Chapter IX

1

In January, 1914, Ivor caught a cold in the head. He had always been remarkably immune from such little ailments, and had only once in his life been ill, of a vicious pneumonia long ago at school. He hadn’t the faintest idea what to do with a cold in the head, he just took quinine and continued to blow his nose. One day he produced his cold to Magdalen, by special request, for he had avoided seeing her for a week; and Magdalen said that he had caught the thing because he was run down and that he must go away. She pointed out that he was the luckiest man in the world, with or without a cold in the head.

“You’re free, Ivor!” she said. “A man with no ties and plenty of money--my dear, the world’s for you! And here you are, hanging about London in January, when you might be in all the lovely warm places in the world, having marvellous adventures in the sun!”

But he couldn’t go away--and she knew, with pathetic impatience, that he couldn’t. And then, in that bitter loneliness, he was sorry for himself. And his cold continued.

Now there came a day that January when he had not seen Magdalen for two weeks. The time was past when he could see Magdalen. He wanted too much--anyway, it was too much now!--and he couldn’t pretend any more to put up with a little. January was doing its worst that particular day; the rain fell icy cold, and every hour or so it would beat down with feverish fury; and the angry damp seemed to penetrate his flat and bones, there was little comfort in his blazing fire--even had he been restful enough to sit before it for any length of time. Outside, Upper Brook Street was quiet and sodden; every now and then a bare-headed manservant would scuttle under an umbrella to the pillar-box; and towards lunch-time several cars--from his window above they looked like large, fat, wet flies crawling in the glistening dirt--swung along from Park Lane towards Grosvenor Square, full of people going to eat each other’s food. And soon they too would be going south, and Magdalen among them maybe....

Towards a darkened four o’clock he thought it might do him good to go out and walk a little in the rain; he had a sudden longing to stand bare-headed in the rain. It would certainly do him good.... There was a throbbing pain in the back of his head. At least it seemed to be in the back of his head, or to have its headquarters there, for the whole of his head was heavy with it. Not a serious pain, but irritating. Every few minutes he would shake his head as though to shake away the pain, but it just went on irritating him. This damnable cold in the head.... He crushed and swallowed two aspirins, and went out.

He enjoyed it, this aimless wandering in the rain. It was fun to walk slackly along while every one else was hurrying by, anxious to get somewhere. He wasn’t anxious to get anywhere! The men looked awful in the rain, he thought; they smelt of it, and looked like weeds that in their hearts suspected as much; but the hurrying little women looked attractive and pathetic, and oh so serious! There was one, a girl with a white serious face and downcast eyes, whom he would have liked to speak to, but she was swallowed up in the crowds that were waiting for buses at Hyde Park Corner. He walked on, towards Knightsbridge. He wasn’t going anywhere in particular. Maybe he might go into the Hyde Park Hotel and have tea; he didn’t generally take tea, but this afternoon he just might. But somehow he forgot to go as far as the Hyde Park Hotel, and found himself at Magdalen’s door in Wilton Place. He was in Knightsbridge, after all, and he might just as well have tea with Magdalen as alone at the Hyde Park Hotel.

But Magdalen was not in.

“Now that’s very disappointing, Foster,” Ivor said. “And it’s raining, too!”

“Yes, indeed it is, sir,” the man said sympathetically. “If you would care to come in I could give you some tea, sir--and it might be that madam will be in herself soon, though she left no word as to when she would be coming in.”

“It’s cruelly wet,” Foster said thoughtfully, helping Ivor off with his overcoat.

The tea question was settled, then--there, in the “room of state!” No peaches in it now, though! and no Magdalen either! But he was not waiting for Magdalen. He hadn’t really expected to find her at home. He had wanted some tea, that’s all--and, after all, he had so often refused tea in this house that it was only fair to come to it on the one occasion when he did want tea. And now that he had had it he was just waiting to finish a cigarette, and away he’d go. But, it was so warm and pleasant in that “room of state,” he smoked another.... Six o’clock it was now. Well, he wasn’t waiting for Magdalen, anyway. God knew where she was! And he had nothing to say to her even if she did come in.... The half-hour struck. And Ivor, in a sudden wild fury, threw away the cigarette he was about to light, and banged out of the house.

He knew very well where Magdalen was. Of course. Magdalen wasn’t the sort of woman to hang about just anywhere all the time between lunch and dinner--like Virginia and Lois and that crowd, who either sat about for hours in one place or dashed about to a thousand places in an afternoon, doing nothing at all. Magdalen was not like that, she either had a purpose or she hadn’t; and if she hadn’t, she sat at home reading a book. She read a lot of books. Hadn’t Gerald Trevor said of her, so long ago, that Magdalen didn’t loiter unless there was something to loiter for? She loiters actively, he had said. And Gerald was always right about the women he wasn’t in love with, he would always make a very good husband to the wrong wife.... But he would have liked to have seen her, if only for a minute. Maybe she would have taken away this pain in the back of his head, or anyway told him what to do with it. Extraordinary how helpless he felt without her! But he would go to a doctor to-morrow, if he wasn’t better. He had never been to a doctor about anything before, but he would easily find one, they were everywhere. He would ring up Magdalen and ask her, she knew several. Maybe if he went back to Wilton Place now, maybe she.... But he strode on. He had forgotten to button his overcoat on leaving her house, and the icy wet wind billowed it out round his tall figure, it added to the confusion of his passage through the dense evening crowds about Hyde Park Corner. No fun in walking in the rain now! It was horribly ugly, this sodden darkness. He felt ill and weak, but he couldn’t find a taxi, he had to jostle through the crowd. Black and furious he looked, and several people stared round at the tall lowering young man with the defiant nose, who strode viciously past them in a billowing overcoat....

2

He dressed with extreme care and pomp that evening. He had a comical idea that this throbbing pain in the back of his head would respect him more if he put on a dress-suit. One should always be taut and rigid and _soigné_, he thought. Magdalen said that too. The homely dinner jacket wouldn’t impress any pain, there was no dignity in it. It suited Argentines very well, _le smoking_. But Englishmen were made of sterner stuff.

It had been his intention to dine at his club, and he was well down the slope of Saint James’s Street before he sharply changed his mind. He loathed his club, or any club. Lot of cow-eyed men. So he turned into Arlington Street and into the Ritz. It was still raining.

In the restaurant he found a corner table, by the windows that face the Green Park. It was a table for four, and may or may not have been reserved, but as the young gentleman (who happened to be quite unconscious of the diabolical frown on his forehead) seemed entirely oblivious of every protest that was made, the second _maître d’hôtel_ shrugged his shoulders and let him have it. The second _maître d’hôtel_ lost nothing by this complaisance, however, for Ivor ordered magnificently. There was naturally no question of offering him the _table d’hôte_; you can’t singly take a table for four and then play about with a _table d’hôte_. But the second _maître d’hôtel_ found him every bit as good as four ordinary diners, and much less trouble; and he ordered his waiters to take an interest in _le pauvre gigolo_....

Ivor also drank magnificently. He had a vague remembrance of some one having once told him that champagne was the best remedy for any kind of cold, and so he drank a bottle. And, because he had drunk a bottle, he also broached a half-bottle. Krug, 1907.

“Coffee, sir?”

“Please. But do take the chill off it.”

And then a few brandies, ... without, he considered, the slightest effect. It seemed to require a devilish lot of concentration to get drunk, and concentration was just what he hadn’t got. So he gave up the attempt, and after having stood on the hotel steps in Arlington Street for several minutes, he thought to ask George Prest, the _commissionaire_, if he had any striking and original ideas as to what to do in London on a rainy night.

“How do chaps go wrong in London, George?”

“Might try the Empire, sir,” said George Prest.

“Taxi!” cried George Prest into the rain. And there was a taxi.

As Ivor was about to climb into it, he thrust his top-hat into the _commissionaire’s_ hand. He pressed it on him.

“Keep it,” Ivor urged. “It’s quite a good one. My head wants air to-night and the damn thing keeps on getting between it and air. And I’d like you to have it, George. You can shove it into the cloak-room if you like, but if I were you I’d keep it. It’s not a bad hat, as hats go. You’ll need it when you retire....”

Not so sober as all that, after all! thought Ivor.

The Empire did not hold him for long. He tried, from the promenade, to see what was happening on the stage, but he found that it hurt his eyes to look, they were hot and burning. So he walked up and down for a while, and then sat down on one of the red plush sofas outside the bar. One should take an interest in human nature, he thought, and so he tried to take an interest in the passing crowd. But it was not impressive, that crowd. Of the men, several half-familiar faces nodded to him, and he decided that he must have known them at school. He watched them, and saw they hadn’t changed at all. They were a little pinker and less pimply, that’s all. That’s because pimples grow inwards, he thought. And they were talking to the women whom it had been their ambition, when at school, to talk to. Just like Transome. Dear old Transome.... Later on, when they were a bit more drunk, the women would get money from them, and there would be fumbling with love. Then the women would get more money from them. And to-morrow they would say that they had had a marvellous time--and it would be true, too! But if these harlots, thought Ivor, had anything even remotely resembling brains, and could hold a man when he was stone-cold-sober as well as when he was blind-drunk, they would long ago have been respectably married wives. A harlot is only interesting when she had won her way to respectability. All good harlots die in Mayfair, he thought. But these are no good at their jobs, that’s what it is, and that’s why they’re such crashing bores.

By a quarter-past ten he was in Leicester Square. And by half-past long strides had taken him past Hyde Park Corner--again! Yes, he was going to see Magdalen. He felt awfully ill, not only in his head, but all over, a burning kind of illness, and he wanted to tell Magdalen exactly how ill he was. His skin felt like a damp and unclean shirt. It was still raining, but not much, and it was nice walking bare-headed in the cool rain. It was the nicest part of this awful day, this quick walk. She would see how ill he was, and be sorry for him. Besides, he wanted her to tell him of a doctor; he would have to see a doctor, and to-night, maybe. Had influenza, probably--or worse. That thought pleased him, for she would be frightfully sorry for him. He longed for that, for her to be sorry for him....

Yes, she was in. From the road he could see the dim lights behind the curtains of the two windows of the “room of state.” Dim lights, naturally. Magdalen and he had always had dim lights when they were alone there, on that divan in the corner. Her eyes hated any light except sunlight, she said. That shaded lamp of hers--that “very shaded lamp”--gave a soft, sweet light, he could see the soft light of it in his mind as he stood in the deserted road and looked up at the windows. Then a taxi jerked round from Knightsbridge and moved him on to the pavement by the door. Well, it didn’t matter if she wasn’t alone. He wouldn’t go up, he only wanted to see her for a minute, just to ask her about a doctor. She would be sure to see him, she had never refused yet, anyway. If she did, he didn’t know what he would do, maybe he would go to Saint George’s Hospital nearby, disguised as an accident. The pain had somehow got to his side now, and hurt him when he breathed.

He rang the bell, and waited for a long time, but no one came to the door. He rang again, and heard the tinkle of the bell in the basement. And the third time he rang viciously, keeping his thumb on the button--and Magdalen stood in the open doorway!

“Ivor, it’s _you_!”

He grinned at her sheepishly. He was afraid.

“Foster must have gone out,” she explained, staring at him wide-eyed.... “What is it, sweet?”

“I just thought----” Ivor mumbled, as he stumbled past her into the narrow hall.

She closed the door softly behind them; and then she turned to him with a concerned, business-like air. It was so unlike Ivor, to come thus! He stood staring at her limply, with his back to the wall, limply. He just stared at her, with a ridiculous smile. And Magdalen saw the bright pink patches on the sallow cheeks--and how cadaverous he looked!--and the dark eyes bright with fever. And her own grew vivid with concern, she shook him by the shoulder to wake him to his condition, for he was standing against the wall smiling stupidly at her.

“Ivor, how dare you be out in this state!” she cried vividly. “You look frightfully ill, you ought to be in bed....” And with the palm of her hand she lightly brushed his forehead, and the fever of it seemed to stab her with anxiety. But it was cool to him, a white hand of ice on his forehead, adorable ice, and he caught this hand by the wrist and pressed it to his burning skin. He forgot his illness, and the pain in his side which caught at every breath. He was wonderfully comfortable with her, luxurious in the scrutiny of her concern. He wasn’t listening to her quick words, his silly smile bade her to be quiet, ... and, with her palm still pressed by him to his forehead, he caught her round the body with one arm and held her to him, raising her off her feet so that he could kiss her lips. Ice again, ice. He did not look into her eyes, he was afraid to, for his kisses brought no lustre to them now; and how dexterous she was now! somehow luring him to her cheek, where lies only the sulky stuff of love. Magdalen couldn’t pretend, ever. Nervous words of comfort came from her, a small laugh, a tiny, helpless gesture. Dear Magdalen! And so he thought to comfort her for the boredom of his kisses.

“I’m sorry, Magdalen,” he said....

“I’ve had such an awful day, Magdalen,” he said. His eyes were wet....

His illness was quite forgot--but not by her. She was silent, racked by anxiety as to what to do with him.

“You see, Magdalen,” he whispered dazedly, “life is a most awful mess without you. It’s caddish of me to make you responsible for all the beauty in life, but I can’t help it. I must tell you. You’ve got no right, you know, to be so admirable to a man....”

“And then,” he said suddenly, “to be so admirable to another man.” He wanted to go on, to say something caddish....

“But I haven’t another friend, Ivor!” But she was thinking only of what to do with him.

“No?” his eyes searched her face naïvely. “Well, then, I’ll be your friend, indeed I will. Later on, though. For I somehow can’t yet get used to not being your lover, it’s stupid of me. But I’ll be your friend, Magdalen, you can rely on me.”

“Silly Ivor!” she laughed at him nervously, taking his arm. His absurd seriousness unnerved her. “Why, you’ll have your work cut out to be your own friend, in the state you are in! You’ve got influenza, that’s what you’ve got. And you’ll go straight off to bed, please, straight away, and I’ll send you a doctor. You didn’t think, I suppose, of seeing a doctor, Ivor?”

“But that’s just what I came to see you about!” he remembered eagerly.

“Stay a moment,” she commanded, and flew quickly up the stairs. Ivor, with his back to the wall, closed his eyes and tried to breathe evenly, in the hope that the pain in his side was an illusion. Maybe it was ... but it wasn’t. He opened his eyes; she was coming down again, wrapping something up in paper.

“Hot-water bottle,” she explained, giving it to him. “I’m sure you haven’t got one in your flat.”

“The correct procedure is,” she said, “to fill it with boiling water, then go to bed and lay it on your tummy, and go to sleep. Some people say it’s better to put it under your feet, but I’ve always inclined to the tummy school. One sweats.”

“Now, Ivor, no more nonsense!” she almost stamped her foot as he still made to delay. “And I’ll ring up Dr. Harvey as soon as you’ve gone, to go and see you. He’ll be with you in a very few minutes.” She almost pushed him to the door: deciding that she would follow him to his flat as soon as she had telephoned Dr. Harvey.

He wouldn’t let her open the door, he blocked her way, and his fumbling with it strained her nerves. But it was open at last. And without a word he stumbled quickly out.

“You’ve decorated my life, anyway,” he called abruptly back from the pavement, and strode away. She saw the paper round the hot-water bottle flutter down to the glistening pavement. Shivering from the damp cold, she watched the tall figure from the open doorway. Where had he left his hat, she wondered? She hadn’t realised he had no hat. She began to run after him to tell him to come back indoors while she tried to find a taxi, but at that moment she saw him catch one at the Knightsbridge corner....

Ivor, with his hand on the door-handle of the taxi, suddenly found it impossible to direct the man to his flat. He suddenly found he couldn’t bear the loneliness of his flat. And he quite forgot about Magdalen’s doctor.

“Drive,” he told the man, “to Mr. Trevor’s flat in Savile Row. It’s a charming flat, on the third floor....”

He’s certain not to know it, Ivor thought, and in that case I’ll go home. He shifted the responsibility of his intrusion on Gerald on to the man.

“No. 96, sir,” the man said. “Yes, sir.”

“I used to be Mr. Trevor’s valet once, sir,” the man said.

Well, thought Ivor, taxis are stranger than fiction. He lay back and closed his eyes. The paper had dropped from the hot-water bottle, and he hugged the rubber thing to him, smiling at the idea of Magdalen.... God, how awful he felt! how his head racked him, and his breathing too!

The taxi pulled up, and after a while the driver jumped out to see to his fare, who seemed to make no movement. He found his fare a heap in the corner, his eyes closed.

“Mr. Trevor’s flat, sir,” said the man sympathetically. And he touched his fare’s arm.

“All right, all right!” Ivor impatiently murmured, and managed to stumble out. The man picked up the hot-water bottle from the pavement and handed it to him; he was a pleasant man.

“Shall I help you up, sir?” he asked.

“Look here, I’m not drunk,” Ivor found sudden energy to protest. “But I’ve got pneumonia, if that’s any good to you....”

“All I want to know is,” he said weakly, “whether you think Mr. Trevor’s in or out? You say you were his valet, so you ought to know.”

The man listened, with head aside.

“I hear a piano, sir. That ’ud be Mr. Trevor....”

It took Ivor a long time to get up to the third floor. He felt worse every second, it was hell to breathe. Doctors ought to be like pillar-boxes, he crossly thought, they ought to be at every corner. Most of them are red enough, but they’re not at every corner. They play bridge every evening.... Gerald would be annoyed with him, dear Gerald! But what could he do, he couldn’t be alone any more, he couldn’t bear it. He ought to be a man, of course.... Trevor’s door swayed before him, he couldn’t find the bell somehow, and so he banged on it with his fist. Where the deuce had he left his stick, the one Magdalen had given him?

3

“Hallo, Ivor!” Trevor’s voice said genially. He wasn’t annoyed to see him, then!... And then Trevor caught him. Ivor had crumpled up. Trevor, silently, almost carried him into his sitting-room. Ivor tried to explain, but it hurt him so to breathe.... Then he just managed to pull himself together, and stood up straight, and laughed weakly to see the hot-water bottle hanging from his hand. He waved it at Trevor.

“See that?...” he said faintly.

“I’m awfully sorry, Gerald, coming like this,” he said. “I’m----”

“You’re in a state, old boy. Take it easy for a moment.” Trevor’s voice was quiet and kind. He tried to help Ivor to the wide sofa just beside him, but Ivor still stood swaying.

“Look here,” he tried to explain. “I’m not drunk, not really. I’ve got pneumonia.”

“But you can’t have pneumonia here!” Trevor cried in horror.

“Oh, can’t I!” said Ivor weakly. And he flopped as he was on to the sofa, and closed his eyes.

Trevor was very busy the next few minutes. Ivor seemed unconscious, his breathing came in quick, rasping gasps, and Trevor could feel the fever of him when he touched him. In a moment he had off the wet shoes and overcoat, and had him covered up with a rug and an eiderdown from his bedroom. Ivor still clutched his hot-water bottle.

“Well, I’m damned!” said Trevor softly, beside him; and he stretched out to the telephone which was on a little table by the divan. Ivor opened his eyes to stare round him, and then put a hand feebly across them, for the light hurt them. Trevor switched out the lights, the fire was light enough. He picked up the telephone again. Ivor stared at him.

“Doctor,” Trevor briefly explained.

“Sorry, Gerald ... let you in for this,” Ivor said faintly.

“That’s all right, old man. Be quiet now. Love to have the honour of saving your life.”

“I’ve had this before,” Ivor just murmured. “At school. Not so badly, though.... But they thought I was done, ... and said prayers for me in the school-chapel.... ‘For one of us who is now at death’s door.’ ... Everyone was very touched....”

“Pooh, that’s nothing!” Trevor mocked. “People have said prayers for me when I hadn’t got pneumonia. But look here, Ivor, try to keep quiet while I get a doctor. There’s a good chap.”

Trevor finally got on to the doctor. He tried to speak as low as he could, not to disturb Ivor, who again seemed as near sleep as could be.

“Hallo, Harvey! Trevor speaking.... Yes, Gerald. I say, Harvey, I’ve got a young man here having pneumonia. I’d be glad of a little help....”

Dr. Harvey’s voice came from the other end: “But look here, Mrs. Gray has just rung up telling me to go round to a flat in Upper Brook Street where a young man has got influenza....”

“Influenza nothing,” Gerald snorted. “The chap’s here, I tell you. And on your way here you’d better book a suite at a nursing home, because I can’t have people having pneumonia all over my flat, there’s no facilities....”

He put up the receiver and turned to Ivor behind him. He could see, in the firelight, Ivor’s eyes painfully on him.

“You won’t die yet, Ivor,” he grinned at him--that jerky, pleasant, wise grin of Trevor’s! He sat beside the sick man, and passed a hand over the burning forehead.

“Wouldn’t mind,” Ivor whispered. And two big tears crawled out of the dark eyes and down the cheeks.

Gerald Trevor ate a macaroon, and soon Dr. Harvey came in.

“He’s got it bad,” he whispered to Trevor, having examined him. “Ought to have been in bed hours ago. But we can move him all right. Get your man to help. I rang up Mrs. Gray to say I was coming here. She’s coming on.”

“She can’t help him now,” said Trevor. “Come on.”

The three of them carried Ivor down the stairs to Harvey’s car outside. He was heavy, for all his thinness. He woke up once, just to say absurdly: “You’re carrying me.”

“Observant of you!” mocked Gerald.

In the car they had him between them, a large bulky figure in Gerald’s rug and eiderdown. He was past listening to anything now.

“What on earth has he been up to?” Harvey asked Trevor in a whisper, across him. “To go about like this! He must have felt it coming on all day--and yesterday, too!”

“God knows,” Trevor said.

But both men knew well enough, in a sort of way. Dr. Harvey knew London as well as medicine, and he had known Magdalen Gray for years. He pursed his lips.

“That woman,” he whispered grimly, “burns whatever she touches. Always.” (It is a well-known fact that doctors in private life get frightfully dramatic about women.)

Trevor was silent.

“It’s an irony about her,” Harvey went on. “She’s kind, oh, very kind! but she always makes a mess of men. This young man, now. She breaks ’em, in the end. I’ve known a few.”

“Yes, but she makes them first,” Trevor said suddenly. “You’re talking without your book, Harvey. She makes men, I tell you, out of the ordinary idiots whom she falls in love with. This one isn’t an absolute idiot, but he’s young, and that comes to the same thing in this case. She’s been worth-while to him, and she will always be worth-while to him. She’s a woman of quality, Harvey.” And Gerald Trevor smiled....

“A little less quality and a little more constancy,” Harvey suggested grimly, “wouldn’t do her any harm.”

“Even so,” said Trevor satirically, “you would love her to-morrow if you thought she loved you, and constancy be damned. It’s the function of women like her to remind men of their littleness and impotence. I’ve been reminded once or twice. But men like you, old man, hate to be reminded of their littleness and impotence. You’ve got an idea that you are worth loving, and Magdalen Gray is in the world to teach you that there isn’t as much foundation for that idea as there might be.”

“You wait till you have pneumonia ...” Harvey whispered viciously across the still figure of Ivor.