maid? It was no business of his, he kept repeating--no business of his.
He tried to read, but his attention wandered. A quarter-past twelve
sounded on the harmonious clock. Suddenly determined, George rose,
crossed the room, opened the hidden door, and began to ascend the stairs.
He passed the first window, corkscrewed round, and came to another. He
paused for a moment to look out; his heart beat uncomfortably, as though
he were affronting some unknown danger. What he was doing, he told
himself, was extremely ungentlemanly, horribly underbred. He tiptoed
onward and upward. One turn more, then half a turn, and a door
confronted him. He halted before it, listened; he could hear no sound.
Putting his eye to the keyhole, he saw nothing but a stretch of white sunlit
wall. Emboldened, he turned the handle and stepped across the threshold.
There he halted, petrified by what he saw, mutely gaping.
"In the middle of a pleasantly sunny little room--'it is now Priscilla's
boudoir,' Mr. Wimbush remarked parenthetically--stood a small circular
table of mahogany. Crystal, porcelain, and silver,--all the shining
apparatus of an elegant meal--were mirrored in its polished depths. The
carcase of a cold chicken, a bowl of fruit, a great ham, deeply gashed to its
heart of tenderest white and pink, the brown cannon ball of a cold plum-
pudding, a slender Hock bottle, and a decanter of claret jostled one another
for a place on this festive board. And round the table sat the three sisters,
the three lovely Lapiths--eating!
"At George's sudden entrance they had all looked towards the door,
and now they sat, petrified by the same astonishment which kept George
fixed and staring. Georgiana, who sat immediately facing the door,
gazed at him with dark, enormous eyes. Between the thumb and
forefinger of her right hand she was holding a drumstick of the
dismembered chicken; her little finger, elegantly crooked, stood apart from
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the rest of her hand. Her mouth was open, but the drumstick had never
reached its destination; it remained, suspended, frozen, in mid-air. The
other two sisters had turned round to look at the intruder. Caroline still
grasped her knife and fork; Emmeline's fingers were round the stem of her
claret glass. For what seemed a very long time, George and the three
sisters stared at one another in silence. They were a group of statues.
Then suddenly there was movement. Georgiana dropped her chicken
bone, Caroline's knife and fork clattered on her plate. The movement
propagated itself, grew more decisive; Emmeline sprang to her feet,
uttering a cry. The wave of panic reached George; he turned and,
mumbling something unintelligible as he went, rushed out of the room and
down the winding stairs. He came to a standstill in the hall, and there, all
by himself in the quiet house, he began to laugh.
"At luncheon it was noticed that the sisters ate a little more than usual.
Georgiana toyed with some French beans and a spoonful of calves'-foot
jelly. 'I feel a little stronger to- day,' she said to Lord Timpany, when he
congratulated her on this increase of appetite; 'a little more material,' she
added, with a nervous laugh. Looking up, she caught George's eye; a
blush suffused her cheeks and she looked hastily away.
"In the garden that afternoon they found themselves for a moment
alone.
"You won't tell anyone, George? Promise you won't tell anyone,' she
implored. 'It would make us look so ridiculous. And besides, eating IS
unspiritual, isn't it? Say you won't tell anyone.'
"'I will,' said George brutally. 'I'll tell everyone, unless...'
"'It's blackmail.'
"'I don't care, said George. 'I'll give you twenty-four hours to decide.'
"Lady Lapith was disappointed, of course; she had hoped for better
things--for Timpany and a coronet. But George, after all, wasn't so bad.
They were married at the New Year.
"My poor grandfather!" Mr. Wimbush added, as he closed his book
and put away his pince-nez. "Whenever I read in the papers about
oppressed nationalities, I think of him." He relighted his cigar. "It was
a maternal government, highly centralised, and there were no
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representative institutions."
Henry Wimbush ceased speaking. In the silence that ensued Ivor's
whispered commentary on the spirit sketches once more became audible.
Priscilla, who had been dozing, suddenly woke up.
"What?" she said in the startled tones of one newly returned to
consciousness; "what?"
Jenny caught the words. She looked up, smiled, nodded reassuringly.
"It's about a ham," she said.
"What's about a ham?"
"What Henry has been reading." She closed the red notebook lying
on her knees and slipped a rubber band round it. "I'm going to bed," she
announced, and got up.
"So am I," said Anne, yawning. But she lacked the energy to rise
from her arm-chair.
The night was hot and oppressive. Round the open windows the
curtains hung unmoving. Ivor, fanning himself with the portrait of an
Astral Being, looked out into the darkness and drew a breath.
"The air's like wool," he declared.
"It will get cooler after midnight," said Henry Wimbush, and
cautiously added, "perhaps."
"I shan't sleep, I know."
Priscilla turned her head in his direction; the monumental coiffure
nodded exorbitantly at her slightest movement. "You must make an
effort," she said. "When I can't sleep, I concentrate my will: I say, 'I
will sleep, I am asleep!' And pop! off I go. That's the power of
thought."
"But does it work on stuffy nights?" Ivor inquired. "I simply cannot
sleep on a stuffy night."
"Nor can I," said Mary, "except out of doors."
"Out of doors! What a wonderful idea!" In the end they decided to
sleep on the towers--Mary on the western tower, Ivor on the eastern.
There was a flat expanse of leads on each of the towers, and you could get
a mattress through the trap doors that opened on to them. Under the stars,
under the gibbous moon, assuredly they would sleep. The mattresses
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were hauled up, sheets and blankets were spread, and an hour later the two
insomniasts, each on his separate tower, were crying their good-nights
across the dividing gulf.
On Mary the sleep-compelling charm of the open air did not work with
its expected magic. Even through the mattress one could not fail to be
aware that the leads were extremely hard. Then there were noises: the
owls screeched tirelessly, and once, roused by some unknown terror, all
the geese of the farmyard burst into a sudden frenzy of cackling. The
stars and the gibbous moon demanded to be looked at, and when one
meteorite had streaked across the sky, you could not help waiting, open-
eyed and alert, for the next. Time passed; the moon climbed higher and
higher in the sky. Mary felt less sleepy than she had when she first came
out. She sat up and looked over the parapet. Had Ivor been able to
sleep? she wondered. And as though in answer to her mental question,
from behind the chimney-stack at the farther end of the roof a white form
noiselessly emerged--a form that, in the moonlight, was recognisably
Ivor's. Spreading his arms to right and left, like a tight-rope dancer, he
began to walk forward along the roof-tree of the house. He swayed
terrifyingly as he advanced. Mary looked on speechlessly; perhaps he
was walking in his sleep! Suppose he were to wake up suddenly, now!
If she spoke or moved it might mean his death. She dared look no more,
but sank back on her pillows. She listened intently. For what seemed
an immensely long time there was no sound. Then there was a patter of
feet on the tiles, followed by a scrabbling noise and a whispered "Damn!"
And suddenly Ivor's head and shoulders appeared above the parapet.
One leg followed, then the other. He was on the leads. Mary pretended
to wake up with a start.
"Oh!" she said. "What are you doing here?"
"I couldn't sleep," he explained, "so I came along to see if you couldn't.
One gets bored by oneself on a tower. Don't you find it so?"
It was light before five. Long, narrow clouds barred the east, their
edges bright with orange fire. The sky was pale and watery. With the
mournful scream of a soul in pain, a monstrous peacock, flying heavily up
from below, alighted on the parapet of the tower. Ivor and Mary started
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broad awake.
"Catch him!" cried Ivor, jumping up. "We'll have a feather." The
frightened peacock ran up and down the parapet in an absurd distress,
curtseying and bobbing and clucking; his long tail swung ponderously
back and forth as he turned and turned again. Then with a flap and swish
he launched himself upon the air and sailed magnificently earthward, with
a recovered dignity. But he had left a trophy. Ivor had his feather, a
long-lashed eye of purple and green, of blue and gold. He handed it to
his companion.
"An angel's feather," he said.
Mary looked at it for a moment, gravely and intently. Her purple
pyjamas clothed her with an ampleness that hid the lines of her body; she
looked like some large, comfortable, unjointed toy, a sort of Teddy-bear-but
a Teddy bear with an angel's head, pink cheeks, and hair like a bell of
gold. An angel's face, the feather of an angel's wing...Somehow the
whole atmosphere of this sunrise was rather angelic.
"It's extraordinary to think of sexual selection," she said at last,
looking up from her contemplation of the miraculous feather.
"Extraordinary!" Ivor echoed. "I select you, you select me. What
luck!"
He put his arm round her shoulders and they stood looking eastward.
The first sunlight had begun to warm and colour the pale light of the dawn.
Mauve pyjamas and white pyjamas; they were a young and charming
couple. The rising sun touched their faces. It was all extremely
symbolic; but then, if you choose to think so, nothing in this world is not
symbolical. Profound and beautiful truth!
"I must be getting back to my tower," said Ivor at last.
"Already?"
"I'm afraid so. The varletry will soon be up and about."
"Ivor..." There was a prolonged and silent farewell.
"And now," said Ivor, "I repeat my tight-rope stunt."
Mary threw her arms round his neck. "You mustn't, Ivor. It's
dangerous. Please."
He had to yield at last to her entreaties. "All right," he said, "I'll go
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down through the house and up at the other end."
He vanished through the trap door into the darkness that still lurked
within the shuttered house. A minute later he had reappeared on the
farther tower; he waved his hand, and then sank down, out of sight, behind
the parapet. From below, in the house, came the thin wasp-like buzzing
of an alarum-clock. He had gone back just in time.
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CHAPTER XX.
Ivor was gone. Lounging behind the wind-screen in his yellow sedan
he was whirling across rural England. Social and amorous engagements
of the most urgent character called him from hall to baronial hall, from
castle to castle, from Elizabethan manor- house to Georgian mansion, over
the whole expanse of the kingdom. To-day in Somerset, to-morrow in
Warwickshire, on Saturday in the West riding, by Tuesday morning in
Argyll--Ivor never rested. The whole summer through, from the beginning
of July till the end of September, he devoted himself to his engagements;
he was a martyr to them. In the autumn he went back to London for a
holiday. Crome had been a little incident, an evanescent bubble on the
stream of his life; it belonged already to the past. By tea-time he would
be at Gobley, and there would be Zenobia's welcoming smile. And on
Thursday morning--but that was a long, long way ahead. He would think
of Thursday morning when Thursday morning arrived. Meanwhile there
was Gobley, meanwhile Zenobia.
In the visitor's book at Crome Ivor had left, according to his invariable
custom in these cases, a poem. He had improvised it magisterially in the
ten minutes preceding his departure. Denis and Mr. Scogan strolled back
together from the gates of the courtyard, whence they had bidden their last
farewells; on the writing-table in the hall they found the visitor's book,
open, and Ivor's composition scarcely dry. Mr. Scogan read it aloud:
"The magic of those immemorial kings, Who webbed enchantment on
the bowls of night. Sleeps in the soul of all created things; In the blue sea,
th' Acroceraunian height, In the eyed butterfly's auricular wings And
orgied visions of the anchorite; In all that singing flies and flying sings, In
rain, in pain, in delicate delight. But much more magic, much more cogent
spells Weave here their wizardries about my soul. Crome calls me like the
voice of vesperal bells, Haunts like a ghostly-peopled necropole. Fate tears
me hence. Hard fate! since far from Crome My soul must weep,
remembering its Home."
"Very nice and tasteful and tactful," said Mr. Scogan, when he had
finished. "I am only troubled by the butterfly's auricular wings. You
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have a first-hand knowledge of the workings of a poet's mind, Denis;
perhaps you can explain."
"What could be simpler," said Denis. "It's a beautiful word, and Ivor
wanted to say that the wings were golden."
"You make it luminously clear."
"One suffers so much," Denis went on, "from the fact that beautiful
