Mr. Maturin swept his empty coffee-cup round to indicate the family Kettlewell.
“My friends will pay,” sighed Mr. Maturin.
XI: FAREWELL, THESE CHARMING PEOPLE
I
NOW, at last, the entertainment moves towards its end, the curtain is atremble for its fall, the affair called May Fair is on tiptoe to make a last bow and retire forever into those anxious shades where all that is not of the first excellence must come to the foul embrace of limbo. So let the curtain fall, that we may get back to the serious business of life. But, oh, it is easy enough to say that! The rub is, a curtain has to be contrived. Action is demanded; and all the world loves a climax. In fine, ladies and gentlemen, those inexorable twin sisters, Finale and Farewell, have still to be served. And how shall that be done?
It happened that I was in Paris when I was thinking upon this matter with some urgency. How shall the farewell be contrived, thought I, how indeed? For, by the waters of the Thames, there never was such a trouble put upon mankind as this confounded business of leave-taking! Haven’t we all, to be sure, been sometime harassed by the saying of farewell? by the fumbling of that pitiful, pitiless occasion? Indeed, find us the man or woman who can say good-bye with ease, and he or she shall instantly have a clear start to our friendship. How often we have been distressed by the agonies of someone’s incapable departure! And you may rifle all diplomacy for ways and means to help some people take their leave, and still their glassy, fevered eyes will search your face as though for the ultimate word, still their aggressive nervousness will not permit you to put them and yourself out of their agony. While as for those poor wretches whom it is our dread delight to “see off” at railway stations, what confusion of mind is theirs, and ours! He is at the window of his carriage, smiling: we on the platform, smiling: others are nearby, smiling: hands are shaken, good-byes are said ... and does the train go? It does not. Wouldn’t we then, if we but dared, implore the departing wretch to withdraw his tormented head from the window, sit back in his seat, hide himself behind a paper and send us all to the deuce? We would, but we don’t, and he can’t, so fumble, fumble, fumble, until at last the train takes him—or her, why not?—from us who had once thought we were sorry he was going. Oh, no, this business of saying farewell is not like saying “Jack Robinson”: it needs, without a doubt, a touch of inhumanity, which, if it does not make the whole world kin, can at least help to make a good part of it comfortable, as the humane gentleman now honoured as Lord Balfour found when he was Secretary of State for Ireland.
It was, then, with such thoughts as these that my mind was vexed during my stay in Paris, much to the disorder of my pleasures, when whom should I meet but my friend Dwight-Rankin! Gratified, I was yet surprised almost beyond endurance. I had been at school with the man, but later we had lost sight of one another, and still later I had heard of his death on Gallipoli. I had been sorry.
Dwight-Rankin was a blood, and I have an intellectual leaning towards bloods. They may have only the most moderate aspirations towards a state of grace, theirs may be only the most superficial grasp of the culture of the ages, but theirs not to reason why, theirs but to do nothing and die. They may not Achieve, they may have nothing to Give to the world, but nevertheless they serve several useful purposes and are decidedly a good market for British-made and Dominion-made goods; such as golf-links, foxes, spats, plover’s eggs, chorus girls, kippers, the Conservative party, night-clubs, bookmakers, whisky, the Army, etc. They are also decorative and are frequently used at balls and at our Embassies abroad.
Dwight-Rankin remarked with gratification upon my pleasure at the fact that he was still alive and invited me to take a glass of wine with him at the Ritz, which we were at that moment passing. Nothing could have been more agreeable to me, in my troubled state of mind. We then indulged in conversation. It had rained the day before, and we spoke of the rain. There was a rumour that it had been snowing in England, and we spoke of the snow. Dwight-Rankin had just returned from Monte Carlo, where he had lost money, and I had just returned from Rome, where I had lost my luggage. We confounded Monte Carlo and Rome. Then Dwight-Rankin said that the report of his death on Gallipoli was a gross exaggeration and that one should not believe all one hears. His younger brother, Dwight-Rankin said, had believed the report with an agility surprising in one who was a confirmed sceptic in all religious matters, had stepped into the property and had gone bankrupt before Dwight-Rankin could say “knife.” Dwight-Rankin said he was now a broken man. I extended him my sympathy, for which he thanked me.
“Talking of death,” he added, “that was a nasty end for Mrs. Amp, wasn’t it?”