The Angel of Pain

The report had fallen rustling to the ground, and Philip sat there staring in front of him, with his elbows on the table and eyes fixed intently on nothing. Every now and then some clerk came in with a paper for his signature, or a letter for his consideration; every now and then he was rung up on the telephone that stood by his elbow. But he had that rarest of gifts, a mind that can detach itself from one thing and attach itself in its entirety to another, and he gave his whole attention to these interruptions when they occurred, and transferred it all back to the problem he was digging at when he had dealt with them. The way he pursued was narrow and winding, but step by step he traced it out.

It took him not less than an hour of hard thinking to make up his mind definitely on the point: there were so many things to consider, for, as he always held, there was hardly an event that took place in the world which did not have its definite and certain effect on the money-market; and the sole and only office of the financier was to be able, on the basis of what had happened before, to conjecture what was going to happen now (for things followed an invariable rule), and estimate what the effect of his conjectured events would be. And nothing in the world was more engrossing than that; there was no bit of knowledge a man might possess concerning human nature, however fragmentary and hard to fit in, that did not have its place in the puzzle he had to put together. Above all, Philip did not believe in chance in these affairs; it might, indeed, be chance whether he himself correctly estimated how future events would shape themselves, but the element of luck here was only, if one ran it to the ground, his own ignorance; for if his knowledge of the past could be complete, so also would his knowledge of the future be, for in the City of all places is it most true that the future is only the past entered through another door.

His mind, then, was made up, but once more he ran through the data upon which his conclusion was based. These goldfields of Metiekull on which he held an option, were a company that had aroused a good deal of comment when brought out, and it had been held in level-headed quarters that the shares which had been run up to 4 had reached that figure without there having been produced any guarantee that they were worth half that. But, as is the inscrutable way of the Stock Exchange, they had, for no particular reason, been turned into a gambling counter, and there was no venture which enjoyed a freer or more fluctuating market. Things, however, had steadied down when it was known that Philip Home had bought this option of 30,000 shares, and just at this moment, as has been stated, there was considerable interest felt in the question of whether he would exercise it or not. If he did not, it meant a loss to him of about £7,000; whereas if he did, it might be regarded as certain that the shares, since gambling in them was just now, like bridge, a favourite method of losing money, would enjoy a very substantial rise, and, as usual, it was highly likely that Philip would reap a profit worth reaping, should he choose to sell during this.

So much, of course, all the world could see, but Philip saw a little further. He took into consideration the excitable state of the South African market, the uncertainty with regard to the Japanese war which would certainly make French speculators nervous, and French speculators, as he knew, had been very busy over the goldfields of Metiekull. Then came in the question of the report which he had been reading; on the whole it was good, and his sober opinion was that the shares were worth buying at the price. Yet he proposed not to take up his option, but to lose at once £7,000. But he would also let it be freely known that he had received a detailed report from his agent on the spot.

He decided, therefore – so the market would say – to abandon his option after the receipt of this report. What was the inference? That the report was unfavourable. Then all the other factors he had been considering added their weight to the scale; there was a nervous market, there was likely to be stringency of money, there was the vast hovering thundercloud of war in the East. If he knew anything about the ways of the City, it was an absolute certainty that there would be a slump in Metiekull. He would let it slump; he would even, by selling, assist it to slump; a hundred little bears – Philip detested the small operator – would sell, and when they had committed themselves pretty deeply, he would buy not only the original 30,000 shares of his option, but somewhere near twice that number; for there was no question as to the value of the property, and he would be picking up his shares at something like rubbish price.

The chain of reasoning was complete, he took his elbows off the table, and turned to light a cigarette. Then suddenly his heart sank, he felt sick and empty, for the concentration of thought was relaxed, and from a thousand spouting weir-gates the thought from which he had obtained an hour’s respite flooded his whole soul. Forgetfulness of that? It was as if he had just slept in his chair for an hour, and awoke again in full consciousness of the horror of life. It was no slow awakening, it was a stab that made a deep and dreadful wound out of which flowed the black blood of his hatred and resentment, not against those two alone, but against the world. To this hatred he gave himself up with a hideous sort of luxury in the overpowering intensity of it. He suffered himself, by no fault of his; well, others should suffer, too, and if by his manipulation of the market, which was according to the principles which governed it perfectly legitimate, others were ruined, it was not his fault but theirs for competing with him.

Then a thought blacker than these, because it was more direct, more personally full of revenge, entered his mind. Surely not so long ago someone had consulted him as to an investment. Yes, it was Evelyn – Evelyn, in a sudden burst of prudence – who had decided not to buy a motor-car, but to put away a big cheque that had just been paid him. Philip had refused to give him advice professionally, since he was not a broker, but had told him that he had himself bought a large option in Metiekull. He remembered the interview perfectly, and knew that he had recommended Evelyn not to dabble, since he did not know the game, but to put his money into something safe. What he had eventually done with it Philip did not know. But for a week afterwards his studio had been littered with financial papers, and he talked the most absurd nonsense about giving up the artistic career and taking offices in the City, since he felt sure that his real chance of brilliant achievement lay there.

Now, bitter suffering like that which Philip was now undergoing cannot but have a very distinct effect on the sufferer. And in such a nature as his, the particular kind of suffering he had to bear could scarcely have had any effect but that of the worst. His circle of friends, those to whom he showed all that was best in him, was but small, and numbered four only. By two of these he had been betrayed, and that impulse which at the first moment of his knowledge did just flicker within him, the impulse of generosity, of taking the big and sky-high line of which for the moment he had been capable when he dismissed the motor three days ago near Evelyn’s studio, had been crushed, if not out of life, at any rate into impotence and unconsciousness by the ingrained hardness of his nature shown to the world at large. That hardness covered him now and indurated him; he could feel neither pity nor softening for any, least of all for one who had so bitterly injured him. His power of hurting, it is true, might be small compared to the hurt that had been done him, but such as it was, he would use it. He was hurt himself, but he would not scream, he would just strike back where and when he could.

London meantime was busy with its thousand tongues in discussing what had happened, and, as was to be expected, it took a very decided line over it all. This sort of thing was really impossible, and not to be tolerated. Why, even the bridesmaids had received their presents, and everybody’s plans, for everybody had settled to go to the wedding, were absolutely upset. Besides, the whole thing was an insult hurled at the sacred image of Society, a bomb-shell which had exploded in the very middle of the temple. And though Gladys Ellington had only one, not a thousand tongues, she used that one to the aforesaid effect so continuously that it really seemed impossible that flesh and blood could stand the wear and strain. She was using it now to Lady Taverner, to whom she always told things in confidence when she wanted them repeated. Lady Taverner, it may be remarked, was the pink and butter-coloured lady, to emphasize whose charms Evelyn had studied purple clematis.

“Of course, dear Alice,” she was saying, “I can say these things to you, because I know you won’t repeat them, and, of course, we all want it talked about as little as possible. But Madge has really behaved too abominably; it’s all very well to say you must follow the dictates of your own heart, but if your heart tells you to commit really an indecency, as this is, I should say it was better not to follow it. But Madge is so odd: it is only a few weeks ago that she told me how devoted she was to Philip – esteem, affection, and all that. Well, what sort of esteem and affection has she shown? My dear, three days before the wedding.”

Lady Taverner sighed.

“Of course, I won’t talk about it,” she said, “but I shall never speak to Madge again. And my portrait was being done by Mr. Dundas, which makes it very awkward. Of course, I want it finished, but how can I go to sit to him again?”

This was a new light which Gladys had not yet considered.

“Of course, he has ruined himself,” she said cheerfully. “Nobody will go to be painted by him now. And consider his relation to Philip! Why, he was his best friend. I haven’t dared to see Madge’s mother yet, but I understand she is mad with rage, and I’m sure I don’t wonder. And they were married, I hear, on Saturday, and have left London. How can people be such fools!”

This last remark was a genuine cri du cœur, for Gladys was absolutely unable to perceive how any interior impulse could possibly prove too strong for discretion, for savoir faire– she was fond of scraps of French – for any rending of or throwing out of window those social pads and cushions which alone ensure a passage through life that will be free from succession of bumps and jars. That was why she was almost universally considered so charming: she always said the pleasant thing, and did the agreeable one (for everybody had to assist the pads and cushions), unless she was quite safe from detection. Then, it is true, the sheathed claws occasionally popped out, when it was quite dark, but before the return of light they were always sheathed again, and the velvet touch was in evidence.

“Imagine the marriage!” she went on. “A sexton and a sextoness were probably the witnesses, and they probably came – the happy pair, I mean – in a hansom and went away in a four-wheeler. Such nonsense to wreck your life like that. And a wreck is a crime; it is a danger to other shipping unless it is blown up.”

Now what Gladys said so directly, all London was thinking, if not with the same precision, at any rate with the same general trend. There had been a violation of its social codes, flagrant and open, and for the time, at any rate, it was disposed to visit the offence with the full severity of its displeasure. As Gladys had remarked: “How could they be such fools!” and the children of this world, being wiser in their generation than the children of light, are the first to punish folly. And it is very foolish to openly break the rules which Society has laid down if you wish to continue to occupy your usual arm-chair in that charming club. For the rules are so few, and so very easy to remember, and Evelyn and Madge had quite distinctly broken one of the most elementary of them. And Society, however accommodating in many lines, never forgives, at once anyhow, any such open violation of its laws as this. But just at present neither of the sinners cared nearly so much for all these laws as they cared for a single moment of this blue, fresh-winded day.

They had been married, as Gladys had said, on a Saturday, and had left England that same afternoon to spend a fortnight on the coast of Normandy, and there at this moment they were, on the very coast itself, with the blue, crisp ripples of the English Channel hissing gently on the sand. Evelyn had spent most of the morning constructing a huge sand-castle of Gothic design, but the rising tide half an hour ago had driven him from the last of its fortifications, and he was now sitting on the sand with Madge by his side. All this week he had been in the most irresponsible, irrepressible spirits, which any thought of the unhappiness that had been caused seemed powerless to dull; any suggestion of it passed in a moment like breath off a mirror. With the huge egotism of his nature he had determined quite satisfactorily to himself that what had happened was inevitable. He knew how ardent was his own love for Madge, he knew it was returned, he knew too, for she had told him how different was this from the quiet, sober affection she felt for Philip. Her marriage with him could not have taken place: she felt that herself, whereas nothing in the world was strong enough to pull them apart. And with the great good sense that so often characterises egotism, Evelyn, though he was very sorry for Philip, could not either be ashamed of himself, or on the other hand be sorry for Philip long. He faded from his mind almost the moment he thought of him. He could not bring his mind to bear on Philip when Madge was with him.

He had been wading during the building and the subsequent occupation of the Gothic sand-castle, and his feet were still bare, and his flannel trousers rolled up to his knees. Also a dead bee had been washed ashore in the foam of the ripples, and search must be made for a suitable coffin, since burial with all possible honour must be given to a honey-maker from those on the honey-moon. A pink bivalve shell was eventually discovered, which he considered worthy of containing the honoured corpse. Its grave was dug above high-water mark, a mound of sand in pyramid form raised over it, and the sides of this decorated with concentric circles of pebbles. A small passage constructed of shell, and flat stones led to the tomb-chamber itself, and the door of this was hermetically sealed. In front a small stone altar was raised, and offerings of sea-weed laid on it.

“And so,” said Evelyn, in conclusion of the short panegyric which, in capacity of preacher as well as architect, undertaker, and mason, he pronounced when the rites were over, “we commit to rest this follower of the fragrant life, who made his living among the flowers, and extracted honey and nothing less sweet than that from the summer of his days. My brethren, may we constantly follow this example of the perfect life. Amen. Say ‘Amen,’ Madge.”

Madge laughed.

“I don’t think I ever saw anyone so ridiculous,” she said; “and it appears you can go on being ridiculous all the time.”

“All the time I am happy,” said he.

“And you’re happy now?” she asked.

“Absolutely. I want nothing more. All this week I could have said to every moment: ‘Stay, thou art fair.’ And, oh! how fair you are, Madge. Smile, please – no, not the sad smile with all the sorrows of the world behind it.”

Madge ceased smiling altogether.

“Oh, Evelyn, I am so happy, too!” she said. “But I can’t forget all the scaffolding, as it were, in which our house of love was built, which now lies scattered about in bits.”

Evelyn sat up quickly, demolishing the altar he had made with such care.

“Ah! don’t think of that,” he said. “We agreed that what has happened had to happen. Now pity and sorrow when you can’t help in any way seems to me a wasted thing.”

“But if you can’t help pitying and being sorry?” she asked.

Evelyn gave a little click of impatience.

“You must go on trying till you do help it,” he said. “Of course, if one dwells on the matter, one is sorry for Philip; I am awfully sorry for Philip when I think of him. I hate the idea of anybody being wounded and hurt as he must have been, and since he was my friend, it is the more distressing. Only it is an effort for me to think of him at all. I can only think of one person, and of one thing – you and my love for you.”

This time Madge’s smile was more satisfactory, and with his bright eager eyes he looked at her as the eagle to the sun.

“Ah, you are absolutely adorable!” he cried.

The wind, such as there was of it, had veered round at the time of high tide, and blew no longer off the sea, but breathed gently from the land. A mile away on the right were the tall, dun-coloured houses of Paris-plage, perched at the edge of the sea, and the sands there were dotted with the costumes of the bathers, like polychromatic ants who crawled about the beach. The sea itself was full of shifting greens and blues, and far out a fleet of boats like grey-winged gulls hovered, fishing. Even the shrill ecstasies of the bathers of Paris-plage, whose bathing appeared to be of a partial description, but who made up for that by dancing in the ripples, and splashing each other with inimitable French gaiety, were inaudible here; nothing stirred but the light, noiseless wind, warm with its passage over the sand-dunes, and faintly aromatic with the pungent scent of the fir-woods over which its pleasant path had lain. All things paused in this hour of the glory of the fulfilled noontide, that seemed equally remote from both past and future, so splendid and so real was the one present moment. If there had been hurricane in the morning, it was forgotten now; if there was to be a tempest to-night, it would be time to think about tempests when the winds began to blow, and it was mere futility to waste a moment of what was so perfect in contemplation, whether retrospective or anticipatory, of what had been or yet might be. There was just the hushed murmur of blue, breaking ripples, their sh-sh as they were poured out on to the golden sand, white gulls hung in the air, white boats drifted over the sea. And by Madge’s side sat her lover, the man whom her whole nature hailed as its complement, its completion. Whatever he did, whatever he said, she felt that she had herself dreamed that in remote days. Various and unexpected as were his moods, they were all fiery; the sand-castle as it first stood triumphant against the incoming tide had been to him a monument of more than national import, its gradual fall a tragedy that beggared Euripides. The bee, too – if he had been burying her he could not have shown a tenderer interest. But she was not so sure that she agreed with the sermon that had been preached over the grave. And in spite of the completeness of the noonday, she could not help going back to it.

“Evelyn,” she said, “were you really serious when you said that the honey-gatherer, who looked only for what was sweet, was the example of our lives? Something like that you said, anyhow.”

But he continued just looking at her, as he looked when he said: “You are adorable,” with eyes gleaming and mouth a little open. He did not even seem to hear that she had asked him a question. But she repeated it.

“I don’t know,” he said. “How am I to know whether I am serious or not? I suppose one says a hundred stupid things that are based on something one believes. I am only serious about one thing in the world.”

She did not affect not to know his meaning.

“I know – we love each other,” she said. “But we have breakfast and lunch just the same.”

He looked doubtful.

“Do we?” he asked. “But they don’t matter!”

Suddenly to Madge the hush of the noonday and the arrest of “before and after” ceased. It was as if she had been asleep and was suddenly awakened from a dream by a hand that shook her. The dream was still there, but also, dimly, there was the wall-paper, a brass knob at the end of the bed, a counterpane.

“Ah! with all my heart I wish they didn’t matter. I wish nothing mattered, I ask for nothing better than to sit here with you, to go on living as we have lived this last week. But the time must come when we shall have to consider what we shall do next. Are we going back to London, or what?”

“It is August,” said he. “London in August – ”

“What then? Shall we stop here?”

Then Evelyn was puerile.

“Of course, if you are tired of this,” he began.

But she let the puerilities go no further.

“Oh, don’t be a baby,” she said. “Ah, such a dear baby, I grant you! But, Evelyn, it is life we are living.”

Evelyn stroked his chin with a hugely pompous air.

“‘Life is real,’” he said, “‘life is earnest.’ Now, Madge, Poet Longfellow said that, therefore he must be right.”

“And so Painter Dundas agrees with him?” she said.

“Oh, certainly! Life is undoubtedly real and earnest, but what then? Am I never to talk nonsense any more? Shall we unbury the bee? Dear me, the unburial of the bee. How unspeakable pathetic and terrible! But what I have buried I have buried. So I shall draw your profile in the sand with one finger and all my heart.”

But she still remained serious.

“Tell me when you have finished,” she said.

Evelyn was already absorbed.

“With a helmet on,” he remarked, “because she has to meet and defeat the realities of life, and the corners of her mouth turned down because life is earnest, and just winking with the other eye; the one you see, in fact, because she wants to signal to her friend, which is me, that it’s all a huge joke really, only she mustn’t talk in church.”

There was a compelling fascination for her in the nimble finger that traced a big outline so deftly in the sand, and since she was upside down to it, where she sat, it followed that she got up, and went round to see what manner of a caricature this was. Hopelessly funny she found it, and hopelessly like, so much so that she danced a war-dance all over the outline, and sat down again on the middle of her own face.

“Now attend!” she said to her husband.

“After you have ruined the picture of my life,” said he. “It was more like you than anything. You are being consumed with moral responsibility for me. I object to that, you know; you can be consumed by your own moral responsibility, or you can consume it, like you consume your own smoke, but mine is mine.”

“Evelyn, am I your wife?” she asked.

“I have reason to believe so. I was told so in church.”

“Very well – your conscience is kept in the kitchen; when I go to order dinner I look at it – I order more if we are likely to run short. So give me the cheque, please, there is a bill for conscience owing, and we must have a fresh supply.”

“I don’t understand one word,” said Evelyn, rubbing the sand off his legs preparatory to turning his trousers down again. “Not one word. Does it matter?”

Madge’s face grew quite grave again; smiles had spurted as with explosions from eyes and mouth when she saw his sand-sketch of her, but these had ceased.

“Yes, it does matter,” she said, “for unless you propose that we should remain at Le Touquet quite indefinitely, it will be necessary some day to become definite. I suggest that we should become definite now. Everything,” and she dug impatiently in the sand with scooping fingers – “everything has been left at a tag-end. We can’t forever leave things frayed like that – ”

Evelyn interrupted her.

“Oh, I know so well!” he exclaimed; “the metal thing comes off the end of a lace, and you have to push it through the holes; a little piece only comes through, and what does not come through gets thicker and won’t follow. Then one has to take it out and begin again.”

Madge leaned forward.

“Yes, it is exactly that,” she said. “That has happened to us. When that happens, what do you do?”

“I take off the boot in question,” said Evelyn gravely, “and ring the bell. When answered, I tell them to take away the boot and put in another lace. That is done: then I put the boot on. But I don’t wrestle with laces which have not tags. You are wrestling, you know.”

For the second time this morning a feeling as if she was dealing with a child seized Madge. The child was a very highly-developed man, too. This was a handicap to her; a heavier handicap was that she loved him. Even now, as he sat most undignifiedly wiping the sand from his feet, preparatory to getting his socks on again, she felt this immensely.