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revolt; was at last defeated by Michael, Captain of the Hosts; and was
plunged into Hell for eternity. I turned to Nature. I watched this planet come
into being from the boiling elements. I watched this world’s virginity. Then,
after many æons, I observed the growth of mankind. At first I was appalled
at the misery in store for these helpless creatures. Then, as I perceived
mankind’s blind will to live and savage instinct to conquer, to acquire, to
destroy, I lay for long ages in fear of the wretchedness in store for Nature,
how it would be desecrated, perverted and ravished by these creatures who
could dominate all other animals merely because of an opposable thumb. I
conceived a plan to avert this calamity; and, walking the earth in many
shapes, I directed mankind to fulfil its most childish dreams and to sink into
Nature’s bosom, wherein only can be found true joy, true love, and perfect
peace. I succeeded. The Greeks were beautiful because I taught them to
adore beauty: they made things of beauty because I taught them to worship
their own beauty: and the gods they served were beautiful because they
made their gods after their own image. I nearly succeeded with the Roman
world. But my ancient enemy sent the man Paul to revive the savagery in
men and women and to wither the love of Nature in the hearts of children.
Since then my enemy has ruled the world. Yet, only the other day, I thought
I saw a fit opportunity for my beneficial interference: with my heart afire
with love of mankind, which I have helped through so many trials, I
inspired certain noble minds with the crusade of the League of Nations. But
mankind has preferred the dictates of its cruel God, the Lord of Hosts, who
has long since given up trying to govern men through Christianity and now
leads them by the nose with the childish superstition of common sense; and
I have now no more hope for the happiness of a world that will deride the
audacious gentleness of a Woodrow Wilson and countenance the rapacious
insolence of a Poincaré, the vulgar dictatorship of a Mussolini, the
unnatural charm of a Winston Churchill, and the complacent gracelessness
of a gentleman who only too obviously rejoices in the name of Elihu Root.”
The agreeable and scholarly voice of Mr. Warp broke the silence:
“Your utterances, sir, appear to me to show a decidedly anti-Chauvinist
bias. For my part, since the invasion of the Ruhr by the French and the
assault on Corfu by the Italians, I have never been able to think of Poincaré
or Mussolini without a grave disorder of mind. May I ask, sir, if you favour
the Liberal school of thought? We would be far from disdaining your
assistance in our imminent campaign for convincing the people of the
essential truths of Liberalism.”
“I incline, if anything, to Labour, Mr. Warp; and hope to assist that party
to very considerable success at your next elections; for, if I may say so, you
cannot sweep a party out of existence for long by talking like a pack of silly
schoolboys of biscuits, motor-cars and secret documents.”
“Hear, hear!” said the Lord Chancellor, who had gone to sleep and was
dreaming that he was listening to a speech against Prohibition.
“On the other hand,” mildly said de Travest, “we are still awaiting an
explanation of your sickening intrusion into Lady Surplice’s house.”
“Mrs. Amp sent me,” said the Other wearily.
“Mrs. Amp!” cried Lady Surplice. “Mrs. Amp? That low woman!”
“How can you bring yourself to know such women?” said Dame Warp
bitterly. “Particularly when, through sundry minor faults, there must be so
many decent women—I said decent women—in your, well, environment.”
“She amuses me,” said Satan. “However,” the voice went on, “as I have
fulfilled my promise, I will now, with your permission, take my leave.”
“But, Prince,” cried Lady Surplice, “what was your promise? What have
you fulfilled? What has that low woman to do with it? I insist on knowing,
Prince. Is this a time for silence?”
“My promise was merely this, Lady Surplice. At a recent dinner-party of
Mrs. Amp’s, at which the guests of honour were Julius Cæsar, Shakespeare,
Samuel Pepys, Balzac and myself, I was reckless enough to promise Mrs.
Amp that I would ascend to earth one evening and spoil a dinner-party of
yours. I will report to her, however, that a dinner-party so brilliant as yours
would need the dulness of Jehovah himself to spoil it. Monseigneur, I give
you farewell. Ladies, good-bye. Adieu, caballeros!”
“Stop, stop, stop!” cried Lady Surplice, frantically starting from her
chair. “Just one moment, my dear Prince——”
“Well, just one,” sighed the archangel of sin, “for I promised Mrs. Amp
to be back in time to hear Napoleon’s after-dinner speech on the intellectual
obesity of soldiers, and successful soldiers in particular. What have you to
say?”
“But am I to understand,” cried my lady indignantly, “that this
monstrous woman is allowed to give all the parties she likes in Hell?”
“Naturally, madam. Else why should it be called Hell?”
“Then,” flashed my lady with a brilliant smile, “when I die, I shall also
be able to give——”
“When you die, Lady Surplice, you will go to Heaven. For you are a
good woman. You have a kind heart. You have cared for your husband and
your children, and you have always given freely to the sick, the halt, the
blind, the deaf and the dumb. In fact, Lady Surplice, I am very glad to have
allowed myself this opportunity of congratulating you. You and your butler
are perhaps the only two people in this room who will ascend to salvation.
The odour of your sanctity already shames me, Lady Surplice. The saints in
Paradise shall find in you a matchless companion. Talbot, the bosom of
Abraham awaits you. I hope you will like it. Your only crimes, Lady
Surplice, have been those of snobbery and vulgarity; and as the Bible was
written before the existence of modern England, France and America, the
very possibility of snobbery and vulgarity was unthought of, and thus they
escaped inclusion among the heinous sins——”
“But look here,” protested Guy de Travest, “what reason but cruelty can
you have for altering Lady Surplice’s destiny? It appears to me a gross case
of prejudice, since, after all, Mrs. Amp has been allowed to ascend to Hell
——”
“Descend, Guy,” said the Lord Chancellor. “All authorities combine in
agreeing that the movement, if any, is downwards.”
“Mrs. Amp,” said the Other wearily, “has a claim to my hospitality
because she poisoned her husband. Now, upon my word, I really must go
——”
“But you mustn’t, you can’t!” sobbed my lady in distraction. “Am I to
understand that when I die I must go to Heaven—while all my friends, all
these charming people, are enjoying themselves in Hell at Mrs. Amp’s
parties? Oh, is that just, Prince, is that reasonable, is it even gentlemanly?”
“You know, it really is not my fault,” protested the Prince of Darkness.
“It is the will of God. Good-bye, Lady Surplice. To you others I need only
say au revoir, for you are all miserable sinners.”
The company, said Dwight-Rankin, were sore distressed at Lady
Surplice’s plight, for the good lady was dear to them; and they would fain
have done all they could to ease her mind as she whimpered, in an access of
helplessness and despair: “Prince, cannot you—Oh!—can’t you prevail on
God to let me—Oh, dear!—to let me waive the distinction just this once? I
simply can’t face the idea of being parted from my friends—please, Prince,
won’t you be a dear and prevail on Him to——”
“Enough, madam!” thundered the voice of the fallen child of light. “Go
you to salvation! Behold, am I not the enemy of Jehovah? These are my
final words, Lady Surplice. Prepare yourself for your ascent. Let your soul
yearn for Heaven and your spirit accommodate itself to the idea of walking
forever in the groves of Paradise to the songs of the harp and the lyre.
Begone!”
“Begone?” said the Lady Amelia indignantly. “That is a harsh word to
give a lady in her own house!”
“Surely,” snapped de Travest, “you are not so wanting in manners as to
drink a lady’s wine and then kill her!”
“What can I do, my friend? It is the immemorial curse of thirteen, and
the super-added curse of the spilled salt. And I thought, as Lady Surplice is
the only one among you who is going to Heaven, that it would be
appreciated in me as an act of courtesy to allow her precedence in death.”
“Please, may I say one word?” begged Shelmerdene, her eyes pitifully
on the despairing face of her hostess. “I have been Muriel Surplice’s friend
for many years, she has on several occasions been very kind and good to
me, and I cannot sit calmly by and watch her being wronged. Sir,” said
Shelmerdene to Satan, “this lady you would so recklessly consign to
Heaven has committed a crime every bit as heinous as that for which Mrs.
Amp is now suffering indigestion.”
“A crime?” cried Lady Surplice gladly. “Bless you, Shelmerdene dear!
But what crime was it?”
“Shelmerdene,” said Satan gently, “are you mocking me? Was it to be
mocked by you that I gave you charm, beauty and good sense, such a
combination of virtues as never was known before? Was it to be mocked by
you that I inspired a youth to give you a name which, although it is not your
real name, becomes you better than any real name could?”
“This lady,” cried Shelmerdene, “once had a lover——”
“Scarcely a crime,” said Lucifer. “Heaven has long since given up
rejecting women who have had lovers. The angels protested that they found
none but plain women wherever they walked in Paradise.”
“But she killed him!” cried Shelmerdene.
“Come, Shelmerdene!” said Dame Warp bitterly: “No decent woman—I
said no decent woman—ever kills her lover.”
“Shelmerdene, are you sure I did?” sighed Lady Surplice. “Are you quite
sure, dear? Did I really kill him?”
“You did, darling, I assure you,” said Shelmerdene. “You bored him to
death. He begged me with his dying breath not to tell you, and I wouldn’t
have if I weren’t so fond of you.”
“Then,” sighed the Prince of Darkness, “she may go to Hell.”
And, said Dwight-Rankin, even as the door was seen to close, it was also
seen how all colour was instantly ravished from Lady Surplice’s face and
how she sat in her chair still and cold. But even in death, said Dwight-
Rankin, a smile of such happiness lit her face that her many friends, who
never could think of her departure from among them but with the deepest
regret, found solace in the certainty of the good lady’s contentment in the
other world. However....
At the inquest it was naturally given out that Lady Surplice had died in
some natural way: for who, asked Dwight-Rankin, would believe the tale of
what had actually happened, who would believe the tale of him who called
himself, with infinite mockery, Captain Charity? And who, continued
Dwight-Rankin, would believe that, but for the kindly intervention of
Shelmerdene, the spiritual parts of poor Lady Surplice would even now and
forever be arranged in that position over the ivory parapets of Paradise in
which she could most comfortably stare down, with intolerable longing, at
the social gaieties of another place?
“Who, indeed!” I echoed gloomily.
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