The Angel of Pain

by E. F. Benson

“Lady Salmon Ellington, my lady.”

Lady Grilse also had vindicated her name again, and when after tea they played the game at which one person goes out of the room, and on return has to guess by mere “Yes” or “No” what has been thought of, Mr. Osborne, on learning that they had thought of fish, instantly guessed “Salmon,” which proved to be right. Satisfactory reports also came from the grouse shooters; the two ladies had had a charming drive; Mr. Dennison had caught an effect of a highly pleasing kind, and though Lord Ellington had missed his stag, it was felt that Mr. Osborne was in tune with the general cheerfulness when he said that after all that was next best to hitting it. Indeed Mr. Osborne was in extremely fine form altogether, and Lady Dover, as she went upstairs with his wife at about half-past six, as it was refreshing after the day in the air to lie down for an hour or so before dinner, said that she knew no one so entertaining as her husband. Then, since Mrs. Dennison was with them, she added:

“And Mr. Dennison has promised to show us a new conjuring trick this evening. I can’t think how he does them. So very clever. And what a resource in the evening; I am sure I should never be dull if he would conjure for me always after dinner.”

It was during this last week of August, which saw this party at Glen Callan, that in point of chronology Philip broke down as recorded, and went to the Hermit in the New Forest. Madge and Evelyn, however, less lucky in the matter of locality, had to remain all the month in London, without any immediate prospect of getting away. That week at Le Touquet, with its motor-car, its suite of rooms, and Evelyn’s serene and complete disregard of all questions connected however remotely with finance, had been somewhat alarmingly expensive, and his ill-judged selling out of his Metiekull shares when things were absolutely at their worst had not mended matters. He had taken Madge completely into his confidence, and as it was evidently likely that there would soon be an embarrassing lack of funds, she had insisted on their immediate return to London, where they would be anyhow rent free in Evelyn’s house in the King’s Road, and could, as he cheerfully suggested, live on lentils like the Hermit. But on arrival in London the hall table was discovered to be literally smothered in bills, chiefly “to account rendered,” for Evelyn in the insouciance of the comfortable bachelor income which his pictures brought him in, had certainly for a year past thrown into the fire anything of a bill-nature. Nothing had ever been further from his thoughts than not to pay, but the knowledge that he could, by a strange but almost universal trait in human nature, had made him not bother to do so. But, now, however, by the converse of this law, which holds equally true, as soon as it was doubtful whether he could stand debt free, it became quite essential to his interior peace of mind that he should do so. This instinct appealed also to Madge, and after a dismal morning of adding up, the whole position was revealed. Every penny could be paid with the jetsam of Metiekull, and there was left over—his total assets except his hand and his eye—the sum of forty-three pounds. It was clearly necessary, therefore, to stop in London, to be extremely economical, and to hope that the autumn would bring sitters. Lady Taverner, at any rate, was assured, and Evelyn found himself thinking of that pink face and butter-coloured hair with almost affection.

The month was extremely hot, but of the stifling air, of the emptiness of town, of the economy that Madge insisted on being observed, what a game their love made! They were stranded on a desert island, so ran the silly tale that was made up from day to day, in the midst of the tropics. A huge town was (unexplainedly) there, in which they dwelt; but though cabs jingled about it, it was forbidden, as in an allegory, to get into a cab. A mile away there were restaurants, which both in a dreamlike fashion seemed to know; in these, too, it was forbidden to set foot, for a lion called Ellesdee guarded the doors. Ellesdee, who gradually grew more elaborate, also crouched on the tops of the cabs they would otherwise have driven in, and lay in wait at the main terminuses which would have taken them out of town. Ellesdee could assume various forms; sometimes he became quite little, and crouched behind a box of hot-house peaches, which would have been pleasant for dinner; at other times he was an apparently bland attendant at the door of theatres. He even, this was Madge’s contribution, nearly prevented Evelyn buying a couple of very expensive brushes which he wanted, but impassioned argument on his part convinced her that it was not Ellesdee at all who had taken the form of the shopman, and consequently the brushes were bought. He certainly guarded the furniture shops, where Evelyn was inclined to linger, and though he had an eye on what came in at the area gate, into the house itself he never penetrated. Nor was he to be found in Battersea Park, nor on the Embankment, where they used to walk in the cool of the evening.

But the Ellesdee who had been responsible for the disaster in Metiekull never showed his face. That had been a big and a dead loss, but Evelyn had shaken it off from his mind, just as some retriever puppy shakes off the water after a swim, dispersing it over yards of grass in a halo. And if Madge on the day when they sat on the sands at Paris-plage had had disquieting thoughts as to whether it was a man she had married or a mere boy, here at any rate was some consolation if it proved to be the latter. For Evelyn had certainly that divinest gift of youth in being able to utterly expunge from the present and from his view of the future all that had been unpleasant in the past. The moment a thing was done, if the result was not satisfactory, it ceased to be; if consequences called, as now they called, in the shape of rigid economies, he was simply not at home to them. The results he accepted with cheerful blandness, but he never went back to the cause. Whether it might or might not have been avoided no longer mattered, since it had not been avoided. The cause, however, was done with; it belonged to the mistlike texture of the past. Meantime his exuberant spirits made the very most of the present.

One afternoon some business had taken him towards the city, and he returned hot, dusty, but irresistibly buoyant shortly before dinner. Madge was sitting in the studio, where, with its north aspect, coolness was never wholly absent, and though her heart went out to meet even his step on the stairs, she looked suspiciously at a small parcel under his arm as he entered.

“Yes, champagne,” he said. “One bottle, half for you and half for me. Oh, let me explain. I got a dividend this morning of eight shillings and sixpence from twenty-five shares in something which I had forgotten, and which had therefore ceased to exist. Oh, Madge, don’t scream! What use is eight shillings? But we both want champagne, so its equivalent in champagne is of use. No, it’s no use trying to make me feel sorry, because I’m not. I just had to. Oh, you darling!”

He sat down on the sofa by her.

“I’m hot, I know,” he said, “but you might kiss just the end of my nose. I haven’t seen you for five hours.”