“I do really,” Venice insisted, but not with enough vehemence for one to be able to fix on that as evidence of her insincerity. “She gives you a sense of … well, completeness, if you see what I mean?”
“Oh, quite,” I said. “Completeness, certainly. …”
“Not like Shirley and me, you see,” she said thoughtfully.
“Yes, I can just see that, Venice.”
“Mrs. Storm,” said Venice gravely, “gives one a sense of being a lady from herself, in her own right, if you see what I mean. Whereas Shirley and me—”
“Shirley and I.”
“Shirley and I, dear, and nearly everyone we know are ladies just because our mothers were, and that kind of thing. I’d trust Mrs. Storm. …”
And so I was to tell Iris that Venice trusted her! And then, according to the Scriptures as written by Venice, Iris would feel such a cad that she wouldn’t after all be able to bring herself to steal away her husband. She would repent, Iris would, on being told that Venice trusted her, and she would go back again into the nasty darkness of outlawry, leaving decent people to the safe enjoyment of their husbands. Dear Venice, I am afraid my telling Iris that wouldn’t have quite that effect, she just wouldn’t notice, Venice, that I had spoken; for such a plot might do exceeding well in a novel, whence you have no doubt derived it, but in life, Venice, your Iris March isn’t to be deterred from her chase of the Blue Bird by being trusted. If only life was a movie, Venice, you would only have to let Iris know that you trusted her, and away she would slink, weeping.
But imagine that Venice, an eagle in her eyrie, desperately beating her wings to hide the sun from the eyes of her mate! Oh, but Venice acted superbly! Not, of course, that there wasn’t provided a very handsome peg on which to hang the acting. The bathing idea came as a boon and a blessing to all the company. You could talk about an idea like that, and no harm done. Guy chivalrously gave me the credit for it, and I was acclaimed by Shirley and Venice as something they have in America called, so Venice swore on oath, a “he-man.” But Shirley thought it was very silly of Guy to go and spoil the whole picnic by insisting on bathing-costumes. Shirley thought that at length. So did Venice.
“I mean, on a hearty picnic like this!” said Shirley helplessly. And Venice said it was absurd to go digging about among bathing-costumes on a nice, warm, pitch-black night. One’s chemise, said Shirley, would do ever so well. One’s chemise, said Venice, had done very well before. And one wouldn’t, said Shirley, indignantly, really need the chemise afterwards, just to come home with. Not in this heat, said Venice, and they appealed to Iris, but Iris protested that she must be neutral, because she was not going to bathe; but she would have thought, she said, that a dry shift was always preferable, when possible.
“Not going to bathe!” cried Venice. “Not going to—Oh, you must bathe! Of course you’re going to bathe! Oi, you’ll spoil the whole party!”
It was after dinner, and Hugo was doing a few card-tricks with champagne-glasses, the idea being, Hugo said, to settle our digestions after one of the best dinners that had ever left him with an appetite.
“Of course she’ll bathe!” said Hugo. “I’ve known the girl all my life, and I’ll answer for her. She’ll bathe. Leave her to me. Silly, not bathing.”
“She’s rather common, your friend,” Shirley sighed to Guy.
“Sickening. Cannot bathe, really, on a night like this.”
“Seems to me,” Napier scowled, “that she will have to bathe. Tell me if I’m wrong. What?”
“Listen,” Iris pleaded.
“Coming here,” said Shirley indignantly, “and not bathing!”
“I am terrified,” said Iris desperately. “Terrified of masses of water. Once, in the Black Sea of all places, I got cramp, and ever since. …”
“If you only knew,” sighed Hugo, “how cold all that leaves us! You’ll swim, girl. Good for you. Make your coat shine. Give you back your lost youth.”
“Hugo, don’t be so tactless!” cried Shirley.
“The girl’s right,” Guy closed the discussion. “She’s only been out of bed about a month. …”
“But I haven’t been near mine for longer than that!” cried Shirley inevitably, and it was just at that moment, under cover of it, that I touched the ice-cold hand. That was the only sign until we reached the river that Venice’s married life had tumbled like a house of cards about her heart, that and her “trusting” Iris.
Venice was saying: “And didn’t we just have some trouble with you, Mrs. Storm, when you were ill in Paris! Naps white in the face thinking you were going to die, me green in the face thinking my holiday would be spoilt if you did, this he-man here purple in the face telling me to be reasonable. …”
“But you were in bed for ages, weren’t you?” said Shirley sympathetically. “What was it? Some foul plague?”
“Ptomaine poisoning,” said Napier, and as I was giving Venice a light with which to torture yet another cigarette my hand happened to touch hers. “In this heat!” said I.
“Shut up, you fool!” she whispered desperately, and then she tried not to smile frantically, whispering: “Darling, darling, darling! My one friend. …”
“Venice, they’re never any real good, friends. They can’t do anything. …”
“I know. Oh, I know. Oh God, I know! … Mrs. Storm, what a divine lipstick! May I see? May I use?”
Baby.
II
Thus, the children’s party. …
Their engines no louder than a whisper through the quiet noises of the night, and swift as arrows with flaming eyes, two touring-cars, a primrose and a blue, passed through the villages riverwards. The good people slept on undisturbed, as why should they not, for a motorcar will disturb the amenities of a village by night less than a wheelbarrow. Maybe through the crack of a blind flashed a startling light on a sleepless pillow. Maybe
