The Mountebank

by William John Locke

Chapter XIII

Through one of the little ironies of fate, my mission at the Peace Conference ended a day or two after Andrew's arrival in Paris, so that when he called at my hotel I had already returned to London. A brief note from him a day or two later informed me of his visit and his great regret at missing me. Of his plans he said nothing. He gave as his address "c/o Cox's Bank." You will remark that this was late April, and I did not receive his famous manuscript till June. Of his private history I knew nothing, save his beginnings in the Cirque Rocambeau and his identity with a professional mountebank known as Petit Patou.

Soon afterwards I spent a week-end with the Verity-Stewarts. Before I could have a private word with Lady Auriol, whom I found as my fellow-guest, Evadne, as soon as she had finished an impatient though not unsubstantial tea, hurried me out into the garden. There were two litters of Sealyhams.

Lady Verity-Stewart protested mildly.

"Uncle Anthony doesn't want to see puppies."

"It's the only thing he's interested in and the only thing he knows anything about," cried Evadne. "And he's the only one that's able to pick out the duds. Come on."

So I went. Crossing the lawn, she took my arm.

"We're all as sick as dogs," she remarked confidentially.

"Indeed? Why?"

"We asked----" Note the modern child. Not "Papa" or "Mamma," as a well-conducted little girl of the Victorian epoch would have said, but "we," ego et parentes--"we asked," replied Evadne, "General Lackaday down. And crossing our letter came one from Paris telling us he had left England for good. Isn't it rotten?"

"The General's a very good fellow," said I, "but I didn't know he was a flame of yours."

"Oh, you stupid!" cried Evadne, with a protesting tug at my arm "It's nothing to do with me. It s Aunt Auriol."

"Oh?" said I.

She shook her fair bobbed head. "As if you didn't know!"

"I'm not so senile," said I, "as not to grasp your insinuation, my dear. But I fail to see what business it is of ours."

"It's a family affair--oh, I forgot, you're not real family--only adopted." I felt humiliated. "Anyhow you're as near as doesn't matter." I brightened up again. "I've heard 'em talking it over--when they thought I wasn't listening. Father and mother and Charles. They're all potty over General Lackaday. And so's Aunt Auriol. I told you they had clicked ages ago."

"Clicked?"

"Yes. Don't you know English?"

"To my sorrow, I do. They clicked. And father and mother and Charles and Aunt Auriol are all potty."

"And so am I," she declared, "for he's a dear. And they all say it's time for Aunt Auriol to settle down. So they wanted to get him here and fix him. Charles says he's a shy bird----"

"But," I interrupted, "you're talking of the family. Your Aunt Auriol has a father, Lord Mountshire."

"He's an old ass," said Evadne.

"He's a peer of the realm," said I rebukingly, though I cordially agreed with her.

"He's not fit to be General Lackaday's ancient butler," she retorted.

"Is that your own?"

"No. It's Charles's. But I can repeat it if I like."

"And all this goes to prove----" said I.

"Well, don't you see? You are dense. The news that the General had gone to France knocked them all silly. Aunt Auriol's looking rotten. Charles says she's off her feed. You should have seen her last night at dinner, when they were talking about him."

"Again, my dear Evadne," said I, opening the gate of the kitchen garden for her to pass through, "this is none of my business."

She took my arm again. "It doesn't matter. But oh, darling Uncle Tony, couldn't we fix it up?"

"Fix up what?" I asked aghast.

"The wedding," replied this amazing young person, looking up at me so that I had only a vision of earnest grey eyes, and a foreshortened snub nose and chin. "He's only shy. You could bring him up to the scratch at once."

She went on in a whirl of words of which I preserve but a confused memory. Of course it was her own idea. She had heard her mother hint that Anthony Hylton might be a useful man to have about--but all the same she had her plan. Why shouldn't I go off to Paris and bring him back? I gasped. I fought for air. But Evadne hurried me on, talking all the time. She was dying for a wedding. She had never seen one in her life. She would be a bridesmaid. She described her costume. And she had set her heart on a wedding present--the best of the bunch of Sealyham puppies. Why, certainly they were all hers. Tit and Tat, from whom the rather extensive kennels had originally sprung, were her own private property. They had been given to her when she was six years old. Tat had died. But Tit. I knew Tit? Did I not? No one could spend an hour in Mansfield Court without making the acquaintance of the ancient thing on the hearthrug, with the shape of a woolly lamb and the eye of a hawk and the smile of a Court jester. Besides, I had known him since he was a puppy. I, moi qui parle, had been the donor of Tit and Tat. I reminded her. I was a stupid. As if she didn't know. But I was to confirm her right to dispose of the pups. I confirmed it solemnly. So we hastened to the stable yard and inspected the kennels, where the two mothers lay with their slithery tail-wagging broods. We discussed the points of each little beast and eventually decided on the one which should be Evadne's wedding present to General Lackaday and Lady Auriol Dayne.

"Thanks ever so much, darling," said Evadne. "You are so helpful."

I returned to the drawing-room fairly well primed with the family preoccupations, so that when Lady Verity-Stewart carried me off to her own little den on the pretext of showing me some new Bristol glass, and Sir Julius came smoking casually in her wake, I knew what to expect. They led up to the subject, of course, very diplomatically--not rushing at it brutally like Evadne, but nothing that the child said did they omit--with the natural exception of the bridesmaid's dress and the wedding present. And they added little more. They were greatly concerned, dear elderly folk, about Auriol. She and General Lackaday had been hand in glove for months. He evidently more than admired her. Auriol, said Sir Julius, in her don't-care-a-dam-for-anybody sort of way made no pretence of disguising her sentiments. Any fool could see she was in love with the man. And they had affichéd themselves together all over the place. Other women could do it with impunity--if they didn't have an infatuated man in tow at a restaurant, they'd be stared at, people would ask whether they were qualifying for a nunnery--but Auriol was different. Aphrodite could do what she chose and no one worried; but an indiscretion of Artemis set tongues wagging. It was high time for something definite to happen. And now the only thing definite was Lackaday's final exodus from the scene, and Auriol's inclination to go off and bury herself in some savage land. Lady Verity-Stewart thought Borneo. They were puzzled. General Lackaday was the best of fellows---so simple, so sincere--such a damned fine soldier--such a gentle, kindly creature--so scurvily treated by a disgraceful War Office--just the husband for Auriol--etcetera, etcetera in strophe and antistrophe of eulogy.

All this was by way of beginning. Then came the point of the conclave. It was obvious that General Lackaday couldn't have trifled with Auriol's affections and thrown her off. I smiled at the conception of the lank and earnest Lackaday in the part of Don Juan. Besides, they added sagely, Auriol had been known to make short work of philanderers. It could only be a question of some misunderstanding that might easily be arranged by an intelligent person in the confidence of both parties. That, it appeared, was where I came in. I, as Evadne had said, was a useful man to have about.

"Now, my dear Anthony," said Sir Julius, "can't you do something?"

What the deuce was I to do? But first I asked:

"What does Auriol say about it?"

They hadn't broached the subject. They were afraid. I knew what Auriol was. As likely as not she would tell them to go to the devil for their impertinence.

"And she wouldn't be far wrong," said I.

"Of course it seems meddlesome," said Sir Julius, tugging at his white moustache, "but we're fond of Auriol. I've been much more of a father to her than that damned old ass Mountshire"--Evadne, again; though for once in her life she had exercised restraint--"and I hate to see her unhappy. She's a woman who ought to marry, hang it all, and bring fine children into the world. And her twenties won't last for ever--to put it mildly. And here she is in love with a fine fellow who's in love with her or I'll eat my hat, and--well--don't you see what I mean?"

Oh yes. I saw perfectly. To soothe them, I promised to play the high-class Pandarus to the best of my ability. At any rate, Lady Auriol, having taken me into her confidence months ago, couldn't very well tell me to go to the devil, and, if she did, couldn't maintain the mandate with much show of outraged dignity.

I did not meet her till dinner. She came down in a sort of low cut red and bronze frock without any sleeves--I had never seen so much of her before--and what I saw was exceedingly beautiful. A magnificent creature, with muscular, shapely arms and deep bosom and back like a Greek statue become dark and warm. Her auburn hair crowned her strong pleasant face. As far as appearances went I could trace no sign of the love-lorn maiden. Only from her talk did I diagnose a more than customary unrest. The war was over. Hospitals were closed. Her occupation (like Lackaday's) was gone. England was no place for her. It was divided into two social kingdoms separated by a vast gulf--one jazzing and feasting and otherwise Sodom-and-Gomorrah-izing its life away, and the other growling, envious, sinister, with the Bolshevic devil in its heart. What could a woman with brains and energy do? The Society life of the moment made her sick. A dance to Perdition. The middle classes were dancing, too, in ape-like imitation, while the tradesman class were clinging for dear life on to their short skirts, with legs dangling in the gulf. On the other side, seething masses howling worship of the Goddess of Unreason. Cross the gulf--one would metaphorically be torn to pieces. Remain--no outlet for energy but playing the wild Cassandra. Her pessimism was Tartarean.

"General Lackaday, the last time I saw him, agreed with me that the war was a damned sight better than this."

It was the first time she had mentioned him. Lady Verity-Stewart and I exchanged glances.

She went on. Not a monologue. We all made our comments, protests and what not. But in the theatre phrase we merely fed her, instinctively feeling for the personal note. On ordinary occasions very subtly aware of such tactics, she seemed now to ignore them. She rose to every fly. Public life for women? Parliament? The next election would result in a Labour Government. Women would stand no chance. Labour counted on cajoling the woman's vote. But it would have no truck with women as legislators. If there was one social class which had the profoundest contempt for woman as an intelligent being it was the labouring population.

For Heaven's sake remember, I am only giving you Lady Auriol's views, as expressed over the dinner table. What mine are, I won't say. Anyhow they don't amount to a row of pins.

Lady Auriol continued her Jeremiad. Suppose she did stand for Parliament, and got in for a safe Conservative constituency. What would happen? She would be swept in to the muddiest and most soul-destroying game on God's earth. No, my dear friends, no. No politics for her. Well, what then? we asked.

"Didn't you say something about--what was it, dear--Borneo?" asked Lady Verity-Stewart.

"I don't care where it is, Aunt Selina," cried Lady Auriol. "Anywhere out of this melting-pot of civilization. But you can't get anywhere. There aren't any ships to take you. And there's nowhere worth going to. The whole of this miserable little earth has been exploited."

"Thibet has its lonely spots."

"And it's polyandrous--so a woman ought to have a good time--" she laughed. "Thanks for the hint. But I'm not taking any. Seriously, however, as you all seem to take such an interest in me, what s a woman like me to do in this welter? Oh, give me the good old war again!"

Lady Verity-Stewart lifted horrified hands. Sir Julius rebuked her unhumorously. Lady Auriol laughed again and the Jeremiad petered out.

"She's got it rather badly," Charles murmured to me when the ladies had left the dining-room.

But I was not going to discuss Lady Auriol with Charles. I grunted and sipped my port and told a gratified host that I recognized the '81 Cockburn.

Sir Julius and Lady Verity-Stewart went to bed early after the sacramental game of bridge. Charles, obeying orders, followed soon afterwards. Lady Auriol and I had the field to ourselves.

"Well?" said she.

"Well?" said I.

"You don't suppose these subtle diplomatists have left us alone to discuss Bolshevism or Infant Welfare?"

There was the ironical gleam in her eyes and twist in her lips that had attracted me since her childhood. I have always liked intelligent women.

"Have they been badgering you?"

"Good Lord, no. But a female baby in a pink sash would see what they're driving at. Haven't they been discussing me and Andrew Lackaday?"

"They have," said I, "and they're perfect dears. They've built up a fairy-tale around you and have taken long leases in it and are terribly anxious that the estate shan't be put into liquidation."

"That's rather neat," she said.

"I thought so, myself," said I.

Stretched in an arm-chair she looked for some minutes into the glow of the wood fire. Then she turned her head quickly.

"You haven't given me away?"

"My good girl!" I protested, "what do you take me for?"

She laughed. "That's all right. I opened out to you last year about Andrew. You remember? You were very sympathetic. I was in an unholy sort of fog about myself then. I'm in clear weather now. I know my own mind. He's the only man in the world for me. I suppose I've made it obvious. Hence the solicitude of these pet lambs--and your appointment as Investigator. Well, my dear Tony, what do they want to know?"

"They're straining their dear simple ears to catch the strain of wedding bells and they can't do it. So they're worried."

"Well, you can tell them not to worry any longer. There aren't going to be any wedding bells. They've made sentimental idiots of themselves. General Lackaday and I aren't marrying folks. The question hasn't arisen. We're good intimate friends, nothing more. He's no more in love with me than I am with him. Savvy?"

I savvied. But--

"That's for the pet lambs," said I. "What for me?"

"I've already told you."

"And that's the end of it?"

"As far as you are concerned--yes."

"As you will," I said.

I put a log on the fire and took up a book. All this was none of my business, as I had explained to Evadne.

"I'm sorry you're not interested in my conversation," she remarked after a while.

"You gave me to understand that it was over--as far as I was concerned."

"Never mind. I want to tell you something."

I laid down my book and lit a cigar.

"Go ahead," said I.

It was then that she told me of her last interview with Lackaday. Remember I had not yet read his version.

"It's all pretty hopeless," she concluded.

For myself I knew nothing of the reasons that bade him adopt the attitude of the Mysterious Unknown--except his sensitiveness on the point of his profession. He would rather die than appear before her imagination in the green silk tights of Petit Patou. I asked tentatively whether he had spoken much of his civilian life.

"Very little. Except of his knowledge of Europe. He has travelled a great deal. But of his occupation, family and the rest, I know nothing. Oh yes, he did once say that his father and mother died when he was a baby and that he had no kith or kin in the world. If he had thought fit to tell me more he would have done so. I, of course, asked no questions."

"But all the same," said I, "you're dying to know the word of the enigma."

She laughed scornfully. "I know it, my friend."

"The deuce you do!" said I, thinking of Petit Patou and wondering how she had guessed. "What is it?"

"A woman of course."

"Did he tell you?" I asked, startled, for that shed a new light on the matter.

"No." She boomed the word at me. "What on earth do you suppose was the meaning of our talk about playing the game?"

"Well, my dear," said I, "if it comes to that, do you think it was playing the game for him, a married man with possibly a string of children, to come down here and make love to you?"

She flared up. "He never made love to me. You've no right to say such a thing. If there was any love-making, it was I that made it. Ninety per cent of the love-making in the world is the work of women. And you know it, although you pretend to be shocked. And I'm not ashamed of myself in the least. As soon as I set my eyes on him I said 'That's the man I want,' and I soon saw that I could give him what he never had before--and I kept him to me, so that I could give it him. And I gloried in it. I don't care whether he has ten wives or twenty children. I'm telling you because"--she started up and looked me full in the face--"upon my word I don't know why--except that you're a comfortable sort of creature, and if you know everything you'll be able to deal with the pet lambs." She rose, held out her hand. "You must be bored stiff."

"On the contrary," said I, "I'm vastly interested--and honoured, my dear Auriol. But tell me. As all this sad, mad, glad affair seems to have come to a sudden stop, what do you propose to do?"

"I don't know," she replied with a half laugh. "What I feel like doing is to set out for Hell by the most adventurous route."

She laughed again, shook hands. "Good night, Tony." And she passed out through the door I held open for her.

I finished my cigar before the fire. It was the most unsatisfactory romance I had come across in a not inexperienced career. Was it the green silk tights or the possible woman in the background that restrained the gallant General? Suppose it was only the former? Would my Lady Auriol jib at them? She was a young woman with a majestic scorn for externals. In her unexpectedness she might cry "Motley's the only wear" and raise him ever higher in his mountebankic path.... I was sorry for both of them. They were two such out-of-the-way human beings--so vivid, so real. They seemed to have a preordained right to each other. He, dry, stern, simple stick of a man needed the flame-like quality that ran through her physical magnificence. She, piercing beneath the glamour of his soldierly achievements, found in him the primitive virility she could fear combined with the spiritual helplessness to which she could come in her full womanly and maternal aid. To her he was as a rock, but a living rock, vitalized by a myriad veins of sensitiveness. To him--well, I knew my Auriol--and could quite understand what Auriol in love could be to any man. Auriol out of love (and in her right mind) had always been good enough for me.

So I mused for a considerable time. Then, becoming conscious of the flatness, staleness and unprofitableness of it all, as far as my elderly selfishness was concerned, I threw my extinct cigar end into the fire, and thanking God that I had come to an age when all this storm and fuss over a creature of the opposite sex was a thing of the past, and yet with an unregenerate pang of regret for manifold what-might-have-beens, I put out the lights and went to bed.

The next day I succeeded by hook or by crook in guiding the pet lambs, Evadne included, in the way they should go. I reported progress to Lady Auriol.

"Good dog," she said.

I returned to London on Monday morning. When next I heard of her, she was, I am thankful to say, not on the adventurous path to the brimstone objective of her predilection, but was fooling about, all by herself, in a five-ton yacht, somewhere around the Outer Hebrides, in the foulest of weather.

In the days of my youth I was the victim of a hopeless passion and meditated suicide. A seafaring friend of mine suggested my accompanying him on his cargo steamer from the Port of London to Bordeaux. It was blazing summer. But I was appallingly sea-sick all the way, and when I set foot on land I was cleansed of all human emotion save that of utter thankfulness that I existed as an entity with an un-queasy stomach. I was cured for good and all.

But a five-ton yacht off the Outer Hebrides in bleak tempests--No, it was too heroic. Even my dear old friend Burton for all his wit and imagination had never devised such a remedia amoris, such a remedy for Love Melancholy.

And then came June and with it the manuscript and all the flood of information about the Agence Moignon and Bakkus and Petit Patou and Prépimpin and Elodie and various other things that I have yet to set down.