The Green Hat · X · Chapter 10 2 (1/2)

II

Thus, the children’s party.⁠ ⁠…

Their engines no louder than a whisper through the quiet noises of the night, and swift as arrows with flaming eyes, two touring-cars, a primrose and a blue, passed through the villages riverwards. The good people slept on undisturbed, as why should they not, for a motorcar will disturb the amenities of a village by night less than a wheelbarrow. Maybe through the crack of a blind flashed a startling light on a sleepless pillow. Maybe a distant scream, as of a great seabird, stirred a boy to dream of vain, polite, perishable delights. Maybe a cow stared thoughtfully at the strange, swift, whirring insects with the livid eyes and the cruel screams. Here and there the lamps shone on the buttons of a policeman, stock-still in a doorway. There was no air but the wind of our passage, warm, heavy with dust and dry grasses. “Rain, rain!” breathed England in her sleep. And there was no rain, nor breath of rain, nor yet that damp, oppressive foretaste of a thunderstorm to come, only a torment of heat over the land and around the land the unclouded darkness pinned with faint stars. A myriad flies withstood the stork, were appalled, died. Wrapped in silence, armed with light, we fled beneath the suns of the night like battle-chariots rushing to the assault of the stronghold of the gods. Iris had gone mad.

I thought of Mr. Polly disturbed in his sleep, twenty years ago, on a Sussex hayrick by the roar of a racing-car. Mr. Polly could have slept undisturbed for us. One hundred and twenty horses drew us, shadows of nothing from nothing to nothing beneath the impersonal stare of the stars. Look away from the stars, lovers of the world’s delights, for they are the destroyers of the world’s delights with their dreams of grander things. To listen to great music, to adore God in vast solitudes, to kneel before the face of beauty, to pass through the quiet land like an arrow with flaming eyes, swifter than your thoughts: such and the like, according to each our nature, are the captains of the world’s delights, so keep your eyes from the stars, that destroy our delights with their dreams of grander things.

Silence marches with the thoughts in your mind. Maybe a word or two will drop, hesitate in the wind, fight with the dying hosts of midgets, perish on the road. Small flying things brush by your face, and a dry unsweet scent, as though England is sleeping with her windows closed.

The green hat was somewhere beside me, it fell and rolled about my feet, she murmured: “Leave it.” To the warm wind fell the honour of the dance, and with the tawny cornstalks the wind stepped a wide-flung dance. Why does your hair dance so, Iris March, like a halo possessed of devils? Why this, why that, Iris March?

In the glass of the windscreen we might now and then see the faint reflection of Guy’s lamps behind us. Nay, once or twice his bonnet nosed up beside Iris, just beside her elbow. But the stork cried hoarsely, flew on.

Again, silent as the rustle of a woman’s dress walking in a dark garden, Guy’s shining bonnet menaced the tail of our eye, and Guy himself, alone in front, yellow-haired, grim, fair herald of a fighting pageant in his brilliant Fair Isle sweater, and now the face of Venice, leaning forward to Guy’s shoulder, excited, exhorting. Venice, for Venice! She would pass the lady of the dancing hair, would Venice. But the stork cried hoarsely, flew on.

We wrestled. Silent as phantoms, we wrestled. One hundred and twenty horses, a winged Mercury and a stork wrestled for the dominion of nothing on the Reading road.

There was a corner, proud and saturnine from many fell triumphs. The stork screamed a taunt, flew on.

“Ho!” gasped Hugo, chattering, from behind. “Steady, girl! Shirley’s frightened.⁠ ⁠…”

“Let him pass, Iris!” cried I. A little scared, a woman driving, you never know, might lose her head, boy’s head, curly head, white and tiger-tawny, but too white, too intent, too infernally reckless.⁠ ⁠…

“Iris, Iris!”

“Can do seventy-five, if you like,” cried the lips of the dancing hair.

“Let him pass, Iris!”

“Pass? Am I mad! As soon let happiness pass! See, the stars are laughing.⁠ ⁠…”

“Iris, Iris!”

“Let him pass, Iris! Damn you, it won’t hold the road!”

“Why, the road’s fainting with joy! Can do seventy-six if you like. But not more.⁠ ⁠…”

A new road, recently laid down to soften the passage of footlight-favourites to the reaches of Taplow and Maidenhead, wide, deserted of houses. Meadows swept each side into the desert darkness. Iris, perhaps remembering Mr. Polly, perhaps thinking Mr. Polly had slept long enough, kicked open the exhaust. That lends another mile an hour to speed. Another sixty horses gave answer behind, then fell snarling back towards London. “Seventy-one, Iris!”

“Ow!” she breathed. “Accelerator burning foot. Ow! Hell!”

“Maidenhead!” screamed Shirley.

“To the right, Iris!”

And so we came into the yard of Quindle’s. Still, sleeping, shuttered, Quindle’s hostelry was a rebuke to the flaming lights which made a festival of the desert scene. Then Guy’s car swung in, poor winged Mercury. Shows one, don’t you know, how much gods are worth.⁠ ⁠…

“Sickening, Iris. You had me properly beat that time.”

“But how my foot burns, Guy!”

“Look!” said Venice. “Hist!”

A man in shirtsleeves was come out of the hotel. He stared at us, rubbed his eyes, stared at us.

“Ho!” called Major Cypress. “Ho, there! Is that Quindle’s speaking?”

The man in shirtsleeves came through the flame of the lamps. An amiable man, he looked.

“Now remember,” whispered Shirley at large, “no matter how beastly they are to us, we are going to bathe. Let everyone speak at once. That will baffle him.”

“Evening,” said the man in shirtsleeves. “Bit late, isn’t it?”

“Not one yet,” said Hugo. “I say, we want to bathe.”

“Can’t have no rooms,” said the man in shirtsleeves. “Hotel’s full.”

“But we don’t want no rooms!” Venice pleaded. “We only want to bathe.⁠ ⁠…”

“Bar’s closed,” said the man in shirtsleeves.

“Serve you right,” said Hugo. “But we’ll give you a drink if you want one. Here you are. Beer or champagne?”

“I want to bathe,” Shirley pleaded.

“Can’t bathe ’ere,” said the man in shirtsleeves.

“You don’t know about us,” said Venice severely. “We can bath anywhere.”

“Against the lor, miss.”

“That will be all right about the law.” A sudden voice, a calm voice, a cold, chill murmur. It fell from heights like a douche. The man in shirtsleeves tried not to have to look up all the way to Guy’s face. Too tall was Guy, in that light. Guy smiled down at the man in shirtsleeves.

“Hot night,” Guy murmured. “Very hot. My children, all these.⁠ ⁠…”

“Ho,” said the man in shirtsleeves. “ ’Ot or cold, it’s against the lor, that’s wot.”

“Don’t you worry your head about the law,” said Guy. “But what you might do, now, would be to get us some towels. We forgot towels.⁠ ⁠…”

“Against the lor, anyhow,” said the man in shirtsleeves.

“I do wish you’d say something else just once,” snapped Shirley.

Iris, a white face, gardenia-white, mocking hair, a barbaric scarf about her throat, her hat a splash of black against the frail fancy that was her dress, standing a little away, staring at the stars. “A light,” she murmured. “A light!” Then Napier was beside her, lighting her cigarette, lighting also the curious, still smile on his acolyte’s face, an enchanted smile, the smile of a man drowned in a magic pool. The collar of his white shirt was unbuttoned, the dark hair sleek in the glow of the flaming lights.⁠ ⁠…

“Naps, give me a light, too.”

“Here you are, Venice,” said Hugo.

“Oh, it’s gone out! Naps, a light!”

“Sorry, Venice.⁠ ⁠…”

Guy seemed to be shaking hands with the man in shirtsleeves.

“Get you some towels,” said he, moving off.

Hugo whispered: “One law for the rich, one for the poor. Dear me!”

“Sickening. But we may as well take advantage of what’s left of it. Getting a bit mouldy, that law.”

“Come on, Hugo. God, it’s dark! Which way is it? We must find a boat.⁠ ⁠…”

“Naps, this way! No, down here⁠ ⁠… but hang on to my arm! Soon find a boat.⁠ ⁠…”

“You can’t have no boat!” called the man in shirtsleeves.

“You get those towels,” said Hugo severely. “The way you talk!”

“Please, your arm,” Iris begged me, husky voice. “Foot hurts. And isn’t it dark!”

“Here you are!” came Venice’s clear boy’s voice from the pit of darkness ahead, beneath us.

We faltered, blind as bats, down the slope of a landing-stage.

“Matches, please!” Shirley’s voice. Oh, trust Shirley and Venice to have the affair well in hand! The pit of darkness ahead was bitten by tiny flames. “Oh, look out, Naps! Ow, God damn you!”

“Naps, you might wipe your feet on your own wife, would you?”

There were uncertainties, holes, fissures of splintered wood. The tiny flames in the pit ahead were like lance-points thrusting the darkness deeper into the eyes.

Iris and I marched slowly as the smoke of our cigarettes in the breathless night. She leaned on my arm, completely. “Foot hurts.” I wished she wouldn’t. I almost said, “don’t.” Her touch confounded, confused. She was tangible, until she touched you. She was finite, until she touched you. She was a woman, until she touched you. Then she became woman, and you water. She became a breath of womanhood clothed in the soft, delicious mystery of the flesh. Touching her, you touched all desire. She was impersonal and infinite, like all desire. She was indifferent to all but her desire, like all desire. She was a breath carved in flesh, like all desire. She was the flower of the plant of all desire. Desire is the name of the plant that Lilith sowed, and every now and then it puts out the flower that in the choir of flowers is the paramour of the mandrake.

“You are very silent, Iris.⁠ ⁠…”

“Yes⁠ ⁠… yes? Sometimes.⁠ ⁠… I don’t know, but it’s as though the stars make me nervous, sometimes. They’re so hopeless. They sneer, I can’t help thinking. But are we going right?”

The darkness ahead stirred with tiny flames and exultant voices. Venice and Shirley!

“I say, lovely boat!” cried Shirley.

“Where, Shirley?” I called.

“Between you and me,” Iris whispered, “I wouldn’t mind sitting. Foot hurts.⁠ ⁠…”

“Come straight on. Don’t go right or left. River.”

“It’s not a boat at all!” cried Venice. “It’s a lovely motor-canoe. Oh, chaps!”

“Ssh!” Guy’s voice.

Who cared? Not Shirley. “And cushions! And steering-wheel! And everything.⁠ ⁠…”

“Naps, this way! Here you are! Isn’t it a beauty?”

“Hope no one gets drowned,” Iris whispered.

“Everyone’s cold sober.”

“But weeds and cramps and things.⁠ ⁠…”

“And currents,” came Guy’s murmur from somewhere just above our heads. “But it’s safe as houses as long as we keep in a line between this bank and the other. Had inquiries made today.”

“Sensible Guy!”

“Best way to mend things is to stop them, Iris.”

Our eyes pricked by the wicked little match-lights, we could just make out at our feet the shape of a long motor-canoe and, at one end of it, a jumble of figures. They seemed to be fighting, those figures, bent this way and that in heroic attitudes. The canoe twisted and rocked frantically on its moorings. Fierce whispers, wicked words.⁠ ⁠…

“Steady a moment,” said Guy, just beside us. But they weren’t steady any moments, Venice and Shirley and Hugo, whilst Napier helped them by getting in their way. They were up to something, those frantic figures.

“Steady, I said!” said Guy sharply. That learnt them. Someone in the boat lit a match, and the water shone like black silk. I saw Napier’s white face looking towards us, white face, dark eyes. Love-lost, dreaming.⁠ ⁠…

“Now look here,” said Guy gently. “Just leave those sickening ropes alone. You, Venice, you!”

“But, Guy! We must get⁠—”

“Must nothing. It’s not our boat, Venice, and I never break more than one law a night.”

“But⁠—Oh, damn the man!”

“Honest to God, Venice. Now, Shirley, behave yourself! We’ll sit in the wretched boat, but no more. And the river just here is safe.⁠ ⁠…”

“Look here,” said Hugo. “What about this for an idea? The women have one end of the boat and we the other?”

“And no matches to⁠—”

“But where’s Iris?”

“Here,” came her voice, as though from the water. “In the middle of the boat. Very comfortable. Many cushions. I’ll take care of the boat while you swim.⁠ ⁠…”

“Isn’t she kind, our fast friend! I say, no matches to be struck until someone gives the word! My figure’s good, but even Reville doesn’t think it’s perfect.⁠ ⁠…”

“And better hand all your nasty bits of jewellery and watches to Iris.”

“ ’Ere’s towels,” said a miserable voice.

The canoe rocked beneath us. At our end soft things dropped to our feet, got in the way. Never was so dark and still a night. It was a relief taking off even the white flannels.

“Any swimming to be done,” said Guy, “to be done in a straight line between this and the other bank. First man or woman who disobeys gets a crack on the head (a) from the bridge over there and (b) from me.”

“This wing’s getting a bit crowded,” sighed Hugo. “It’s a blessing we’re not French and haven’t nice warm underclothes as well.”

The glow of her cigarette lit Iris’s mouth and eyes.⁠ ⁠…

“I got one foot in the water,” she said at large.

“Taking the edge off our bathing!” Dear Hugo.⁠ ⁠…

“Now, wot’s all this about bathing?” said a Voice.

“Police! Puss, puss!”

“Didn’t I tell ’em!” panted the man in shirtsleeves. “Didn’t I! Told ’em it was against the lor.”

“Look here!” cried Venice from the pit of darkness. “Don’t you put that bull’s-eye this way, else God knows what you won’t see!”

“And he’ll never go back to his wife again,” sang Shirley. “I know men.”

“You ain’t allowed to swim here,” said the Voice tremendously. “Are they, Bill? Out of it, now!”

“I do wish,” Hugo said violently, “that perfect strangers wouldn’t force themselves on us like this. Anyone would think we were at a Royal Garden Party!”

The canoe rocked frantically. “Damn you, Guy!” said Napier. The constable turned his bull’s-eye to where he thought Guy’s face would be, then flashed it a foot higher.

“About this law,” murmured Guy.

“Now, sir,” said the Voice, rather pathetically I thought. “I don’t want to have no trouble.”

“The very word! I was just going to ask you if it would be troubling you too much to ask you to run up to your house to lend us some towels. It really would be very kind of you. Our friend here hasn’t brought us quite enough.⁠ ⁠…”

Splash!

“Look ’ere,” began the Voice desperately.

“Don’t look, constable! Be strong. Use your willpower. Women are but idle vanities.”

“Oo!” gurgled Venice. “If you only knew how lovely it was! Come on, everybody. Oh, it’s so warm!”

“Now remember, Venice⁠—in a straight line between the banks.”

“That’s right, sir,” said the Voice.

“You and your banks!” sighed Shirley. Splash! “Ow, it’s freezing!”

“An’ it’s not their boat!” pleaded the man in shirtsleeves. “They got no right in that boat. It’s Lord Lamorna’s, that is.”

“Good Lord, Johnny’s! And he’s kept it hidden from us!” Splash! “Where are you, Venice? Shirley?”

“Napier, be careful!” cried Iris, laughed Iris.⁠ ⁠…

“Are you gentlemen saying as you’re friends of Lord Lamorna’s?” asked the voice.

“Friends!” said Hugo. “I won’t know him. We served together in Romano’s Riflemen, but now he’ll be jolly lucky if we don’t scuttle his boat. Owes me a fiver. Goodbye.”

The river was warm, soft, quiet. Most un-English were the waters of the Thames that night, most Italianate. Never before had one understood the verity of that phrase “on the bosom of the waters.”

From several yards away I could see the long shape of the motor-canoe. How Lamorna’s creditors would like to hear of that canoe! Hugo would blackmail him for his fiver. Dear Hugo. Suddenly the glow of Iris’s cigarette stabbed the darkness, and maybe that was her shadow there, and that the one foot in the water.⁠ ⁠…

“Who’s that?” she gasped.

I was anchored to her ankle. My hand could have gone twice round it.