not sure now. You show a resignation towards fate unusual in your sceptical countrymen. It is scepticism that makes men dull, resignation that makes men interesting. It is a dull mind that believes in nothing: it is an interesting mind that expects nothing and awaits the worst. Your waiting shall be rewarded, Sir Charles.”

The Admiral walked on with a grim smile. He was growing used to this--even to this! They passed beneath the bitter walls of what was once Devonshire House. The beautiful Jew said softly:

“You have a broad back, Sir Charles. It is a fine mark for a well-thrown knife. Have I not always said so!”

Our gentleman swung round on the lean young Jew. A few yards from them a policeman was having a few words with the commissionaire of the Berkeley Restaurant about a car that had been left standing too long by the curb. It was Julian Raphael who was smiling now. Sir Charles said sternly:

“Am I to understand that you are trying to frighten me with this ridiculous persecution? And what, Mr. Raphael, is to prevent me from giving you in charge to that policeman? You are, I think, wanted for murder.”

Julian Raphael’s black eyes seemed to shine with mockery. “There’s nothing in the world to prevent you, Sir Charles, except that any policeman would think you mad for asking him to arrest air. Not, as you suggest, that he wouldn’t, in the ordinary way, be pleased to catch the Prince of the Jews. May I offer you a light for that cigar?”

And as Sir Charles lit his cigar from the match held out to him he was not surprised to find himself looking into the ancient eyes of Hunt, the commissionaire outside his club in Hamilton Place. His walk up Piccadilly, his talk with the young Jew, had taken no longer than it takes to light a cigar. This was the third time within a fortnight that the Admiral had been privileged to see his old enemy, to walk with him and talk with him; and his awakening had each time been to find that not more than a couple of seconds had passed and that he had never moved from his station.

Sir Charles abruptly reentered the club and, in the smoking-room, addressed himself to his old friend Hilary Townshend.

“Hilary,” said he, “I have a tale to tell you. It is very fanciful, and you will dislike it. I dislike it for the same reason. But I want you, my oldest friend, to know certain facts in case anything happens to me in the course of the next few days--or nights. In my life, as you know, I have not had many dealings with the grotesque. But the grotesque seems lately to be desiring the very closest connection with me. It began two years ago when I officiously tried to be of some service to a young Jewess called Manana Cohen. God help me, I thought I was acting for the best.”

There follows the tale told by Admiral Sir Charles Fasset-Faith to Mr. Townshend.

THE ADMIRAL’S TALE

About two years ago [said Sir Charles], during one of my leaves in London, young Mrs. Harpenden persuaded me to go down with her to a club of some sort she was helping to run down in the East End.

There were then, and for all I know there are now, a number of pretty and sound young women doing their best to placate God for the sins of their Victorian fathers by making life in the East End as tolerable as possible. Of course, only once a week. Venice’s idea in landing me was that I should give the young devils down there a rough lecture on the Navy in general and the Jutland fight in particular--that kind of thing.

So there I stood yapping away, surrounded by a crowd of amiable and attentive young men and women. In a room nearby poor Napier Harpenden was trying to get away with only one black eye from a hefty young navvy to whom he was supposed to be teaching boxing. Across a counter in a far corner Venice was handing out cups of perfectly revolting coffee. She had all the bloods at her call that night, had Venice. In one corner Tarlyon was teaching a crowd Jujitsu, and in another Hugo Cypress was playing draughts with a Boy Scout--it did one good to see him. And there, in the middle of all that, was the old mug roaring away about the silent Navy.

I was just getting settled down and raising laughs with the usual Jack Tar stuff when--well, there they were, a pair of them, quite plainly laughing at me. Not _with_ me, mark you. You’ll understand that it put me off my stroke. However, I did my level best to go on without looking at them, but that wasn’t so easy, as they were bang in front of me, three or four rows back. I had spotted the young man first. He was the one making the jokes and leading the laugh, while the girl only followed suit. Both Jews, obviously, and as handsome as a couple of new coins. Smart, too--the young man too smart by half.

You could tell at a glance that they had no right in the place, which was for very poor folk, and that they had come in just to guy. At least, that devilish young man had. He had a thin dead-white face, a nose that wouldn’t have looked amiss on a prince of old Babylon, black eyes the size of walnuts, and a smile--I’ll tell you about that smile. Hilary, I’ve never in my life so wanted to do anything as to put my foot squarely down on that boy’s smile. Call me a Dutchman if they don’t hate it even down in hell.

The girl wasn’t any less beautiful, with her white face, black hair, black eyes, fine slim Hebrew nose. Proud she looked too, and a proud Jewess can--and does--look any two English beauties in the face. But she was better, gentler, _nicer_. They were of the same stuff, those two young Jews, the same ancient sensitive clever stuff, but one had gone rotten and the other hadn’t. You could easily see that from the way, when she did meet my eyes, she did her level best to look serious and not to hear what her companion was whispering into her ear. She didn’t particularly want to hurt my feelings, not she, no matter how much her man might want to. Of course I could have stopped the lecture then and there and chucked the young man out, but I didn’t want to go and have a rough-house the first time I was asked down to young Venice’s potty old club.