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The Virgin
1
"And this," said the Curator, "is the ordinary reversible bomb. Shake it, or strike it, or even burn it—it is perfectly harmless; but turn it bottom up long enough for the acid in this tube to soak through, and in a few moments there will be a devastating explosion."
He paused, to watch the effect of words so startling.
The worn-out harridan who was chaperoning the girls hardly heard him. She was in mental torture; lovers were scarce; and in physical torture, for the breast—the breast that a thousand men had kissed beneath the Rossetti mane that she loved to throw over it—was swollen with some foul disease. She was fighting against the pain, and the fear that it might be cancer.
The eldest of the three girls was as uninterested. Hot from a stolen hour of passion with her aunt's chauffeur. she sniffed the air like a horse neighing before battle. A hint of petrol would have excited her as patchouli excites some debauchees.
The second girl too; her natural British stolidity dulled al life for her. She looked at the bomb with less interest than a cow would have done. A cow would at least have tested if the strange object was edible.
The youngest of the three, indeed, acted much like this. She attended to the curator's words with avidity; but, deciding that they did not affect her, turned away with open boredom, even irritation.
She was a tightly-knitted child: a touch of blood-colour in her black tresses, heavy and curled. Her bust and lips were firm, though too large for perfect beauty; and on her face sat purity. Purity alarmed and vigilant, like the man who, exploring some new coast, should find the traces of something possibly terrible because utterly unknown.
Viola Walker was just turned twenty-four. She had been thrown among actresses, was indeed fresh from a short but brilliantly successful season on the concert boards, she had read the works of Elinor Glyn and Mrs Humphrey Ward and Victoria Cross. But her knowledge was wholly intellectual; she had a don's attitude to life; there was not one drop of dew on the dry dust of her mind. But the difference between her and a don was that she understood her limitation, and hated it. Only the knowledge of certain ruin held her back from the one course which seemed to offer her a Key to the Closed Palace of the King.
The curator would have been huffed by this feminine inattention if his fifth listener had not happened to be the ideal. Gregory Philpotts could and did talk by the hour on every subject under the sun; and the sole source of his information was the sixpenny reprint of the Rationalistic Press. His mind was active and logical, but totally uneducated and incapable of concentration. Sensible of his own inferiority, he was vain and a braggart. The most pompous fool in Europe—and possibly its most well-meaning man.
So he explained to the Curator how the Law of Evolution explained Bombs, and how the system in this country was hopelessly unscientific, and how the death of Queen Victoria was the Knell of Art, and—
The harridan struck in, and swept the party away. She was nearly fainting with the gnawing agony of her breast, the blood and ooze from which she could feel trickling to her knees. She fancied that a third lump was forming. By some trick of conscience she thought of her three husbands, the first who had divorced her, the second whom she had killed in the first three months of marriage, and the third who had blown out his brains when he awoke from his delirium and found what manner of woman he had wedded.
She had read, too, much about cancer and its 'secondary deposits.' What internal horrors—thought she—would fulfil the symbol of all the girls that I have ruined and infected? She had this great gift, necessary to the perfect hypocrite, that to herself she never lied.
So, ashen under her ill-smeared rouge and powder, she staggered out of the Museum.
Gregory Philpotts at the tail of the party 'went bellowing on to the last.'
2
If it was the mission of Gregers Werle to be the thirteenth at table, it was assuredly that of Gregory Philpotts to be the third in bed.
It was hardly to be expected that he would prove the most congenial of companions to Edward Innes, whose mission was unquestionably to be first. But the brazen-faced fellow, with his tin-pan voice, had thrust himself on the latter's hospitality. When Innes had to go to Oxford for a week to lecture, he left Gregory the key of his flat.
"I hope you don't mind, dear old chap," said Gregory, "but I want to bring a lady for a day of two."
"Don't let her steal my ivories," was Innes' contemptuous retort.
He was, subsequently, not surprised when, running up to London for an afternoon, he found a charming girl seated on the arm of his ancestral chair, bending over the smiling Gregory. Whether she was kissing him or no is a question not here to be determined. He thought so himself; but a week later was prepared to believe it an illustration of the fact that one liable to see what one expects to see—so startlingly used in fiction by Mr Zangwill in The Big Bow Mystery.
He was introduced, found her a delightful companion, witty and gay, and was altogether ravished with her singing. A week later, he found that he could not forget her, and asked her to come and sing to him one afternoon.
She replied from Berlin, where she was (according to Gregory's statement) staying with him; her card promised a call for the next week.
She called, and Innes, though thinking her a mere drab, kissed her carelessly and asked her to dinner.
Gregory's contempt of her had been so open that Innes never troubled to ask his permission, and was casual enough about asking hers. He would ask her to dinner, he thought, forget himself for an hour, and be done with the girl. He did not care for her; but politeness demanded the male tribute to her charms.
So it came to pass that Underham's cosy cupboard of a restaurant grew sparkling and pink to them with oysters and Burgundy. A curious Burgundy it is; Innes called it 'Petard'—never dreaming that he (poor engineer!) would one day be hoist with it!
They went back to his flat, laughing rather wildly, with just enough protest from the girl to save her face. Alas! it was not her face that was in danger!
Innes had fitted up a large conservatory as an Oriental Divan. He threw her unceremoniously among the rugs and cushions and began to strip her. This time she did not protest, vigourously enough; but he, perfectly confident in his knowledge of her real character—judged by her face, flushed and eager, and by Gregory's detailed story—went on with the quiet determination of a doctor performing some necessary service for a lunatic.
The protests continued, and he enjoyed the joke immensely; but when, an hour after, just as wearied of the sport, they changed to lamentations, he lost his temper and told the truth. He hinted, in fact, that, historically and anatomically considered, her story was a little thin. But she had such plausible explanations for everything that he began not only to admire her cleverness, but to suspect a conspiracy.
But nothing would have shaken his disbelief, founded as it was on both à priori and à posteriori data, unless, seeking in his mind 'What is the real, the unmistakable test of virginity?' he remembered the Dictum of Dorothy.
Dorothy wears with distinction—practically unchallenged—the Lady Leg-Puller's Association World's Championship Garter. And this had been he deliberate definition: 'A virgin always does the wrong thing at the right time.' Now this applied to Viola, who was tearfully disturbing his chastened sadness—and asking him the silliest questions.
If she were lying, he was bound to admit, she was lying so wonderfully well that—there was a baffling hypothesis. Was she simply there to make a fool of him? He decided that it was so, and treated her as a brilliant swordsman might treat a well-matched foe, with a subcurrent of annoyance. For he was an overworked man, not in the mood for fencing. He had wanted a quiet, animal evening: and here was tragedy or melodrama so well imitated that the comedy was acute.
Ultimately, he got rid of her rudely enough and went to bed in a temper.
3
The days passed by, and their friendship did not pass, though they never renewed intimacy.
She communicated her kindness to him; she even extorted his respect.
There could only be one end to such an imbroglio; Innes was obliged to explain his own abominable conduct by quoting his authority. Luckily he had a letter to show.
'Dear Innes' (it ran) 'Thank you for not hinting to Miss Walker that she had stayed with me at Sonnenschein's—she would have been so distressed if she thought I had told you'—and so on.
Miss Walker was naturally furious, and answered Philpotts—who besought interviews—in the most threatening terms. These letters—with comments—were sent on by Gregory to the hapless Innes, accusing him of treachery.
As a final blow, he rang up Innes on the telephone, and confessed that his whole story was a lie, the folly of an empty braggart mixed with the spite of a foiled seducer. And if there was another reason for it, it was the desire to pull his host's leg by tempting him to try his skill on a fortress that he knew to be impregnable!
Was all this a Pelion leg-pull on the Ossa leg-pull of the lady? As Olympus, at the bottom of the pile, he felt asphyxia approaching. Poor fool! Had he guessed how improbability would ally itself to improbability, things monstrous, things incredible, things certain, he would have swallowed Jonah's whale and the notion, and gone into a monastery as the only chance to save his reason.
Viola's anatomical explanations had dealt in part with chills and gastritis and false diagnosis. The pains continuing, he sent her to a doctor, a friend of his own. The doctor said 'Specialist'; and the Specialist said: we shall know the sex of it in another semester.
Thirty-seven days after the first date possible to the theory of the Anti-Leg Pull League! And Innes' divorced wife, since dead of alcoholism and specific disease, had been a doubtful case three months before the birth of her child!
He began to wonder whether he had been wise in allowing his medical friend to practise urethral dilation on his vile body.
The medical friend had predicted remarkable results—but nothing like this!
Innes didn't like it; quite frankly, he didn't like it. He decided to run over to Paris where people are sane about sex, and consult Dorothy the Pythoness infallible.
Every fact fitted two hypothesis; one, the truth and purity of Viola Walker; two, the deliberate villainy of the harlot and her ponce Gregory. Was the scheme blackmail—or what? It seemed aimless. One does not invoke Jupiter when Ganymede will serve, unless—
Oh, could it be that they wished to wrest the Laurels of the Amateur World's Championship under the auspices of the Cosmopolitan Leg Puller's Association from him?
His forehead felt already bare.
He was keen on the girl, too. She might develop genius from talent. A second experiment might show him the truth of the matter. When she telephoned him next, he said: 'I don't want to hear anything. Stick a nighty in a bag, and we'll make a night of it in Folkestone: meet me at two o'clock sharp at Charing Cross.'
But at 2.15 she was not there, and he ran distractedly up the platform, out of the barrier.
Then he saw her.
Thinking it safer, he turned without greeting her.
"Good afternoon, Innes," said Gregory Philpotts, walking rapidly, but in the tone of one who expected to meet him there.
He sat stunned in the Pullman—and had to pretend that—Good God! what hadn't he to pretend?
And if anybody can finish this story for me I shall be exceedingly obliged.
4
My name is William Armstrong. I am the junior partner in the firm of Vevis, Masterson and Armstrong, solicitors, 227 Chancery Lane, London. I have known Edward Innes for twelve years, and my firm has acted for his family for four generations.
I am asked to complete the unfinished MS. of my friend on account of the light which my narrative throws upon the sequel.
It is clear that Innes began to write this story as fiction. Part 1 is imaginary—the opening sentences appear inspired. The artistic presentation of the facts seems to have been too difficult a task for him; Parts 2 and 3 are little better than a journalistic jotting.
For myself, I shall endeavour to make my story as simple a record of things heard and seen as possible, for to adequately, even, how much more then to artistically and in fine language narrate the incidents which came under my notice would demand a more skilful writer than I can pretend to, at all events coram populo,[1] be.
I arrived at Folkestone late on the evening of the 12th of June last. The people in the next room to mine had retired apparently to bed, but not apparently to rest, and they created a great deal of disturbance, so that, tired as I was, sleep refused to visit my couch. There were audible cries and kisses, and sharp ejaculations as of pain, with oaths and imprecations.
My tentative knockings upon the partition only produced short bursts of smothered laughter.
How long this continued I cannot say, but the clock struck three before I sunk into a troubled slumber.
I woke early, for I had forgotten to draw down the blind, and the sun was streaming full in at the window.
There was still a noise in the next room; apparently of some one washing, for I heard the jugs clatter, and splashing, and rubbing. Then I heard the looking-glass (as I suppose) creak, and a girl's voice, charming, although thick, unsteady and hysterical, said "I'm ready, dear." Then her laugh cooed and trilled, very pleasantly. Then "Wake up, silly!" Then laughter again, but this time harsh and uncanny. Suddenly a shriek broke in, a terrible treble, rising in pitch and intensity until the voice broke in a tuneless scream.
I was thoroughly alarmed; and, throwing on my ulster, went into the corridor. At the same moment the door of the next room opened, and there stood the girl, her hair dishevelled, naked, shriek after shriek of laughter pealing from her. "I've won! I've won!" she cried, and dragged me into the room.
My eyes fell upon the dead face of Edward Innes.
"Good God!" I cried, bending over him.
At the same moment she sprang on my back like a tigress, and buried her teeth in the lobe of my right ear: I have the mark to this day, and shall carry it to my grave.
Fortunately the hotel servants were alarmed; medical aid was summoned; I was released from my painful and undignified position.
The girl was removed, a hopeless, raving maniac, to an asylum for the insane.
The facts were suppressed at the inquest; heart failure was given as the cause of death. It is in response to the posthumous request of poor Innes that I gave this narrative to the public.
William Armstrong
(I am satisfied of the exact truth of Mr Armstrong's story, and of the facts detailed in the MS. left by Mr Innes. Their value as a contribution to pathological psychology has induced me to include the document in this volume. It has been thought desirable to alter names, dates, and places etc.)
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