Chapter 21
THE TRANSPOSITION OF SENTIMENT
It is all very, very queer. I do not understand it at all. It makes mesleepy to think about it.
A month ago I hated Eva. Tomorrow I marry her by special licence.
Now, what _about_ this?
My brain is not working properly. I am becoming jerky.
I tried to work the thing out algebraically. I wrote it down as anequation, thus:--
HATRED, denoted by x + Eva. REVERSE OF HATRED, " " y + Eva ONE MONTH " " z.
From which we get:--
x + Eva = (y + Eva)z.
And if anybody can tell me what that means (if it means anything--whichI doubt) I shall be grateful. As I said before, my brain is not workingproperly.
There is no doubt that my temperament has changed, and in a very shortspace of time. A month ago I was soured, cynical, I didn't brush myhair, and I slept too much. I talked a good deal about Life. Now I amblithe and optimistic. I use pomade, part in the middle, and sleepeight hours and no more. I have not made an epigram for days. It is allvery queer.
I took a new attitude towards life at about a quarter to three on themorning after the Gunton-Cresswells's dance. I had waited for James inhis rooms. He had been to the dance.
Examine me for a moment as I wait there.
I had been James' friend for more than two years and a half. I hadwatched his career from the start. I knew him before he had locatedexactly the short cut to Fortune. Our friendship embraced the wholeperiod of his sudden, extraordinary success.
Had not envy by that time been dead in me, it might have been pain tome to watch him accomplish unswervingly with his effortless genius thethings I had once dreamt I, too, would laboriously achieve.
But I grudged him nothing. Rather, I had pleasure in those triumphs ofmy friend.
There was no confidence we had withheld from one another.
When he told me of his relations with Margaret Goodwin he had countedon my sympathy as naturally as he had requested and received my advice.
To no living soul, save James, would I have confessed my owntragedy--my hopeless love for Eva.
It is inconceivable that I should have misjudged a man so utterly as Imisjudged James.
That is the latent factor at the root of my problem. The innaterottenness, the cardiac villainy of James Orlebar Cloyster.
In a measure it was my own hand that laid the train which eventuallyblew James' hidden smoulder of fire into the blazing beacon ofwickedness, in which my friend's Satanic soul is visible in all itslurid nakedness.
I remember well that evening, mild with the prelude of spring, when Ievolved for James' benefit the System. It was a device which was topreserve my friend's liberty and, at the same time, to preserve myfriend's honour. How perfect in its irony!
Margaret Goodwin, mark you, was not to know he could afford to marryher, and my system was an instrument to hide from her the truth.
He employed that system. It gave him the holiday he asked for. He wentinto Society.
Among his acquaintances were the Gunton-Cresswells, and at their househe met Eva. Whether his determination to treat Eva as he had treatedMargaret came to him instantly, or by degrees I do not know. Inwardlyhe may have had his scheme matured in embryo, but outwardly he wasstill the accomplished hypocrite. He was the soul of honour--outwardly.He was the essence of sympathetic tact as far as his specious exteriorwent. Then came the 27th of May. On that date the first of JamesOrlebar Cloyster's masks was removed.
I had breakfasted earlier than usual, so that by the time I had walkedfrom Rupert Court to Walpole Street it was not yet four o'clock.
James was out. I thought I would wait for him. I stood at his window.Then I saw Margaret Goodwin. What features! What a complexion! "AndJames," I murmured, "is actually giving this the miss in baulk!" Idiscovered, at that instant, that I did not know James. He was a fool.
In a few hours I was to discover he was a villain, too.
She came in and I introduced myself to her. I almost forget whatpretext I manufactured, but I remember I persuaded her to go back toGuernsey that very day. I think I said that James was spending Fridaytill Monday in the country, and had left no address. I was determinedthat they should not meet. She was far too good for a man who obviouslydid not appreciate her in the least.
We had a very pleasant chat. She was charming. At first she was apt totouch on James a shade too frequently, but before long I succeeded indiverting our conversation into less uninteresting topics.
She talked of Guernsey, I of London. I said I felt I had known her allmy life. She said that one had, undeniably, one's affinities.
I said, "Might I think of her as 'Margaret'?"
She said it was rather unconventional, but that she could not controlmy thoughts.
I said, "There you are wrong--Margaret."
She said, "Oh, what are you saying, Mr. Eversleigh?"
I said I was thinking out loud.
On the doorstep she said, "Well, yes--Julian--you may write tome--sometimes. But I won't promise to answer."
Angel!
The next thing that awakened me was the coming of James.
After I had given him a suitable version of Margaret's visit, he toldme he was engaged to Eva. That was an astounding thing; but what wasmore astounding was that James had somehow got wind of the real spiritof my interview with Margaret.
I have called James Orlebar Cloyster a fool; I have called him avillain. I will never cease to call him a genius. For by somemarvellous capacity for introspection, by some incredible projection ofhis own mind into other people's matters, he was able to tax me to myface with an attempt to win his former _fiancee's_ affections. Itried to choke him off. I used every ounce of bluff I possessed. Invain. I left Walpole Street in a state approaching mental revolution.
My exact feelings towards James were too intricate to be defined in asingle word. Not so my feelings towards Eva. "Hate" supplied the lacunain her case.
Thus the month began.
The next point of importance is my interview with Mrs.Gunton-Cresswell. She had known all along how matters stood in regardto Eva and myself. She had not been hostile to me on that account. Shehad only pointed out that as I could do nothing towards supporting EvaI had better keep away when my cousin was in London. That was manyyears ago. Since then we had seldom met. Latterly, not at all.Invitations still arrived from her, but her afternoon parties clashedwith my after-breakfast pipe, and as for her evening receptions--well,by the time I had pieced together the various component parts of mydress clothes, I found myself ready for bed. That is to say, more readyfor bed than I usually am.
I went to Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell in a very bitter mood. I was bent ontrouble.
"I've come to congratulate Eva," I said.
Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell sighed.
"I was afraid of this," she said.
"The announcement was the more pleasant," I went on, "because James hasbeen a bosom friend of mine."
"I'm afraid you are going to be extremely disagreeable about yourcousin's engagement," she said.
"I am," I answered her. "Very disagreeable. I intend to shadow theyoung couple, to be constantly meeting them, calling attention to them.James will most likely have to try to assault me. That may mean a blackeye for dear James. It will certainly mean the police court. Theirengagement will be, in short, a succession of hideous _contretemps_,a series of laughable scenes."
"Julian," said Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell, "hitherto you have acted manfullytoward Eva. You have been brave. Have you no regard for Eva?"
"None," I said.
"Nor for Mr. Cloyster?"
"Not a scrap."
"But why are you behaving in this appallingly selfish way?"
This was a facer. I couldn't quite explain to her how things reallywere, so I said:
"Never you mind. Selfish or not, Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell, I'm out fortrouble."
T
hat night I had a letter from her. She said that in order to avoid allunpleasantness, Eva's engagement would be of the briefest naturepossible. That the marriage was fixed for the twelfth of next month;that the wedding would be a very quiet one; and that until the day ofthe wedding Eva would not be in London.
It amused me to find how thoroughly I had terrified Mrs.Gunton-Cresswell. How excellently I must have acted, for, of course, Ihad not meant a word I had said to that good lady.
In the days preceding the twelfth of June I confess I rather softenedto James. The _entente cordiale_ was established between us. Hetold me how irresistible Eva had been that night; mentioned howcompletely she had carried him away. Had she not carried me away inprecisely the same manner once upon a time?
He swore he loved her as dearly as--(I can't call to mind the simile heemployed, though it was masterly and impressive.) I even hinted thatthe threats I had used in the presence of Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell werenot serious. He thanked me, but said I had frightened her to such goodpurpose that the date would now have to stand. "You will not besurprised to hear," he added, "that I have called in all my work. Ishall want every penny I make. The expenses of an engaged man arehair-raising. I send her a lot of flowers every morning--you've noconception how much a few orchids cost. Then, whenever I go to see herI take her some little present--a gold-mounted umbrella, a bicyclelamp, or a patent scent-bottle. I'm indebted to you, Julian, positivelyindebted to you for cutting short our engagement."
I now go on to point two: the morning of the twelfth of June.
Hurried footsteps on my staircase. A loud tapping at my door. Thechurch clock chiming twelve. The agitated, weeping figure of Mrs.Gunton-Cresswell approaching my hammock. A telegram thrust into myhand. Mrs. Gunton-Cresswell's hysterical exclamation, "You infamousmonster--you--you are at the bottom of this."
All very disconcerting. All, fortunately, very unusual.
My eyes were leaden with slumber, but I forced myself to decipher thefollowing message, which had been telegraphed to West Kensington Lane:
Wedding must be postponed.--CLOYSTER.
"I've had no hand in this," I cried; "but," I added enthusiastically,"it serves Eva jolly well right."