The Green Hat · IV · Chapter 4 1 (2/2)

There were many green dresses: jade-green, October green, rusty green, soft green, sea-green, dying green, any shade of green that would suit the expiring voices of formal women in a garden by Watteau. There were thirty-nine green dresses. There was a Jewess of the wrong sort in the wrong sort of green. She looked like a fat asparagus whose head had been dipped in dressing and then put in a warm place to dry. She dried in patches. A caravan of pearls crawled upwards from her bosom to her throat, and she said to Mr. Trehawke Tush, the novelist: “The only decent cocktails you can get in Paris are at the Ritz Bar, but the people are so odd. My Archie wants to stand for Parliament. What do you think?” Mr. Trehawke Tush, portraits of whose prewar face must be familiar to everyone, was the most successful of the younger novelists, and had earned from Miss Rebecca West the praise that he was “the leader of the spats school of thought.” Mr. Trehawke Tush will go down to history as the originator of Pique as a profitable literary idea. He had hit on the discovery that English library subscribers will wholeheartedly bear with any racy and illegal relation between the sexes if the same is caused by Pique. He had observed that the whole purpose of a “bestseller” is to justify a reasonable amount of adultery in the eyes of suburban matrons. He had observed that in no current English novel was there ever a mention of any woman having a lover because she wanted a lover: she always took a lover because something had upset her, as in real life she might take an aspirin. Mr. Trehawke Tush had then created Pique, and was spoken of as a “brilliant feminine psychologist.” Since the rise of Mr. Trehawke Tush no reviewer will take any count of a writer as a “brilliant feminine psychologist” unless he can explain the regrettable adultery of his leading female character by the word Pique. This will also persuade Punch reviewers to consider the tale wholesome. Mr. Trehawke Tush was up to all those dodges. He said: “I have just finished a serial for The Daily Sale. I want to show up this kind of thing, the waste, the Indecency of it. All these girls. I thought the editor might take objection to certain passages, as there is some strong bedroom stuff in it, but he only asked me to change one thing. I had put ‘he kissed her where he would,’ and so I changed it to ‘as he would.’ ”

In a corner far across the crowded room sat Venice Pollen, most sedately between her father and her mother. We waved, and decided that it was too crowded to dance; but we did not know, Venice and I, that we were met that night in darkness.

Observe Venice. We will always be found on Venice’s side, and why? because she is a darling. Mark her now, and how the smoke about her clears, how clean she is, and so excited! For Venice! You know she is excited because she is so still, there between her hard father and her monstrous fat mother. Mark her there, a green flower with a mad golden head. And her eyes are blue, mad blue, and she is the queen of ten thousand freckles, of which she is very contemptuous, saying: “Who wants freckles?” And she had a noble forehead which would crinkle when she did not catch what you said, and that was often enough, for she was always talking herself. “Darling, darling, darling!” That is what she would say. And on her lion’s-cub head was a tumult of short dusty-gold hair, which was by nature rebellious, so that she must ever and again be giving her head a fierce backward shake, as though that was going to do any good. Mark her there, so sedate between her hard father and her monstrous fat mother. Not sedate really, Venice! Yet she must be sedate now, for Venice, who by ordinary knew not fear, was as though fascinated by fear of her father, who was none other than Nathaniel Pollen, once of Manchester, but now of Hampshire and Berkeley Square, for was he not as rich as Croesus would have been had Croesus owned the half of the newspapers of England?

So there sat Venice, most excited-still, undoubtedly waiting for Napier. They were lovers, Napier and Venice, and in three days they would be married. Dark, shy, handsome Napier! Favourite of the gods, you might well call him, yet his was that rare, surprising quality which will keep a man poised in continual sunshine, which will never let him droop and laze in the certainty that his sins of omission and casualness will be forgiven him. He was, to talk for a change of the things that matter, in the Foreign Office, and worked conscientiously hard at a career which would⁠—“undoubtedly,” they said, “undoubtedly”⁠—in the course of time place Napier among the most honoured of the nation’s servants; although he would⁠—“undoubtedly,” one can’t help feeling, “undoubtedly”⁠—reach in the course of time the very same pinnacle if he did no work at all, for England and America are the only two countries left in the world wherein men’s charm and good looks are really appreciated by men in the political, high financial, diplomatic, and educational spheres.

Our table faced the swing-doors across the room, and through the crowd of dancers one could see who passed in and out. There was a press of young men standing vaguely by the door, perhaps doubtful whether they should stay or go to return another day. A very haughty and flushed-looking lady, expensively dressed in a dernier cri, which she wore like armour, tramped past them, looked suspiciously into their bland faces, and out. She suspected they might be thinking she was going to more than powder her nose. They were, she was, who cared?

A voice rose above the saxophone at the table to the left of mine. It came from a heavy, drooping man with the eyes of a schoolboy, the smile of a genius, the gestures of a conqueror, and the face of a bully. He said: “There are two things in England that not even God could afford to be truthful about: Himself and the Navy.” With the man of destiny was the most beautiful woman in Ireland (Ulster) and a dark woman with a high bust and flashing eye, who spoke Cockney with an American accent. Her father was a lord. She said: “I am growing to detest London. There is nowhere to go and nothing to do when you get there.” The most beautiful woman in Ireland (Ulster) had hair as black as a raven’s wing and two aquamarines for eyes, while the symmetry of her features appalled the epithet. She said: “I took my little Juno out to tea with Fay Avalon today and she was so naughty on the handsome parquet floor, the mother’s darling!”

Then things happened. Gerald happened. Gerald and Aphrodite.⁠ ⁠… Venice, Iris, Guy de Travest, Hugo Cypress, Napier, Colonel Duck, Gerald⁠ ⁠… if only one had a cinema for a moment! And there was also my Lady Pynte, with whom I should have been dancing. Where Mrs. Ammon went there also went Cornelia Pynte, and where Lady Pynte went there also went Angela Ammon. They were fine hearty women. And since Hilary was dancing with Mrs. Ammon I ought instantly to have begged the honour of taking the floor with Lady Pynte. There she sat, across the room, alone, a fine hearty woman. But, then, one goes to a nightclub to think, to be alone, to be comfortable, to eat a haddock. Lady Pynte thought dancing Good Exercise, and she was taller than me, too. A fine woman. Once, as Hilary toiled by with Mrs. Ammon, he whispered fiercely over her shoulder: “Why don’t you dance with the old trout?” But I drowned discourtesy to Lady Pynte in wine, for it was a “late night” at the Loyalty, which meant that you could drink wine until they took it from you. Lady Pynte was renowned as one of the five best women riders to hounds in the country. It was said that the foxes in the Whaddon Chase country ceased laughing when anyone said “Pynte!” near them. But Lady Pynte also had her politics, and she headed Movements; while Angela Ammon was more of a literary turn. Lady Pynte liked young men to Do; Mrs. Ammon to Dare. Lady Pynte liked young men to be Healthy and Normal; Mrs. Ammon preferred them to be Original. Lady Pynte liked Boys to be Boys; Mrs. Ammon didn’t mind if they were girls so long as they were Original. Lady Pynte insisted on Working for the Welfare of the People at Large and Not Just Our Own Little Class, she played bridge with a bantering tongue and a Borgia heart, she maintained that the best place at which to buy shoes was Fortnum & Mason’s, and if she saw you innocently taking the air of a sunny morning she would say: “You look not at all well, my good young man. Why don’t you take some Clean, Healthy exercise? You ought to be Riding.” That was why one maintained a defensive alliance with one’s haddock rather than do the manly thing and dance with Lady Pynte. She would say one ought to be riding, and for four years I had hidden from Lady Pynte the fact that I did not know how to ride. I simply did not dare to confess to Lady Pynte that I could not ride. I had already tried to pave the way to that denouement by confessing that I came from the lower classes, but she did not appear to think that any class could be so Low as that. She would show one round her stables, and one felt an awful fool standing there in the cold being expected to be intelligent about the various horses, whereas one could only mutter, “Ah, good horse!” or “Oh, there’s a fine horse!” until one day I remembered what Peter Page, the critic, had once told me, that whenever he was shown a horse by a horse-lover he would instantly say “What withers!” and thus create a sound and manly impression as a horse-fancier. But when I came out impressively with “What withers!” I thought that Lady Pynte looked at me suspiciously, and Hilary, who was also fancying horses with us, told me later that it wasn’t done to look a lady straight in the eye and say “What withers!” Horses make life complicated, that is what it is.

Hugo Cypress, dancing by with his wife Shirley, called out: “Ho, there! Seen the evening-paper? Friend of yours.⁠ ⁠…”

“What?” I said. “Hugo.⁠ ⁠…” But what on earth was this about the evening-paper? I was agitated⁠—suddenly, I was very agitated indeed. There is something quite beastly about evening-papers, beastly and naked.⁠ ⁠…

Astorias stayed his men, and Hilary came back to the table. Gloomily he looked at the angel that was frozen to its horse. And he looked worried.

“Hilary, what’s this I heard Hugo murmuring about the evening-paper?”

“Gerald,” said Hilary. “Hm.⁠ ⁠…”

“But what, Hilary? Not serious, surely?”

“Oh, not serious,” Hilary grunted. “Not serious. Hm. Just a nasty silly mess, I think. Didn’t catch what. Hm.⁠ ⁠…”

I realised then that I had known all the time. That curious, hopeless grinning.⁠ ⁠… But, good Lord, what sort of a mess? Hilary didn’t know. “Something in the evening-paper,” he said. Hilary looked hurt, worried, and I had that jumpy feeling that I must do something at once. But what sort of a mess? A drunkard’s row? What? Hilary didn’t know, and I was just about to ask the waiter if he could find me an evening-paper when two figures by the door held my eye. And a third just behind them.

“Kids!” murmured Hilary, with a sort of grudging smile. And they looked just that, for all their beauty⁠—“kids.” One saw them playing together under a tree. A long while ago, they had played together under a tree. The favourite of the gods and the shameless, shameful lady.⁠ ⁠…

“Hm,” grumbled Hilary. “Imitation.⁠ ⁠…”

But I knew, for I once had a friend who was a taxidermist. There were 396 white ermines round Iris. White and tawny and white. She was like a light, and you hadn’t realised what an infernal dungeon the place was until the door had suddenly opened and she had come in, wrapped in cloth of soft snow. Boy’s head, curly head, white and tiger-tawny. She was like a light, a sad, white light. I can’t describe her but like that. Napier had been standing by the door, waiting for the dance to cease, so that he might join Venice. Then Iris had come in, grave, very unselfconscious. She didn’t see Napier. He didn’t see Iris. Her companion was Colonel Duck, M.F.H.

“God, that man!” sighed Hilary. Oh, Iris was hopeless! Why, of all men, Colonel Duck?

Napier made to walk away. Iris and Colonel Duck made to follow Risotto. Maybe one of the 396 white ermines just brushed Napier’s sleeve. Maybe this, maybe that. “Kids!” said Hilary. Napier had started round, looked blank: tall, slender, dark-haired, dark eyes always fevered with a fear of you could never tell what⁠—they almost blinked now, you thought, at the light that Iris was, and she with her pools of eyes simply blazing with surprise and an unsure smile parting the painted mouth. “Napier!” “Iris!” As though, you know, someone with a soft “There!” had turned a tap somewhere. They smiled completely. Well, they would, the old friends. Naturally. She wouldn’t, I was sure, be calling him “Naps,” and she detesting abbreviations and the like.

The wrong sort of Jewess gave a short, audible outline of Iris to Mr. Trehawke Tush. Hilary stared at her venomously. Then he stared across the room at Colonel Duck venomously. Colonel Duck stood behind Iris’s white shoulder, a red dragon of a man, smiling relentlessly with his well-known geniality. Napier did not appear to see Colonel Duck, M.F.H. Napier and Iris were talking very quickly, laughing, maybe rather shyly. Then Astorias, refreshed, hurled his men against the conversation; bravely it held on for a second or two, then lay shuddering and shattered, and gone was Napier, gone Iris towards a table with Colonel Duck, whose red, relentless geniality showed no hint of the certain fact that the next time he was at that talkative club of his he would say that Napier Harpenden had been another of Iris Storm’s “affairs” and might quite well be again, Iris Storm being what she was. Notably good at all games and sports was Colonel Duck, M.F.H., and therefore tolerated with respect by decent men.

“I wonder if she knows anything about Gerald,” I was saying, when from her table across the room she seemed to be beckoning. To Hilary, not to me. She looked very serious. The emerald shone on the third finger of her right hand. She did not appear to see me. I felt bitter.

“Hm,” growled Hilary. He wanted to be persuaded to go. He wanted to go reluctantly. “Hate that Duck man so,” he said pathetically.

“Go on, Hilary. She might know something. I’ll get a paper.”

“Why, there’s Guy!” said Hilary. “Must have just come up from Mace. There, by the door.⁠ ⁠…”

The carpet of colours, on which the men were sprinkled like the black smuts on a town garden, swayed between us and the doorway, but no crowd might hide that man, for he was tall as a tree and his crisp yellow hair glared like a menace above the intervening heads and his frozen blue eyes petrified smoke, noise, and distance. Hilary was standing, about to go towards Iris. He looked rather sheepish at being found by Guy at the Loyalty. Most unsmiling was Guy that night.

“Ross must have told him we were here,” I said. “He’ll have come about Gerald.⁠ ⁠…”

“This foul place!” Hilary snapped. “You go downstairs with Guy, and I’ll get Iris to rid herself of her fancy friend and bring her down.⁠ ⁠…”