Chapter XIII: Book V: George Green (2)

"Oh, God!" said Jane, and bit off the exclamation almost before it was uttered.

Green was cogitating quietly over the matter.

"Perhaps she thought she knew me," he said. "She must have been one of them who knew him--me--in the old days, and it gave her a turn. Yes, that must have been it."

He was quite happy with his solution.

Suddenly he asked: "Had my mother got red hair?"

Jane nodded.

"Then that was it." He looked up apologetically. "Sorry. I was just thinking of something."

"I'll go and see Bleibner now," said Sebastian. "Jane will look after you."

He left the room. Green leaned forward in his chair, his head held between his hands. He felt acutely uncomfortable and miserable--especially with Jane. Clearly he ought to know her--and he didn't. She had said "Dear Vernon" just now. It was terribly awkward when people knew you and you felt they were strangers. If he spoke to her he supposed he ought to call her Jane--but he couldn't. She was a stranger. Still, he supposed he'd have to get used to it. They'd have to be Sebastian and George and Jane together--no, not George--Vernon. Silly sort of name, Vernon. Probably he'd been a silly sort of chap.

"I mean," he thought, trying desperately to force the realization upon himself, "_I_ must have been a silly sort of chap."

He felt horribly lonely--cut off from reality. He looked up to find Jane watching him, and the pity and understanding in her eyes made him feel a shade less forlorn.

"It's rather terrible just at first, isn't it?" she said.

He said politely: "It is rather difficult. You don't--you don't know where you are with things."

"I understand."

She said no more, just sat there quietly beside him. His head jerked forward. He began to doze. In reality he only slept for a few minutes, but it seemed to him hours. Jane had turned all the lamps out but one. He woke with a start. She said quickly:

"It's all right."

He stared at her, his breath coming in gasps. He was still in the nightmare then, he hadn't wakened. And there was something worse to come--something he didn't know yet. He was sure of it. That was why they all looked at him so pityingly.

Jane got up suddenly. Wildly, he cried out:

"Stay with me. Oh! please stay with me."

He couldn't understand why her face should suddenly twist with pain. What was there in what he had said to make her look like that? He said again: "Don't leave me. Stay with me."

She sat down again beside him and took his hand in hers. She said very gently:

"I won't go away."

He felt soothed, reassured. After a minute or two he dozed again. He woke quietly this time. The room was as before and his hand was still in Jane's. He spoke diffidently:

"You--you aren't my sister? You were--you are, I mean--a friend of mine?"

"Yes."

"A great friend?"

"A great friend."

He paused. Yet the conviction in his mind was growing stronger and stronger. He blurted out suddenly:

"You're--you're my wife, aren't you?"

He was sure of it.

She drew her hand away. He wouldn't understand the look in her face. It frightened him. She got up.

"No," she said. "I'm not your wife."

"Oh! I'm sorry. I thought----"

"It's all right."

And at that minute Sebastian came back. His eyes went to Jane. She said, with a little twisted smile:

"I'm glad you've come.... I'm--glad you've come."

_3_

Jane and Sebastian talked long into the night. What was to be done? Who was to be told?

There was Nell and Nell's position to consider. Presumably Nell should be told first of all. She was the one most vitally concerned.

Jane agreed. "If she doesn't know already."

"You think she knows?"

"Well, evidently she met Vernon yesterday face to face."

"Yes, but she must have thought it just a very strong resemblance."

Jane was silent.

"Don't you think so?"

"I don't know."

"But hang it all, Jane, if she said she'd recognized him, she'd have done something--got hold of him or Bleibner. It's nearly two days ago now."

"I know."

"She can't have recognized him. She just saw Bleibner's chauffeur, and his likeness to Vernon gave her such a shock that she couldn't stand it and rushed away."

"I suppose so."

"What's in your mind, Jane?"

"_We_ recognized him, Sebastian."

"You mean you did. I'd been told by you."

"But you would have known him anywhere, wouldn't you?"

"Yes, I would.... But then, I know him so well."

Jane said in a hard voice: "So does Nell."

Sebastian looked sharply at her and said: "What are you getting at, Jane?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do. What do you really think happened?"

Jane paused before speaking.

"I think Nell came upon him suddenly in the garden and thought it was Vernon. Afterward she persuaded herself that it had only been a chance resemblance that had upset her so."

"Well, that's very much what I said."

He was a little surprised when she said meekly: "Yes, it is."

"What's the difference?"

"Practically none, only----"

"Yes?"

"You and I would have wanted to believe it was Vernon even if it wasn't."

"Wouldn't Nell? Surely she hasn't come to care for George Chetwynd to such an extent----"

"Nell is very fond of George, but Vernon is the only person she's ever been in love with."

"Then that's all right. Or is it worse that way? It's the deuce of a tangle. What about his people?--Mrs. Deyre and the Bents."

Jane said decidedly: "Nell must be told before they are. Mrs. Deyre will broadcast it over England as soon as she knows, and that will be very unfair to both Vernon and Nell."

"Yes, I think you're right. Now my plan is this: to take Vernon up to town to-morrow and go and see a specialist--then be guided by what he advises."

Jane said Yes, she thought that would be the best plan. She got up to go to bed. On the stairs she paused and said to Sebastian:

"I wonder if we're right. Bringing him back, I mean. He looked so happy. Oh! Sebastian, he looked so happy...."

"As George Green, you mean?"

"Yes. Are you sure we're right?"

"Yes, I'm pretty sure. It can't be right for anyone to be in that unnatural sort of state."

"I suppose it _is_ unnatural. The queer thing is he looked so normal and commonplace. And happy--that's what I can't get over, Sebastian--_happy_.... We're none of us very happy, are we?"

He couldn't answer that.

chapter 3

Two days later Sebastian came to Abbots Puissants. The butler was not sure that Mrs. Chetwynd could see him. She was lying down.

Sebastian gave his name and said he was sure Mrs. Chetwynd would see him. He was shown into the drawing room to wait. The room seemed empty and silent but unusually luxurious--very different from what it had looked in his childish days. He thought to himself, "It was a _real_ house then," and wondered what exactly he meant by that. He got it presently. Now it suggested, very faintly, a museum. Everything was beautifully arranged, and harmonized perfectly. Every piece that was not perfect had been replaced by one that was. All the carpets and covers and hangings were new.

"And they must have cost a pretty penny," thought Sebastian appreciatively, and priced them with a fair degree of accuracy. He always knew the cost of things.

He was interrupted in this salutary exercise by the door opening. Nell came in, a pink colour in her cheeks and her hand outstretched.

"Sebastian! What a surprise! I thought you were too busy ever to leave London except at a week-end--and not often then!"

"I've lost just twenty thousand pounds in the last two days," said Sebastian gruffly as he took her hand. "Simply from gadding about and letting things go anyhow. How are you, Nell?"

"Oh! I'm feeling splendid."

She didn't look very splendid, though, he thought, now that the flush of surprise had died away. Besides, hadn't the butler said she was lying down, not feeling well? He fancied that her face looked a little strained and haggard.

She went on: "Sit down, Sebastian. You look as though you were on the point of going off to catch a train. George is away--in Spain. He had to go on business. He'll be away a week at least."

"Will he?"

That was a good thing anyway. A damned awkward business. Nell had simply no idea....

"You're very glum, Sebastian. Is anything the matter?"

She asked the question quite lightly, but he seized upon it eagerly. It was the opening he needed.

"Yes, Nell," he said gravely. "As a matter of fact, there is."

He heard her draw in her breath with a sudden catch. Her eyes looked watchful.

"What is it?" she said.

Her voice sounded different--hard and suspicious.

"I'm afraid what I'm going to say will be a great shock to you. It's about Vernon."

"What about Vernon?"

Sebastian waited a minute. Then he said: "Vernon--is alive, Nell."

"Alive?" she whispered. Her hand crept up to her heart.

"Yes."

She didn't do any of the things he expected her to do--didn't faint, or cry out, or ask eager questions. She just stared straight ahead of her. And a sudden quick suspicion came into his shrewd Jewish mind.

"You knew it?"

"No, no."

"I thought perhaps you saw him, the other day, when he came here?"

"Then it _was_ Vernon!"

It broke from her like a cry. Sebastian nodded his head. It was as he thought and said to Jane. She had not trusted her eyes.

"What did you think--that it was a very close resemblance?"

"Yes--yes, that's what I thought. How could I think it was Vernon? He looked at me and didn't know me."

"He's lost his memory, Nell."

"Lost his memory?"

"Yes."

He told her the story, giving the details as carefully as possible. She listened but paid less attention than he expected. When he had finished she said: "Yes, but what's to be done about it all? Will he get it back? What are we to do?"

He explained that Vernon was having treatment from a specialist. Already, under hypnosis, part of the lost memory had returned. The whole process would not be long delayed. He did not enter into the technical details, judging rightly that these would have no interest for her.

"And then he'll know--everything?"

"Yes."

She shrank back in her chair. He felt a sudden rush of pity.

"He can't blame you, Nell. You didn't know--nobody could know. The report of his death was absolutely definite. It's an almost unique case. I've heard of one other. In most cases, of course, a report of death was contradicted almost immediately. Vernon loves you enough to understand and forgive."

She said nothing but she put up both hands to cover her face.

"We think--if you agree--that everything had better be kept quiet for the present. You'll tell Chetwynd, of course. And you and he and Vernon can--well, thrash it out together."

"Don't! Don't! Don't go into details. Just let's leave it for the present--till I've seen Vernon."

"Do you want to see him at once? Will you come up to town with me?"

"No--I can't do that. Let him come here--to see me. Nobody will recognize him. The servants are all new."

Sebastian said slowly: "Very well.... I'll tell him."

Nell got up.

"I--I--you must go away now, Sebastian. I can't bear any more. I can't indeed. It's all so dreadful. And only two days ago I was so happy and peaceful...."

"But Nell, surely to have Vernon back again----"

"Oh! yes, I didn't mean _that_. You don't understand. That's wonderful, of course. Oh! do go, Sebastian. It's awful of me turning you out like this, but I can't bear any more. You must go."

Sebastian went. On the way back to town he wondered a good deal.

_2_

Left alone, Nell went back to her bedroom and lay down on her bed, pulling the silk eiderdown tightly over her.

So it was true after all. It _had_ been Vernon. She had told herself that it couldn't be--that she had made a ridiculous mistake. But she'd been uneasy ever since.

What was going to happen? What would George say about it all? Poor George! He'd been so good to her.

Of course there were women who'd married again, and then had found their first husbands were alive. Rather an awful position. She had never really been George's wife at all.

Oh! it couldn't be true. Such things didn't happen. God wouldn't let----

But perhaps she had better not think of God. It reminded her of those very unpleasant things that Jane had said the other day. That very same day.

She thought with a rush of self pity: "I was so happy!"

Was Vernon going to understand? Would he--perhaps--blame her? He'd want her, of course, to come back. Or wouldn't he, now that she and George.... What _did_ men think?

There could be a divorce, of course, and then she could marry George. But that would make a lot of talk. How difficult everything was.

She thought with a sudden shock: "But I _love_ Vernon. How can I contemplate a divorce and marrying George when I love Vernon? He's been given back to me--from the dead."

She turned over restlessly on the bed. It was a beautiful Empire bed. George had bought it out of an old château in France. It was perfect and quite unique. She looked round the room: a charming room, everything in harmony--perfect taste, perfect unostentatious luxury.

She remembered suddenly the horsehair sofa and the antimacassars in the furnished rooms at Wiltsbury.... Dreadful! But they had been happy there.

But now? She looked round the room with new eyes. Of course, Abbots Puissants belonged to George. Or didn't it, now that Vernon had come back? Anyway, Vernon would be just as poor as ever. They couldn't afford to live here. There were all the things that George had done to it.... Thought after thought raced confusedly through her brain.

She must write to George--beg him to come home. Just say it was urgent--nothing more. He was so clever. He might see a way.

Or perhaps she wouldn't write to him--not till she had seen Vernon. Would Vernon be very angry? How terrible it all was.

The tears came to her eyes. She sobbed: "It's unfair--it's unfair. I've never done anything. Why should this happen to me? Vernon will blame me, and I couldn't know. How could I know?"

And again the thought flitted across her mind: "I _was_ so happy!"

_3_

Vernon was listening, trying to understand what the doctor was saying to him. He looked across the table at him. A tall thin man, with eyes that seemed to see right into the centre of you and to read there things that you didn't even know about yourself.

And he made you see all the things you didn't want to see. Made you bring things up out of the depths. He was saying:

"Now that you have remembered, tell me again exactly how you saw the announcement of your wife's marriage."

Vernon cried out: "Must we go over it again and again? It was all so horrible. I don't want to think of it any more."

And then the doctor explained, gravely and kindly, but very impressively. It was because of that desire not to "think of it any more" that all this had come about. It must be faced now--thrashed out. Otherwise the loss of memory might return.

They went all over it again.

And then, when Vernon felt he could bear no more, he was told to lie down on a couch. The doctor touched his forehead and his limbs, told him that he was resting--was rested--that he would become strong and happy again....

A feeling of peace came over Vernon.

He closed his eyes....

_4_

Vernon came down to Abbots Puissants three days later. He came in Sebastian Levinne's car. To the butler he gave his name as Mr. Green. Nell was waiting for him in the little white-panelled room where his mother had sat in the mornings. She came forward to meet him, forcing a conventional smile to her lips. The butler shut the door behind him just in time for her to stop short before offering him her hand.

They looked at each other. Then Vernon said:

"Nell...."

She was in his arms. He kissed her--kissed her--kissed her....

He let her go at last. They sat down. He was quiet, rather tragic, very restrained, but for that one wild greeting. He'd gone through so much--so much in these last few days.

Sometimes he wished they'd left him alone--as George Green. It had been jolly being George Green.

He said stammeringly: "It's all right, Nell. You mustn't think I blame you. I understand. Only it hurts. It hurts like hell! Naturally."

She said: "I didn't mean----"

He interrupted her.

"I _know_, I tell you----I _know_! Don't talk about it. I don't want to hear about it. I don't want to think about it even." He added in a different tone: "They say that's my trouble. That's how it happened."

She said, rather eagerly: "Tell me about it--about everything."

"There isn't much to tell." He spoke without interest, abstractedly. "I was taken prisoner. How I got to be reported killed, I don't know. At least, I have a sort of vague idea. There was a fellow very like me--one of the Huns. I don't mean a double, or anything of that sort, but just a general superficial resemblance. My German's pretty rotten but I heard them commenting on it. They took my kit and my identification disc. I think the idea was for him to penetrate into our lines as me--we were being relieved by Colonial troops, and they knew it. The fellow would pass muster for a day or so and would gain the information he wanted. That's only an idea, but it explains why I wasn't returned in the list of prisoners and I was sent to a camp that was practically all French and Belgians. But none of that matters, does it? I suppose the Hun was killed getting through our lines and was buried as me. I had a pretty bad time in Germany--nearly died with some kind of fever on top of being wounded. Finally I escaped----Oh! it's a long story. I'm not going into all that now. I had the hell of a time--without food and water sometimes for days at a stretch. It was a sort of miracle that I came through--but I did. I got into Holland. I was exhausted and at the same time all strung up. And I could only think of one thing--getting back to you."

"Yes?"

"And then I saw it--in a beastly illustrated paper. Your marriage. It--it finished me. But I wouldn't face it. I kept on saying that it couldn't be true. I went out--I don't know where I went. Things got all mixed up in my mind.

"There was a whacking great lorry coming down the road. I saw my chance--end it all, get out of it. I stepped out in front of it."

"Oh, Vernon!" she shuddered.

"And that _was_ the end. Of me as Vernon Deyre, I mean. When I came to there was just one name in my head--George. That lucky chap, George. George Green."

"Why Green?"

"A sort of fancy of mine when I was a child. And then the Dutch girl at the inn had asked me to look up a pal of hers whose name was Green and I'd written it down in a little book."

"And you didn't remember anything?"

"No."

"Weren't you very frightened?"

"No, not at all. I didn't seem to be worrying about anything." He added with lingering regret: "I was awfully happy and jolly."

Then he looked across at her.

"But that doesn't matter now. Nothing matters--but you."

She smiled at him, but her smile was flickering and uncertain. He barely noticed it at the moment, but went on.

"It's been rather hell--getting back, remembering things. All such beastly things. All the things that--really--I didn't want to face. I seem to have been a most awful coward all my life. Always turning away from things I didn't want to look at. Refusing to admit them."

He got up suddenly and came across to her, dropping his head upon her knees.

"Darling Nell, it's all right. I know I come first. I do, don't I?"

She said: "Of course."

Why did her voice sound so mechanical in her own ears? He did come first. Just now, with his lips on hers, she had been swept back again to those wonderful days at the beginning of the war. She had never felt about George like that ... drowned, carried away.

"You say that so strangely--as though you didn't mean it."

"Of course I mean it."

"I'm sorry for Chetwynd--rotten luck for him. How has he taken it? Very hard?"

"I haven't told him."

"What?"

She was moved to vindicate herself.

"He's away--in Spain. I haven't got his address."

"Oh! I see...."

He paused.

"It'll be rather rotten for you, Nell. But it can't be helped. We'll have each other."

"Yes."

Vernon looked around.

"Chetwynd will have this place, anyway. I'm such an ungenerous beggar that I even grudge him that. But, damn it all, it _is_ my home. It's been in the family five hundred years. Oh! what does it all matter? Jane told me once that I couldn't get everything. I've got you--that's all that matters. We'll find some place. Even if it's only a couple of rooms, it will do."

His arms stole up, closing round her. Why did she feel that cold dismay at those words, "A couple of rooms"?

"Damn these things! They get in my way!"

Impetuously, half laughing, he held up the string of pearls she wore. He switched them off--flung them on the floor. Her lovely pearls! She thought: "Anyway, I suppose I'll have to give them back." Another cold feeling. All those lovely jewels that George had given her.

What a brute she was to go on thinking of things like that.

He had seen something at last. He was kneeling upright, looking at her.

"Nell, is--is anything the matter?"

"No--of course not."

She couldn't meet his eyes. She felt too ashamed.

"There is something. Tell me."

She shook her head.

"It's nothing."

She couldn't be poor again. She couldn't--she couldn't.

"Nell, you must tell me."

He mustn't know--he must never know what she was really like. She was so ashamed.

"Nell, you do love me, don't you?"

"Oh, yes!" The words came eagerly. _That_ at any rate was true.

"Then what is it? I know there's something.... Ah!"

He got up. His face had gone white. She looked up at him inquiringly.

"Is it that?" he asked in a low voice. "It must be. You're going to have a child."

She sat as though carved in stone. She had never thought of that. If it were true, it solved everything. Vernon would never know.

"It _is_ that?"

Again it seemed as though hours passed. Thoughts went whirling round in her brain. It was not herself, but something outside herself that at last made her bow her head ever so slightly.

He moved a little away. He spoke in a hard dry voice.

"That alters everything.... My poor Nell! You can't--_we_ can't.... Look here, nobody knows--about me, I mean--except the doctor and Sebastian and Jane. They won't split. I was reported dead. I _am_ dead."

She made a movement, but he held up a hand to stop her and backed away toward the door.

"Don't say anything--for God's sake, don't say anything. Words will make it worse, I'm going. I daren't touch you or kiss you. I--good-bye."

She heard the door open, made a movement as if to call out--but no sound came from her throat. The door shut again.

There was still time. The car hadn't started.

But still she didn't move.

She had one moment of searing bitterness when she looked into herself and thought: "So that's what I'm really like."

But she made no sound or movement.

Four years of soft living fettered her will, stifled her voice, and paralyzed her body.

chapter 4

"Miss Harding to see you, madam."

Nell started. Twenty-four hours had elapsed since her interview with Vernon. She had thought it was finished. And now Jane!

She was afraid of Jane.

She might refuse to see her.

She said: "Show her up here."

It was more private up here in her own sitting room.

What a long time it was waiting. Had Jane gone away again? No, here she was.

She looked very tall. Nell cowered down on the sofa. Jane had a wicked face--she had always thought so. There was a look on her face now as of an avenging Fury.

The butler left the room. Jane stood towering over Nell. Then she flung back her head and laughed.

"Don't forget to ask me to the christening," she said.

Nell flinched. She said haughtily:

"I don't know what you mean?"

"It's a family secret at present, is it? Nell, you damned little liar, you're not going to have a child. I don't believe you ever will have a child--too much risk and pain. What made you think of telling Vernon such a peculiarly damnable lie?"

Nell said sullenly: "I never told him. He--he guessed."

"That's even more damnable."

"I don't know what you mean, coming here and--and saying things like this."

Her protest sounded weak--spiritless. For the life of her she couldn't put the necessary indignation into it. With anyone else--not with Jane. Jane had always been disagreeably clear-eyed. It was awful! If only Jane would go away.

She rose to her feet, trying to sound decisive.

"I don't know why you have come here. If it is only to make a scene...."

"Listen, Nell. You're going to hear the truth. You chucked Vernon once before. He came to me. Yes--to me. He lived with me for three months. He was living with me when you came to my flat that day. Ah! that hurts you. You've still got a bit of raw womanhood left in you, I'm glad to see.

"You took him from me then. He went to you and never gave me a thought. He's yours now if you want him. But I tell you this, Nell, if you let him down a second time, he'll come to me again. Oh! yes, he will. You've thought things about me in your mind--turned up your nose at me as 'a certain kind of woman.' Well, because of that, perhaps, I've got power. I know more about men than you will ever learn. I can get Vernon if I want him. And I do want him. I always have."

Nell shuddered. She turned her face away, digging her nails into the palms of her hands.

"Why do you tell me all this? You're a devil."

"I tell it to you to hurt you! To hurt you like hell before it's too late. No, you shan't turn your head away. You shan't shrink away from what I'm telling you. You've got to look at me and see--yes, see--with your eyes and your heart and your brain.... You love Vernon with the last remaining corner of your miserable little soul. Think of him in my arms--think of his lips on mine, of his kisses burning my body.... Yes, you shall think of it.

"Soon you won't mind even that. But you mind now.... Aren't you enough of a woman to jib at handing over the man you love to another woman? To a woman you hate? 'A present for Jane with love from Nell.'"

"Go away," said Nell faintly. "Go away."

"I'm going. It's not too late. You can undo the lie you told."

"Go away.... Go away."

"Do it soon--or you'll never do it." Jane paused at the door, looking back over her shoulder. "I came for Vernon's sake--not mine. I want him back. And I shall have him ..." she paused, "unless...."

She went out.

Nell sat with her hands clenched.

She murmured fiercely: "She shan't have him. She shan't."

She wanted Vernon. She wanted him. He had loved Jane once. He would love her again. What had she said? "... his lips on mine ... his kisses burning my...." Oh! God, she couldn't bear it. She started up--moved toward the telephone.

The door opened. She turned slowly. George came in. He looked very normal and cheerful.

"Hullo, sweetheart." He crossed the room and kissed her. "Here I am--back again. A nasty crossing, I'd rather have the Atlantic than the Channel any day."

She had completely forgotten that George was coming home to-day! She couldn't tell him this minute--it would be too cruel. And besides, it was so difficult--to burst in with tragic news in the middle of a flow of banalities. This evening--later. In the meantime she would play her part.

She returned his embrace mechanically, sat down and listened while he talked.

"I've got a present for you, honey. Something that reminded me of you."

He took a velvet case from his pocket.

Inside, on a bed of white velvet, lay a big rose-coloured diamond--exquisite, flawless--depending from a long chain. Nell gave a little gasp of pleasure.

He lifted the jewel from the case and slipped the chain over her head. She looked down. The exquisite rose-coloured stone blinked up at her from its resting place between her breasts. Something about it hypnotized her.

He led her to the glass. She saw a golden-haired beautiful woman, very calm and elegant. She saw the waved and shingled hair, the manicured hands, the foamy negligee of soft lace, the cobweb-silk stockings and little embroidered mules. She saw the hard cold beauty of the rose-coloured diamond.

And behind them she saw George Chetwynd--kindly, generous, deliciously safe.

Dear George, she couldn't hurt him....

Kisses.... What, after all, were kisses? You needn't think about them. Better not to think of them.

Vernon ... Jane....

She wouldn't think of them. For good or evil, she'd made her choice. There would be bad moments sometimes, but on the whole it would be for the best. Better for Vernon, too. If she weren't happy she couldn't make him happy.

She said gently: "You are a dear to bring me such a lovely present. Ring for tea. We'll have it up here."

"That will be fine. But weren't you going to telephone to someone? I interrupted you."

She shook her head.

"No," she said. "I've changed my mind."

_2_

LETTERS FROM VERNON DEYRE TO SEBASTIAN LEVINNE

_Moscow._

Dear Sebastian:

Do you know that there was once a legend in Russia that concerned a
"nameless beast" that was coming?

I mention this not because of any political significance (by the
way, the Antichrist hysteria is curious, isn't it?) but because it
reminded me of my own terror of "the Beast." I've thought about the
Beast a great deal since coming to Russia--trying to get at its
true significance.

Because there's more in it than just being afraid of a piano. That
doctor in London opened my eyes to a great many things. I've begun
to see that all through my life I've been a coward. I think you've
known that, Sebastian. You wouldn't put it in that offensive way,
but you hinted as much to me once. I've run away from things....
Always I've run away from things.

And thinking it all over now, I see the Beast as something
symbolical--not a mere piece of furniture composed of wood and
wires. Don't mathematicians say that the future exists at the
same time as the past?--that we travel through time as we travel
through space?--from a thing that is to another thing that is?
Don't some even hold that remembering is a mere habit of the
mind--that we could remember forward as well as back if we had only
learned the trick of it? It sounds nonsense when I say it, but I
believe there is some theory of that kind.

I believe that there is some part of us that _does_ know the
future, that is always intimately aware of it.

That explains, doesn't it, why we should shrink sometimes? The
burden of our destiny is going to be heavy and we recoil from its
shadow. I tried to escape from music--but it got me. It got me at
that concert, in the same way that religion got those people at the
Salvation Army meeting.

It's a devilish thing--or is it godlike? If so it's an Old
Testament jealous God--all the things I've tried to cling to have
been swept away. Abbots Puissants ... Nell....

And, damn it all, what's left? Nothing. Not even the cursed thing
itself. I've no wish to write music. I hear nothing--feel nothing.
Will it ever come back. Jane says it will. She seems very sure. She
sends her love to you, by the way.

Yours,
Vernon.

_3_

_Moscow._

You're an understanding devil, Sebastian. You don't complain that I
ought to have written you a description of samovars, the political
situation, and life in Russia generally. The country, of course,
is in a bloody muddle. What else could it be in? But it's jolly
interesting.... Love from Jane.

Vernon.

_4_

_Moscow._

Dear Sebastian:

Jane was right to bring me here. Point No. 1, no one is likely to
come across me here and joyously proclaim my resurrection from
the dead. Point No. 2, this is about the most interesting place
in the world to be from my point of view. A kind of free-and-easy
laboratory where everyone is trying experiments of the most
dangerous kind. The whole world seems concerned with Russia from a
purely political point of view. Economic, starvation, morals, lack
of liberty, diseased and decadent children ... _etc._

But, amazing things are sometimes born out of vice and filth
and anarchy. The whole trend of Russian thought in art is
extraordinary--part of it the most utter childish drivel you ever
heard, and yet wonderful gleams peeping through, like shining flesh
through a beggar's rags.

The Nameless Beast--Collective Man. Did you ever see that plan for
a monument to the Communist Revolution? The Colossus of Iron? I
tell you, it stirs the imagination.

Machinery--an Age of Machinery.... How the Bolsheviks worship
anything to do with machinery--and how little they know about
it! That's why it's so wonderful to them, I suppose. Imagine a
real mechanic of Chicago composing a dynamic poem describing his
city as "... built upon a screw! Electro dynamo mechanical city!
Spiral-shaped on a steel disc. At every stroke of the hour Turning
round itself--Five thousand skyscrapers...." Anything more alien
from the spirit of America!

And yet, do you ever see a thing when you're too close to it?
It's the people who don't know machinery who see its soul and its
meaning. The Nameless Beast.... My Beast?... I wonder.

Collective Man--forming himself in turn into a vast machine. The
same herd instinct that saved the race of old coming out again in a
different form.

Life's becoming too difficult--too dangerous--for the individual.
What was it Dostoevsky says in one of his books?

"The flock will collect again and submit once more, and then it
will be for ever, for ever. We will give them a quiet modest
happiness."

Herd instinct.... I wonder.

Yours,
Vernon.

_5_

_Moscow._

I have found the other passage in Dostoevsky. I think it is the one
you mean:

"And we alone, we who guard the mystery, we alone shall be unhappy.
There will be thousands of millions of happy children and only a
hundred thousand martyrs who have taken on themselves the curse of
good and evil."

You mean, and Dostoevsky meant, that there must always be
individualists. It is the individualists who carry on the torch.
Men welded into a vast machine must ultimately perish. For the
machine is soulless and will end as scrap iron.

Men worshipped stone and built Stonehenge--and to-day the men who
built it have perished and are unknown and Stonehenge stands.
And yet, by a paradox, the men are alive in you and me, their
descendants, and Stonehenge and what it stood for is dead. The
things that die endure, and the things that endure perish.

It is Man that goes on for ever. (Does he? Isn't that unwarrantable
arrogance? Yet we believe it!) And so, there must be individualists
behind the Machine. So Dostoevsky says and so you say. But then,
you're both Russians. As an Englishman I'm more pessimistic.

Do you know what that passage from Dostoevsky reminds me of?
My childhood. Mr. Green's hundred children--_and_ Poodle,
Squirrel, and Tree. Representatives of the hundred thousand.

Yours,
Vernon.

_6_

_Moscow._

Dear Sebastian:

I suppose you're right. I never have thought much before. It seemed
to me an unprofitable exercise. In fact, I'm not sure I don't still
regard it as such.

The trouble is, you see, that I can't "say it in music." Damn it
all, why _can't_ I say it in music? Music's my job. I'm more
sure of that than ever. And yet--nothing doing.

It's hell.

Vernon.

_7_

Dear Sebastian:

Haven't I mentioned Jane? What is there to say about her? She's
splendid. We both know that. Why don't you write to her yourself?

Yours ever,
Vernon.

_8_

Dear old Sebastian:

Jane says you may be coming out here. I wish to God you would. I'm
sorry I haven't written for six months--I never was one of the
world's ready letter writers.

Have you seen anything of Joe? I'm glad Jane and I looked her up
passing through Paris. Joe's staunch, she'll never split on us,
and I'm glad she at any rate knows. We never write to each other,
she and I, we never have. But I wondered if you'd heard anything.
I didn't think she looked awfully fit. Poor old Joe! She's made a
mess of things.

Have you heard anything of Tatlin's scheme for a monument to the
Third Internationale? To consist of a union of three great glass
chambers connected by a system of vertical axes and spirals. By
means of special machinery they would be kept in perpetual motion
but at different rates of speed.

And inside, I suppose, they'd sing hymns to a Holy Acetylene
Blowpipe!

Do you remember, one night, we were motoring back to town, and we
took the wrong turning somewhere amongst the tramlines of Lewisham,
and instead of making for the haunts of civilization we turned up
somewhere among the Surrey docks and through an opening in the
frowsy houses we saw a queer kind of cubist picture of cranes and
cloudy steam and iron girders? And immediately your artistic soul
bagged it for a drop scene--or whatever the technical term is.

My God, Sebastian! What a magnificent spectacle of machinery you
could build up--sheer effects and lighting, and masses of humans
with inhuman faces--mass, not individuals. You've something of the
kind in mind, haven't you?

The architect, Tatlin, said something that I think good and yet a
lot of nonsense:

"Only the rhythm of the metropolis, of factories and machines
together with the organization of the masses, can give the impulse
to the new art----"

And he goes on to speak of the "monument of the machine" the only
adequate expression of the pression.

You know, of course, all about the modern Russian theatre. That's
your job. I suppose Mayerhold is as marvellous as they say he is.
But can one mix up drama and propaganda?

All the same, it's exciting to arrive at a theatre and be compelled
at once to join a marching crowd--up and down, in strict step,
till the performance begins--and the scenery, composed of rocking
chairs and cannons and revolving bays and God knows what! It's
babyish--absurd--and yet one feels that baby has got hold of a
dangerous and rather interesting toy that in other hands....

_Your_ hands, Sebastian--you're a Russian. But thank heaven
and geography, no propagandist--just a showman pure and simple.

_The Rhythm of the metropolis_--made pictorial.

My God!--if I could give you the music. It's the music that's
needed.

Lord--their "noise orchestras"--their symphonies of factory sirens!
There was a show at Baku in 1922--batteries of artillery, machine
guns, choirs, naval fog horns. Ridiculous! Yes, but if they had a
composer....

No woman ever longed for a child as I long to produce music.

And I'm barren--sterile.

Vernon.

_9_

Dear Sebastian:

It seems like a dream, your having come and gone. Will you really
do _The Tale of the Rogue Who Outwitted Three Other Rogues_? I
wonder.

I'm only just beginning to recognize what a howling success
you've made of things. I've at last grasped that you're simply
IT nowadays. Yes, found your National Opera House--God knows
it's time we had one. But what do you want with opera? It's
archaic--dead--ridiculous individual love affairs.

Music up to now seems to me like a child's drawing of a house--four
walls, a door, two windows, and a chimney pot. There you are--and
what more do you want?

At any rate Feinberg and Prokofiev do more than that.

Do you remember how we used to jeer at the cubists and futurists?
At least, I did. Now that I come to think of it, I don't believe
you agreed.

And then one day--at a cinema--I saw a view of a big city from the
air. Spires turning over, buildings bending--everything behaving as
one simply knew concrete and steel and iron couldn't behave! And
for the first time I got a glimmering of what old Einstein meant
when he talked about relativity.

We don't know anything about the shape of music. We don't know
anything about the shape of anything, for that matter--because
there's always one side open to space.

Some day you'll know what I mean--what music can mean--what I've
always known it meant.

What a mess that opera of mine was. All opera is a mess. Music
was never intended to be representational. To take a story and
write descriptive music to it is as wrong as to write a passage of
music--in the abstract so to speak--and then find an instrument
capable of playing it! When Stravinsky wrote a clarionet passage,
you can't even conceive of it as being played by anything else!

Music should be like mathematics--a pure science, untouched by
drama, or romanticism, or any emotion other than the pure emotion
which is the result of _sound_ divorced from ideas.

I've always known that in my heart. Music must be Absolute.

Not, of course, that I shall realize my ideal. To create pure sound
untouched by ideas is a counsel of perfection.

My music will be the music of machinery. I leave the dressing
of it to you. It's an age of choreography, and choreography will
reach heights we don't as yet dream of. I can trust you with the
visual side of my masterpiece as yet unwritten--and which in all
probability never will be written.

Music must be four dimensional--timbre, pitch, relative speed, and
periodicity.

I don't think even now we appreciate Schönberg enough. That clean
remorseless logic that is the spirit of to-day. He and he alone had
the courage to disregard tradition--to get down to bed rock, and
discover Truth.

He's the one man to my mind who matters. Even his scheme of score
writing will have to be adopted universally. It's absolutely
necessary if scores are going to be intelligible.

The thing I have against him is scorn of his instruments. He's
afraid of being a slave to them. He makes them serve him whether
they will or no.

I'm going to glorify my instruments. I'm going to give them what
they want--what they've always wanted.

Damn it all, Sebastian, _what is this strange thing, music_? I
know less and less.

Yours,
Vernon.

_10_

I know I haven't written. I've been busy. Making experiments. Means
of expression for the Nameless Beast. In other words, instrument
making. Metals are jolly interesting. I'm working with alloys just
at present.

What a fascinating thing sound is.

Jane sends her love.

In answer to your question--No, I don't suppose I shall ever leave
Russia--not even to attend at your newly planned opera house,
disguised in my beard!

It's even more barbarous and beautiful now than when you saw it!
Full and flowing, the perfect temperamental Slav Beaver!

But in spite of the forest camouflage, here I am and here I stay,
till I am exterminated by one of the bands of wild children.

Yours ever,
Vernon.

* * * * *

TELEGRAM FROM VERNON DEYRE TO SEBASTIAN LEVINNE

Just heard Joe dangerously ill feared dying stranded in New York
Jane and I sailing _Resplendent_ hope see you London.

chapter 5

"Sebastian!"

Joe started up in bed, then fell back weakly. She stared unbelievingly. Sebastian, big, fur-coated, calm, and omniscient, smiled placidly down at her.

There was no sign in his face of the sudden pang her appearance had given him. Joe--poor little Joe!

Her hair had grown--it was arranged in two short plaits, one over each shoulder. Her face was horribly thin, with a high hectic flush on each cheek bone. The bones of her shoulders showed through her thin nightdress.

She looked like a feverish child. There was something childlike in her surprise, in her pleasure, in her eager questioning. The nurse had left them.

Sebastian sat down by the bed and took Joe's thin hand in his.

"Vernon wired me. I didn't wait for him. I caught the first boat."

"To come to me?"

"Of course."

"Dear Sebastian!"

Tears came into her eyes. Sebastian was alarmed and went on hastily:

"Not that I shan't do a bit of business while I am over. I often come over on business, and as a matter of fact I can do one or two good deals just now."

"Don't spoil it."

"But it's true," said Sebastian, surprised.

Joe began to laugh, but coughed instead. Sebastian watched anxiously, ready to call the nurse. He had been warned. But the fit passed.

Joe lay there contentedly, her hand creeping into Sebastian's again.

"Mother died this way," she whispered. "Poor Mother! I thought I was going to be so much wiser than she was, and I've made such a mess of things. Oh! such a mess of things."

"Poor old Joe!"

"You don't know what a mess I've made of things, Sebastian."

"I can imagine it," said Sebastian. "I always thought you would."

Joe was silent a minute, then she said: "You don't know what a comfort it is to see you, Sebastian. I have seen and known so many rotters. I didn't like your being strong and successful and cocksure--it annoyed me. But now--oh, it's wonderful!"

He squeezed her hand.

"There's no one else in the world who would have come--as you've come--miles--at once. Vernon, of course, but then he's a relation--a kind of brother. But you----"

"I'm just as much a brother--more than a brother. Ever since Abbots Puissants I've been--well, ready to stand by if you wanted me."

"Oh! Sebastian." Her eyes opened wide--happily. "I never dreamt that you'd feel like that still."

He started ever so slightly. He hadn't meant that exactly. He had meant something that he couldn't explain--not at any rate to Joe. It was a feeling peculiarly and exclusively Jewish. The undying gratitude of the Jew who never forgets a benefit conferred. As a child he had been an outcast and Joe had stood by him--she had been willing to defy her world. The child Sebastian had never forgotten--would never forget. He would, as he had said, have gone to the ends of the earth if she had wanted him.

She went on.

"They moved me into this place--from that horrible ward. Was that you?"

He nodded.

"I cabled."

Joe sighed.

"You're so terribly efficient, Sebastian."

"I'm afraid so."

"But there's nobody like you--nobody. I've thought of you so often lately."

"Have you?"

He thought of the lonely years--the aching longing--the baffled desire. Why did things always come to you at the wrong time?

She went on.

"I never dreamt you'd still think about me. I always fancied that some day you and Jane----"

A queer pang shot through him. _Jane_....

He and Jane....

He said gruffly: "Jane, to my mind, is one of the finest things God ever made. But she belongs body and soul to Vernon and always will."

"I suppose so. But it's a pity. You and she are the strong ones. You belong together."

They did, in a curious way. He knew what she meant.

Joe said with a flickering smile: "This reminds me of the books one reads as a child. Edifying death-bed scenes. Friends and relations gathering round. Wan smiles of heroine."

Sebastian had made up his mind. Why had he felt this wasn't love? It was. This passion of pure disinterested pity and tenderness--this deep affection lasting through the years. A thousand times better worth while than those stormy or tepid affairs that occurred with monotonous regularity--that punctuated his life without ever touching any real depths.

His heart went out to the childlike figure. Somehow, he'd bring it off.

He said gently: "There aren't going to be any death-bed scenes, Joe. You're going to get well and marry me."

"Darling Sebastian! Tie you to a consumptive wife? Of course not."

"Nonsense! You'll do one of two things--either get well or die. If you die you die, and there's an end of it. If you get cured you marry me. And no expense will be spared to cure you."

"I'm pretty bad, Sebastian dear."

"Possibly. But nothing is more uncertain than tubercle--any doctor will tell you so. You've been just letting yourself go. I think myself you'll get well. A long weary business, but it can be done."

She looked at him. He saw the colour rising and falling in her thin cheeks. He knew then that she loved him, and a queer little stir of warmth woke round his heart. His mother had died two years ago. Since then no one had really cared.

Joe said in a low voice: "Sebastian, do you really need me? I--I've made such a mess of things."

He said with sincerity: "Need you? I'm the loneliest man on earth."

And suddenly he broke down. It was a thing he had never done in his life--never thought he would do. He knelt by Joe's bed, his face buried, his shoulders heaving.

Her hand stroked his head. He knew she was happy--her proud spirit appeased. Dear Joe--so impulsive, so warm-hearted, so wrong-headed. She was dearer to him than anyone on earth. They could help one another.

The nurse came in--the visitor had been there long enough. She withdrew again for Sebastian to say good-bye.

"By the way," he said, "That French fellow--what's his name?"

"François? He's dead."

"That's all right. You could have got a divorce, of course. But being a widow makes it easier."

"You _do_ think I shall get well?"

Pathetic, the way she said that!

"Of course."

The nurse reappeared and he took his departure. He called on the doctor--had a long talk. The doctor was not hopeful. But he agreed that there was a chance. They decided on Florida.

Sebastian left the home. He walked along the street deep in thought. He saw a placard with "Terrible Disaster to _Resplendent_" on it, but it conveyed nothing to his mind.

He was too busy with his own thoughts. What was really best for Joe? To live or to die? He wondered.

She'd had such a rotten life. He wanted the best for her.

He went to bed and slept heavily.

_2_

He awoke to a vague uneasiness. There was something--something. For the life of him he couldn't put a name to it.

It wasn't Joe. Joe was in the foreground of his mind. This was something in the background--shoved away--something that he hadn't been able to give consideration to at the time.

He thought: "I shall remember presently." But he didn't.

As he dressed he thought out the problem of Joe. He was all for moving her to Florida as soon as possible. Later, perhaps, Switzerland. She was very weak, but not too weak to be moved. As soon as she had seen Vernon and Jane....

They were arriving--when? The _Resplendent_, wasn't it? The _Resplendent_....

The razor he was holding dropped from his hand. He'd got it now! Before his eyes rose the vision of a newspaper placard.

The _Resplendent_--Terrible Disaster.

Vernon and Jane were on the _Resplendent_.

He rang furiously. A few minutes later he was scanning the morning newspaper. There were now full details to hand. His eyes scanned them rapidly. The _Resplendent_ had struck an iceberg--the death roll--survivors.

A list of names ... survivors. He found the name there of Groen, Vernon was alive anyway. Then he searched the other list and found at last what he was looking for, fearing--the name of Jane Harding.

_3_

He stood quite still, staring at the news sheet in his hand. Presently he folded it up neatly, laid it on a side table and rang the bell. In a few minutes a curt order given to the bell hop sent his secretary hurrying to him.

"I've got an appointment at ten o'clock I can't break. There are some things you've got to find out for me. Have the information ready for me when I return."