Simon the Jester

CHAPTER III

Some letters in Dale's round handwriting lay on the library table awaiting my signature. Dale himself had gone. A lady had called for him, said Rogers, in an electric brougham. As my chambers are on the second floor and the staircase half-way down the arcade, Rogers's detailed information surprised me. I asked him how he knew.

“A chauffeur in livery, sir, came to the door and said that the brougham was waiting for Mr. Kynnersley.”

“I don't see how the lady came in,” I remarked.

“She didn't, sir. She remained in the brougham,” said Rogers.

So Lola Brandt keeps an electric brougham.

I lunched at the club, and turned up the article “Lola Brandt” in the living encyclopaedia—that was my friend Renniker. The wonderful man gave me her history from the cradle to Cadogan Gardens, where she now resides. I must say that his details were rather vague. She rode in a circus or had a talking horse—he was not quite sure; and concerning her conjugal or extra-conjugal heart affairs he admitted that his information was either unauthenticated or conjectural. At any rate, she had not a shred of reputation. And she didn't want it, said Renniker; it would be as much use to her as a diving suit.

“She has young Dale Kynnersley in tow,” he remarked.

“So I gather,” said I. “And now can you tell me something else? What is the present state of political parties in Guatemala?”

I was not in the least interested in Guatemala; but I did not care to discuss Dale with Renniker. When he had completed his sketch of affairs in that obscure republic, I thanked him politely and ordered coffee.

Feeling in a gregarious, companionable humour—I have had enough solitude at Murglebed to last me the rest of my short lifetime—I went later in the afternoon to Sussex Gardens to call on Mrs. Ellerton. It was her day at home, and the drawing-room was filled with chattering people. I stayed until most of them were gone, and then Maisie dragged me to the inner room, where a table was strewn with the wreckage of tea.

“I haven't had any,” she said, grasping the teapot and pouring a treacly liquid into a cup. “You must have some more. Do you like it black, or with milk?”

She is a dainty slip of a girl, with deep grey eyes and wavy brown hair and a sea-shell complexion. I absently swallowed the abomination she handed me, for I was looking at her over the teacup and wondering how an exquisite-minded gentleman like Dale could forsake her for a Lola Brandt. It was not as if Maisie were an empty-headed, empty-natured little girl. She is a young person of sense, education, and character. She also adores musical comedy and a band at dinner: an excellent thing in woman—when she is very young.

“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.

“Because, my dear Maisie,” said I, “you are good to look upon. You are also dropping a hairpin.”

She hastily secured the dangling thing. “I did my hair anyhow to-day,” she explained.

Again I thought of Dale's tie and socks. The signs of a lover's “careless desolation,” described by Rosalind so minutely, can still be detected in modern youth of both sexes. I did not pursue the question, but alluded to autumn gaieties. She spoke of them without enthusiasm. Miss Somebody's wedding was very dull, and Mrs. Somebody Else's dance manned with vile and vacuous dancers. At the Opera the greatest of German sopranos sang false. All human institutions had taken a crooked turn, and her cat could not be persuaded to pay the commonest attention to its kittens. Then she asked me nonchalantly:

“Have you seen anything of Dale lately?”

“He was working with me this morning. I've been away, you know.”

“I forgot.”

“When did you last see him?” I asked.

“Oh, ages ago! He has not been near us for weeks. We used to be such friends. I don't think it's very polite of him, do you?”

“I'll order him to call forthwith,” said I.

“Oh, please don't! If he won't come of his own accord—I don't want to see him particularly.”

She tossed her shapely head and looked at me bravely.

“You are quite right,” said I. “Dale's a selfish, ill-mannered young cub.”

“He isn't!” she flashed. “How dare you say such things about him!”

I smiled and took both her hands—one of them held a piece of brown bread-and-butter.

“My dear,” said I, “model yourself on Little Bo-Peep. I don't know who gave her the famous bit of advice, but I think it was I myself in a pastoral incarnation. I had a woolly cloak and a crook, and she was like a Dresden china figure—the image of you.”

Her eyes swam, but she laughed and said I was good to her. I said:

“The man who wouldn't be good to you is an unhung villain.”

Then her mother joined us, and our little confidential talk came to an end. It was enough, however, to convince me that my poor little Ariadne was shedding many desperate tears in secret over her desertion.

On my way home I looked in on my doctor. His name is Hunnington. He grasped me by the hand and eagerly inquired whether my pain was worse. I said it was not. He professed delight, but looked disappointed. I ought to have replied in the affirmative. It is so easy to make others happy.

I dined, read a novel, and went to sleep in the cheerful frame of mind induced by the consciousness of having made some little progress on the path of eumoiriety.

The next morning Dale made his customary appearance. He wore a morning coat, a dark tie, and patent-leather boots.

“Well,” said I, “have you dressed more carefully today?”

He looked himself anxiously over and inquired whether there was anything wrong. I assured him of the impeccability of his attire, and commented on its splendour.

“Are you going to take Maisie out to lunch?”

He started and reddened beneath his dark skin. Before he could speak I laid my hand on his shoulder.

“I'm an old friend, Dale. You mustn't be angry with me. But don't you think you're treating Maisie rather badly?”

“You've no right to say so,” he burst out hotly. “No one has the right to say so. There was never a question of an engagement between Maisie and myself.”

“Then there ought to have been,” I said judicially. “No decent man plays fast and loose with a girl and throws her over just at the moment when he ought to be asking her to marry him.”

“I suppose my mother's been at you. That's what she wanted to see you about yesterday. I wish to God she would mind her own business.”

“And that I would mind mine?”

Dale did not reply. For some odd reason he is devotedly attached to me, and respects my opinion on worldly matters. He walked to the window and looked out. Presently, without turning round, he said:

“I suppose she has been rubbing it in about Lola Brandt?”

“She did mention the lady's name,” said I. “So did Renniker at the club. I suppose every one you know and many you don't are mentioning it.”

“Well, what if they are?”

“They're creating an atmosphere about your name which is scarcely that in which to make an entrance into public life.”

Still with his back turned, he morosely informed me in his vernacular that he contemplated public life with feelings of indifference, and was perfectly prepared to abandon his ambitions. I took up my parable, the same old parable that wise seniors have preached to the deluded young from time immemorial. I have seldom held forth so platitudinously even in the House of Commons. I spoke as impressively as a bishop. In the midst of my harangue he came and sat by the library table and rested his chin on his palm, looking at me quietly out of his dark eyes. His mildness encouraged me to further efforts. I instanced cases of other young men of the world who had gone the way of the flesh and had ended at the devil.

There was Paget, of the Guards, eaten to the bone by the Syren—not even the gold lace on his uniform left. There was Merridew, once the hope of the party, now living in ignoble obscurity with an old and painted mistress, whom he detested, but to whom habit and sapped will-power kept him in thrall. There was Bullen, who blew his brains out. In a generous glow I waxed prophetic and drew a vivid picture of Dale's moral, mental, physical, financial, and social ruin, and finished up in a masterly peroration.

Then, without moving, he calmly said:

“My dear Simon, you are talking through your hat!”

He had allowed me to walk backwards and forwards on the hearthrug before a blazing fire, pouring out the wealth of my wisdom, experience, and rhetoric for ten minutes by the clock, and then coolly informed me that I was talking through my hat.

I wiped my forehead, sat down, and looked at him across the table in surprise and indignation.

“If you can point out one irrelevant or absurd remark in my homily, I'll eat the hat through which you say I'm talking.”

“The whole thing is rot from beginning to end!” said he. “None of you good people know anything at all about Lola Brandt. She's not the sort of woman you think. She's quite different. You can't judge her by ordinary standards. There's not a woman like her in the wide world!”

I made a gesture of discouragement. The same old parable of the wise had evoked the same old retort from the deluded young. She was quite different from other women. She was misunderstood by the cynical and gross-minded world. A heart of virgin purity beat beneath her mercenary bosom. Her lurid past had been the reiterated martyrdom of a noble nature. O Golden Age! O unutterable silliness of Boyhood!

“For Heaven's sake, don't talk in that way!” he cried (I had been talking in that way), and he rose and walked like a young tiger about the room. “I can't stand it. I've gone mad about her. She has got into my blood somehow. I think about her all day long, and I can't sleep at night. I would give up any mortal thing on earth for her. She is the one woman in the world for me! She's the dearest, sweetest, tenderest, most beautiful creature God ever made!”

“And you honour and respect her—just as you would honour and respect Maisie?” I asked quietly.

“Of course I do!” he flashed. “Don't I tell you that you know nothing whatever about her? She is the dearest, sweetest——” etc., etc. And he continued to trumpet forth the Olympian qualities of the Syren and his own fervent adoration. I was the only being to whom he had opened his heart, and, the floodgates being set free, the torrent burst forth in this tempestuous and incoherent manner. I let him go on, for I thought it did him good; but his rhapsody added very little to my information.

The lady who had “houp-la'd” her way from Dublin to Yokohama was the spotless queen of beauty, and Dale was frenziedly, idiotically in love with her. That was all I could gather. When he had finished, which he did somewhat abruptly, he threw himself into a chair and took out his cigarette-case with shaky fingers.

“There. I suppose I've made a damn-fool exhibition of myself,” he said, defiantly. “What have you got to say about it?”

“Precisely,” I replied, “what I said before. I'll repeat it, if you like.”

Indeed, what more was there to say for the present about the lunatic business? I had come to the end of my arguments.

He reflected for a moment, then rose and came over to the fireplace.

“Look here, Simon, you must let me go my own way in this. In matters of politics and worldly wisdom and social affairs and honourable dealing and all that sort of thing I would follow you blindly. You're my chief, and a kind of elder brother as well. I would do any mortal thing for you. You know that. But you've no right to try to guide me in this matter. You know no more about it than my mother. You've had no experience. You've never let yourself go about a woman in your life. Lord of Heaven, man, you have never begun to know what it means!”

Oh, dear me! Here was the situation as old as the return of the Prodigal or the desertion of the trusting village maiden, or any other cliche in the melodrama of real life. “You are making a fool of yourself,” says Mentor. “Ah,” shrieks Telemachus, “but you never loved! You don't know what love is.”

I looked at him whimsically.

“Don't I?”

My thoughts sped back down the years to a garden in France. Her name was Clothilde. We met in a manner outrageous to Gallic propriety, as I used to climb over the garden wall to the peril of my epidermis. We loved. We were parted by stern parents—not mine—and Clothilde was packed off to the good Sisters who had previously had care of her education. Now she is fat and happy, and the wife of a banker and the mother of children.

But the romance was sad and bad and mad enough while it lasted; and when Clothilde was (figuratively) dragged from my arms I cursed and swore and out-Heroded Herod, played Termagant, and summoned the heavens to fall down and crush me miserable beneath their weight. And then her brother challenged me to fight a duel, whereupon, as the most worshipped of all She's had not received a ha'porth of harm at my hands, I called him a silly ass and threatened to break his head if he interfered any more in my legitimate despair. I smile at it now; but it was real at two-and-twenty—as real, I take it, as Dale's consuming passion for the lady of the circus.

There was also, I remembered, a certain —— But this had nothing to do with Dale. Neither had the tragedy of my lost Clothilde. The memories, however, brought a wistful touch of sympathy into my voice.

“You soberly think, my dear old Dale,” said I, “that I know nothing of love and passion and the rest of the divine madness?”

“I'm sure you don't,” he cried, with an impatient gesture. “If you did, you wouldn't—”

He came to an abrupt and confused halt.

“I wouldn't—what?”

“Nothing. I forgot what I was going to say. Let us talk of something else.”

“It was on the tip of your impulsive tongue,” said I cheerfully, “to refer to my attitude towards Miss Faversham.”

“I'm desperately sorry,” said he, reddening. “It was unpardonable. But how did you guess?”

I laughed and quoted the Latin tag about the ingenuous boy of the ingenuous visage and ingenuous modesty.

“Because I don't feverishly search the postbag for a letter from Miss Faversham you conclude I'm a bloodless automaton?”

“Please don't say any more about it, Simon,” he pleaded in deep distress.

A sudden idea struck me. I reflected, walked to the window, and, having made up my mind, sat down again. I had a weapon to hand which I had overlooked, and with the discovery came a weak craving for the boy's sympathy. I believe I care more for him than for any living creature. I decided to give him some notion of my position.

Sooner or later he would have to learn it.

“I would rather like to tell you something,” said I, “about my engagement—in confidence, of course. When Eleanor Faversham comes back I propose to ask her to release me from it.”

He drew a long breath. “I'm glad. She's an awfully nice girl, but she's no more in love with you than my mother is. But it'll be rather difficult, won't it?”

“I don't think so,” I replied, shaking my head. “It's a question of health. My doctors absolutely forbid it.”

A look of affectionate alarm sprang into his eyes. He broke into sympathy. My health? Why had I not told him before? In Heaven's name, what was the matter with me?

“Something silly,” said I. “Nothing you need worry about on my account. Only I must go piano for the rest of my days. Marriage isn't to be thought of. There is something else I must tell you. I must resign my seat.”

“Resign your seat? Give up Parliament? When?”

“As soon as possible.”

He looked at me aghast, as if the world were coming to an end.

“We had better concoct an epistle to Raggles this morning.”

“But you can't be serious?”

“I can sometimes, my dear Dale. This is one of the afflicting occasions.”

“You out of Parliament? You out of public life? It's inconceivable. It's damnable. But you're just coming into your own—what Raggles said, what I told you yesterday. But it can't be. You can hold on. I'll do all the drudgery for you. I'll work night and day.”

And he tramped up and down the room, uttering the disconnected phrases which an honest young soul unaccustomed to express itself emotionally blurts out in moments of deep feeling.

“It's no use, Dale,” said I, “I've got my marching orders.”

“But why should they come just now?”

“When the sweets of office are dangling at my lips? It's pretty simple.” I laughed. “It's one of the little ironies that please the high gods so immensely. They have an elementary sense of humour—like that of the funny fellow who pulls your chair from under you and shrieks with laughter when you go wallop on to the floor. Well, I don't grudge them their amusement. They must have a dull time settling mundane affairs, and a little joke goes a long way with them, as it does in the House of Commons. Fancy sitting on those green benches legislating for all eternity, with never a recess and never even a dinner hour! Poor high gods! Let us pity them.”

I looked at him and smiled, perhaps a little wearily. One can always command one's eyes, but one's lips sometimes get out of control. He could not have noticed my lips, however, for he cried:

“By George, you're splendid! I wish I could take a knock-out blow like that!”

“You'll have to one of these days. It's the only way of taking it. And now,” said I, in a businesslike tone, “I've told you all this with a purpose. At Wymington it will be a case of 'Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi!' The vacancy will have to be filled up at once. We'll have to find a suitable candidate. Have you one in your mind?”

“Not a soul.”

“I have.”

“Who?”

“You.”

“Me?” He nearly sprang into the air with astonishment.

“Why not?”

“They'd never adopt me.”

“I think they would,” I said. “There are men in the House as young as you. You're well known at Wymington and at headquarters as my right-hand man. You've done some speaking—you do it rather well; it's only your private conversational style that's atrocious. You've got a name familiar in public life up and down the country, thanks to your father and mother. It's a fairly safe seat. I see no reason why they shouldn't adopt you. Would you like it?”

“Like it?” he cried. “Why I'd give my ears for it.”

“Then,” said I, playing my winning card, “let us hear no more about Lola Brandt.”

He gave me a swift glance, and walked up and down the room for a while in silence. Presently he halted in front of me.

“Look here, Simon, you're a beast, but”—he smiled frankly at the quotation—“you're a just beast. You oughtn't to rub it in like that about Lola until you have seen her yourself. It isn't fair.”

“You speak now in language distinctly approaching that of reason,” I remarked. “What do you want me to do?”

“Come with me this afternoon and see her.”

My young friend had me nicely in the trap. I could not refuse.

“Very well,” said I. “But on the distinct understanding—”

“Oh, on any old understanding you like!” he cried, and darted to the door.

“Where are you going?”

“To ring her up on the telephone and tell her you're coming.”

That's the worst of the young. They have such a disconcerting manner of clinching one's undertakings.