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diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/14168-0.txt b/14168-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..27ba797 --- /dev/null +++ b/14168-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8968 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14168 *** + +WIDDERSHINS + +by + +OLIVER ONIONS + +1911 + + + + + + + + "From Ghaisttes, Ghoulies and long-leggity + Beasties and Things that go + Bump in the night-- + + "Good Lord, deliver us!" + + + + +NOTE + +I have pleasure in acknowledging the courtesy of the proprietors of +"Shurey's Publications" by whose permission "The Cigarette Case" is +included in the present volume. Also it has been suggested that a +definition should be given of the word that forms the volume's title. +That word means "contrary to the course of the Sun." + +O.O. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE BECKONING FAIR ONE + II. PHANTAS + III. ROOUM + IV. BENLIAN + V. IO + VI. THE ACCIDENT + VII. THE CIGARETTE CASE +VIII. THE ROCKER + IX. HIC JACET + + + + +THE BECKONING FAIR ONE + + + + +I + +The three or four "To Let" boards had stood within the low paling as +long as the inhabitants of the little triangular "Square" could remember, +and if they had ever been vertical it was a very long time ago. They now +overhung the palings each at its own angle, and resembled nothing so +much as a row of wooden choppers, ever in the act of falling upon some +passer-by, yet never cutting off a tenant for the old house from the +stream of his fellows. Not that there was ever any great "stream" through +the square; the stream passed a furlong and more away, beyond the +intricacy of tenements and alleys and byways that had sprung up since the +old house had been built, hemming it in completely; and probably the +house itself was only suffered to stand pending the falling-in of a lease +or two, when doubtless a clearance would be made of the whole +neighbourhood. + +It was of bloomy old red brick, and built into its walls were the crowns +and clasped hands and other insignia of insurance companies long since +defunct. The children of the secluded square had swung upon the low gate +at the end of the entrance-alley until little more than the solid top bar +of it remained, and the alley itself ran past boarded basement windows on +which tramps had chalked their cryptic marks. The path was washed and +worn uneven by the spilling of water from the eaves of the encroaching +next house, and cats and dogs had made the approach their own. The +chances of a tenant did not seem such as to warrant the keeping of the +"To Let" boards in a state of legibility and repair, and as a matter of +fact they were not so kept. + +For six months Oleron had passed the old place twice a day or oftener, on +his way from his lodgings to the room, ten minutes' walk away, he had +taken to work in; and for six months no hatchet-like notice-board had +fallen across his path. This might have been due to the fact that he +usually took the other side of the square. But he chanced one morning to +take the side that ran past the broken gate and the rain-worn entrance +alley, and to pause before one of the inclined boards. The board bore, +besides the agent's name, the announcement, written apparently about the +time of Oleron's own early youth, that the key was to be had at Number +Six. + +Now Oleron was already paying, for his separate bedroom and workroom, +more than an author who, without private means, habitually disregards his +public, can afford; and he was paying in addition a small rent for the +storage of the greater part of his grandmother's furniture. Moreover, it +invariably happened that the book he wished to read in bed was at his +working-quarters half a mile and more away, while the note or letter he +had sudden need of during the day was as likely as not to be in the +pocket of another coat hanging behind his bedroom door. And there were +other inconveniences in having a divided domicile. Therefore Oleron, +brought suddenly up by the hatchet-like notice-board, looked first down +through some scanty privet-bushes at the boarded basement windows, then +up at the blank and grimy windows of the first floor, and so up to the +second floor and the flat stone coping of the leads. He stood for a +minute thumbing his lean and shaven jaw; then, with another glance at the +board, he walked slowly across the square to Number Six. + +He knocked, and waited for two or three minutes, but, although the door +stood open, received no answer. He was knocking again when a long-nosed +man in shirt-sleeves appeared. + +"I was arsking a blessing on our food," he said in severe explanation. + +Oleron asked if he might have the key of the old house; and the +long-nosed man withdrew again. + +Oleron waited for another five minutes on the step; then the man, +appearing again and masticating some of the food of which he had spoken, +announced that the key was lost. + +"But you won't want it," he said. "The entrance door isn't closed, and a +push'll open any of the others. I'm a agent for it, if you're thinking of +taking it--" + +Oleron recrossed the square, descended the two steps at the broken gate, +passed along the alley, and turned in at the old wide doorway. To the +right, immediately within the door, steps descended to the roomy cellars, +and the staircase before him had a carved rail, and was broad and +handsome and filthy. Oleron ascended it, avoiding contact with the rail +and wall, and stopped at the first landing. A door facing him had been +boarded up, but he pushed at that on his right hand, and an insecure bolt +or staple yielded. He entered the empty first floor. + +He spent a quarter of an hour in the place, and then came out again. +Without mounting higher, he descended and recrossed the square to the +house of the man who had lost the key. + +"Can you tell me how much the rent is?" he asked. + +The man mentioned a figure, the comparative lowness of which seemed +accounted for by the character of the neighbourhood and the abominable +state of unrepair of the place. + +"Would it be possible to rent a single floor?" + +The long-nosed man did not know; they might.... + +"Who are they?" + +The man gave Oleron the name of a firm of lawyers in Lincoln's Inn. + +"You might mention my name--Barrett," he added. + +Pressure of work prevented Oleron from going down to Lincoln's Inn that +afternoon, but he went on the morrow, and was instantly offered the +whole house as a purchase for fifty pounds down, the remainder of the +purchase-money to remain on mortgage. It took him half an hour to +disabuse the lawyer's mind of the idea that he wished anything more of +the place than to rent a single floor of it. This made certain hums and +haws of a difference, and the lawyer was by no means certain that it lay +within his power to do as Oleron suggested; but it was finally extracted +from him that, provided the notice-boards were allowed to remain up, and +that, provided it was agreed that in the event of the whole house +letting, the arrangement should terminate automatically without further +notice, something might be done. That the old place should suddenly let +over his head seemed to Oleron the slightest of risks to take, and he +promised a decision within a week. On the morrow he visited the house +again, went through it from top to bottom, and then went home to his +lodgings to take a bath. + +He was immensely taken with that portion of the house he had already +determined should be his own. Scraped clean and repainted, and with +that old furniture of Oleron's grandmother's, it ought to be entirely +charming. He went to the storage warehouse to refresh his memory of his +half-forgotten belongings, and to take measurements; and thence he went +to a decorator's. He was very busy with his regular work, and could have +wished that the notice-board had caught his attention either a few months +earlier or else later in the year; but the quickest way would be to +suspend work entirely until after his removal.... + +A fortnight later his first floor was painted throughout in a tender, +elder-flower white, the paint was dry, and Oleron was in the middle of +his installation. He was animated, delighted; and he rubbed his hands as +he polished and made disposals of his grandmother's effects--the tall +lattice-paned china cupboard with its Derby and Mason and Spode, the +large folding Sheraton table, the long, low bookshelves (he had had two +of them "copied"), the chairs, the Sheffield candlesticks, the riveted +rose-bowls. These things he set against his newly painted elder-white +walls--walls of wood panelled in the happiest proportions, and moulded +and coffered to the low-seated window-recesses in a mood of gaiety and +rest that the builders of rooms no longer know. The ceilings were lofty, +and faintly painted with an old pattern of stars; even the tapering +mouldings of his iron fireplace were as delicately designed as jewellery; +and Oleron walked about rubbing his hands, frequently stopping for the +mere pleasure of the glimpses from white room to white room.... + +"Charming, charming!" he said to himself. "I wonder what Elsie Bengough +will think of this!" + +He bought a bolt and a Yale lock for his door, and shut off his quarters +from the rest of the house. If he now wanted to read in bed, his book +could be had for stepping into the next room. All the time, he thought +how exceedingly lucky he was to get the place. He put up a hat-rack in +the little square hall, and hung up his hats and caps and coats; and +passers through the small triangular square late at night, looking up +over the little serried row of wooden "To Let" hatchets, could see the +light within Oleron's red blinds, or else the sudden darkening of one +blind and the illumination of another, as Oleron, candlestick in hand, +passed from room to room, making final settlings of his furniture, or +preparing to resume the work that his removal had interrupted. + + +II + +As far as the chief business of his life--his writing--was concerned, +Paul Oleron treated the world a good deal better than he was treated by +it; but he seldom took the trouble to strike a balance, or to compute how +far, at forty-four years of age, he was behind his points on the +handicap. To have done so wouldn't have altered matters, and it might +have depressed Oleron. He had chosen his path, and was committed to it +beyond possibility of withdrawal. Perhaps he had chosen it in the days +when he had been easily swayed by something a little disinterested, a +little generous, a little noble; and had he ever thought of questioning +himself he would still have held to it that a life without nobility and +generosity and disinterestedness was no life for him. Only quite +recently, and rarely, had he even vaguely suspected that there was more +in it than this; but it was no good anticipating the day when, he +supposed, he would reach that maximum point of his powers beyond which he +must inevitably decline, and be left face to face with the question +whether it would not have profited him better to have ruled his life +by less exigent ideals. + +In the meantime, his removal into the old house with the insurance marks +built into its brick merely interrupted _Romilly Bishop_ at the fifteenth +chapter. + +As this tall man with the lean, ascetic face moved about his new abode, +arranging, changing, altering, hardly yet into his working-stride again, +he gave the impression of almost spinster-like precision and nicety. For +twenty years past, in a score of lodgings, garrets, flats, and rooms +furnished and unfurnished, he had been accustomed to do many things for +himself, and he had discovered that it saves time and temper to be +methodical. He had arranged with the wife of the long-nosed Barrett, a +stout Welsh woman with a falsetto voice, the Merionethshire accent of +which long residence in London had not perceptibly modified, to come +across the square each morning to prepare his breakfast, and also to +"turn the place out" on Saturday mornings; and for the rest, he even +welcomed a little housework as a relaxation from the strain of writing. + +His kitchen, together with the adjoining strip of an apartment into +which a modern bath had been fitted, overlooked the alley at the side of +the house; and at one end of it was a large closet with a door, and a +square sliding hatch in the upper part of the door. This had been a +powder-closet, and through the hatch the elaborately dressed head had +been thrust to receive the click and puff of the powder-pistol. Oleron +puzzled a little over this closet; then, as its use occurred to him, he +smiled faintly, a little moved, he knew not by what.... He would have to +put it to a very different purpose from its original one; it would +probably have to serve as his larder.... It was in this closet that +he made a discovery. The back of it was shelved, and, rummaging on an +upper shelf that ran deeply into the wall, Oleron found a couple of +mushroom-shaped old wooden wig-stands. He did not know how they had come +to be there. Doubtless the painters had turned them up somewhere or +other, and had put them there. But his five rooms, as a whole, were +short of cupboard and closet-room; and it was only by the exercise of +some ingenuity that he was able to find places for the bestowal of his +household linen, his boxes, and his seldom-used but not-to-be-destroyed +accumulations of papers. + +It was in early spring that Oleron entered on his tenancy, and he was +anxious to have _Romilly_ ready for publication in the coming autumn. +Nevertheless, he did not intend to force its production. Should it demand +longer in the doing, so much the worse; he realised its importance, its +crucial importance, in his artistic development, and it must have its own +length and time. In the workroom he had recently left he had been making +excellent progress; _Romilly_ had begun, as the saying is, to speak and +act of herself; and he did not doubt she would continue to do so the +moment the distraction of his removal was over. This distraction was +almost over; he told himself it was time he pulled himself together +again; and on a March morning he went out, returned again with two great +bunches of yellow daffodils, placed one bunch on his mantelpiece between +the Sheffield sticks and the other on the table before him, and took out +the half-completed manuscript of _Romilly Bishop_. + +But before beginning work he went to a small rosewood cabinet and took +from a drawer his cheque-book and pass-book. He totted them up, and his +monk-like face grew thoughtful. His installation had cost him more than +he had intended it should, and his balance was rather less than fifty +pounds, with no immediate prospect of more. + +"Hm! I'd forgotten rugs and chintz curtains and so forth mounted up so," +said Oleron. "But it would have been a pity to spoil the place for the +want of ten pounds or so.... Well, _Romilly_ simply _must_ be out for the +autumn, that's all. So here goes--" + +He drew his papers towards him. + +But he worked badly; or, rather, he did not work at all. The square +outside had its own noises, frequent and new, and Oleron could only hope +that he would speedily become accustomed to these. First came hawkers, +with their carts and cries; at midday the children, returning from +school, trooped into the square and swung on Oleron's gate; and when the +children had departed again for afternoon school, an itinerant musician +with a mandolin posted himself beneath Oleron's window and began to +strum. This was a not unpleasant distraction, and Oleron, pushing up his +window, threw the man a penny. Then he returned to his table again.... + +But it was no good. He came to himself, at long intervals, to find that +he had been looking about his room and wondering how it had formerly +been furnished--whether a settee in buttercup or petunia satin had stood +under the farther window, whether from the centre moulding of the light +lofty ceiling had depended a glimmering crystal chandelier, or where the +tambour-frame or the picquet-table had stood.... No, it was no good; he +had far better be frankly doing nothing than getting fruitlessly tired; +and he decided that he would take a walk, but, chancing to sit down for a +moment, dozed in his chair instead. + +"This won't do," he yawned when he awoke at half-past four in the +afternoon; "I must do better than this to-morrow--" + +And he felt so deliciously lazy that for some minutes he even +contemplated the breach of an appointment he had for the evening. + +The next morning he sat down to work without even permitting himself to +answer one of his three letters--two of them tradesmen's accounts, the +third a note from Miss Bengough, forwarded from his old address. It was a +jolly day of white and blue, with a gay noisy wind and a subtle turn in +the colour of growing things; and over and over again, once or twice a +minute, his room became suddenly light and then subdued again, as the +shining white clouds rolled north-eastwards over the square. The soft +fitful illumination was reflected in the polished surface of the table +and even in the footworn old floor; and the morning noises had begun +again. + +Oleron made a pattern of dots on the paper before him, and then broke off +to move the jar of daffodils exactly opposite the centre of a creamy +panel. Then he wrote a sentence that ran continuously for a couple of +lines, after which it broke on into notes and jottings. For a time he +succeeded in persuading himself that in making these memoranda he was +really working; then he rose and began to pace his room. As he did so, he +was struck by an idea. It was that the place might possibly be a little +better for more positive colour. It was, perhaps, a thought _too_ +pale--mild and sweet as a kind old face, but a little devitalised, even +wan.... Yes, decidedly it would bear a robuster note--more and richer +flowers, and possibly some warm and gay stuff for cushions for the +window-seats.... + +"Of course, I really can't afford it," he muttered, as he went for a +two-foot and began to measure the width of the window recesses.... + +In stooping to measure a recess, his attitude suddenly changed to one of +interest and attention. Presently he rose again, rubbing his hands with +gentle glee. + +"Oho, oho!" he said. "These look to me very much like window-boxes, +nailed up. We must look into this! Yes, those are boxes, or +I'm ... oho, this is an adventure!" + +On that wall of his sitting-room there were two windows (the third was in +another corner), and, beyond the open bedroom door, on the same wall, was +another. The seats of all had been painted, repainted, and painted again; +and Oleron's investigating finger had barely detected the old nailheads +beneath the paint. Under the ledge over which he stooped an old keyhole +also had been puttied up. Oleron took out his penknife. + +He worked carefully for five minutes, and then went into the kitchen for +a hammer and chisel. Driving the chisel cautiously under the seat, he +started the whole lid slightly. Again using the penknife, he cut along +the hinged edge and outward along the ends; and then he fetched a +wedge and a wooden mallet. + +"Now for our little mystery--" he said. + +The sound of the mallet on the wedge seemed, in that sweet and pale +apartment, somehow a little brutal--nay, even shocking. The panelling +rang and rattled and vibrated to the blows like a sounding-board. The +whole house seemed to echo; from the roomy cellarage to the garrets +above a flock of echoes seemed to awake; and the sound got a little on +Oleron's nerves. All at once he paused, fetched a duster, and muffled the +mallet.... When the edge was sufficiently raised he put his fingers under +it and lifted. The paint flaked and starred a little; the rusty old +nails squeaked and grunted; and the lid came up, laying open the box +beneath. Oleron looked into it. Save for a couple of inches of scurf and +mould and old cobwebs it was empty. + +"No treasure there," said Oleron, a little amused that he should have +fancied there might have been. "_Romilly_ will still have to be out by +the autumn. Let's have a look at the others." + +He turned to the second window. + +The raising of the two remaining seats occupied him until well into the +afternoon. That of the bedroom, like the first, was empty; but from the +second seat of his sitting-room he drew out something yielding and folded +and furred over an inch thick with dust. He carried the object into the +kitchen, and having swept it over a bucket, took a duster to it. + +It was some sort of a large bag, of an ancient frieze-like material, and +when unfolded it occupied the greater part of the small kitchen floor. In +shape it was an irregular, a very irregular, triangle, and it had a +couple of wide flaps, with the remains of straps and buckles. The patch +that had been uppermost in the folding was of a faded yellowish brown; +but the rest of it was of shades of crimson that varied according to the +exposure of the parts of it. + +"Now whatever can that have been?" Oleron mused as he stood surveying +it.... "I give it up. Whatever it is, it's settled my work for today, +I'm afraid--" + +He folded the object up carelessly and thrust it into a corner of the +kitchen; then, taking pans and brushes and an old knife, he returned to +the sitting-room and began to scrape and to wash and to line with paper +his newly discovered receptacles. When he had finished, he put his spare +boots and books and papers into them; and he closed the lids again, +amused with his little adventure, but also a little anxious for the hour +to come when he should settle fairly down to his work again. + + +III + +It piqued Oleron a little that his friend, Miss Bengough, should dismiss +with a glance the place he himself had found so singularly winning. +Indeed she scarcely lifted her eyes to it. But then she had always been +more or less like that--a little indifferent to the graces of life, +careless of appearances, and perhaps a shade more herself when she ate +biscuits from a paper bag than when she dined with greater observance of +the convenances. She was an unattached journalist of thirty-four, large, +showy, fair as butter, pink as a dog-rose, reminding one of a florist's +picked specimen bloom, and given to sudden and ample movements and moist +and explosive utterances. She "pulled a better living out of the pool" +(as she expressed it) than Oleron did; and by cunningly disguised puffs +of drapers and haberdashers she "pulled" also the greater part of her +very varied wardrobe. She left small whirlwinds of air behind her when +she moved, in which her veils and scarves fluttered and spun. + +Oleron heard the flurry of her skirts on his staircase and her single +loud knock at his door when he had been a month in his new abode. Her +garments brought in the outer air, and she flung a bundle of ladies' +journals down on a chair. + +"Don't knock off for me," she said across a mouthful of large-headed +hatpins as she removed her hat and veil. "I didn't know whether you were +straight yet, so I've brought some sandwiches for lunch. You've got +coffee, I suppose?--No, don't get up--I'll find the kitchen--" + +"Oh, that's all right, I'll clear these things away. To tell the truth, +I'm rather glad to be interrupted," said Oleron. + +He gathered his work together and put it away. She was already in the +kitchen; he heard the running of water into the kettle. He joined her, +and ten minutes later followed her back to the sitting-room with the +coffee and sandwiches on a tray. They sat down, with the tray on a small +table between them. + +"Well, what do you think of the new place?" Oleron asked as she poured +out coffee. + +"Hm!... Anybody'd think you were going to get married, Paul." + +He laughed. + +"Oh no. But it's an improvement on some of them, isn't it?" + +"Is it? I suppose it is; I don't know. I liked the last place, in spite +of the black ceiling and no watertap. How's _Romilly_?" + +Oleron thumbed his chin. + +"Hm! I'm rather ashamed to tell you. The fact is, I've not got on very +well with it. But it will be all right on the night, as you used to say." + +"Stuck?" + +"Rather stuck." + +"Got any of it you care to read to me?..." + +Oleron had long been in the habit of reading portions of his work to Miss +Bengough occasionally. Her comments were always quick and practical, +sometimes directly useful, sometimes indirectly suggestive. She, in +return for his confidence, always kept all mention of her own work +sedulously from him. His, she said, was "real work"; hers merely filled +space, not always even grammatically. + +"I'm afraid there isn't," Oleron replied, still meditatively dry-shaving +his chin. Then he added, with a little burst of candour, "The fact +is, Elsie, I've not written--not actually written--very much more of +it--_any_ more of it, in fact. But, of course, that doesn't mean I +haven't progressed. I've progressed, in one sense, rather alarmingly. +I'm now thinking of reconstructing the whole thing." + +Miss Bengough gave a gasp. "Reconstructing!" + +"Making Romilly herself a different type of woman. Somehow, I've begun to +feel that I'm not getting the most out of her. As she stands, I've +certainly lost interest in her to some extent." + +"But--but--" Miss Bengough protested, "you had her so real, so _living_, +Paul!" + +Oleron smiled faintly. He had been quite prepared for Miss Bengough's +disapproval. He wasn't surprised that she liked Romilly as she at present +existed; she would. Whether she realised it or not, there was much of +herself in his fictitious creation. Naturally Romilly would seem "real," +"living," to her.... + +"But are you really serious, Paul?" Miss Bengough asked presently, with a +round-eyed stare. + +"Quite serious." + +"You're really going to scrap those fifteen chapters?" + +"I didn't exactly say that." + +"That fine, rich love-scene?" + +"I should only do it reluctantly, and for the sake of something I thought +better." + +"And that beautiful, _beau_tiful description of Romilly on the shore?" + +"It wouldn't necessarily be wasted," he said a little uneasily. + +But Miss Bengough made a large and windy gesture, and then let him have +it. + +"Really, you are _too_ trying!" she broke out. "I do wish sometimes you'd +remember you're human, and live in a world! You know I'd be the _last_ to +wish you to lower your standard one inch, but it wouldn't be lowering it +to bring it within human comprehension. Oh, you're sometimes altogether +too godlike!... Why, it would be a wicked, criminal waste of your powers +to destroy those fifteen chapters! Look at it reasonably, now. You've +been working for nearly twenty years; you've now got what you've been +working for almost within your grasp; your affairs are at a most critical +stage (oh, don't tell me; I know you're about at the end of your money); +and here you are, deliberately proposing to withdraw a thing that will +probably make your name, and to substitute for it something that ten to +one nobody on earth will ever want to read--and small blame to them! +Really, you try my patience!" + +Oleron had shaken his head slowly as she had talked. It was an old story +between them. The noisy, able, practical journalist was an admirable +friend--up to a certain point; beyond that ... well, each of us knows +that point beyond which we stand alone. Elsie Bengough sometimes said +that had she had one-tenth part of Oleron's genius there were few things +she could not have done--thus making that genius a quantitatively +divisible thing, a sort of ingredient, to be added to or subtracted +from in the admixture of his work. That it was a qualitative thing, +essential, indivisible, informing, passed her comprehension. Their +spirits parted company at that point. Oleron knew it. She did not appear +to know it. + +"Yes, yes, yes," he said a little wearily, by-and-by, "practically you're +quite right, entirely right, and I haven't a word to say. If I could only +turn _Romilly_ over to you you'd make an enormous success of her. But +that can't be, and I, for my part, am seriously doubting whether she's +worth my while. You know what that means." + +"What does it mean?" she demanded bluntly. + +"Well," he said, smiling wanly, "what _does_ it mean when you're +convinced a thing isn't worth doing? You simply don't do it." + +Miss Bengough's eyes swept the ceiling for assistance against this +impossible man. + +"What utter rubbish!" she broke out at last. "Why, when I saw you last +you were simply oozing _Romilly_; you were turning her off at the rate of +four chapters a week; if you hadn't moved you'd have had her three-parts +done by now. What on earth possessed you to move right in the middle of +your most important work?" + +Oleron tried to put her off with a recital of inconveniences, but she +wouldn't have it. Perhaps in her heart she partly suspected the reason. +He was simply mortally weary of the narrow circumstances of his life. He +had had twenty years of it--twenty years of garrets and roof-chambers +and dingy flats and shabby lodgings, and he was tired of dinginess and +shabbiness. The reward was as far off as ever--or if it was not, he no +longer cared as once he would have cared to put out his hand and take it. +It is all very well to tell a man who is at the point of exhaustion that +only another effort is required of him; if he cannot make it he is as far +off as ever.... + +"Anyway," Oleron summed up, "I'm happier here than I've been for a long +time. That's some sort of a justification." + +"And doing no work," said Miss Bengough pointedly. + +At that a trifling petulance that had been gathering in Oleron came to a +head. + +"And why should I do nothing but work?" he demanded. "How much happier am +I for it? I don't say I don't love my work--when it's done; but I hate +doing it. Sometimes it's an intolerable burden that I simply long to be +rid of. Once in many weeks it has a moment, one moment, of glow and +thrill for me; I remember the days when it was all glow and thrill; and +now I'm forty-four, and it's becoming drudgery. Nobody wants it; I'm +ceasing to want it myself; and if any ordinary sensible man were to ask +me whether I didn't think I was a fool to go on, I think I should agree +that I was." + +Miss Bengough's comely pink face was serious. + +"But you knew all that, many, many years ago, Paul--and still you chose +it," she said in a low voice. + +"Well, and how should I have known?" he demanded. "I didn't know. I was +told so. My heart, if you like, told me so, and I thought I knew. Youth +always thinks it knows; then one day it discovers that it is nearly +fifty--" + +"Forty-four, Paul--" + +"--forty-four, then--and it finds that the glamour isn't in front, +but behind. Yes, I knew and chose, if _that's_ knowing and +choosing ... but it's a costly choice we're called on to make when +we're young!" + +Miss Bengough's eyes were on the floor. Without moving them she said, +"You're not regretting it, Paul?" + +"Am I not?" he took her up. "Upon my word, I've lately thought I am! What +_do_ I get in return for it all?" + +"You know what you get," she replied. + +He might have known from her tone what else he could have had for the +holding up of a finger--herself. She knew, but could not tell him, that +he could have done no better thing for himself. Had he, any time these +ten years, asked her to marry him, she would have replied quietly, +"Very well; when?" He had never thought of it.... + +"Yours is the real work," she continued quietly. "Without you we jackals +couldn't exist. You and a few like you hold everything upon your +shoulders." + +For a minute there was a silence. Then it occurred to Oleron that this +was common vulgar grumbling. It was not his habit. Suddenly he rose and +began to stack cups and plates on the tray. + +"Sorry you catch me like this, Elsie," he said, with a little +laugh.... "No, I'll take them out; then we'll go for a walk, if you +like...." + +He carried out the tray, and then began to show Miss Bengough round his +flat. She made few comments. In the kitchen she asked what an old faded +square of reddish frieze was, that Mrs. Barrett used as a cushion for her +wooden chair. + +"That? I should be glad if you could tell _me_ what it is," Oleron +replied as he unfolded the bag and related the story of its finding in +the window-seat. + +"I think I know what it is," said Miss Bengough. "It's been used to wrap +up a harp before putting it into its case." + +"By Jove, that's probably just what it was," said Oleron. "I could make +neither head nor tail of it...." + +They finished the tour of the flat, and returned to the sitting-room. + +"And who lives in the rest of the house?" Miss Bengough asked. + +"I dare say a tramp sleeps in the cellar occasionally. Nobody else." + +"Hm!... Well, I'll tell you what I think about it, if you like." + +"I should like." + +"You'll never work here." + +"Oh?" said Oleron quickly. "Why not?" + +"You'll never finish _Romilly_ here. Why, I don't know, but you won't. +I know it. You'll have to leave before you get on with that book." + +He mused for a moment, and then said: + +"Isn't that a little--prejudiced, Elsie?" + +"Perfectly ridiculous. As an argument it hasn't a leg to stand on. But +there it is," she replied, her mouth once more full of the large-headed +hat pins. + +Oleron was reaching down his hat and coat. He laughed. + +"I can only hope you're entirely wrong," he said, "for I shall be in a +serious mess if _Romilly_ isn't out in the autumn." + + +IV + +As Oleron sat by his fire that evening, pondering Miss Bengough's +prognostication that difficulties awaited him in his work, he came to the +conclusion that it would have been far better had she kept her beliefs to +herself. No man does a thing better for having his confidence damped at +the outset, and to speak of difficulties is in a sense to make them. +Speech itself becomes a deterrent act, to which other discouragements +accrete until the very event of which warning is given is as likely as +not to come to pass. He heartily confounded her. An influence hostile +to the completion of _Romilly_ had been born. + +And in some illogical, dogmatic way women seem to have, she had attached +this antagonistic influence to his new abode. Was ever anything so +absurd! "You'll never finish _Romilly_ here." ... Why not? Was this her +idea of the luxury that saps the springs of action and brings a man down +to indolence and dropping out of the race? The place was well enough--it +was entirely charming, for that matter--but it was not so demoralising as +all that! No; Elsie had missed the mark that time.... + +He moved his chair to look round the room that smiled, positively +smiled, in the firelight. He too smiled, as if pity was to be +entertained for a maligned apartment. Even that slight lack of robust +colour he had remarked was not noticeable in the soft glow. The drawn +chintz curtains--they had a flowered and trellised pattern, with baskets +and oaten pipes--fell in long quiet folds to the window-seats; the rows +of bindings in old bookcases took the light richly; the last trace of +sallowness had gone with the daylight; and, if the truth must be told, +it had been Elsie herself who had seemed a little out of the picture. + +That reflection struck him a little, and presently he returned to it. +Yes, the room had, quite accidentally, done Miss Bengough a disservice +that afternoon. It had, in some subtle but unmistakable way, placed her, +marked a contrast of qualities. Assuming for the sake of argument the +slightly ridiculous proposition that the room in which Oleron sat _was_ +characterised by a certain sparsity and lack of vigour; so much the worse +for Miss Bengough; she certainly erred on the side of redundancy and +general muchness. And if one must contrast abstract qualities, Oleron +inclined to the austere in taste.... + +Yes, here Oleron had made a distinct discovery; he wondered he had not +made it before. He pictured Miss Bengough again as she had appeared +that afternoon--large, showy, moistly pink, with that quality of the +prize bloom exuding, as it were, from her; and instantly she suffered in +his thought. He even recognised now that he had noticed something odd at +the time, and that unconsciously his attitude, even while she had been +there, had been one of criticism. The mechanism of her was a little +obvious; her melting humidity was the result of analysable processes; and +behind her there had seemed to lurk some dim shape emblematic of +mortality. He had never, during the ten years of their intimacy, dreamed +for a moment of asking her to marry him; none the less, he now felt for +the first time a thankfulness that he had not done so.... + +Then, suddenly and swiftly, his face flamed that he should be thinking +thus of his friend. What! Elsie Bengough, with whom he had spent weeks +and weeks of afternoons--she, the good chum, on whose help he would have +counted had all the rest of the world failed him--she, whose loyalty to +him would not, he knew, swerve as long as there was breath in her--Elsie +to be even in thought dissected thus! He was an ingrate and a cad.... + +Had she been there in that moment he would have abased himself before +her. + +For ten minutes and more he sat, still gazing into the fire, with that +humiliating red fading slowly from his cheeks. All was still within and +without, save for a tiny musical tinkling that came from his kitchen--the +dripping of water from an imperfectly turned-off tap into the vessel +beneath it. Mechanically he began to beat with his finger to the faintly +heard falling of the drops; the tiny regular movement seemed to hasten +that shameful withdrawal from his face. He grew cool once more; and when +he resumed his meditation he was all unconscious that he took it up again +at the same point.... + +It was not only her florid superfluity of build that he had approached in +the attitude of criticism; he was conscious also of the wide differences +between her mind and his own. He felt no thankfulness that up to a +certain point their natures had ever run companionably side by side; he +was now full of questions beyond that point. Their intellects diverged; +there was no denying it; and, looking back, he was inclined to doubt +whether there had been any real coincidence. True, he had read his +writings to her and she had appeared to speak comprehendingly and to the +point; but what can a man do who, having assumed that another sees as he +does, is suddenly brought up sharp by something that falsifies and +discredits all that has gone before? He doubted all now.... It did for a +moment occur to him that the man who demands of a friend more than can be +given to him is in danger of losing that friend, but he put the thought +aside. + +Again he ceased to think, and again moved his finger to the distant +dripping of the tap.... + +And now (he resumed by-and-by), if these things were true of Elsie +Bengough, they were also true of the creation of which she was the +prototype--Romilly Bishop. And since he could say of Romilly what for +very shame he could not say of Elsie, he gave his thoughts rein. He did +so in that smiling, fire-lighted room, to the accompaniment of the +faintly heard tap. + +There was no longer any doubt about it; he hated the central character +of his novel. Even as he had described her physically she overpowered +the senses; she was coarse-fibred, over-coloured, rank. It became true +the moment he formulated his thought; Gulliver had described the +Brobdingnagian maids-of-honour thus: and mentally and spiritually she +corresponded--was unsensitive, limited, common. The model (he closed his +eyes for a moment)--the model stuck out through fifteen vulgar and +blatant chapters to such a pitch that, without seeing the reason, he had +been unable to begin the sixteenth. He marvelled that it had only just +dawned upon him. + +And _this_ was to have been his Beatrice, his vision! As Elsie she was to +have gone into the furnace of his art, and she was to have come out the +Woman all men desire! Her thoughts were to have been culled from his own +finest, her form from his dearest dreams, and her setting wherever he +could find one fit for her worth. He had brooded long before making the +attempt; then one day he had felt her stir within him as a mother feels +a quickening, and he had begun to write; and so he had added chapter to +chapter.... + +And those fifteen sodden chapters were what he had produced! + +Again he sat, softly moving his finger.... + +Then he bestirred himself. + +She must go, all fifteen chapters of her. That was settled. For what was +to take her place his mind was a blank; but one thing at a time; a man +is not excused from taking the wrong course because the right one is not +immediately revealed to him. Better would come if it was to come; +in the meantime-- + +He rose, fetched the fifteen chapters, and read them over before he +should drop them into the fire. + +But instead of putting them into the fire he let them fall from his hand. +He became conscious of the dripping of the tap again. It had a tinkling +gamut of four or five notes, on which it rang irregular changes, and it +was foolishly sweet and dulcimer-like. In his mind Oleron could see the +gathering of each drop, its little tremble on the lip of the tap, and the +tiny percussion of its fall, "Plink--plunk," minimised almost to +inaudibility. Following the lowest note there seemed to be a brief +phrase, irregularly repeated; and presently Oleron found himself waiting +for the recurrence of this phrase. It was quite pretty.... + +But it did not conduce to wakefulness, and Oleron dozed over his fire. + +When he awoke again the fire had burned low and the flames of the candles +were licking the rims of the Sheffield sticks. Sluggishly he rose, +yawned, went his nightly round of door-locks and window-fastenings, and +passed into his bedroom. Soon he slept soundly. + +But a curious little sequel followed on the morrow. Mrs. Barrett usually +tapped, not at his door, but at the wooden wall beyond which lay Oleron's +bed; and then Oleron rose, put on his dressing-gown, and admitted her. He +was not conscious that as he did so that morning he hummed an air; but +Mrs. Barrett lingered with her hand on the door-knob and her face a +little averted and smiling. + +"De-ar me!" her soft falsetto rose. "But that will be a very o-ald tune, +Mr. Oleron! I will not have heard it this for-ty years!" + +"What tune?" Oleron asked. + +"The tune, indeed, that you was humming, sir." + +Oleron had his thumb in the flap of a letter. It remained there. + +"_I_ was humming?... Sing it, Mrs. Barrett." + +Mrs. Barrett prut-prutted. + +"I have no voice for singing, Mr. Oleron; it was Ann Pugh was the singer +of our family; but the tune will be very o-ald, and it is called 'The +Beckoning Fair One.'" + +"Try to sing it," said Oleron, his thumb still in the envelope; and Mrs. +Barrett, with much dimpling and confusion, hummed the air. + +"They do say it was sung to a harp, Mr. Oleron, and it will be very +o-ald," she concluded. + +"And _I_ was singing that?" + +"Indeed you wass. I would not be likely to tell you lies." + +With a "Very well--let me have breakfast," Oleron opened his letter; but +the trifling circumstance struck him as more odd than he would have +admitted to himself. The phrase he had hummed had been that which he had +associated with the falling from the tap on the evening before. + + +V + +Even more curious than that the commonplace dripping of an ordinary +water-tap should have tallied so closely with an actually existing air +was another result it had, namely, that it awakened, or seemed to awaken, +in Oleron an abnormal sensitiveness to other noises of the old house. It +has been remarked that silence obtains its fullest and most impressive +quality when it is broken by some minute sound; and, truth to tell, the +place was never still. Perhaps the mildness of the spring air operated on +its torpid old timbers; perhaps Oleron's fires caused it to stretch its +old anatomy; and certainly a whole world of insect life bored and +burrowed in its baulks and joists. At any rate, Oleron had only to sit +quiet in his chair and to wait for a minute or two in order to become +aware of such a change in the auditory scale as comes upon a man who, +conceiving the midsummer woods to be motionless and still, all at once +finds his ear sharpened to the crepitation of a myriad insects. + +And he smiled to think of man's arbitrary distinction between that which +has life and that which has not. Here, quite apart from such recognisable +sounds as the scampering of mice, the falling of plaster behind his +panelling, and the popping of purses or coffins from his fire, was a +whole house talking to him had he but known its language. Beams settled +with a tired sigh into their old mortices; creatures ticked in the walls; +joints cracked, boards complained; with no palpable stirring of the air +window-sashes changed their positions with a soft knock in their frames. +And whether the place had life in this sense or not, it had at all events +a winsome personality. It needed but an hour of musing for Oleron to +conceive the idea that, as his own body stood in friendly relation to his +soul, so, by an extension and an attenuation, his habitation might +fantastically be supposed to stand in some relation to himself. He even +amused himself with the far-fetched fancy that he might so identify +himself with the place that some future tenant, taking possession, might +regard it as in a sense haunted. It would be rather a joke if he, a +perfectly harmless author, with nothing on his mind worse than a novel he +had discovered he must begin again, should turn out to be laying the +foundation of a future ghost!... + +In proportion, however, as he felt this growing attachment to the fabric +of his abode, Elsie Bengough, from being merely unattracted, began to +show a dislike of the place that was more and more marked. And she did +not scruple to speak of her aversion. + +"It doesn't belong to to-day at all, and for you especially it's bad," +she said with decision. "You're only too ready to let go your hold on +actual things and to slip into apathy; _you_ ought to be in a place +with concrete floors and a patent gas-meter and a tradesmen's lift. And +it would do you all the good in the world if you had a job that made you +scramble and rub elbows with your fellow-men. Now, if I could get you a +job, for, say, two or three days a week, one that would allow you heaps +of time for your proper work--would you take it?" + +Somehow, Oleron resented a little being diagnosed like this. He thanked +Miss Bengough, but without a smile. + +"Thank you, but I don't think so. After all each of us has his own life +to live," he could not refrain from adding. + +"His own life to live!... How long is it since you were out, Paul?" + +"About two hours." + +"I don't mean to buy stamps or to post a letter. How long is it since you +had anything like a stretch?" + +"Oh, some little time perhaps. I don't know." + +"Since I was here last?" + +"I haven't been out much." + +"And has _Romilly_ progressed much better for your being cooped up?" + +"I think she has. I'm laying the foundations of her. I shall begin the +actual writing presently." + +It seemed as if Miss Bengough had forgotten their tussle about the first +_Romilly_. She frowned, turned half away, and then quickly turned again. + +"Ah!... So you've still got that ridiculous idea in your head?" + +"If you mean," said Oleron slowly, "that I've discarded the old +_Romilly_, and am at work on a new one, you're right. I have still got +that idea in my head." + +Something uncordial in his tone struck her; but she was a fighter. His +own absurd sensitiveness hardened her. She gave a "Pshaw!" of impatience. + +"Where is the old one?" she demanded abruptly. + +"Why?" asked Oleron. + +"I want to see it. I want to show some of it to you. I want, if you're +not wool-gathering entirely, to bring you back to your senses." + +This time it was he who turned his back. But when he turned round again +he spoke more gently. + +"It's no good, Elsie. I'm responsible for the way I go, and you must +allow me to go it--even if it should seem wrong to you. Believe me, I +am giving thought to it.... The manuscript? I was on the point of burning +it, but I didn't. It's in that window-seat, if you must see it." + +Miss Bengough crossed quickly to the window-seat, and lifted the lid. +Suddenly she gave a little exclamation, and put the back of her hand +to her mouth. She spoke over her shoulder: + +"You ought to knock those nails in, Paul," she said. + +He strode to her side. + +"What? What is it? What's the matter?" he asked. "I did knock them +in--or, rather, pulled them out." + +"You left enough to scratch with," she replied, showing her hand. From +the upper wrist to the knuckle of the little finger a welling red wound +showed. + +"Good--Gracious!" Oleron ejaculated.... "Here, come to the bathroom and +bathe it quickly--" + +He hurried her to the bathroom, turned on warm water, and bathed and +cleansed the bad gash. Then, still holding the hand, he turned cold water +on it, uttering broken phrases of astonishment and concern. + +"Good Lord, how did that happen! As far as I knew I'd ... is this water +too cold? Does that hurt? I can't imagine how on earth ... there; that'll +do--" + +"No--one moment longer--I can bear it," she murmured, her eyes closed.... + +Presently he led her back to the sitting-room and bound the hand in one +of his handkerchiefs; but his face did not lose its expression of +perplexity. He had spent half a day in opening and making serviceable the +three window-boxes, and he could not conceive how he had come to leave an +inch and a half of rusty nail standing in the wood. He himself had opened +the lids of each of them a dozen times and had not noticed any nail; but +there it was.... + +"It shall come out now, at all events," he muttered, as he went for a +pair of pincers. And he made no mistake about it that time. + +Elsie Bengough had sunk into a chair, and her face was rather white; but +in her hand was the manuscript of _Romilly_. She had not finished with +_Romilly_ yet. Presently she returned to the charge. + +"Oh, Paul, it will be the greatest mistake you ever, _ever_ made if you +do not publish this!" she said. + +He hung his head, genuinely distressed. He couldn't get that incident of +the nail out of his head, and _Romilly_ occupied a second place in his +thoughts for the moment. But still she insisted; and when presently he +spoke it was almost as if he asked her pardon for something. + +"What can I say, Elsie? I can only hope that when you see the new +version, you'll see how right I am. And if in spite of all you _don't_ +like her, well ..." he made a hopeless gesture. "Don't you see that I +_must_ be guided by my own lights?" + +She was silent. + +"Come, Elsie," he said gently. "We've got along well so far; don't let us +split on this." + +The last words had hardly passed his lips before he regretted them. She +had been nursing her injured hand, with her eyes once more closed; but +her lips and lids quivered simultaneously. Her voice shook as she spoke. + +"I can't help saying it, Paul, but you are so greatly changed." + +"Hush, Elsie," he murmured soothingly; "you've had a shock; rest for a +while. How could I change?" + +"I don't know, but you are. You've not been yourself ever since you came +here. I wish you'd never seen the place. It's stopped your work, it's +making you into a person I hardly know, and it's made me horribly anxious +about you.... Oh, how my hand is beginning to throb!" + +"Poor child!" he murmured. "Will you let me take you to a doctor and have +it properly dressed?" + +"No--I shall be all right presently--I'll keep it raised----" + +She put her elbow on the back of her chair, and the bandaged hand rested +lightly on his shoulder. + +At that touch an entirely new anxiety stirred suddenly within him. +Hundreds of times previously, on their jaunts and excursions, she had +slipped her hand within his arm as she might have slipped it into the arm +of a brother, and he had accepted the little affectionate gesture as a +brother might have accepted it. But now, for the first time, there rushed +into his mind a hundred startling questions. Her eyes were still closed, +and her head had fallen pathetically back; and there was a lost and +ineffable smile on her parted lips. The truth broke in upon him. Good +God!... And he had never divined it! + +And stranger than all was that, now that he did see that she was lost in +love of him, there came to him, not sorrow and humility and abasement, +but something else that he struggled in vain against--something entirely +strange and new, that, had he analysed it, he would have found to be +petulance and irritation and resentment and ungentleness. The sudden +selfish prompting mastered him before he was aware. He all but gave it +words. What was she doing there at all? Why was she not getting on with +her own work? Why was she here interfering with his? Who had given her +this guardianship over him that lately she had put forward so +assertively?--"Changed?" It was she, not himself, who had changed.... + +But by the time she had opened her eyes again he had overcome his +resentment sufficiently to speak gently, albeit with reserve. + +"I wish you would let me take you to a doctor." + +She rose. + +"No, thank you, Paul," she said. "I'll go now. If I need a dressing I'll +get one; take the other hand, please. Good-bye--" + +He did not attempt to detain her. He walked with her to the foot of the +stairs. Half-way along the narrow alley she turned. + +"It would be a long way to come if you happened not to be in," she said; +"I'll send you a postcard the next time." + +At the gate she turned again. + +"Leave here, Paul," she said, with a mournful look. "Everything's wrong +with this house." + +Then she was gone. + +Oleron returned to his room. He crossed straight to the window-box. He +opened the lid and stood long looking at it. Then he closed it again and +turned away. + +"That's rather frightening," he muttered. "It's simply not possible that +I should not have removed that nail...." + + +VI + +Oleron knew very well what Elsie had meant when she had said that her +next visit would be preceded by a postcard. She, too, had realised that +at last, at last he knew--knew, and didn't want her. It gave him a +miserable, pitiful pang, therefore, when she came again within a week, +knocking at the door unannounced. She spoke from the landing; she did not +intend to stay, she said; and he had to press her before she would so +much as enter. + +Her excuse for calling was that she had heard of an inquiry for short +stories that he might be wise to follow up. He thanked her. Then, her +business over, she seemed anxious to get away again. Oleron did not seek +to detain her; even he saw through the pretext of the stories; and he +accompanied her down the stairs. + +But Elsie Bengough had no luck whatever in that house. A second accident +befell her. Half-way down the staircase there was the sharp sound of +splintering wood, and she checked a loud cry. Oleron knew the woodwork to +be old, but he himself had ascended and descended frequently enough +without mishap.... + +Elsie had put her foot through one of the stairs. + +He sprang to her side in alarm. + +"Oh, I say! My poor girl!" + +She laughed hysterically. + +"It's my weight--I know I'm getting fat--" + +"Keep still--let me clear these splinters away," he muttered between his +teeth. + +She continued to laugh and sob that it was her weight--she was getting +fat-- + +He thrust downwards at the broken boards. The extrication was no easy +matter, and her torn boot showed him how badly the foot and ankle +within it must be abraded. + +"Good God--good God!" he muttered over and over again. + +"I shall be too heavy for anything soon," she sobbed and laughed. + +But she refused to reascend and to examine her hurt. + +"No, let me go quickly--let me go quickly," she repeated. + +"But it's a frightful gash!" + +"No--not so bad--let me get away quickly--I'm--I'm not wanted." + +At her words, that she was not wanted, his head dropped as if she had +given him a buffet. + +"Elsie!" he choked, brokenly and shocked. + +But she too made a quick gesture, as if she put something violently +aside. + +"Oh, Paul, not _that_--not _you_--of course I do mean that too in a +sense--oh, you know what I mean!... But if the other can't be, spare +me this now! I--I wouldn't have come, but--but--oh, I did, I _did_ try to +keep away!" + +It was intolerable, heartbreaking; but what could he do--what could he +say? He did not love her... + +"Let me go--I'm not wanted--let me take away what's left of me--" + +"Dear Elsie--you are very dear to me--" + +But again she made the gesture, as of putting something violently aside. + +"No, not that--not anything less--don't offer me anything less--leave me +a little pride--" + +"Let me get my hat and coat--let me take you to a doctor," he muttered. + +But she refused. She refused even the support of his arm. She gave +another unsteady laugh. + +"I'm sorry I broke your stairs, Paul.... You will go and see about the +short stories, won't you?" + +He groaned. + +"Then if you won't see a doctor, will you go across the square and let +Mrs. Barrett look at you? Look, there's Barrett passing now--" + +The long-nosed Barrett was looking curiously down the alley, but as +Oleron was about to call him he made off without a word. Elsie seemed +anxious for nothing so much as to be clear of the place, and finally +promised to go straight to a doctor, but insisted on going alone. + +"Good-bye," she said. + +And Oleron watched her until she was past the hatchet-like "To Let" +boards, as if he feared that even they might fall upon her and maim her. + +That night Oleron did not dine. He had far too much on his mind. He +walked from room to room of his flat, as if he could have walked away +from Elsie Bengough's haunting cry that still rang in his ears. "I'm +not wanted--don't offer me anything less--let me take away what's left +of me--" + +Oh, if he could only have persuaded himself that he loved her! + +He walked until twilight fell, then, without lighting candles, he stirred +up the fire and flung himself into a chair. + +Poor, poor Elsie!... + +But even while his heart ached for her, it was out of the question. +If only he had known! If only he had used common observation! But +those walks, those sisterly takings of the arm--what a fool he had +been!... Well, it was too late now. It was she, not he, who must now +act--act by keeping away. He would help her all he could. He himself +would not sit in her presence. If she came, he would hurry her out again +as fast as he could.... Poor, poor Elsie! + +His room grew dark; the fire burned dead; and he continued to sit, +wincing from time to time as a fresh tortured phrase rang again in his +ears. + +Then suddenly, he knew not why, he found himself anxious for her in a new +sense--uneasy about her personal safety. A horrible fancy that even then +she might be looking over an embankment down into dark water, that she +might even now be glancing up at the hook on the door, took him. Women +had been known to do those things.... Then there would be an inquest, and +he himself would be called upon to identify her, and would be asked how +she had come by an ill-healed wound on the hand and a bad abrasion of the +ankle. Barrett would say that he had seen her leaving his house.... + +Then he recognised that his thoughts were morbid. By an effort of will he +put them aside, and sat for a while listening to the faint creakings +and tickings and rappings within his panelling.... If only he could have +married her!... But he couldn't. Her face had risen before him again +as he had seen it on the stairs, drawn with pain and ugly and swollen +with tears. Ugly--yes, positively blubbered; if tears were women's +weapons, as they were said to be, such tears were weapons turned against +themselves ... suicide again.... + +Then all at once he found himself attentively considering her two +accidents. + +Extraordinary they had been, both of them. He _could not_ have left that +old nail standing in the wood; why, he had fetched tools specially from +the kitchen; and he was convinced that that step that had broken beneath +her weight had been as sound as the others. It was inexplicable. If these +things could happen, anything could happen. There was not a beam nor a +jamb in the place that might not fall without warning, not a plank that +might not crash inwards, not a nail that might not become a dagger. The +whole place was full of life even now; as he sat there in the dark he +heard its crowds of noises as if the house had been one great +microphone.... + +Only half conscious that he did so, he had been sitting for some time +identifying these noises, attributing to each crack or creak or knock its +material cause; but there was one noise which, again not fully conscious +of the omission, he had not sought to account for. It had last come some +minutes ago; it came again now--a sort of soft sweeping rustle that +seemed to hold an almost inaudibly minute crackling. For half a minute or +so it had Oleron's attention; then his heavy thoughts were of Elsie +Bengough again. + +He was nearer to loving her in that moment than he had ever been. He +thought how to some men their loved ones were but the dearer for those +poor mortal blemishes that tell us we are but sojourners on earth, with a +common fate not far distant that makes it hardly worth while to do +anything but love for the time remaining. Strangling sobs, blearing +tears, bodies buffeted by sickness, hearts and mind callous and hard with +the rubs of the world--how little love there would be were these things a +barrier to love! In that sense he did love Elsie Bengough. What her +happiness had never moved in him her sorrow almost awoke.... + +Suddenly his meditation went. His ear had once more become conscious +of that soft and repeated noise--the long sweep with the almost +inaudible crackle in it. Again and again it came, with a curious +insistence and urgency. It quickened a little as he became increasingly +attentive ... it seemed to Oleron that it grew louder.... + +All at once he started bolt upright in his chair, tense and listening. +The silky rustle came again; he was trying to attach it to something.... + +The next moment he had leapt to his feet, unnerved and terrified. His +chair hung poised for a moment, and then went over, setting the +fire-irons clattering as it fell. There was only one noise in the world +like that which had caused him to spring thus to his feet.... + +The next time it came Oleron felt behind him at the empty air with his +hand, and backed slowly until he found himself against the wall. + +"God in Heaven!" The ejaculation broke from Oleron's lips. The sound had +ceased. + +The next moment he had given a high cry. + +"What is it? What's there? _Who's_ there?" + +A sound of scuttling caused his knees to bend under him for a moment; but +that, he knew, was a mouse. That was not something that his stomach +turned sick and his mind reeled to entertain. That other sound, the like +of which was not in the world, had now entirely ceased; and again he +called.... + +He called and continued to call; and then another terror, a terror of the +sound of his own voice, seized him. He did not dare to call again. His +shaking hand went to his pocket for a match, but found none. He thought +there might be matches on the mantelpiece-- + +He worked his way to the mantelpiece round a little recess, without for a +moment leaving the wall. Then his hand encountered the mantelpiece, and +groped along it. A box of matches fell to the hearth. He could just see +them in the firelight, but his hand could not pick them up until he had +cornered them inside the fender. + +Then he rose and struck a light. + +The room was as usual. He struck a second match. A candle stood on the +table. He lighted it, and the flame sank for a moment and then burned up +clear. Again he looked round. + +There was nothing. + +There was nothing; but there had been something, and might still be +something. Formerly, Oleron had smiled at the fantastic thought that, +by a merging and interplay of identities between himself and his +beautiful room, he might be preparing a ghost for the future; it had not +occurred to him _that there might have been a similar merging and +coalescence in the past_. Yet with this staggering impossibility he was +now face to face. Something did persist in the house; it had a tenant +other than himself; and that tenant, whatsoever or whosoever, had +appalled Oleron's soul by producing the sound of a woman brushing her +hair. + + +VII + +Without quite knowing how he came to be there Oleron found himself +striding over the loose board he had temporarily placed on the step +broken by Miss Bengough. He was hatless, and descending the stairs. Not +until later did there return to him a hazy memory that he had left the +candle burning on the table, had opened the door no wider than was +necessary to allow the passage of his body, and had sidled out, closing +the door softly behind him. At the foot of the stairs another shock +awaited him. Something dashed with a flurry up from the disused cellars +and disappeared out of the door. It was only a cat, but Oleron gave a +childish sob. + +He passed out of the gate, and stood for a moment under the "To Let" +boards, plucking foolishly at his lip and looking up at the glimmer +of light behind one of his red blinds. Then, still looking over his +shoulder, he moved stumblingly up the square. There was a small +public-house round the corner; Oleron had never entered it; but he +entered it now, and put down a shilling that missed the counter by +inches. + +"B--b--bran--brandy," he said, and then stooped to look for the shilling. + +He had the little sawdusted bar to himself; what company there +was--carters and labourers and the small tradesmen of the +neighbourhood--was gathered in the farther compartment, beyond the space +where the white-haired landlady moved among her taps and bottles. Oleron +sat down on a hardwood settee with a perforated seat, drank half his +brandy, and then, thinking he might as well drink it as spill it, +finished it. + +Then he fell to wondering which of the men whose voices he heard across +the public-house would undertake the removal of his effects on the +morrow. + +In the meantime he ordered more brandy. + +For he did not intend to go back to that room where he had left the +candle burning. Oh no! He couldn't have faced even the entry and the +staircase with the broken step--certainly not that pith-white, +fascinating room. He would go back for the present to his old +arrangement, of workroom and separate sleeping-quarters; he would +go to his old landlady at once--presently--when he had finished his +brandy--and see if she could put him up for the night. His glass was +empty now.... + +He rose, had it refilled, and sat down again. + +And if anybody asked his reason for removing again? Oh, he had reason +enough--reason enough! Nails that put themselves back into wood again +and gashed people's hands, steps that broke when you trod on them, and +women who came into a man's place and brushed their hair in the dark, +were reasons enough! He was querulous and injured about it all. He had +taken the place for himself, not for invisible women to brush their +hair in; that lawyer fellow in Lincoln's Inn should be told so, too, +before many hours were out; it was outrageous, letting people in for +agreements like that! + +A cut-glass partition divided the compartment where Oleron sat from the +space where the white-haired landlady moved; but it stopped seven or +eight inches above the level of the counter. There was no partition at +the farther bar. Presently Oleron, raising his eyes, saw that faces were +watching him through the aperture. The faces disappeared when he looked +at them. + +He moved to a corner where he could not be seen from the other bar; but +this brought him into line with the white-haired landlady. + +She knew him by sight--had doubtless seen him passing and repassing; and +presently she made a remark on the weather. Oleron did not know what he +replied, but it sufficed to call forth the further remark that the winter +had been a bad one for influenza, but that the spring weather seemed to +be coming at last.... Even this slight contact with the commonplace +steadied Oleron a little; an idle, nascent wonder whether the landlady +brushed her hair every night, and, if so, whether it gave out those +little electric cracklings, was shut down with a snap; and Oleron was +better.... + +With his next glass of brandy he was all for going back to his flat. Not +go back? Indeed, he would go back! They should very soon see whether he +was to be turned out of his place like that! He began to wonder why he +was doing the rather unusual thing he was doing at that moment, unusual +for him--sitting hatless, drinking brandy, in a public-house. Suppose he +were to tell the white-haired landlady all about it--to tell her that a +caller had scratched her hand on a nail, had later had the bad luck to +put her foot through a rotten stair, and that he himself, in an old house +full of squeaks and creaks and whispers, had heard a minute noise and had +bolted from it in fright--what would she think of him? That he was mad, +of course.... Pshaw! The real truth of the matter was that he hadn't been +doing enough work to occupy him. He had been dreaming his days away, +filling his head with a lot of moonshine about a new _Romilly_ (as if the +old one was not good enough), and now he was surprised that the devil +should enter an empty head! + +Yes, he would go back. He would take a walk in the air first--he hadn't +walked enough lately--and then he would take himself in hand, settle +the hash of that sixteenth chapter of _Romilly_ (fancy, he had actually +been fool enough to think of destroying fifteen chapters!) and +thenceforward he would remember that he had obligations to his fellow-men +and work to do in the world. There was the matter in a nutshell. + +He finished his brandy and went out. + +He had walked for some time before any other bearing of the matter than +that on himself occurred to him. At first, the fresh air had increased +the heady effect of the brandy he had drunk; but afterwards his mind grew +clearer than it had been since morning. And the clearer it grew, the less +final did his boastful self-assurances become, and the firmer his +conviction that, when all explanations had been made, there remained +something that could not be explained. His hysteria of an hour before had +passed; he grew steadily calmer; but the disquieting conviction remained. +A deep fear took possession of him. It was a fear for Elsie. + +For something in his place was inimical to her safety. Of themselves, her +two accidents might not have persuaded him of this; but she herself had +said it. "_I'm not wanted here_..." And she had declared that there was +something wrong with the place. She had seen it before he had. Well and +good. One thing stood out clearly: namely, that if this was so, she must +be kept away for quite another reason than that which had so confounded +and humiliated Oleron. Luckily she had expressed her intention of staying +away; she must be held to that intention. He must see to it. + +And he must see to it all the more that he now saw his first impulse, +never to set foot in the place again, was absurd. People did not do that +kind of thing. With Elsie made secure, he could not with any respect to +himself suffer himself to be turned out by a shadow, nor even by a danger +merely because it was a danger. He had to live somewhere, and he would +live there. He must return. + +He mastered the faint chill of fear that came with the decision, and +turned in his walk abruptly. Should fear grow on him again he would, +perhaps, take one more glass of brandy.... + +But by the time he reached the short street that led to the square he was +too late for more brandy. The little public-house was still lighted, but +closed, and one or two men were standing talking on the kerb. Oleron +noticed that a sudden silence fell on them as he passed, and he noticed +further that the long-nosed Barrett, whom he passed a little lower down, +did not return his good-night. He turned in at the broken gate, hesitated +merely an instant in the alley, and then mounted his stairs again. + +Only an inch of candle remained in the Sheffield stick, and Oleron did +not light another one. Deliberately he forced himself to take it up and +to make the tour of his five rooms before retiring. It was as he returned +from the kitchen across his little hall that he noticed that a letter lay +on the floor. He carried it into his sitting-room, and glanced at the +envelope before opening it. + +It was unstamped, and had been put into the door by hand. Its handwriting +was clumsy, and it ran from beginning to end without comma or period. +Oleron read the first line, turned to the signature, and then finished +the letter. + +It was from the man Barrett, and it informed Oleron that he, Barrett, +would be obliged if Mr. Oleron would make other arrangements for the +preparing of his breakfasts and the cleaning-out of his place. The sting +lay in the tail, that is to say, the postscript. This consisted of a text +of Scripture. It embodied an allusion that could only be to Elsie +Bengough.... + +A seldom-seen frown had cut deeply into Oleron's brow. So! That was it! +Very well; they would see about that on the morrow.... For the rest, this +seemed merely another reason why Elsie should keep away.... + +Then his suppressed rage broke out.... + +The foul-minded lot! The devil himself could not have given a leer at +anything that had ever passed between Paul Oleron and Elsie Bengough, +yet this nosing rascal must be prying and talking!... + +Oleron crumpled the paper up, held it in the candle flame, and then +ground the ashes under his heel. + +One useful purpose, however, the letter had served: it had created in +Oleron a wrathful blaze that effectually banished pale shadows. +Nevertheless, one other puzzling circumstance was to close the day. As he +undressed, he chanced to glance at his bed. The coverlets bore an impress +as if somebody had lain on them. Oleron could not remember that he +himself had lain down during the day--off-hand, he would have said that +certainly he had not; but after all he could not be positive. His +indignation for Elsie, acting possibly with the residue of the brandy in +him, excluded all other considerations; and he put out his candle, lay +down, and passed immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep, which, in +the absence of Mrs. Barrett's morning call, lasted almost once round the +clock. + + +VIII + +To the man who pays heed to that voice within him which warns him that +twilight and danger are settling over his soul, terror is apt to appear +an absolute thing, against which his heart must be safeguarded in a twink +unless there is to take place an alteration in the whole range and scale +of his nature. Mercifully, he has never far to look for safeguards. Of +the immediate and small and common and momentary things of life, of +usages and observances and modes and conventions, he builds up +fortifications against the powers of darkness. He is even content that, +not terror only, but joy also, should for working purposes be placed in +the category of the absolute things; and the last treason he will commit +will be that breaking down of terms and limits that strikes, not at one +man, but at the welfare of the souls of all. + +In his own person, Oleron began to commit this treason. He began to +commit it by admitting the inexplicable and horrible to an increasing +familiarity. He did it insensibly, unconsciously, by a neglect of the +things that he now regarded it as an impertinence in Elsie Bengough to +have prescribed. Two months before, the words "a haunted house," applied +to his lovely bemusing dwelling, would have chilled his marrow; now, +his scale of sensation becoming depressed, he could ask "Haunted by +what?" and remain unconscious that horror, when it can be proved to be +relative, by so much loses its proper quality. He was setting aside the +landmarks. Mists and confusion had begun to enwrap him. + +And he was conscious of nothing so much as of a voracious +inquisitiveness. He wanted _to know_. He was resolved to know. Nothing +but the knowledge would satisfy him; and craftily he cast about for means +whereby he might attain it. + +He might have spared his craft. The matter was the easiest imaginable. As +in time past he had known, in his writing, moments when his thoughts +had seemed to rise of themselves and to embody themselves in words not to +be altered afterwards, so now the questions he put himself seemed to be +answered even in the moment of their asking. There was exhilaration in +the swift, easy processes. He had known no so such joy in his own power +since the days when his writing had been a daily freshness and a delight +to him. It was almost as if the course he must pursue was being dictated +to him. + +And the first thing he must do, of course, was to define the problem. He +defined it in terms of mathematics. Granted that he had not the place to +himself; granted that the old house had inexpressibly caught and engaged +his spirit; granted that, by virtue of the common denominator of the +place, this unknown co-tenant stood in some relation to himself: what +next? Clearly, the nature of the other numerator must be ascertained. + +And how? Ordinarily this would not have seemed simple, but to Oleron it +was now pellucidly clear. The key, _of course_, lay in his half-written +novel--or rather, in both _Romillys_, the old and the proposed new one. + +A little while before Oleron would have thought himself mad to have +embraced such an opinion; now he accepted the dizzying hypothesis without +a quiver. + +He began to examine the first and second _Romillys_. + +From the moment of his doing so the thing advanced by leaps and bounds. +Swiftly he reviewed the history of the _Romilly_ of the fifteen chapters. +He remembered clearly now that he had found her insufficient on the very +first morning on which he had sat down to work in his new place. Other +instances of his aversion leaped up to confirm his obscure investigation. +There had come the night when he had hardly forborne to throw the whole +thing into the fire; and the next morning he had begun the planning of +the new _Romilly_. It had been on that morning that Mrs. Barrett, +overhearing him humming a brief phrase that the dripping of a tap the +night before had suggested, had informed him that he was singing some air +he had never in his life heard before, called "The Beckoning Fair +One."... + +The Beckoning Fair One!... + +With scarcely a pause in thought he continued: + +The first _Romilly_ having been definitely thrown over, the second had +instantly fastened herself upon him, clamouring for birth in his brain. +He even fancied now, looking back, that there had been something like +passion, hate almost, in the supplanting, and that more than once a stray +thought given to his discarded creation had--(it was astonishing how +credible Oleron found the almost unthinkable idea)--had offended the +supplanter. + +Yet that a malignancy almost homicidal should be extended to his +fiction's poor mortal prototype.... + +In spite of his inuring to a scale in which the horrible was now a thing +to be fingered and turned this way and that, a "Good God!" broke from +Oleron. + +This intrusion of the first _Romilly's_ prototype into his thought +again was a factor that for the moment brought his inquiry into the +nature of his problem to a termination; the mere thought of Elsie was +fatal to anything abstract. For another thing, he could not yet think of +that letter of Barrett's, nor of a little scene that had followed it, +without a mounting of colour and a quick contraction of the brow. For, +wisely or not, he had had that argument out at once. Striding across the +square on the following morning, he had bearded Barrett on his own +doorstep. Coming back again a few minutes later, he had been strongly of +opinion that he had only made matters worse. The man had been vagueness +itself. He had not been to be either challenged or browbeaten into +anything more definite than a muttered farrago in which the words +"Certain things ... Mrs. Barrett ... respectable house ... if the cap +fits ... proceedings that shall be nameless," had been constantly +repeated. + +"Not that I make any charge--" he had concluded. + +"Charge!" Oleron had cried. + +"I 'ave my idears of things, as I don't doubt you 'ave yours--" + +"Ideas--mine!" Oleron had cried wrathfully, immediately dropping his +voice as heads had appeared at windows of the square. "Look you here, my +man; you've an unwholesome mind, which probably you can't help, but a +tongue which you can help, and shall! If there is a breath of this +repeated ..." + +"I'll not be talked to on my own doorstep like this by anybody,..." +Barrett had blustered.... + +"You shall, and I'm doing it ..." + +"Don't you forget there's a Gawd above all, Who 'as said..." + +"You're a low scandalmonger!..." + +And so forth, continuing badly what was already badly begun. Oleron had +returned wrathfully to his own house, and thenceforward, looking out +of his windows, had seen Barrett's face at odd times, lifting blinds or +peering round curtains, as if he sought to put himself in possession of +Heaven knew what evidence, in case it should be required of him. + +The unfortunate occurrence made certain minor differences in Oleron's +domestic arrangements. Barrett's tongue, he gathered, had already been +busy; he was looked at askance by the dwellers of the square; and he +judged it better, until he should be able to obtain other help, to make +his purchases of provisions a little farther afield rather than at the +small shops of the immediate neighbourhood. For the rest, housekeeping +was no new thing to him, and he would resume his old bachelor habits.... + +Besides, he was deep in certain rather abstruse investigations, in which +it was better that he should not be disturbed. + +He was looking out of his window one midday rather tired, not very well, +and glad that it was not very likely he would have to stir out of doors, +when he saw Elsie Bengough crossing the square towards his house. The +weather had broken; it was a raw and gusty day; and she had to force +her way against the wind that set her ample skirts bellying about her +opulent figure and her veil spinning and streaming behind her. + +Oleron acted swiftly and instinctively. Seizing his hat, he sprang to the +door and descended the stairs at a run. A sort of panic had seized him. +She must be prevented from setting foot in the place. As he ran along the +alley he was conscious that his eyes went up to the eaves as if something +drew them. He did not know that a slate might not accidentally fall.... + +He met her at the gate, and spoke with curious volubleness. + +"This is really too bad, Elsie! Just as I'm urgently called away! I'm +afraid it can't be helped though, and that you'll have to think me an +inhospitable beast." He poured it out just as it came into his head. + +She asked if he was going to town. + +"Yes, yes--to town," he replied. "I've got to call on--on Chambers. You +know Chambers, don't you? No, I remember you don't; a big man you once +saw me with.... I ought to have gone yesterday, and--" this he felt to be +a brilliant effort--"and he's going out of town this afternoon. To +Brighton. I had a letter from him this morning." + +He took her arm and led her up the square. She had to remind him that his +way to town lay in the other direction. + +"Of course--how stupid of me!" he said, with a little loud laugh. "I'm so +used to going the other way with you--of course; it's the other way to +the bus. Will you come along with me? I am so awfully sorry it's happened +like this...." + +They took the street to the bus terminus. + +This time Elsie bore no signs of having gone through interior struggles. +If she detected anything unusual in his manner she made no comment, and +he, seeing her calm, began to talk less recklessly through silences. By +the time they reached the bus terminus, nobody, seeing the pallid-faced +man without an overcoat and the large ample-skirted girl at his side, +would have supposed that one of them was ready to sink on his knees for +thankfulness that he had, as he believed, saved the other from a wildly +unthinkable danger. + +They mounted to the top of the bus, Oleron protesting that he should not +miss his overcoat, and that he found the day, if anything, rather +oppressively hot. They sat down on a front seat. + +Now that this meeting was forced upon him, he had something else to say +that would make demands upon his tact. It had been on his mind for some +time, and was, indeed, peculiarly difficult to put. He revolved it for +some minutes, and then, remembering the success of his story of a sudden +call to town, cut the knot of his difficulty with another lie. + +"I'm thinking of going away for a little while, Elsie," he said. + +She merely said, "Oh?" + +"Somewhere for a change. I need a change. I think I shall go to-morrow, +or the day after. Yes, to-morrow, I think." + +"Yes," she replied. + +"I don't quite know how long I shall be," he continued. "I shall have to +let you know when I am back." + +"Yes, let me know," she replied in an even tone. + +The tone was, for her, suspiciously even. He was a little uneasy. + +"You don't ask me where I'm going," he said, with a little cumbrous +effort to rally her. + +She was looking straight before her, past the bus-driver. + +"I know," she said. + +He was startled. "How, you know?" + +"You're not going anywhere," she replied. + +He found not a word to say. It was a minute or so before she continued, +in the same controlled voice she had employed from the start. + +"You're not going anywhere. You weren't going out this morning. You only +came out because I appeared; don't behave as if we were strangers, Paul." + +A flush of pink had mounted to his cheeks. He noticed that the wind had +given her the pink of early rhubarb. Still he found nothing to say. + +"Of course, you ought to go away," she continued. "I don't know whether +you look at yourself often in the glass, but you're rather noticeable. +Several people have turned to look at you this morning. So, of course, +you ought to go away. But you won't, and I know why." + +He shivered, coughed a little, and then broke silence. + +"Then if you know, there's no use in continuing this discussion," he said +curtly. + +"Not for me, perhaps, but there is for you," she replied. "Shall I tell +you what I know?" + +"No," he said in a voice slightly raised. + +"No?" she asked, her round eyes earnestly on him. + +"No." + +Again he was getting out of patience with her; again he was conscious of +the strain. Her devotion and fidelity and love plagued him; she was only +humiliating both herself and him. It would have been bad enough had he +ever, by word or deed, given her cause for thus fastening herself on +him ... but there; that was the worst of that kind of life for a woman. +Women such as she, business women, in and out of offices all the time, +always, whether they realised it or not, made comradeship a cover for +something else. They accepted the unconventional status, came and +went freely, as men did, were honestly taken by men at their own +valuation--and then it turned out to be the other thing after all, and +they went and fell in love. No wonder there was gossip in shops and +squares and public houses! In a sense the gossipers were in the right of +it. Independent, yet not efficient; with some of womanhood's graces +forgone, and yet with all the woman's hunger and need; half +sophisticated, yet not wise; Oleron was tired of it all.... + +And it was time he told her so. + +"I suppose," he said tremblingly, looking down between his knees, "I +suppose the real trouble is in the life women who earn their own living +are obliged to lead." + +He could not tell in what sense she took the lame generality; she merely +replied, "I suppose so." + +"It can't be helped," he continued, "but you do sacrifice a good deal." + +She agreed: a good deal; and then she added after a moment, "What, for +instance?" + +"You may or may not be gradually attaining a new status, but you're in a +false position to-day." + +It was very likely, she said; she hadn't thought of it much in that +light-- + +"And," he continued desperately, "you're bound to suffer. Your most +innocent acts are misunderstood; motives you never dreamed of are +attributed to you; and in the end it comes to--" he hesitated a moment +and then took the plunge, "--to the sidelong look and the leer." + +She took his meaning with perfect ease. She merely shivered a little as +she pronounced the name. + +"Barrett?" + +His silence told her the rest. + +Anything further that was to be said must come from her. It came as the +bus stopped at a stage and fresh passengers mounted the stairs. + +"You'd better get down here and go back, Paul," she said. "I understand +perfectly--perfectly. It isn't Barrett. You'd be able to deal with +Barrett. It's merely convenient for you to say it's Barrett. I know what +it is ... but you said I wasn't to tell you that. Very well. But before +you go let me tell you why I came up this morning." + +In a dull tone he asked her why. Again she looked straight before her as +she replied: + +"I came to force your hand. Things couldn't go on as they have been +going, you know; and now that's all over." + +"All over," he repeated stupidly. + +"All over. I want you now to consider yourself, as far as I'm concerned, +perfectly free. I make only one reservation." + +He hardly had the spirit to ask her what that was. + +"If _I_ merely need _you_," she said, "please don't give that a thought; +that's nothing; I shan't come near for that. But," she dropped her voice, +"if _you're_ in need of _me_, Paul--I shall know if you are, _and you +will be_--then I shall come at no matter what cost. You understand that?" + +He could only groan. + +"So that's understood," she concluded. "And I think that's all. Now go +back. I should advise you to walk back, for you're shivering--good-bye--" + +She gave him a cold hand, and he descended. He turned on the edge of the +kerb as the bus started again. For the first time in all the years he had +known her she parted from him with no smile and no wave of her long arm. + + +IX + +He stood on the kerb plunged in misery, looking after her as long as she +remained in sight; but almost instantly with her disappearance he felt +the heaviness lift a little from his spirit. She had given him his +liberty; true, there was a sense in which he had never parted with it, +but now was no time for splitting hairs; he was free to act, and all was +clear ahead. Swiftly the sense of lightness grew on him: it became a +positive rejoicing in his liberty; and before he was halfway home he had +decided what must be done next. + +The vicar of the parish in which his dwelling was situated lived within +ten minutes of the square. To his house Oleron turned his steps. It was +necessary that he should have all the information he could get about this +old house with the insurance marks and the sloping "To Let" boards, and +the vicar was the person most likely to be able to furnish it. This last +preliminary out of the way, and--aha! Oleron chuckled--things might be +expected to happen! + +But he gained less information than he had hoped for. The house, the +vicar said, was old--but there needed no vicar to tell Oleron that; it +was reputed (Oleron pricked up his ears) to be haunted--but there were +few old houses about which some such rumour did not circulate among the +ignorant; and the deplorable lack of Faith of the modern world, the vicar +thought, did not tend to dissipate these superstitions. For the rest, +his manner was the soothing manner of one who prefers not to make +statements without knowing how they will be taken by his hearer. Oleron +smiled as he perceived this. + +"You may leave my nerves out of the question," he said. "How long has the +place been empty?" + +"A dozen years, I should say," the vicar replied. + +"And the last tenant--did you know him--or her?" Oleron was conscious of +a tingling of his nerves as he offered the vicar the alternative of sex. + +"Him," said the vicar. "A man. If I remember rightly, his name was +Madley; an artist. He was a great recluse; seldom went out of the place, +and--" the vicar hesitated and then broke into a little gush of candour +"--and since you appear to have come for this information, and since it +is better that the truth should be told than that garbled versions should +get about, I don't mind saying that this man Madley died there, under +somewhat unusual circumstances. It was ascertained at the post-mortem +that there was not a particle of food in his stomach, although he was +found to be not without money. And his frame was simply worn out. Suicide +was spoken of, but you'll agree with me that deliberate starvation is, to +say the least, an uncommon form of suicide. An open verdict was +returned." + +"Ah!" said Oleron.... "Does there happen to be any comprehensive history +of this parish?" + +"No; partial ones only. I myself am not guiltless of having made a number +of notes on its purely ecclesiastical history, its registers and so +forth, which I shall be happy to show you if you would care to see them; +but it is a large parish, I have only one curate, and my leisure, as you +will readily understand ..." + +The extent of the parish and the scantiness of the vicar's leisure +occupied the remainder of the interview, and Oleron thanked the vicar, +took his leave, and walked slowly home. + +He walked slowly for a reason, twice turning away from the house within a +stone's-throw of the gate and taking another turn of twenty minutes or +so. He had a very ticklish piece of work now before him; it required the +greatest mental concentration; it was nothing less than to bring his +mind, if he might, into such a state of unpreoccupation and receptivity +that he should see the place as he had seen it on that morning when, +his removal accomplished, he had sat down to begin the sixteenth chapter +of the first _Romilly_. + +For, could he recapture that first impression, he now hoped for far more +from it. Formerly, he had carried no end of mental lumber. Before the +influence of the place had been able to find him out at all, it had had +the inertia of those dreary chapters to overcome. No results had shown. +The process had been one of slow saturation, charging, filling up to a +brim. But now he was light, unburdened, rid at last both of that +_Romilly_ and of her prototype. Now for the new unknown, coy, jealous, +bewitching, Beckoning Fair!... + +At half-past two of the afternoon he put his key into the Yale lock, +entered, and closed the door behind him.... + +His fantastic attempt was instantly and astonishingly successful. He +could have shouted with triumph as he entered the room; it was as if he +had _escaped_ into it. Once more, as in the days when his writing had had +a daily freshness and wonder and promise for him, he was conscious of +that new ease and mastery and exhilaration and release. The air of the +place seemed to hold more oxygen; as if his own specific gravity had +changed, his very tread seemed less ponderable. The flowers in the bowls, +the fair proportions of the meadowsweet-coloured panels and mouldings, +the polished floor, and the lofty and faintly starred ceiling, fairly +laughed their welcome. Oleron actually laughed back, and spoke aloud. + +"Oh, you're pretty, pretty!" he flattered it. + +Then he lay down on his couch. + +He spent that afternoon as a convalescent who expected a dear visitor +might have spent it--in a delicious vacancy, smiling now and then as +if in his sleep, and ever lifting drowsy and contented eyes to his +alluring surroundings. He lay thus until darkness came, and, with +darkness, the nocturnal noises of the old house.... + +But if he waited for any specific happening, he waited in vain. + +He waited similarly in vain on the morrow, maintaining, though with less +ease, that sensitised-plate-like condition of his mind. Nothing occurred +to give it an impression. Whatever it was which he so patiently wooed, it +seemed to be both shy and exacting. + +Then on the third day he thought he understood. A look of gentle drollery +and cunning came into his eyes, and he chuckled. + +"Oho, oho!... Well, if the wind sits in _that_ quarter we must see what +else there is to be done. What is there, now?... No, I won't send for +Elsie; we don't need a wheel to break the butterfly on; we won't go to +those lengths, my butterfly...." + +He was standing musing, thumbing his lean jaw, looking aslant; suddenly +he crossed to his hall, took down his hat, and went out. + +"My lady is coquettish, is she? Well, we'll see what a little neglect +will do," he chuckled as he went down the stairs. + +He sought a railway station, got into a train, and spent the rest of the +day in the country. Oh, yes: Oleron thought _he_ was the man to deal with +Fair Ones who beckoned, and invited, and then took refuge in shyness and +hanging back! + +He did not return until after eleven that night. + +"_Now_, my Fair Beckoner!" he murmured as he walked along the alley and +felt in his pocket for his keys.... + +Inside his flat, he was perfectly composed, perfectly deliberate, +exceedingly careful not to give himself away. As if to intimate that he +intended to retire immediately, he lighted only a single candle; and as +he set out with it on his nightly round he affected to yawn. He went +first into his kitchen. There was a full moon, and a lozenge of +moonlight, almost peacock-blue by contrast with his candle-frame, lay on +the floor. The window was uncurtained, and he could see the reflection of +the candle, and, faintly, that of his own face, as he moved about. The +door of the powder-closet stood a little ajar, and he closed it before +sitting down to remove his boots on the chair with the cushion made of +the folded harp-bag. From the kitchen he passed to the bathroom. There, +another slant of blue moonlight cut the windowsill and lay across the +pipes on the wall. He visited his seldom-used study, and stood for a +moment gazing at the silvered roofs across the square. Then, walking +straight through his sitting-room, his stockinged feet making no noise, +he entered his bedroom and put the candle on the chest of drawers. His +face all this time wore no expression save that of tiredness. He had +never been wilier nor more alert. + +His small bedroom fireplace was opposite the chest of drawers on which +the mirror stood, and his bed and the window occupied the remaining +sides of the room. Oleron drew down his blind, took off his coat, and +then stooped to get his slippers from under the bed. + +He could have given no reason for the conviction, but that the +manifestation that for two days had been withheld was close at hand he +never for an instant doubted. Nor, though he could not form the faintest +guess of the shape it might take, did he experience fear. Startling or +surprising it might be; he was prepared for that; but that was all; his +scale of sensation had become depressed. His hand moved this way and that +under the bed in search of his slippers.... + +But for all his caution and method and preparedness, his heart all at +once gave a leap and a pause that was almost horrid. His hand had found +the slippers, but he was still on his knees; save for this circumstance +he would have fallen. The bed was a low one; the groping for the slippers +accounted for the turn of his head to one side; and he was careful to +keep the attitude until he had partly recovered his self-possession. When +presently he rose there was a drop of blood on his lower lip where he had +caught at it with his teeth, and his watch had jerked out of the pocket +of his waistcoat and was dangling at the end of its short leather +guard.... + +Then, before the watch had ceased its little oscillation, he was himself +again. + +In the middle of his mantelpiece there stood a picture, a portrait of his +grandmother; he placed himself before this picture, so that he could see +in the glass of it the steady flame of the candle that burned behind him +on the chest of drawers. He could see also in the picture-glass the +little glancings of light from the bevels and facets of the objects about +the mirror and candle. But he could see more. These twinklings and +reflections and re-reflections did not change their position; but there +was one gleam that had motion. It was fainter than the rest, and it moved +up and down through the air. It was the reflection of the candle on +Oleron's black vulcanite comb, and each of its downward movements was +accompanied by a silky and crackling rustle. + +Oleron, watching what went on in the glass of his grandmother's portrait, +continued to play his part. He felt for his dangling watch and began +slowly to wind it up. Then, for a moment ceasing to watch, he began to +empty his trousers pockets and to place methodically in a little row on +the mantelpiece the pennies and halfpennies he took from them. The +sweeping, minutely electric noise filled the whole bedroom, and had +Oleron altered his point of observation he could have brought the dim +gleam of the moving comb so into position that it would almost have +outlined his grandmother's head. + +Any other head of which it might have been following the outline was +invisible. + +Oleron finished the emptying of his pockets; then, under cover of another +simulated yawn, not so much summoning his resolution as overmastered by +an exhorbitant curiosity, he swung suddenly round. That which was being +combed was still not to be seen, but the comb did not stop. It had +altered its angle a little, and had moved a little to the left. It was +passing, in fairly regular sweeps, from a point rather more than five +feet from the ground, in a direction roughly vertical, to another point a +few inches below the level of the chest of drawers. + +Oleron continued to act to admiration. He walked to his little washstand +in the corner, poured out water, and began to wash his hands. He removed +his waistcoat, and continued his preparations for bed. The combing did +not cease, and he stood for a moment in thought. Again his eyes twinkled. +The next was very cunning-- + +"Hm!... _I think I'll read for a quarter of an hour_," he said aloud.... + +He passed out of the room. + +He was away a couple of minutes; when he returned again the room was +suddenly quiet. He glanced at the chest of drawers; the comb lay still, +between the collar he had removed and a pair of gloves. Without +hesitation Oleron put out his hand and picked it up. It was an ordinary +eighteenpenny comb, taken from a card in a chemist's shop, of a substance +of a definite specific gravity, and no more capable of rebellion against +the Laws by which it existed than are the worlds that keep their orbits +through the void. Oleron put it down again; then he glanced at the bundle +of papers he held in his hand. What he had gone to fetch had been the +fifteen chapters of the original _Romilly_. + +"Hm!" he muttered as he threw the manuscript into a chair.... "As I +thought.... She's just blindly, ragingly, murderously jealous." + + * * * * * + +On the night after that, and on the following night, and for many nights +and days, so many that he began to be uncertain about the count of them, +Oleron, courting, cajoling, neglecting, threatening, beseeching, eaten +out with unappeased curiosity and regardless that his life was becoming +one consuming passion and desire, continued his search for the unknown +co-numerator of his abode. + + +X + +As time went on, it came to pass that few except the postman mounted +Oleron's stairs; and since men who do not write letters receive few, even +the postman's tread became so infrequent that it was not heard more than +once or twice a week. There came a letter from Oleron's publishers, +asking when they might expect to receive the manuscript of his new book; +he delayed for some days to answer it, and finally forgot it. A second +letter came, which also he failed to answer. He received no third. + +The weather grew bright and warm. The privet bushes among the +chopper-like notice-boards flowered, and in the streets where Oleron did +his shopping the baskets of flower-women lined the kerbs. Oleron +purchased flowers daily; his room clamoured for flowers, fresh and +continually renewed; and Oleron did not stint its demands. Nevertheless, +the necessity for going out to buy them began to irk him more and more, +and it was with a greater and ever greater sense of relief that he +returned home again. He began to be conscious that again his scale of +sensation had suffered a subtle change--a change that was not restoration +to its former capacity, but an extension and enlarging that once more +included terror. It admitted it in an entirely new form. _Lux orco, +tenebrae Jovi_. The name of this terror was agoraphobia. Oleron had begun +to dread air and space and the horror that might pounce upon the +unguarded back. + +Presently he so contrived it that his food and flowers were delivered +daily at his door. He rubbed his hands when he had hit upon this +expedient. That was better! Now he could please himself whether he went +out or not.... + +Quickly he was confirmed in his choice. It became his pleasure to remain +immured. + +But he was not happy--or, if he was, his happiness took an extraordinary +turn. He fretted discontentedly, could sometimes have wept for mere +weakness and misery; and yet he was dimly conscious that he would not +have exchanged his sadness for all the noisy mirth of the world outside. +And speaking of noise: noise, much noise, now caused him the acutest +discomfort. It was hardly more to be endured than that new-born fear that +kept him, on the increasingly rare occasions when he did go out, sidling +close to walls and feeling friendly railings with his hand. He moved from +room to room softly and in slippers, and sometimes stood for many seconds +closing a door so gently that not a sound broke the stillness that was in +itself a delight. Sunday now became an intolerable day to him, for, since +the coming of the fine weather, there had begun to assemble in the square +under his windows each Sunday morning certain members of the sect to +which the long-nosed Barrett adhered. These came with a great drum and +large brass-bellied instruments; men and women uplifted anguished voices, +struggling with their God; and Barrett himself, with upraised face and +closed eyes and working brows, prayed that the sound of his voice might +penetrate the ears of all unbelievers--as it certainly did Oleron's. One +day, in the middle of one of these rhapsodies, Oleron sprang to his blind +and pulled it down, and heard as he did so his own name made the subject +of a fresh torrent of outpouring. + +And sometimes, but not as expecting a reply, Oleron stood still and +called softly. Once or twice he called "Romilly!" and then waited; but +more often his whispering did not take the shape of a name. + +There was one spot in particular of his abode that he began to haunt with +increasing persistency. This was just within the opening of his bedroom +door. He had discovered one day that by opening every door in his place +(always excepting the outer one, which he only opened unwillingly) and by +placing himself on this particular spot, he could actually see to a +greater or less extent into each of his five rooms without changing his +position. He could see the whole of his sitting-room, all of his bedroom +except the part hidden by the open door, and glimpses of his kitchen, +bathroom, and of his rarely used study. He was often in this place, +breathless and with his finger on his lip. One day, as he stood there, he +suddenly found himself wondering whether this Madley, of whom the vicar +had spoken, had ever discovered the strategic importance of the bedroom +entry. + +Light, moreover, now caused him greater disquietude than did darkness. +Direct sunlight, of which, as the sun passed daily round the house, each +of his rooms had now its share, was like a flame in his brain; and even +diffused light was a dull and numbing ache. He began, at successive hours +of the day, one after another, to lower his crimson blinds. He made short +and daring excursions in order to do this; but he was ever careful to +leave his retreat open, in case he should have sudden need of it. +Presently this lowering of the blinds had become a daily methodical +exercise, and his rooms, when he had been his round, had the blood-red +half-light of a photographer's darkroom. + +One day, as he drew down the blind of his little study and backed in good +order out of the room again, he broke into a soft laugh. + +"_That_ bilks Mr. Barrett!" he said; and the baffling of Barrett +continued to afford him mirth for an hour. + +But on another day, soon after, he had a fright that left him trembling +also for an hour. He had seized the cord to darken the window over the +seat in which he had found the harp-bag, and was standing with his back +well protected in the embrasure, when he thought he saw the tail of a +black-and-white check skirt disappear round the corner of the house. He +could not be sure--had he run to the window of the other wall, which was +blinded, the skirt must have been already past--but he was _almost_ sure +that it was Elsie. He listened in an agony of suspense for her tread on +the stairs.... + +But no tread came, and after three or four minutes he drew a long breath +of relief. + +"By Jove, but that would have compromised me horribly!" he muttered.... + +And he continued to mutter from time to time, "Horribly +compromising ... _no_ woman would stand that ... not _any_ kind of +woman ... oh, compromising in the extreme!" + +Yet he was not happy. He could not have assigned the cause of the fits of +quiet weeping which took him sometimes; they came and went, like the +fitful illumination of the clouds that travelled over the square; and +perhaps, after all, if he was not happy, he was not unhappy. Before +he could be unhappy something must have been withdrawn, and nothing had +yet been withdrawn from him, for nothing had been granted. He was waiting +for that granting, in that flower-laden, frightfully enticing apartment +of his, with the pith-white walls tinged and subdued by the crimson +blinds to a blood-like gloom. + +He paid no heed to it that his stock of money was running perilously low, +nor that he had ceased to work. Ceased to work? He had not ceased to +work. They knew very little about it who supposed that Oleron had ceased +to work! He was in truth only now beginning to work. He was preparing +such a work ... such a work ... such a Mistress was a-making in the +gestation of his Art ... let him but get this period of probation and +poignant waiting over and men should see.... How _should_ men know her, +this Fair One of Oleron's, until Oleron himself knew her? Lovely radiant +creations are not thrown off like How-d'ye-do's. The men to whom it is +committed to father them must weep wretched tears, as Oleron did, must +swell with vain presumptuous hopes, as Oleron did, must pursue, as Oleron +pursued, the capricious, fair, mocking, slippery, eager Spirit that, ever +eluding, ever sees to it that the chase does not slacken. Let Oleron but +hunt this Huntress a little longer... he would have her sparkling +and panting in his arms yet.... Oh no: they were very far from the truth +who supposed that Oleron had ceased to work! + +And if all else was falling away from Oleron, gladly he was letting it +go. So do we all when our Fair Ones beckon. Quite at the beginning we +wink, and promise ourselves that we will put Her Ladyship through her +paces, neglect her for a day, turn her own jealous wiles against her, +flout and ignore her when she comes wheedling; perhaps there lurks within +us all the time a heartless sprite who is never fooled; but in the end +all falls away. She beckons, beckons, and all goes.... + +And so Oleron kept his strategic post within the frame of his bedroom +door, and watched, and waited, and smiled, with his finger on his +lips.... It was his duteous service, his worship, his troth-plighting, +all that he had ever known of Love. And when he found himself, as he now +and then did, hating the dead man Madley, and wishing that he had never +lived, he felt that that, too, was an acceptable service.... + +But, as he thus prepared himself, as it were, for a Marriage, and moped +and chafed more and more that the Bride made no sign, he made a discovery +that he ought to have made weeks before. + +It was through a thought of the dead Madley that he made it. Since that +night when he had thought in his greenness that a little studied neglect +would bring the lovely Beckoner to her knees, and had made use of her own +jealousy to banish her, he had not set eyes on those fifteen discarded +chapters of _Romilly_. He had thrown them back into the window-seat, +forgotten their very existence. But his own jealousy of Madley put him in +mind of hers of her jilted rival of flesh and blood, and he remembered +them.... Fool that he had been! Had he, then, expected his Desire to +manifest herself while there still existed the evidence of his divided +allegiance? What, and she with a passion so fierce and centred that it +had not hesitated at the destruction, twice attempted, of her rival? Fool +that he had been!... + +But if _that_ was all the pledge and sacrifice she required she should +have it--ah, yes, and quickly! + +He took the manuscript from the window-seat, and brought it to the fire. + +He kept his fire always burning now; the warmth brought out the last +vestige of odour of the flowers with which his room was banked. He did +not know what time it was; long since he had allowed his clock to run +down--it had seemed a foolish measurer of time in regard to the +stupendous things that were happening to Oleron; but he knew it was late. +He took the _Romilly_ manuscript and knelt before the fire. + +But he had not finished removing the fastening that held the sheets +together before he suddenly gave a start, turned his head over his +shoulder, and listened intently. The sound he had heard had not been +loud--it had been, indeed, no more than a tap, twice or thrice +repeated--but it had filled Oleron with alarm. His face grew dark as +it came again. + +He heard a voice outside on his landing. + +"Paul!... Paul!..." + +It was Elsie's voice. + +"Paul!... I know you're in... I want to see you...." + +He cursed her under his breath, but kept perfectly still. He did not +intend to admit her. + +"Paul!... You're in trouble.... I believe you're in danger... at least +come to the door!..." + +Oleron smothered a low laugh. It somehow amused him that she, in such +danger herself, should talk to him of _his_ danger!... Well, if she was, +serve her right; she knew, or said she knew, all about it.... + +"Paul!... Paul!..." + +"_Paul!... Paul!_..." He mimicked her under his breath. + +"Oh, Paul, it's _horrible_!..." + +Horrible, was it? thought Oleron. Then let her get away.... + +"I only want to help you, Paul.... I didn't promise not to come if you +needed me...." + +He was impervious to the pitiful sob that interrupted the low cry. The +devil take the woman! Should he shout to her to go away and not come +back? No: let her call and knock and sob. She had a gift for sobbing; she +mustn't think her sobs would move him. They irritated him, so that he set +his teeth and shook his fist at her, but that was all. Let her sob. + +"_Paul!... Paul!_..." + +With his teeth hard set, he dropped the first page of _Romilly_ into the +fire. Then he began to drop the rest in, sheet by sheet. + +For many minutes the calling behind his door continued; then suddenly it +ceased. He heard the sound of feet slowly descending the stairs. He +listened for the noise of a fall or a cry or the crash of a piece of the +handrail of the upper landing; but none of these things came. She was +spared. Apparently her rival suffered her to crawl abject and beaten +away. Oleron heard the passing of her steps under his window; then she +was gone. + +He dropped the last page into the fire, and then, with a low laugh rose. +He looked fondly round his room. + +"Lucky to get away like that," he remarked. "She wouldn't have got away +if I'd given her as much as a word or a look! What devils these women +are!... But no; I oughtn't to say that; one of 'em showed +forbearance...." + +Who showed forbearance? And what was forborne? Ah, Oleron +knew!... Contempt, no doubt, had been at the bottom of it, but that +didn't matter: the pestering creature had been allowed to go unharmed. +Yes, she was lucky; Oleron hoped she knew it.... + +And now, now, now for his reward! + +Oleron crossed the room. All his doors were open; his eyes shone as he +placed himself within that of his bedroom. + +Fool that he had been, not to think of destroying the manuscript +sooner!... + + * * * * * + +How, in a houseful of shadows, should he know his own Shadow? How, in a +houseful of noises, distinguish the summons he felt to be at hand? Ah, +trust him! He would know! The place was full of a jugglery of dim lights. +The blind at his elbow that allowed the light of a street lamp to +struggle vaguely through--the glimpse of greeny blue moonlight seen +through the distant kitchen door--the sulky glow of the fire under the +black ashes of the burnt manuscript--the glimmering of the tulips and the +moon-daisies and narcissi in the bowls and jugs and jars--these did not +so trick and bewilder his eyes that he would not know his Own! It was he, +not she, who had been delaying the shadowy Bridal; he hung his head for a +moment in mute acknowledgment; then he bent his eyes on the deceiving, +puzzling gloom again. He would have called her name had he known it--but +now he would not ask her to share even a name with the other.... + +His own face, within the frame of the door, glimmered white as the +narcissi in the darkness.... + +A shadow, light as fleece, seemed to take shape in the kitchen (the time +had been when Oleron would have said that a cloud had passed over the +unseen moon). The low illumination on the blind at his elbow grew dimmer +(the time had been when Oleron would have concluded that the lamplighter +going his rounds had turned low the flame of the lamp). The fire settled, +letting down the black and charred papers; a flower fell from a bowl, +and lay indistinct upon the floor; all was still; and then a stray +draught moved through the old house, passing before Oleron's face.... + +Suddenly, inclining his head, he withdrew a little from the door-jamb. +The wandering draught caused the door to move a little on its hinges. +Oleron trembled violently, stood for a moment longer, and then, putting +his hand out to the knob, softly drew the door to, sat down on the +nearest chair, and waited, as a man might await the calling of his name +that should summon him to some weighty, high and privy Audience.... + + +XI + +One knows not whether there can be human compassion for anemia of the +soul. When the pitch of Life is dropped, and the spirit is so put over +and reversed that that only is horrible which before was sweet and +worldly and of the day, the human relation disappears. The sane soul +turns appalled away, lest not merely itself, but sanity should suffer. +We are not gods. We cannot drive out devils. We must see selfishly +to it that devils do not enter into ourselves. + +And this we must do even though Love so transfuse us that we may well +deem our nature to be half divine. We shall but speak of honour and duty +in vain. The letter dropped within the dark door will lie unregarded, or, +if regarded for a brief instant between two unspeakable lapses, left and +forgotten again. The telegram will be undelivered, nor will the whistling +messenger (wiselier guided than he knows to whistle) be conscious as he +walks away of the drawn blind that is pushed aside an inch by a finger +and then fearfully replaced again. No: let the miserable wrestle with his +own shadows; let him, if indeed he be so mad, clip and strain and enfold +and couch the succubus; but let him do so in a house into which not an +air of Heaven penetrates, nor a bright finger of the sun pierces the +filthy twilight. The lost must remain lost. Humanity has other business +to attend to. + +For the handwriting of the two letters that Oleron, stealing noiselessly +one June day into his kitchen to rid his sitting-room of an armful of +fetid and decaying flowers, had seen on the floor within his door, had +had no more meaning for him than if it had belonged to some dim and +faraway dream. And at the beating of the telegraph-boy upon the door, +within a few feet of the bed where he lay, he had gnashed his teeth and +stopped his ears. He had pictured the lad standing there, just beyond his +partition, among packets of provisions and bundles of dead and dying +flowers. For his outer landing was littered with these. Oleron had feared +to open his door to take them in. After a week, the errand lads had +reported that there must be some mistake about the order, and had left no +more. Inside, in the red twilight, the old flowers turned brown and fell +and decayed where they lay. + +Gradually his power was draining away. The Abomination fastened on +Oleron's power. The steady sapping sometimes left him for many hours +of prostration gazing vacantly up at his red-tinged ceiling, idly +suffering such fancies as came of themselves to have their way with him. +Even the strongest of his memories had no more than a precarious hold +upon his attention. Sometimes a flitting half-memory, of a novel to be +written, a novel it was important that he should write, tantalised him +for a space before vanishing again; and sometimes whole novels, perfect, +splendid, established to endure, rose magically before him. And sometimes +the memories were absurdly remote and trivial, of garrets he had +inhabited and lodgings that had sheltered him, and so forth. Oleron had +known a good deal about such things in his time, but all that was now +past. He had at last found a place which he did not intend to leave until +they fetched him out--a place that some might have thought a little on +the green-sick side, that others might have considered to be a little too +redolent of long-dead and morbid things for a living man to be mewed up +in, but ah, so irresistible, with such an authority of its own, with such +an associate of its own, and a place of such delights when once a man had +ceased to struggle against its inexorable will! A novel? Somebody ought +to write a novel about a place like that! There must be lots to write +about in a place like that if one could but get to the bottom of it! It +had probably already been painted, by a man called Madley who had lived +there ... but Oleron had not known this Madley--had a strong feeling +that he wouldn't have liked him--would rather he had lived somewhere +else--really couldn't stand the fellow--hated him, Madley, in fact. (Aha! +That was a joke!). He seriously doubted whether the man had led the life +he ought; Oleron was in two minds sometimes whether he wouldn't tell that +long-nosed guardian of the public morals across the way about him; but +probably he knew, and had made his praying hullabaloos for him also. +That was his line. Why, Oleron himself had had a dust-up with him about +something or other ... some girl or other ... Elsie Bengough her name +was, he remembered.... + +Oleron had moments of deep uneasiness about this Elsie Bengough. Or +rather, he was not so much uneasy about her as restless about the things +she did. Chief of these was the way in which she persisted in thrusting +herself into his thoughts; and, whenever he was quick enough, he sent her +packing the moment she made her appearance there. The truth was that she +was not merely a bore; she had always been that; it had now come to the +pitch when her very presence in his fancy was inimical to the full +enjoyment of certain experiences.... She had no tact; really ought to +have known that people are not at home to the thoughts of everybody all +the time; ought in mere politeness to have allowed him certain seasons +quite to himself; and was monstrously ignorant of things if she did not +know, as she appeared not to know, that there were certain special hours +when a man's veins ran with fire and daring and power, in which ... well, +in which he had a reasonable right to treat folk as he had treated that +prying Barrett--to shut them out completely.... But no: up she popped, +the thought of her, and ruined all. Bright towering fabrics, by the side +of which even those perfect, magical novels of which he dreamed were dun +and grey, vanished utterly at her intrusion. It was as if a fog should +suddenly quench some fair-beaming star, as if at the threshold of some +golden portal prepared for Oleron a pit should suddenly gape, as if a +bat-like shadow should turn the growing dawn to mirk and darkness +again.... Therefore, Oleron strove to stifle even the nascent thought +of her. + +Nevertheless, there came an occasion on which this woman Bengough +absolutely refused to be suppressed. Oleron could not have told exactly +when this happened; he only knew by the glimmer of the street lamp on his +blind that it was some time during the night, and that for some time she +had not presented herself. + +He had no warning, none, of her coming; she just came--was there. Strive +as he would, he could not shake off the thought of her nor the image of +her face. She haunted him. + +But for her to come at that moment of all moments!... Really, it was past +belief! How she could endure it, Oleron could not conceive! Actually, to +look on, as it were, at the triumph of a Rival.... Good God! It was +monstrous! tact--reticence--he had never credited her with an +overwhelming amount of either: but he had never attributed mere--oh, +there was no word for it! Monstrous--monstrous! Did she intend +thenceforward.... Good God! To look on!... + +Oleron felt the blood rush up to the roots of his hair with anger against +her. + +"Damnation take her!" he choked.... + +But the next moment his heat and resentment had changed to a cold sweat +of cowering fear. Panic-stricken, he strove to comprehend what he had +done. For though he knew not what, he knew he had done something, +something fatal, irreparable, blasting. Anger he had felt, but not _this_ +blaze of ire that suddenly flooded the twilight of his consciousness with +a white infernal light. _That_ appalling flash was not his--not his +_that_ open rift of bright and searing Hell--not his, not his! His had +been the hand of a child, preparing a puny blow; but what was _this +other_ horrific hand that was drawn back to strike in the same place? Had +_he_ set that in motion? Had _he_ provided the spark that had touched off +the whole accumulated power of that formidable and relentless place? He +did not know. He only knew that that poor igniting particle in himself +was blown out, that--Oh, impossible!--a clinging kiss (how else to +express it?) had changed on his very lips to a gnashing and a removal, +and that for very pity of the awful odds he must cry out to her against +whom he had lately raged to guard herself ... guard herself.... + +"_Look out!_" he shrieked aloud.... + + * * * * * + +The revulsion was instant. As if a cold slow billow had broken over him, +he came to to find that he was lying in his bed, that the mist and horror +that had for so long enwrapped him had departed, that he was Paul Oleron, +and that he was sick, naked, helpless, and unutterably abandoned and +alone. His faculties, though weak, answered at last to his calls upon +them; and he knew that it must have been a hideous nightmare that had +left him sweating and shaking thus. + +Yes, he was himself, Paul Oleron, a tired novelist, already past the +summit of his best work, and slipping downhill again empty-handed from it +all. He had struck short in his life's aim. He had tried too much, had +over-estimated his strength, and was a failure, a failure.... + +It all came to him in the single word, enwrapped and complete; it needed +no sequential thought; he was a failure. He had missed.... + +And he had missed not one happiness, but two. He had missed the ease of +this world, which men love, and he had missed also that other shining +prize for which men forgo ease, the snatching and holding and triumphant +bearing up aloft of which is the only justification of the mad adventurer +who hazards the enterprise. And there was no second attempt. Fate has no +morrow. Oleron's morrow must be to sit down to profitless, ill-done, +unrequired work again, and so on the morrow after that, and the morrow +after that, and as many morrows as there might be.... + +He lay there, weakly yet sanely considering it.... + +And since the whole attempt had failed, it was hardly worth while to +consider whether a little might not be saved from the general wreck. No +good would ever come of that half-finished novel. He had intended that it +should appear in the autumn; was under contract that it should appear; no +matter; it was better to pay forfeit to his publishers than to waste what +days were left. He was spent; age was not far off; and paths of wisdom +and sadness were the properest for the remainder of the journey.... + +If only he had chosen the wife, the child the faithful friend at the +fireside, and let them follow an _ignis fatuus_ that list!... + +In the meantime it began to puzzle him exceedingly what he should be so +weak, that his room should smell so overpoweringly of decaying vegetable +matter, and that his hand, chancing to stray to his face in the darkness, +should encounter a beard. + +"Most extraordinary!" he began to mutter to himself. "Have I been ill? Am +I ill now? And if so, why have they left me alone?... Extraordinary!..." + +He thought he heard a sound from the kitchen or bathroom. He rose a +little on his pillow, and listened.... Ah! He was not alone, then! It +certainly would have been extraordinary if they had left him ill and +alone--Alone? Oh no. He would be looked after. He wouldn't be left, ill, +to shift for himself. If everybody else had forsaken him, he could trust +Elsie Bengough, the dearest chum he had, for that ... bless her faithful +heart! + +But suddenly a short, stifled, spluttering cry rang sharply out: + +"_Paul!_" + +It came from the kitchen. + +And in the same moment it flashed upon Oleron, he knew not how, that two, +three, five, he knew not how many minutes before, another sound, unmarked +at the time but suddenly transfixing his attention now, had striven to +reach his intelligence. This sound had been the slight touch of metal on +metal--just such a sound as Oleron made when he put his key into the +lock. + +"Hallo!... Who's that?" he called sharply from his bed. + +He had no answer. + +He called again. "Hallo!... Who's there?... Who is it?" + +This time he was sure he heard noises, soft and heavy, in the kitchen. + +"This is a queer thing altogether," he muttered. "By Jove, I'm as weak as +a kitten too.... Hallo, there! Somebody called, didn't they?... Elsie! Is +that you?..." + +Then he began to knock with his hand on the wall at the side of his bed. + +"Elsie!... Elsie!... You called, didn't you?... Please come here, whoever +it is!..." + +There was a sound as of a closing door, and then silence. Oleron began to +get rather alarmed. + +"It may be a nurse," he muttered; "Elsie'd have to get me a nurse, of +course. She'd sit with me as long as she could spare the time, brave +lass, and she'd get a nurse for the rest.... But it was awfully like her +voice.... Elsie, or whoever it is!... I can't make this out at all. I +must go and see what's the matter...." + +He put one leg out of bed. Feeling its feebleness, he reached with his +hand for the additional support of the wall.... + + * * * * * + +But before putting out the other leg he stopped and considered, picking +at his new-found beard. He was suddenly wondering whether he _dared_ go +into the kitchen. It was such a frightfully long way; no man knew what +horror might not leap and huddle on his shoulders if he went so far; +when a man has an overmastering impulse to get back into bed he ought to +take heed of the warning and obey it. Besides, why should he go? What +was there to go for? If it was that Bengough creature again, let her look +after herself; Oleron was not going to have things cramp themselves on +his defenceless back for the sake of such a spoilsport as _she_!... If +she was in, let her let herself out again, and the sooner the better for +her! Oleron simply couldn't be bothered. He had his work to do. On the +morrow, he must set about the writing of a novel with a heroine so +winsome, capricious, adorable, jealous, wicked, beautiful, inflaming, and +altogether evil, that men should stand amazed. She was coming over him +now; he knew by the alteration of the very air of the room when she was +near him; and that soft thrill of bliss that had begun to stir in him +never came unless she was beckoning, beckoning.... + +He let go the wall and fell back into bed again as--oh, unthinkable!--the +other half of that kiss that a gnash had interrupted was placed (how else +convey it?) on his lips, robbing him of very breath.... + + +XII + +In the bright June sunlight a crowd filled the square, and looked up at +the windows of the old house with the antique insurance marks in its +walls of red brick and the agents' notice-boards hanging like wooden +choppers over the paling. Two constables stood at the broken gate of the +narrow entrance-alley, keeping folk back. The women kept to the outskirts +of the throng, moving now and then as if to see the drawn red blinds of +the old house from a new angle, and talking in whispers. The children +were in the houses, behind closed doors. + +A long-nosed man had a little group about him, and he was telling some +story over and over again; and another man, little and fat and wide-eyed, +sought to capture the long-nosed man's audience with some relation in +which a key figured. + +"... and it was revealed to me that there'd been something that very +afternoon," the long-nosed man was saying. "I was standing there, where +Constable Saunders is--or rather, I was passing about my business, when +they came out. There was no deceiving me, oh, no deceiving _me! I_ saw +her face...." + +"What was it like, Mr. Barrett?" a man asked. + +"It was like hers whom our Lord said to, 'Woman, doth any man accuse +thee?'--white as paper, and no mistake! Don't tell _me_!... And so I +walks straight across to Mrs. Barrett, and 'Jane,' I says, 'this must +stop, and stop at once; we are commanded to avoid evil,' I says, 'and it +must come to an end now; let him get help elsewhere.' + +"And she says to me, 'John,' she says, 'it's four-and-sixpence a +week'--them was her words. + +"'Jane,' I says, 'if it was forty-six thousand pounds it should +stop'... and from that day to this she hasn't set foot inside that gate." + +There was a short silence: then, + +"Did Mrs. Barrett ever..._ see_ anythink, like?" somebody vaguely +inquired. + +Barrett turned austerely on the speaker. + +"What Mrs. Barrett saw and Mrs. Barrett didn't see shall not pass these +lips; even as it is written, keep thy tongue from speaking evil," he +said. + +Another man spoke. + +"He was pretty near canned up in the _Waggon and Horses_ that night, +weren't he, Jim?" + +"Yes, 'e 'adn't 'alf copped it...." + +"Not standing treat much, neither; he was in the bar, all on his own...." + +"So 'e was; we talked about it...." + +The fat, scared-eyed man made another attempt. + +"She got the key off of me--she 'ad the number of it--she come into my +shop of a Tuesday evening...." + +Nobody heeded him. + +"Shut your heads," a heavy labourer commented gruffly, "she hasn't been +found yet. 'Ere's the inspectors; we shall know more in a bit." + +Two inspectors had come up and were talking to the constables who guarded +the gate. The little fat man ran eagerly forward, saying that she had +bought the key of him. "I remember the number, because of it's being +three one's and three three's--111333!" he exclaimed excitedly. + +An inspector put him aside. + +"Nobody's been in?" he asked of one of the constables. + +"No, sir." + +"Then you, Brackley, come with us; you, Smith, keep the gate. There's a +squad on its way." + +The two inspectors and the constable passed down the alley and entered +the house. They mounted the wide carved staircase. + +"This don't look as if he'd been out much lately," one of the inspectors +muttered as he kicked aside a litter of dead leaves and paper that lay +outside Oleron's door. "I don't think we need knock--break a pane, +Brackley." + +The door had two glazed panels; there was a sound of shattered glass; and +Brackley put his hand through the hole his elbow had made and drew back +the latch. + +"Faugh!"... choked one of the inspectors as they entered. "Let some light +and air in, quick. It stinks like a hearse--" + +The assembly out in the square saw the red blinds go up and the windows +of the old house flung open. + +"That's better," said one of the inspectors, putting his head out of a +window and drawing a deep breath.... "That seems to be the bedroom in +there; will you go in, Simms, while I go over the rest?..." + +They had drawn up the bedroom blind also, and the waxy-white, emaciated +man on the bed had made a blinker of his hand against the torturing +flood of brightness. Nor could he believe that his hearing was not +playing tricks with him, for there were two policemen in his room, +bending over him and asking where "she" was. He shook his head. + +"This woman Bengough... goes by the name of Miss Elsie Bengough... d'ye +hear? Where is she?... No good, Brackley; get him up; be careful with +him; I'll just shove _my_ head out of the window, I think...." + +The other inspector had been through Oleron's study and had found +nothing, and was now in the kitchen, kicking aside an ankle-deep mass of +vegetable refuse that cumbered the floor. The kitchen window had no +blind, and was over-shadowed by the blank end of the house across the +alley. The kitchen appeared to be empty. + +But the inspector, kicking aside the dead flowers, noticed that a +shuffling track that was not of his making had been swept to a cupboard +in the corner. In the upper part of the door of the cupboard was a square +panel that looked as if it slid on runners. The door itself was closed. + +The inspector advanced, put out his hand to the little knob, and slid the +hatch along its groove. + +Then he took an involuntary step back again. + +Framed in the aperture, and falling forward a little before it jammed +again in its frame, was something that resembled a large lumpy pudding, +done up in a pudding-bag of faded browny red frieze. + +"Ah!" said the inspector. + +To close the hatch again he would have had to thrust that pudding back +with his hand; and somehow he did not quite like the idea of touching +it. Instead, he turned the handle of the cupboard itself. There was +weight behind it, so much weight that, after opening the door three or +four inches and peering inside, he had to put his shoulder to it in order +to close it again. In closing it he left sticking out, a few inches from +the floor, a triangle of black and white check skirt. + +He went into the small hall. + +"All right!" he called. + +They had got Oleron into his clothes. He still used his hands as +blinkers, and his brain was very confused. A number of things were +happening that he couldn't understand. He couldn't understand the +extraordinary mess of dead flowers there seemed to be everywhere; he +couldn't understand why there should be police officers in his room; he +couldn't understand why one of these should be sent for a four-wheeler +and a stretcher; and he couldn't understand what heavy article they +seemed to be moving about in the kitchen--his kitchen.... + +"What's the matter?" he muttered sleepily.... + +Then he heard a murmur in the square, and the stopping of a four-wheeler +outside. A police officer was at his elbow again, and Oleron wondered +why, when he whispered something to him, he should run off a string of +words--something about "used in evidence against you." They had lifted +him to his feet, and were assisting him towards the door.... + +No, Oleron couldn't understand it at all. + +They got him down the stairs and along the alley. Oleron was aware of +confused angry shoutings; he gathered that a number of people wanted to +lynch somebody or other. Then his attention became fixed on a little fat +frightened-eyed man who appeared to be making a statement that an officer +was taking down in a notebook. + +"I'd seen her with him ... they was often together ... she came into my +shop and said it was for him ... I thought it was all right ... 111333 +the number was," the man was saying. + +The people seemed to be very angry; many police were keeping them back; +but one of the inspectors had a voice that Oleron thought quite kind and +friendly. He was telling somebody to get somebody else into the cab +before something or other was brought out; and Oleron noticed that a +four-wheeler was drawn up at the gate. It appeared that it was himself +who was to be put into it; and as they lifted him up he saw that the +inspector tried to stand between him and something that stood behind the +cab, but was not quick enough to prevent Oleron seeing that this +something was a hooded stretcher. The angry voices sounded like a sea; +something hard, like a stone, hit the back of the cab; and the inspector +followed Oleron in and stood with his back to the window nearer the side +where the people were. The door they had put Oleron in at remained open, +apparently till the other inspector should come; and through the opening +Oleron had a glimpse of the hatchet-like "To Let" boards among the +privet-trees. One of them said that the key was at Number Six.... + +Suddenly the raging of voices was hushed. Along the entrance-alley +shuffling steps were heard, and the other inspector appeared at the +cab door. + +"Right away," he said to the driver. + +He entered, fastened the door after him, and blocked up the second window +with his back. Between the two inspectors Oleron slept peacefully. The +cab moved down the square, the other vehicle went up the hill. The +mortuary lay that way. + + + + +PHANTAS + + + _"For, barring all pother, + With this, or the other, +Still Britons are Lords of the Main._" + + +THE CHAPTER OF ADMIRALS + + +I + +As Abel Keeling lay on the galleon's deck, held from rolling down it only +by his own weight and the sun-blackened hand that lay outstretched upon +the planks, his gaze wandered, but ever returned to the bell that hung, +jammed with the dangerous heel-over of the vessel, in the small +ornamental belfry immediately abaft the mainmast. The bell was of cast +bronze, with half-obliterated bosses upon it that had been the heads of +cherubs; but wind and salt spray had given it a thick incrustation of +bright, beautiful, lichenous green. It was this colour that Abel +Keeling's eyes liked. + +For wherever else on the galleon his eyes rested they found only +whiteness--the whiteness of extreme eld. There were slightly varying +degrees in her whiteness; here she was of a white that glistened like +salt-granules, there of a greyish chalky white, and again her whiteness +had the yellowish cast of decay; but everywhere it was the mild, +disquieting whiteness of materials out of which the life had departed. +Her cordage was bleached as old straw is bleached, and half her ropes +kept their shape little more firmly than the ash of a string keeps its +shape after the fire has passed; her pallid timbers were white and clean +as bones found in sand; and even the wild frankincense with which (for +lack of tar, at her last touching of land) she had been pitched, had +dried to a pale hard gum that sparkled like quartz in her open seams. The +sun was yet so pale a buckler of silver through the still white mists +that not a cord or timber cast a shadow; and only Abel Keeling's face and +hands were black, carked and cinder-black from exposure to his pitiless +rays. + +The galleon was the _Mary of the Tower_, and she had a frightful list to +starboard. So canted was she that her mainyard dipped one of its steel +sickles into the glassy water, and, had her foremast remained, or more +than the broken stump of her bonaventure mizzen, she must have turned +over completely. Many days ago they had stripped the mainyard of its +course, and had passed the sail under the Mary's bottom, in the hope that +it would stop the leak. This it had partly done as long as the galleon +had continued to glide one way; then, without coming about, she had begun +to glide the other, the ropes had parted, and she had dragged the sail +after her, leaving a broad tarnish on the silver sea. + +For it was broadside that the galleon glided, almost imperceptibly, ever +sucking down. She glided as if a loadstone drew her, and, at first, Abel +Keeling had thought it was a loadstone, pulling at her iron, drawing her +through the pearly mists that lay like face-cloths to the water and hid +at a short distance the tarnish left by the sail. But later he had known +that it was no loadstone drawing at her iron. The motion was due--must +be due--to the absolute deadness of the calm in that silent, sinister, +three-miles-broad waterway. With the eye of his mind he saw that +loadstone now as he lay against a gun-truck, all but toppling down the +deck. Soon that would happen again which had happened for five days past. +He would hear again the chattering of monkeys and the screaming of +parrots, the mat of green and yellow weeds would creep in towards the +Mary over the quicksilver sea, once more the sheer wall of rock would +rise, and the men would run.... + +But no; the men would not run this time to drop the fenders. There were +no men left to do so, unless Bligh was still alive. Perhaps Bligh was +still alive. He had walked half-way down the quarter-deck steps a little +before the sudden nightfall of the day before, had then fallen and lain +for a minute (dead, Abel Keeling had supposed, watching him from his +place by the gun-truck), and had then got up again and tottered forward +to the forecastle, his tall figure swaying and his long arms waving. Abel +Keeling had not seen him since. Most likely, he had died in the +forecastle during the night. If he had not been dead he would have come +aft again for water.... + +At the remembrance of the water Abel Keeling lifted his head. The strands +of lean muscle about his emaciated mouth worked, and he made a little +pressure of his sun-blackened hand on the deck, as if to verify its +steepness and his own balance. The mainmast was some seven or eight yards +away.... He put one stiff leg under him and began, seated as he was, to +make shuffling movements down the slope. + +To the mainmast, near the belfry, was affixed his contrivance for +catching water. It consisted of a collar of rope set lower at one side +than at the other (but that had been before the mast had steeved so many +degrees away from the zenith), and tallowed beneath. The mists lingered +later in that gully of a strait than they did on the open ocean, and the +collar of rope served as a collector for the dews that condensed on the +mast. The drops fell into a small earthen pipkin placed on the deck +beneath it. + +Abel Keeling reached the pipkin and looked into it. It was nearly a third +full of fresh water. Good. If Bligh, the mate, was dead, so much the more +water for Abel Keeling, master of the _Mary of the Tower_. He dipped two +fingers into the pipkin and put them into his mouth. This he did several +times. He did not dare to raise the pipkin to his black and broken lips +for dread of a remembered agony, he could not have told how many days +ago, when a devil had whispered to him, and he had gulped down the +contents of the pipkin in the morning, and for the rest of the day had +gone waterless.... Again he moistened his fingers and sucked them; then +he lay sprawling against the mast, idly watching the drops of water +as they fell. + +It was odd how the drops formed. Slowly they collected at the edge of the +tallowed collar, trembled in their fullness for an instant, and fell, +another beginning the process instantly. It amused Abel Keeling to watch +them. Why (he wondered) were all the drops the same size? What cause and +compulsion did they obey that they never varied, and what frail tenuity +held the little globules intact? It must be due to some Cause.... He +remembered that the aromatic gum of the wild frankincense with which they +had parcelled the seams had hung on the buckets in great sluggish gouts, +obedient to a different compulsion; oil was different again, and so were +juices and balsams. Only quicksilver (perhaps the heavy and motionless +sea put him in mind of quicksilver) seemed obedient to no law.... Why was +it so? + +Bligh, of course, would have had his explanation: it was the Hand of God. +That sufficed for Bligh, who had gone forward the evening before, and +whom Abel Keeling now seemed vaguely and as at a distance to remember as +the deep-voiced fanatic who had sung his hymns as, man by man, he had +committed the bodies of the ship's company to the deep. Bligh was that +sort of man; accepted things without question; was content to take things +as they were and be ready with the fenders when the wall of rock rose out +of the opalescent mists. Bligh, too, like the waterdrops, had his Law, +that was his and nobody else's.... + +There floated down from some rotten rope up aloft a flake of scurf, that +settled in the pipkin. Abel Keeling watched it dully as it settled +towards the pipkin's rim. When presently he again dipped his fingers into +the vessel the water ran into a little vortex, drawing the flake with it. +The water settled again; and again the minute flake determined towards +the rim and adhered there, as if the rim had power to draw it.... + +It was exactly so that the galleon was gliding towards the wall of rock, +the yellow and green weeds, and the monkeys and parrots. Put out into +mid-water again (while there had been men to put her out) she had glided +to the other wall. One force drew the chip in the pipkin and the ship +over the tranced sea. It was the Hand of God, said Bligh.... + +Abel Keeling, his mind now noting minute things and now clouded with +torpor, did not at first hear a voice that was quakingly lifted up +over by the forecastle--a voice that drew nearer, to an accompaniment of +swirling water. + +_"O Thou, that Jonas in the fish + Three days didst keep from pain, +Which was a figure of Thy death + And rising up again--"_ + +It was Bligh, singing one of his hymns: + +_"O Thou, that Noah keptst from flood + And Abram, day by day, +As he along through Egypt passed + Didst guide him in the way--"_ + +The voice ceased, leaving the pious period uncompleted. Bligh was alive, +at any rate.... Abel Keeling resumed his fitful musing. + +Yes, that was the Law of Bligh's life, to call things the Hand of God; +but Abel Keeling's Law was different; no better, no worse, only +different. The Hand of God, that drew chips and galleons, must work by +some method; and Abel Keeling's eyes were dully on the pipkin again as if +he sought the method there.... + +Then conscious thought left him for a space, and when he resumed it was +without obvious connection. + +Oars, of course, were the thing. With oars, men could laugh at calms. +Oars, that only pinnaces and galliasses now used, had had their +advantages. But oars (which was to say a method, for you could say if you +liked that the Hand of God grasped the oar-loom, as the Breath of God +filled the sail)--oars were antiquated, belonged to the past, and meant a +throwing-over of all that was good and new and a return to fine lines, a +battle-formation abreast to give effect to the shock of the ram, and a +day or two at sea and then to port again for provisions. Oars ... no. +Abel Keeling was one of the new men, the men who swore by the line-ahead, +the broadside fire of sakers and demi-cannon, and weeks and months +without a landfall. Perhaps one day the wits of such men as he would +devise a craft, not oar-driven (because oars could not penetrate into the +remote seas of the world)--not sail-driven (because men who trusted to +sails found themselves in an airless, three-mile strait, suspended +motionless between cloud and water, ever gliding to a wall of rock)--but +a ship ... a ship ... + +"_To Noah and his sons with him + God spake, and thus said He: +A covenant set I up with you + And your posterity_--" + +It was Bligh again, wandering somewhere in the waist. Abel Keeling's mind +was once more a blank. Then slowly, slowly, as the water drops collected +on the collar of rope, his thought took shape again. + +A galliasse? No, not a galliasse. The galliasse made shift to be two +things, and was neither. This ship, that the hand of man should one day +make for the Hand of God to manage, should be a ship that should take and +conserve the force of the wind, take it and store it as she stored her +victuals; at rest when she wished, going ahead when she wished; turning +the forces both of calm and storm against themselves. For, of course, her +force must be wind--stored wind--a bag of the winds, as the children's +tale had it--wind probably directed upon the water astern, driving it +away and urging forward the ship, acting by reaction. She would have a +wind-chamber, into which wind would be pumped with pumps.... Bligh would +call that equally the Hand of God, this driving-force of the ship of the +future that Abel Keeling dimly foreshadowed as he lay between the +mainmast and the belfry, turning his eyes now and then from ashy white +timbers to the vivid green bronze-rust of the bell above him.... + +Bligh's face, liver-coloured with the sun and ravaged from inwards by the +faith that consumed him, appeared at the head of the quarter-deck steps. +His voice beat uncontrolledly out. + +_"And in the earth here is no place + Of refuge to be found, +Nor in the deep and water-course + That passeth under ground--"_ + + +II + +Bligh's eyes were lidded, as if in contemplation of his inner ecstasy. +His head was thrown back, and his brows worked up and down tormentedly. +His wide mouth remained open as his hymn was suddenly interrupted on the +long-drawn note. From somewhere in the shimmering mists the note was +taken up, and there drummed and rang and reverberated through the strait +a windy, hoarse, and dismal bellow, alarming and sustained. A tremor rang +through Bligh. Moving like a sightless man, he stumbled forward from the +head of the quarter-deck steps, and Abel Keeling was aware of his gaunt +figure behind him, taller for the steepness of the deck. As that vast +empty sound died away, Bligh laughed in his mania. + +"Lord, hath the grave's wide mouth a tongue to praise Thee? Lo, again--" + +Again the cavernous sound possessed the air, louder and nearer. Through +it came another sound, a slow throb, throb--throb, throb--Again the +sounds ceased. + +"Even Leviathan lifteth up his voice in praise!" Bligh sobbed. + +Abel Keeling did not raise his head. There had returned to him the memory +of that day when, before the morning mists had lifted from the strait, he +had emptied the pipkin of the water that was the allowance until night +should fall again. During that agony of thirst he had seen shapes and +heard sounds with other than his mortal eyes and ears, and even in the +moments that had alternated with his lightness, when he had known these +to be hallucinations, they had come again. He had heard the bells on a +Sunday in his own Kentish home, the calling of children at play, the +unconcerned singing of men at their daily labour, and the laughter and +gossip of the women as they had spread the linen on the hedge or +distributed bread upon the platters. These voices had rung in his brain, +interrupted now and then by the groans of Bligh and of two other men who +had been alive then. Some of the voices he had heard had been silent on +earth this many a long year, but Abel Keeling, thirst-tortured, had heard +them, even as he was now hearing that vacant moaning with the +intermittent throbbing that filled the strait with alarm.... + +"Praise Him, praise Him, praise Him!" Bligh was calling deliriously. + +Then a bell seemed to sound in Abel Keeling's ears, and, as if something +in the mechanism of his brain had slipped, another picture rose in his +fancy--the scene when the _Mary of the Tower_ had put out, to a bravery +of swinging bells and shrill fifes and valiant trumpets. She had not been +a leper-white galleon then. The scroll-work on her prow had twinkled with +gilding; her belfry and stern-galleries and elaborate lanterns had +flashed in the sun with gold; and her fighting-tops and the war-pavesse +about her waist had been gay with painted coats and scutcheons. To her +sails had been stitched gaudy ramping lions of scarlet saye, and from her +mainyard, now dipping in the water, had hung the broad two-tailed pennant +with the Virgin and Child embroidered upon it.... + +Then suddenly a voice about him seemed to be saying, "_And a +half-seven--and a half-seven--_" and in a twink the picture in Abel +Keeling's brain changed again. He was at home again, instructing his son, +young Abel, in the casting of the lead from the skiff they had pulled out +of the harbour. + +"_And a half-seven!_" the boy seemed to be calling. + +Abel Keeling's blackened lips muttered: "Excellently well cast, Abel, +excellently well cast!" + +"_And a half-seven--and a half-seven--seven--seven--_" + +"Ah," Abel Keeling murmured, "that last was not a clear cast--give me the +line--thus it should go ... ay, so.... Soon you shall sail the seas with +me in the _Mary of the Tower_. You are already perfect in the stars and +the motions of the planets; to-morrow I will instruct you in the use of +the backstaff...." + +For a minute or two he continued to mutter; then he dozed. When again he +came to semi-consciousness it was once more to the sound of bells, at +first faint, then louder, and finally becoming a noisy clamour +immediately above his head. It was Bligh. Bligh, in a fresh attack of +delirium, had seized the bell-lanyard and was ringing the bell insanely. +The cord broke in his fingers, but he thrust at the bell with his hand, +and again called aloud. + +"Upon an harp and an instrument of ten strings ... let Heaven and Earth +praise Thy Name!..." + +He continued to call aloud, and to beat on the bronze-rusted bell. + +_"Ship ahoy! What ship's that?"_ + +One would have said that a veritable hail had come out of the mists; but +Abel Keeling knew those hails that came out of the mists. They came from +ships which were not there. "Ay, ay, keep a good look-out, and have a +care to your lodemanage," he muttered again to his son.... + +But, as sometimes a sleeper sits up in his dream, or rises from his couch +and walks, so all of a sudden Abel Keeling found himself on his hands and +knees on the deck, looking back over his shoulder. In some deep-seated +region of his consciousness he was dimly aware that the cant of the deck +had become more perilous, but his brain received the intelligence and +forgot it again. He was looking out into the bright and baffling mists. +The buckler of the sun was of a more ardent silver; the sea below it was +lost in brilliant evaporation; and between them, suspended in the haze, +no more substantial than the vague darknesses that float before dazzled +eyes, a pyramidal phantom-shape hung. Abel Keeling passed his hand over +his eyes, but when he removed it the shape was still there, gliding +slowly towards the _Mary's_ quarter. Its form changed as he watched it. +The spirit-grey shape that had been a pyramid seemed to dissolve into +four upright members, slightly graduated in tallness, that nearest the +_Mary's_ stern the tallest and that to the left the lowest. It might have +been the shadow of the gigantic set of reed-pipes on which that vacant +mournful note had been sounded. + +And as he looked, with fooled eyes, again his ears became fooled: + +_"Ahoy there! What ship's that? Are you a ship?... Here, give me that +trumpet--"_ Then a metallic barking. _"Ahoy there! What the devil are +you? Didn't you ring a bell? Ring it again, or blow a blast or something, +and go dead slow!"_ + +All this came, as it were, indistinctly, and through a sort of high +singing in Abel Keeling's own ears. Then he fancied a short bewildered +laugh, followed by a colloquy from somewhere between sea and sky. + +"Here, Ward, just pinch me, will you? Tell me what you see there. I want +to know if I'm awake." + +"See where?" + +"There, on the starboard bow. (Stop that ventilating fan; I can't +hear myself think.) See anything? Don't tell me it's that damned +Dutchman--don't pitch me that old Vanderdecken tale--give me an easy +one first, something about a sea-serpent.... You did hear that bell, +didn't you?" + +"Shut up a minute--listen--" + +Again Bligh's voice was lifted up. + +_"This is the cov'nant that I make: + From henceforth nevermore +Will I again the world destroy + With water, as before."_ + +Bligh's voice died away again in Abel Keeling's ears. + +"_Oh--my--fat--Aunt--Julia!_" the voice that seemed to come from between +sea and sky sounded again. Then it spoke more loudly. "_I say,_" it began +with careful politeness, "_if you are a ship, do you mind telling us +where the masquerade is to be? Our wireless is out of order, and we +hadn't heard of it.... Oh, you do see it, Ward, don't you?... Please, +please tell us what the hell you are!_" + +Again Abel Keeling had moved as a sleepwalker moves. He had raised +himself up by the belfry timbers, and Bligh had sunk in a heap on the +deck. Abel Keeling's movement overturned the pipkin, which raced the +little trickle of its contents down the deck and lodged where the still +and brimming sea made, as it were, a chain with the carved balustrade of +the quarter-deck--one link a still gleaming edge, then a dark baluster, +and then another gleaming link. For one moment only Abel Keeling found +himself noticing that that which had driven Bligh aft had been the +rising of the water in the waist as the galleon settled by the head--the +waist was now entirely submerged; then once more he was absorbed in +his dream, its voices, and its shape in the mist, which had again taken +the form of a pyramid before his eyeballs. + +"_Of course_," a voice seemed to be complaining anew, and still through +that confused dinning in Abel Keeling's ears, "_we can't turn a four-inch +on it.... And, of course, Ward, I don't believe in 'em. D'you hear, Ward? +I don't believe in 'em, I say.... Shall we call down to old A. B.? This +might interest His Scientific Skippership...._" + +"Oh, lower a boat and pull out to it--into it--over it--through it--" + +"Look at our chaps crowded on the barbette yonder. They've seen it. +Better not give an order you know won't be obeyed...." + +Abel Keeling, cramped against the antique belfry, had begun to find his +dream interesting. For, though he did not know her build, that mirage was +the shape of a ship. No doubt it was projected from his brooding on ships +of half an hour before; and that was odd.... But perhaps, after all, it +was not very odd. He knew that she did not really exist; only the +appearance of her existed; but things had to exist like that before they +really existed. Before the _Mary of the Tower_ had existed she had been a +shape in some man's imagination; before that, some dreamer had dreamed +the form of a ship with oars; and before that, far away in the dawn and +infancy of the world, some seer had seen in a vision the raft before man +had ventured to push out over the water on his two planks. And since this +shape that rode before Abel Keeling's eyes was a shape in his, Abel +Keeling's dream, he, Abel Keeling, was the master of it. His own brooding +brain had contrived her, and she was launched upon the illimitable ocean +of his own mind.... + +_"And I will not unmindful be + Of this, My covenant, passed +Twixt Me and you and every flesh + Whiles that the world should last,"_ + +sang Bligh, rapt.... + +But as a dreamer, even in his dream, will scratch upon the wall by his +couch some key or word to put him in mind of his vision on the morrow +when it has left him, so Abel Keeling found himself seeking some sign to +be a proof to those to whom no vision is vouchsafed. Even Bligh sought +that--could not be silent in his bliss, but lay on the deck there, +uttering great passionate Amens and praising his Maker, as he said, upon +an harp and an instrument of ten strings. So with Abel Keeling. It would +be the Amen of his life to have praised God, not upon a harp, but upon a +ship that should carry her own power, that should store wind or its +equivalent as she stored her victuals, that should be something wrested +from the chaos of uninvention and ordered and disciplined and +subordinated to Abel Keeling's will.... And there she was, that +ship-shaped thing of spirit-grey, with the four pipes that resembled a +phantom organ now broadside and of equal length. And the ghost-crew +of that ship were speaking again.... + +The interrupted silver chain by the quarterdeck balustrade had now become +continuous, and the balusters made a herring-bone over their own +motionless reflections. The spilt water from the pipkin had dried, and +the pipkin was not to be seen. Abel Keeling stood beside the mast, erect +as God made man to go. With his leathery hand he smote upon the bell. He +waited for the space of a minute, and then cried: + +"Ahoy!... Ship ahoy!... What ship's that?" + + +III + +We are not conscious in a dream that we are playing a game the beginning +and end of which are in ourselves. In this dream of Abel Keeling's a +voice replied: + +"_Hallo, it's found its tongue.... Ahoy there! What are you?_" + +Loudly and in a clear voice Abel Keeling called: "Are you a ship?" + +With a nervous giggle the answer came: + +"_We are a ship, aren't we, Ward? I hardly feel sure.... Yes, of course, +we're a ship. No question about us. The question is what the dickens +you are._" + +Not all the words these voices used were intelligible to Abel Keeling, +and he knew not what it was in the tone of these last words that reminded +him of the honour due to the _Mary of the Tower_. Blister-white and at +the end of her life as she was, Abel Keeling was still jealous of her +dignity; the voice had a youngish ring; and it was not fitting that young +chins should be wagged about his galleon. He spoke curtly. + +"You that spoke--are you the master of that ship?" + +"_Officer of the watch_," the words floated back; "_the captain's +below_." + +"Then send for him. It is with masters that masters hold speech," Abel +Keeling replied. + +He could see the two shapes, flat and without relief, standing on a high +narrow structure with rails. One of them gave a low whistle, and seemed +to be fanning his face; but the other rumbled something into a sort of +funnel. Presently the two shapes became three. There was a murmuring, +as of a consultation, and then suddenly a new voice spoke. At its thrill +and tone a sudden tremor ran through Abel Keeling's frame. He wondered +what response it was that that voice found in the forgotten recesses of +his memory.... + +"_Ahoy!_" seemed to call this new yet faintly remembered voice. "_What's +all this about? Listen. We're His Majesty's destroyer_ Seapink, _out of +Devonport last October, and nothing particular the matter with us. Now +who are you?_" + +"The _Mary of the Tower_, out of the Port of Rye on the day of Saint +Anne, and only two men--" + +A gasp interrupted him. + +"_Out of_ WHERE?" that voice that so strangely moved Abel Keeling said +unsteadily, while Bligh broke into groans of renewed rapture. + +"Out of the Port of Rye, in the County of Sussex ... nay, give ear, else +I cannot make you hear me while this man's spirit and flesh wrestle so +together!... Ahoy! Are you gone?" For the voices had become a low murmur, +and the ship-shape had faded before Abel Keeling's eyes. Again and again +he called. He wished to be informed of the disposition and economy of the +wind-chamber.... + +"The wind-chamber!" he called, in an agony lest the knowledge +almost within his grasp should be lost. "I would know about the +wind-chamber...." + +Like an echo, there came back the words, uncomprehendingly uttered, "_The +wind-chamber_?..." + +"... that driveth the vessel--perchance 'tis not wind--a steel bow that +is bent also conserveth force--the force you store, to move at will +through calm and storm...." + +"Can you make out what it's driving at?" + +"Oh, we shall all wake up in a minute...." + +"Quiet, I have it; the engines; it wants to know about our engines. +It'll be wanting to see our papers presently. Rye Port!... Well, no harm +in humouring it; let's see what it can make of this. Ahoy there!" came +the voice to Abel Keeling, a little more strongly, as if a shifting wind +carried it, and speaking faster and faster as it went on. "Not wind, but +steam; d'you hear? Steam, steam. Steam, in eight Yarrow water-tube +boilers. S-t-e-a-m, steam. Got it? And we've twin-screw triple expansion +engines, indicated horse-power four thousand, and we can do 430 +revolutions per minute; savvy? Is there anything your phantomhood would +like to know about our armament?..." + +Abel Keeling was muttering fretfully to himself. It annoyed him that +words in his own vision should have no meaning for him. How did words +come to him in a dream that he had no knowledge of when wide awake? The +_Seapink_--that was the name of this ship; but a pink was long and +narrow, low-carged and square-built aft.... + +"_And as for our armament,_" the voice with the tones that so profoundly +troubled Abel Keeling's memory continued, "_we've two revolving Whitehead +torpedo-tubes, three six-pounders on the upper deck, and that's a +twelve-pounder forward there by the conning-tower. I forgot to mention +that we're nickel steel, with a coal capacity of sixty tons in most +damnably placed bunkers, and that thirty and a quarter knots is about our +top. Care to come aboard?_" + +But the voice was speaking still more rapidly and feverishly, as if to +fill a silence with no matter what, and the shape that was uttering it +was straining forward anxiously over the rail. + +"_Ugh! But I'm glad this happened in the daylight,_" another voice was +muttering. + +"I wish I was sure it was happening at all.... Poor old spook!" + +"I suppose it would keep its feet if her deck was quite vertical. Think +she'll go down, or just melt?" + +"Kind of go down ... without wash...." + +"Listen--here's the other one now--" + +For Bligh was singing again: + +"For, Lord, Thou know'st our nature such + If we great things obtain, +And in the getting of the same + Do feel no grief or pain, + +"We little do esteem thereof; + But, hardly brought to pass, +A thousand times we do esteem + More than the other was." + +_"But oh, look--look--look at the other!... Oh, I say, wasn't he a grand +old boy! Look!"_ + +For, transfiguring Abel Reeling's form as a prophet's form is +transfigured in the instant of his rapture, flooding his brain with the +white eureka-light of perfect knowledge, that for which he and his dream +had been at a standstill had come. He knew her, this ship of the future, +as if God's Finger had bitten her lines into his brain. He knew her as +those already sinking into the grave know things, miraculously, +completely, accepting Life's impossibilities with a nodded "Of course." +From the ardent mouths of her eight furnaces to the last drip from her +lubricators, from her bed-plates to the breeches of her quick-firers, he +knew her--read her gauges, thumbed her bearings, gave the ranges from her +range-finders, and lived the life he lived who was in command of her. And +he would not forget on the morrow, as he had forgotten on many morrows, +for at last he had seen the water about his feet, and knew that there +would be no morrow for him in this world.... + +And even in that moment, with but a sand or two to run in his glass, +indomitable, insatiable, dreaming dream on dream, he could not die until +he knew more. He had two questions to ask, and a master-question; and but +a moment remained. Sharply his voice rang out. + +"Ho, there!... This ancient ship, the _Mary of the Tower_, cannot steam +thirty and a quarter knots, but yet she can sail the waters. What +more does your ship? Can she soar above them, as the fowls of the air +soar?" + +"_Lord, he thinks we're an aeroplane!... No, she can't...._" + +"And can you dive, even as the fishes of the deep?" + +"_No.... Those are submarines ... we aren't a submarine...._" + +But Abel Keeling waited for no more. He gave an exulting chuckle. + +"Oho, oho--thirty knots, and but on the face of the waters--no more than +that? Oho!... Now _my_ ship, the ship I see as a mother sees full-grown +the child she has but conceived--_my_ ship, I say--oho!--_my_ ship +shall.... Below there--trip that gun!" + +The cry came suddenly and alertly, as a muffled sound came from below and +an ominous tremor shook the galleon. + +"_By Jove, her guns are breaking loose below--that's her finish_--" + +"Trip that gun, and double-breech the others!" Abel Keeling's voice rang +out, as if there had been any to obey him. He had braced himself within +the belfry frame; and then in the middle of the next order his voice +suddenly failed him. His ship-shape, that for the moment he had +forgotten, rode once more before his eyes. This was the end, and his +master-question, apprehension for the answer to which was now torturing +his face and well-nigh bursting his heart, was still unasked. + +"Ho--he that spoke with me--the master," he cried in a voice that ran +high, "is he there?" + +"_Yes, yes!_" came the other voice across the water, sick with suspense. +"_Oh, be quick!_" + +There was a moment in which hoarse cries from many voices, a heavy thud +and rumble on wood, and a crash of timbers and a gurgle and a splash were +indescribably mingled; the gun under which Abel Keeling had lain had +snapped her rotten breechings and plunged down the deck, carrying Bligh's +unconscious form with it. The deck came up vertical, and for one instant +longer Abel Keeling clung to the belfry. + +"I cannot see your face," he screamed, "but meseems your voice is a voice +I know. _What is your name_?" + +In a torn sob the answer came across the water: + +"_Keeling--Abel Keeling.... Oh, my God!_" + +And Abel Keeling's cry of triumph, that mounted to a victorious "Huzza!" +was lost in the downward plunge of the _Mary of the Tower_, that left +the strait empty save for the sun's fiery blaze and the last smoke-like +evaporation of the mists. + + + + +ROOUM + + +For all I ever knew to the contrary, it was his own name; and something +about him, name or man or both, always put me in mind, I can't tell you +how, of negroes. As regards the name, I dare say it was something +huggermugger in the mere sound--something that I classed, for no +particular reason, with the dark and ignorant sort of words, such as +"Obi" and "Hoodoo." I only know that after I learned that his name was +Rooum, I couldn't for the life of me have thought of him as being called +anything else. + +The first impression that you got of his head was that it was a patchwork +of black and white--black bushy hair and short white beard, or else the +other way about. As a matter of fact, both hair and beard were piebald, +so that if you saw him in the gloom a dim patch of white showed down one +side of his head, and dark tufts cropped up here and there in his beard. +His eyebrows alone were entirely black, with a little sprouting of hair +almost joining them. And perhaps his skin helped to make me think of +negroes, for it was very dark, of the dark brown that always seems to +have more than a hint of green behind it. His forehead was low, and +scored across with deep horizontal furrows. + +We never knew when he was going to turn up on a job. We might not have +seen him for weeks, but his face was always as likely as not to appear +over the edge of a crane-platform just when that marvellous mechanical +intuition of his was badly needed. He wasn't certificated. He wasn't even +trained, as the rest of us understood training; and he scoffed at the +drawing-office, and laughed outright at logarithms and our laborious +methods of getting out quantities. But he could set sheers and tackle in +a way that made the rest of us look silly. I remember once how, through +the parting of a chain, a sixty-foot girder had come down and lay under +a ruck of other stuff, as the bottom chip lies under a pile of +spellikins--a hopeless-looking smash. Myself, I'm certificated twice or +three times over; but I can only assure you that I wanted to kick myself +when, after I'd spent a day and a sleepless night over the job, I saw the +game of tit-tat-toe that Rooum made of it in an hour or two. Certificated +or not, a man isn't a fool who can do that sort of thing. And he was +one of these fellows, too, who can "find water"--tell you where water is +and what amount of getting it is likely to take, by just walking over the +place. We aren't certificated up to that yet. + +He was offered good money to stick to us--to stick to our firm--but he +always shook his black-and-white piebald head. He'd never be able to keep +the bargain if he were to make it, he told us quite fairly. I know there +are these chaps who can't endure to be clocked to their work with a +patent time-clock in the morning and released of an evening with a +whistle--and it's one of the things no master can ever understand. So +Rooum came and went erratically, showing up maybe in Leeds or Liverpool, +perhaps next on Plymouth breakwater, and once he turned up in an +out-of-the-way place in Glamorganshire just when I was wondering what had +become of him. + +The way I got to know him (got to know him, I mean, more than just to +nod) was that he tacked himself on to me one night down Vauxhall way, +where we were setting up some small plant or other. We had knocked off +for the day, and I was walking in the direction of the bridge when he +came up. We walked along together; and we had not gone far before it +appeared that his reason for joining me was that he wanted to know "what +a molecule was." + +I stared at him a bit. + +"What do you want to know that for?" I said. "What does a chap like you, +who can do it all backwards, want with molecules?" + +Oh, he just wanted to know, he said. + +So, on the way across the bridge, I gave it him more or less from the +book--molecular theory and all the rest of it. But, from the childish +questions he put, it was plain that he hadn't got the hang of it at all. +"Did the molecular theory allow things to pass through one another?" he +wanted to know; "_Could_ things pass through one another?" and a lot of +ridiculous things like that. I gave it up. + +"You're a genius in your own way, Rooum," I said finally; "you know these +things without the books we plodders have to depend on. If I'd luck like +that, I think I should be content with it." + +But he didn't seem satisfied, though he dropped the matter for that time. +But I had his acquaintance, which was more than most of us had. He +asked me, rather timidly, if I'd lend him a book or two. I did so, but +they didn't seem to contain what he wanted to know, and he soon returned +them, without remark. + +Now you'd expect a fellow to be specially sensitive, one way or another, +who can tell when there's water a hundred feet beneath him; and as you +know, the big men are squabbling yet about this water-finding business. +But, somehow, the water-finding puzzled me less than it did that Rooum +should be extraordinarily sensitive to something far commoner and easier +to understand--ordinary echoes. He couldn't stand echoes. He'd go a +mile round rather than pass a place that he knew had an echo; and if he +came on one by chance, sometimes he'd hurry through as quick as he +could, and sometimes he'd loiter and listen very intently. I rather joked +about this at first, till I found it really distressed him; then, of +course, I pretended not to notice. We're all cranky somewhere, and for +that matter, I can't touch a spider myself. + +For the remarkable thing that overtook Rooum--(that, by the way, is an +odd way to put it, as you'll see presently; but the words came that +way into my head, so let them stand)--for the remarkable thing that +overtook Rooum, I don't think I can begin better than with the first +time, or very soon after the first time, that I noticed this peculiarity +about the echoes. + +It was early on a particularly dismal November evening, and this time we +were somewhere out south-east London way, just beyond what they are +pleased to call the building-line--you know these districts of wretched +trees and grimy fields and market-gardens that are about the same to real +country that a slum is to a town. It rained that night; rain was the most +appropriate weather for the brickfields and sewage-farms and yards of old +carts and railway-sleepers we were passing. The rain shone on the black +hand-bag that Rooum always carried; and I sucked at the dottle of a pipe +that it was too much trouble to fill and light again. We were walking in +the direction of Lewisham (I think it would be), and were still a little +way from that eruption of red-brick houses that ... but you've doubtless +seen them. + +You know how, when they're laying out new roads, they lay down the +narrow strip of kerb first, with neither setts on the one hand nor +flagstones on the other? We had come upon one of these. (I had noticed +how, as we had come a few minutes before under a tall hollow-ringing +railway arch, Rooum had all at once stopped talking--it was the echo, of +course, that bothered him.) The unmade road to which we had come had +headless lamp-standards at intervals, and ramparts of grey road-metal +ready for use; and save for the strip of kerb, it was a broth of mud +and stiff clay. A red light or two showed where the road-barriers +were--they were laying the mains; a green railway light showed on an +embankment; and the Lewisham lamps made a rusty glare through the rain. +Rooum went first, walking along the narrow strip of kerb. + +The lamp-standards were a little difficult to see, and when I heard Rooum +stop suddenly and draw in his breath sharply, I thought he had walked +into one of them. + +"Hurt yourself?" I said. + +He walked on without replying; but half a dozen yards farther on he +stopped again. He was listening again. He waited for me to come up. + +"I say," he said, in an odd sort of voice, "go a yard or two ahead, will +you?" + +"What's the matter?" I asked, as I passed ahead. He didn't answer. + +Well, I hadn't been leading for more than a minute before he wanted to +change again. He was breathing very quick and short. + +"Why, what ails you?" I demanded, stopping. + +"It's all right.... You're not playing any tricks, are you?..." + +I saw him pass his hand over his brow. + +"Come, get on," I said shortly; and we didn't speak again till we struck +the pavement with the lighted lamps. Then I happened to glance at him. + +"Here," I said brusquely, taking him by the sleeve, "you're not well. +We'll call somewhere and get a drink." + +"Yes," he said, again wiping his brow. "I say ... did you hear?" + +"Hear what?" + +"Ah, you didn't ... and, of course, you didn't feel anything...." + +"Come, you're shaking." + +When presently we came to a brightly lighted public-house or hotel, I saw +that he was shaking even worse than I had thought. The shirt-sleeved +barman noticed it too, and watched us curiously. I made Rooum sit down, +and got him some brandy. + +"What was the matter?" I asked, as I held the glass to his lips. + +But I could get nothing out of him except that it was "All right--all +right," with his head twitching over his shoulder almost as if he had +touch of the dance. He began to come round a little. He wasn't the kind +of man you'd press for explanations, and presently we set out again. +He walked with me as far as my lodgings, refused to come in, but for all +that lingered at the gate as if loath to leave. I watched him turn the +corner in the rain. + +We came home together again the next evening, but by a different way, +quite half a mile longer. He had waited for me a little pertinaciously. +It seemed he wanted to talk about molecules again. + +Well, when a man of his age--he'd be near fifty--begins to ask questions, +he's rather worse than a child who wants to know where Heaven is or some +such thing--for you can't put him off as you can the child. Somewhere or +other he'd picked up the word "osmosis," and seemed to have some +glimmering of its meaning. He dropped the molecules, and began to ask me +about osmosis. + +"It means, doesn't it," he demanded, "that liquids will work their way +into one another--through a bladder or something? Say a thick fluid and a +thin: you'll find some of the thick in the thin, and the thin in the +thick?" + +"Yes. The thick into the thin is ex-osmosis, and the other end-osmosis. +That takes place more quickly. But I don't know a deal about it." + +"Does it ever take place with solids?" he next asked. + +What was he driving at? I thought; but replied: "I believe that what is +commonly called 'adhesion' is something of the sort, under another name." + +"A good deal of this bookwork seems to be finding a dozen names for the +same thing," he grunted; and continued to ask his questions. + +But what it was he really wanted to know I couldn't for the life of me +make out. + +Well, he was due any time now to disappear again, having worked quite six +weeks in one place; and he disappeared. He disappeared for a good many +weeks. I think it would be about February before I saw or heard of him +again. + +It was February weather, anyway, and in an echoing enough place that I +found him--the subway of one of the Metropolitan stations. He'd probably +forgotten the echoes when he'd taken the train; but, of course, the +railway folk won't let a man who happens to dislike echoes go wandering +across the metals where he likes. + +He was twenty yards ahead when I saw him. I recognised him by his patched +head and black hand-bag. I ran along the subway after him. + +It was very curious. He'd been walking close to the white-tiled wall, +and I saw him suddenly stop; but he didn't turn. He didn't even turn +when I pulled up, close behind him; he put out one hand to the wall, as +if to steady himself. But, the moment I touched his shoulder, he just +dropped--just dropped, half on his knees against the white tiling. The +face he turned round and up to me was transfixed with fright. + +There were half a hundred people about--a train was just in--and it isn't +a difficult matter in London to get a crowd for much less than a man +crouching terrified against a wall, looking over his shoulder as Rooum +looked, at another man almost as terrified. I felt somebody's hand on +my own arm. Evidently somebody thought I'd knocked Rooum down. + +The terror went slowly from his face. He stumbled to his feet. I shook +myself free of the man who held me and stepped up to Rooum. + +"What the devil's all this about?" I demanded, roughly enough. + +"It's all right ... it's all right,..." he stammered. + +"Heavens, man, you shouldn't play tricks like that!" + +"No ... no ... but for the love of God don't do it again!..." + +"We'll not explain here," I said, still in a good deal of a huff; and +the small crowd melted away--disappointed, I dare say, that it wasn't +a fight. + +"Now," I said, when we were outside in the crowded street, "you might let +me know what all this is about, and what it is that for the love of +God I'm not to do again." + +He was half apologetic, but at the same time half blustering, as if I had +committed some sort of an outrage. + +"A senseless thing like that!" he mumbled to himself. "But there: you +didn't know.... You _don't_ know, do you?... I tell you, d'you hear, +_you're not to run at all when I'm about_! You're a nice fellow and all +that, and get your quantities somewhere near right, if you do go a long +way round to do it--but I'll not answer for myself if you run, d'you +hear?... Putting your hand on a man's shoulder like that, just when ..." + +"Certainly I might have spoken," I agreed, a little stiffly. + +"Of course, you ought to have spoken! Just you see you don't do it again. +It's monstrous!" + +I put a curt question. + +"Are you sure you're quite right in your head, Rooum?" + +"Ah," he cried, "don't you think I just fancy it, my lad! Nothing so +easy! I thought you guessed that other time, on the new road ... it's as +plain as a pikestaff... no, no, no! _I_ shall be telling _you_ something +about molecules one of these days!" + +We walked for a time in silence. + +Suddenly he asked: "What are you doing now?" + +"I myself, do you mean? Oh, the firm. A railway job, past Pinner. +But we've a big contract coming on in the West End soon they might +want you for. They call it 'alterations,' but it's one of these big +shop-rebuildings." + +"I'll come along." + +"Oh, it isn't for a month or two yet." + +"I don't mean that. I mean I'll come along to Pinner with you now, +to-night, or whenever you go." + +"Oh!" I said. + +I don't know that I specially wanted him. It's a little wearing, the +company of a chap like that. You never know what he's going to let you in +for next. But, as this didn't seem to occur to him, I didn't say +anything. If he really liked catching the last train down, a three-mile +walk, and then sharing a double-bedded room at a poor sort of alehouse +(which was my own programme), he was welcome. We walked a little farther; +then I told him the time of the train and left him. + +He turned up at Euston, a little after twelve. We went down together. It +was getting on for one when we left the station at the other end, and +then we began the tramp across the Weald to the inn. A little to my +surprise (for I had begun to expect unaccountable behaviour from him) we +reached the inn without Rooum having dodged about changing places with +me, or having fallen cowering under a gorse-bush, or anything of +that kind. Our talk, too, was about work, not molecules and osmosis. + +The inn was only a roadside beerhouse--I have forgotten its name--and all +its sleeping accomodation was the one double-bedded room. Over the head +of my own bed the ceiling was cut away, following the roof-line; and the +wallpaper was perfectly shocking--faded bouquets that made V's and A's, +interlacing everywhere. The other bed was made up, and lay across the +room. + +I think I only spoke once while we were making ready for bed, and that +was when Rooum took from his black hand-bag a brush and a torn nightgown. + +"That's what you always carry about, is it?" I remarked; and Rooum +grunted something: Yes ... never knew where you'd be next ... no harm, +was it? We tumbled into bed. + +But, for all the lateness of the hour, I wasn't sleepy; so from my own +bag I took a book, set the candle on the end of the mantel, and began +to read. Mark you, I don't say I was much better informed for the reading +I did, for I was watching the V's on the wallpaper mostly--that, and +wondering what was wrong with the man in the other bed who had fallen +down at a touch in the subway. He was already asleep. + +Now I don't know whether I can make the next clear to you. I'm quite +certain he was sound asleep, so that it wasn't just the fact that he +spoke. Even that is a little unpleasant, I always think, any sort of +sleep-talking; but it's a very queer sort of sensation when a man +actually answers a question that's put to him, knowing nothing whatever +about it in the morning. Perhaps I ought not to have put that question; +having put it, I did the next best thing afterwards, as you'll see in a +moment ... but let me tell you. + +He'd been asleep perhaps an hour, and I woolgathering about the +wallpaper, when suddenly, in a far more clear and loud voice than he ever +used when awake, he said: + +_"What the devil is it prevents me seeing him, then?"_ + +That startled me, rather, for the second time that evening; and I really +think I had spoken before I had fully realised what was happening. + +"From seeing whom?" I said, sitting up in bed. + +"Whom?... You're not attending. The fellow I'm telling you about, who +runs after me," he answered--answered perfectly plainly. + +I could see his head there on the pillow, black and white, and his +eyes were closed. He made a slight movement with his arm, but that did +not wake him. Then it came to me, with a sort of start, what was +happening. I slipped half out of bed. Would he--would he?--answer +another question?... I risked it, breathlessly: + +"Have you any idea who he is?" + +Well, that too he answered. + +"Who he is? The Runner?... Don't be silly. _Who else should it be?_" + +With every nerve in me tingling, I tried again. + +"What happens, then, when he catches you?" + +This time, I really don't know whether his words were an answer or not; +they were these: + +"To hear him catching you up ... and then padding away ahead again! All +right, all right ... but I guess it's weakening him a bit, too...." + +Without noticing it, I had got out of bed, and had advanced quite to the +middle of the floor. + +"What did you say his name was?" I breathed. + +But that was a dead failure. He muttered brokenly for a moment, gave a +deep troubled sigh, and then began to snore loudly and regularly. + +I made my way back to bed; but I assure you that before I did so I filled +my basin with water, dipped my face into it, and then set the candlestick +afloat in it, leaving the candle burning. I thought I'd like to have a +light.... It had burned down by morning. Rooum, I remember, remarked on +the silly practice of reading in bed. + +Well, it was a pretty kind of obsession for a man to have, wasn't it? +Somebody running after him all the time, and then ... running on ahead? +And, of course, on a broad pavement there would be plenty of room for +this running gentleman to run round; but on an eight- or nine-inch kerb, +such as that of the new road out Lewisham way ... but perhaps he was a +jumping gentleman too, and could jump over a man's head. You'd think he'd +have to get past some way, wouldn't you?... I remember vaguely wondering +whether the name of that Runner was not Conscience; but Conscience isn't +a matter of molecules and osmosis.... + +One thing, however, was clear; I'd got to tell Rooum what I'd learned: +for you can't get hold of a fellow's secrets in ways like that. I lost +no time about it. I told him, in fact, soon after we'd left the inn the +next morning--told him how he'd answered in his sleep. + +And--what do you think of this?--he seemed to think I ought to have +guessed it! _Guessed_ a monstrous thing like that! + +"You're less clever than I thought, with your books and that, if you +didn't," he grunted. + +"But ... Good God, man!" + +"Queer, isn't it? But you don't know the queerest ..." + +He pondered for a moment, and then suddenly put his lips to my ear. + +"I'll tell you," he whispered. "_It gets harder every time_!... At first, +he just slipped through: a bit of a catch at my heart, like when you nod +off to sleep in a chair and jerk up awake again; and away he went. But +now it's getting grinding, sluggish; and the pain.... You'd notice, that +night on the road, the little check it gave me; that's past long since; +and last night, when I'd just braced myself up stiff to meet it, and you +tapped me on the shoulder ..." He passed the back of his hand over his +brow. + +"I tell you," he continued, "it's an agony each time. I could scream at +the thought of it. It's oftener, too, now, and he's getting stronger. The +end-osmosis is getting to be ex-osmosis--is that right? Just let me tell +you one more thing--" + +But I'd had enough. I'd asked questions the night before, but now--well, +I knew quite as much as, and more than, I wanted. + +"Stop, please," I said. "You're either off your head, or worse. Let's +call it the first. Don't tell me any more, please." + +"Frightened, what? Well, I don't blame you. But what would _you_ do?" + +"I should see a doctor; I'm only an engineer," I replied. + +"Doctors?... Bah!" he said, and spat. + +I hope you see how the matter stood with Rooum. What do you make of it? +Could you have believed it--_do_ you believe it?... He'd made a nearish +guess when he'd said that much of our knowledge is giving names to things +we know nothing about; only rule-of-thumb Physics thinks everything's +explained in the Manual; and you've always got to remember one thing: +You can call it Force or what you like, but it's a certainty that things, +solid things of wood and iron and stone, would explode, just go off in a +puff into space, if it wasn't for something just as inexplicable as that +that Rooum said he felt in his own person. And if you can swallow that, +it's a relatively small matter whether Rooum's light-footed Familiar +slipped through him unperceived, or had to struggle through obstinately. +You see now why I said that "a queer thing overtook Rooum." + +More: I saw it. This thing, that outrages reason--I saw it happen. That +is to say, I saw its effects, and it was in broad daylight, on an +ordinary afternoon, in the middle of Oxford Street, of all places. There +wasn't a shadow of doubt about it. People were pressing and jostling +about him, and suddenly I saw him turn his head and listen, as I'd seen +him before. I tell you, an icy creeping ran all over my skin. I fancied I +felt it approaching too, nearer and nearer.... The next moment he had +made a sort of gathering of himself, as if against a gust. He stumbled +and thrust--thrust with his body. He swayed, physically, as a tree sways +in a wind; he clutched my arm and gave a loud scream. Then, after +seconds--minutes--I don't know how long--he was free again. + +And for the colour of his face when by-and-by I glanced at it ... well, I +once saw a swarthy Italian fall under a sunstroke, and _his_ face was +much the same colour that Rooum's negro face had gone; a cloudy, whitish +green. + +"Well--you've seen it--what do you think of it?" he gasped presently, +turning a ghastly grin on me. + +But it was night before the full horror of it had soaked into me. + +Soon after that he disappeared again. I wasn't sorry. + + * * * * * + +Our big contract in the West End came on. It was a time-contract, with +all manner of penalty clauses if we didn't get through; and I assure +you that we were busy. I myself was far too busy to think of Rooum. + +It's a shop now, the place we were working at, or rather one of these +huge weldings of fifty shops where you can buy anything; and if you'd +seen us there... but perhaps you did see us, for people stood up on the +tops of omnibuses as they passed, to look over the mud-splashed hoarding +into the great excavation we'd made. It was a sight. Staging rose on +staging, tier on tier, with interminable ladders all over the steel +structure. Three or four squat Otis lifts crouched like iron turtles on +top, and a lattice-crane on a towering three-cornered platform rose a +hundred and twenty feet into the air. At one end of the vast quarry +was a demolished house, showing flues and fireplaces and a score of +thicknesses of old wallpaper; and at night--they might well have stood up +on the tops of the buses! A dozen great spluttering violet arc-lights +half-blinded you; down below were the watchmen's fires; overhead, the +riveters had their fire-baskets; and in odd corners naphtha-lights +guttered and flared. And the steel rang with the riveters' hammers, and +the crane-chains rattled and clashed.... There's not much doubt in _my_ +mind, it's the engineers who are the architects nowadays. The chaps who +think they're the architects are only a sort of paperhangers, who hang +brick and terra-cotta on our work and clap a pinnacle or two on top--but +never mind that. There we were, sweating and clanging and navvying, till +the day shift came to relieve us. + +And I ought to say that fifty feet above our great gap, and from end to +end across it, there ran a travelling crane on a skeleton line, with +platform, engine, and wooden cab all compact in one. + +It happened that they had pitched in as one of the foremen some fellow or +other, a friend of the firm's, a rank duffer, who pestered me incessantly +with his questions. I did half his work and all my own, and it hadn't +improved my temper much. On this night that I'm telling about, he'd been +playing the fool with his questions as if a time-contract was a sort of +summer holiday; and he'd filled me up to that point that I really can't +say just when it was that Rooum put in an appearance again. I think I had +heard somebody mention his name, but I'd paid no attention. + +Well, our Johnnie Fresh came up to me for the twentieth time that night, +this time wanting to know something about the overhead crane. At that +I fairly lost my temper. + +"What ails the crane?" I cried. "It's doing its work, isn't it? Isn't +everybody doing their work except you? Why can't you ask Hopkins? Isn't +Hopkins there?" + +"I don't know," he said. + +"Then," I snapped, "in that particular I'm as ignorant as you, and I hope +it's the only one." + +But he grabbed my arm. + +"Look at it now!" he cried, pointing; and I looked up. + +Either Hopkins or somebody was dangerously exceeding the speed-limit. The +thing was flying along its thirty yards of rail as fast as a tram, and +the heavy fall-blocks swung like a ponderous kite-tail, thirty feet +below. As I watched, the engine brought up within a yard of the end of +the way, the blocks crashed like a ram into the broken house end, +fetching down plaster and brick, and then the mechanism was reversed. The +crane set off at a tear back. + +"Who in Hell ..." I began; but it wasn't a time to talk. "_Hi!_" I +yelled, and made a spring for a ladder. + +The others had noticed it, too, for there were shouts all over the place. +By that time I was halfway up the second stage. Again the crane tore +past, with the massive tackle sweeping behind it, and again I heard the +crash at the other end. Whoever had the handling of it was managing +it skilfully, for there was barely a foot to spare when it turned again. + +On the fourth platform, at the end of the way, I found Hopkins. He was +white, and seemed to be counting on his fingers. + +"What's the matter here?" I cried. + +"It's Rooum," he answered. "I hadn't stepped out of the cab, not a +minute, when I heard the lever go. He's running somebody down, he says; +he'll run the whole shoot down in a minute--look!..." + +The crane was coming back again. Half out of the cab I could see Rooum's +mottled hair and beard. His brow was ribbed like a gridiron, and as he +ripped past one of the arcs his face shone like porcelain with the sweat +that bathed it. + +"Now ... you!... Now, damn you!..." he was shouting. + +"Get ready to board him when he reverses!" I shouted to Hopkins. + +Just how we scrambled on I don't know. I got one arm over the +lifting-gear (which, of course, wasn't going), and heard Hopkins on +the other footplate. Rooum put the brakes down and reversed; again came +the thud of the fall-blocks; and we were speeding back again over the +gulf of misty orange light. The stagings were thronged with gaping men. + +"Ready? Now!" I cried to Hopkins; and we sprang into the cab. + +Hopkins hit Rooum's wrist with a spanner. Then he seized the lever, +jammed the brake down and tripped Rooum, all, as it seemed, in one +movement. I fell on top of Rooum. The crane came to a standstill +half-way down the line. I held Rooum panting. + +But either Rooum was stronger than I, or else he took me very much +unawares. All at once he twisted clear from my grasp and stumbled on his +knees to the rear door of the cab. He threw up one elbow, and staggered +to his feet as I made another clutch at him. + +"Keep still, you fool!" I bawled. "Hit him over the head, Hopkins!" + +Rooum screamed in a high voice. + +"Run him down--cut him up with the wheels--down, you!--down, I say!--Oh, +my God!... _Ha_!" + +He sprang clear out from the crane door, well-nigh taking me with him. + +I told you it was a skeleton line, two rails and a tie or two. He'd +actually jumped to the right-hand rail. And he was running along +it--running along that iron tightrope, out over that well of light and +watching men. Hopkins had started the travelling-gear, as if with some +insane idea of catching him; but there was only one possible end to it. +He'd gone fully a dozen yards, while I watched, horribly fascinated; and +then I saw the turn of his head.... + +He didn't meet it this time; he sprang to the other rail, as if to evade +it.... + +Even at the take-off he missed. As far as I could see, he made no attempt +to save himself with his hands. He just went down out of the field of +my vision. There was an awful silence; then, from far below ... + + * * * * * + +They weren't the men on the lower stages who moved first. The men above +went a little way down, and then they too stopped. Presently two of them +descended, but by a distant way. They returned, with two bottles of +brandy, and there was a hasty consultation. Two men drank the brandy off +there and then--getting on for a pint of brandy apiece; then they went +down, drunk. + +I, Hopkins tells me, had got down on my knees in the crane cab, and was +jabbering away cheerfully to myself. When I asked him what I said, +he hesitated, and then said: "Oh, you don't want to know that, sir," and +I haven't asked him since. + +What do _you_ make of it? + + + + +BENLIAN + + +I + +It would be different if you had known Benlian. It would be different if +you had had even that glimpse of him that I had the very first time I saw +him, standing on the little wooden landing at the top of the flight of +steps outside my studio door. I say "studio"; but really it was just a +sort of loft looking out over the timber-yard, and I used it as a studio. +The real studio, the big one, was at the other end of the yard, and that +was Benlian's. + +Scarcely anybody ever came there. I wondered many a time if the +timber-merchant was dead or had lost his memory and forgotten all about +his business; for his stacks of floorboards, set criss-crosswise to +season (you know how they pile them up) were grimy with soot, and nobody +ever disturbed the rows of scaffold-poles that stood like palisades along +the walls. The entrance was from the street, through a door in a +billposter's hoarding; and on the river not far away the steamboats +hooted, and, in windy weather, the floorboards hummed to keep them +company. + +I suppose some of these real, regular artists wouldn't have called me an +artist at all; for I only painted miniatures, and it was trade-work at +that, copied from photographs and so on. Not that I wasn't jolly good at +it, and punctual too (lots of these high-flown artists have simply no +idea of punctuality); and the loft was cheap, and suited me very well. +But, of course, a sculptor wants a big place on the ground floor; it's +slow work, that with blocks of stone and marble that cost you twenty +pounds every time you lift them; so Benlian had the studio. His name was +on a plate on the door, but I'd never seen him till this time I'm telling +you of. + +I was working that evening at one of the prettiest little things I'd ever +done: a girl's head on ivory, that I'd stippled up just like ... oh, +you'd never have thought it was done by hand at all. The daylight had +gone, but I knew that "Prussian" would be about the colour for the eyes +and the bunch of flowers at her breast, and I wanted to finish. + +I was working at my little table, with a shade over my eyes; and I jumped +a bit when somebody knocked at the door--not having heard anybody come up +the steps, and not having many visitors anyway. (Letters were always put +into the box in the yard door.) + +When I opened the door, there he stood on the platform; and I gave a bit +of a start, having come straight from my ivory, you see. He was one of +these very tall, gaunt chaps, that make us little fellows feel even +smaller than we are; and I wondered at first where his eyes were, they +were set so deep in the dark caves on either side of his nose. Like a +skull, his head was; I could fancy his teeth curving round inside his +cheeks; and his zygomatics stuck up under his skin like razorbacks (but +if you're not one of us artists you'll not understand that). A bit of +smoky, greenish sky showed behind him; and then, as his eyes moved in +their big pits, one of them caught the light of my lamp and flashed like +a well of lustre. + +He spoke abruptly, in a deep, shaky sort of voice. + +"I want you to photograph me in the morning," he said. I supposed he'd +seen my printing-frames out on the window-sash some time or other. + +"Come in," I said. "But I'm afraid, if it's a miniature you want, that +I'm retained--my firm retains me--you'd have to do it through them. But +come in, and I'll show you the kind of thing I do--though you ought to +have come in the daylight ..." + +He came in. He was wearing a long, grey dressing-gown that came right +down to his heels and made him look something like a Noah's-ark figure. +Seen in the light, his face seemed more ghastly bony still; and as he +glanced for a moment at my little ivory he made a sound of contempt--I +know it was contempt. I thought it rather cheek, coming into my place +and-- + +He turned his cavernous eyeholes on me. + +"I don't want anything of that sort. I want you to photograph me. I'll be +here at ten in the morning." + +So, just to show him that I wasn't to be treated that way, I said, quite +shortly, "I can't. I've an appointment at ten o'clock." + +"What's that?" he said--he'd one of these rich deep voices that always +sound consumptive. + +"Take that thing off your eyes, and look at me," he ordered. + +Well, I was awfully indignant. + +"If you think I'm going to be told to do things like this--" I began. + +"Take that thing off," he just ordered again. + +I've got to remember, of course, that you didn't know Benlian. _I_ didn't +then. And for a chap just to stalk into a fellow's place, and tell him to +photograph him, and order him about ... but you'll see in a minute. I +took the shade off my eyes, just to show him that _I_ could browbeat a +bit too. + +I used to have a tall strip of looking-glass leaning against my wall; for +though I didn't use models much, it's awfully useful to go to Nature for +odd bits now and then, and I've sketched myself in that glass, oh, +hundreds of times! We must have been standing in front of it, for all at +once I saw the eyes at the bottom of his pits looking rigidly over my +shoulder. Without moving his eyes from the glass, and scarcely moving his +lips, he muttered: + +"Get me a pair of gloves, get me a pair of gloves." + +It was a funny thing to ask for; but I got him a pair of my gloves from a +drawer. His hands were shaking so that he could hardly get them on, and +there was a little glistening of sweat on his face, that looked like the +salt that dries on you when you've been bathing in the sea. Then I +turned, to see what it was that he was looking so earnestly and +profoundly at in the mirror. I saw nothing except just the pair of us, he +with my gloves on. + +He stepped aside, and slowly drew the gloves off. I think _I_ could have +bullied _him_ just then. He turned to me. + +"Did that look all right to you?" he asked. + +"Why, my dear chap, whatever ails you?" I cried. + +"I suppose," he went on, "you couldn't photograph me to-night--now?" + +I could have done, with magnesium, but I hadn't a scrap in the place. I +told him so. He was looking round my studio. He saw my camera standing in +a corner. + +"Ah!" he said. + +He made a stride towards it. He unscrewed the lens, brought it to the +lamp, and peered attentively through it, now into the air, now at his +sleeve and hand, as if looking for a flaw in it. Then he replaced it, and +pulled up the collar of his dressing-gown as if he was cold. + +"Well, another night of it," he muttered; "but," he added, facing +suddenly round on me, "if your appointment was to meet your God Himself, +you must photograph me at ten to-morrow morning!" + +"All right," I said, giving in (for he seemed horribly ill). "Draw up to +the stove and have a drink of something and a smoke." + +"I neither drink nor smoke," he replied, moving towards the door. + +"Sit down and have a chat, then," I urged; for I always like to be decent +with fellows, and it was a lonely sort of place, that yard. + +He shook his head. + +"Be ready by ten o'clock in the morning," he said; and he passed down my +stairs and crossed the yard to his studio without even having said "Good +night." + +Well, he was at my door again at ten o'clock in the morning, and I +photographed him. I made three exposures; but the plates were some that +I'd had in the place for some time, and they'd gone off and fogged in the +developing. + +"I'm awfully sorry," I said; "but I'm going out this afternoon, and will +get some more, and we'll have another shot in the morning." + +One after the other, he was holding the negatives up to the light and +examining them. Presently he put them down quietly, leaning them +methodically up against the edge of the developing-bath. + +"Never mind. It doesn't matter. Thank you," he said; and left me. + +After that, I didn't see him for weeks; but at nights I could see the +light of his roof-window, shining through the wreathing river-mists, and +sometimes I heard him moving about, and the muffled knock-knocking of his +hammer on marble. + + +II + +Of course I did see him again, or I shouldn't be telling you all this. He +came to my door, just as he had done before, and at about the same time +in the evening. He hadn't come to be photographed this time, but for all +that it was something about a camera--something he wanted to know. He'd +brought two books with him, big books, printed in German. They were on +Light, he said, and Physics (or else it was Psychics--I always get those +two words wrong). They were full of diagrams and equations and figures; +and, of course, it was all miles above my head. + +He talked a lot about "hyper-space," whatever that is; and at first I +nodded, as if I knew all about it. But he very soon saw that I didn't, +and he came down to my level again. What he'd come to ask me was this: +Did I know anything, of my own experience, about things "photographing +through"? (You know the kind of thing: a name that's been painted out on +a board, say, comes up in the plate.) + +Well, as it happened, I _had_ once photographed a drawing for a fellow, +and the easel I had stood it on had come up through the picture; and I +knew by the way Benlian nodded that that was the kind of thing he meant. + +"More," he said. + +I told him I'd once seen a photograph of a man with a bowler hat on, and +the shape of his crown had showed through the hat. + +"Yes, yes," he said, musing; and then he asked: "Have you ever heard of +things not photographing at all?" + +But I couldn't tell him anything about that; and off he started again, +about Light and Physics and so on. Then, as soon as I could get a word +in, I said, "But, of course, the camera isn't Art." (Some of my +miniatures, you understand, were jolly nice little things.) + +"No--no," he murmured absently; and then abruptly he said: "Eh? What's +that? And what the devil do _you_ know about it?" + +"Well," said I, in a dignified sort of way, "considering that for ten +years I've been--" + +"Chut!... Hold your tongue," he said, turning away. + +There he was, talking to me again, just as if I'd asked him in to bully +me. But you've got to be decent to a fellow when he's in your own place; +and by-and-by I asked him, but in a cold, off-hand sort of way, how his +own work was going on. He turned to me again. + +"Would you like to see it?" he asked. + +"_Aha_!" thought I, "he's got to a sticking-point with his work! It's all +very well," I thought, "for you to sniff at my miniatures, my friend, but +we all get stale on our work sometimes, and the fresh eye, even of a +miniature-painter ..." + +"I shall be glad if I can be of any help to you," I answered, still a bit +huffish, but bearing no malice. + +"Then come," he said. + +We descended and crossed the timber-yard, and he held his door open for +me to pass in. + +It was an enormous great place, his studio, and all full of mist; and the +gallery that was his bedroom was up a little staircase at the farther +end. In the middle of the floor was a tall structure of scaffolding, with +a stage or two to stand on; and I could see the dim ghostly marble figure +in the gloom. It had been jacked up on a heavy base; and as it would have +taken three or four men to put it into position, and scarcely a stranger +had entered the yard since I had been there, I knew that the figure must +have stood for a long time. Sculpture's weary, slow work. + +Benlian was pottering about with a taper at the end of a long rod; and +suddenly the overhead gas-ring burst into light. I placed myself before +the statue--to criticise, you know. + +Well, it didn't seem to me that he needed to have turned up his nose at +my ivories, for I didn't think much of his statue--except that it was a +great, lumping, extraordinary piece of work. It had an outstretched arm +that, I remember thinking, was absolutely misshapen--disproportioned, +big enough for a giant, ridiculously out of drawing. And as I looked at +the thing this way and that, I knew that his eyes in their deep cellars +never left my face for a moment. + +"It's a god," he said by-and-by. + +Then I began to tell him about that monstrous arm; but he cut me very +short. + +"I say it's a god," he interrupted, looking at me as if he would have +eaten me. "Even you, child as you are, have seen the gods men have made +for themselves before this. Half-gods they've made, all good or all evil +(and then they've called them the Devil). This is _my_ god--the god of +good and of evil also." + +"Er--I see," I said, rather taken aback (but quite sure he was off his +head for all that). Then I looked at the arm again; a child could have +seen how wrong it was.... + +But suddenly, to my amazement, he took me by the shoulders and turned me +away. + +"That'll do," he said curtly. "I didn't ask you to come in here with a +view to learning anything from you. I wanted to see how it struck you. I +shall send for you again--and again--" + +Then he began to jabber, half to himself. + +"Bah!" he muttered. "'Is that all?' they ask before a stupendous thing. +Show them the ocean, the heavens, infinity, and they ask, 'Is that all?' +If they saw their God face to face they'd ask it!... There's only one +Cause, that works now in good and now in evil, but show It to them and +they put their heads on one side and begin to appraise and patronise +It!... I tell you, what's seen at a glance flies away at a glance. Gods +come slowly over you, but presently, ah! they begin to grip you, and at +the end there's no fleeing from them! You'll tell me more about my statue +by-and-by!... What was that you said?" he demanded, facing swiftly round +on me. "That arm? Ah, yes; but we'll see what you say about that arm six +months from now! Yes, the arm.... Now be off!" he ordered me. "I'll send +for you again when I want you!" + +He thrust me out. + +"An asylum, Mr. Benlian," I thought as I crossed the yard, "is the place +for you!" You see, I didn't know him then, and that he wasn't to be +judged as an ordinary man is. Just you wait till you see.... + +And straight away, I found myself vowing that I'd have nothing more to do +with him. I found myself resolving that, as if I were making up my mind +not to smoke or drink--and (I don't know why) with a similar sense that I +was depriving myself of something. But, somehow, I forgot, and within a +month he'd been in several times to see me, and once or twice had fetched +me in to see his statue. + +In two months I was in an extraordinary state of mind about him. I was +familiar with him in a way, but at the same time I didn't know one scrap +more about him. Because I'm a fool (oh, yes, I know quite well, now, what +I am) you'll think I'm talking folly if I even begin to tell you what +sort of a man he was. I don't mean just his knowledge (though I think he +knew everything--sciences, languages, and all that) for it was far more +than that. Somehow, when he was there, he had me all restless and uneasy; +and when he wasn't there I was (there's only the one word for it) +jealous--as jealous as if he'd been a girl! Even yet I can't make it +out.... + +And he knew how unsettled he'd got me; and I'll tell you how I found that +out. + +Straight out one night, when he was sitting up in my place, he asked me: +"Do you like me, Pudgie?" (I forgot to say that I'd told him they used to +call me Pudgie at home, because I was little and fat; it was odd, the +number of things I told him that I wouldn't have told anybody else.) + +"Do you like me, Pudgie?" he said. + +As for my answer, I don't know how it spurted out. I was much more +surprised than he was, for I really didn't intend it. It was for all the +world as if somebody else was talking with my mouth. + +"_I loathe and adore you!_" it came; and then I looked round, awfully +startled to hear myself saying that. + +But he didn't look at me. He only nodded. + +"Yes. Of good and evil too--" he muttered to himself. And then all of a +sudden he got up and went out. + +I didn't sleep for ever so long after that, thinking how odd it was I +should have said that. + +Well (to get on), after that something I couldn't account for began to +come over me sometimes as I worked. It began to come over me, without any +warning, that he was thinking of me down there across the yard. I used to +_know_ (this must sound awfully silly to you) that he was down yonder, +thinking of me and doing something to me. And one night I was so sure +that it wasn't fancy that I jumped straight up from my work, and I'm not +quite sure what happened then, until I found myself in his studio, just +as if I'd walked there in my sleep. + +And he seemed to be waiting for me, for there was a chair by his own, in +front of the statue. + +"What is it, Benlian?" I burst out. + +"Ah!" he said.... "Well, it's about that arm, Pudgie; I want you to tell +me about the arm. Does it look so strange as it did?" + +"No," I said. + +"I thought it wouldn't," he observed. "But I haven't touched it, +Pudgie--" + +So I stayed the evening there. + +But you must not think he was always doing that thing--whatever it +was--to me. On the other hand, I sometimes felt the oddest sort of +release (I don't know how else to put it) ... like when, on one of these +muggy, earthy-smelling days, when everything's melancholy, the wind +freshens up suddenly and you breathe again. And that (I'm trying to take +it in order, you see, so that it will be plain to you) brings me to the +time I found out that _he_ did that too, and knew when he was doing it. + +I'd gone into his place one night to have a look at his statue. It was +surprising what a lot I was finding out about that statue. It was still +all out of proportion (that is to say, I knew it must be--remembered I'd +thought so--though it didn't annoy me now quite so much. I suppose I'd +lost _my_ fresh eye by that time). Somehow, too, my own miniatures had +begun to look a bit kiddish; they made me impatient; and that's horrible, +to be discontented with things that once seemed jolly good to you. + +Well, he'd been looking at me in the hungriest sort of way, and I looking +at the statue, when all at once that feeling of release and lightness +came over me. The first I knew of it was that I found myself thinking of +some rather important letters my firm had written to me, wanting to know +when a job I was doing was going to be finished. I thought myself it was +time I got it finished; I thought I'd better set about it at once; and I +sat suddenly up in my chair, as if I'd just come out of a sleep. And, +looking at the statue, I saw it as it had seemed at first--all misshapen +and out of drawing. + +The very next moment, as I was rising, I sat down again as suddenly as if +somebody had pulled me back. + +Now a chap doesn't like to be changed about like that; so, without +looking at Benlian, I muttered a bit testily, "Don't, Benlian!" + +Then I heard him get up and knock his chair away. He was standing behind +me. + +"Pudgie," he said, in a moved sort of voice, "I'm no good to you. Get out +of this. Get out--" + +"No, no, Benlian!" I pleaded. + +"Get out, do you hear, and don't come again! Go and live somewhere +else--go away from London--don't let me know where you go--" + +"Oh, what have I done?" I asked unhappily; and he was muttering again. + +"Perhaps it would be better for me too," he muttered; and then he added, +"Come, bundle out!" + +So in home I went, and finished my ivory for the firm; but I can't tell +you how friendless and unhappy I felt. + +Now I used to know in those days a little girl--a nice, warm-hearted +little thing, just friendly you know, who used to come to me sometimes in +another place I lived at and mend for me and so on. It was an awful long +time since I'd seen her; but she found me out one night--came to that +yard, walked straight in, went straight to my linen-bag, and began to +look over my things to see what wanted mending, just as she used to. I +don't mind confessing that I was a bit sweet on her at one time; and it +made me feel awfully mean, the way she came in, without asking any +questions, and took up my mending. + +So she sat doing my things, and I sat at my work, glad of a bit of +company; and she chatted as she worked, just jolly and gentle and not at +all reproaching me. + +But as suddenly as a shot, right in the middle of it all, I found myself +wondering about Benlian again. And I wasn't only wondering; somehow I was +horribly uneasy about him. It came to me that he might be ill or +something. And all the fun of her having come to see me was gone. I found +myself doing all sorts of stupid things to my work, and glancing at my +watch that was lying on the table before me. + +At last I couldn't stand it any longer. I got up. + +"Daisy," I said, "I've got to go out now." + +She seemed surprised. + +"Oh, why didn't you tell me I'd been keeping you!" she said, getting up +at once. + +I muttered that I was awfully sorry.... + +I packed her off. I closed the door in the hoarding behind her. Then I +walked straight across the yard to Benlian's. + +He was lying on a couch, not doing anything. + +"I know I ought to have come sooner, Benlian," I said, "but I had +somebody with me." + +"Yes," he said, looking hard at me; and I got a bit red. + +"She's awfully nice," I stammered; "but you never bother with girls, and +you don't drink or smoke--" + +"No," he said. + +"Well," I continued, "you ought to have a little relaxation; you're +knocking yourself up." And, indeed, he looked awfully ill. + +But he shook his head. + +"A man's only a definite amount of force in him, Pudgie," he said, "and +if he spends it in one way he goes short in another. Mine goes--there." +He glanced at the statue. "I rarely sleep now," he added. + +"Then you ought to see a doctor," I said, a bit alarmed. (I'd felt sure +he was ill.) + +"No, no, Pudgie. My force is all going there--all but the minimum that +can't be helped, you know.... You've heard artists talk about 'putting +their soul into their work,' Pudgie?" + +"Don't rub it in about my rotten miniatures, Benlian," I asked him. + +"You've heard them say that; but they're charlatans, professional +artists, all, Pudgie. They haven't got any souls bigger than a sixpence +to put into it.... You know, Pudgie, that Force and Matter are the same +thing--that it's decided nowadays that you can't define matter otherwise +than as 'a point of Force'?" + +"Yes," I found myself saying eagerly, as if I'd heard it dozens of times +before. + +"So that if they could put their souls into it, it would be just as easy +for them to put their _bodies_ into it?..." + +I had drawn very close to him, and again--it was not fancy--I felt as if +somebody, not me, was using my mouth. A flash of comprehension seemed to +come into my brain. + +"_Not that, Benlian_?" I cried breathlessly. + +He nodded three or four times, and whispered. I really don't know why we +both whispered. + +"_Really that, Benlian_?" I whispered again. + +"Shall I show you?... I tried my hardest not to, you know,..." he still +whispered. + +"Yes, show me!" I replied in a suppressed voice. + +"Don't breathe a sound then! I keep them up there...." + +He put his finger to his lips as if we had been two conspirators; then he +tiptoed across the studio and went up to his bedroom in the gallery. +Presently he tiptoed down again, with some rolled-up papers in his hand. +They were photographs, and we stooped together over a little table. His +hand shook with excitement. + +"You remember this?" he whispered, showing me a rough print. + +It was one of the prints from the fogged plates that I'd taken after that +first night. + +"Come closer to me if you feel frightened, Pudgie," he said. "You said +they were old plates, Pudgie. No no; the plates were all right; it's _I_ +who am wrong!" + +"Of course," I said. It seemed so natural. + +"This one," he said, taking up one that was numbered "1," "is a plain +photograph, in the flesh, before it started; _you_ know! Now look at +this, and this--" + +He spread them before me, all in order. + +"2" was a little fogged, as if a novice had taken it; on "3" a sort of +cloudy veil partly obliterated the face; "4" was still further smudged +and lost; and "5" was a figure with gloved hands held up, as a man holds +his hands up when he is covered by a gun. The face of this one was +completely blotted out. + +And it didn't seem in the least horrible to me, for I kept on murmuring, +"Of course, of course." + +Then Benlian rubbed his hands and smiled at me. "I'm making good +progress, am I not?" he said. + +"Splendid!" I breathed. + +"Better than you know, too," he chuckled, "for you're not properly under +yet. But you will be, Pudgie, you will be--" + +"Yes, yes!... Will it be long, Benlian?" + +"No," he replied, "not if I can keep from eating and sleeping and +thinking of other things than the statue--and if you don't disturb me by +having girls about the place, Pudgie." + +"I'm awfully sorry," I said contritely. + +"All right, all right; ssh!... This, you know, Pudgie, is my own studio; +I bought it; I bought it purposely to make my statue, my god. I'm passing +nicely into it; and when I'm quite passed--_quite_ passed, Pudgie--you +can have the key and come in when you like." + +"Oh, thanks awfully," I murmured gratefully. + +He nudged me. + +"What would they think of it, Pudgie--those of the exhibitions and +academies, who say 'their souls are in their work'? What would the +cacklers think of it, Pudgie?" + +"Aren't they fools!" I chuckled. + +"And I shall have _one_ worshipper, shan't I, Pudgie?" + +"Rather!" I replied. "Isn't it splendid!... Oh, need I go back just yet?" + +"Yes, you must go now; but I'll send for you again very soon.... You know +I tried to do without you, Pudge; I tried for thirteen days, and it +nearly killed me! That's past. I shan't try again. Now off you trot, my +Pudgie--" + +I winked at him knowingly, and came skipping and dancing across the yard. + + +III + +It's just silly--that's what it is--to say that something of a man +doesn't go into his work. + +Why, even those wretched little ivories of mine, the thick-headed fellows +who paid for them knew my touch in them, and once spotted it instantly +when I tried to slip in another chap's who was hard up. Benlian used to +say that a man went about spreading himself over everything he came in +contact with--diffusing some sort of influence (as far as I could make it +out); and the mistake was, he said, that we went through the world just +wasting it instead of directing it. And if Benlian didn't understand all +about those things, I should jolly well like to know who does! A chap +with a great abounding will and brain like him, it's only natural he +should be able to pass himself on, to a statue or anything else, when he +really tried--did without food and talk and sleep in order to save +himself up for it! + +"A man can't both _do_ and _be_," I remember he said to me once. "He's so +much force, no more, and he can either make himself with it or something +else. If he tries to do both, he does both imperfectly. I'm going to do +_one_ perfect thing." Oh, he was a queer chap! Fancy, a fellow making a +thing like that statue, out of himself, and then wanting somebody to +adore him! + +And I hadn't the faintest conception of how much I did adore him till +yet again, as he had done before, he seemed to--you know--to take +himself away from me again, leaving me all alone, and so wretched!... And +I was angry at the same time, for he'd promised me he wouldn't do it +again.... (This was one night, I don't remember when.) + +I ran to my landing and shouted down into the yard. + +"Benlian! Benlian!" + +There was a light in his studio, and I heard a muffled shout come back. + +"Keep away--keep away--keep away!" + +He was struggling--I knew he was struggling as I stood there on my +landing--struggling to let me go. And I could only run and throw myself +on my bed and sob, while he tried to set me free, who didn't want to be +set free ... he was having a terrific struggle, all alone there.... + +(He told me afterwards that he _had_ to eat something now and then and to +sleep a little, and that weakened him--strengthened him--strengthened +his body and weakened the passing, you know.) + +But the next day it was all right again. I was Benlian's again. And I +wondered, when I remembered his struggle, whether a dying man had ever +fought for life as hard as Benlian was fighting to get away from it and +pass himself. + +The next time after that that he fetched me--called me--whatever you like +to name it--I burst into his studio like a bullet. He was sunk in a big +chair, gaunt as a mummy now, and all the life in him seemed to burn in +the bottom of his deep eye-sockets. At the sight of him I fiddled with +my knuckles and giggled. + +"You _are_ going it, Benlian!" I said. + +"Am I not?" he replied, in a voice that was scarcely a breath. + +"You _meant_ me to bring the camera and magnesium, didn't you?" (I had +snatched them up when I felt his call, and had brought them.) + +"Yes. Go ahead." + +So I placed the camera before him, made all ready, and took the magnesium +ribbon in a pair of pincers. + +"Are you ready?" I said; and lighted the ribbon. + +The studio seemed to leap with the blinding glare. The ribbon spat and +spluttered. I snapped the shutter, and the fumes drifted away and hung +in clouds in the roof. + +"You'll have to walk me about soon, Pudgie, and bang me with bladders, as +they do the opium-patients," he said sleepily. + +"Let me take one of the statue now," I said eagerly. + +But he put up his hand. + +"No, no. _That's_ too much like testing our god. Faith's the food they +feed gods on, Pudgie. We'll let the S.P.R. people photograph it when it's +all over," he said. "Now get it developed." + +I developed the plate. The obliteration now seemed complete. + +But Benlian seemed dissatisfied. + +"There's something wrong somewhere," he said. "It isn't so perfect as +that yet--I can feel within me it isn't. It's merely that your camera +isn't strong enough to find me, Pudgie." + +"I'll get another in the morning," I cried. + +"No," he answered. "I know something better than that. Have a cab here by +ten o'clock in the morning, and we'll go somewhere." + +By half-past ten the next morning we had driven to a large hospital, and +had gone down a lot of steps and along corridors to a basement room. +There was a stretcher couch in the middle of the room, and all manner of +queer appliances, frames of ground glass, tubes of glass blown into +extraordinary shapes, a dynamo, and a lot of other things all about. A +couple of doctors were there too, and Benlian was talking to them. + +"We'll try my hand first," Benlian said by-and-by. + +He advanced to the couch, and put his hand under one of the frames of +ground glass. One of the doctors did something in a corner. A harsh +crackling filled the room, and an unearthly, fluorescent light shot and +flooded across the frame where Benlian's hand was. The two doctors +looked, and then started back. One of them gave a cry. He was sickly +white. + +"Put me on the couch," said Benlian. + +I and the doctor who was not ill lifted him on the canvas stretcher. The +green-gleaming frame of fluctuating light was passed over the whole of +his body. Then the doctor ran to a telephone and called a colleague.... + +We spent the morning there, with dozens of doctors coming and going. Then +we left. All the way home in the cab Benlian chuckled to himself. + +"That scared 'em, Pudgie!" he chuckled. "A man they can't X-ray--that +scared 'em! We must put that down in the diary--" + +"Wasn't it ripping!" I chuckled back. + +He kept a sort of diary or record. He gave it to me afterwards, but +they've borrowed it. It was as big as a ledger, and immensely valuable, +I'm sure; they oughtn't to borrow valuable things like that and not +return them. The laughing that Benlian and I have had over that diary! +It fooled them all--the clever X-ray men, the artists of the academies, +everybody! Written on the fly-leaf was "_To My Pudgie_." I shall publish +it when I get it back again. + +Benlian had now got frightfully weak; it's awfully hard work, passing +yourself. And he had to take a little milk now and then or he'd have +died before he had quite finished. I didn't bother with miniatures any +longer, and when angry letters came from my employers we just put them +into the fire, Benlian and I, and we laughed--that is to say, I laughed, +but Benlian only smiled, being too weak to laugh really. He'd lots of +money, so that was all right; and I slept in his studio, to be there for +the passing. + +And that wouldn't be very long now, I thought; and I was always looking +at the statue. Things like that (in case you don't know) have to be done +gradually, and I supposed he was busy filling up the inside of it and +hadn't got to the outside yet--for the statue was much the same to look +at. But, reckoning off his sips of milk and snatches of sleep, he was +making splendid progress, and the figure must be getting very full now. +I was awfully excited, it was getting so near.... + +And then somebody came bothering and nearly spoiling all. It's odd, but I +really forget exactly what it was. I only know there was a funeral, and +people were sobbing and looking at me, and somebody said I was callous, +but somebody else said, "No, look at him," and that it was just the other +way about. And I think I remember, now, that it wasn't in London, for I +was in a train; but after the funeral I dodged them, and found myself +back at Euston again. They followed me, but I shook them off. I locked my +own studio up, and lay as quiet as a mouse in Benlian's place when they +came hammering at the door.... + + * * * * * + +And now I must come to what you'll called the finish--though it's awfully +stupid to call things like that "finishes." + +I'd slipped into my own studio one night--I forget what for; and I'd gone +quietly, for I knew they were following me, those people, and would catch +me if they could. It was a thick, misty night, and the light came +streaming up through Benlian's roof window, with the shadows of the +window-divisions losing themselves like dark rays in the fog. A lot of +hooting was going on down the river, steamers and barges.... Oh, I know +what I'd come into my studio for! It was for those negatives. Benlian +wanted them for the diary, so that it could be seen there wasn't any +fake about the prints. For he'd said he would make a final spurt that +evening and get the job finished. It had taken a long time, but I'll bet +_you_ couldn't have passed _yourself_ any quicker. + +When I got back he was sitting in the chair he'd hardly left for weeks, +and the diary was on the table by his side. I'd taken all the scaffolding +down from the statue, and he was ready to begin. He had to waste one last +bit of strength to explain to me, but I drew as close as I could, so that +he wouldn't lose much. + +"Now, Pudgie," I just heard him say, "you've behaved splendidly, and +you'll be quite still up to the finish, won't you?" + +I nodded. + +"And you mustn't expect the statue to come down and walk about, +or anything like that," he continued. "_Those_ aren't the really +wonderful things. And no doubt people will tell you it hasn't changed; +but you'll know better! It's much more wonderful that I should be there +than that they should be able to prove it, isn't it?... And, of course, +I don't know exactly how it will happen, for I've never done this +before.... You have the letter for the S.P.R.? They can photograph it if +they want.... By the way, you don't think the same of my statue as you +did at first, do you?" + +"Oh, it's wonderful!" I breathed. + +"And even if, like the God of the others, it doesn't vouchsafe a special +sign and wonder, it's Benlian, for all that?" + +"Oh, do be quick, Benlian! I can't bear another minute!" + +Then, for the last time, he turned his great eaten-out eyes on me. + +"_I seal you mine, Pudgie_!" he said. + +Then his eyes fastened themselves on the statue. + +I waited for a quarter of an hour, scarcely breathing. Benlian's breath +came in little flutters, many seconds apart. He had a little clock on the +table. Twenty minutes passed, and half an hour. I was a little +disappointed, really, that the statue wasn't going to move; but Benlian +knew best, and it was filling quietly up with him instead. Then I thought +of those zigzag bunches of lightning they draw on the electric-belt +advertisements, and I was rather glad after all that the statue _wasn't_ +going to move. It would have been a little cheap, that ... vulgar, in a +sense.... He was breathing a little more sharply now, as if in pain, but +his eyes never moved. A dog was howling somewhere, and I hoped that the +hooting of the tugs wouldn't disturb Benlian.... + +Nearly an hour had passed when, all of a sudden, I pushed my chair +farther away and cowered back, gnawing my fingers, very frightened. +Benlian had suddenly moved. He'd set himself forward in his chair, and he +seemed to be strangling. His mouth was wide open, and he began to make +long harsh "_Aaaaah-aaaah's_!" I shouldn't have thought passing yourself +was such agony.... + +And then I gave a scream--for he seemed to be thrusting himself back in +his chair again, as if he'd changed his mind and didn't want to pass +himself at all. But just you ask anybody: When you get yourself just over +half-way passed, the other's dragged out of you, and you can't help +yourself. His "_Aaaaahs_!" became so loud and horrid that I shut my eyes +and stopped my ears.... Minutes that lasted; and then there came a high +dinning that I couldn't shut out, and all at once the floor shook with a +heavy thump. When all was still again I opened my eyes. + +His chair had overturned, and he lay in a heap beside it. + +I called "Benlian!" but he didn't answer.... + +He'd passed beautifully; quite dead. I looked up at the statue. It was +just as Benlian had said--it didn't open its eyes, nor speak, nor +anything like that. Don't you believe chaps who tell you that statues +that have been passed into do that; they don't. + +But instead, in a blaze and flash and shock, I knew now for the first +time what a glorious thing that statue was! Have you ever seen anything +for the first time like that? If you have, you never see very much +afterwards, you know. The rest's all piffle after that. It was like +coming out of fog and darkness into a split in the open heavens, my +statue was so transfigured; and I'll bet if you'd been there you'd have +clapped your hands, as I did, and chucked the tablecloth over the Benlian +on the floor till they should come to cart that empty shell away, and +patted the statue's foot and cried: "_Is it all right, Benlian_?" + +I did this; and then I rushed excitedly out into the street, to call +somebody to see how glorious it was.... + + * * * * * + +They've brought me here for a holiday, and I'm to go back to the studio +in two or three days. But they've said that before, and I think it's +caddish of fellows not to keep their word--and not to return a valuable +diary too! But there isn't a peephole in my room, as there is in some of +them (the Emperor of Brazil told me that); and Benlian knows I haven't +forsaken him, for they take me a message every day to the studio, and +Benlian always answers that it's "_all right_, and I'm to stay where I am +for a bit." So as long as he knows, I don't mind so much. But it is a bit +rotten hanging on here, especially when the doctors themselves admit how +reasonable it all is.... Still, if Benlian says it's "_All right_ ..." + + + + +IO + + +As the young man put his hand to the uppermost of the four brass +bell-knobs to the right of the fanlighted door he paused, withdrew the +hand again, and then pulled at the lowest knob. The sawing of bell-wire +answered him, and he waited for a moment, uncertain whether the bell had +rung, before pulling again. Then there came from the basement a single +cracked stroke; the head of a maid appeared in the whitewashed area +below; and the head was withdrawn as apparently the maid recognised him. +Steps were heard along the hall; the door was opened; and the maid stood +aside to let him enter, the apron with which she had slipped the latch +still crumpled in her greasy hand. + +"Sorry, Daisy," the young man apologised, "but I didn't want to bring her +down all those stairs. How is she? Has she been out to-day?" + +The maid replied that the person spoken of had been out; and the young +man walked along the wide carpeted passage. + +It was cumbered like an antique-shop with alabaster busts on pedestals, +dusty palms in faience vases, and trophies of spears and shields and +assegais. At the foot of the stairs was a rustling portière of strung +beads, and beyond it the carpet was continued up the broad, easy flight, +secured at each step by a brass rod. Where the stairs made a turn, the +fading light of the December afternoon, made still dimmer by a window of +decalcomanied glass, shone on a cloudy green aquarium with sallow +goldfish, a number of cacti on a shabby console table, and a large and +dirty white sheepskin rug. Passing along a short landing, the young man +began the ascent of the second flight. This also was carpeted, but with a +carpet that had done duty in some dining- or bed-room before being cut up +into strips of the width of the narrow space between the wall and the +handrail. Then, as he still mounted, the young man's feet sounded loud on +oilcloth; and when he finally paused and knocked at a door it was on a +small landing of naked boards beneath the cold gleam of the skylight +above the well of the stairs. + +"Come in," a girl's voice called. + +The room he entered had a low sagging ceiling on which shone a low glow +of firelight, making colder still the patch of eastern sky beyond the +roofs and the cowls and hoods of chimneys framed by the square of the +single window. The glow on the ceiling was reflected dully in the old +dark mirror over the mantelpiece. An open door in the farther corner, +hampered with skirts and blouses, allowed a glimpse of the girl's +bedroom. + +The young man set the paper bag he carried down on the littered round +table and advanced to the girl who sat in an old wicker chair before +the fire. The girl did not turn her head as he kissed her cheek, and he +looked down at something that had muffled the sound of his steps as +he had approached her. + +"Hallo, that's new, isn't it, Bessie? Where did that come from?" he asked +cheerfully. + +The middle of the floor was covered with a common jute matting, but on +the hearth was a magnificent leopard-skin rug. + +"Mrs. Hepburn sent it up. There was a draught from under the door. It's +much warmer for my feet." + +"Very kind of Mrs. Hepburn. Well, how are you feeling to-day, old girl?" + +"Better, thanks, Ed." + +"That's the style. You'll be yourself again soon. Daisy says you've been +out to-day?" + +"Yes, I went for a walk. But not far; I went to the Museum and then sat +down. You're early, aren't you?" + +He turned away to get a chair, from which he had to move a mass of +tissue-paper patterns and buckram linings. He brought it to the rug. + +"Yes. I stopped last night late to cash up for Vedder, so he's staying +to-night. Turn and turn about. Well, tell us all about it, Bess." + +Their faces were red in the firelight. Hers had the prettiness that the +first glance almost exhausts, the prettiness, amazing in its quantity, +that one sees for a moment under the light of the street lamps when shops +and offices close for the day. She was short-nosed, pulpy-mouthed and +faunish-eyed, and only the rather remarkable smallness of the head on the +splendid thick throat saved her from ordinariness. He, too, might have +been seen in his thousands at the close of any day, hurrying home to +Catford or Walham Green or Tufnell Park to tea and an evening with a +girl or in a billiard-room, or else dining cheaply "up West" preparatory +to smoking cigarettes from yellow packets in the upper circle of a +music-hall. Four inches of white up-and-down collar encased his neck; and +as he lifted his trousers at the knee to clear his purple socks, the pair +of paper covers showed, that had protected his cuffs during the day at +the office. He removed them, crumpled them up and threw them on the fire; +and the momentary addition to the light of the upper chamber showed how +curd-white was that superb neck of hers and how moody and tired her eyes. + +From his face only one would have guessed, and guessed wrongly, that his +preferences were for billiard-rooms and music-halls. His conversation +showed them to be otherwise. It was of Polytechnic classes that he spoke, +and of the course of lectures in English literature that had just begun. +And, as if somebody had asserted that the pursuit of such studies was not +compatible with a certain measure of physical development also, he +announced that he was not sure that he should not devote, say, half an +evening a week, on Wednesdays, to training in the gymnasium. + +"_Mens sana in corpore sano_, Bessie," he said; "a sound mind in a sound +body, you know. That's tremendously important, especially when a fellow +spends the day in a stuffy office. Yes, I think I shall give it half +Wednesdays, from eight-thirty to nine-thirty; sends you home in a glow. +But I was going to tell you about the Literature Class. The second +lecture's to-night. The first was splendid, all about the languages of +Europe and Asia--what they call the Indo-Germanic languages, you know. +Aryans. I can't tell you exactly without my notes, but the Hindoos and +Persians, I think it was, they crossed the Himalaya Mountains and spread +westward somehow, as far as Europe. That was the way it all began. It +was splendid, the way the lecturer put it. English is a Germanic +language, you know. Then came the Celts. I wish I'd brought my notes. I +see you've been reading; let's look--" + +A book lay on her knees, its back warped by the heat of the fire. He took +it and opened it. + +"Ah, Keats! Glad you like Keats, Bessie. We needn't be great readers, but +it's important that what we do read should be all right. I don't know +him, not _really_ know him, that is. But he's quite all right--A1 in +fact. And he's an example of what I've always maintained, that knowledge +should be brought within the reach of all. It just shows. He was the son +of a livery-stable keeper, you know, so what he'd have been if he'd +really had chances, been to universities and so on, there's no knowing. +But, of course, it's more from the historical standpoint that I'm +studying these things. Let's have a look--" + +He opened the book where a hairpin between the leaves marked a place. +The firelight glowed on the page, and he read, monotonously and +inelastically: + +"_And as I sat, over the light blue hills +There came a noise of revellers; the rills +Into the wide stream came of purple hue-- + 'Twas Bacchus and his crew! +The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills +From kissing cymbals made a merry din-- + 'Twas Bacchus and his kin! +Like to a moving vintage down they came, +Crowned with green leaves, and faces all on flame +All madly dancing through the pleasant valley + To scare thee, Melancholy!"_ + +It was the wondrous passage from _Endymion_, of the descent of the wild +inspired rabble into India. Ed plucked for a moment at his lower lip, and +then, with a "Hm! What's it all about, Bessie?" continued: + +_"Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood, +Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood, + With sidelong laughing; +And little rills of crimson wine imbrued +His plump white arms and shoulders, enough white + For Venus' pearly bite; +And near him rode Silenus on his ass, +Pelted with flowers as he on did pass, + Tipsily quaffing."_ + +"Hm! I see. Mythology. That's made up of tales, and myths, you know. Like +Odin and Thor and those, only those were Scandinavian Mythology. So it +would be absurd to take it too seriously. But I think, in a way, things +like that do harm. You see," he explained, "the more beautiful they are +the more harm they might do. We ought always to show virtue and vice in +their true colours, and if you look at it from that point of view this is +just drunkenness. That's rotten; destroys your body and intellect; as I +heard a chap say once, it's an insult to the beasts to call it beastly. I +joined the Blue Ribbon when I was fourteen and I haven't been sorry for +it yet. No. Now there's Vedder; he 'went off on a bend,' as he calls it, +last night, and even he says this morning it wasn't worth it. But let's +read on." + +Again he read, with unresilient movement: + +"_I saw Osirian Egypt kneel adown +Before the vine wreath crown! + I saw parched Abyssinia rouse and sing + To the silver cymbals' ring! +I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce + Old Tartary the fierce! +Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans_ ..." + +"Hm! He was a Buddhist god, Brahma was; mythology again. As I say, if you +take it seriously, it's just glorifying intoxication.--But I say; I can +hardly see. Better light the lamp. We'll have tea first, then read. No, +you sit still; I'll get it ready; I know where things are--" + +He rose, crossed to a little cupboard with a sink in it, filled the +kettle at the tap, and brought it to the fire. Then he struck a match and +lighted the lamp. + +The cheap glass shade was of a foolish corolla shape, clear glass below, +shading to pink, and deepening to red at the crimped edge. It gave a +false warmth to the spaces of the room above the level of the +mantelpiece, and Ed's figure, as he turned the regulator, looked from the +waist upwards as if he stood within that portion of a spectrum screen +that deepens to the band of red. The bright concentric circles that +spread in rings of red on the ceiling were more dimly reduplicated in the +old mirror over the mantelpiece; and the wintry eastern light beyond the +chimney-hoods seemed suddenly almost to die out. + +Bessie, her white neck below the level of the lamp-shade, had taken up +the book again; but she was not reading. She was looking over it at the +upper part of the grate. Presently she spoke. "I was looking at some of +those things this afternoon, at the Museum." + +He was clearing from the table more buckram linings and patterns of +paper, numbers of Myra's Journal and The Delineator. Already on his way +to the cupboard he had put aside a red-bodiced dressmaker's "shape" of +wood and wire. "What things?" he asked. + +"Those you were reading about. Greek, aren't they?" + +"Oh, the Greek room!... But those people, Bacchus and those, weren't +people in the ordinary sense. Gods and goddesses, most of 'em; Bacchus +was a god. That's what mythology means. I wish sometimes our course took +in Greek literature, but it's a dead language after all. German's more +good in modern life. It would be nice to know everything, but one has to +select, you know. Hallo, I clean forgot; I brought you some grapes, +Bessie; here they are, in this bag; we'll have 'em after tea, what?" + +"But," she said again after a pause, still looking at the grate, "they +had their priests and priestesses, and followers and people, hadn't they? +It was their things I was looking at--combs and brooches and hairpins, +and things to cut their nails with. They're all in a glass case there. +And they had safety-pins, exactly like ours." + +"Oh, they were a civilised people," said Ed cheerfully. "It all gives you +an idea. I only hope you didn't tire yourself out. You'll soon be all +right, of course, but you have to be careful yet. We'll have a clean +tablecloth, shall we?" + +She had been seriously ill; her life had been despaired of; and somehow +the young Polytechnic student seemed anxious to assure her that she was +now all right again, or soon would be. They were to be married "as soon +as things brightened up a bit," and he was very much in love with her. He +watched her head and neck as he continued to lay the table, and then, as +he crossed once more to the cupboard, he put his hand lightly in passing +on her hair. + +She gave so quick a start that he too started. She must have been very +deep in her reverie to have been so taken by surprise. + +"I say, Bessie, don't jump like that!" he cried with involuntary +quickness. Indeed, had his hand been red-hot, or ice-cold, or taloned, +she could not have turned a more startled, even frightened, face to him. + +"It was your touching me," she muttered, resuming her gazing into the +grate. + +He stood looking anxiously down on her. It would have been better not to +discuss her state, and he knew it; but in his anxiety he forgot it. + +"That jumpiness is the effect of your illness, you know. I shall be glad +when it's all over. It's made you so odd." + +She was not pleased that he should speak of her "oddness." For that +matter, she, too, found him "odd"--at any rate, found it difficult to +realise that he was as he always had been. He had begun to irritate her a +little. His club-footed reading of the verses had irritated her, and she +had tried hard to hide from him that his cocksure opinions and the tone +in which they were pronounced jarred on her. It was not that she was +"better" than he, "knew" any more than he did, didn't (she supposed) love +him still the same; these moods, that dated from her illness, had nothing +to do with those things; she reproached herself sometimes that she was +subject to such doldrums. + +"It's all right, Ed, but please don't touch me just now," she said. + +He was in the act of leaning over her chair, but he saw her shrink, and +refrained. + +"Poor old girl!" he said sympathetically. "What's the matter?" + +"I don't know. It's awfully stupid of me to be like this, but I can't +help it. I shall be better soon if you leave me alone." + +"Nothing's happened, has it?" + +"Only those silly dreams I told you about." + +"Bother the dreams!" muttered the Polytechnic student. + +During her illness she had had dreams, and had come to herself at +intervals to find Ed or the doctor, Mrs. Hepburn or her aunt, bending +over her. These kind, solicitous faces had been no more than a glimpse, +and then she had gone off into the dreams again. The curious thing had +been that the dreams had seemed to be her vivid waking life, and the +other things--the anxious faces, the details of her dingy bedroom, the +thermometer under her tongue--had been the dream. And, though she had +come back to actuality, the dreams had never quite vanished. She could +remember no more of them than that they had seemed to hold a high singing +and jocundity, issuing from some region of haze and golden light; and +they seemed to hover, ever on the point of being recaptured, yet ever +eluding all her mental efforts. She was living now between reality and a +vision. + +She had fewer words than sensations, and it was a little pitiful to hear +her vainly striving to make clear what she meant. + +"It's so queer," she said. "It's like being on the edge of something--a +sort of tiptoe--I can't describe it. Sometimes I could almost touch it +with my hand, and then it goes away, but never quite away. It's like +something just past the corner of my eye, over my shoulder, and I sit +very still sometimes, trying to take it off its guard. But the moment I +move my head it moves too--like this--" + +Again he gave a quick start at the suddenness of her action. Very +stealthily her faunish eyes had stolen sideways, and then she had swiftly +turned her head. + +"Here, I say, don't, Bessie!" he cried nervously. "You look awfully +uncanny when you do that! You're brooding," he continued, "that's what +you're doing, brooding. You're getting into a low state. You want bucking +up. I don't think I shall go to the Polytec. to-night; I shall stay and +cheer you up. You know, I really don't think you're making an effort, +darling." + +His last words seemed to strike her. They seemed to fit in with something +of which she too was conscious. "Not making an effort ..." she wondered +how he knew that. She felt in some vague way that it was important that +she should make an effort. + +For, while her dream ever evaded her, and yet never ceased to call her +with such a voice as he who reads on a magic page of the calling of elves +hears stilly in his brain, yet somehow behind the seduction was another +and a sterner voice. There was warning as well as fascination. Beyond +that edge at which she strained on tiptoe, mingled with the jocund calls +to Hasten, Hasten, were deeper calls that bade her Beware. They puzzled +her. Beware of what? Of what danger? And to whom?... + +"How do you mean, I'm not making an effort, Ed?" she asked slowly, again +looking into the fire, where the kettle now made a gnat-like singing. + +"Why, an effort to get all right again. To be as you used to be--as, of +course, you will be soon." + +"As I used to be?" The words came with a little check in her breathing. + +"Yes, before all this. To be yourself, you know." + +"Myself?" + +"All jolly, and without these jerks and jumps. I wish you could get away. +A fortnight by the sea would do you all the good in the world." + +She knew not what it was in the words "the sea" that caused her suddenly +to breathe more deeply. The sea!... It was as if, by the mere uttering of +them, he had touched some secret spring, brought to fulfilment some +spell. What had he meant by speaking of the sea?... A fortnight before, +had somebody spoken to her of the sea it would have been the sea of +Margate, of Brighton, of Southend, that, supplying the image that a word +calls up as if by conjuration, she would have seen before her; and what +other image could she supply, could she possibly supply, now?... Yet she +did, or almost did, supply one. What new experience had she had, or what +old, old one had been released in her? With that confused, joyous dinning +just beyond the range of physical hearing there had suddenly mingled +a new illusion of sound--a vague, vast pash and rustle, silky and harsh +both at once, its tireless voice holding meanings of stillness and +solitude compared with which the silence that is mere absence of sound +was vacancy. It was part of her dream, invisible, intangible, inaudible, +yet there. As if he had been an enchanter, it had come into being at the +word upon his lips. Had he other such words? Had he the Master Word +that--(ah, she knew what the Master Word would do!)--would make the +Vision the Reality and the Reality the Vision? Deep within her she felt +something--her soul, herself, she knew not what--thrill and turn over and +settle again.... + +"The sea," she repeated in a low voice. + +"Yes, that's what you want to set you up--rather! Do you remember that +fortnight at Littlehampton, you and me and your Aunt? Jolly that was! I +like Littlehampton. It isn't flash like Brighton, and Margate's always so +beastly crowded. And do you remember that afternoon by the windmill? I +did love you that afternoon, Bessie!"... + +He continued to talk, but she was not listening. She was wondering why +the words "the sea" were somehow part of it all--the pins and brooches +of the Museum, the book on her knees, the dream. She remembered a game of +hide-and-seek she had played as a child, in which cries of "Warm, warm, +warmer!" had announced the approach to the hidden object. Oh, she was +getting warm--positively hot.... + +He had ceased to talk, and was watching her. Perhaps it was the thought +of how he had loved her that afternoon by the windmill that had brought +him close to her chair again. She was aware of his nearness, and closed +her eyes for a moment as if she dreaded something. Then she said quickly, +"Is tea nearly ready, Ed?" and, as he turned to the table, took up the +book again. + +She felt that even to touch that book brought her "warmer." It fell open +at a page. She did not hear the clatter Ed made at the table, nor yet the +babble his words had evoked, of the pierrots and banjos and minstrels of +Margate and Littlehampton. It was to hear a gladder, wilder tumult that +she sat once more so still, so achingly listening.... + +_"The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills +From kissing cymbals made a merry din--"_ + +The words seemed to move on the page. In her eyes another light than the +firelight seemed to play. Her breast rose, and in her thick white throat +a little inarticulate sound twanged. + +"Eh? Did you speak, Bessie?" Ed asked, stopping in his buttering of +bread. + +"Eh?... No." + +In answering, her head had turned for a moment, and she had seen him. +Suddenly it struck her with force: what a shaving of a man he was! +Desk-chested, weak-necked, conscious of his little "important" lip +and chin--yes, he needed a Polytechnic gymnastic course! Then she +remarked how once, at Margate, she had seen him in the distance, as +in a hired baggy bathing-dress he had bathed from a machine, in muddy +water, one of a hundred others, all rather cold, flinging a polo-ball +about and shouting stridently. "A sound mind in a sound body!"... He +was rather vain of his neat shoes, too, and doubtless stunted his +feet; and she had seen the little spot on his neck caused by the +chafing of his collar-stud.... No, she did not want him to touch her, +just now at any rate. His touch would be too like a betrayal of another +touch ... somewhere, sometime, somehow ... in that tantalising dream +that refused to allow itself either to be fully remembered or quite +forgotten. What was that dream? What was it?... + +She continued to gaze into the fire. + +Of a sudden she sprang to her feet with a choked cry of almost animal +fury. The fool had touched her. Carried away doubtless by the memory of +that afternoon by the windmill, he had, in passing once more to the +kettle, crept softly behind her and put a swift burning kiss on the side +of her neck. + +Then he had retreated before her, stumbling against the table and causing +the cups and saucers to jingle. + +The basket-chair tilted up, but righted itself again. + +"I told you--I told you--" she choked, her stockish figure shaking with +rage, "I told you--you--" + +He put up his elbow as if to ward off a blow. + +"_You_ touch me--_you!--you!_" the words broke from her. + +He had put himself farther round the table. He stammered. + +"Here--dash it all, Bessie--what is the matter?" + +"_You_ touch me!" + +"All right," he said sullenly. "I won't touch you again--no fear. I +didn't know you were such a firebrand. All right, drop it now. I won't +again. Good Lord!" + +Slowly the white fist she had drawn back sank to her side again. + +"All right now," he continued to grumble resentfully. "You needn't take +on so. It's said--I won't touch you again." Then, as if he remembered +that after all she was ill and must be humoured, he began, while her +bosom still rose and fell rapidly, to talk with an assumption that +nothing much had happened. "Come, sit down again, Bessie. The tea's in +the pot and I'll have it ready in a couple of jiffs. What a ridiculous +little girl you are, to take on like that!... And I say, listen! That's a +muffin-bell, and there's a grand fire for toast! You sit down while I run +out and get 'em. Give me your key, so I can let myself in again--" + +He took her key from her bag, caught up his hat, and hastened out. + +But she did not sit down again. She was no calmer for his quick +disappearance. In that moment when he had recoiled from her she had had +the expression of some handsome and angered snake, its hood puffed, ready +to strike. She stood dazed; one would have supposed that that ill-advised +kiss of his had indeed been the Master Word she sought, the Word she felt +approaching, the Word to which the objects of the Museum, the book, that +rustle of a sea she had never seen, had been but the ever "warming" +stages. Some merest trifle stood between her and those elfin cries, +between her and that thin golden mist in which faintly seen shapes seemed +to move--shapes almost of tossed arms, waving, brandishing objects +strangely all but familiar. That roaring of the sea was not the rushing +of her own blood in her ears, that rosy flush not the artificial glow of +the cheap red lampshade. The shapes were almost as plain as if she saw +them in some clear but black mirror, the sounds almost as audible as if +she heard them through some not very thick muffling.... + +"Quick--the book," she muttered. + +But even as she stretched out her hand for it, again came that solemn +sound of warning. As if something sought to stay it, she had deliberately +to thrust her hand forward. Again the high dinning calls of "Hasten! +Hasten!" were mingled with that deeper "Beware!" She knew in her soul +that, once over that terrible edge, the Dream would become the Reality +and the Reality the Dream. She knew nothing of the fluidity of the thing +called Personality--not a thing at all, but a state, a balance, a +relation, a resultant of forces so delicately in equilibrium that a +touch, and--pff!--the horror of Formlessness rushed over all. + +As she hesitated a new light appeared in the chamber. Within the frame of +the small square window, beyond the ragged line of the chimney-cowls, +an edge of orange brightness showed. She leaned forward. It was the full +moon, rusty and bloated and flattened by the earth-mist. + +The next moment her hand had clutched at the book. + +_"Whence came ye, merry Damsels! Whence came ye +So many, and so many, and such glee? +Why have ye left your bowers desolate, + Your lutes, and gentler fate? +'We follow Bacchus, Bacchus on the wing A-conquering! +Bacchus, young Bacchus! Good or ill betide +We dance before him thorough kingdoms wide! +Come hither, Lady fair, and joined be + To our wild minstrelsy!'"_ + +There was an instant in which darkness seemed to blot out all else; then +it rolled aside, and in a blaze of brightness was gone. It was gone, and +she stood face to face with her Dream, that for two thousand years had +slumbered in the blood of her and her line. She stood, with mouth agape +and eyes that hailed, her thick throat full of suppressed clamour. The +other was the Dream now, and these!... they came down, mad and noisy +and bright--Maenades, Thyades, satyrs, fauns--naked, in hides of beasts, +ungirded, dishevelled, wreathed and garlanded, dancing, singing, +shouting. The thudding of their hooves shook the ground, and the clash of +their timbrels and the rustling of their thyrsi filled the air. They +brandished frontal bones, the dismembered quarters of kids and goats; +they struck the bronze cantharus, they tossed the silver obba up aloft. +Down a cleft of rocks and woods they came, trooping to a wide seashore +with the red of the sunset behind them. She saw the evening light on the +sleek and dappled hides, the gilded ivory and rich brown of their legs +and shoulders, the white of inner arms held up on high, their wide red +mouths, the quivering of the twin flesh-gouts on the necks of the leaping +fauns. And, shutting out the glimpse of sky at the head of the deep +ravine, the god himself descended, with his car full of drunken girls who +slept with the serpents coiled about them. + +Shouting and moaning and frenzied, leaping upon one another with +libidinous laughter and beating one another with the half-stripped +thyrsi, they poured down to the yellow sands and the anemonied pools of +the shore. They raced to the water, that gleamed pale as nacre in the +deepening twilight in the eye of the evening star. They ran along its +edge over their images in the wet sands, calling their lost companion. + +"Hasten, hasten!" they cried; and one of them, a young man with a torso +noble as the dawn and shoulder-lines strong as those of the eternal +hills, ran here and there calling her name. + +"Louder, louder!" she called back in an ecstasy. + +Something dropped and tinkled against the fender. It was one of her +hairpins. One side of her hair was in a loose tumble; she threw up the +small head on the superb thick neck. + +"Louder!--I cannot hear! Once more--" + +The throwing up of her head that had brought down the rest of her hair +had given her a glimpse of herself in the glass over the mantelpiece. For +the last time that formidable "Beware!" sounded like thunder in her ears; +the next moment she had snapped with her fingers the ribbon that was +cutting into her throbbing throat. He with the torso and those shoulders +was seeking her ... how should he know her in that dreary garret, in +those joyless habiliments? He would as soon known his Own in that +crimson-bodiced, wire-framed dummy by the window yonder!... + +Her fingers clutched at the tawdry mercerised silk of her blouse. There +was a rip, and her arms and throat were free. She panted as she tugged +at something that gave with a short "click-click," as of steel +fastenings; something fell against the fender.... These also.... She tore +at them, and kicked them as they lay about her feet as leaves lie about +the trunk of a tree in autumn.... + +"Ah!" + +And as she stood there, as if within the screen of a spectrum that +deepened to the band of red, her eyes fell on the leopard-skin at her +feet. She caught it up, and in doing so saw purple grapes--purple +grapes that issued from the mouth of a paper bag on the table. With the +dappled pelt about her she sprang forward. The juice spurted through them +into the mass of her loosened hair. Down her body there was a spilth of +seeds and pulp. She cried hoarsely aloud. + +"Once more--oh, answer me! Tell me my name!" + +Ed's steps were heard on the oilclothed portion of the staircase. + +"My name--oh, my name!" she cried in an agony of suspense.... "Oh, they +will not wait for me! They have lighted the torches--they run up and down +the shore with torches--oh, cannot you see me?..." + +Suddenly she dashed to the chair on which the litter of linings and +tissue-paper lay. She caught up a double handful and crammed them on the +fire. They caught and flared. There was a call upon the stairs, and the +sound of somebody mounting in haste. + +"Once--once only--my name!" + +The soul of the Bacchante rioted, struggled to escape from her eyes. Then +as the door was flung open, she heard, and gave a terrifying shout of +recognition. + +"I hear--I almost hear--but once more.... IO! _Io, Io, Io!_" + +Ed, in the doorway, stood for one moment agape; the next, ignorant of the +full purport of his own words--ignorant that though man may come +westwards he may yet bring his worship with him--ignorant that to make +the Dream the Reality and the Reality the Dream is Heaven's dreadfullest +favour--and ignorant that, that Edge once crossed, there is no return to +the sanity and sweetness and light that are only seen clearly in the +moment when they are lost for ever--he had dashed down the stairs crying +in a voice hoarse and high with terror: + +"She's mad! She's mad!" + + + + +THE ACCIDENT + + +I + +The street had not changed so much but that, little by little, its +influence had come over Romarin again; and as the clock a street or two +away had struck seven he had stood, his hands folded on his stick, first +curious, then expectant, and finally, as the sound had died away, oddly +satisfied in his memory. The clock had a peculiar chime, a rather +elaborate one, ending inconclusively on the dominant and followed after +an unusually long interval by the stroke of the hour itself. Not until +its last vibration had become too subtle for his ear had Romarin resumed +the occupation that the pealing of the hour had interrupted. + +It was an occupation that especially tended to abstraction of mind--the +noting in detail of the little things of the street that he had forgotten +with such completeness that they awakened only tardy responses in his +memory now that his eyes rested on them again. The shape of a +doorknocker, the grouping of an old chimney-stack, the crack, still +there, in a flagstone--somewhere deep in the past these things had +associations; but they lay very deep, and the disturbing of them gave +Romarin a curious, desolate feeling, as of returning to things he had +long out-grown. + +But, as he continued to stare at the objects, the sluggish memories +roused more and more; and for each bit of the old that reasserted itself +scores of yards of the new seemed to disappear. New shop-frontages went; +a wall, brought up flush where formerly a recess had been, became the +recess once more; the intermittent electric sign at the street's end, +that wrote in green and crimson the name of a whiskey across a lamp-lit +façade, ceased to worry his eyes; and the unfamiliar new front of the +little restaurant he was passing and repassing took on its old and +well-known aspect again. + +Seven o'clock. He had thought, in dismissing his hansom, that it had been +later. His appointment was not until a quarter past. But he decided +against entering the restaurant and waiting inside; seeing who his guest +was, it would be better to wait at the door. By the light of the +restaurant window he corrected his watch, and then sauntered a few yards +along the street, to where men were moving flats of scenery from a back +door of the new theatre into a sort of tumbril. The theatre was twenty +years old, but to Romarin it was "the new theatre." There had been no +theatre there in his day. + +In his day!... His day had been twice twenty years before. Forty years +before, that street, that quarter, had been bound up in his life. He had +not, forty years ago, been the famous painter, honoured, decorated, taken +by the arm by monarchs; he had been a student, wild and raw as any, with +that tranquil and urbane philosophy that had made his success still in +abeyance within him. As his eyes had rested on the doorknocker next to +the restaurant a smile had crossed his face. How had _that_ door-knocker +come to be left by the old crowd that had wrenched off so many others? By +what accident had _that_ survived, to bring back all the old life now so +oddly? He stood, again smiling, his hands folded on his stick. A Crown +Prince had given him that stick, and had had it engraved, "To my Friend, +Romarin." + +"You oughtn't to be here, you know," he said to the door-knocker. "If I +didn't get you, Marsden ought to have done so...." + +It was Marsden whom Romarin had come to meet--Marsden, of whom he had +thought with such odd persistency lately. Marsden was the only man in the +world between whom and himself lay as much as the shadow of an enmity; +and even that faint shadow was now passing. One does not guard, for forty +years, animosities that take their rise in quick outbreaks of the young +blood; and, now that Romarin came to think of it, he hadn't really hated +Marsden for more than a few months. It had been within those very doors +(Romarin was passing the restaurant again) that there had been that quick +blow, about a girl, and the tables had been pushed hastily back, and he +and Marsden had fought, while the other fellows had kept the waiters +away.... And Romarin was now sixty-four, and Marsden must be a year +older, and the girl--who knew?--probably dead long ago ... Yes, time +heals these things, thank God; and Romarin had felt a genuine flush of +pleasure when Marsden had accepted his invitation to dinner. + +But--Romarin looked at his watch again--it was rather like Marsden to be +late. Marsden had always been like that--had come and gone pretty much as +he had pleased, regardless of inconvenience to others. But, doubtless, he +had had to walk. If all reports were true, Marsden had not made very much +of his life in the way of worldly success, and Romarin, sorry to hear it, +had wished he could give him a leg-up. Even a good man cannot do much +when the current of his life sets against him in a tide of persistent +ill-luck, and Romarin, honoured and successful, yet knew that he had been +one of the lucky ones.... + +But it was just like Marsden to be late, for all that. + +At first Romarin did not recognise him when he turned the corner of the +street and walked towards him. He hadn't made up his mind beforehand +exactly how he had expected Marsden to look, but he was conscious that he +didn't look it. It was not the short stubble of grey beard, so short that +it seemed to hesitate between beard and unshavenness; it was not the +figure nor carriage--clothes alter that, and the clothes of the man who +was advancing to meet Romarin were, to put it bluntly, shabby; nor was +it... but Romarin did not know what it was in the advancing figure that +for the moment found no response in his memory. He was already within +half a dozen yards of the men who were moving the scenery from the +theatre into the tumbril, and one of the workmen put up his hand as the +edge of a fresh "wing" appeared.... + +But at the sound of his voice the same thing happened that had happened +when the clock had struck seven. Romarin found himself suddenly +expectant, attentive, and then again curiously satisfied in his memory. +Marsden's voice at least had not changed; it was as in the old days--a +little envious, sarcastic, accepting lower interpretations somewhat +willingly, somewhat grudging of better ones. It completed the taking back +of Romarin that the chiming of the clock, the doorknocker, the grouping +of the chimney-stack and the crack in the flagstone had begun. + +"Well, my distinguished Academician, my--" + +Marsden's voice sounded across the group of scene-shifters... + +"_'Alf_ a mo, _if_ you please, guv'nor," said another voice... + +For a moment the painted "wing" shut them off from one another. + + * * * * * + +In that moment Romarin's accident befell him. If its essential nature is +related in arbitrary terms, it is that there are no other terms to relate +it in. It is a decoded cipher, which can be restored to its cryptic form +as Romarin subsequently restored it. + + * * * * * + +As the painter took Marsden's arm and entered the restaurant, he noticed +that while the outside of the place still retained traces of the old, its +inside was entirely new. Its cheap glittering wall-mirrors, that gave a +false impression of the actual size of the place, its Loves and +Shepherdesses painted in the style of the carts of the vendors of +ice-cream, its hat-racks and its four-bladed propeller that set the air +slowly in motion at the farther end of the room, might all have been +matched in a dozen similar establishments within hail of a cab-whistle. +Its gelatine-written menu-cards announced that one might dine there _à +la carte_ or _table d'hôte_ for two shillings. Neither the cooking nor +the service had influenced Romarin in his choice of a place to dine at. + +He made a gesture to the waiter who advanced to help him on with his coat +that Marsden was to be assisted first; but Marsden, with a grunted "All +right," had already helped himself. A glimpse of the interior of the coat +told Romarin why Marsden kept waiters at arm's-length. A little twinge of +compunction took him that his own overcoat should be fur-collared and +lined with silk. + +They sat down at a corner table not far from the slowly moving +four-bladed propeller. + +"Now we can talk," Romarin said. "I'm glad, glad to see you again, +Marsden." + +It was a peculiarly vicious face that he saw, corrugated about the brows, +and with stiff iron-grey hair untrimmed about the ears. It shocked +Romarin a little; he had hardly looked to see certain things so +accentuated by the passage of time. Romarin's own brow was high and bald +and benign, and his beard was like a broad shield of silver. + +"You're glad, are you?" said Marsden, as they sat down facing one +another. "Well, I'm glad--to be seen with you. It'll revive my credit a +bit. There's a fellow across there has recognised you already by your +photographs in the papers.... I assume I may...?" + +He made a little upward movement of his hand. It was a gin and +bitters Marsden assumed he might have. Romarin ordered it; he himself +did not take one. Marsden tossed down the _apéritif_ at one gulp; then +he reached for his roll, pulled it to pieces, and--Romarin remembered +how in the old days Marsden had always eaten bread like that--began to +throw bullets of bread into his mouth. Formerly this habit had irritated +Romarin intensely; now ... well, well, Life uses some of us better than +others. Small blame to these if they throw up the struggle. Marsden, poor +devil ... but the arrival of the soup interrupted Romarin's meditation. +He consulted the violet-written card, ordered the succeeding courses, and +the two men ate for some minutes in silence. + +"Well," said Romarin presently, pushing away his plate and wiping his +white moustache, "are you still a Romanticist, Marsden?" + +Marsden, who had tucked his napkin between two of the buttons of his +frayed waistcoat, looked suspiciously across the glass with the dregs of +the gin and bitters that he had half raised to his lips. + +"Eh?" he said. "I say, Romarin, don't let's go grave-digging among +memories merely for the sake of making conversation. Yours may be +pleasant, but I'm not in the habit of wasting much time over mine. +Might as well be making new ones ... I'll drink whiskey and soda." + +It was brought, a large one; and Marsden, nodding, took a deep gulp. + +"Health," he said. + +"Thanks," said Romarin--instantly noting that the monosyllable, which +matched the other's in curtness, was not at all the reply he had +intended. "Thank you--yours," he amended; and a short pause followed, in +which fish was brought. + +This was not what Romarin had hoped for. He had desired to be reconciled +with Marsden, not merely to be allowed to pay for his dinner. Yet if +Marsden did not wish to talk it was difficult not to defer to his wish. +It was true that he had asked if Marsden was still a Romanticist largely +for the sake of something to say; but Marsden's prompt pointing out of +this was not encouraging. Now that he came to think of it, he had never +known precisely what Marsden had meant by the word "Romance" he had so +frequently taken into his mouth; he only knew that this creed of +Romanticism, whatever it was, had been worn rather challengingly, a chip +on the shoulder, to be knocked off at some peril or other. And it had +seemed to Romarin a little futile in the violence with which it had been +maintained ... But that was neither here nor there. The point was, that +the conversation had begun not very happily, and must be mended at once +if at all. To mend it, Romarin leaned across the table. + +"Be as friendly as I am, Marsden," he said. "I think--pardon me--that if +our positions were reversed, and I saw in you the sincere desire to help +that I have, I'd take it in the right way." Again Marsden looked +suspiciously at him. "To help? How to help?" he demanded "That's what I +should like you to tell me. But I suppose (for example) you still work?" + +"Oh, my work!" Marsden made a little gesture of contempt. "Try again, +Romarin." + +"You don't do any?... Come, I'm no bad friend to my friends, and you'll +find me--especially so." + +But Marsden put up his hand. + +"Not quite so quickly," he said. "Let's see what you mean by help first. +Do you really mean that you want me to borrow money from you? That's help +as I understand it nowadays." + +"Then you've changed," said Romarin--wondering, however, in his secret +heart whether Marsden had changed very much in that respect after all. + +Marsden gave a short honk of a laugh. + +"You didn't suppose I hadn't changed, did you?" Then he leaned suddenly +forward. "This is rather a mistake, Romarin--rather a mistake," he said. + +"What is?" + +"This--our meeting again. Quite a mistake." + +Romarin sighed. "I had hoped not," he said. + +Marsden leaned forward again, with another gesture Romarin remembered +very well--dinner knife in hand, edge and palm upwards, punctuating +and expounding with the point. + +"I tell you, it's a mistake," he said, knife and hand balanced. "You +can't reopen things like this. You don't really _want_ to reopen them; +you only want to reopen certain of them; you want to pick and choose +among things, to approve and disapprove. There must have been somewhere +or other something in me you didn't altogether dislike--I can't for the +life of me think what it was, by the way; and you want to lay stress on +that and to sink the rest. Well, you can't. I won't let you. I'll not +submit my life to you like that. If you want to go into things, all +right; but it must be all or none. And I'd like another drink." + +He put the knife down with a little clap as Romarin beckoned to the +waiter. + +There was distress on Romarin's face. He was not conscious of having +adopted a superior attitude. But again he told himself that he must make +allowances. Men who don't come off in Life's struggle are apt to be +touchy, and he was; after all, the same old Marsden, the man with whom he +desired to be at peace. + +"Are you quite fair to me?" he asked presently, in a low voice. + +Again the knife was taken up and its point advanced. + +"Yes, I am," said Marsden in a slightly raised voice; and he indicated +with the knife the mirror at the end of the table. "You know you've done +well, and I, to all appearances, haven't; you can't look at that glass +and not know it. But I've followed the line of my development too, no +less logically than you. My life's been mine, and I'm not going to +apologise for it to a single breathing creature. More, I'm proud of it. +At least, there's been singleness of intention about it. So I think I'm +strictly fair in pointing that out when you talk about helping me." + +"Perhaps so, perhaps so," Romarin agreed a little sadly. "It's your tone +more than anything else that makes things a little difficult. Believe me, +I've no end in my mind except pure friendliness." + +"No-o-o," said Marsden--a long "no" that seemed to deliberate, to +examine, and finally to admit. "No. I believe that. And you usually get +what you set out for. Oh yes. I've watched your rise--I've made a point +of watching it. It's been a bit at a time, but you've got there. You're +that sort. It's on your forehead--your destiny." + +Romarin smiled. + +"Hallo, that's new, isn't it?" he said. "It wasn't your habit to talk +much about destiny, if I remember rightly. Let me see; wasn't this more +your style--'will, passion, laughs-at-impossibilities and says,' et +cetera--and so forth? Wasn't that it? With always the suspicion not far +away that you did things more from theoretical conviction than real +impulse after all?" + +A dispassionate observer would have judged that the words went somewhere +near home. Marsden was scraping together with the edge of his knife the +crumbs of his broken roll. He scraped them into a little square, and then +trimmed the corners. Not until the little pile was shaped to his liking +did he look surlily up. + +"Let it rest, Romarin," he said curtly. "Drop it," he added. "Let it +alone. If I begin to talk like that, too, we shall only cut one another +up. Clink glasses--there--and let it alone." + +Mechanically Romarin clinked; but his bald brow was perplexed. + +"'Cut one another up?'" he repeated. + +"Yes. Let it alone." + +"'Cut one another up?'" he repeated once more. "You puzzle me entirely." + +"Well, perhaps I'm altogether wrong. I only wanted to warn you that I've +dared a good many things in my time. Now drop it." + +Romarin had fine brown eyes, under Oriental arched brows. Again they +noted the singularly vicious look of the man opposite. They were full +of mistrust and curiosity, and he stroked his silver beard. + +"Drop it?" he said slowly ... "No, let's go on. I want to hear more of +this." + +"I'd much rather have another drink in peace and quietness.... Waiter!" + +Either leaned back in his chair, surveying the other. "You're a perverse +devil still," was Romarin's thought. Marsden's, apparently, was of +nothing but the whiskey and soda the waiter had gone to fetch. + + * * * * * + +Romarin was inclined to look askance at a man who could follow up a gin +and bitters with three or four whiskeys and soda without turning a hair. +It argued the seasoned cask. Marsden had bidden the waiter leave the +bottle and the syphon on the table, and was already mixing himself +another stiff peg. + +"Well," he said, "since you will have it so--to the old days." + +"To the old days," said Romarin, watching him gulp it down. + +"Queer, looking back across all that time at 'em, isn't it? How do you +feel about it?" + +"In a mixed kind of way, I think; the usual thing: pleasure and regret +mingled." + +"Oh, you have regrets, have you?" + +"For certain things, yes. Not, let me say, my turn-up with you, Marsden," +he laughed. "That's why I chose the old place--" he gave a glance +round at its glittering newness. "Do you happen to remember what all that +was about? I've only the vaguest idea." + +Marsden gave him a long look. "That all?" he asked. + +"Oh, I remember in a sort of way. That 'Romantic' soap-bubble of yours +was really at the bottom of it, I suspect. Tell me," he smiled, "did you +really suppose Life could be lived on those mad lines you used to lay +down?" + +"My life," said Marsden calmly, "has been." + +"Not literally." + +"Literally." + +"You mean to say that you haven't outgrown _that_?" + +"I hope not." + +Romarin had thrown up his handsome head. "Well, well!" he murmured +incredulously. + +"Why 'well, well'?" Marsden demanded.... "But, of course, you never did +and never will know what I meant." + +"By Romance? ... No, I can't say that I did; but as I conceived it, it +was something that began in appetite and ended in diabetes." + +"Not philosophic, eh?" Marsden inquired, picking up a chicken bone. + +"Highly unphilosophic," said Romarin, shaking his head. + +"Hm!" grunted Marsden, stripping the bone... "Well, I grant it pays in a +different way." + +"It does pay, then?" Romarin asked. + +"Oh yes, it pays." + +The restaurant had filled up. It was one frequented by young artists, +musicians, journalists and the clingers to the rather frayed fringes of +the Arts. From time to time heads were turned to look at Romarin's portly +and handsome figure, which the Press, the Regent Street photographic +establishments, and the Academy Supplements had made well known. The +plump young Frenchwoman within the glazed cash office near the door, +at whom Marsden had several times glanced in a way at which Romarin had +frowned, was aware of the honour done the restaurant; and several times +the blond-bearded proprietor had advanced and inquired with concern +whether the dinner and the service was to the liking of M'sieu. + +And the eyes that were turned to Romarin plainly wondered who the +scallawag dining with him might be. + +Since Romarin had chosen that their conversation should be of the old +days, and without picking and choosing, Marsden was quite willing that +it should be so. Again he was casting the bullets of bread into his +mouth, and again Romarin was conscious of irritation. Marsden, too, +noticed it; but in awaiting the _rôti_ he still continued to roll and +bolt the pellets, washing them down with gulps of whiskey and soda. + +"Oh yes, it paid," he resumed. "Not in that way, of course--" he +indicated the head, quickly turned away again, of an aureoled youngster +with a large bunch of black satin tie, "--not in admiration of that +sort, but in other ways--" + +"Tell me about it." + +"Certainly, if you want it. But you're my host. Won't you let me hear +your side of it all first?" + +"But I thought you said you knew that--had followed my career?" + +"So I have. It's not your list of honours and degrees; let me see, what +are you? R.A., D.C.L., Doctor of Literature, whatever that means, and +Professor of this, that, and the other, and not at the end of it yet. I +know all that. I don't say you haven't earned it; I admire your painting; +but it's not that. I want to know what it _feels_ like to be up there +where you are." + +It was a childish question, and Romarin felt foolish in trying to answer +it. Such things were the things the adoring aureoled youngster a table or +two away would have liked to ask. Romarin recognised in Marsden the old +craving for sensation; it was part of the theoretical creed Marsden had +made for himself, of doing things, not for their own sakes, but in order +that he might have done them. Of course, it had appeared to a fellow like +that, that Romarin himself had always had a calculated end in view; he +had not; Marsden merely measured Romarin's peck out of his own bushel. It +had been Marsden who, in self-consciously seeking his own life, had lost +it, and Romarin was more than a little inclined to suspect that the +vehemence with which he protested that he had not lost it was precisely +the measure of the loss. + +But he essayed it--essayed to give Marsden a _résumé_ of his career. He +told him of the stroke of sheer luck that had been the foundation of it +all, the falling ill of another painter who had turned over certain +commissions to him. He told him of his poor but happy marriage, and of +the windfall, not large, but timely, that had come to his wife. He told +him of fortunate acquaintanceships happily cultivated, of his first +important commission, of the fresco that had procured for him his +Associateship, of his sale to the Chantrey, and of his quietly +remunerative Visitorships and his work on Boards and Committees. + +And as he talked, Marsden drew his empty glass to him, moistened his +finger with a little spilt liquid, and began to run the finger round the +rim of the glass. They had done that formerly, a whole roomful of them, +producing, when each had found the note of his instrument, a high, thin, +intolerable singing. To this singing Romarin strove to tell his tale. + +But that thin and bat-like note silenced him. He ended lamely, with some +empty generalisation on success. + +"Ah, but success in what?" Marsden demanded, interrupting his playing on +the glass for a moment. + +"In your aim, whatever it may be." + +"Ah!" said Marsden, resuming his performance. + +Romarin had sought in his recital to minimise differences in +circumstances; but Marsden seemed bent on aggravating them. He had the +miserable advantage of the man who has nothing to lose. And bit by bit, +Romarin had begun to realise that he was going considerably more than +halfway to meet this old enemy of his, and that amity seemed as far on as +ever. In his heart he began to feel the foreknowledge that their meeting +could have no conclusion. He hated the man, the look of his face and the +sound of his voice, as much as ever. + +The proprietor approached with profoundest apology in his attitude. +M'sieu would pardon him, but the noise of the glass ... it was +annoying ... another M'sieu had made complaint.... + +"Eh?..." cried Marsden. "Oh, that! Certainly! It can be put to a much +better purpose." + +He refilled the glass. + +The liquor had begun to tell on him. A quarter of the quantity would have +made a clean-living man incapably drunk, but it had only made Marsden's +eyes bright. He gave a sarcastic laugh. + +"And is that all?" he asked. + +Romarin replied shortly that that was all. + +"You've missed out the R.A., and the D.C.L." + +"Then let me add that I'm a Doctor of Civil Law and a full Member of the +Royal Academy," said Romarin, almost at the end of his patience. "And +now, since you don't think much of it, may I hear your own account?" + +"Oh, by all means. I don't know, however, that--" he broke off to throw a +glance at a woman who had just entered the restaurant--a divesting glance +that caused Romarin to redden to his crown and drop his eyes. "I was +going to say that you may think as little of my history as I do of yours. +Supple woman that; when the rather scraggy blonde does take it into her +head to be a devil she's the worst kind there is...." + +Without apology Romarin looked at his watch. + +"All right," said Marsden, smiling, "for what _I've_ got out of life, +then. But I warn you, it's entirely discreditable." + +Romarin did not doubt it. + +"But it's mine, and I boast of it. I've done--barring receiving honours +and degrees--everything--everything! If there's anything I haven't done, +tell me and lend me a sovereign, and I'll go and do it." + +"You haven't told the story." + +"That's so. Here goes then ... Well, you know, unless you've forgotten, +how I began...." + +Fruit and nutshells and nutcrackers lay on the table between them, and at +the end of it, shielded from draughts by the menu cards, the coffee +apparatus simmered over its elusive blue flame. Romarin was taking the +rind from a pear with a table-knife, and Marsden had declined port in +favour of a small golden liqueur of brandy. Every seat in the restaurant +was now occupied, and the proprietor himself had brought his finest +cigarettes and cigars. The waiter poured out the coffee, and departed +with the apparatus in one hand and his napkin in the other. + +Marsden was already well into his tale... + +The frightful unction with which he told it appalled Romarin. It was as +he had said--there was nothing he had not done and did not exult in with +a sickening exultation. It had, indeed, ended in diabetes. In the pitiful +hunting down of sensation to the last inch he had been fiendishly +ingenious and utterly unimaginative. His unholy curiosity had spared +nothing, his unnatural appetite had known no truth. It was grinning sin. +The details of it simply cannot be told.... + +And his vanity in it all was prodigious. Romarin was pale as he listened. +What! In order that _this_ malignant growth in Society's breast should +be able to say "I know," had sanctities been profaned, sweet conventions +assailed, purity blackened, soundness infected, and all that was bright +and of the day been sunk in the quagmire that this creature of the night +had called--yes, stilled called--by the gentle name of Romance? Yes, +so it had been. Not only had men and women suffered dishonour, but +manhood and womanhood and the clean institutions by which alone the +creature was suffered to exist had been brought to shame. And what was he +to look at when it was all done?... + +"Romance--Beauty--the Beauty of things as they are!" he croaked. + +If faces in the restaurant were now turned to Romarin, it was the horror +on Romarin's own face that drew them. He drew out his handkerchief and +mopped his brow. + +"But," he stammered presently, "you are speaking of +generalities--horrible theories--things diabolically conceivable +to be done--" + +"What?" cried Marsden, checked for a moment in his horrible triumph. "No, +by God! I've done 'em, done 'em! Don't you understand? If you don't, +question me!..." + +"No, no!" cried Romarin. + +"But I say yes! You came for this, and you shall have it! I tried to stop +you, but you wanted it, and by God you shall have it! You think your +life's been full and mine empty? Ha ha!... Romance! I had the conviction +of it, and I've had the courage too! I haven't told you a tenth of it! +What would you like? Chamber-windows when Love was hot? The killing of a +man who stood in my way? (I've fought a duel, and killed.) The squeezing +of the juice out of life like _that_?" He pointed to Romarin's plate; +Romarin had been eating grapes. "Did you find me saying I'd do a thing +and then drawing back from it when we--" he made a quick gesture of both +hands towards the middle of the restaurant floor. + +"When we fought--?" + +"Yes, when we fought, here!... Oh no, oh no! I've lived, I tell you, +every moment! Not a title, not a degree, but I've lived such a life as +you never dreamed of--!" + +"Thank God--" + +But suddenly Marsden's voice, which had risen, dropped again. He began to +shake with interior chuckles. They were the old, old chuckles, and they +filled Romarin with a hatred hardly to be borne. The sound of the +animal's voice had begun it, and his every word, look, movement, +gesture, since they had entered the restaurant, had added to it. And he +was now chuckling, chuckling, shaking with chuckles, as if some +monstrous tit-bit still remained to be told. Already Romarin had tossed +aside his napkin, beckoned to the waiter, and said, "M'sieu dines +with me...." + +"Ho ho ho ho!" came the drunken sounds. "It's a long time since M'sieu +dined here with his old friend Romarin! Do you remember the last time? Do +you remember it? _Pif, pan_! Two smacks across the table, Romarin--oh, +you got it in very well!--and then, _brrrrr_! quick! Back with the +tables--all the fellows round--Farquharson for me and Smith for you, and +then to it, Romarin!... And you really don't remember what it was all +about?..." + +Romarin had remembered. His face was not the face of the philosophic +master of Life now. + +"You said she shouldn't--little Pattie Hines you know--you said she +shouldn't--" + +Romarin sprang half from his chair, and brought his fist down on the +table. + +"And by Heaven, she didn't! At least that's one thing you haven't done!" + +Marsden too had risen unsteadily. + +"Oho, oho? You think that?" + +A wild thought flashed across Romarin's brain. + +"You mean--?" + +"I mean?... Oho, oho! Yes, I mean! She did, Romarin...." + +The mirrors, mistily seen through the smoke of half a hundred cigars and +cigarettes, the Loves and Shepherdesses of the garish walls, the diners +starting up in their places, all suddenly seemed to swing round in a +great half-circle before Romarin's eyes. The next moment, feeling as if +he stood on something on which he found it difficult to keep his balance, +he had caught up the table-knife with which he had peeled the pear and +had struck at the side of Marsden's neck. The rounded blade snapped, but +he struck again with the broken edge, and left the knife where it +entered. The table appeared uptilted almost vertical; over it Marsden's +head disappeared; it was followed by a shower of glass, cigars, +artificial flowers and the tablecloth at which he clutched; and the +dirty American cloth of the table top was left bare. + + * * * * * + +But the edge behind which Marsden's face had disappeared remained +vertical. A group of scene-shifters were moving a flat of scenery from a +theatre into a tumbril-like cart... + +And Romarin knew that, past, present, and future, he had seen it all in +an instant, and that Marsden stood behind that painted wing. + +And he knew, too, that he had only to wait until that flat passed and to +take Marsden's arm and enter the restaurant, _and it would be so_. A +drowning man is said to see all in one unmeasurable instant of time; a +year-long dream is but, they say, an instantaneous arrangement in the +moment of waking of the molecules we associate with ideas; and the past +of history and the future of prophecy are folded up in the mystic moment +we call the present.... + +_It would come true_.... + +For one moment Romarin stood; the next, he had turned and run for his +life. + +At the corner of the street he collided with a loafer, and only the wall +saved them from going down. Feverishly Romarin plunged his hand into his +pocket and brought out a handful of silver. He crammed it into the +loafer's hand. + +"Here--quick--take it!" he gasped. "There's a man there, by that +restaurant door--he's waiting for Mr. Romarin--tell him--tell him--tell +him Mr. Romarin's had an accident--" + +And he dashed away, leaving the man looking at the silver in his palm. + + + + +THE CIGARETTE CASE + + +"A cigarette, Loder?" I said, offering my case. For the moment Loder was +not smoking; for long enough he had not been talking. + +"Thanks," he replied, taking not only the cigarette, but the case also. +The others went on talking; Loder became silent again; but I noticed +that he kept my cigarette case in his hand, and looked at it from time to +time with an interest that neither its design nor its costliness seemed +to explain. Presently I caught his eye. + +"A pretty case," he remarked, putting it down on the table. "I once had +one exactly like it." + +I answered that they were in every shop window. + +"Oh yes," he said, putting aside any question of rarity.... "I lost +mine." + +"Oh?..." + +He laughed. "Oh, that's all right--I got it back again--don't be afraid +I'm going to claim yours. But the way I lost it--found it--the whole +thing--was rather curious. I've never been able to explain it. I wonder +if you could?" + +I answered that I certainly couldn't till I'd heard it, whereupon Loder, +taking up the silver case again and holding it in his hand as he talked, +began: + +"This happened in Provence, when I was about as old as Marsham there--and +every bit as romantic. I was there with Carroll--you remember poor old +Carroll and what a blade of a boy he was--as romantic as four Marshams +rolled into one. (Excuse me, Marsham, won't you? It's a romantic tale, +you see, or at least the setting is.) ... We were in Provence, Carroll +and I; twenty-four or thereabouts; romantic, as I say; and--and this +happened. + +"And it happened on the top of a whole lot of other things, you must +understand, the things that do happen when you're twenty-four. If it +hadn't been Provence, it would have been somewhere else, I suppose, +nearly, if not quite as good; but this was Provence, that smells (as you +might say) of twenty-four as it smells of argelasse and wild lavender and +broom.... + +"We'd had the dickens of a walk of it, just with knapsacks--had started +somewhere in the Ardèche and tramped south through the vines and almonds +and olives--Montélimar, Orange, Avignon, and a fortnight at that blanched +skeleton of a town, Les Baux. We'd nothing to do, and had gone just where +we liked, or rather just where Carroll had liked; and Carroll had had the +_De Bello Gallico_ in his pocket, and had had a notion, I fancy, of +taking in the whole ground of the Roman conquest--I remember he lugged me +off to some place or other, Pourrières I believe its name was, because--I +forget how many thousands--were killed in a river-bed there, and they +stove in the water-casks so that if the men wanted water they'd have to +go forward and fight for it. And then we'd gone on to Arles, where +Carroll had fallen in love with everything that had a bow of black +velvet in her hair, and after that Tarascon, Nîmes, and so on, the usual +round--I won't bother you with that. In a word, we'd had two months of +it, eating almonds and apricots from the trees, watching the women at the +communal washing-fountains under the dark plane-trees, singing _Magali_ +and the _Qué Cantes_, and Carroll yarning away all the time about Caesar +and Vercingetorix and Dante, and trying to learn Provençal so that he +could read the stuff in the _Journal des Félibriges_ that he'd never have +looked at if it had been in English.... + +"Well, we got to Darbisson. We'd run across some young chap or +other--Rangon his name was--who was a vine-planter in those parts, and +Rangon had asked us to spend a couple of days with him, with him and his +mother, if we happened to be in the neighbourhood. So as we might as +well happen to be there as anywhere else, we sent him a postcard and +went. This would be in June or early in July. All day we walked across +a plain of vines, past hurdles of wattled _cannes_ and great wind-screens +of velvety cypresses, sixty feet high, all white with dust on the north +side of 'em, for the mistral was having its three-days' revel, and it +whistled and roared through the _cannes_ till scores of yards of 'em +at a time were bowed nearly to the earth. A roaring day it was, I +remember.... But the wind fell a little late in the afternoon, and we +were poring over what it had left of our Ordnance Survey--like fools, +we'd got the unmounted paper maps instead of the linen ones--when Rangon +himself found us, coming out to meet us in a very badly turned-out trap. +He drove us back himself, through Darbisson, to the house, a mile and a +half beyond it, where he lived with his mother. + +"He spoke no English, Rangon didn't, though, of course, both French and +Provençal; and as he drove us, there was Carroll, using him as a +Franco-Provençal dictionary, peppering him with questions about the names +of things in the patois--I beg its pardon, the language--though there's +a good deal of my eye and Betty Martin about that, and I fancy this +Félibrige business will be in a good many pieces when Frédéric Mistral +is under that Court-of-Love pavilion arrangement he's had put up for +himself in the graveyard at Maillanne. If the language has got to go, +well, it's got to go, I suppose; and while I personally don't want to +give it a kick, I rather sympathise with the Government. Those jaunts of +a Sunday out to Les Baux, for instance, with paper lanterns and Bengal +fire and a fellow spouting _O blanche Venus d'Arles_--they're well +enough, and compare favourably with our Bank Holidays and Sunday League +picnics, but ... but that's nothing to do with my tale after all.... So +he drove on, and by the time we got to Rangon's house Carroll had learned +the greater part of _Magali_.... + +"As you, no doubt, know, it's a restricted sort of life in some respects +that a young _vigneron_ lives in those parts, and it was as we reached +the house that Rangon remembered something--or he might have been trying +to tell us as we came along for all I know, and not been able to get a +word in edgeways for Carroll and his Provençal. It seemed that his mother +was away from home for some days--apologies of the most profound, of +course; our host was the soul of courtesy, though he did try to get at +us a bit later.... We expressed our polite regrets, naturally; but I +didn't quite see at first what difference it made. I only began to see +when Rangon, with more apologies, told us that we should have to go back +to Darbisson for dinner. It appeared that when Madame Rangon went away +for a few days she dispersed the whole of the female side of her +establishment also, and she'd left her son with nobody to look after +him except an old man we'd seen in the yard mending one of these +double-cylindered sulphur-sprinklers they clap across the horse's back +and drive between the rows of vines.... Rangon explained all this as we +stood in the hall drinking an _apéritif_--a hall crowded with oak +furniture and photographs and a cradle-like bread-crib and doors opening +to right and left to the other rooms of the ground floor. He had also, it +seemed, to ask us to be so infinitely obliging as to excuse him for one +hour after dinner--our postcard had come unexpectedly, he said, and +already he had made an appointment with his agent about the _vendange_ +for the coming autumn.... We, begged him, of course, not to allow us to +interfere with his business in the slightest degree. He thanked us a +thousand times. + +"'But though we dine in the village, we will take our own wine with us,' +he said, 'a wine _surfin_--one of my wines--you shall see--' + +"Then he showed us round his place--I forget how many hundreds of acres +of vines, and into the great building with the presses and pumps and +casks and the huge barrel they call the thunderbolt--and about seven +o'clock we walked back to Darbisson to dinner, carrying our wine with us. +I think the restaurant we dined in was the only one in the place, and our +gaillard of a host--he was a straight-backed, well-set-up chap, with +rather fine eyes--did us on the whole pretty well. His wine certainly was +good stuff, and set our tongues going.... + +"A moment ago I said a fellow like Rangon leads a restricted sort of life +in those parts. I saw this more clearly as dinner went on. We dined by an +open window, from which we could see the stream with the planks across it +where the women washed clothes during the day and assembled in the +evening for gossip. There were a dozen or so of them there as we dined, +laughing and chatting in low tones--they all seemed pretty--it was +quickly falling dusk--all the girls are pretty then, and are quite +conscious of it--_you_ know, Marsham. Behind them, at the end of the +street, one of these great cypress wind-screens showed black against the +sky, a ragged edge something like the line the needle draws on a rainfall +chart; and you could only tell whether they were men or women under the +plantains by their voices rippling and chattering and suddenly a deeper +note.... Once I heard a muffled scuffle and a sound like a kiss.... It +was then that Rangon's little trouble came out.... + +"It seemed that he didn't know any girls--wasn't allowed to know any +girls. The girls of the village were pretty enough, but you see how it +was--he'd a position to keep up--appearances to maintain--couldn't be +familiar during the year with the girls who gathered his grapes for him +in the autumn.... And as soon as Carroll gave him a chance, _he_ began to +ask _us_ questions, about England, English girls, the liberty they had, +and so on. + +"Of course, we couldn't tell him much he hadn't heard already, but that +made no difference; he could stand any amount of that, our strapping +young _vigneron_; and he asked us questions by the dozen, that we both +tried to answer at once. And his delight and envy!... What! In England +did the young men see the young women of their own class without +restraint--the sisters of their friends _même_--even at the house? Was it +permitted that they drank tea with them in the afternoon, or went without +invitation to pass the _soirée_?... He had all the later Prévosts in his +room, he told us (I don't doubt he had the earlier ones also); Prévost +and the Disestablishment between them must be playing the mischief +with the convent system of education for young girls; and our young man +was--what d'you call it?--'Co-ed'--co-educationalist--by Jove, yes!... He +seemed to marvel that we should have left a country so blessed as England +to visit his dusty, wild-lavender-smelling, girl-less Provence.... You +don't know half your luck, Marsham.... + +"Well, we talked after this fashion--we'd left the dining-room of the +restaurant and had planted ourselves on a bench outside with Rangon +between us--when Rangon suddenly looked at his watch and said it was time +he was off to see this agent of his. Would we take a walk, he asked us, +and meet him again there? he said.... But as his agent lived in the +direction of his own home, we said we'd meet him at the house in an hour +or so. Off he went, envying every Englishman who stepped, I don't +doubt.... I told you how old--how young--we were.... Heigho!... + +"Well, off goes Rangon, and Carroll and I got up, stretched ourselves, +and took a walk. We walked a mile or so, until it began to get pretty +dark, and then turned; and it was as we came into the blackness of one of +these cypress hedges that the thing I'm telling you of happened. The +hedge took a sharp turn at that point; as we came round the angle we saw +a couple of women's figures hardly more than twenty yards ahead--don't +know how they got there so suddenly, I'm sure; and that same moment I +found my foot on something small and white and glimmering on the grass. + +"I picked it up. It was a handkerchief--a woman's--embroidered-- + +"The two figures ahead of us were walking in our direction; there was +every probability that the handkerchief belonged to one of them; so we +stepped out.... + +"At my 'Pardon, madame,' and lifted hat one of the figures turned her +head; then, to my surprise, she spoke in English--cultivated English. +I held out the handkerchief. It belonged to the elder lady of the two, +the one who had spoken, a very gentle-voiced old lady, older by very many +years than her companion. She took the handkerchief and thanked me.... + +"Somebody--Sterne, isn't it?--says that Englishmen don't travel to see +Englishmen. I don't know whether he'd stand to that in the case of +Englishwomen; Carroll and I didn't.... We were walking rather slowly +along, four abreast across the road; we asked permission to introduce +ourselves, did so, and received some name in return which, strangely +enough, I've entirely forgotten--I only remember that the ladies were +aunt and niece, and lived at Darbisson. They shook their heads when I +mentioned M. Rangon's name and said we were visiting him. They didn't +know him.... + +"I'd never been in Darbisson before, and I haven't been since, so I don't +know the map of the village very well. But the place isn't very big, +and the house at which we stopped in twenty minutes or so is probably +there yet. It had a large double door--a double door in two senses, +for it was a big _porte-cochère_ with a smaller door inside it, and an +iron grille shutting in the whole. The gentle-voiced old lady had already +taken a key from her reticule and was thanking us again for the little +service of the handkerchief; then, with the little gesture one makes when +one has found oneself on the point of omitting a courtesy, she gave a +little musical laugh. + +"'But,' she said with a little movement of invitation, 'one sees so +few compatriots here--if you have the time to come in and smoke a +cigarette ... also the cigarette,' she added, with another rippling +laugh, 'for we have few callers, and live alone--' + +"Hastily as I was about to accept, Carroll was before me, professing a +nostalgia for the sound of the English tongue that made his recent +protestations about Provençal a shameless hypocrisy. Persuasive young +rascal, Carroll Was--poor chap ... So the elder lady opened the grille +and the wooden door beyond it, and we entered. + +"By the light of the candle which the younger lady took from a bracket +just within the door we saw that we were in a handsome hall or vestibule; +and my wonder that Rangon had made no mention of what was apparently a +considerable establishment was increased by the fact that its tenants +must be known to be English and could be seen to be entirely charming. I +couldn't understand it, and I'm afraid hypotheses rushed into my head +that cast doubts on the Rangons--you know--whether _they_ were all right. +We knew nothing about our young planter, you see.... + +"I looked about me. There were tubs here and there against the walls, +gaily painted, with glossy-leaved aloes and palms in them--one of the +aloes, I remember, was flowering; a little fountain in the middle made a +tinkling noise; we put our caps on a carved and gilt console table; and +before us rose a broad staircase with shallow steps of spotless stone and +a beautiful wrought-iron handrail. At the top of the staircase were more +palms and aloes, and double doors painted in a clear grey. + +"We followed our hostesses up the staircase. I can hear yet the sharp +clean click our boots made on that hard shiny stone--see the lights of +the candle gleaming on the handrail ... The young girl--she was not much +more than a girl--pushed at the doors, and we went in. + +"The room we entered was all of a piece with the rest for rather +old-fashioned fineness. It was large, lofty, beautifully kept. Carroll +went round for Miss ... whatever her name was ... lighting candles in +sconces; and as the flames crept up they glimmered on a beautifully +polished floor, which was bare except for an Eastern rug here and there. +The elder lady had sat down in a gilt chair, Louis Fourteenth I should +say, with a striped rep of the colour of a petunia; and I really don't +know--don't smile, Smith--what induced me to lead her to it by the +finger-tips, bending over her hand for a moment as she sat down. There +was an old tambour-frame behind her chair, I remember, and a vast oval +mirror with clustered candle-brackets filled the greater part of the +farther wall, the brightest and clearest glass I've ever seen...." + +He paused, looking at my cigarette case, which he had taken into his hand +again. He smiled at some recollection or other, and it was a minute or +so before he continued. + +"I must admit that I found it a little annoying, after what we'd +been talking about at dinner an hour before, that Rangon wasn't with +us. I still couldn't understand how he could have neighbours so +charming without knowing about them, but I didn't care to insist on +this to the old lady, who for all I knew might have her own reasons +for keeping to herself. And, after all, it was our place to return +Rangon's hospitality in London if he ever came there, not, so to speak, +on his own doorstep.... So presently I forgot all about Rangon, and I'm +pretty sure that Carroll, who was talking to his companion of some +Félibrige junketing or other and having the air of Gounod's _Mireille_ +hummed softly over to him, didn't waste a thought on him either. Soon +Carroll--you remember what a pretty crooning, humming voice he had--soon +Carroll was murmuring what they call 'seconds,' but so low that the sound +hardly came across the room; and I came in with a soft bass note from +time to time. No instrument, you know; just an unaccompanied murmur no +louder than an Aeolian harp; and it sounded infinitely sweet and +plaintive and--what shall I say?--weak--attenuated--faint--'pale' you +might almost say--in that formal, rather old-fashioned _salon_, with that +great clear oval mirror throwing back the still flames of the candles in +the sconces on the walls. Outside the wind had now fallen completely; all +was very quiet; and suddenly in a voice not much louder than a sigh, +Carroll's companion was singing _Oft in the Stilly Night_--you know +it...." + +He broke off again to murmur the beginning of the air. Then, with a +little laugh for which we saw no reason, he went on again: + +"Well, I'm not going to try to convince you of such a special and +delicate thing as the charm of that hour--it wasn't more than an +hour--it would be all about an hour we stayed. Things like that just +have to be said and left; you destroy them the moment you begin to +insist on them; we've every one of us had experiences like that, and +don't say much about them. I was as much in love with my old lady as +Carroll evidently was with his young one--I can't tell you why--being +in love has just to be taken for granted too, I suppose... Marsham +understands.... We smoked our cigarettes, and sang again, once more +filling that clear-painted, quiet apartment with a murmuring no louder +than if a light breeze found that the bells of a bed of flowers were +really bells and played on 'em. The old lady moved her fingers gently +on the round table by the side of her chair,.. oh, infinitely pretty it +was.... Then Carroll wandered off into the _Qué Cantes_--awfully +pretty--'It is not for myself I sing, but for my friend who is near +me'--and I can't tell you how like four old friends we were, those two +so oddly met ladies and Carroll and myself.... And so to _Oft in the +Stilly Night_ again.... + +"But for all the sweetness and the glamour of it, we couldn't stay on +indefinitely, and I wondered what time it was, but didn't ask--anything +to do with clocks and watches would have seemed a cold and mechanical +sort of thing just then.... And when presently we both got up neither +Carroll nor I asked to be allowed to call again in the morning to +thank them for a charming hour.... And they seemed to feel the same as +we did about it. There was no 'hoping that we should meet again in +London'--neither an au revoir nor a good-bye--just a tacit understanding +that that hour should remain isolated, accepted like a good gift without +looking the gift-horse in the mouth, single, unattached to any hours +before or after--I don't know whether you see what I mean.... Give me a +match somebody.... + +"And so we left, with no more than looks exchanged and finger-tips +resting between the back of our hands and our lips for a moment. We +found our way out by ourselves, down that shallow-stepped staircase with +the handsome handrail, and let ourselves out of the double door and +grille, closing it softly. We made for the village without speaking a +word.... Heigho!..." + +Loder had picked up the cigarette case again, but for all the way his +eyes rested on it I doubt whether he really saw it. I'm pretty sure he +didn't; I knew when he did by the glance he shot at me, as much as to say +"I see you're wondering where the cigarette case comes in."... He +resumed with another little laugh. + +"Well," he continued, "we got back to Rangon's house. I really don't +blame Rangon for the way he took it when we told him, you know--he +thought we were pulling his leg, of course, and he wasn't having any; not +he! There were no English ladies in Darbisson, he said.... We told him as +nearly as we could just where the house was--we weren't very precise, I'm +afraid, for the village had been in darkness as we had come through it, +and I had to admit that the cypress hedge I tried to describe where we'd +met our friends was a good deal like other cypress hedges--and, as I say, +Rangon wasn't taking any. I myself was rather annoyed that he should +think we were returning his hospitality by trying to get at him, and it +wasn't very easy either to explain in my French and Carroll's Provençal +that we were going to let the thing stand as it was and weren't going to +call on our charming friends again.... The end of it was that Rangon +just laughed and yawned.... + +"'I knew it was good, my wine,' he said, 'but--' a shrug said the rest. +'Not so good as all that,' he meant.... + +"Then he gave us our candles, showed us to our rooms, shook hands, and +marched off to his own room and the Prévosts. + +"I dreamed of my old lady half the night. + +"After coffee the next morning I put my hand into my pocket for my +cigarette case and didn't find it. I went through all my pockets, and +then I asked Carroll if he'd got it. + +"'No,' he replied.... 'Think you left it behind at that place last +night?' + +"'Yes; did you?' Rangon popped in with a twinkle. + +"I went through all my pockets again. No cigarette case.... + +"Of course, it was possible that I'd left it behind, and I was annoyed +again. I didn't want to go back, you see.... But, on the other hand, I +didn't want to lose the case--it was a present--and Rangon's smile +nettled me a good deal, too. It was both a challenge to our truthfulness +and a testimonial to that very good wine of his.... + +"'Might have done,' I grunted.... 'Well, in that case we'll go and get +it.' + +"'If one tried the restaurant first--?' Rangon suggested, smiling again. + +"'By all means,' said I stuffily, though I remembered having the case +after we'd left the restaurant. + +"We were round at the restaurant by half-past nine. The case wasn't +there. I'd known jolly well beforehand it wasn't, and I saw Rangon's +mouth twitching with amusement. + +"'So we now seek the abode of these English ladies, _hein_?' he said. + +"'Yes,' said I; and we left the restaurant and strode through the village +by the way we'd taken the evening before.... + +"That vigneron's smile became more and more irritating to me.... 'It is +then the next village?' he said presently, as we left the last house and +came out into the open plain. + +"We went back.... + +"I was irritated because we were two to one, you see, and Carroll backed +me up. 'A double door, with a grille in front of it,' he repeated for +the fiftieth time.... Rangon merely replied that it wasn't our good faith +he doubted. He didn't actually use the word 'drunk.'... + +"'_Mais tiens_,' he said suddenly, trying to conceal his mirth. '_Si +c'est possible... si c'est possible_... a double door with a grille? But +perhaps that I know it, the domicile of these so elusive ladies.... Come +this way.' + +"He took us back along a plantain-groved street, and suddenly turned up +an alley that was little more than two gutters and a crack of sky +overhead between two broken-tiled roofs. It was a dilapidated, deserted +_ruelle_, and I was positively angry when Rangon pointed to a blistered +old _porte-cochère_ with a half-unhinged railing in front of it. + +"'Is it that, your house?' he asked. + +"'No,' says I, and 'No,' says Carroll ... and off we started again.... + +"But another half-hour brought us back to the same place, and Carroll +scratched his head. + +"'Who lives there, anyway?' he said, glowering at the _porte-cochère_, +chin forward, hands in pockets. + +"'Nobody,' says Rangon, as much as to say 'look at it!' 'M'sieu then +meditates taking it?'... + +"Then I struck in, quite out of temper by this time. + +"'How much would the rent be?' I asked, as if I really thought of taking +the place just to get back at him. + +"He mentioned something ridiculously small in the way of francs. + +"'One might at least see the place,' says I. 'Can the key be got?' + +"He bowed. The key was at the baker's, not a hundred yards away, he +said.... + +"We got the key. It was the key of the inner wooden door--that grid of +rusty iron didn't need one--it came clean off its single hinge when +Carroll touched it. Carroll opened, and we stood for a moment motioning +to one another to step in. Then Rangon went in first, and I heard him +murmur 'Pardon, Mesdames.'... + +"Now this is the odd part. We passed into a sort of vestibule or hall, +with a burst lead pipe in the middle of a dry tank in the centre of it. +There was a broad staircase rising in front of us to the first floor, and +double doors just seen in the half-light at the head of the stairs. Old +tubs stood against the walls, but the palms and aloes in them were +dead--only a cabbage-stalk or two--and the rusty hoops lay on the ground +about them. One tub had come to pieces entirely and was no more than a +heap of staves on a pile of spilt earth. And everywhere, everywhere was +dust--the floor was an inch deep in dust and old plaster that muffled our +footsteps, cobwebs hung like old dusters on the walls, a regular goblin's +tatter of cobwebs draped the little bracket inside the door, and the +wrought-iron of the hand-rail was closed up with webs in which not even a +spider moved. The whole thing was preposterous.... + +"'It is possible that for even a less rental--' + +"Rangon murmured, dragging his forefinger across the hand-rail and +leaving an inch-deep furrow.... + +"'Come upstairs,' said I suddenly.... + +"Up we went. All was in the same state there. A clutter of stuff came +down as I pushed at the double doors of the _salon_, and I had to strike +a stinking French sulphur match to see into the room at all. Underfoot +was like walking on thicknesses of flannel, and except where we put +our feet the place was as printless as a snowfield--dust, dust, unbroken +grey dust. My match burned down.... + +"'Wait a minute--I've a _bougie_,' said Carroll, and struck the wax +match.... + +"There were the old sconces, with never a candle-end in them. There was +the large oval mirror, but hardly reflecting Carroll's match for the +dust on it. And the broken chairs were there, all gutless, and the +rickety old round table.... + +"But suddenly I darted forward. Something new and bright on the table +twinkled with the light of Carroll's match. The match went out, and by +the time Carroll had lighted another I had stopped. I wanted Rangon to +see what was on the table.... + +"'You'll see by my footprints how far from that table _I've_ been,' I +said. 'Will you pick it up?' + +"And Rangon, stepping forward, picked up from the middle of the table--my +cigarette case." + + * * * * * + +Loder had finished. Nobody spoke. For quite a minute nobody spoke, and +then Loder himself broke the silence, turning to me. + +"Make anything of it?" he said. + +I lifted my eyebrows. "Only your _vigneron's_ explanation--" I began, but +stopped again, seeing that wouldn't do. + +"_Any_body make anything of it?" said Loder, turning from one to another. + +I gathered from Smith's face that he thought one thing might be made of +it--namely, that Loder had invented the whole tale. But even Smith +didn't speak. + +"Were any English ladies ever found to have lived in the place--murdered, +you know--bodies found and all that?" young Marsham asked diffidently, +yearning for an obvious completeness. + +"Not that we could ever learn," Loder replied. "We made inquiries +too.... So you all give it up? Well, so do I...." + +And he rose. As he walked to the door, myself following him to get his +hat and stick, I heard him humming softly the lines--they are from +_Oft in the Stilly Night_-- + +"_I seem like one who treads alone + Some banquet-hall deserted, +Whose guests are fled, whose garlands dead, + And all but he--departed!_" + + + + +THE ROCKER + + +I + +There was little need for the swart gipsies to explain, as they stood +knee-deep in the snow round the bailiff of the Abbey Farm, what it +was that had sent them. The unbroken whiteness of the uplands told that, +and, even as they spoke, there came up the hill the dark figures of the +farm men with shovels, on their way to dig out the sheep. In the summer, +the bailiff would have been the first to call the gipsies vagabonds +and roost-robbers; now ... they had women with them too. + +"The hares and foxes were down four days ago, and the liquid-manure pumps +like a snow man," the bailiff said.... "Yes, you can lie in the laithes +and welcome--if you can find 'em. Maybe you'll help us find our sheep +too--" + +The gipsies had done so. Coming back again, they had had some ado to +discover the spot where their three caravans made a hummock of white +against a broken wall. + +The women--they had four women with them--began that afternoon to weave +the mats and baskets they hawked from door to door; and in the forenoon +of the following day one of them, the black-haired, soft-voiced quean +whom the bailiff had heard called Annabel, set her babe in the sling on +her back, tucked a bundle of long cane-loops under her oxter, and trudged +down between eight-foot walls of snow to the Abbey Farm. She stood in the +latticed porch, dark and handsome against the whiteness, and then, +advancing, put her head into the great hall-kitchen. + +"Has the lady any chairs for the gipsy woman to mend?" she asked in a +soft and insinuating voice.... + +They brought her the old chairs; she seated herself on a box in the +porch; and there she wove the strips of cane in and out, securing each +one with a little wooden peg and a tap of her hammer. The child remained +in the sling at her back, taking the breast from time to time over her +shoulder; and the silver wedding ring could be seen as she whipped the +cane, back and forth. + +As she worked, she cast curious glances into the old hall-kitchen. The +snow outside cast a pallid, upward light on the heavy ceiling-beams; this +was reflected in the polished stone floor; and the children, who at first +had shyly stopped their play, seeing the strange woman in the porch--the +nearest thing they had seen to gipsies before had been the old itinerant +glazier with his frame of glass on his back--resumed it, but still eyed +her from time to time. In the ancient walnut chair by the hearth sat the +old, old lady who had told them to bring the chairs. Her hair, almost +as white as the snow itself, was piled up on her head _à la Marquise_; +she was knitting; but now and then she allowed the needle in the little +wooden sheath at her waist to lie idle, closed her eyes, and rocked +softly in the old walnut chair. + +"Ask the woman who is mending the chairs whether she is warm enough +there," the old lady said to one of the children; and the child went +to the porch with the message. + +"Thank you, little missie--thank you, lady dear--Annabel is quite warm," +said the soft voice; and the child returned to the play. + +It was a childish game of funerals at which the children played. The hand +of Death, hovering over the dolls, had singled out Flora, the +articulations of whose sawdust body were seams and whose boots were +painted on her calves of fibrous plaster. For the greater solemnity, the +children had made themselves sweeping trains of the garments of their +elders, and those with cropped curls had draped their heads with shawls, +the fringes of which they had combed out with their fingers to simulate +hair--long hair, such as Sabrina, the eldest, had hanging so low down +her back that she could almost sit on it. A cylindrical-bodied horse, +convertible (when his flat head came out of its socket) into a +locomotive, headed the sad _cortège_; then came the defunct Flora; then +came Jack, the raffish sailor doll, with other dolls; and the children +followed with hushed whisperings. + +The youngest of the children passed the high-backed walnut chair in which +the old lady sat. She stopped. + +"Aunt Rachel--" she whispered, slowly and gravely opening very wide and +closing very tight her eyes. + +"Yes, dear?" + +"Flora's dead!" + +The old lady, when she smiled, did so less with her lips than with her +faded cheeks. So sweet was her face that you could not help wondering, +when you looked on it, how many men had also looked upon it and loved it. +Somehow, you never wondered how many of them had been loved in return. + +"I'm so sorry, dear," Aunt Rachel, who in reality was a great-aunt, said. +"What did she die of this time?" + +"She died of ... Brown Titus ... 'n now she's going to be buried in a +grave as little as her bed." + +"In a what, dear?" + +"As little ... dread ... as little as my bed ... you say it, Sabrina." + +"She means, Aunt Rachel, + +"_Teach me to live that I may dread +The Grave as little as my bed,_" + +Sabrina, the eldest, interpreted. + +"Ah!... But won't you play at cheerful things, dears?" + +"Yes, we will, presently, Aunt Rachel; gee up, horse!... Shall we go and +ask the chair-woman if she's warm enough?" + +"Do, dears." + +Again the message was taken, and this time it seemed as if Annabel, the +gipsy, was not warm enough, for she gathered up her loops of cane and +brought the chair she was mending a little way into the hall-kitchen +itself. She sat down on the square box they used to cover the sewing +machine. + +"Thank you, lady dear," she murmured, lifting her handsome almond eyes to +Aunt Rachel. Aunt Rachel did not see the long, furtive, curious glance. +Her own eyes were closed, as if she was tired; her cheeks were smiling; +one of them had dropped a little to one shoulder, as it might have +dropped had she held in her arms a babe; and she was rocking, softly, +slowly, the rocker of the chair making a little regular noise on the +polished floor. + +The gipsy woman beckoned to one of the children. + +"Tell the lady, when she wakes, that I will tack a strip of felt to the +rocker, and then it will make no noise at all," said the low and +wheedling voice; and the child retired again. + +The interment of Flora proceeded.... + +An hour later Flora had taken up the burden of Life again. It was as +Angela, the youngest, was chastising her for some offence, that Sabrina, +the eldest, looked with wondering eyes on the babe in the gipsy's sling. +She approached on tiptoe. + +"May I look at it, please?" she asked timidly. + +The gipsy set one shoulder forward, and Sabrina put the shawl gently +aside, peering at the dusky brown morsel within. + +"Sometime, perhaps--if I'm very careful--" + +Sabrina ventured diffidently, "--if I'm _very_ careful--may I hold it?" + +Before replying, the gipsy once more turned her almond eyes towards Aunt +Rachel's chair. Aunt Rachel had been awakened for the conclusion of +Flora's funeral, but her eyes were closed again now, and once more her +cheek was dropped in that tender suggestive little gesture, and she +rocked. But you could see that she was not properly asleep.... It was, +somehow, less to Sabrina, still peering at the babe in the sling, than to +Aunt Rachel, apparently asleep, that the gipsy seemed to reply. + +"You'll know some day, little missis, that a wean knows its own pair of +arms," her seductive voice came. + +And Aunt Rachel heard. She opened her eyes with a start. The little +regular noise of the rocker ceased. She turned her head quickly; +tremulously she began to knit again; and, as her eyes rested on the +sidelong eyes of the gipsy woman, there was an expression in them that +almost resembled fright. + + +II + +They began to deck the great hall-kitchen for Christmas, but the snow +still lay thick over hill and valley, and the gipsies' caravans remained +by the broken wall where the drifts had overtaken them. Though all the +chairs were mended, Annabel still came daily to the farm, sat on the box +they used to cover the sewing machine, and wove mats. As she wove them, +Aunt Rachel knitted, and from time to time fragments of talk passed +between the two women. It was always the white-haired lady who spoke +first, and Annabel made all sorts of salutes and obeisances with her eyes +before replying. + +"I have not seen your husband," Aunt Rachel said to Annabel one day. (The +children at the other end of the apartment had converted a chest into an +altar, and were solemnising the nuptials of the resurrected Flora and +Jack, the raffish sailor-doll.) + +Annabel made roving play with her eyes. "He is up at the caravans, lady +dear," she replied. "Is there anything Annabel can bid him do?" + +"Nothing, thank you," said Aunt Rachel. + +For a minute the gipsy watched Aunt Rachel, and then she got up from the +sewing machine box and crossed the floor. She leaned so close towards her +that she had to put up a hand to steady the babe at her back. + +"Lady dear," she murmured with irresistible softness, "your husband died, +didn't he?" + +On Aunt Rachel's finger was a ring, but it was not a wedding ring. It was +a hoop of pearls. + +"I have never had a husband," she said. + +The gipsy glanced at the ring. "Then that is--?" + +"That is a betrothal ring," Aunt Rachel replied. + +"Ah!..." said Annabel. + +Then, after a minute, she drew still closer. Her eyes were fixed on Aunt +Rachel's, and the insinuating voice was very low. + +"Ah!... And did _it_ die too, lady dear?" + +Again came that quick, half-affrighted look into Aunt Rachel's face. Her +eyes avoided those of the gipsy, sought them, and avoided them again. + +"Did what die?" she asked slowly and guardedly.... + +The child at the gipsy's back did not need suck; nevertheless, Annabel's +fingers worked at her bosom, and she moved the sling. As the child +settled, Annabel gave Aunt Rachel a long look. + +"Why do you rock?" she asked slowly. + +Aunt Rachel was trembling. She did not reply. In a voice soft as sliding +water the gipsy continued: + +"Lady dear, we are a strange folk to you, and even among us there are +those who shuffle the pack of cards and read the palm when silver has +been put upon it, knowing nothing... But some of us _see_--some of us +_see_." + +It was more than a minute before Aunt Rachel spoke. + +"You are a woman, and you have your babe at your breast now.... Every +woman sees the thing you speak of." + +But the gipsy shook her head. "You speak of seeing with the heart. I +speak of eyes--these eyes." + +Again came a long pause. Aunt Rachel had given a little start, but had +become quiet again. When at last she spoke it was in a voice scarcely +audible. + +"That cannot be. I know what you mean, but it cannot be.... He died +on the eve of his wedding. For my bridal clothes they made me black +garments instead. It is long ago, and now I wear neither black nor white, +but--" her hands made a gesture. Aunt Rachel always dressed as if to suit +a sorrow that Time had deprived of bitterness, in such a tender and +fleecy grey as one sees in the mists that lie like lawn over hedgerow +and copse early of a midsummer's morning. "Therefore," she resumed, "your +heart may see, but your eyes cannot see that which never was." + +But there came a sudden note of masterfulness into the gipsy's voice. + +"With my eyes--_these_ eyes," she repeated, pointing to them. + +Aunt Rachel kept her own eyes obstinately on her knitting needles. "None +except I have seen it. It is not to be seen," she said. + +The gipsy sat suddenly erect. + +"It is not so. Keep still in your chair," she ordered, "and I will tell +you when--" + +It was a curious thing that followed. As if all the will went out of +her, Aunt Rachel sat very still; and presently her hands fluttered and +dropped. The gipsy sat with her own hands folded over the mat on her +knees. Several minutes passed; then, slowly, once more that sweetest of +smiles stole over Aunt Rachel's cheeks. Once more her head dropped. Her +hands moved. Noiselessly on the rockers that the gipsy had padded with +felt the chair began to rock. Annabel lifted one hand. + +"_Dovo se li_" she said. "It is there." + +Aunt Rachel did not appear to hear her. With that ineffable smile still +on her face, she rocked.... + +Then, after some minutes, there crossed her face such a look as visits +the face of one who, waking from sleep, strains his faculties to +recapture some blissful and vanishing vision.... + +"_Jal_--it is gone," said the gipsy woman. + +Aunt Rachel opened her eyes again. She repeated dully after Annabel: + +"It is gone." + +"Ghosts," the gipsy whispered presently, "are of the dead. Therefore it +must have lived." + +But again Aunt Rachel shook her head. "It never lived." + +"You were young, and beautiful?..." + +Still the shake of the head. "He died on the eve of his wedding. They +took my white garments away and gave me black ones. How then could +it have lived?" + +"Without the kiss, no.... But sometimes a woman will lie through her +life, and at the graveside still will lie.... Tell me the truth." + +But they were the same words that Aunt Rachel repeated: "He died on the +eve of his wedding; they took away my wedding garments...." From her lips +a lie could hardly issue. The gipsy's face became grave.... + +She broke another long silence. + +"I believe," she said at last. "It is a new kind--but no more wonderful +than the other. The other I have seen, now I have seen this also. Tell +me, does it come to any other chair?" + +"It was his chair; he died in it," said Aunt Rachel. + +"And you--shall you die in it?" + +"As God wills." + +"Has ... _other life_ ... visited it long?" + +"Many years; but it is always small; it never grows." + +"To their mothers babes never grow. They remain ever babes.... None other +has ever seen it?" + +"Except yourself, none. I sit here; presently it creeps into my arms; it +is small and warm; I rock, and then... it goes." + +"Would it come to another chair?" + +"I cannot tell. I think not. It was his chair." + +Annabel mused. At the other end of the room Flora was now bestowed on +Jack, the disreputable sailor. The gipsy's eyes rested on the bridal +party.... + +"Yet another might see it--" + +"None has." + +"No; but yet.... The door does not always shut behind us suddenly. +Perhaps one who has toddled but a step or two over the threshold might, +by looking back, catch a glimpse.... What is the name of the smallest +one?" + +"Angela." + +"That means 'angel'... Look, the doll who died yesterday is now being +married.... It may be that Life has not yet sealed the little one's eyes. +Will you let Annabel ask her if she sees what it is you hold in your +arms?" + +Again the voice was soft and wheedling.... + +"No, Annabel," said Aunt Rachel faintly. + +"Will you rock again?" + +Aunt Rachel made no reply. + +"Rock..." urged the cajoling voice. + +But Aunt Rachel only turned the betrothal ring on her finger. Over at the +altar Jack was leering at his new-made bride, past decency; and little +Angela held the wooden horse's head, which had parted from its body. + +"Rock, and comfort yourself--" tempted the voice. + +Then slowly Aunt Rachel rose from her chair. + +"No, Annabel," she said gently. "You should not have spoken. When the +snow melts you will go, and come no more; why then did you speak? It was +mine. It was not meant to be seen by another. I no longer want it. Please +go." + +The swarthy woman turned her almond eyes on her once more. + +"You cannot live without it," she said as she also rose.... + +And as Jack and his bride left the church on the reheaded horse, Aunt +Rachel walked with hanging head from the apartment. + + +III + +Thenceforward, as day followed day, Aunt Rachel rocked no more; and with +the packing and partial melting of the snow the gipsies up at the +caravans judged it time to be off about their business. It was on the +morning of Christmas Eve that they came down in a body to the Abbey +Farm to express their thanks to those who had befriended them; but the +bailiff was not there. He and the farm men had ceased work, and were +down at the church, practising the carols. Only Aunt Rachel sat, still +and knitting, in the black walnut chair; and the children played on the +floor. + +A night in the toy-box had apparently bred discontent between Jack +and Flora--or perhaps they sought to keep their countenances before +the world; at any rate, they sat on opposite sides of the room, Jack +keeping boon company with the lead soldiers, his spouse reposing, her +lead-balanced eyes closed, in the broken clockwork motor-car. With the +air of performing some vaguely momentous ritual, the children were +kissing one another beneath the bunch of mistletoe that hung from the +centre beam. In the intervals of kissing they told one another in +whispers that Aunt Rachel was not very well, and Angela woke Flora to +tell her that Aunt Rachel had Brown Titus also. + +"Stay you here; I will give the lady dear our thanks," said Annabel to +the group of gipsies gathered about the porch; and she entered the +great hall-kitchen. She approached the chair in which Aunt Rachel sat. + +There was obeisance in the bend of her body, but command in her long +almond eyes, as she spoke. + +"Lady dear, you must rock or you cannot live." + +Aunt Rachel did not look up from her work. + +"Rocking, I should not live long," she replied. + +"We are leaving you." + +"All leave me." + +"Annabel fears she has taken away your comfort." + +"Only for a little while. The door closes behind us, but it opens again." + +"But for that little time, rock--" + +Aunt Rachel shook her head. + +"No. It is finished. Another has seen.... Say good-bye to your +companions; they are very welcome to what they have had; and God speed +you." + +"They thank you, lady dear.... Will you not forget that Annabel saw, and +rock?" + +"No more." + +Annabel stooped and kissed the hand that bore the betrothal hoop of +pearls. The other hand Aunt Rachel placed for a moment upon the smoky +head of the babe in the sling. It trembled as it rested there, but the +tremor passed, and Annabel, turning once at the porch, gave her a last +look. Then she departed with her companions. + +That afternoon, Jack and Flora had shaken down to wedlock as married +folk should, and sat together before the board spread with the dolls' +tea-things. The pallid light in the great hall-kitchen faded; the candles +were lighted; and then the children, first borrowing the stockings of +their elders to hang at the bed's foot, were packed off early--for it was +the custom to bring them down again at midnight for the carols. Aunt +Rachel had their good-night kisses, not as she had them every night, but +with the special ceremony of the mistletoe. + +Other folk, grown folk, sat with Aunt Rachel that evening; but the old +walnut chair did not move upon its rockers. There was merry talk, but +Aunt Rachel took no part in it. The board was spread with ale and cheese +and spiced loaf for the carol-singers; and the time drew near for their +coming. + +When at midnight, faintly on the air from the church below, there came +the chiming of Christmas morning, all bestirred themselves. + +"They'll be here in a few minutes," they said; "somebody go and bring the +children down;" and within a very little while subdued noises were heard +outside, and the lifting of the latch of the yard gate. The children were +in their nightgowns, hardly fully awake; a low voice outside was heard +giving orders; and then there arose on the night the carol. + +"Hush!" they said to the wondering children; "listen!..." + +It was the Cherry Tree Carol that rose outside, of how sweet Mary, the +Queen of Galilee, besought Joseph to pluck the cherries for her Babe, and +Joseph refused; and the voices of the singers, that had begun +hesitatingly, grew strong and loud and free. + +"... and Joseph wouldn't pluck the cherries," somebody was whispering to +the tiny Angela.... + +"_Mary said to Cherry Tree, + 'Bow down to my knee, +That I may pluck cherries + For my Babe and me._'" + +the carollers sang; and "Now listen, darling," the one who held Angela +murmured.... + +"_The uppermost spray then + Bowed down to her knee; +'Thus you may see, Joseph, + These cherries are for me.' + +"'O, eat your cherries, Mary, + Give them your Babe now; +O, eat your cherries, Mary, + That grew upon the bough._'" + +The little Angela, within the arms that held her, murmured, "It's the +gipsies, isn't it, mother?" + +"No, darling. The gipsies have gone. It's the carol-singers, singing +because Jesus was born." + +"But, mother ... it _is_ the gipsies, isn't it?... 'Cos look..." + +"Look where?" + +"At Aunt Rachel, mother ... The gipsy woman wouldn't go without her +little baby, would she?" + +"No, she wouldn't do that." + +"Then has she _lent_ it to Aunt Rachel, like I lend my new toys +sometimes?" + +The mother glanced across at Aunt Rachel, and then gathered the +night-gowned figure more closely. + +"The darling's only half awake," she murmured.... "Poor Aunt Rachel's +sleepy too...." + +Aunt Rachel, her head dropped, her hands lightly folded as if about some +shape that none saw but herself, her face again ineffable with that +sweet and peaceful smile, was once more rocking softly in her chair. + + + + +HIC JACET + +A TALE OF ARTISTIC CONSCIENCE + +INTRODUCTION + + +As I lighted my guests down the stairs of my Chelsea lodgings, turned up +the hall gas that they might see the steps at the front door, and shook +hands with them, I bade them good night the more heartily that I was glad +to see their backs. Lest this should seem but an inhospitable confession, +let me state, first, that they had invited themselves, dropping in in +ones and twos until seven or eight of them had assembled in my garret, +and, secondly, that I was rather extraordinarily curious to know why, at +close on midnight, the one I knew least well of all had seen fit to +remain after the others had taken their departure. To these two +considerations I must add a third, namely, that I had become tardily +conscious that, if Andriaovsky had not lingered of himself, I should +certainly have asked him to do so. + +It was to nothing more than a glance, swift and momentary, directed by +Andriaovsky to myself while the others had talked, that I traced this +desire to see more of the little Polish painter; but a glance derives its +import from the circumstance under which it is given. That rapid turning +of his eyes in my direction an hour before had held a hundred questions, +implications, criticisms, incredulities, condemnations. It had been one +of those uncovenanted gestures that hold the promise of the treasures of +an eternal friendship. I wondered as I turned down the gas again and +remounted the stairs what personal message and reproach in it had lumped +me in with the others; and by the time I had reached my own door again a +phrase had fitted itself in my mind to that quick, ironical turning of +Andriaovsky's eyes: _"Et tu, Brute!..."_ + +He was standing where I had left him, his small shabby figure in the +attitude of a diminutive colossus on my hearthrug. About him were the +recently vacated chairs, solemnly and ridiculously suggestive of still +continuing the high and choice conversation that had lately finished. The +same fancy had evidently taken Andriaovsky, for he was turning from chair +to chair, his head a little on one side, mischievously and aggravatingly +smiling. As one of them, the deep wicker chair that Jamison had occupied, +suddenly gave a little creak of itself, as wicker will when released from +a strain, his smile broadened to a grin. I had been on the point of +sitting down in that chair, but I changed my mind and took another. + +"That's right," said Andriaovsky, in that wonderful English which he had +picked up in less than three years, "don't sit in the wisdom-seat; you +might profane it." + +I knew what he meant. I felt for my pipe and slowly filled it, not +replying. Then, slowly wagging his head from side to side, with his eyes +humorously and banteringly on mine, he uttered the very words I had +mentally associated with that glance of his. + +_"Et tu, Brute!"_ he said, wagging away, so that with each wag the lenses +of his spectacles caught the light of the lamp on the table. + +I too smiled as I felt for a match. + +"It _was_ rather much, wasn't it?" I said. + +But he suddenly stopped his wagging, and held up a not very clean +forefinger. His whole face was altogether too confoundedly intelligent. + +"Oh no, you don't!" he said peremptorily. "No getting out of it like +that the moment they've turned their backs! No running--what is it?--no +running with the hare and hunting with the hounds! _You_ helped, you +know!" + +I confess I fidgeted a little. + +"But hang it all, what could I do? They were in my place," I broke out. + +He chuckled, enjoying my discomfiture. Then his eyes fell on those absurd +and solemn chairs again. + +"Look at 'em--the Art Shades in conference!" he chuckled. "That +rush-seated one, it was talking half an hour ago about 'Scherzos in +Silver and Grey!' ... Nice, fresh green stuff!" + +To shut him up I told him that he would find cigarettes and tobacco on +the table. + +"'Scherzos in Silver and Grey'!" he chuckled again as he took a +cigarette.... + +All this, perhaps, needs some explanation. It had been the usual thing, +usual in those days, twenty years ago--smarming about Art and the Arts +and so forth. They--"we," as apparently Andriaovsky had lingered behind +for the purpose of reminding me--had perhaps talked a little more +soaringly than the ordinary, that was all. There had been Jamison in the +wicker chair, full to the lips and running over with the Colour +Suggestions of the late Edward Calvert; Gibbs, in a pulpy state of +adoration of the less legitimate side of the painting of Watts; and +Magnani, who had advanced that an Essential Oneness underlies all the +Arts, and had triumphantly proved his thesis by analogy with the Law of +the Co-relation of Forces. A book called Music and Morals had appeared +about that time, and on it they--we--had risen to regions of kite-high +lunacy about Colour Symphonies, orgies of formless colour thrown on a +magic-lantern screen--vieux jeu enough at this time of day. A young +newspaper man, too, had made mental notes of our adjectives, for use in +his weekly (I nearly spelt it "weakly") half-column of Art Criticism; +and--and here was Andriaovsky, grinning at the chairs, and mimicking +it all with diabolical glee. + +"'Scherzos in Silver and Grey'--'Word Pastels'--' Lyrics in Stone!'" +he chuckled. "And what was it the fat fellow said?' A Siren Song in +Marble!' Phew!... Well, I'll get along. I shall just be in time to get +a pint of bitter to wash it all down if I'm quick... Bah!" he broke out +suddenly. "Good men build up Form and Forms--keep the Arts each after +its kind--raise up the dikes so that we shan't all be swept away by night +and nothingness--and these rats come nosing and burrowing and undermining +it all!... _Et tu, Brute!_" + +"Well, when you've finished rubbing it in--" I grunted. + +"As if _you_ didn't know better!... Is that your way of getting back on +'em, now that you've chucked drawing and gone in for writing books? +Phew I... Well, I'll go and get my pint of beer--" + +But he didn't go for his pint of beer. Instead, he began to prowl about +my room, pryingly, nosingly, touching things here and there. I watched +him as he passed from one thing to another. He was very little, and very, +very shabby. His trousers were frayed, and the sole of one of his boots +flapped distressingly. His old bowler hat--he had not thought it +necessary to wait until he got outside before thrusting it on the back of +his head--was so limp in substance that I verily believed that had he run +incautiously downstairs he would have found when he got to the bottom +that its crown had sunk in of its own weight. In spite of his remark +about the pint of beer, I doubt if he had the price of one in his pocket. + +"What's this, Brutus--a concertina?" he suddenly asked, stopping before +the collapsible case in which I kept my rather old dress suit. + +I told him what it was, and he hoisted up his shoulders. + +"And these things?" he asked, moving to something else. + +They were a pair of boot-trees of which I had permitted myself the +economy. I remember they cost me four shillings in the old Brompton +Road. + +"And that's your bath, I suppose.... Dumb-bells too.... And--_oh, good +Lord!_..." + +He had picked up, and dropped again as if it had been hot, somebody or +other's card with the date of a "day" written across the corner of it.... + +As I helped him on with his overcoat he made no secret of the condition +of its armholes and lining. I don't for one moment suppose that the +garment was his. I took a candle to light him down as soon as it should +please him to depart. + +"Well, so long, and joy to you on the high road to success," he said with +another grin for which I could have bundled him down the stairs.... + +In later days I never looked to Andriaovsky for tact; but I stared at him +for his lack of it that night. And as I stared I noticed for the first +time the broad and low pylon of his forehead, his handsome mouth and +chin, and the fire and wit and scorn that smouldered behind his cheap +spectacles. I looked again; and his smallness, his malice, his pathetic +little braggings about his poverty, seemed all to disappear. He had +strolled back to my hearthrug, wishing, I have no doubt now, to be able +to exclaim suddenly that it was too late for the pint of beer for which +he hadn't the money, and to curse his luck; and the pigmy quality of his +colossusship had somehow gone. + +As I watched him, a neighbouring clock struck the half-hour, and he +did even as I had surmised--cursed the closing time of the English +public-houses.... + +I lighted him down. For one moment, under the hall gas, he almost dropped +his jesting manner. + +"You _do_ know better, Harrison, you know," he said. "But, of course, +you're going to be a famous author in almost no time. Oh, _ca se +voit_! No garrets for _you_! It was a treat,' the way you handled those +fellows--really ... Well don't forget us others when you're up there--I +may want you to write my 'Life' some day...." + +I heard the slapping of the loose sole as he shuffled down the path. At +the gate he turned for a moment. + +"Good night, Brutus," he called. + +When I had mounted to my garret again my eyes fell once more on that +ridiculous assemblage of empty chairs, all solemnly talking to one +another. I burst out into a laugh. Then I undressed, put my jacket on the +hanger, took the morrow's boots from the trees and treed those I had +removed, changed the pair of trousers under my mattress, and went, still +laughing at the chairs, to bed. + +This was Michael Andriaovsky, the Polish painter, who died four weeks +ago. + + +I + +I knew the reason of Maschka's visit the moment she was announced. Even +in the stressful moments of the funeral she had found time to whisper to +me that she hoped to call upon me at an early date. I dismissed the +amanuensis to whom I was dictating the last story of the fourth series of +_Martin Renard_, gave a few hasty instructions to my secretary, and told +the servant to show Miss Andriaovsky into the drawing-room, to ask her +to be so good as to excuse me for five minutes, to order tea at once, and +then to bring my visitor up to the library. + +A few minutes later she was shown into the room. + +She was dressed in the same plainly cut costume of dead black she +had worn at the funeral, and had pushed up her heavy veil over the +close-fitting cap of black fur that accentuated her Sclavonic appearance. +I noticed again with distress the pallor of her face and the bistred +rings that weeks of nursing had put under her dark eyes. I noticed also +her resemblance, in feature and stature, to her brother. I placed a chair +for her; the tea-tray followed her in; and without more than a murmured +greeting she peeled off her gloves and prepared to preside at the tray. + +She had filled the cups, and I had handed her toast, before she spoke. +Then: + +"I suppose you know what I've come about," she said. + +I nodded. + +"Long, long ago you promised it. Nobody else can do it. The only question +is 'when.'" + +"That's the only question," I agreed. + +"We, naturally," she continued, after a glance in which her eyes mutely +thanked me for my implied promise, "are anxious that it should be as soon +as possible; but, of course--I shall quite understand--" + +She gave a momentary glance round my library. I helped her out. + +"You mean that I'm a very important person nowadays, and that you're +afraid to trespass on my time. Never mind that. I shall find time +for this. But tell me before we go any further exactly how you stand and +precisely what it is you expect." + +Briefly she did so. It did not in the least surprise me to learn that her +brother had died penniless. + +"And if you hadn't undertaken the 'Life,'" she said, "he might just as +well not have worked in poverty all these years. You can, at least, see +to his fame." + +I nodded again gravely, and ruminated for a moment. Then I spoke. + +"I can write it, fully and in detail, up to five years ago," I said. "You +know what happened then. I tried my best to help him, but he never would +let me. Tell me, Maschka, why he wouldn't sell me that portrait." + +I knew instantly, from her quick confusion, that her brother had spoken +to her about the portrait he had refused to sell me, and had probably +told her the reason for his refusal. I watched her as she evaded the +question as well as she could. + +"You know how--queer--he was about who he sold his things to. And as for +those five years in which you saw less of him, Schofield will tell you +all you want to know." + +I relinquished the point. "Who's Schofield?" I asked instead. + +"He was a very good friend of Michael's--of both of us. You can talk +quite freely to him. I want to say at the beginning that I should like +him to be associated with you in this." + +I don't know how I divined on the spot her relation to Schofield, whoever +he was. She told me that he too was a painter. + +"Michael thought very highly of his things," she said. + +"I don't know them," I replied. + +"You probably wouldn't," she returned.... + +But I caught the quick drop of her eyes from their brief excursion round +my library, and I felt something within me stiffen a little. It did not +need Maschka Andriaovsky to remind me that I had not attained my position +without--let us say--splitting certain differences; the looseness of +the expression can be corrected hereafter. Life consists very largely of +compromises. You doubtless know my name, whichever country or hemisphere +you happen to live in, as that of the creator of Martin Renard, the +famous and popular detective; and I was not at that moment disposed to +apologise, either to Maschka or Schofield or anybody else, for having +written the stories at the bidding of a gaping public. The moment the +public showed that it wanted something better I was prepared to give it. +In the meantime, I sat in my very comfortable library, securely shielded +from distress by my balance at my banker's. + +"Well," I said after a moment, "let's see how we stand. And first +as to what you're likely to get out of this. It goes without saying, +of course, that by writing the 'Life' I can get you any amount of +'fame'--advertisement, newspaper talk, and all the things that, it struck +me, Michael always treated with especial scorn. My name alone, I say, +will do that. But for anything else I'm by no means so sure. You see," I +explained, "it doesn't follow that because I can sell hundreds of +thousands of... you know what... that I can sell anything I've a mind to +sign." I said it, confident that she had not lived all those years with +her brother without having learned the axiomatic nature of it. To my +discomfiture, she began to talk like a callow student. + +"I should have thought that it followed that if you could sell +something--" she hesitated only for a moment, then courageously gave the +other stuff its proper adjective, "--something rotten, you could have +sold something good when you had the chance." + +"Then if you thought that you were wrong," I replied briefly and +concisely. + +"_Michael_ couldn't, of course," she said, putting Michael out of the +question with a little wave of her hand, "because Michael was--I mean, +Michael wasn't a business man. You are." + +"I'm speaking as one," I replied. "I don't waste time in giving people +what they don't want. That is business. I don't undertake your brother's +'Life' as a matter of business, but as an inestimable privilege. I +repeat, it doesn't follow that the public will buy it." + +"But--but--" she stammered, "the public will buy a _Pill_ if they see +your name on the testimonial!" + +"A Pill--yes," I said sadly.... Genius and a Pill were, alas, different +things. "But," I added more cheerfully, "you can never tell what the +public will do. They _might_ buy it--there's no telling except by +trying--" + +"Well, Schofield thinks they will," she informed me with decision. + +"I dare say he does, if he's an artist. They mostly do," I replied. + +"He doesn't think Michael will ever be popular," she emphasised the +adjective slightly, "but he does think he has a considerable following if +they could only be discovered." + +I sighed. All artists think that. They will accept any compromise except +the one that is offered to them.... I tried to explain to Maschka that in +this world we have to stand to the chances of all or nothing. + +"You've got to be one thing or the other--I don't know that it matters +very much which," I said. "There's Michael's way, and there's... mine. +That's all. However, we'll try it. All you can say to me, and more, I'll +say to a publisher for you. But he'll probably wink at me." + +For a moment she was silent. Then she said: "Schofield rather fancies one +publisher." + +"Oh? Who's he?" I asked. + +She mentioned a name. If I knew anything at all of business she might as +well have offered _The Life of Michael Andriaovsky_ to The Religious +Tract Society at once.... + +"Hm!... And has Mr. Schofield any other suggestions?" I inquired. + +He had. Several. I saw that Schofield's position would have to be defined +before we went any further. + +"Hm!" I said again. "Well, I shall have to rely on Schofield for those +five years in which I saw little of Michael; but unless Schofield knows +more of publishing than I do, and can enforce a better contract and a +larger sum on account than I can, I really think, Maschka, that you'll do +better to leave things to me. For one thing, it's only fair to me. My +name hasn't much of an artistic value nowadays, but it has a very +considerable commercial one, and my worth to publishers isn't as a writer +of the Lives of Geniuses." + +I could see she didn't like it; but that couldn't be helped. It had to be +so. Then, as we sat for a time in silence over the fire, I noticed again +how like her brother she was. She was not, it was true, much like him as +he had been on that last visit of mine to him ... and I sighed as I +remembered that visit. The dreadful scene had come back to me.... + +On account, I suppose, of the divergence of our paths, I had not even +heard of his illness until almost the finish. Immediately I had hastened +to the Hampstead "Home," only to find him already in the agony. He had +not been too far gone to recognise me, however, for he had muttered +something brokenly about "knowing better," that a spasm had interrupted. +Besides myself, only Maschka had been there; and I had been thankful for +the summons that had called her for a moment out of the room. I had still +retained his already cold hand; his brow had worked with that dreadful +struggle; and his eyes had been closed. + +But suddenly he had opened them, and the next moment had sat up on his +pillow. He had striven to draw his hand from mine. + +"Who are you?" he had suddenly demanded, not knowing me. + +I had come close to him. "You know me, Andriaovsky--Harrison?" I had +asked sorrowfully. + +I had been on the point of repeating my name but suddenly, after holding +my eyes for a moment with a look the profundity and familiarity of which +I cannot express, he had broken into the most ghastly haunting laugh I +have ever heard. + +"_Harrison?_" the words had broken throatily from him.... "_Oh yes; I +know you!... You shall very soon know that I know you if... if..._" + +The cough and rattle had come as Maschka had rushed into the room. In ten +seconds Andriaovsky had fallen back, dead. + + +II + +That same evening I began to make notes for Andriaovsky's "Life." On the +following day, the last of the fourth series of the _Martin Renards_ +occupied me until I was thankful to get to bed. But thereafter I could +call rather more of my time my own, and I began in good earnest to devote +myself to the "Life." + +Maschka had spoken no more than the truth when she had said that of all +men living none but I could write that "Life." His remaining behind in my +Chelsea garret that evening after the others had left had been the +beginning of a friendship that, barring that lapse of five years at the +end, had been for twenty years one of completest intimacy. Whatever money +there might or might not be in the book, I had seen _my_ opportunity in +it--the opportunity to make it the vehicle for all the aspirations, +faiths, enthusiasms, and exaltations we had shared; and I myself did not +realise until I began to note them down one tithe of the subtle links and +associations that had welded our souls together. + +Even the outward and visible signs of these had been wonderful. Setting +out from one or other of the score of garrets and cheap lodgings we had +in our time inhabited, we had wandered together, day after day, night +after night, far down East, where, as we had threaded our way among the +barrels of soused herrings and the stalls and barrows of unleavened +bread, he had taught me scraps of Hebrew and Polish and Yiddish; up into +the bright West, where he could never walk a quarter of a mile without +meeting one of his extraordinary acquaintances--furred music-hall +managers, hawkers of bootlaces, commercial magnates of his own Faith, +touts, crossing-sweepers, painted women; into Soho, where he had names +for the very horses on the cab-ranks and the dogs who slumbered under the +counters of the sellers of French literature; out to the naphtha-lights +and cries of the Saturday night street markets of Islington and the North +End Road; into City churches on wintry afternoons, into the studios of +famous artists full of handsomely dressed women, into the studios of +artists not famous, at the ends of dark and break-neck corridors; to tea +at the suburban homes of barmaids and chorus girls, to dinner in the +stables of a cavalry-barracks, to supper in cabmen's shelters. He was +possessed in some mysterious way of the passwords to doors in hoardings +behind which excavations were in progress; he knew by name the butchers +of the Deptford yards, the men in the blood-caked clothes, so inured to +blood that they may not with safety to their lives swear at one another; +he took me into an opium-cellar within a stone's-throw of Oxford Street, +and into a roof-chamber to call upon certain friends of his ... well, +they _said_ they were fire extinguishers, so I'd better not say they +were bombs. Up, down; here, there; good report, but more frequently +evil ... we had known this side of our London as well as two men may. And +our other adventures and peregrinations, not of the body, but of the +spirit ... but these must be spoken of in their proper place. + +I had arranged with Maschka that Schofield should bring me the whole of +the work Andriaovsky had left behind him; and he arrived late one +afternoon in a fourwheeler, with four great packages done up in brown +paper. I found him to be a big, shaggy-browed, red-haired, raw-boned +Lancashire man of five-and-thirty, given to confidential demonstrations +at the length of a button-shank, quite unconscious of the gulf between +his words and his right to employ them, and bent on asserting an equality +that I did not dispute by a rather aggressive use of my surname. +Andriaovsky had appointed him his executor, and he had ever the air of +suspecting that the appointment was going to be challenged. + +"A'm glad to be associated with ye in this melancholy duty, Harrison," he +said. "Now we won't waste words. Miss Andriaovsky has told me precisely +how matters stand. I had, as ye know, the honour to be poor Michael's +close friend for a period of five years, and my knowledge of him is +entirely at your disposal." + +I answered that I should be seriously handicapped without it. + +"Just so. It is Miss Andriaovsky's desire that we should pull together. +Now, in the firrst place, what is your idea about the forrm the book +should take?" + +"In the first place, if you don't mind," I replied, "perhaps we'd better +run over together the things you've brought. The daylight will be gone +soon." + +"Just as ye like, Harrison," he said, "just as ye like. It's all the same +to me...." + +I cleared a space about my writing-table at the window, and we turned to +the artistic remains of Michael Andriaovsky. + +I was astonished, first, at the enormous quantity of the stuff, and next +at its utter and complete revelation of the man. In a flash I realised +how superb that portion at least of the book was going to be. And +Schofield explained that the work he had brought represented but a +fraction of the whole that was at our disposal. + +"Ye'll know with what foolish generosity poor Michael always gave his +things away," he said. "Hallard has a grand set; so has Connolly; and +from time to time he behaved varry handsomely to myself. Artists of varry +considerable talents both Hallard and Connolly are; Michael thought +varry highly of their abilities. They express the deepest interest in the +shape your worrk will take; and that reminds me. I myself have drafted a +rough scenario of the forrm it appeared to me the 'Life' might with +advantage be cast in. A purely private opinion, ye'll understand, +Harrison, which ye'll be entirely at liberty to disregard...." + +"Well, let's finish with the work first," I said. + +With boards, loose sheets, scraps of paper, notes, studies, canvases +stretched and stripped from their stretchers, we paved half the library +floor, Schofield keeping up all the time a running fire of "Grand, +grand! A masterpiece! A gem, that, Harrison!" They were all that he said, +and presently I ceased to hear his voice. The splendour of the work +issued undimmed even from the severe test of Schofield's praise; and I +thought again with pride how I, I, was the only man living who could +adequately write that "Life.".... + +"Aren't they grand? Aren't they great?" Schofield chanted monotonously. + +"They are," I replied, coming to a consciousness of his presence again. +"But what's that?" + +Secretively he had kept one package until the last. He now removed its +wrappings and set it against a chair. + +_"There!"_ he cried. "I'll thank ye, Harrison, for your opinion of +_that!"_ + +It was the portrait Andriaovsky had refused to sell me--a portrait of +himself. + +The portrait was the climax of the display. The Lancastrian still talked; +but I, profoundly moved, mechanically gathered up the drawings from the +floor and returned them to their proper packages and folios. I was dining +at home, alone, that evening, and for form's sake I asked this faithful +dog of Andriaovsky's to share my meal; but he excused himself--he was +dining with Hallard and Connolly. When the drawings were all put away, +all save that portrait, he gave an inquisitive glance round my library. +It was the same glance as Maschka had given when she had feared to +intrude on my time; but Schofield did these things with a much more heavy +hand. He departed, but not before telling me that even my mansion +contained such treasures as it had never held before. + +That evening, after glancing at Schofield's "scenario," I carefully +folded it up again for return to him, lest when the book should appear +he should miss the pleasure of saying that I had had his guidance but +had disregarded it; then I sat down at my writing-table and took out +the loose notes I had made. I made other jottings, each on a blank sheet +for subsequent amplification; and the sheets overspread the large +leather-topped table and thrust one another up the standard of the +incandescent with the pearly silk shade. The firelight shone low and +richly in the dusky spaces of the large apartment; and the thick carpet +and the double doors made the place so quiet that I could hear my watch +ticking in my pocket. + +I worked for an hour; and then, for the purpose of making yet other +notes, I rose, crossed the room, and took down the three or four +illustrated books to which, in the earlier part of his career, +Andriaovsky had put his name. I carried them to the table, and twinkled +as I opened the first of them. It was a book of poems, and in making the +designs for them Andriaovsky had certainly _not_ found for himself. +Almost any one of the "Art Shades," as he had called them, could have +done the thing equally well, and I twinkled again. I did not propose to +have much mercy on _that_. Already Schofield's words had given birth to a +suspicion in my mind--that Andriaovsky, in permitting these fellows, +Hallard, Connolly, and the rest, to suppose that he "thought highly" of +them and their work, had been giving play to that malicious humour of +his; and they naturally did not see the joke. That joke, too, was between +himself, dead, and me, preparing to write his "Life." As if he had been +there to hear me, I chuckled, and spoke in a low voice. + +"You were pulling their legs, Michael, you know. A little rough on them +you were. But there's a book here of yours that I'm going to tell the +truth about. You and I won't pretend to one another. It's a rotten book, +and both you and I know it...." + +I don't know what it was that caused me suddenly to see just then +something that I had been looking at long enough without seeing--that +portrait of himself that I had set leaning against the back of a chair at +the end of my writing-table. It stood there, just within the soft +penumbra of shadow cast by the silk-shaded light. The canvas had been +enlarged, the seam of it clumsily sewn by Andriaovsky's own hand; but in +that half-light the rough ridge of paint did not show, and I confess that +the position and effect of the thing startled me for a moment. Had I +cared to play a trick with my fancy I could have imagined the head +wagging from side to side, with such rage and fire was it painted. He had +had the temerity to dash a reflection across one of the glasses of his +spectacles, concealing the eye behind it. The next moment I had given a +short laugh. + +"So you're there, are you?... Well, I know you agree very heartily about +that book of poems. Heigho! If I remember rightly, you made more money +out of that book than out of the others put together. But I'm going +to tell the truth about it. _I_ know better, you know...." + +Chancing, before I turned in that night, to reopen one of his folios, I +came across a drawing, there by accident, I don't doubt, that confirmed +me in my suspicion that Andriaovsky had had his quiet joke with +Schofield, Hallard, Connolly and Co. It was a sketch of Schofield's, +imitative, deplorable, a dreadful show-up of incapacity. Well enough +"drawn," in a sense, it was ... and I remembered how Andriaovsky had ever +urged that "drawing," of itself, did not exist. I winked at the portrait. +I saw his point. He himself had no peer, and, rather than invite +comparison with stars of the second magnitude, he chose his intimates +from among the peddlers of the wares that had the least possible +connection with his Art. He, too, had understood that the Compromise +must be entirely accepted or totally refused; and while, in the +divergence of our paths, he had done the one thing and I the other, we +had each done it thoroughly, with vigour, and with persistence, and each +could esteem the other, if not as a co-worker, at least as an honourable +and out-and-out opposite. + + +III + +Within a fortnight I was so deep in my task that, in the realest sense, +the greater part of my life was in the past. The significance of those +extraordinary peregrinations of ours had been in the opportunity they had +afforded for a communion of brain and spirit of unusual rarity; and all +this determined to my work with the accumulated force of its long +penning-up. I have spoken of Andriaovsky's contempt for such as had the +conception of their work that it was something they "did" as distinct +from something they "were"; and unless I succeed in making it plain that, +not as a mere figure of speech and loose hyperbole, but starkly and +literally, Andriaovsky _was_ everything he did, my tale will be +pointless. + +There was not one of the basic facts of life--of Faith, Honour, +Truth-speaking, Falsehood, Betrayal, Sin--that he did not turn, not to +moral interpretations, as others do, but to the holy purposes of his +noble and passionate Art. For any man, Sin is only mortal when it is Sin +against that which he knows to be immortally true; and the things +Andriaovsky knew to be immortally true were the things that he had gone +down into the depths in order to bring forth and place upon his paper or +canvas. These things are not for the perusal of many. Unless you love the +things that he loved with a fervour comparable in kind, if not in degree, +with his own, you may not come near them. "Truth, 'the highest thing a +man may keep,'" he said, "cannot be brought down; a man only attains it +by proving his right to it"; and I think I need not further state his +views on the democratisation of Art. Of any result from the elaborate +processes of Art-education he held out no hope whatever. "It is in a man, +or it isn't," he ever declared; "if it is, he must bring it out for +himself; if it isn't, let him turn to something useful and have done with +it." I need not press the point that in these things he was almost a +solitary. + +He made of these general despotic principles the fiercest personal +applications. I have heard his passionate outbreak of "Thief! Liar! +Fool!" over a drawing when it has seemed to him that a man has not +vouched with the safety of his immortal soul for the shapes and lines he +has committed to it. I have seen him get into such a rage with the eyes +of the artist upon him. I have heard the ice and vinegar of his words +when a good man, for money, has consented to modify and emasculate +his work; and there lingers in my memory his side of a telephone +conversation in which he told a publisher who had suggested that he +should do the same thing precisely what he thought of him. And on the +other hand, he once walked from Aldgate to Putney Hill, with a loose heel +on one of his boots, to see a man of whom he had seen but a single +drawing. See him he did, too, in spite of the man's footman, his liveried +parlourmaid, and the daunting effect of the electric brougham at the +door. + +"He's a good man," he said to me afterwards, ruefully looking at the +place where his boot-heel had been. "You've got to take your good where +you find it. I don't care whether he's a rich amateur or skin-and-grief +in a garret as long as he's got the stuff in him. Nobody else could have +fetched me up from the East End this afternoon.... So long; see you in a +week or so--" + +This was the only time I ever knew him break that sacred time in which he +celebrated each year the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles. I doubt +whether this observance of the ritual of his Faith was of more essential +importance to him than that other philosophical religion towards which he +sometimes leaned. I have said what his real religion was. + +But to the "Life." + +With these things, and others, as a beginning, I began to add page to +page, phase to phase; and, in a time the shortness of which astonished +myself, I had pretty well covered the whole of the first ten years of our +friendship. Maschka called rather less, and Schofield rather more +frequently, than I could have wished; and my surmise that he, at least, +was in love with her, quickly became a certainty. This was to be seen +when they called together. + +It was when they came together that something else also became apparent. +This was their slightly derisive attitude towards the means by which I +had attained my success. It was not the less noticeable that it took the +form of compliments on the outward and visible results. Singly I could +manage them; together they were inclined to get a little out of hand. + +I would have taxed them fairly and squarely with this, singly or +together, but for one thing--the beautiful ease with which the "Life" was +proceeding. Never had I felt so completely _en rapport_ with my subject. +So beautifully was the thing running that I had had the idle fancy of +some actual urge from Andriaovsky himself; and each night, before sitting +down to work, I set his portrait at my desk's end, as if it had been some +kind of an observance. The most beautiful result of all was, that I felt +what I had not felt for five years--that I too was not "doing" my work, +but actually living and being it. At times I took up the sheets I had +written as ignorant of their contents as if they had proceeded from +another pen--so freshly they came to me. And once, I vow, I found, in my +own handwriting, a Polish name, that I might (it is true) have +subconsciously heard at some time or other, but that stirred no chord in +my memory even when I saw it written. Maschka checked and confirmed it +afterwards; and I did not tell her by what odd circumstance it had issued +from my pen. + +The day did come, however, when I found I must have it out with Schofield +about this superciliousness I have mentioned. The _Falchion_ had just +begun to print the third series of my _Martin Renard_; and this had been +made the occasion of another of Schofield's ponderous compliments. I +acknowledged it with none too much graciousness; and then he said: + +"I've na doubt, Harrison, that by this time the famous sleuth-hound of +crime has become quite a creature of flesh and blood to ye." + +It was the tone as much as the words that riled me; and I replied that +his doubts or the lack of them were a privacy with which I did not wish +to meddle. From being merely a bore the fellow was rapidly becoming +insolent. + +"But I opine he'll get wearisome now and then, and in that case poor +Michael's 'Life' will come as a grand relaxation," he next observed. + +If I meant to have it out, here was my opportunity. + +"I should have thought you'd have traced a closer connection than that +between the two things," I remarked. + +He shot a quick glance at me from beneath his shaggy russet brows. + +"How so? I see varry little connection," he said suspiciously. + +"There's this connection--that while you speak with some freedom of what +I do, you are quite willing to take advantage of it when it serves +your turn." + +"'Advantage,' Harrison?" he said slowly. + +"Of the advertisement _Martin Renard_ gives you. I must point out that +you condone a thing when you accept the benefit of it. Either you +shouldn't have come to me at all, or you should deny yourself the +gratification of these slurs." + +"Slurrrrs?" he repeated loweringly. + +"Both of you--you and Miss Andriaovsky, or Maschka as I call her, _tout +court_. Don't suppose I don't know as well as you do the exact worth of +my 'sleuth-hound,' as you call him. You didn't come to me solely because +I knew Andriaovsky well; you came because I've got the ear of the +public also; and I tell you plainly that, however much you dislike it, +Michael's fame as far as I'm of any use to him, depends on the +popularity of _Martin Renard."_ + +He shook his big head. "This is what I feared," he said. + +"More," I continued, "you can depend upon it that Michael, wherever he +is, knows all about that." + +"Ay, ay," he said sagely, "I misdoubt your own artistic soul's only to be +saved by the writing of poor Michael's 'Life,' Harrison." + +"Leave that to me and Michael; we'll settle that. In the meantime, if you +don't like it, write and publish the 'Life' yourself." + +He bent his brows on me. + +"It's precisely what I wanted to do from the varry first," he said. "If +you'd cared to accept my symposium in the spirit in which it was offered, +I cannot see that the 'Life' would have suffered. But now, when you're +next in need of my services, ye'll mebbe send for me." + +He took up his hat. I assured him, and let him take it in what sense he +liked, that I would do so; and he left me. + +Not for one single moment did I intend that they should bounce me like +that. With or without their sanction and countenance, I intended to write +and publish that "Life." Schofield--in my own house too--had had the +advantage that a poor and ill-dressed man has over one who is not poor +and ill-dressed; but my duty first of all was neither to him nor to +Maschka, but to my friend. + +The worst of it was, however, that I had begun dimly to suspect that +the Lancastrian had hit at least one nail on the head. "Your artistic +soul's only to be saved by writing poor Michael's 'Life,'" he had +informed me... and it was truer than I found it pleasant to believe. +Perhaps, after all, my first duty was not to Andriaovsky, but to myself. +I could have kicked myself that the fool had been perspicacious enough to +see it, but that did not alter the fact. I saw that in the sense in which +Andriaovsky understood Sin, I had sinned.... + +My only defence lay in the magnitude of my sin. I had sinned +thoroughly, out-and-out, and with a will. It had been the only +respectable way--Andriaovsky's own way when he had cut the company +of an Academician to hobnob with a vagabond. I had at least instituted +no comparison, lowered no ideal, was innocent of the accursed attitude +of facing-both-ways that degrades all lovely and moving things. I was, by +a paradox, too black a sinner not to hope for redemption.... + +I fell into a long musing on these things.... + +Had any of the admirers of _Martin Renard_ entered the library of his +author that night he would have seen an interesting thing. He would +have seen the creator of that idol of clerks and messenger-lads and +fourth-form boys frankly putting the case before a portrait propped up on +a chair. He would have heard that popular author haranguing, pleading, +curiously on his defence, turning the thing this way and that. + +"If _you'd_ gone over, Michael," that author argued, "you'd have done +precisely the same thing. If I'd stuck it out, we were, after all, of a +kind; We've got to be one thing or the other--isn't that so, Andriaovsky? +Since I made up my mind, I've faced only one way--only one way. I've kept +your ideal and theirs entirely separate and distinct. Not one single +beautiful phrase will you find in the _Martin Renards;_ I've cut 'em +out, every one. I may have ceased to worship, but I've profaned no +temple.... And think what I _might_ have done--what they all do! They +deal out the slush, but with an apologetic glance at the Art Shades; +_you_ know the style!--'Oh, Harrison; he does that detective rubbish, but +that's not Harrison; if Harrison liked to drop that he could be a fine +artist!'--I _haven't_ done that. I _haven't_ run with the hare and hunted +with the hounds. I _am_ just Harrison, who does that detective +rubbish!... These other chaps, Schofield and Connolly, _they're_ the real +sinners, Michael--the fellows who can't make up their minds to be one +thing or the other ('artists of considerable abilities'--ha! ha!).... Of +course you know Maschka's going to marry that chap? What'll _they_ do, do +you think? He'll scrape up a few pounds out of the stew where I find +thousands, marry her, and they'll set up a salon and talk the stuff the +chairs talked that night, you remember!... But you wait until I finish +your 'Life.'..." + +I laid it all before him, almost as if I sought to propitiate him. I +might have been courting his patronage for his own "Life." Then, with a +start, I came to, to find myself talking nonsense to the portrait that +years before Andriaovsky had refused to sell me. + + +IV + +The first check I experienced in the hitherto so easy flow of the "Life" +came at the chapter that dealt with Andriaovsky's attitude towards +"professionalism" in Art. He was inflexible on this point; there ought +not to be professional artists. When it was pointed out that his position +involved a premium upon the rich amateur, he merely replied that riches +had nothing to do with the question, and that the starver in the garret +was not excused for his poverty's sake from the observance of the +implacable conditions. He spoke literally of the "need" to create, +usually in the French term, _besogne_; and he was inclined to regard the +imposition of this need on a man rather as a curse laid upon him than as +a privilege and a pleasure. But I must not enlarge upon this further than +to observe that this portion of his "Life" which I was approaching +coincided in point of time with that period of my own life at which I had +been confronted with the alternative of starving for Art's sake or +becoming rich by supplying a clamorous trade demand. + +It came, this check I have spoken of, one night, as I was in the very +middle of a sentence; and though I have cudgelled my brains in seeking +how best I can describe it, I am reduced to the simple statement that it +was as arresting, as sharp, actual and impossible to resist, as if my +hand had been seized and pinned down in its passage across the paper. I +can even see again the fragment of the sentence I had written: "... _and +the mere contemplation of a betrayal so essential--_" Then came that +abrupt and remarkable stop. It was such an experience as I had formerly +known only in nightmare. + +I sat there looking blankly and stupidly at my own hand. And not only was +my hand arrested, but my brain also had completely ceased to work. For +the life of me I could not recall the conclusion of the sentence I had +planned a moment before. + +I looked at my hand, and looked again; and as I looked I remembered +something I had been reading only a few days before--a profoundly +unsettling description of an experiment in auto-suggestion. The +experiment had consisted of the placing of a hand upon a table, and the +laying upon it the conjuration that, the Will notwithstanding, it should +not move. And as I watched my own hand, pale on the paper in the pearly +light, I knew that, by some consent to the nullification of the Will that +did not proceed from, the Self I was accustomed to regard as my own, that +injunction was already placed upon it. My conscious and deliberate Will +was powerless. I could only sit there and wait until whatever inhibition +had arrested my writing hand should permit it to move forward again. + +It must have been several minutes before such a tingling of the nerves as +announces that the blood is once more returning to a cramped member +warned me that I was about to be released. Warily I awaited my moment; +then I plucked my hand to myself again with a suddenness that caused a +little blot of ink to spurt from my fountain-pen on to the surface of the +paper. I drew a deep breath. I was free again. And with the freedom came +a resolve--that whatever portion of myself had been responsible for this +prank should not repeat it if I could possibly prevent it. + +But scarcely had I come, as I may say (and not without a little gush of +alarm now that it was over), to myself, when I was struck by a thought. +It was a queer wild sort of thought. It fetched me out of my chair and +set me striding across the library to a lower shelf in the farthest +corner. This shelf was the shelf on which I kept my letter-files. I +stooped and ran my fingers along the backs of the dusty row. I drew out +the file for 1900, and brought it back to my writing-table. My contracts, +I ought to say, reposed in a deed-box at my agent's office; but my files +contained, in the form of my agent's letters, a sufficient record of my +business transactions. + +I opened the file concertina-wise, and turned to the section lettered +"R." I drew out the correspondence that related to the sale of the first +series of the _Martin Renards_. As I did so I glanced at the movable +calendar on my table. The date was January 20th. + +The file contained no letters for January of any significance whatever. + +The thought that had half formed in my brain immediately became nonsense. +I replaced the letters in their compartment, and took the file back to +its shelf again. For some minutes I paced the library irresolutely; then +I decided I would work no more that night. When I gathered together my +papers I was careful to place that with the half-finished sentence on the +top, so that with the first resting of my eyes upon it on the morrow my +memory might haply be refreshed. + +I tried again to finish that sentence on the morrow. With certain +modifications that I need not particularise here, my experience was the +same as on the previous night. + +It was the same when I made the attempt on the day after that. + +At ten o'clock of the night of the fourth day I completed the sentence +without difficulty. I just sat down in my chair and wrote it. + +With equal ease I finished the chapter on professional artists. + +It was not likely that Schofield would have refrained from telling +Maschka of our little difference on our last meeting; and within a week +of the date I have just mentioned I learned that she knew all about it. +And, as the circumstances of my learning this were in a high degree +unusual, I will relate them with such clearness as I am able. + +I ought first to say, however, that the selection of the drawings that +were to illustrate the book having been made (the drawings for which my +own text was to serve as commentary would be the better expression), the +superintendence of their production had been left to Schofield. He, +Maschka, and I passed the proofs in consultation. The blocks were almost +ready; and the reason for their call that evening was to consider the +possibility of having all ready for production in the early spring--a +possibility which was contingent on the state of advancement of my own +share of the book. + +That evening I had experienced my second check. (I omit those that had +immediately succeeded the first one, as resembling that one so closely in +the manner of their coming.) It had not come by any means so completely +and definitively as the former one, but it had sufficed to make my +progress, both mentally and mechanically, so sluggish and struggling +a performance that for the time being I had given up the attempt, and was +once more regarding with a sort of perturbed stupor my hand that held the +pen. Andriaovsky's portrait stood in its usual place, on the chair at the +end of my writing-table; but I had eyes for nothing but that refractory +hand of mine. + +Now it is true that during the past weeks I had studied Andriaovsky's +portrait thoroughly enough to be able to call up the vivid mental image +of it at will; but that did not entirely account for the changed aspect +with which it now presented itself to that uncomprehended sense within +us that makes of these shadows such startling realities. Flashing and +life-like as was the presentation on the canvas (mind you, I was not +looking at it, but all the time at my own hand), it was dead paint by +comparison with that _mental image_ which I saw (if I may so use a term +of which custom has restricted the meaning to one kind of seeing) as +plainly as I ever saw Andriaovsky in his life. I know now that it was +by virtue of that essential essence that bound us heart and brain and +soul together that I so saw him, eyes glittering, head sardonically +wagging, fine mouth shaping phrases of insight and irony. And the strange +thing was, that I could not have located this so living image by +confining it to any portion of the space within the four walls of my +library. It was before me, behind me, within my head, about me, _was me_, +invading and possessing the "me" that sat at the table. At one moment +the eyes mockingly invited me to go on with my work; the next, a frown +had seated itself on that massive pylon of his forehead; and then +suddenly his countenance changed entirely.... A wave of horror broke +over me. He was suddenly as I had seen him that last time in the +Hampstead "Home"--sitting up on his pillow, looking into my eyes with +that terrible look of profundity and familiarity, and asking me who I +was.... _"Harrison--ha ha!... You shall very soon know that I know you, +if ..."_ + +It is but by the accidence of our limited experience that sounds are loud +or soft to that inner ear of us; these words were at one and the same +time a dreadful thunder and a voice interstellarly inaccessible and +withdrawn. They, too, were before, behind, without, and within. And +incorporated (I know not how else to express it) with these words were +other words, in the English I knew, in the Hebrew in which he had quoted +them from the sacred Books of his People, in all languages, in no +language save that essential communication of which languages are but the +inessential husk and medium--words that told me that though I took the +Wings of the Morning and fled into the uttermost parts of the earth, yea, +though I made my bed in Hell, I could not escape him.... + +He had kept his word. I _did_ know that he knew who and what I was.... + +I cannot tell whether my lips actually shaped the question that even in +that moment burst from me. + +"But Form--and Forms? It _is_ then true that all things are but aspects +of One thing?..." + +"Yes--in death," the voice seemed to reply. + +My next words, I know, were actually spoken aloud. + +"Then tell me--tell me--_do you not wish me to write it?"_ + +Suddenly I leapt out of my chair with a gulping cry. A voice _had_ +spoken.... + +"Of course we wish you to write it...." + +For one instant of time my vision seemed to fold on itself like smoke; +then it was gone. The face into which I was wildly staring was Maschka's, +and behind her stood Schofield. They had been announced, but I had heard +nothing of it. + +"Were you thinking of _not_ writing it?" she demanded, while Schofield +scowled at me. + +"No--no--," I stammered, as I got up and tardily placed them chairs. + +Schofield did not speak, but he did not remove his eyes from me. Somehow +I could not meet them. + +"Well," she said, "Jack had already told me that you seemed in two minds +about it. That's what we've called about--to know definitely what it is +you propose to do." + +I saw that she had also called, if necessary, to quarrel. I began to +recover a little. + +"Did you tell her that?" I demanded of Schofield. "If you did, +you--misinterpreted me." + +In my house, he ignored the fact that I was in the room. He replied to +Maschka. + +"I understood Mr. Harrison to say definitely, and in those words, that if +I didn't like the way in which he was writing Michael's 'Life,' I might +write and publish one myself," he said. + +"I did say that," I admitted; "but I never said that whatever _you_ did I +should not go on with mine." + +"Yours!" cried Maschka. "What right have _you_ in my brother's 'Life'?" + +I quickly told her. + +"I have the right to write my recollections of him, and, subject to +certain provisions of the Law, to base anything on them I think fit," I +replied. + +"But," she cried aghast, "there can't be _two_ 'Lives'!..." + +"It's news to me that two were contemplated," I returned. "The point is, +that I can get mine published, and you can't." + +Schofield's harsh voice sounded suddenly--but again to Maschka, not to +me. + +"Ye might remind Mr. Harrison that others have capabilities in business +besides himself. Beyond a doubt our sales will be comparatively small, +but they'll be to such as have not made the great refusal." + +Think of it!... I almost laughed. + +"Oh!... Been trying it?" I inquired. + +He made no reply. + +"Well, those who have made the refusal have at least had something to +refuse," I said mildly. Then, realising that this was mere quarrelling, I +returned to the point. "Anyhow, there's no question of refusing to write +the 'Life.' I admit that during the last fortnight I've met with certain +difficulties; but the task isn't so easy as perhaps it looks.... I'm +making progress." + +"I suppose," she said hesitatingly, after a pause, "that you don't care +to show it as far as it is written?" + +For a moment I also hesitated. I thought I saw where she was. Thanks to +that Lancashire jackanapes, there was division between us; and I had +pretty well made up my mind, not only that he thought himself quite +capable of writing Andriaovsky's "Life," himself, but that he had +actually made an attempt in that direction. They had come in the +suspicion that I was throwing them over, and, though that suspicion was +removed, Maschka wished, if there was any throwing over to be done, to do +it herself. In a word, she wanted to compare me with Schofield. + +"To see it as far as it is written," I repeated slowly.... "Well, you +may. That is, you, Michael's sister, may. But on the condition that +you neither show it to anybody else nor speak of it to anybody else." + +"Ah!" she said.... "And only on those conditions?" + +"Only on those conditions." + +I saw a quick glance between them. "Shall we tell him?" it seemed to +say.... + +"Including the man Michael's sister is going to marry?" she said +abruptly. + +My attitude was deeply apologetic, but, "Including anybody whomsoever," I +answered. + +"Then," she said, rising, "we won't bother. But will you at least let us +know, soon, when we may expect your text?" + +"I will let you know," I replied slowly, "one week from to-day." + +On that assurance they left; and when they had gone I crossed once more +to the lower shelf that contained my letter-files. I turned up the file +for 1900 once more. During their visit I had had an idea. + +I ran through the letters, and then replaced them.... + +Yes, I ought to be able to let them know within the week. + + +V + +Against the day when I myself shall come to die, there are in the +pigeon-holes of the newspaper libraries certain biographical records +that deal roughly with the outward facts of my life; and these, +supplemented by documents I shall place in the hands of my executors, +will tell the story of how I leaped at a bound into wealth and fame with +the publication of _The Cases of Martin Renard_. I will set down as much +of that story as has its bearing on my present tale. + +_Martin Renard_ was not immediately accepted by the first editor to whom +it was offered. It does not suffice that in order to be popular a thing +shall be merely good--or bad; it must be bad--or good--in a particular +way. For taking the responsibility when they happen to miss that +particular way editors are paid their salaries. When they happen to hit +it they grow fat on circulation-money: Since it becomes me ill to quarrel +with the way in which any man earns his money, I content myself with +merely stating the fact. + +By the time the fourth editor had refused my series I was about at my +last gasp. To write the things at all I had had to sink four months in +time; and debts, writs and pawnshops were my familiars. I was little +better off than Andriaovsky at his very worst. I had read the first of +the _Martin Renards_ to him, by the way; the gigantic outburst of mirth +with which he had received it had not encouraged me to read him a second. +I wrote the others in secret. + +I wrote the things in the spring and summer of 1900; and by the last day +of September I was confident that I had at last sold them. Except by a +flagrant breach of faith, the editor in whose desk they reposed could +hardly decline them. As it subsequently happened, I have now nothing but +gratitude for him that he did, after all, decline them; for I had a +duplicate copy "on offer" in another quarter. + +He declined them, I say; and I was free to possess my soul again among my +writs, debts and pawnshops. + +But four days later I received the alternative offer. It was from the +_Falchion_. The _Falchion_, as you may remember, has since run no less +than five complete series of _Martin Renards_. It bought "both sides," +that is to say, both British and American serial rights. Of the twelve +_Martin Renards_ I had written, my wise agent had offered the _Falchion_ +six only. On his advice I accepted the offer. + +Instantaneously with the publication of those six stories came my +success. In two continents I was "home"--home in the hearts of the +public. I had my small cheque--it was not much more than a hundred +pounds--but "Wait," said my agent; "let's see what we can do with the +other six...." + +Precisely what he did with them only he and I know; but I don't mind +saying that £3000 did not buy my first serial rights. Then came second +and third rights, and after them the book rights, British, American, and +Colonial. Then came the translation rights. In French, my creation is, of +course, as in English, _Martin Renard_; in German he is Martin Fuchs; and +by a similar process you can put him--my translators have put him--into +Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian, and three-fourths of the tongues of +Europe. And this was the first series only. It was only with the second +series that the full splendour of my success appeared. My very imitators +grew rich; my agent's income from his comparatively small percentage on +my royalties was handsome; and he chuckled and bade me wait for the +dramatic rights and the day when the touring companies should get to +business.... + +I had "got there." + +And I remember, sadly enough now, my first resolution when the day came +when I was able to survey the situation with anything approaching calm. +It was, "Enough." For the rest of my days I need not know poverty again. +Thenceforward I need not, unless I chose, do any but worthy work. _Martin +Renard_ had served his purpose handsomely, and I intended to have nothing +more to do with him. + +Then came that dazzling offer for the second series.... + +I accepted it. + +I accepted the third likewise; and I have told you about the fourth.... + +I have tried to kill _Martin Renard_. He was killing me. I have, in +the pages of the _Falchion_, actually killed him; but I have had to +resuscitate him. I cannot escape from him.... + +I am not setting down one word more of this than bears directly on my +tale of Andriaovsky's "Life." For those days, when my whole future had +hung in the balance, _were the very days covered by that portion of +Andriaovsky's life at which I had now arrived_. I had reached, and was +hesitating at, our point of divergence. Those checks and releases which I +had at first found so unaccountable corresponded with the vicissitudes of +the _Martin Renard_ negotiations. + +The actual dates did not, of course, coincide--I had quickly discovered +the falsity of that scent. Neither did the intervals between them, with +the exception of those few days in which I had been unable to complete +that half-written sentence--the few days immediately prior to my +(parallel) acceptance by the _Falchion_. But, by that other reckoning +of time, of mental and spiritual experience, _they tallied exactly_. +The gambling chances of five years ago meant present stumblings and +haltings; the breach of faith of an editor long since meant a present +respite; and another week should bring me to that point of my so +strangely reduplicated experience that, allowing for the furious mental +rate at which I was now living, would make another node with that other +point in the more slowly lived past that had marked my acceptance of the +offer for the second half-dozen of the _Martin Renards_. + +It had been on this hazardous calculation that I had made my promise to +Maschka. + +I passed that week in a state of constantly increasing apprehension. +True, I worked at the "Life," even assiduously; but it was plain sailing, +mere cataloguing of certain of Andriaovsky's works, a chapter I had +deliberately planned _pour mieux sauter_--to enhance the value of the +penultimate and final chapters. These were the real crux of the "Life." +These were what I was reserving myself for. These were to show that only +his body was dead, and that his spirit still lived and his work was +still being done wherever a man could be found whose soul burned within +him with the same divine ardour. + +But I was now realising, day by day, hour by hour more clearly, what I +was incurring. I was penning nothing less than my own artistic damnation. +Self-condemned, indeed, I had been this long time; but I was now making +the world a party to the sentence. The crowning of Andriaovsky involved +my own annihilation; his "Life" would be my "Hic Jacet." And yet I was +prepared, nay, resolved, to write it. I had started, and I would go +forward. I would not be spewed with the lukewarm out of the mouth of that +Spirit from which proceeds all that is bright and pure and true. The +vehemence with which I had rejected its divine bidding should at least be +correspondent with my adoration of it. The snivelling claims of the +Schofields I spurned. If, as they urged, "an artist must live," he must +live royally or starve with a tight mouth. No complaining.... + +And one other claim I urged in the teeth of this Spirit, which, if it +was a human Spirit at all, it could not disregard. Those pigeon-holed +obituaries of mine will proclaim to the world, one and all, the virtues +of my public life. In spite of my royal earnings, I am not a rich man. I +have not accepted wealth without accepting the personal responsibility +for it. Sick men and women in more than one hospital lie in wards +provided by _Martin Renard_ and myself; and I am not dishonoured in my +Institution at Poplar. Those vagrant wanderings with Andriaovsky have +enabled me to know the poor and those who help the poor. My personal +labours in the administration of the Institute are great, for outside +the necessary routine I leave little to subordinates. I have declined +honours offered to me for my "services to Literature," and I have never +encouraged a youth, of parts or lacking them, to make of Literature a +profession. And so on and so forth. All this, and more, you will read +when the day comes; and I don't doubt the _Falchion_ will publish my +memoir in mourning borders... + +But to resume. + +I finished the chapter I have mentioned. Maschka and her fiancé kept +punctiliously away. Then, before sitting down to the penultimate +chapter, I permitted myself the relaxation of a day in the country. + +I can't tell you precisely where I went; I only know it was somewhere in +Buckinghamshire, and that, ordering the car to await me a dozen miles +farther on, I set out to walk. Nor can I tell you what I saw during that +walk; I don't think I saw anything. There was a red wintry disc of a sun, +I remember, and a land grey with rime; and that is all. I was entirely +occupied with the attempt I was about to make. I think that even then +I had the sense of doom, for I know not how otherwise I should have +found myself several times making little husbandings of my force, as if +conscious that I should need it all. For I was determined, as never in my +life have I been determined, to write that "Life." And I intended, not to +wait to be challenged, but to challenge.... I met the car, returning in +search of me; and I dined at a restaurant, went home to bed, and slept +dreamlessly. + +On the morrow I deliberately refrained from work until the evening. My +challenge to Andriaovsky and the Powers he represented should be boldly +delivered at the very gates of their own Hour. Not until half-past eight, +with the curtains drawn, the doors locked, and orders given that on no +account whatever was I to be disturbed, did I switch on the pearly light, +place Andriaovsky's portrait in its now accustomed place, and draw my +chair up to my writing-table. + + +VI + +But before I could resume the "Life" at the point at which I had left it, +I felt that there were certain preliminaries to be settled. It was not +that I wished to sound a parley with any view of coming to terms; I had +determined what the terms were to be. As a boxer who leaps from his +corner the moment the signal is given, astounding with suddenness his +less prompt antagonist, so I should be ready when the moment came. But I +wished the issue to be defined. I did not propose to submit the whole of +my manhood to the trial. I was merely asserting my right to speak of +certain things which, if one chose to exaggerate their importance by a +too narrow and exclusive consideration of them, I might conceivably be +thought to have betrayed. + +I drew a sheet of paper towards me, and formally made out my claim. It +occupied not more than a dozen lines, and its nature has already been +sufficiently indicated. I put my pen down again, leaned back in my chair, +and waited. + +I waited, but nothing happened. It seemed that if this was my attempt to +justify myself, the plea was certainly not disallowed. But neither had I +any sign that it was allowed; and presently it occurred to me that +possibly I had couched it in terms too general. Perhaps a more particular +claim would meet with a different reception. + +During the earlier stages of the book's progress I had many times +deliberated on the desirability of a Preface that should state succinctly +what I considered to be my qualifications for the task. Though I had +finally decided against any such statement, the form of the Preface might +nevertheless serve for the present occasion. I took another sheet of +paper, headed it "Preface," and began once more to write. + +I covered the page; I covered a second; and half-way down the third I +judged my statement to be sufficient. Again I laid down my pen, leaned +back, and waited. + +The Preface also produced no result whatever. + +Again I considered; and then I saw more clearly. It came to me that, both +in the first statement and in the Preface, I was merely talking to +myself. I was convincing myself, and losing both time and strength in +doing so. The Power with which I sought to come to grips was treating my +vapourings with high disregard. To be snubbed thus by Headquarters +would never, never do.... + +Then I saw more clearly still. It seemed that my _right to challenge_ +was denied. I was not an adversary, with the rights and honours of an +adversary, but a trangressor, whose trangression had already several +times been sharply visited, and would be visited once more the moment it +was repeated. I might, in a sense, please myself whether I brought myself +into Court; but, once there, I was not the arraigner in the box, but the +arraigned in the dock. + +And I rebelled hotly. Did I sit there, ready for the struggle, only to be +told that there could be no struggle? Did that vengeful Angel of the Arts +ignore my very existence?... By Yea and Nay I swore that he should take +notice of me! Once before, a mortal had wrestled a whole night with an +angel, and though he had been worsted, it had not been before he had +compelled the Angel to reveal himself! And so would I... + +Challenge, title to challenge, tentatives, preliminaries, I suddenly cast +them all aside. We would have it in deeds, not in further words. I opened +a drawer, took out the whole of the "Life" so far written, and began to +read. I wanted to grasp once more the plan of it in its entirety. + +Page after page, I read on, with deepening attention. Quickly I ran +through half of it. Then I began to concentrate myself still more +closely. There would come a point at which I should be flush with the +stream of it again, again feel the force of its current; I felt myself +drawing nearer to that point; when I should reach it I would go ahead +without a pause... + +I read to the end of Chapter Fifteen, the last completed chapter. Then +instantly I took my pen and wrote, "Chapter Sixteen...." + +I felt the change at the very first word. + + * * * * * + +I will not retraverse any ground I have covered before. If I have not +already made clear my former sensations of the petrefaction of hand and +brain, I despair of being able to do so any better now. Suffice it that +once more I felt that inhibition, and that once more I was aware of the +ubiquitous presence of the image of the dead artist. Once more I heard +those voices, near as thunder and yet interstellarly remote, crying that +solemn warning, that though I took the Wings of the Morning, made my bed +in Hell, or cried aloud upon the darkness to cover me, there was one +Spirit from which I could not hope to escape. I felt the slight crawling +of my flesh on my bones as I listened. + +But there was now a difference. On the former occasion, to hear again +those last horrible words of his, "_You shall very soon know I know who +you are if_..." had been the signal for the total unnerving of me and for +that uncontrollable cry, "_Don't you then want me to write it_?" But now +I intended to write it if I could. In order that I might tell him so I +was now seeking him out, in what heights or depths I knew not, at what +peril to myself I cared not. I cared not, since I now felt that I could +not continue to live unless I pressed to the uttermost attempt. And I +must repeat, and repeat again, and yet repeat, that in that hour +Andriaovsky was immanent about me, in the whole of me, in the last fibre +and cell of me, in all my thoughts, from my consciousness that I was +sitting there at my own writing-table to my conception of God Himself. + +It may seem strange--whether it does so or not will depend on the kind + of man you yourself are--that as long as I was content to recognise this +immanence of Andriaovsky's enlarged and liberated spirit, _and not to +dispute with it_, I found nothing but mildness and benignity in my +hazardous experience. More, I felt that, in that clear region to which +in my intensified state of consciousness I was lifted, I was able to move +(I must trust you to understand the word aright) without restraint, nay, +with an amplitude and freedom of movement past setting down, as long as +I was satisfied to possess my soul in quiescence. The state itself was +inimical neither to my safety nor to my sanity. I was conscious of it +as a transposition into another register of the scale of life. And, as +in this life we move in ignorance and safety only by accepting the +hair-balance of stupendous forces, so now I felt that my safety depended +on my observation of the conditions that governed that region of light +and clarity and Law. + +Of clarity and Law; save in the terms of the great abstractions I may not +speak of it. And that is well-nigh equal to saying that I may not speak +of it at all. The hand that would have written of it lay (I never for one +moment ceased to be conscious) heavy as stone on a writing-table in some +spot quite accidental in my new sense of locality; the tongue that would +have spoken of it seemed to slumber in my mouth. And I knew that both +dumbness and stillness were proper. Their opposites would have convicted +me (the flat and earthly comparison must be allowed) of intrusion into +some Place of beauty and serenity for which the soilure of my birth +disqualified me. + +For beauty and serenity, austerity and benignity and peace, were the +conditions of that Place. To other Places belonged the wingy and robed +and starry and golden things that made the heavens of other lives than +that which I had shared with Andriaovsky; here, white and shapely Truth +alone reigned. None questioned, for all knew; none sinned, for sin was +already judged and punished in its committal; none demonstrated, for +all things were evident; and those eager to justify themselves were +permitted no farther than the threshold.... + +And it was to justify, to challenge, to maintain a right, that I was +there. I was there to wrestle, if needs be, with the Angel of that Place, +to vanquish him or to compel him to reveal himself. I had not been +summoned; I had thrust myself there unbidden. There was a moment in which +I noticed that my writing-table was a little more than ordinarily removed +from me, but very little, not more than if I had been looking over the +shoulder of another writer at it; and I saw my chapter heading. At the +sight of it something of the egotism that had prompted me to write it +stirred in me again; everywhere was Andriaovsky's calm face, priest and +Angel himself; and I became conscious that I was trying to write a +phrase. I also became conscious that I was being pitifully warned not to +do so... + +Suddenly my whole being was flooded with a frightful pang of pain. + +It was not local. It was no more to be located than the other immanences +of which I have spoken. It was Pain, pure, essential, dissociated; and +with the coming of it that fair Place had grown suddenly horrible and +black. + +And I knew that the shock came _of my own resistance_, and that it would +cease to afflict me the moment I ceased to resist. + +I did cease. Instantly the pain passed. But as when a knife is plucked +from a wound, so only with its passing did I shriek aloud.... + +For I know not how many minutes I sat in stupefaction. Then, as with +earthly pains, that are assuaged with the passing of accidental time, the +memory of it softened a little. Blunderingly and only half consciously, I +cast about to collect my dispersed force. + +For--already I was conscious of it--there still remained one claim that +even in thought I had not advanced. I would, were I permitted, still +write that "Life," but, since it was decreed so, I would no longer urge +that in writing it I justified myself. So I might but write it, I would +embrace my own portion, the portion of doom; yea, though it should be a +pressing of the searing-iron to my lips, I would embrace it; my name +should not appear. For the mere sake of the man I had loved I would write +it, in self-scorn and abasement, humbly craving not to be denied.... + +_"Oh, let me but do for Love of you what a sinful man can!"_ I +groaned.... + +A moment later I had again striven to do so. So do we all, when we +think that out of a poor human Love we can alter the Laws by which our +state exists. And with such a hideous anguish as was again mine are we +visited.... + +And I knew now what that anguish was. It was the twining of body from +spirit that is called the bitterness of Death; for not all of the body +are the pangs of that severance. With that terrible sword of impersonal +Pain the God of Peace makes sorrowful war that Peace may come again. With +its flame He ringed the bastions of Heaven when Satan made assault. Only +on the Gorgon-image of that Pain in the shield may weak man look; and +its blaze and ire had permeated with deadly nearness the "everywhere" +where I was... + +"_Oh, not for Love? Not even for Love?_" broke the agonised question from +me.... + +The next moment I had ceased, and ceased for ever, to resist. +Instantaneously the terrible flashing of that sword became no more +than the play of lightning one sees far away in the wide cloudfields +on a peaceful summer's twilight. I felt a gentle and overpowering +sleep coming over me; and as it folded me about I saw, with the last +look of my eyes, my own figure, busily writing at the table. + +Had I, then, prevailed? Had Pain so purged me that I was permitted to +finish my task? And had my tortured cry, "Oh, not even for Love?" +been heard? + +I did not know. + + * * * * * + +I came to myself to find that my head had fallen on my desk. The light +still shone within its pearly shade, and in the penumbra of its shadow +the portrait of Andriaovsky occupied its accustomed place. About me were +my papers, and my pen lay where it had fallen from my hand. + +At first I did not look at my papers. I merely saw that the uppermost of +them was written on. But presently I took it up, and looked at it +stupidly. Then, with no memory at all of how I had come to write what was +upon it, I put it down again. + +It was indeed a completion. + +But it was not of Andriaovsky's "Life" that it was the completion. As you +may or may not know, Andriaovsky's "Life" is written by "his friend John +Schofield." I had been allowed to write, but it was my own condemnation +that, in sadness and obedience, in the absence of wrath but also in the +absence of mercy, I had written. By the Law I had broken I was broken in +my turn. It was the draft for the fifth series of _The Cases of Martin +Renard_. + +No, not for Love--not even for Love.... + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 14168 *** diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..f9a2514 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #14168 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/14168) diff --git a/old/14168-8.txt b/old/14168-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3b919c --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14168-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9359 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Widdershins, by Oliver Onions + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Widdershins + +Author: Oliver Onions + +Release Date: November 26, 2004 [eBook #14168] +[Most recently updated: October 24, 2006] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIDDERSHINS*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +WIDDERSHINS + +by + +OLIVER ONIONS + +1911 + + + + + + + + "From Ghaisttes, Ghoulies and long-leggity + Beasties and Things that go + Bump in the night-- + + "Good Lord, deliver us!" + + + + +NOTE + +I have pleasure in acknowledging the courtesy of the proprietors of +"Shurey's Publications" by whose permission "The Cigarette Case" is +included in the present volume. Also it has been suggested that a +definition should be given of the word that forms the volume's title. +That word means "contrary to the course of the Sun." + +O.O. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE BECKONING FAIR ONE + II. PHANTAS + III. ROOUM + IV. BENLIAN + V. IO + VI. THE ACCIDENT + VII. THE CIGARETTE CASE +VIII. THE ROCKER + IX. HIC JACET + + + + +THE BECKONING FAIR ONE + + + + +I + +The three or four "To Let" boards had stood within the low paling as +long as the inhabitants of the little triangular "Square" could remember, +and if they had ever been vertical it was a very long time ago. They now +overhung the palings each at its own angle, and resembled nothing so +much as a row of wooden choppers, ever in the act of falling upon some +passer-by, yet never cutting off a tenant for the old house from the +stream of his fellows. Not that there was ever any great "stream" through +the square; the stream passed a furlong and more away, beyond the +intricacy of tenements and alleys and byways that had sprung up since the +old house had been built, hemming it in completely; and probably the +house itself was only suffered to stand pending the falling-in of a lease +or two, when doubtless a clearance would be made of the whole +neighbourhood. + +It was of bloomy old red brick, and built into its walls were the crowns +and clasped hands and other insignia of insurance companies long since +defunct. The children of the secluded square had swung upon the low gate +at the end of the entrance-alley until little more than the solid top bar +of it remained, and the alley itself ran past boarded basement windows on +which tramps had chalked their cryptic marks. The path was washed and +worn uneven by the spilling of water from the eaves of the encroaching +next house, and cats and dogs had made the approach their own. The +chances of a tenant did not seem such as to warrant the keeping of the +"To Let" boards in a state of legibility and repair, and as a matter of +fact they were not so kept. + +For six months Oleron had passed the old place twice a day or oftener, on +his way from his lodgings to the room, ten minutes' walk away, he had +taken to work in; and for six months no hatchet-like notice-board had +fallen across his path. This might have been due to the fact that he +usually took the other side of the square. But he chanced one morning to +take the side that ran past the broken gate and the rain-worn entrance +alley, and to pause before one of the inclined boards. The board bore, +besides the agent's name, the announcement, written apparently about the +time of Oleron's own early youth, that the key was to be had at Number +Six. + +Now Oleron was already paying, for his separate bedroom and workroom, +more than an author who, without private means, habitually disregards his +public, can afford; and he was paying in addition a small rent for the +storage of the greater part of his grandmother's furniture. Moreover, it +invariably happened that the book he wished to read in bed was at his +working-quarters half a mile and more away, while the note or letter he +had sudden need of during the day was as likely as not to be in the +pocket of another coat hanging behind his bedroom door. And there were +other inconveniences in having a divided domicile. Therefore Oleron, +brought suddenly up by the hatchet-like notice-board, looked first down +through some scanty privet-bushes at the boarded basement windows, then +up at the blank and grimy windows of the first floor, and so up to the +second floor and the flat stone coping of the leads. He stood for a +minute thumbing his lean and shaven jaw; then, with another glance at the +board, he walked slowly across the square to Number Six. + +He knocked, and waited for two or three minutes, but, although the door +stood open, received no answer. He was knocking again when a long-nosed +man in shirt-sleeves appeared. + +"I was arsking a blessing on our food," he said in severe explanation. + +Oleron asked if he might have the key of the old house; and the +long-nosed man withdrew again. + +Oleron waited for another five minutes on the step; then the man, +appearing again and masticating some of the food of which he had spoken, +announced that the key was lost. + +"But you won't want it," he said. "The entrance door isn't closed, and a +push'll open any of the others. I'm a agent for it, if you're thinking of +taking it--" + +Oleron recrossed the square, descended the two steps at the broken gate, +passed along the alley, and turned in at the old wide doorway. To the +right, immediately within the door, steps descended to the roomy cellars, +and the staircase before him had a carved rail, and was broad and +handsome and filthy. Oleron ascended it, avoiding contact with the rail +and wall, and stopped at the first landing. A door facing him had been +boarded up, but he pushed at that on his right hand, and an insecure bolt +or staple yielded. He entered the empty first floor. + +He spent a quarter of an hour in the place, and then came out again. +Without mounting higher, he descended and recrossed the square to the +house of the man who had lost the key. + +"Can you tell me how much the rent is?" he asked. + +The man mentioned a figure, the comparative lowness of which seemed +accounted for by the character of the neighbourhood and the abominable +state of unrepair of the place. + +"Would it be possible to rent a single floor?" + +The long-nosed man did not know; they might.... + +"Who are they?" + +The man gave Oleron the name of a firm of lawyers in Lincoln's Inn. + +"You might mention my name--Barrett," he added. + +Pressure of work prevented Oleron from going down to Lincoln's Inn that +afternoon, but he went on the morrow, and was instantly offered the +whole house as a purchase for fifty pounds down, the remainder of the +purchase-money to remain on mortgage. It took him half an hour to +disabuse the lawyer's mind of the idea that he wished anything more of +the place than to rent a single floor of it. This made certain hums and +haws of a difference, and the lawyer was by no means certain that it lay +within his power to do as Oleron suggested; but it was finally extracted +from him that, provided the notice-boards were allowed to remain up, and +that, provided it was agreed that in the event of the whole house +letting, the arrangement should terminate automatically without further +notice, something might be done. That the old place should suddenly let +over his head seemed to Oleron the slightest of risks to take, and he +promised a decision within a week. On the morrow he visited the house +again, went through it from top to bottom, and then went home to his +lodgings to take a bath. + +He was immensely taken with that portion of the house he had already +determined should be his own. Scraped clean and repainted, and with +that old furniture of Oleron's grandmother's, it ought to be entirely +charming. He went to the storage warehouse to refresh his memory of his +half-forgotten belongings, and to take measurements; and thence he went +to a decorator's. He was very busy with his regular work, and could have +wished that the notice-board had caught his attention either a few months +earlier or else later in the year; but the quickest way would be to +suspend work entirely until after his removal.... + +A fortnight later his first floor was painted throughout in a tender, +elder-flower white, the paint was dry, and Oleron was in the middle of +his installation. He was animated, delighted; and he rubbed his hands as +he polished and made disposals of his grandmother's effects--the tall +lattice-paned china cupboard with its Derby and Mason and Spode, the +large folding Sheraton table, the long, low bookshelves (he had had two +of them "copied"), the chairs, the Sheffield candlesticks, the riveted +rose-bowls. These things he set against his newly painted elder-white +walls--walls of wood panelled in the happiest proportions, and moulded +and coffered to the low-seated window-recesses in a mood of gaiety and +rest that the builders of rooms no longer know. The ceilings were lofty, +and faintly painted with an old pattern of stars; even the tapering +mouldings of his iron fireplace were as delicately designed as jewellery; +and Oleron walked about rubbing his hands, frequently stopping for the +mere pleasure of the glimpses from white room to white room.... + +"Charming, charming!" he said to himself. "I wonder what Elsie Bengough +will think of this!" + +He bought a bolt and a Yale lock for his door, and shut off his quarters +from the rest of the house. If he now wanted to read in bed, his book +could be had for stepping into the next room. All the time, he thought +how exceedingly lucky he was to get the place. He put up a hat-rack in +the little square hall, and hung up his hats and caps and coats; and +passers through the small triangular square late at night, looking up +over the little serried row of wooden "To Let" hatchets, could see the +light within Oleron's red blinds, or else the sudden darkening of one +blind and the illumination of another, as Oleron, candlestick in hand, +passed from room to room, making final settlings of his furniture, or +preparing to resume the work that his removal had interrupted. + + +II + +As far as the chief business of his life--his writing--was concerned, +Paul Oleron treated the world a good deal better than he was treated by +it; but he seldom took the trouble to strike a balance, or to compute how +far, at forty-four years of age, he was behind his points on the +handicap. To have done so wouldn't have altered matters, and it might +have depressed Oleron. He had chosen his path, and was committed to it +beyond possibility of withdrawal. Perhaps he had chosen it in the days +when he had been easily swayed by something a little disinterested, a +little generous, a little noble; and had he ever thought of questioning +himself he would still have held to it that a life without nobility and +generosity and disinterestedness was no life for him. Only quite +recently, and rarely, had he even vaguely suspected that there was more +in it than this; but it was no good anticipating the day when, he +supposed, he would reach that maximum point of his powers beyond which he +must inevitably decline, and be left face to face with the question +whether it would not have profited him better to have ruled his life +by less exigent ideals. + +In the meantime, his removal into the old house with the insurance marks +built into its brick merely interrupted _Romilly Bishop_ at the fifteenth +chapter. + +As this tall man with the lean, ascetic face moved about his new abode, +arranging, changing, altering, hardly yet into his working-stride again, +he gave the impression of almost spinster-like precision and nicety. For +twenty years past, in a score of lodgings, garrets, flats, and rooms +furnished and unfurnished, he had been accustomed to do many things for +himself, and he had discovered that it saves time and temper to be +methodical. He had arranged with the wife of the long-nosed Barrett, a +stout Welsh woman with a falsetto voice, the Merionethshire accent of +which long residence in London had not perceptibly modified, to come +across the square each morning to prepare his breakfast, and also to +"turn the place out" on Saturday mornings; and for the rest, he even +welcomed a little housework as a relaxation from the strain of writing. + +His kitchen, together with the adjoining strip of an apartment into +which a modern bath had been fitted, overlooked the alley at the side of +the house; and at one end of it was a large closet with a door, and a +square sliding hatch in the upper part of the door. This had been a +powder-closet, and through the hatch the elaborately dressed head had +been thrust to receive the click and puff of the powder-pistol. Oleron +puzzled a little over this closet; then, as its use occurred to him, he +smiled faintly, a little moved, he knew not by what.... He would have to +put it to a very different purpose from its original one; it would +probably have to serve as his larder.... It was in this closet that +he made a discovery. The back of it was shelved, and, rummaging on an +upper shelf that ran deeply into the wall, Oleron found a couple of +mushroom-shaped old wooden wig-stands. He did not know how they had come +to be there. Doubtless the painters had turned them up somewhere or +other, and had put them there. But his five rooms, as a whole, were +short of cupboard and closet-room; and it was only by the exercise of +some ingenuity that he was able to find places for the bestowal of his +household linen, his boxes, and his seldom-used but not-to-be-destroyed +accumulations of papers. + +It was in early spring that Oleron entered on his tenancy, and he was +anxious to have _Romilly_ ready for publication in the coming autumn. +Nevertheless, he did not intend to force its production. Should it demand +longer in the doing, so much the worse; he realised its importance, its +crucial importance, in his artistic development, and it must have its own +length and time. In the workroom he had recently left he had been making +excellent progress; _Romilly_ had begun, as the saying is, to speak and +act of herself; and he did not doubt she would continue to do so the +moment the distraction of his removal was over. This distraction was +almost over; he told himself it was time he pulled himself together +again; and on a March morning he went out, returned again with two great +bunches of yellow daffodils, placed one bunch on his mantelpiece between +the Sheffield sticks and the other on the table before him, and took out +the half-completed manuscript of _Romilly Bishop_. + +But before beginning work he went to a small rosewood cabinet and took +from a drawer his cheque-book and pass-book. He totted them up, and his +monk-like face grew thoughtful. His installation had cost him more than +he had intended it should, and his balance was rather less than fifty +pounds, with no immediate prospect of more. + +"Hm! I'd forgotten rugs and chintz curtains and so forth mounted up so," +said Oleron. "But it would have been a pity to spoil the place for the +want of ten pounds or so.... Well, _Romilly_ simply _must_ be out for the +autumn, that's all. So here goes--" + +He drew his papers towards him. + +But he worked badly; or, rather, he did not work at all. The square +outside had its own noises, frequent and new, and Oleron could only hope +that he would speedily become accustomed to these. First came hawkers, +with their carts and cries; at midday the children, returning from +school, trooped into the square and swung on Oleron's gate; and when the +children had departed again for afternoon school, an itinerant musician +with a mandolin posted himself beneath Oleron's window and began to +strum. This was a not unpleasant distraction, and Oleron, pushing up his +window, threw the man a penny. Then he returned to his table again.... + +But it was no good. He came to himself, at long intervals, to find that +he had been looking about his room and wondering how it had formerly +been furnished--whether a settee in buttercup or petunia satin had stood +under the farther window, whether from the centre moulding of the light +lofty ceiling had depended a glimmering crystal chandelier, or where the +tambour-frame or the picquet-table had stood.... No, it was no good; he +had far better be frankly doing nothing than getting fruitlessly tired; +and he decided that he would take a walk, but, chancing to sit down for a +moment, dozed in his chair instead. + +"This won't do," he yawned when he awoke at half-past four in the +afternoon; "I must do better than this to-morrow--" + +And he felt so deliciously lazy that for some minutes he even +contemplated the breach of an appointment he had for the evening. + +The next morning he sat down to work without even permitting himself to +answer one of his three letters--two of them tradesmen's accounts, the +third a note from Miss Bengough, forwarded from his old address. It was a +jolly day of white and blue, with a gay noisy wind and a subtle turn in +the colour of growing things; and over and over again, once or twice a +minute, his room became suddenly light and then subdued again, as the +shining white clouds rolled north-eastwards over the square. The soft +fitful illumination was reflected in the polished surface of the table +and even in the footworn old floor; and the morning noises had begun +again. + +Oleron made a pattern of dots on the paper before him, and then broke off +to move the jar of daffodils exactly opposite the centre of a creamy +panel. Then he wrote a sentence that ran continuously for a couple of +lines, after which it broke on into notes and jottings. For a time he +succeeded in persuading himself that in making these memoranda he was +really working; then he rose and began to pace his room. As he did so, he +was struck by an idea. It was that the place might possibly be a little +better for more positive colour. It was, perhaps, a thought _too_ +pale--mild and sweet as a kind old face, but a little devitalised, even +wan.... Yes, decidedly it would bear a robuster note--more and richer +flowers, and possibly some warm and gay stuff for cushions for the +window-seats.... + +"Of course, I really can't afford it," he muttered, as he went for a +two-foot and began to measure the width of the window recesses.... + +In stooping to measure a recess, his attitude suddenly changed to one of +interest and attention. Presently he rose again, rubbing his hands with +gentle glee. + +"Oho, oho!" he said. "These look to me very much like window-boxes, +nailed up. We must look into this! Yes, those are boxes, or +I'm ... oho, this is an adventure!" + +On that wall of his sitting-room there were two windows (the third was in +another corner), and, beyond the open bedroom door, on the same wall, was +another. The seats of all had been painted, repainted, and painted again; +and Oleron's investigating finger had barely detected the old nailheads +beneath the paint. Under the ledge over which he stooped an old keyhole +also had been puttied up. Oleron took out his penknife. + +He worked carefully for five minutes, and then went into the kitchen for +a hammer and chisel. Driving the chisel cautiously under the seat, he +started the whole lid slightly. Again using the penknife, he cut along +the hinged edge and outward along the ends; and then he fetched a +wedge and a wooden mallet. + +"Now for our little mystery--" he said. + +The sound of the mallet on the wedge seemed, in that sweet and pale +apartment, somehow a little brutal--nay, even shocking. The panelling +rang and rattled and vibrated to the blows like a sounding-board. The +whole house seemed to echo; from the roomy cellarage to the garrets +above a flock of echoes seemed to awake; and the sound got a little on +Oleron's nerves. All at once he paused, fetched a duster, and muffled the +mallet.... When the edge was sufficiently raised he put his fingers under +it and lifted. The paint flaked and starred a little; the rusty old +nails squeaked and grunted; and the lid came up, laying open the box +beneath. Oleron looked into it. Save for a couple of inches of scurf and +mould and old cobwebs it was empty. + +"No treasure there," said Oleron, a little amused that he should have +fancied there might have been. "_Romilly_ will still have to be out by +the autumn. Let's have a look at the others." + +He turned to the second window. + +The raising of the two remaining seats occupied him until well into the +afternoon. That of the bedroom, like the first, was empty; but from the +second seat of his sitting-room he drew out something yielding and folded +and furred over an inch thick with dust. He carried the object into the +kitchen, and having swept it over a bucket, took a duster to it. + +It was some sort of a large bag, of an ancient frieze-like material, and +when unfolded it occupied the greater part of the small kitchen floor. In +shape it was an irregular, a very irregular, triangle, and it had a +couple of wide flaps, with the remains of straps and buckles. The patch +that had been uppermost in the folding was of a faded yellowish brown; +but the rest of it was of shades of crimson that varied according to the +exposure of the parts of it. + +"Now whatever can that have been?" Oleron mused as he stood surveying +it.... "I give it up. Whatever it is, it's settled my work for today, +I'm afraid--" + +He folded the object up carelessly and thrust it into a corner of the +kitchen; then, taking pans and brushes and an old knife, he returned to +the sitting-room and began to scrape and to wash and to line with paper +his newly discovered receptacles. When he had finished, he put his spare +boots and books and papers into them; and he closed the lids again, +amused with his little adventure, but also a little anxious for the hour +to come when he should settle fairly down to his work again. + + +III + +It piqued Oleron a little that his friend, Miss Bengough, should dismiss +with a glance the place he himself had found so singularly winning. +Indeed she scarcely lifted her eyes to it. But then she had always been +more or less like that--a little indifferent to the graces of life, +careless of appearances, and perhaps a shade more herself when she ate +biscuits from a paper bag than when she dined with greater observance of +the convenances. She was an unattached journalist of thirty-four, large, +showy, fair as butter, pink as a dog-rose, reminding one of a florist's +picked specimen bloom, and given to sudden and ample movements and moist +and explosive utterances. She "pulled a better living out of the pool" +(as she expressed it) than Oleron did; and by cunningly disguised puffs +of drapers and haberdashers she "pulled" also the greater part of her +very varied wardrobe. She left small whirlwinds of air behind her when +she moved, in which her veils and scarves fluttered and spun. + +Oleron heard the flurry of her skirts on his staircase and her single +loud knock at his door when he had been a month in his new abode. Her +garments brought in the outer air, and she flung a bundle of ladies' +journals down on a chair. + +"Don't knock off for me," she said across a mouthful of large-headed +hatpins as she removed her hat and veil. "I didn't know whether you were +straight yet, so I've brought some sandwiches for lunch. You've got +coffee, I suppose?--No, don't get up--I'll find the kitchen--" + +"Oh, that's all right, I'll clear these things away. To tell the truth, +I'm rather glad to be interrupted," said Oleron. + +He gathered his work together and put it away. She was already in the +kitchen; he heard the running of water into the kettle. He joined her, +and ten minutes later followed her back to the sitting-room with the +coffee and sandwiches on a tray. They sat down, with the tray on a small +table between them. + +"Well, what do you think of the new place?" Oleron asked as she poured +out coffee. + +"Hm!... Anybody'd think you were going to get married, Paul." + +He laughed. + +"Oh no. But it's an improvement on some of them, isn't it?" + +"Is it? I suppose it is; I don't know. I liked the last place, in spite +of the black ceiling and no watertap. How's _Romilly_?" + +Oleron thumbed his chin. + +"Hm! I'm rather ashamed to tell you. The fact is, I've not got on very +well with it. But it will be all right on the night, as you used to say." + +"Stuck?" + +"Rather stuck." + +"Got any of it you care to read to me?..." + +Oleron had long been in the habit of reading portions of his work to Miss +Bengough occasionally. Her comments were always quick and practical, +sometimes directly useful, sometimes indirectly suggestive. She, in +return for his confidence, always kept all mention of her own work +sedulously from him. His, she said, was "real work"; hers merely filled +space, not always even grammatically. + +"I'm afraid there isn't," Oleron replied, still meditatively dry-shaving +his chin. Then he added, with a little burst of candour, "The fact +is, Elsie, I've not written--not actually written--very much more of +it--_any_ more of it, in fact. But, of course, that doesn't mean I +haven't progressed. I've progressed, in one sense, rather alarmingly. +I'm now thinking of reconstructing the whole thing." + +Miss Bengough gave a gasp. "Reconstructing!" + +"Making Romilly herself a different type of woman. Somehow, I've begun to +feel that I'm not getting the most out of her. As she stands, I've +certainly lost interest in her to some extent." + +"But--but--" Miss Bengough protested, "you had her so real, so _living_, +Paul!" + +Oleron smiled faintly. He had been quite prepared for Miss Bengough's +disapproval. He wasn't surprised that she liked Romilly as she at present +existed; she would. Whether she realised it or not, there was much of +herself in his fictitious creation. Naturally Romilly would seem "real," +"living," to her.... + +"But are you really serious, Paul?" Miss Bengough asked presently, with a +round-eyed stare. + +"Quite serious." + +"You're really going to scrap those fifteen chapters?" + +"I didn't exactly say that." + +"That fine, rich love-scene?" + +"I should only do it reluctantly, and for the sake of something I thought +better." + +"And that beautiful, _beau_tiful description of Romilly on the shore?" + +"It wouldn't necessarily be wasted," he said a little uneasily. + +But Miss Bengough made a large and windy gesture, and then let him have +it. + +"Really, you are _too_ trying!" she broke out. "I do wish sometimes you'd +remember you're human, and live in a world! You know I'd be the _last_ to +wish you to lower your standard one inch, but it wouldn't be lowering it +to bring it within human comprehension. Oh, you're sometimes altogether +too godlike!... Why, it would be a wicked, criminal waste of your powers +to destroy those fifteen chapters! Look at it reasonably, now. You've +been working for nearly twenty years; you've now got what you've been +working for almost within your grasp; your affairs are at a most critical +stage (oh, don't tell me; I know you're about at the end of your money); +and here you are, deliberately proposing to withdraw a thing that will +probably make your name, and to substitute for it something that ten to +one nobody on earth will ever want to read--and small blame to them! +Really, you try my patience!" + +Oleron had shaken his head slowly as she had talked. It was an old story +between them. The noisy, able, practical journalist was an admirable +friend--up to a certain point; beyond that ... well, each of us knows +that point beyond which we stand alone. Elsie Bengough sometimes said +that had she had one-tenth part of Oleron's genius there were few things +she could not have done--thus making that genius a quantitatively +divisible thing, a sort of ingredient, to be added to or subtracted +from in the admixture of his work. That it was a qualitative thing, +essential, indivisible, informing, passed her comprehension. Their +spirits parted company at that point. Oleron knew it. She did not appear +to know it. + +"Yes, yes, yes," he said a little wearily, by-and-by, "practically you're +quite right, entirely right, and I haven't a word to say. If I could only +turn _Romilly_ over to you you'd make an enormous success of her. But +that can't be, and I, for my part, am seriously doubting whether she's +worth my while. You know what that means." + +"What does it mean?" she demanded bluntly. + +"Well," he said, smiling wanly, "what _does_ it mean when you're +convinced a thing isn't worth doing? You simply don't do it." + +Miss Bengough's eyes swept the ceiling for assistance against this +impossible man. + +"What utter rubbish!" she broke out at last. "Why, when I saw you last +you were simply oozing _Romilly_; you were turning her off at the rate of +four chapters a week; if you hadn't moved you'd have had her three-parts +done by now. What on earth possessed you to move right in the middle of +your most important work?" + +Oleron tried to put her off with a recital of inconveniences, but she +wouldn't have it. Perhaps in her heart she partly suspected the reason. +He was simply mortally weary of the narrow circumstances of his life. He +had had twenty years of it--twenty years of garrets and roof-chambers +and dingy flats and shabby lodgings, and he was tired of dinginess and +shabbiness. The reward was as far off as ever--or if it was not, he no +longer cared as once he would have cared to put out his hand and take it. +It is all very well to tell a man who is at the point of exhaustion that +only another effort is required of him; if he cannot make it he is as far +off as ever.... + +"Anyway," Oleron summed up, "I'm happier here than I've been for a long +time. That's some sort of a justification." + +"And doing no work," said Miss Bengough pointedly. + +At that a trifling petulance that had been gathering in Oleron came to a +head. + +"And why should I do nothing but work?" he demanded. "How much happier am +I for it? I don't say I don't love my work--when it's done; but I hate +doing it. Sometimes it's an intolerable burden that I simply long to be +rid of. Once in many weeks it has a moment, one moment, of glow and +thrill for me; I remember the days when it was all glow and thrill; and +now I'm forty-four, and it's becoming drudgery. Nobody wants it; I'm +ceasing to want it myself; and if any ordinary sensible man were to ask +me whether I didn't think I was a fool to go on, I think I should agree +that I was." + +Miss Bengough's comely pink face was serious. + +"But you knew all that, many, many years ago, Paul--and still you chose +it," she said in a low voice. + +"Well, and how should I have known?" he demanded. "I didn't know. I was +told so. My heart, if you like, told me so, and I thought I knew. Youth +always thinks it knows; then one day it discovers that it is nearly +fifty--" + +"Forty-four, Paul--" + +"--forty-four, then--and it finds that the glamour isn't in front, +but behind. Yes, I knew and chose, if _that's_ knowing and +choosing ... but it's a costly choice we're called on to make when +we're young!" + +Miss Bengough's eyes were on the floor. Without moving them she said, +"You're not regretting it, Paul?" + +"Am I not?" he took her up. "Upon my word, I've lately thought I am! What +_do_ I get in return for it all?" + +"You know what you get," she replied. + +He might have known from her tone what else he could have had for the +holding up of a finger--herself. She knew, but could not tell him, that +he could have done no better thing for himself. Had he, any time these +ten years, asked her to marry him, she would have replied quietly, +"Very well; when?" He had never thought of it.... + +"Yours is the real work," she continued quietly. "Without you we jackals +couldn't exist. You and a few like you hold everything upon your +shoulders." + +For a minute there was a silence. Then it occurred to Oleron that this +was common vulgar grumbling. It was not his habit. Suddenly he rose and +began to stack cups and plates on the tray. + +"Sorry you catch me like this, Elsie," he said, with a little +laugh.... "No, I'll take them out; then we'll go for a walk, if you +like...." + +He carried out the tray, and then began to show Miss Bengough round his +flat. She made few comments. In the kitchen she asked what an old faded +square of reddish frieze was, that Mrs. Barrett used as a cushion for her +wooden chair. + +"That? I should be glad if you could tell _me_ what it is," Oleron +replied as he unfolded the bag and related the story of its finding in +the window-seat. + +"I think I know what it is," said Miss Bengough. "It's been used to wrap +up a harp before putting it into its case." + +"By Jove, that's probably just what it was," said Oleron. "I could make +neither head nor tail of it...." + +They finished the tour of the flat, and returned to the sitting-room. + +"And who lives in the rest of the house?" Miss Bengough asked. + +"I dare say a tramp sleeps in the cellar occasionally. Nobody else." + +"Hm!... Well, I'll tell you what I think about it, if you like." + +"I should like." + +"You'll never work here." + +"Oh?" said Oleron quickly. "Why not?" + +"You'll never finish _Romilly_ here. Why, I don't know, but you won't. +I know it. You'll have to leave before you get on with that book." + +He mused for a moment, and then said: + +"Isn't that a little--prejudiced, Elsie?" + +"Perfectly ridiculous. As an argument it hasn't a leg to stand on. But +there it is," she replied, her mouth once more full of the large-headed +hat pins. + +Oleron was reaching down his hat and coat. He laughed. + +"I can only hope you're entirely wrong," he said, "for I shall be in a +serious mess if _Romilly_ isn't out in the autumn." + + +IV + +As Oleron sat by his fire that evening, pondering Miss Bengough's +prognostication that difficulties awaited him in his work, he came to the +conclusion that it would have been far better had she kept her beliefs to +herself. No man does a thing better for having his confidence damped at +the outset, and to speak of difficulties is in a sense to make them. +Speech itself becomes a deterrent act, to which other discouragements +accrete until the very event of which warning is given is as likely as +not to come to pass. He heartily confounded her. An influence hostile +to the completion of _Romilly_ had been born. + +And in some illogical, dogmatic way women seem to have, she had attached +this antagonistic influence to his new abode. Was ever anything so +absurd! "You'll never finish _Romilly_ here." ... Why not? Was this her +idea of the luxury that saps the springs of action and brings a man down +to indolence and dropping out of the race? The place was well enough--it +was entirely charming, for that matter--but it was not so demoralising as +all that! No; Elsie had missed the mark that time.... + +He moved his chair to look round the room that smiled, positively +smiled, in the firelight. He too smiled, as if pity was to be +entertained for a maligned apartment. Even that slight lack of robust +colour he had remarked was not noticeable in the soft glow. The drawn +chintz curtains--they had a flowered and trellised pattern, with baskets +and oaten pipes--fell in long quiet folds to the window-seats; the rows +of bindings in old bookcases took the light richly; the last trace of +sallowness had gone with the daylight; and, if the truth must be told, +it had been Elsie herself who had seemed a little out of the picture. + +That reflection struck him a little, and presently he returned to it. +Yes, the room had, quite accidentally, done Miss Bengough a disservice +that afternoon. It had, in some subtle but unmistakable way, placed her, +marked a contrast of qualities. Assuming for the sake of argument the +slightly ridiculous proposition that the room in which Oleron sat _was_ +characterised by a certain sparsity and lack of vigour; so much the worse +for Miss Bengough; she certainly erred on the side of redundancy and +general muchness. And if one must contrast abstract qualities, Oleron +inclined to the austere in taste.... + +Yes, here Oleron had made a distinct discovery; he wondered he had not +made it before. He pictured Miss Bengough again as she had appeared +that afternoon--large, showy, moistly pink, with that quality of the +prize bloom exuding, as it were, from her; and instantly she suffered in +his thought. He even recognised now that he had noticed something odd at +the time, and that unconsciously his attitude, even while she had been +there, had been one of criticism. The mechanism of her was a little +obvious; her melting humidity was the result of analysable processes; and +behind her there had seemed to lurk some dim shape emblematic of +mortality. He had never, during the ten years of their intimacy, dreamed +for a moment of asking her to marry him; none the less, he now felt for +the first time a thankfulness that he had not done so.... + +Then, suddenly and swiftly, his face flamed that he should be thinking +thus of his friend. What! Elsie Bengough, with whom he had spent weeks +and weeks of afternoons--she, the good chum, on whose help he would have +counted had all the rest of the world failed him--she, whose loyalty to +him would not, he knew, swerve as long as there was breath in her--Elsie +to be even in thought dissected thus! He was an ingrate and a cad.... + +Had she been there in that moment he would have abased himself before +her. + +For ten minutes and more he sat, still gazing into the fire, with that +humiliating red fading slowly from his cheeks. All was still within and +without, save for a tiny musical tinkling that came from his kitchen--the +dripping of water from an imperfectly turned-off tap into the vessel +beneath it. Mechanically he began to beat with his finger to the faintly +heard falling of the drops; the tiny regular movement seemed to hasten +that shameful withdrawal from his face. He grew cool once more; and when +he resumed his meditation he was all unconscious that he took it up again +at the same point.... + +It was not only her florid superfluity of build that he had approached in +the attitude of criticism; he was conscious also of the wide differences +between her mind and his own. He felt no thankfulness that up to a +certain point their natures had ever run companionably side by side; he +was now full of questions beyond that point. Their intellects diverged; +there was no denying it; and, looking back, he was inclined to doubt +whether there had been any real coincidence. True, he had read his +writings to her and she had appeared to speak comprehendingly and to the +point; but what can a man do who, having assumed that another sees as he +does, is suddenly brought up sharp by something that falsifies and +discredits all that has gone before? He doubted all now.... It did for a +moment occur to him that the man who demands of a friend more than can be +given to him is in danger of losing that friend, but he put the thought +aside. + +Again he ceased to think, and again moved his finger to the distant +dripping of the tap.... + +And now (he resumed by-and-by), if these things were true of Elsie +Bengough, they were also true of the creation of which she was the +prototype--Romilly Bishop. And since he could say of Romilly what for +very shame he could not say of Elsie, he gave his thoughts rein. He did +so in that smiling, fire-lighted room, to the accompaniment of the +faintly heard tap. + +There was no longer any doubt about it; he hated the central character +of his novel. Even as he had described her physically she overpowered +the senses; she was coarse-fibred, over-coloured, rank. It became true +the moment he formulated his thought; Gulliver had described the +Brobdingnagian maids-of-honour thus: and mentally and spiritually she +corresponded--was unsensitive, limited, common. The model (he closed his +eyes for a moment)--the model stuck out through fifteen vulgar and +blatant chapters to such a pitch that, without seeing the reason, he had +been unable to begin the sixteenth. He marvelled that it had only just +dawned upon him. + +And _this_ was to have been his Beatrice, his vision! As Elsie she was to +have gone into the furnace of his art, and she was to have come out the +Woman all men desire! Her thoughts were to have been culled from his own +finest, her form from his dearest dreams, and her setting wherever he +could find one fit for her worth. He had brooded long before making the +attempt; then one day he had felt her stir within him as a mother feels +a quickening, and he had begun to write; and so he had added chapter to +chapter.... + +And those fifteen sodden chapters were what he had produced! + +Again he sat, softly moving his finger.... + +Then he bestirred himself. + +She must go, all fifteen chapters of her. That was settled. For what was +to take her place his mind was a blank; but one thing at a time; a man +is not excused from taking the wrong course because the right one is not +immediately revealed to him. Better would come if it was to come; +in the meantime-- + +He rose, fetched the fifteen chapters, and read them over before he +should drop them into the fire. + +But instead of putting them into the fire he let them fall from his hand. +He became conscious of the dripping of the tap again. It had a tinkling +gamut of four or five notes, on which it rang irregular changes, and it +was foolishly sweet and dulcimer-like. In his mind Oleron could see the +gathering of each drop, its little tremble on the lip of the tap, and the +tiny percussion of its fall, "Plink--plunk," minimised almost to +inaudibility. Following the lowest note there seemed to be a brief +phrase, irregularly repeated; and presently Oleron found himself waiting +for the recurrence of this phrase. It was quite pretty.... + +But it did not conduce to wakefulness, and Oleron dozed over his fire. + +When he awoke again the fire had burned low and the flames of the candles +were licking the rims of the Sheffield sticks. Sluggishly he rose, +yawned, went his nightly round of door-locks and window-fastenings, and +passed into his bedroom. Soon he slept soundly. + +But a curious little sequel followed on the morrow. Mrs. Barrett usually +tapped, not at his door, but at the wooden wall beyond which lay Oleron's +bed; and then Oleron rose, put on his dressing-gown, and admitted her. He +was not conscious that as he did so that morning he hummed an air; but +Mrs. Barrett lingered with her hand on the door-knob and her face a +little averted and smiling. + +"De-ar me!" her soft falsetto rose. "But that will be a very o-ald tune, +Mr. Oleron! I will not have heard it this for-ty years!" + +"What tune?" Oleron asked. + +"The tune, indeed, that you was humming, sir." + +Oleron had his thumb in the flap of a letter. It remained there. + +"_I_ was humming?... Sing it, Mrs. Barrett." + +Mrs. Barrett prut-prutted. + +"I have no voice for singing, Mr. Oleron; it was Ann Pugh was the singer +of our family; but the tune will be very o-ald, and it is called 'The +Beckoning Fair One.'" + +"Try to sing it," said Oleron, his thumb still in the envelope; and Mrs. +Barrett, with much dimpling and confusion, hummed the air. + +"They do say it was sung to a harp, Mr. Oleron, and it will be very +o-ald," she concluded. + +"And _I_ was singing that?" + +"Indeed you wass. I would not be likely to tell you lies." + +With a "Very well--let me have breakfast," Oleron opened his letter; but +the trifling circumstance struck him as more odd than he would have +admitted to himself. The phrase he had hummed had been that which he had +associated with the falling from the tap on the evening before. + + +V + +Even more curious than that the commonplace dripping of an ordinary +water-tap should have tallied so closely with an actually existing air +was another result it had, namely, that it awakened, or seemed to awaken, +in Oleron an abnormal sensitiveness to other noises of the old house. It +has been remarked that silence obtains its fullest and most impressive +quality when it is broken by some minute sound; and, truth to tell, the +place was never still. Perhaps the mildness of the spring air operated on +its torpid old timbers; perhaps Oleron's fires caused it to stretch its +old anatomy; and certainly a whole world of insect life bored and +burrowed in its baulks and joists. At any rate, Oleron had only to sit +quiet in his chair and to wait for a minute or two in order to become +aware of such a change in the auditory scale as comes upon a man who, +conceiving the midsummer woods to be motionless and still, all at once +finds his ear sharpened to the crepitation of a myriad insects. + +And he smiled to think of man's arbitrary distinction between that which +has life and that which has not. Here, quite apart from such recognisable +sounds as the scampering of mice, the falling of plaster behind his +panelling, and the popping of purses or coffins from his fire, was a +whole house talking to him had he but known its language. Beams settled +with a tired sigh into their old mortices; creatures ticked in the walls; +joints cracked, boards complained; with no palpable stirring of the air +window-sashes changed their positions with a soft knock in their frames. +And whether the place had life in this sense or not, it had at all events +a winsome personality. It needed but an hour of musing for Oleron to +conceive the idea that, as his own body stood in friendly relation to his +soul, so, by an extension and an attenuation, his habitation might +fantastically be supposed to stand in some relation to himself. He even +amused himself with the far-fetched fancy that he might so identify +himself with the place that some future tenant, taking possession, might +regard it as in a sense haunted. It would be rather a joke if he, a +perfectly harmless author, with nothing on his mind worse than a novel he +had discovered he must begin again, should turn out to be laying the +foundation of a future ghost!... + +In proportion, however, as he felt this growing attachment to the fabric +of his abode, Elsie Bengough, from being merely unattracted, began to +show a dislike of the place that was more and more marked. And she did +not scruple to speak of her aversion. + +"It doesn't belong to to-day at all, and for you especially it's bad," +she said with decision. "You're only too ready to let go your hold on +actual things and to slip into apathy; _you_ ought to be in a place +with concrete floors and a patent gas-meter and a tradesmen's lift. And +it would do you all the good in the world if you had a job that made you +scramble and rub elbows with your fellow-men. Now, if I could get you a +job, for, say, two or three days a week, one that would allow you heaps +of time for your proper work--would you take it?" + +Somehow, Oleron resented a little being diagnosed like this. He thanked +Miss Bengough, but without a smile. + +"Thank you, but I don't think so. After all each of us has his own life +to live," he could not refrain from adding. + +"His own life to live!... How long is it since you were out, Paul?" + +"About two hours." + +"I don't mean to buy stamps or to post a letter. How long is it since you +had anything like a stretch?" + +"Oh, some little time perhaps. I don't know." + +"Since I was here last?" + +"I haven't been out much." + +"And has _Romilly_ progressed much better for your being cooped up?" + +"I think she has. I'm laying the foundations of her. I shall begin the +actual writing presently." + +It seemed as if Miss Bengough had forgotten their tussle about the first +_Romilly_. She frowned, turned half away, and then quickly turned again. + +"Ah!... So you've still got that ridiculous idea in your head?" + +"If you mean," said Oleron slowly, "that I've discarded the old +_Romilly_, and am at work on a new one, you're right. I have still got +that idea in my head." + +Something uncordial in his tone struck her; but she was a fighter. His +own absurd sensitiveness hardened her. She gave a "Pshaw!" of impatience. + +"Where is the old one?" she demanded abruptly. + +"Why?" asked Oleron. + +"I want to see it. I want to show some of it to you. I want, if you're +not wool-gathering entirely, to bring you back to your senses." + +This time it was he who turned his back. But when he turned round again +he spoke more gently. + +"It's no good, Elsie. I'm responsible for the way I go, and you must +allow me to go it--even if it should seem wrong to you. Believe me, I +am giving thought to it.... The manuscript? I was on the point of burning +it, but I didn't. It's in that window-seat, if you must see it." + +Miss Bengough crossed quickly to the window-seat, and lifted the lid. +Suddenly she gave a little exclamation, and put the back of her hand +to her mouth. She spoke over her shoulder: + +"You ought to knock those nails in, Paul," she said. + +He strode to her side. + +"What? What is it? What's the matter?" he asked. "I did knock them +in--or, rather, pulled them out." + +"You left enough to scratch with," she replied, showing her hand. From +the upper wrist to the knuckle of the little finger a welling red wound +showed. + +"Good--Gracious!" Oleron ejaculated.... "Here, come to the bathroom and +bathe it quickly--" + +He hurried her to the bathroom, turned on warm water, and bathed and +cleansed the bad gash. Then, still holding the hand, he turned cold water +on it, uttering broken phrases of astonishment and concern. + +"Good Lord, how did that happen! As far as I knew I'd ... is this water +too cold? Does that hurt? I can't imagine how on earth ... there; that'll +do--" + +"No--one moment longer--I can bear it," she murmured, her eyes closed.... + +Presently he led her back to the sitting-room and bound the hand in one +of his handkerchiefs; but his face did not lose its expression of +perplexity. He had spent half a day in opening and making serviceable the +three window-boxes, and he could not conceive how he had come to leave an +inch and a half of rusty nail standing in the wood. He himself had opened +the lids of each of them a dozen times and had not noticed any nail; but +there it was.... + +"It shall come out now, at all events," he muttered, as he went for a +pair of pincers. And he made no mistake about it that time. + +Elsie Bengough had sunk into a chair, and her face was rather white; but +in her hand was the manuscript of _Romilly_. She had not finished with +_Romilly_ yet. Presently she returned to the charge. + +"Oh, Paul, it will be the greatest mistake you ever, _ever_ made if you +do not publish this!" she said. + +He hung his head, genuinely distressed. He couldn't get that incident of +the nail out of his head, and _Romilly_ occupied a second place in his +thoughts for the moment. But still she insisted; and when presently he +spoke it was almost as if he asked her pardon for something. + +"What can I say, Elsie? I can only hope that when you see the new +version, you'll see how right I am. And if in spite of all you _don't_ +like her, well ..." he made a hopeless gesture. "Don't you see that I +_must_ be guided by my own lights?" + +She was silent. + +"Come, Elsie," he said gently. "We've got along well so far; don't let us +split on this." + +The last words had hardly passed his lips before he regretted them. She +had been nursing her injured hand, with her eyes once more closed; but +her lips and lids quivered simultaneously. Her voice shook as she spoke. + +"I can't help saying it, Paul, but you are so greatly changed." + +"Hush, Elsie," he murmured soothingly; "you've had a shock; rest for a +while. How could I change?" + +"I don't know, but you are. You've not been yourself ever since you came +here. I wish you'd never seen the place. It's stopped your work, it's +making you into a person I hardly know, and it's made me horribly anxious +about you.... Oh, how my hand is beginning to throb!" + +"Poor child!" he murmured. "Will you let me take you to a doctor and have +it properly dressed?" + +"No--I shall be all right presently--I'll keep it raised----" + +She put her elbow on the back of her chair, and the bandaged hand rested +lightly on his shoulder. + +At that touch an entirely new anxiety stirred suddenly within him. +Hundreds of times previously, on their jaunts and excursions, she had +slipped her hand within his arm as she might have slipped it into the arm +of a brother, and he had accepted the little affectionate gesture as a +brother might have accepted it. But now, for the first time, there rushed +into his mind a hundred startling questions. Her eyes were still closed, +and her head had fallen pathetically back; and there was a lost and +ineffable smile on her parted lips. The truth broke in upon him. Good +God!... And he had never divined it! + +And stranger than all was that, now that he did see that she was lost in +love of him, there came to him, not sorrow and humility and abasement, +but something else that he struggled in vain against--something entirely +strange and new, that, had he analysed it, he would have found to be +petulance and irritation and resentment and ungentleness. The sudden +selfish prompting mastered him before he was aware. He all but gave it +words. What was she doing there at all? Why was she not getting on with +her own work? Why was she here interfering with his? Who had given her +this guardianship over him that lately she had put forward so +assertively?--"Changed?" It was she, not himself, who had changed.... + +But by the time she had opened her eyes again he had overcome his +resentment sufficiently to speak gently, albeit with reserve. + +"I wish you would let me take you to a doctor." + +She rose. + +"No, thank you, Paul," she said. "I'll go now. If I need a dressing I'll +get one; take the other hand, please. Good-bye--" + +He did not attempt to detain her. He walked with her to the foot of the +stairs. Half-way along the narrow alley she turned. + +"It would be a long way to come if you happened not to be in," she said; +"I'll send you a postcard the next time." + +At the gate she turned again. + +"Leave here, Paul," she said, with a mournful look. "Everything's wrong +with this house." + +Then she was gone. + +Oleron returned to his room. He crossed straight to the window-box. He +opened the lid and stood long looking at it. Then he closed it again and +turned away. + +"That's rather frightening," he muttered. "It's simply not possible that +I should not have removed that nail...." + + +VI + +Oleron knew very well what Elsie had meant when she had said that her +next visit would be preceded by a postcard. She, too, had realised that +at last, at last he knew--knew, and didn't want her. It gave him a +miserable, pitiful pang, therefore, when she came again within a week, +knocking at the door unannounced. She spoke from the landing; she did not +intend to stay, she said; and he had to press her before she would so +much as enter. + +Her excuse for calling was that she had heard of an inquiry for short +stories that he might be wise to follow up. He thanked her. Then, her +business over, she seemed anxious to get away again. Oleron did not seek +to detain her; even he saw through the pretext of the stories; and he +accompanied her down the stairs. + +But Elsie Bengough had no luck whatever in that house. A second accident +befell her. Half-way down the staircase there was the sharp sound of +splintering wood, and she checked a loud cry. Oleron knew the woodwork to +be old, but he himself had ascended and descended frequently enough +without mishap.... + +Elsie had put her foot through one of the stairs. + +He sprang to her side in alarm. + +"Oh, I say! My poor girl!" + +She laughed hysterically. + +"It's my weight--I know I'm getting fat--" + +"Keep still--let me clear these splinters away," he muttered between his +teeth. + +She continued to laugh and sob that it was her weight--she was getting +fat-- + +He thrust downwards at the broken boards. The extrication was no easy +matter, and her torn boot showed him how badly the foot and ankle +within it must be abraded. + +"Good God--good God!" he muttered over and over again. + +"I shall be too heavy for anything soon," she sobbed and laughed. + +But she refused to reascend and to examine her hurt. + +"No, let me go quickly--let me go quickly," she repeated. + +"But it's a frightful gash!" + +"No--not so bad--let me get away quickly--I'm--I'm not wanted." + +At her words, that she was not wanted, his head dropped as if she had +given him a buffet. + +"Elsie!" he choked, brokenly and shocked. + +But she too made a quick gesture, as if she put something violently +aside. + +"Oh, Paul, not _that_--not _you_--of course I do mean that too in a +sense--oh, you know what I mean!... But if the other can't be, spare +me this now! I--I wouldn't have come, but--but--oh, I did, I _did_ try to +keep away!" + +It was intolerable, heartbreaking; but what could he do--what could he +say? He did not love her... + +"Let me go--I'm not wanted--let me take away what's left of me--" + +"Dear Elsie--you are very dear to me--" + +But again she made the gesture, as of putting something violently aside. + +"No, not that--not anything less--don't offer me anything less--leave me +a little pride--" + +"Let me get my hat and coat--let me take you to a doctor," he muttered. + +But she refused. She refused even the support of his arm. She gave +another unsteady laugh. + +"I'm sorry I broke your stairs, Paul.... You will go and see about the +short stories, won't you?" + +He groaned. + +"Then if you won't see a doctor, will you go across the square and let +Mrs. Barrett look at you? Look, there's Barrett passing now--" + +The long-nosed Barrett was looking curiously down the alley, but as +Oleron was about to call him he made off without a word. Elsie seemed +anxious for nothing so much as to be clear of the place, and finally +promised to go straight to a doctor, but insisted on going alone. + +"Good-bye," she said. + +And Oleron watched her until she was past the hatchet-like "To Let" +boards, as if he feared that even they might fall upon her and maim her. + +That night Oleron did not dine. He had far too much on his mind. He +walked from room to room of his flat, as if he could have walked away +from Elsie Bengough's haunting cry that still rang in his ears. "I'm +not wanted--don't offer me anything less--let me take away what's left +of me--" + +Oh, if he could only have persuaded himself that he loved her! + +He walked until twilight fell, then, without lighting candles, he stirred +up the fire and flung himself into a chair. + +Poor, poor Elsie!... + +But even while his heart ached for her, it was out of the question. +If only he had known! If only he had used common observation! But +those walks, those sisterly takings of the arm--what a fool he had +been!... Well, it was too late now. It was she, not he, who must now +act--act by keeping away. He would help her all he could. He himself +would not sit in her presence. If she came, he would hurry her out again +as fast as he could.... Poor, poor Elsie! + +His room grew dark; the fire burned dead; and he continued to sit, +wincing from time to time as a fresh tortured phrase rang again in his +ears. + +Then suddenly, he knew not why, he found himself anxious for her in a new +sense--uneasy about her personal safety. A horrible fancy that even then +she might be looking over an embankment down into dark water, that she +might even now be glancing up at the hook on the door, took him. Women +had been known to do those things.... Then there would be an inquest, and +he himself would be called upon to identify her, and would be asked how +she had come by an ill-healed wound on the hand and a bad abrasion of the +ankle. Barrett would say that he had seen her leaving his house.... + +Then he recognised that his thoughts were morbid. By an effort of will he +put them aside, and sat for a while listening to the faint creakings +and tickings and rappings within his panelling.... If only he could have +married her!... But he couldn't. Her face had risen before him again +as he had seen it on the stairs, drawn with pain and ugly and swollen +with tears. Ugly--yes, positively blubbered; if tears were women's +weapons, as they were said to be, such tears were weapons turned against +themselves ... suicide again.... + +Then all at once he found himself attentively considering her two +accidents. + +Extraordinary they had been, both of them. He _could not_ have left that +old nail standing in the wood; why, he had fetched tools specially from +the kitchen; and he was convinced that that step that had broken beneath +her weight had been as sound as the others. It was inexplicable. If these +things could happen, anything could happen. There was not a beam nor a +jamb in the place that might not fall without warning, not a plank that +might not crash inwards, not a nail that might not become a dagger. The +whole place was full of life even now; as he sat there in the dark he +heard its crowds of noises as if the house had been one great +microphone.... + +Only half conscious that he did so, he had been sitting for some time +identifying these noises, attributing to each crack or creak or knock its +material cause; but there was one noise which, again not fully conscious +of the omission, he had not sought to account for. It had last come some +minutes ago; it came again now--a sort of soft sweeping rustle that +seemed to hold an almost inaudibly minute crackling. For half a minute or +so it had Oleron's attention; then his heavy thoughts were of Elsie +Bengough again. + +He was nearer to loving her in that moment than he had ever been. He +thought how to some men their loved ones were but the dearer for those +poor mortal blemishes that tell us we are but sojourners on earth, with a +common fate not far distant that makes it hardly worth while to do +anything but love for the time remaining. Strangling sobs, blearing +tears, bodies buffeted by sickness, hearts and mind callous and hard with +the rubs of the world--how little love there would be were these things a +barrier to love! In that sense he did love Elsie Bengough. What her +happiness had never moved in him her sorrow almost awoke.... + +Suddenly his meditation went. His ear had once more become conscious +of that soft and repeated noise--the long sweep with the almost +inaudible crackle in it. Again and again it came, with a curious +insistence and urgency. It quickened a little as he became increasingly +attentive ... it seemed to Oleron that it grew louder.... + +All at once he started bolt upright in his chair, tense and listening. +The silky rustle came again; he was trying to attach it to something.... + +The next moment he had leapt to his feet, unnerved and terrified. His +chair hung poised for a moment, and then went over, setting the +fire-irons clattering as it fell. There was only one noise in the world +like that which had caused him to spring thus to his feet.... + +The next time it came Oleron felt behind him at the empty air with his +hand, and backed slowly until he found himself against the wall. + +"God in Heaven!" The ejaculation broke from Oleron's lips. The sound had +ceased. + +The next moment he had given a high cry. + +"What is it? What's there? _Who's_ there?" + +A sound of scuttling caused his knees to bend under him for a moment; but +that, he knew, was a mouse. That was not something that his stomach +turned sick and his mind reeled to entertain. That other sound, the like +of which was not in the world, had now entirely ceased; and again he +called.... + +He called and continued to call; and then another terror, a terror of the +sound of his own voice, seized him. He did not dare to call again. His +shaking hand went to his pocket for a match, but found none. He thought +there might be matches on the mantelpiece-- + +He worked his way to the mantelpiece round a little recess, without for a +moment leaving the wall. Then his hand encountered the mantelpiece, and +groped along it. A box of matches fell to the hearth. He could just see +them in the firelight, but his hand could not pick them up until he had +cornered them inside the fender. + +Then he rose and struck a light. + +The room was as usual. He struck a second match. A candle stood on the +table. He lighted it, and the flame sank for a moment and then burned up +clear. Again he looked round. + +There was nothing. + +There was nothing; but there had been something, and might still be +something. Formerly, Oleron had smiled at the fantastic thought that, +by a merging and interplay of identities between himself and his +beautiful room, he might be preparing a ghost for the future; it had not +occurred to him _that there might have been a similar merging and +coalescence in the past_. Yet with this staggering impossibility he was +now face to face. Something did persist in the house; it had a tenant +other than himself; and that tenant, whatsoever or whosoever, had +appalled Oleron's soul by producing the sound of a woman brushing her +hair. + + +VII + +Without quite knowing how he came to be there Oleron found himself +striding over the loose board he had temporarily placed on the step +broken by Miss Bengough. He was hatless, and descending the stairs. Not +until later did there return to him a hazy memory that he had left the +candle burning on the table, had opened the door no wider than was +necessary to allow the passage of his body, and had sidled out, closing +the door softly behind him. At the foot of the stairs another shock +awaited him. Something dashed with a flurry up from the disused cellars +and disappeared out of the door. It was only a cat, but Oleron gave a +childish sob. + +He passed out of the gate, and stood for a moment under the "To Let" +boards, plucking foolishly at his lip and looking up at the glimmer +of light behind one of his red blinds. Then, still looking over his +shoulder, he moved stumblingly up the square. There was a small +public-house round the corner; Oleron had never entered it; but he +entered it now, and put down a shilling that missed the counter by +inches. + +"B--b--bran--brandy," he said, and then stooped to look for the shilling. + +He had the little sawdusted bar to himself; what company there +was--carters and labourers and the small tradesmen of the +neighbourhood--was gathered in the farther compartment, beyond the space +where the white-haired landlady moved among her taps and bottles. Oleron +sat down on a hardwood settee with a perforated seat, drank half his +brandy, and then, thinking he might as well drink it as spill it, +finished it. + +Then he fell to wondering which of the men whose voices he heard across +the public-house would undertake the removal of his effects on the +morrow. + +In the meantime he ordered more brandy. + +For he did not intend to go back to that room where he had left the +candle burning. Oh no! He couldn't have faced even the entry and the +staircase with the broken step--certainly not that pith-white, +fascinating room. He would go back for the present to his old +arrangement, of workroom and separate sleeping-quarters; he would +go to his old landlady at once--presently--when he had finished his +brandy--and see if she could put him up for the night. His glass was +empty now.... + +He rose, had it refilled, and sat down again. + +And if anybody asked his reason for removing again? Oh, he had reason +enough--reason enough! Nails that put themselves back into wood again +and gashed people's hands, steps that broke when you trod on them, and +women who came into a man's place and brushed their hair in the dark, +were reasons enough! He was querulous and injured about it all. He had +taken the place for himself, not for invisible women to brush their +hair in; that lawyer fellow in Lincoln's Inn should be told so, too, +before many hours were out; it was outrageous, letting people in for +agreements like that! + +A cut-glass partition divided the compartment where Oleron sat from the +space where the white-haired landlady moved; but it stopped seven or +eight inches above the level of the counter. There was no partition at +the farther bar. Presently Oleron, raising his eyes, saw that faces were +watching him through the aperture. The faces disappeared when he looked +at them. + +He moved to a corner where he could not be seen from the other bar; but +this brought him into line with the white-haired landlady. + +She knew him by sight--had doubtless seen him passing and repassing; and +presently she made a remark on the weather. Oleron did not know what he +replied, but it sufficed to call forth the further remark that the winter +had been a bad one for influenza, but that the spring weather seemed to +be coming at last.... Even this slight contact with the commonplace +steadied Oleron a little; an idle, nascent wonder whether the landlady +brushed her hair every night, and, if so, whether it gave out those +little electric cracklings, was shut down with a snap; and Oleron was +better.... + +With his next glass of brandy he was all for going back to his flat. Not +go back? Indeed, he would go back! They should very soon see whether he +was to be turned out of his place like that! He began to wonder why he +was doing the rather unusual thing he was doing at that moment, unusual +for him--sitting hatless, drinking brandy, in a public-house. Suppose he +were to tell the white-haired landlady all about it--to tell her that a +caller had scratched her hand on a nail, had later had the bad luck to +put her foot through a rotten stair, and that he himself, in an old house +full of squeaks and creaks and whispers, had heard a minute noise and had +bolted from it in fright--what would she think of him? That he was mad, +of course.... Pshaw! The real truth of the matter was that he hadn't been +doing enough work to occupy him. He had been dreaming his days away, +filling his head with a lot of moonshine about a new _Romilly_ (as if the +old one was not good enough), and now he was surprised that the devil +should enter an empty head! + +Yes, he would go back. He would take a walk in the air first--he hadn't +walked enough lately--and then he would take himself in hand, settle +the hash of that sixteenth chapter of _Romilly_ (fancy, he had actually +been fool enough to think of destroying fifteen chapters!) and +thenceforward he would remember that he had obligations to his fellow-men +and work to do in the world. There was the matter in a nutshell. + +He finished his brandy and went out. + +He had walked for some time before any other bearing of the matter than +that on himself occurred to him. At first, the fresh air had increased +the heady effect of the brandy he had drunk; but afterwards his mind grew +clearer than it had been since morning. And the clearer it grew, the less +final did his boastful self-assurances become, and the firmer his +conviction that, when all explanations had been made, there remained +something that could not be explained. His hysteria of an hour before had +passed; he grew steadily calmer; but the disquieting conviction remained. +A deep fear took possession of him. It was a fear for Elsie. + +For something in his place was inimical to her safety. Of themselves, her +two accidents might not have persuaded him of this; but she herself had +said it. "_I'm not wanted here_..." And she had declared that there was +something wrong with the place. She had seen it before he had. Well and +good. One thing stood out clearly: namely, that if this was so, she must +be kept away for quite another reason than that which had so confounded +and humiliated Oleron. Luckily she had expressed her intention of staying +away; she must be held to that intention. He must see to it. + +And he must see to it all the more that he now saw his first impulse, +never to set foot in the place again, was absurd. People did not do that +kind of thing. With Elsie made secure, he could not with any respect to +himself suffer himself to be turned out by a shadow, nor even by a danger +merely because it was a danger. He had to live somewhere, and he would +live there. He must return. + +He mastered the faint chill of fear that came with the decision, and +turned in his walk abruptly. Should fear grow on him again he would, +perhaps, take one more glass of brandy.... + +But by the time he reached the short street that led to the square he was +too late for more brandy. The little public-house was still lighted, but +closed, and one or two men were standing talking on the kerb. Oleron +noticed that a sudden silence fell on them as he passed, and he noticed +further that the long-nosed Barrett, whom he passed a little lower down, +did not return his good-night. He turned in at the broken gate, hesitated +merely an instant in the alley, and then mounted his stairs again. + +Only an inch of candle remained in the Sheffield stick, and Oleron did +not light another one. Deliberately he forced himself to take it up and +to make the tour of his five rooms before retiring. It was as he returned +from the kitchen across his little hall that he noticed that a letter lay +on the floor. He carried it into his sitting-room, and glanced at the +envelope before opening it. + +It was unstamped, and had been put into the door by hand. Its handwriting +was clumsy, and it ran from beginning to end without comma or period. +Oleron read the first line, turned to the signature, and then finished +the letter. + +It was from the man Barrett, and it informed Oleron that he, Barrett, +would be obliged if Mr. Oleron would make other arrangements for the +preparing of his breakfasts and the cleaning-out of his place. The sting +lay in the tail, that is to say, the postscript. This consisted of a text +of Scripture. It embodied an allusion that could only be to Elsie +Bengough.... + +A seldom-seen frown had cut deeply into Oleron's brow. So! That was it! +Very well; they would see about that on the morrow.... For the rest, this +seemed merely another reason why Elsie should keep away.... + +Then his suppressed rage broke out.... + +The foul-minded lot! The devil himself could not have given a leer at +anything that had ever passed between Paul Oleron and Elsie Bengough, +yet this nosing rascal must be prying and talking!... + +Oleron crumpled the paper up, held it in the candle flame, and then +ground the ashes under his heel. + +One useful purpose, however, the letter had served: it had created in +Oleron a wrathful blaze that effectually banished pale shadows. +Nevertheless, one other puzzling circumstance was to close the day. As he +undressed, he chanced to glance at his bed. The coverlets bore an impress +as if somebody had lain on them. Oleron could not remember that he +himself had lain down during the day--off-hand, he would have said that +certainly he had not; but after all he could not be positive. His +indignation for Elsie, acting possibly with the residue of the brandy in +him, excluded all other considerations; and he put out his candle, lay +down, and passed immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep, which, in +the absence of Mrs. Barrett's morning call, lasted almost once round the +clock. + + +VIII + +To the man who pays heed to that voice within him which warns him that +twilight and danger are settling over his soul, terror is apt to appear +an absolute thing, against which his heart must be safeguarded in a twink +unless there is to take place an alteration in the whole range and scale +of his nature. Mercifully, he has never far to look for safeguards. Of +the immediate and small and common and momentary things of life, of +usages and observances and modes and conventions, he builds up +fortifications against the powers of darkness. He is even content that, +not terror only, but joy also, should for working purposes be placed in +the category of the absolute things; and the last treason he will commit +will be that breaking down of terms and limits that strikes, not at one +man, but at the welfare of the souls of all. + +In his own person, Oleron began to commit this treason. He began to +commit it by admitting the inexplicable and horrible to an increasing +familiarity. He did it insensibly, unconsciously, by a neglect of the +things that he now regarded it as an impertinence in Elsie Bengough to +have prescribed. Two months before, the words "a haunted house," applied +to his lovely bemusing dwelling, would have chilled his marrow; now, +his scale of sensation becoming depressed, he could ask "Haunted by +what?" and remain unconscious that horror, when it can be proved to be +relative, by so much loses its proper quality. He was setting aside the +landmarks. Mists and confusion had begun to enwrap him. + +And he was conscious of nothing so much as of a voracious +inquisitiveness. He wanted _to know_. He was resolved to know. Nothing +but the knowledge would satisfy him; and craftily he cast about for means +whereby he might attain it. + +He might have spared his craft. The matter was the easiest imaginable. As +in time past he had known, in his writing, moments when his thoughts +had seemed to rise of themselves and to embody themselves in words not to +be altered afterwards, so now the questions he put himself seemed to be +answered even in the moment of their asking. There was exhilaration in +the swift, easy processes. He had known no so such joy in his own power +since the days when his writing had been a daily freshness and a delight +to him. It was almost as if the course he must pursue was being dictated +to him. + +And the first thing he must do, of course, was to define the problem. He +defined it in terms of mathematics. Granted that he had not the place to +himself; granted that the old house had inexpressibly caught and engaged +his spirit; granted that, by virtue of the common denominator of the +place, this unknown co-tenant stood in some relation to himself: what +next? Clearly, the nature of the other numerator must be ascertained. + +And how? Ordinarily this would not have seemed simple, but to Oleron it +was now pellucidly clear. The key, _of course_, lay in his half-written +novel--or rather, in both _Romillys_, the old and the proposed new one. + +A little while before Oleron would have thought himself mad to have +embraced such an opinion; now he accepted the dizzying hypothesis without +a quiver. + +He began to examine the first and second _Romillys_. + +From the moment of his doing so the thing advanced by leaps and bounds. +Swiftly he reviewed the history of the _Romilly_ of the fifteen chapters. +He remembered clearly now that he had found her insufficient on the very +first morning on which he had sat down to work in his new place. Other +instances of his aversion leaped up to confirm his obscure investigation. +There had come the night when he had hardly forborne to throw the whole +thing into the fire; and the next morning he had begun the planning of +the new _Romilly_. It had been on that morning that Mrs. Barrett, +overhearing him humming a brief phrase that the dripping of a tap the +night before had suggested, had informed him that he was singing some air +he had never in his life heard before, called "The Beckoning Fair +One."... + +The Beckoning Fair One!... + +With scarcely a pause in thought he continued: + +The first _Romilly_ having been definitely thrown over, the second had +instantly fastened herself upon him, clamouring for birth in his brain. +He even fancied now, looking back, that there had been something like +passion, hate almost, in the supplanting, and that more than once a stray +thought given to his discarded creation had--(it was astonishing how +credible Oleron found the almost unthinkable idea)--had offended the +supplanter. + +Yet that a malignancy almost homicidal should be extended to his +fiction's poor mortal prototype.... + +In spite of his inuring to a scale in which the horrible was now a thing +to be fingered and turned this way and that, a "Good God!" broke from +Oleron. + +This intrusion of the first _Romilly's_ prototype into his thought +again was a factor that for the moment brought his inquiry into the +nature of his problem to a termination; the mere thought of Elsie was +fatal to anything abstract. For another thing, he could not yet think of +that letter of Barrett's, nor of a little scene that had followed it, +without a mounting of colour and a quick contraction of the brow. For, +wisely or not, he had had that argument out at once. Striding across the +square on the following morning, he had bearded Barrett on his own +doorstep. Coming back again a few minutes later, he had been strongly of +opinion that he had only made matters worse. The man had been vagueness +itself. He had not been to be either challenged or browbeaten into +anything more definite than a muttered farrago in which the words +"Certain things ... Mrs. Barrett ... respectable house ... if the cap +fits ... proceedings that shall be nameless," had been constantly +repeated. + +"Not that I make any charge--" he had concluded. + +"Charge!" Oleron had cried. + +"I 'ave my idears of things, as I don't doubt you 'ave yours--" + +"Ideas--mine!" Oleron had cried wrathfully, immediately dropping his +voice as heads had appeared at windows of the square. "Look you here, my +man; you've an unwholesome mind, which probably you can't help, but a +tongue which you can help, and shall! If there is a breath of this +repeated ..." + +"I'll not be talked to on my own doorstep like this by anybody,..." +Barrett had blustered.... + +"You shall, and I'm doing it ..." + +"Don't you forget there's a Gawd above all, Who 'as said..." + +"You're a low scandalmonger!..." + +And so forth, continuing badly what was already badly begun. Oleron had +returned wrathfully to his own house, and thenceforward, looking out +of his windows, had seen Barrett's face at odd times, lifting blinds or +peering round curtains, as if he sought to put himself in possession of +Heaven knew what evidence, in case it should be required of him. + +The unfortunate occurrence made certain minor differences in Oleron's +domestic arrangements. Barrett's tongue, he gathered, had already been +busy; he was looked at askance by the dwellers of the square; and he +judged it better, until he should be able to obtain other help, to make +his purchases of provisions a little farther afield rather than at the +small shops of the immediate neighbourhood. For the rest, housekeeping +was no new thing to him, and he would resume his old bachelor habits.... + +Besides, he was deep in certain rather abstruse investigations, in which +it was better that he should not be disturbed. + +He was looking out of his window one midday rather tired, not very well, +and glad that it was not very likely he would have to stir out of doors, +when he saw Elsie Bengough crossing the square towards his house. The +weather had broken; it was a raw and gusty day; and she had to force +her way against the wind that set her ample skirts bellying about her +opulent figure and her veil spinning and streaming behind her. + +Oleron acted swiftly and instinctively. Seizing his hat, he sprang to the +door and descended the stairs at a run. A sort of panic had seized him. +She must be prevented from setting foot in the place. As he ran along the +alley he was conscious that his eyes went up to the eaves as if something +drew them. He did not know that a slate might not accidentally fall.... + +He met her at the gate, and spoke with curious volubleness. + +"This is really too bad, Elsie! Just as I'm urgently called away! I'm +afraid it can't be helped though, and that you'll have to think me an +inhospitable beast." He poured it out just as it came into his head. + +She asked if he was going to town. + +"Yes, yes--to town," he replied. "I've got to call on--on Chambers. You +know Chambers, don't you? No, I remember you don't; a big man you once +saw me with.... I ought to have gone yesterday, and--" this he felt to be +a brilliant effort--"and he's going out of town this afternoon. To +Brighton. I had a letter from him this morning." + +He took her arm and led her up the square. She had to remind him that his +way to town lay in the other direction. + +"Of course--how stupid of me!" he said, with a little loud laugh. "I'm so +used to going the other way with you--of course; it's the other way to +the bus. Will you come along with me? I am so awfully sorry it's happened +like this...." + +They took the street to the bus terminus. + +This time Elsie bore no signs of having gone through interior struggles. +If she detected anything unusual in his manner she made no comment, and +he, seeing her calm, began to talk less recklessly through silences. By +the time they reached the bus terminus, nobody, seeing the pallid-faced +man without an overcoat and the large ample-skirted girl at his side, +would have supposed that one of them was ready to sink on his knees for +thankfulness that he had, as he believed, saved the other from a wildly +unthinkable danger. + +They mounted to the top of the bus, Oleron protesting that he should not +miss his overcoat, and that he found the day, if anything, rather +oppressively hot. They sat down on a front seat. + +Now that this meeting was forced upon him, he had something else to say +that would make demands upon his tact. It had been on his mind for some +time, and was, indeed, peculiarly difficult to put. He revolved it for +some minutes, and then, remembering the success of his story of a sudden +call to town, cut the knot of his difficulty with another lie. + +"I'm thinking of going away for a little while, Elsie," he said. + +She merely said, "Oh?" + +"Somewhere for a change. I need a change. I think I shall go to-morrow, +or the day after. Yes, to-morrow, I think." + +"Yes," she replied. + +"I don't quite know how long I shall be," he continued. "I shall have to +let you know when I am back." + +"Yes, let me know," she replied in an even tone. + +The tone was, for her, suspiciously even. He was a little uneasy. + +"You don't ask me where I'm going," he said, with a little cumbrous +effort to rally her. + +She was looking straight before her, past the bus-driver. + +"I know," she said. + +He was startled. "How, you know?" + +"You're not going anywhere," she replied. + +He found not a word to say. It was a minute or so before she continued, +in the same controlled voice she had employed from the start. + +"You're not going anywhere. You weren't going out this morning. You only +came out because I appeared; don't behave as if we were strangers, Paul." + +A flush of pink had mounted to his cheeks. He noticed that the wind had +given her the pink of early rhubarb. Still he found nothing to say. + +"Of course, you ought to go away," she continued. "I don't know whether +you look at yourself often in the glass, but you're rather noticeable. +Several people have turned to look at you this morning. So, of course, +you ought to go away. But you won't, and I know why." + +He shivered, coughed a little, and then broke silence. + +"Then if you know, there's no use in continuing this discussion," he said +curtly. + +"Not for me, perhaps, but there is for you," she replied. "Shall I tell +you what I know?" + +"No," he said in a voice slightly raised. + +"No?" she asked, her round eyes earnestly on him. + +"No." + +Again he was getting out of patience with her; again he was conscious of +the strain. Her devotion and fidelity and love plagued him; she was only +humiliating both herself and him. It would have been bad enough had he +ever, by word or deed, given her cause for thus fastening herself on +him ... but there; that was the worst of that kind of life for a woman. +Women such as she, business women, in and out of offices all the time, +always, whether they realised it or not, made comradeship a cover for +something else. They accepted the unconventional status, came and +went freely, as men did, were honestly taken by men at their own +valuation--and then it turned out to be the other thing after all, and +they went and fell in love. No wonder there was gossip in shops and +squares and public houses! In a sense the gossipers were in the right of +it. Independent, yet not efficient; with some of womanhood's graces +forgone, and yet with all the woman's hunger and need; half +sophisticated, yet not wise; Oleron was tired of it all.... + +And it was time he told her so. + +"I suppose," he said tremblingly, looking down between his knees, "I +suppose the real trouble is in the life women who earn their own living +are obliged to lead." + +He could not tell in what sense she took the lame generality; she merely +replied, "I suppose so." + +"It can't be helped," he continued, "but you do sacrifice a good deal." + +She agreed: a good deal; and then she added after a moment, "What, for +instance?" + +"You may or may not be gradually attaining a new status, but you're in a +false position to-day." + +It was very likely, she said; she hadn't thought of it much in that +light-- + +"And," he continued desperately, "you're bound to suffer. Your most +innocent acts are misunderstood; motives you never dreamed of are +attributed to you; and in the end it comes to--" he hesitated a moment +and then took the plunge, "--to the sidelong look and the leer." + +She took his meaning with perfect ease. She merely shivered a little as +she pronounced the name. + +"Barrett?" + +His silence told her the rest. + +Anything further that was to be said must come from her. It came as the +bus stopped at a stage and fresh passengers mounted the stairs. + +"You'd better get down here and go back, Paul," she said. "I understand +perfectly--perfectly. It isn't Barrett. You'd be able to deal with +Barrett. It's merely convenient for you to say it's Barrett. I know what +it is ... but you said I wasn't to tell you that. Very well. But before +you go let me tell you why I came up this morning." + +In a dull tone he asked her why. Again she looked straight before her as +she replied: + +"I came to force your hand. Things couldn't go on as they have been +going, you know; and now that's all over." + +"All over," he repeated stupidly. + +"All over. I want you now to consider yourself, as far as I'm concerned, +perfectly free. I make only one reservation." + +He hardly had the spirit to ask her what that was. + +"If _I_ merely need _you_," she said, "please don't give that a thought; +that's nothing; I shan't come near for that. But," she dropped her voice, +"if _you're_ in need of _me_, Paul--I shall know if you are, _and you +will be_--then I shall come at no matter what cost. You understand that?" + +He could only groan. + +"So that's understood," she concluded. "And I think that's all. Now go +back. I should advise you to walk back, for you're shivering--good-bye--" + +She gave him a cold hand, and he descended. He turned on the edge of the +kerb as the bus started again. For the first time in all the years he had +known her she parted from him with no smile and no wave of her long arm. + + +IX + +He stood on the kerb plunged in misery, looking after her as long as she +remained in sight; but almost instantly with her disappearance he felt +the heaviness lift a little from his spirit. She had given him his +liberty; true, there was a sense in which he had never parted with it, +but now was no time for splitting hairs; he was free to act, and all was +clear ahead. Swiftly the sense of lightness grew on him: it became a +positive rejoicing in his liberty; and before he was halfway home he had +decided what must be done next. + +The vicar of the parish in which his dwelling was situated lived within +ten minutes of the square. To his house Oleron turned his steps. It was +necessary that he should have all the information he could get about this +old house with the insurance marks and the sloping "To Let" boards, and +the vicar was the person most likely to be able to furnish it. This last +preliminary out of the way, and--aha! Oleron chuckled--things might be +expected to happen! + +But he gained less information than he had hoped for. The house, the +vicar said, was old--but there needed no vicar to tell Oleron that; it +was reputed (Oleron pricked up his ears) to be haunted--but there were +few old houses about which some such rumour did not circulate among the +ignorant; and the deplorable lack of Faith of the modern world, the vicar +thought, did not tend to dissipate these superstitions. For the rest, +his manner was the soothing manner of one who prefers not to make +statements without knowing how they will be taken by his hearer. Oleron +smiled as he perceived this. + +"You may leave my nerves out of the question," he said. "How long has the +place been empty?" + +"A dozen years, I should say," the vicar replied. + +"And the last tenant--did you know him--or her?" Oleron was conscious of +a tingling of his nerves as he offered the vicar the alternative of sex. + +"Him," said the vicar. "A man. If I remember rightly, his name was +Madley; an artist. He was a great recluse; seldom went out of the place, +and--" the vicar hesitated and then broke into a little gush of candour +"--and since you appear to have come for this information, and since it +is better that the truth should be told than that garbled versions should +get about, I don't mind saying that this man Madley died there, under +somewhat unusual circumstances. It was ascertained at the post-mortem +that there was not a particle of food in his stomach, although he was +found to be not without money. And his frame was simply worn out. Suicide +was spoken of, but you'll agree with me that deliberate starvation is, to +say the least, an uncommon form of suicide. An open verdict was +returned." + +"Ah!" said Oleron.... "Does there happen to be any comprehensive history +of this parish?" + +"No; partial ones only. I myself am not guiltless of having made a number +of notes on its purely ecclesiastical history, its registers and so +forth, which I shall be happy to show you if you would care to see them; +but it is a large parish, I have only one curate, and my leisure, as you +will readily understand ..." + +The extent of the parish and the scantiness of the vicar's leisure +occupied the remainder of the interview, and Oleron thanked the vicar, +took his leave, and walked slowly home. + +He walked slowly for a reason, twice turning away from the house within a +stone's-throw of the gate and taking another turn of twenty minutes or +so. He had a very ticklish piece of work now before him; it required the +greatest mental concentration; it was nothing less than to bring his +mind, if he might, into such a state of unpreoccupation and receptivity +that he should see the place as he had seen it on that morning when, +his removal accomplished, he had sat down to begin the sixteenth chapter +of the first _Romilly_. + +For, could he recapture that first impression, he now hoped for far more +from it. Formerly, he had carried no end of mental lumber. Before the +influence of the place had been able to find him out at all, it had had +the inertia of those dreary chapters to overcome. No results had shown. +The process had been one of slow saturation, charging, filling up to a +brim. But now he was light, unburdened, rid at last both of that +_Romilly_ and of her prototype. Now for the new unknown, coy, jealous, +bewitching, Beckoning Fair!... + +At half-past two of the afternoon he put his key into the Yale lock, +entered, and closed the door behind him.... + +His fantastic attempt was instantly and astonishingly successful. He +could have shouted with triumph as he entered the room; it was as if he +had _escaped_ into it. Once more, as in the days when his writing had had +a daily freshness and wonder and promise for him, he was conscious of +that new ease and mastery and exhilaration and release. The air of the +place seemed to hold more oxygen; as if his own specific gravity had +changed, his very tread seemed less ponderable. The flowers in the bowls, +the fair proportions of the meadowsweet-coloured panels and mouldings, +the polished floor, and the lofty and faintly starred ceiling, fairly +laughed their welcome. Oleron actually laughed back, and spoke aloud. + +"Oh, you're pretty, pretty!" he flattered it. + +Then he lay down on his couch. + +He spent that afternoon as a convalescent who expected a dear visitor +might have spent it--in a delicious vacancy, smiling now and then as +if in his sleep, and ever lifting drowsy and contented eyes to his +alluring surroundings. He lay thus until darkness came, and, with +darkness, the nocturnal noises of the old house.... + +But if he waited for any specific happening, he waited in vain. + +He waited similarly in vain on the morrow, maintaining, though with less +ease, that sensitised-plate-like condition of his mind. Nothing occurred +to give it an impression. Whatever it was which he so patiently wooed, it +seemed to be both shy and exacting. + +Then on the third day he thought he understood. A look of gentle drollery +and cunning came into his eyes, and he chuckled. + +"Oho, oho!... Well, if the wind sits in _that_ quarter we must see what +else there is to be done. What is there, now?... No, I won't send for +Elsie; we don't need a wheel to break the butterfly on; we won't go to +those lengths, my butterfly...." + +He was standing musing, thumbing his lean jaw, looking aslant; suddenly +he crossed to his hall, took down his hat, and went out. + +"My lady is coquettish, is she? Well, we'll see what a little neglect +will do," he chuckled as he went down the stairs. + +He sought a railway station, got into a train, and spent the rest of the +day in the country. Oh, yes: Oleron thought _he_ was the man to deal with +Fair Ones who beckoned, and invited, and then took refuge in shyness and +hanging back! + +He did not return until after eleven that night. + +"_Now_, my Fair Beckoner!" he murmured as he walked along the alley and +felt in his pocket for his keys.... + +Inside his flat, he was perfectly composed, perfectly deliberate, +exceedingly careful not to give himself away. As if to intimate that he +intended to retire immediately, he lighted only a single candle; and as +he set out with it on his nightly round he affected to yawn. He went +first into his kitchen. There was a full moon, and a lozenge of +moonlight, almost peacock-blue by contrast with his candle-frame, lay on +the floor. The window was uncurtained, and he could see the reflection of +the candle, and, faintly, that of his own face, as he moved about. The +door of the powder-closet stood a little ajar, and he closed it before +sitting down to remove his boots on the chair with the cushion made of +the folded harp-bag. From the kitchen he passed to the bathroom. There, +another slant of blue moonlight cut the windowsill and lay across the +pipes on the wall. He visited his seldom-used study, and stood for a +moment gazing at the silvered roofs across the square. Then, walking +straight through his sitting-room, his stockinged feet making no noise, +he entered his bedroom and put the candle on the chest of drawers. His +face all this time wore no expression save that of tiredness. He had +never been wilier nor more alert. + +His small bedroom fireplace was opposite the chest of drawers on which +the mirror stood, and his bed and the window occupied the remaining +sides of the room. Oleron drew down his blind, took off his coat, and +then stooped to get his slippers from under the bed. + +He could have given no reason for the conviction, but that the +manifestation that for two days had been withheld was close at hand he +never for an instant doubted. Nor, though he could not form the faintest +guess of the shape it might take, did he experience fear. Startling or +surprising it might be; he was prepared for that; but that was all; his +scale of sensation had become depressed. His hand moved this way and that +under the bed in search of his slippers.... + +But for all his caution and method and preparedness, his heart all at +once gave a leap and a pause that was almost horrid. His hand had found +the slippers, but he was still on his knees; save for this circumstance +he would have fallen. The bed was a low one; the groping for the slippers +accounted for the turn of his head to one side; and he was careful to +keep the attitude until he had partly recovered his self-possession. When +presently he rose there was a drop of blood on his lower lip where he had +caught at it with his teeth, and his watch had jerked out of the pocket +of his waistcoat and was dangling at the end of its short leather +guard.... + +Then, before the watch had ceased its little oscillation, he was himself +again. + +In the middle of his mantelpiece there stood a picture, a portrait of his +grandmother; he placed himself before this picture, so that he could see +in the glass of it the steady flame of the candle that burned behind him +on the chest of drawers. He could see also in the picture-glass the +little glancings of light from the bevels and facets of the objects about +the mirror and candle. But he could see more. These twinklings and +reflections and re-reflections did not change their position; but there +was one gleam that had motion. It was fainter than the rest, and it moved +up and down through the air. It was the reflection of the candle on +Oleron's black vulcanite comb, and each of its downward movements was +accompanied by a silky and crackling rustle. + +Oleron, watching what went on in the glass of his grandmother's portrait, +continued to play his part. He felt for his dangling watch and began +slowly to wind it up. Then, for a moment ceasing to watch, he began to +empty his trousers pockets and to place methodically in a little row on +the mantelpiece the pennies and halfpennies he took from them. The +sweeping, minutely electric noise filled the whole bedroom, and had +Oleron altered his point of observation he could have brought the dim +gleam of the moving comb so into position that it would almost have +outlined his grandmother's head. + +Any other head of which it might have been following the outline was +invisible. + +Oleron finished the emptying of his pockets; then, under cover of another +simulated yawn, not so much summoning his resolution as overmastered by +an exhorbitant curiosity, he swung suddenly round. That which was being +combed was still not to be seen, but the comb did not stop. It had +altered its angle a little, and had moved a little to the left. It was +passing, in fairly regular sweeps, from a point rather more than five +feet from the ground, in a direction roughly vertical, to another point a +few inches below the level of the chest of drawers. + +Oleron continued to act to admiration. He walked to his little washstand +in the corner, poured out water, and began to wash his hands. He removed +his waistcoat, and continued his preparations for bed. The combing did +not cease, and he stood for a moment in thought. Again his eyes twinkled. +The next was very cunning-- + +"Hm!... _I think I'll read for a quarter of an hour_," he said aloud.... + +He passed out of the room. + +He was away a couple of minutes; when he returned again the room was +suddenly quiet. He glanced at the chest of drawers; the comb lay still, +between the collar he had removed and a pair of gloves. Without +hesitation Oleron put out his hand and picked it up. It was an ordinary +eighteenpenny comb, taken from a card in a chemist's shop, of a substance +of a definite specific gravity, and no more capable of rebellion against +the Laws by which it existed than are the worlds that keep their orbits +through the void. Oleron put it down again; then he glanced at the bundle +of papers he held in his hand. What he had gone to fetch had been the +fifteen chapters of the original _Romilly_. + +"Hm!" he muttered as he threw the manuscript into a chair.... "As I +thought.... She's just blindly, ragingly, murderously jealous." + + * * * * * + +On the night after that, and on the following night, and for many nights +and days, so many that he began to be uncertain about the count of them, +Oleron, courting, cajoling, neglecting, threatening, beseeching, eaten +out with unappeased curiosity and regardless that his life was becoming +one consuming passion and desire, continued his search for the unknown +co-numerator of his abode. + + +X + +As time went on, it came to pass that few except the postman mounted +Oleron's stairs; and since men who do not write letters receive few, even +the postman's tread became so infrequent that it was not heard more than +once or twice a week. There came a letter from Oleron's publishers, +asking when they might expect to receive the manuscript of his new book; +he delayed for some days to answer it, and finally forgot it. A second +letter came, which also he failed to answer. He received no third. + +The weather grew bright and warm. The privet bushes among the +chopper-like notice-boards flowered, and in the streets where Oleron did +his shopping the baskets of flower-women lined the kerbs. Oleron +purchased flowers daily; his room clamoured for flowers, fresh and +continually renewed; and Oleron did not stint its demands. Nevertheless, +the necessity for going out to buy them began to irk him more and more, +and it was with a greater and ever greater sense of relief that he +returned home again. He began to be conscious that again his scale of +sensation had suffered a subtle change--a change that was not restoration +to its former capacity, but an extension and enlarging that once more +included terror. It admitted it in an entirely new form. _Lux orco, +tenebrae Jovi_. The name of this terror was agoraphobia. Oleron had begun +to dread air and space and the horror that might pounce upon the +unguarded back. + +Presently he so contrived it that his food and flowers were delivered +daily at his door. He rubbed his hands when he had hit upon this +expedient. That was better! Now he could please himself whether he went +out or not.... + +Quickly he was confirmed in his choice. It became his pleasure to remain +immured. + +But he was not happy--or, if he was, his happiness took an extraordinary +turn. He fretted discontentedly, could sometimes have wept for mere +weakness and misery; and yet he was dimly conscious that he would not +have exchanged his sadness for all the noisy mirth of the world outside. +And speaking of noise: noise, much noise, now caused him the acutest +discomfort. It was hardly more to be endured than that new-born fear that +kept him, on the increasingly rare occasions when he did go out, sidling +close to walls and feeling friendly railings with his hand. He moved from +room to room softly and in slippers, and sometimes stood for many seconds +closing a door so gently that not a sound broke the stillness that was in +itself a delight. Sunday now became an intolerable day to him, for, since +the coming of the fine weather, there had begun to assemble in the square +under his windows each Sunday morning certain members of the sect to +which the long-nosed Barrett adhered. These came with a great drum and +large brass-bellied instruments; men and women uplifted anguished voices, +struggling with their God; and Barrett himself, with upraised face and +closed eyes and working brows, prayed that the sound of his voice might +penetrate the ears of all unbelievers--as it certainly did Oleron's. One +day, in the middle of one of these rhapsodies, Oleron sprang to his blind +and pulled it down, and heard as he did so his own name made the subject +of a fresh torrent of outpouring. + +And sometimes, but not as expecting a reply, Oleron stood still and +called softly. Once or twice he called "Romilly!" and then waited; but +more often his whispering did not take the shape of a name. + +There was one spot in particular of his abode that he began to haunt with +increasing persistency. This was just within the opening of his bedroom +door. He had discovered one day that by opening every door in his place +(always excepting the outer one, which he only opened unwillingly) and by +placing himself on this particular spot, he could actually see to a +greater or less extent into each of his five rooms without changing his +position. He could see the whole of his sitting-room, all of his bedroom +except the part hidden by the open door, and glimpses of his kitchen, +bathroom, and of his rarely used study. He was often in this place, +breathless and with his finger on his lip. One day, as he stood there, he +suddenly found himself wondering whether this Madley, of whom the vicar +had spoken, had ever discovered the strategic importance of the bedroom +entry. + +Light, moreover, now caused him greater disquietude than did darkness. +Direct sunlight, of which, as the sun passed daily round the house, each +of his rooms had now its share, was like a flame in his brain; and even +diffused light was a dull and numbing ache. He began, at successive hours +of the day, one after another, to lower his crimson blinds. He made short +and daring excursions in order to do this; but he was ever careful to +leave his retreat open, in case he should have sudden need of it. +Presently this lowering of the blinds had become a daily methodical +exercise, and his rooms, when he had been his round, had the blood-red +half-light of a photographer's darkroom. + +One day, as he drew down the blind of his little study and backed in good +order out of the room again, he broke into a soft laugh. + +"_That_ bilks Mr. Barrett!" he said; and the baffling of Barrett +continued to afford him mirth for an hour. + +But on another day, soon after, he had a fright that left him trembling +also for an hour. He had seized the cord to darken the window over the +seat in which he had found the harp-bag, and was standing with his back +well protected in the embrasure, when he thought he saw the tail of a +black-and-white check skirt disappear round the corner of the house. He +could not be sure--had he run to the window of the other wall, which was +blinded, the skirt must have been already past--but he was _almost_ sure +that it was Elsie. He listened in an agony of suspense for her tread on +the stairs.... + +But no tread came, and after three or four minutes he drew a long breath +of relief. + +"By Jove, but that would have compromised me horribly!" he muttered.... + +And he continued to mutter from time to time, "Horribly +compromising ... _no_ woman would stand that ... not _any_ kind of +woman ... oh, compromising in the extreme!" + +Yet he was not happy. He could not have assigned the cause of the fits of +quiet weeping which took him sometimes; they came and went, like the +fitful illumination of the clouds that travelled over the square; and +perhaps, after all, if he was not happy, he was not unhappy. Before +he could be unhappy something must have been withdrawn, and nothing had +yet been withdrawn from him, for nothing had been granted. He was waiting +for that granting, in that flower-laden, frightfully enticing apartment +of his, with the pith-white walls tinged and subdued by the crimson +blinds to a blood-like gloom. + +He paid no heed to it that his stock of money was running perilously low, +nor that he had ceased to work. Ceased to work? He had not ceased to +work. They knew very little about it who supposed that Oleron had ceased +to work! He was in truth only now beginning to work. He was preparing +such a work ... such a work ... such a Mistress was a-making in the +gestation of his Art ... let him but get this period of probation and +poignant waiting over and men should see.... How _should_ men know her, +this Fair One of Oleron's, until Oleron himself knew her? Lovely radiant +creations are not thrown off like How-d'ye-do's. The men to whom it is +committed to father them must weep wretched tears, as Oleron did, must +swell with vain presumptuous hopes, as Oleron did, must pursue, as Oleron +pursued, the capricious, fair, mocking, slippery, eager Spirit that, ever +eluding, ever sees to it that the chase does not slacken. Let Oleron but +hunt this Huntress a little longer... he would have her sparkling +and panting in his arms yet.... Oh no: they were very far from the truth +who supposed that Oleron had ceased to work! + +And if all else was falling away from Oleron, gladly he was letting it +go. So do we all when our Fair Ones beckon. Quite at the beginning we +wink, and promise ourselves that we will put Her Ladyship through her +paces, neglect her for a day, turn her own jealous wiles against her, +flout and ignore her when she comes wheedling; perhaps there lurks within +us all the time a heartless sprite who is never fooled; but in the end +all falls away. She beckons, beckons, and all goes.... + +And so Oleron kept his strategic post within the frame of his bedroom +door, and watched, and waited, and smiled, with his finger on his +lips.... It was his duteous service, his worship, his troth-plighting, +all that he had ever known of Love. And when he found himself, as he now +and then did, hating the dead man Madley, and wishing that he had never +lived, he felt that that, too, was an acceptable service.... + +But, as he thus prepared himself, as it were, for a Marriage, and moped +and chafed more and more that the Bride made no sign, he made a discovery +that he ought to have made weeks before. + +It was through a thought of the dead Madley that he made it. Since that +night when he had thought in his greenness that a little studied neglect +would bring the lovely Beckoner to her knees, and had made use of her own +jealousy to banish her, he had not set eyes on those fifteen discarded +chapters of _Romilly_. He had thrown them back into the window-seat, +forgotten their very existence. But his own jealousy of Madley put him in +mind of hers of her jilted rival of flesh and blood, and he remembered +them.... Fool that he had been! Had he, then, expected his Desire to +manifest herself while there still existed the evidence of his divided +allegiance? What, and she with a passion so fierce and centred that it +had not hesitated at the destruction, twice attempted, of her rival? Fool +that he had been!... + +But if _that_ was all the pledge and sacrifice she required she should +have it--ah, yes, and quickly! + +He took the manuscript from the window-seat, and brought it to the fire. + +He kept his fire always burning now; the warmth brought out the last +vestige of odour of the flowers with which his room was banked. He did +not know what time it was; long since he had allowed his clock to run +down--it had seemed a foolish measurer of time in regard to the +stupendous things that were happening to Oleron; but he knew it was late. +He took the _Romilly_ manuscript and knelt before the fire. + +But he had not finished removing the fastening that held the sheets +together before he suddenly gave a start, turned his head over his +shoulder, and listened intently. The sound he had heard had not been +loud--it had been, indeed, no more than a tap, twice or thrice +repeated--but it had filled Oleron with alarm. His face grew dark as +it came again. + +He heard a voice outside on his landing. + +"Paul!... Paul!..." + +It was Elsie's voice. + +"Paul!... I know you're in... I want to see you...." + +He cursed her under his breath, but kept perfectly still. He did not +intend to admit her. + +"Paul!... You're in trouble.... I believe you're in danger... at least +come to the door!..." + +Oleron smothered a low laugh. It somehow amused him that she, in such +danger herself, should talk to him of _his_ danger!... Well, if she was, +serve her right; she knew, or said she knew, all about it.... + +"Paul!... Paul!..." + +"_Paul!... Paul!_..." He mimicked her under his breath. + +"Oh, Paul, it's _horrible_!..." + +Horrible, was it? thought Oleron. Then let her get away.... + +"I only want to help you, Paul.... I didn't promise not to come if you +needed me...." + +He was impervious to the pitiful sob that interrupted the low cry. The +devil take the woman! Should he shout to her to go away and not come +back? No: let her call and knock and sob. She had a gift for sobbing; she +mustn't think her sobs would move him. They irritated him, so that he set +his teeth and shook his fist at her, but that was all. Let her sob. + +"_Paul!... Paul!_..." + +With his teeth hard set, he dropped the first page of _Romilly_ into the +fire. Then he began to drop the rest in, sheet by sheet. + +For many minutes the calling behind his door continued; then suddenly it +ceased. He heard the sound of feet slowly descending the stairs. He +listened for the noise of a fall or a cry or the crash of a piece of the +handrail of the upper landing; but none of these things came. She was +spared. Apparently her rival suffered her to crawl abject and beaten +away. Oleron heard the passing of her steps under his window; then she +was gone. + +He dropped the last page into the fire, and then, with a low laugh rose. +He looked fondly round his room. + +"Lucky to get away like that," he remarked. "She wouldn't have got away +if I'd given her as much as a word or a look! What devils these women +are!... But no; I oughtn't to say that; one of 'em showed +forbearance...." + +Who showed forbearance? And what was forborne? Ah, Oleron +knew!... Contempt, no doubt, had been at the bottom of it, but that +didn't matter: the pestering creature had been allowed to go unharmed. +Yes, she was lucky; Oleron hoped she knew it.... + +And now, now, now for his reward! + +Oleron crossed the room. All his doors were open; his eyes shone as he +placed himself within that of his bedroom. + +Fool that he had been, not to think of destroying the manuscript +sooner!... + + * * * * * + +How, in a houseful of shadows, should he know his own Shadow? How, in a +houseful of noises, distinguish the summons he felt to be at hand? Ah, +trust him! He would know! The place was full of a jugglery of dim lights. +The blind at his elbow that allowed the light of a street lamp to +struggle vaguely through--the glimpse of greeny blue moonlight seen +through the distant kitchen door--the sulky glow of the fire under the +black ashes of the burnt manuscript--the glimmering of the tulips and the +moon-daisies and narcissi in the bowls and jugs and jars--these did not +so trick and bewilder his eyes that he would not know his Own! It was he, +not she, who had been delaying the shadowy Bridal; he hung his head for a +moment in mute acknowledgment; then he bent his eyes on the deceiving, +puzzling gloom again. He would have called her name had he known it--but +now he would not ask her to share even a name with the other.... + +His own face, within the frame of the door, glimmered white as the +narcissi in the darkness.... + +A shadow, light as fleece, seemed to take shape in the kitchen (the time +had been when Oleron would have said that a cloud had passed over the +unseen moon). The low illumination on the blind at his elbow grew dimmer +(the time had been when Oleron would have concluded that the lamplighter +going his rounds had turned low the flame of the lamp). The fire settled, +letting down the black and charred papers; a flower fell from a bowl, +and lay indistinct upon the floor; all was still; and then a stray +draught moved through the old house, passing before Oleron's face.... + +Suddenly, inclining his head, he withdrew a little from the door-jamb. +The wandering draught caused the door to move a little on its hinges. +Oleron trembled violently, stood for a moment longer, and then, putting +his hand out to the knob, softly drew the door to, sat down on the +nearest chair, and waited, as a man might await the calling of his name +that should summon him to some weighty, high and privy Audience.... + + +XI + +One knows not whether there can be human compassion for anemia of the +soul. When the pitch of Life is dropped, and the spirit is so put over +and reversed that that only is horrible which before was sweet and +worldly and of the day, the human relation disappears. The sane soul +turns appalled away, lest not merely itself, but sanity should suffer. +We are not gods. We cannot drive out devils. We must see selfishly +to it that devils do not enter into ourselves. + +And this we must do even though Love so transfuse us that we may well +deem our nature to be half divine. We shall but speak of honour and duty +in vain. The letter dropped within the dark door will lie unregarded, or, +if regarded for a brief instant between two unspeakable lapses, left and +forgotten again. The telegram will be undelivered, nor will the whistling +messenger (wiselier guided than he knows to whistle) be conscious as he +walks away of the drawn blind that is pushed aside an inch by a finger +and then fearfully replaced again. No: let the miserable wrestle with his +own shadows; let him, if indeed he be so mad, clip and strain and enfold +and couch the succubus; but let him do so in a house into which not an +air of Heaven penetrates, nor a bright finger of the sun pierces the +filthy twilight. The lost must remain lost. Humanity has other business +to attend to. + +For the handwriting of the two letters that Oleron, stealing noiselessly +one June day into his kitchen to rid his sitting-room of an armful of +fetid and decaying flowers, had seen on the floor within his door, had +had no more meaning for him than if it had belonged to some dim and +faraway dream. And at the beating of the telegraph-boy upon the door, +within a few feet of the bed where he lay, he had gnashed his teeth and +stopped his ears. He had pictured the lad standing there, just beyond his +partition, among packets of provisions and bundles of dead and dying +flowers. For his outer landing was littered with these. Oleron had feared +to open his door to take them in. After a week, the errand lads had +reported that there must be some mistake about the order, and had left no +more. Inside, in the red twilight, the old flowers turned brown and fell +and decayed where they lay. + +Gradually his power was draining away. The Abomination fastened on +Oleron's power. The steady sapping sometimes left him for many hours +of prostration gazing vacantly up at his red-tinged ceiling, idly +suffering such fancies as came of themselves to have their way with him. +Even the strongest of his memories had no more than a precarious hold +upon his attention. Sometimes a flitting half-memory, of a novel to be +written, a novel it was important that he should write, tantalised him +for a space before vanishing again; and sometimes whole novels, perfect, +splendid, established to endure, rose magically before him. And sometimes +the memories were absurdly remote and trivial, of garrets he had +inhabited and lodgings that had sheltered him, and so forth. Oleron had +known a good deal about such things in his time, but all that was now +past. He had at last found a place which he did not intend to leave until +they fetched him out--a place that some might have thought a little on +the green-sick side, that others might have considered to be a little too +redolent of long-dead and morbid things for a living man to be mewed up +in, but ah, so irresistible, with such an authority of its own, with such +an associate of its own, and a place of such delights when once a man had +ceased to struggle against its inexorable will! A novel? Somebody ought +to write a novel about a place like that! There must be lots to write +about in a place like that if one could but get to the bottom of it! It +had probably already been painted, by a man called Madley who had lived +there ... but Oleron had not known this Madley--had a strong feeling +that he wouldn't have liked him--would rather he had lived somewhere +else--really couldn't stand the fellow--hated him, Madley, in fact. (Aha! +That was a joke!). He seriously doubted whether the man had led the life +he ought; Oleron was in two minds sometimes whether he wouldn't tell that +long-nosed guardian of the public morals across the way about him; but +probably he knew, and had made his praying hullabaloos for him also. +That was his line. Why, Oleron himself had had a dust-up with him about +something or other ... some girl or other ... Elsie Bengough her name +was, he remembered.... + +Oleron had moments of deep uneasiness about this Elsie Bengough. Or +rather, he was not so much uneasy about her as restless about the things +she did. Chief of these was the way in which she persisted in thrusting +herself into his thoughts; and, whenever he was quick enough, he sent her +packing the moment she made her appearance there. The truth was that she +was not merely a bore; she had always been that; it had now come to the +pitch when her very presence in his fancy was inimical to the full +enjoyment of certain experiences.... She had no tact; really ought to +have known that people are not at home to the thoughts of everybody all +the time; ought in mere politeness to have allowed him certain seasons +quite to himself; and was monstrously ignorant of things if she did not +know, as she appeared not to know, that there were certain special hours +when a man's veins ran with fire and daring and power, in which ... well, +in which he had a reasonable right to treat folk as he had treated that +prying Barrett--to shut them out completely.... But no: up she popped, +the thought of her, and ruined all. Bright towering fabrics, by the side +of which even those perfect, magical novels of which he dreamed were dun +and grey, vanished utterly at her intrusion. It was as if a fog should +suddenly quench some fair-beaming star, as if at the threshold of some +golden portal prepared for Oleron a pit should suddenly gape, as if a +bat-like shadow should turn the growing dawn to mirk and darkness +again.... Therefore, Oleron strove to stifle even the nascent thought +of her. + +Nevertheless, there came an occasion on which this woman Bengough +absolutely refused to be suppressed. Oleron could not have told exactly +when this happened; he only knew by the glimmer of the street lamp on his +blind that it was some time during the night, and that for some time she +had not presented herself. + +He had no warning, none, of her coming; she just came--was there. Strive +as he would, he could not shake off the thought of her nor the image of +her face. She haunted him. + +But for her to come at that moment of all moments!... Really, it was past +belief! How she could endure it, Oleron could not conceive! Actually, to +look on, as it were, at the triumph of a Rival.... Good God! It was +monstrous! tact--reticence--he had never credited her with an +overwhelming amount of either: but he had never attributed mere--oh, +there was no word for it! Monstrous--monstrous! Did she intend +thenceforward.... Good God! To look on!... + +Oleron felt the blood rush up to the roots of his hair with anger against +her. + +"Damnation take her!" he choked.... + +But the next moment his heat and resentment had changed to a cold sweat +of cowering fear. Panic-stricken, he strove to comprehend what he had +done. For though he knew not what, he knew he had done something, +something fatal, irreparable, blasting. Anger he had felt, but not _this_ +blaze of ire that suddenly flooded the twilight of his consciousness with +a white infernal light. _That_ appalling flash was not his--not his +_that_ open rift of bright and searing Hell--not his, not his! His had +been the hand of a child, preparing a puny blow; but what was _this +other_ horrific hand that was drawn back to strike in the same place? Had +_he_ set that in motion? Had _he_ provided the spark that had touched off +the whole accumulated power of that formidable and relentless place? He +did not know. He only knew that that poor igniting particle in himself +was blown out, that--Oh, impossible!--a clinging kiss (how else to +express it?) had changed on his very lips to a gnashing and a removal, +and that for very pity of the awful odds he must cry out to her against +whom he had lately raged to guard herself ... guard herself.... + +"_Look out!_" he shrieked aloud.... + + * * * * * + +The revulsion was instant. As if a cold slow billow had broken over him, +he came to to find that he was lying in his bed, that the mist and horror +that had for so long enwrapped him had departed, that he was Paul Oleron, +and that he was sick, naked, helpless, and unutterably abandoned and +alone. His faculties, though weak, answered at last to his calls upon +them; and he knew that it must have been a hideous nightmare that had +left him sweating and shaking thus. + +Yes, he was himself, Paul Oleron, a tired novelist, already past the +summit of his best work, and slipping downhill again empty-handed from it +all. He had struck short in his life's aim. He had tried too much, had +over-estimated his strength, and was a failure, a failure.... + +It all came to him in the single word, enwrapped and complete; it needed +no sequential thought; he was a failure. He had missed.... + +And he had missed not one happiness, but two. He had missed the ease of +this world, which men love, and he had missed also that other shining +prize for which men forgo ease, the snatching and holding and triumphant +bearing up aloft of which is the only justification of the mad adventurer +who hazards the enterprise. And there was no second attempt. Fate has no +morrow. Oleron's morrow must be to sit down to profitless, ill-done, +unrequired work again, and so on the morrow after that, and the morrow +after that, and as many morrows as there might be.... + +He lay there, weakly yet sanely considering it.... + +And since the whole attempt had failed, it was hardly worth while to +consider whether a little might not be saved from the general wreck. No +good would ever come of that half-finished novel. He had intended that it +should appear in the autumn; was under contract that it should appear; no +matter; it was better to pay forfeit to his publishers than to waste what +days were left. He was spent; age was not far off; and paths of wisdom +and sadness were the properest for the remainder of the journey.... + +If only he had chosen the wife, the child the faithful friend at the +fireside, and let them follow an _ignis fatuus_ that list!... + +In the meantime it began to puzzle him exceedingly what he should be so +weak, that his room should smell so overpoweringly of decaying vegetable +matter, and that his hand, chancing to stray to his face in the darkness, +should encounter a beard. + +"Most extraordinary!" he began to mutter to himself. "Have I been ill? Am +I ill now? And if so, why have they left me alone?... Extraordinary!..." + +He thought he heard a sound from the kitchen or bathroom. He rose a +little on his pillow, and listened.... Ah! He was not alone, then! It +certainly would have been extraordinary if they had left him ill and +alone--Alone? Oh no. He would be looked after. He wouldn't be left, ill, +to shift for himself. If everybody else had forsaken him, he could trust +Elsie Bengough, the dearest chum he had, for that ... bless her faithful +heart! + +But suddenly a short, stifled, spluttering cry rang sharply out: + +"_Paul!_" + +It came from the kitchen. + +And in the same moment it flashed upon Oleron, he knew not how, that two, +three, five, he knew not how many minutes before, another sound, unmarked +at the time but suddenly transfixing his attention now, had striven to +reach his intelligence. This sound had been the slight touch of metal on +metal--just such a sound as Oleron made when he put his key into the +lock. + +"Hallo!... Who's that?" he called sharply from his bed. + +He had no answer. + +He called again. "Hallo!... Who's there?... Who is it?" + +This time he was sure he heard noises, soft and heavy, in the kitchen. + +"This is a queer thing altogether," he muttered. "By Jove, I'm as weak as +a kitten too.... Hallo, there! Somebody called, didn't they?... Elsie! Is +that you?..." + +Then he began to knock with his hand on the wall at the side of his bed. + +"Elsie!... Elsie!... You called, didn't you?... Please come here, whoever +it is!..." + +There was a sound as of a closing door, and then silence. Oleron began to +get rather alarmed. + +"It may be a nurse," he muttered; "Elsie'd have to get me a nurse, of +course. She'd sit with me as long as she could spare the time, brave +lass, and she'd get a nurse for the rest.... But it was awfully like her +voice.... Elsie, or whoever it is!... I can't make this out at all. I +must go and see what's the matter...." + +He put one leg out of bed. Feeling its feebleness, he reached with his +hand for the additional support of the wall.... + + * * * * * + +But before putting out the other leg he stopped and considered, picking +at his new-found beard. He was suddenly wondering whether he _dared_ go +into the kitchen. It was such a frightfully long way; no man knew what +horror might not leap and huddle on his shoulders if he went so far; +when a man has an overmastering impulse to get back into bed he ought to +take heed of the warning and obey it. Besides, why should he go? What +was there to go for? If it was that Bengough creature again, let her look +after herself; Oleron was not going to have things cramp themselves on +his defenceless back for the sake of such a spoilsport as _she_!... If +she was in, let her let herself out again, and the sooner the better for +her! Oleron simply couldn't be bothered. He had his work to do. On the +morrow, he must set about the writing of a novel with a heroine so +winsome, capricious, adorable, jealous, wicked, beautiful, inflaming, and +altogether evil, that men should stand amazed. She was coming over him +now; he knew by the alteration of the very air of the room when she was +near him; and that soft thrill of bliss that had begun to stir in him +never came unless she was beckoning, beckoning.... + +He let go the wall and fell back into bed again as--oh, unthinkable!--the +other half of that kiss that a gnash had interrupted was placed (how else +convey it?) on his lips, robbing him of very breath.... + + +XII + +In the bright June sunlight a crowd filled the square, and looked up at +the windows of the old house with the antique insurance marks in its +walls of red brick and the agents' notice-boards hanging like wooden +choppers over the paling. Two constables stood at the broken gate of the +narrow entrance-alley, keeping folk back. The women kept to the outskirts +of the throng, moving now and then as if to see the drawn red blinds of +the old house from a new angle, and talking in whispers. The children +were in the houses, behind closed doors. + +A long-nosed man had a little group about him, and he was telling some +story over and over again; and another man, little and fat and wide-eyed, +sought to capture the long-nosed man's audience with some relation in +which a key figured. + +"... and it was revealed to me that there'd been something that very +afternoon," the long-nosed man was saying. "I was standing there, where +Constable Saunders is--or rather, I was passing about my business, when +they came out. There was no deceiving me, oh, no deceiving _me! I_ saw +her face...." + +"What was it like, Mr. Barrett?" a man asked. + +"It was like hers whom our Lord said to, 'Woman, doth any man accuse +thee?'--white as paper, and no mistake! Don't tell _me_!... And so I +walks straight across to Mrs. Barrett, and 'Jane,' I says, 'this must +stop, and stop at once; we are commanded to avoid evil,' I says, 'and it +must come to an end now; let him get help elsewhere.' + +"And she says to me, 'John,' she says, 'it's four-and-sixpence a +week'--them was her words. + +"'Jane,' I says, 'if it was forty-six thousand pounds it should +stop'... and from that day to this she hasn't set foot inside that gate." + +There was a short silence: then, + +"Did Mrs. Barrett ever..._ see_ anythink, like?" somebody vaguely +inquired. + +Barrett turned austerely on the speaker. + +"What Mrs. Barrett saw and Mrs. Barrett didn't see shall not pass these +lips; even as it is written, keep thy tongue from speaking evil," he +said. + +Another man spoke. + +"He was pretty near canned up in the _Waggon and Horses_ that night, +weren't he, Jim?" + +"Yes, 'e 'adn't 'alf copped it...." + +"Not standing treat much, neither; he was in the bar, all on his own...." + +"So 'e was; we talked about it...." + +The fat, scared-eyed man made another attempt. + +"She got the key off of me--she 'ad the number of it--she come into my +shop of a Tuesday evening...." + +Nobody heeded him. + +"Shut your heads," a heavy labourer commented gruffly, "she hasn't been +found yet. 'Ere's the inspectors; we shall know more in a bit." + +Two inspectors had come up and were talking to the constables who guarded +the gate. The little fat man ran eagerly forward, saying that she had +bought the key of him. "I remember the number, because of it's being +three one's and three three's--111333!" he exclaimed excitedly. + +An inspector put him aside. + +"Nobody's been in?" he asked of one of the constables. + +"No, sir." + +"Then you, Brackley, come with us; you, Smith, keep the gate. There's a +squad on its way." + +The two inspectors and the constable passed down the alley and entered +the house. They mounted the wide carved staircase. + +"This don't look as if he'd been out much lately," one of the inspectors +muttered as he kicked aside a litter of dead leaves and paper that lay +outside Oleron's door. "I don't think we need knock--break a pane, +Brackley." + +The door had two glazed panels; there was a sound of shattered glass; and +Brackley put his hand through the hole his elbow had made and drew back +the latch. + +"Faugh!"... choked one of the inspectors as they entered. "Let some light +and air in, quick. It stinks like a hearse--" + +The assembly out in the square saw the red blinds go up and the windows +of the old house flung open. + +"That's better," said one of the inspectors, putting his head out of a +window and drawing a deep breath.... "That seems to be the bedroom in +there; will you go in, Simms, while I go over the rest?..." + +They had drawn up the bedroom blind also, and the waxy-white, emaciated +man on the bed had made a blinker of his hand against the torturing +flood of brightness. Nor could he believe that his hearing was not +playing tricks with him, for there were two policemen in his room, +bending over him and asking where "she" was. He shook his head. + +"This woman Bengough... goes by the name of Miss Elsie Bengough... d'ye +hear? Where is she?... No good, Brackley; get him up; be careful with +him; I'll just shove _my_ head out of the window, I think...." + +The other inspector had been through Oleron's study and had found +nothing, and was now in the kitchen, kicking aside an ankle-deep mass of +vegetable refuse that cumbered the floor. The kitchen window had no +blind, and was over-shadowed by the blank end of the house across the +alley. The kitchen appeared to be empty. + +But the inspector, kicking aside the dead flowers, noticed that a +shuffling track that was not of his making had been swept to a cupboard +in the corner. In the upper part of the door of the cupboard was a square +panel that looked as if it slid on runners. The door itself was closed. + +The inspector advanced, put out his hand to the little knob, and slid the +hatch along its groove. + +Then he took an involuntary step back again. + +Framed in the aperture, and falling forward a little before it jammed +again in its frame, was something that resembled a large lumpy pudding, +done up in a pudding-bag of faded browny red frieze. + +"Ah!" said the inspector. + +To close the hatch again he would have had to thrust that pudding back +with his hand; and somehow he did not quite like the idea of touching +it. Instead, he turned the handle of the cupboard itself. There was +weight behind it, so much weight that, after opening the door three or +four inches and peering inside, he had to put his shoulder to it in order +to close it again. In closing it he left sticking out, a few inches from +the floor, a triangle of black and white check skirt. + +He went into the small hall. + +"All right!" he called. + +They had got Oleron into his clothes. He still used his hands as +blinkers, and his brain was very confused. A number of things were +happening that he couldn't understand. He couldn't understand the +extraordinary mess of dead flowers there seemed to be everywhere; he +couldn't understand why there should be police officers in his room; he +couldn't understand why one of these should be sent for a four-wheeler +and a stretcher; and he couldn't understand what heavy article they +seemed to be moving about in the kitchen--his kitchen.... + +"What's the matter?" he muttered sleepily.... + +Then he heard a murmur in the square, and the stopping of a four-wheeler +outside. A police officer was at his elbow again, and Oleron wondered +why, when he whispered something to him, he should run off a string of +words--something about "used in evidence against you." They had lifted +him to his feet, and were assisting him towards the door.... + +No, Oleron couldn't understand it at all. + +They got him down the stairs and along the alley. Oleron was aware of +confused angry shoutings; he gathered that a number of people wanted to +lynch somebody or other. Then his attention became fixed on a little fat +frightened-eyed man who appeared to be making a statement that an officer +was taking down in a notebook. + +"I'd seen her with him ... they was often together ... she came into my +shop and said it was for him ... I thought it was all right ... 111333 +the number was," the man was saying. + +The people seemed to be very angry; many police were keeping them back; +but one of the inspectors had a voice that Oleron thought quite kind and +friendly. He was telling somebody to get somebody else into the cab +before something or other was brought out; and Oleron noticed that a +four-wheeler was drawn up at the gate. It appeared that it was himself +who was to be put into it; and as they lifted him up he saw that the +inspector tried to stand between him and something that stood behind the +cab, but was not quick enough to prevent Oleron seeing that this +something was a hooded stretcher. The angry voices sounded like a sea; +something hard, like a stone, hit the back of the cab; and the inspector +followed Oleron in and stood with his back to the window nearer the side +where the people were. The door they had put Oleron in at remained open, +apparently till the other inspector should come; and through the opening +Oleron had a glimpse of the hatchet-like "To Let" boards among the +privet-trees. One of them said that the key was at Number Six.... + +Suddenly the raging of voices was hushed. Along the entrance-alley +shuffling steps were heard, and the other inspector appeared at the +cab door. + +"Right away," he said to the driver. + +He entered, fastened the door after him, and blocked up the second window +with his back. Between the two inspectors Oleron slept peacefully. The +cab moved down the square, the other vehicle went up the hill. The +mortuary lay that way. + + + + +PHANTAS + + + _"For, barring all pother, + With this, or the other, +Still Britons are Lords of the Main._" + + +THE CHAPTER OF ADMIRALS + + +I + +As Abel Keeling lay on the galleon's deck, held from rolling down it only +by his own weight and the sun-blackened hand that lay outstretched upon +the planks, his gaze wandered, but ever returned to the bell that hung, +jammed with the dangerous heel-over of the vessel, in the small +ornamental belfry immediately abaft the mainmast. The bell was of cast +bronze, with half-obliterated bosses upon it that had been the heads of +cherubs; but wind and salt spray had given it a thick incrustation of +bright, beautiful, lichenous green. It was this colour that Abel +Keeling's eyes liked. + +For wherever else on the galleon his eyes rested they found only +whiteness--the whiteness of extreme eld. There were slightly varying +degrees in her whiteness; here she was of a white that glistened like +salt-granules, there of a greyish chalky white, and again her whiteness +had the yellowish cast of decay; but everywhere it was the mild, +disquieting whiteness of materials out of which the life had departed. +Her cordage was bleached as old straw is bleached, and half her ropes +kept their shape little more firmly than the ash of a string keeps its +shape after the fire has passed; her pallid timbers were white and clean +as bones found in sand; and even the wild frankincense with which (for +lack of tar, at her last touching of land) she had been pitched, had +dried to a pale hard gum that sparkled like quartz in her open seams. The +sun was yet so pale a buckler of silver through the still white mists +that not a cord or timber cast a shadow; and only Abel Keeling's face and +hands were black, carked and cinder-black from exposure to his pitiless +rays. + +The galleon was the _Mary of the Tower_, and she had a frightful list to +starboard. So canted was she that her mainyard dipped one of its steel +sickles into the glassy water, and, had her foremast remained, or more +than the broken stump of her bonaventure mizzen, she must have turned +over completely. Many days ago they had stripped the mainyard of its +course, and had passed the sail under the Mary's bottom, in the hope that +it would stop the leak. This it had partly done as long as the galleon +had continued to glide one way; then, without coming about, she had begun +to glide the other, the ropes had parted, and she had dragged the sail +after her, leaving a broad tarnish on the silver sea. + +For it was broadside that the galleon glided, almost imperceptibly, ever +sucking down. She glided as if a loadstone drew her, and, at first, Abel +Keeling had thought it was a loadstone, pulling at her iron, drawing her +through the pearly mists that lay like face-cloths to the water and hid +at a short distance the tarnish left by the sail. But later he had known +that it was no loadstone drawing at her iron. The motion was due--must +be due--to the absolute deadness of the calm in that silent, sinister, +three-miles-broad waterway. With the eye of his mind he saw that +loadstone now as he lay against a gun-truck, all but toppling down the +deck. Soon that would happen again which had happened for five days past. +He would hear again the chattering of monkeys and the screaming of +parrots, the mat of green and yellow weeds would creep in towards the +Mary over the quicksilver sea, once more the sheer wall of rock would +rise, and the men would run.... + +But no; the men would not run this time to drop the fenders. There were +no men left to do so, unless Bligh was still alive. Perhaps Bligh was +still alive. He had walked half-way down the quarter-deck steps a little +before the sudden nightfall of the day before, had then fallen and lain +for a minute (dead, Abel Keeling had supposed, watching him from his +place by the gun-truck), and had then got up again and tottered forward +to the forecastle, his tall figure swaying and his long arms waving. Abel +Keeling had not seen him since. Most likely, he had died in the +forecastle during the night. If he had not been dead he would have come +aft again for water.... + +At the remembrance of the water Abel Keeling lifted his head. The strands +of lean muscle about his emaciated mouth worked, and he made a little +pressure of his sun-blackened hand on the deck, as if to verify its +steepness and his own balance. The mainmast was some seven or eight yards +away.... He put one stiff leg under him and began, seated as he was, to +make shuffling movements down the slope. + +To the mainmast, near the belfry, was affixed his contrivance for +catching water. It consisted of a collar of rope set lower at one side +than at the other (but that had been before the mast had steeved so many +degrees away from the zenith), and tallowed beneath. The mists lingered +later in that gully of a strait than they did on the open ocean, and the +collar of rope served as a collector for the dews that condensed on the +mast. The drops fell into a small earthen pipkin placed on the deck +beneath it. + +Abel Keeling reached the pipkin and looked into it. It was nearly a third +full of fresh water. Good. If Bligh, the mate, was dead, so much the more +water for Abel Keeling, master of the _Mary of the Tower_. He dipped two +fingers into the pipkin and put them into his mouth. This he did several +times. He did not dare to raise the pipkin to his black and broken lips +for dread of a remembered agony, he could not have told how many days +ago, when a devil had whispered to him, and he had gulped down the +contents of the pipkin in the morning, and for the rest of the day had +gone waterless.... Again he moistened his fingers and sucked them; then +he lay sprawling against the mast, idly watching the drops of water +as they fell. + +It was odd how the drops formed. Slowly they collected at the edge of the +tallowed collar, trembled in their fullness for an instant, and fell, +another beginning the process instantly. It amused Abel Keeling to watch +them. Why (he wondered) were all the drops the same size? What cause and +compulsion did they obey that they never varied, and what frail tenuity +held the little globules intact? It must be due to some Cause.... He +remembered that the aromatic gum of the wild frankincense with which they +had parcelled the seams had hung on the buckets in great sluggish gouts, +obedient to a different compulsion; oil was different again, and so were +juices and balsams. Only quicksilver (perhaps the heavy and motionless +sea put him in mind of quicksilver) seemed obedient to no law.... Why was +it so? + +Bligh, of course, would have had his explanation: it was the Hand of God. +That sufficed for Bligh, who had gone forward the evening before, and +whom Abel Keeling now seemed vaguely and as at a distance to remember as +the deep-voiced fanatic who had sung his hymns as, man by man, he had +committed the bodies of the ship's company to the deep. Bligh was that +sort of man; accepted things without question; was content to take things +as they were and be ready with the fenders when the wall of rock rose out +of the opalescent mists. Bligh, too, like the waterdrops, had his Law, +that was his and nobody else's.... + +There floated down from some rotten rope up aloft a flake of scurf, that +settled in the pipkin. Abel Keeling watched it dully as it settled +towards the pipkin's rim. When presently he again dipped his fingers into +the vessel the water ran into a little vortex, drawing the flake with it. +The water settled again; and again the minute flake determined towards +the rim and adhered there, as if the rim had power to draw it.... + +It was exactly so that the galleon was gliding towards the wall of rock, +the yellow and green weeds, and the monkeys and parrots. Put out into +mid-water again (while there had been men to put her out) she had glided +to the other wall. One force drew the chip in the pipkin and the ship +over the tranced sea. It was the Hand of God, said Bligh.... + +Abel Keeling, his mind now noting minute things and now clouded with +torpor, did not at first hear a voice that was quakingly lifted up +over by the forecastle--a voice that drew nearer, to an accompaniment of +swirling water. + +_"O Thou, that Jonas in the fish + Three days didst keep from pain, +Which was a figure of Thy death + And rising up again--"_ + +It was Bligh, singing one of his hymns: + +_"O Thou, that Noah keptst from flood + And Abram, day by day, +As he along through Egypt passed + Didst guide him in the way--"_ + +The voice ceased, leaving the pious period uncompleted. Bligh was alive, +at any rate.... Abel Keeling resumed his fitful musing. + +Yes, that was the Law of Bligh's life, to call things the Hand of God; +but Abel Keeling's Law was different; no better, no worse, only +different. The Hand of God, that drew chips and galleons, must work by +some method; and Abel Keeling's eyes were dully on the pipkin again as if +he sought the method there.... + +Then conscious thought left him for a space, and when he resumed it was +without obvious connection. + +Oars, of course, were the thing. With oars, men could laugh at calms. +Oars, that only pinnaces and galliasses now used, had had their +advantages. But oars (which was to say a method, for you could say if you +liked that the Hand of God grasped the oar-loom, as the Breath of God +filled the sail)--oars were antiquated, belonged to the past, and meant a +throwing-over of all that was good and new and a return to fine lines, a +battle-formation abreast to give effect to the shock of the ram, and a +day or two at sea and then to port again for provisions. Oars ... no. +Abel Keeling was one of the new men, the men who swore by the line-ahead, +the broadside fire of sakers and demi-cannon, and weeks and months +without a landfall. Perhaps one day the wits of such men as he would +devise a craft, not oar-driven (because oars could not penetrate into the +remote seas of the world)--not sail-driven (because men who trusted to +sails found themselves in an airless, three-mile strait, suspended +motionless between cloud and water, ever gliding to a wall of rock)--but +a ship ... a ship ... + +"_To Noah and his sons with him + God spake, and thus said He: +A covenant set I up with you + And your posterity_--" + +It was Bligh again, wandering somewhere in the waist. Abel Keeling's mind +was once more a blank. Then slowly, slowly, as the water drops collected +on the collar of rope, his thought took shape again. + +A galliasse? No, not a galliasse. The galliasse made shift to be two +things, and was neither. This ship, that the hand of man should one day +make for the Hand of God to manage, should be a ship that should take and +conserve the force of the wind, take it and store it as she stored her +victuals; at rest when she wished, going ahead when she wished; turning +the forces both of calm and storm against themselves. For, of course, her +force must be wind--stored wind--a bag of the winds, as the children's +tale had it--wind probably directed upon the water astern, driving it +away and urging forward the ship, acting by reaction. She would have a +wind-chamber, into which wind would be pumped with pumps.... Bligh would +call that equally the Hand of God, this driving-force of the ship of the +future that Abel Keeling dimly foreshadowed as he lay between the +mainmast and the belfry, turning his eyes now and then from ashy white +timbers to the vivid green bronze-rust of the bell above him.... + +Bligh's face, liver-coloured with the sun and ravaged from inwards by the +faith that consumed him, appeared at the head of the quarter-deck steps. +His voice beat uncontrolledly out. + +_"And in the earth here is no place + Of refuge to be found, +Nor in the deep and water-course + That passeth under ground--"_ + + +II + +Bligh's eyes were lidded, as if in contemplation of his inner ecstasy. +His head was thrown back, and his brows worked up and down tormentedly. +His wide mouth remained open as his hymn was suddenly interrupted on the +long-drawn note. From somewhere in the shimmering mists the note was +taken up, and there drummed and rang and reverberated through the strait +a windy, hoarse, and dismal bellow, alarming and sustained. A tremor rang +through Bligh. Moving like a sightless man, he stumbled forward from the +head of the quarter-deck steps, and Abel Keeling was aware of his gaunt +figure behind him, taller for the steepness of the deck. As that vast +empty sound died away, Bligh laughed in his mania. + +"Lord, hath the grave's wide mouth a tongue to praise Thee? Lo, again--" + +Again the cavernous sound possessed the air, louder and nearer. Through +it came another sound, a slow throb, throb--throb, throb--Again the +sounds ceased. + +"Even Leviathan lifteth up his voice in praise!" Bligh sobbed. + +Abel Keeling did not raise his head. There had returned to him the memory +of that day when, before the morning mists had lifted from the strait, he +had emptied the pipkin of the water that was the allowance until night +should fall again. During that agony of thirst he had seen shapes and +heard sounds with other than his mortal eyes and ears, and even in the +moments that had alternated with his lightness, when he had known these +to be hallucinations, they had come again. He had heard the bells on a +Sunday in his own Kentish home, the calling of children at play, the +unconcerned singing of men at their daily labour, and the laughter and +gossip of the women as they had spread the linen on the hedge or +distributed bread upon the platters. These voices had rung in his brain, +interrupted now and then by the groans of Bligh and of two other men who +had been alive then. Some of the voices he had heard had been silent on +earth this many a long year, but Abel Keeling, thirst-tortured, had heard +them, even as he was now hearing that vacant moaning with the +intermittent throbbing that filled the strait with alarm.... + +"Praise Him, praise Him, praise Him!" Bligh was calling deliriously. + +Then a bell seemed to sound in Abel Keeling's ears, and, as if something +in the mechanism of his brain had slipped, another picture rose in his +fancy--the scene when the _Mary of the Tower_ had put out, to a bravery +of swinging bells and shrill fifes and valiant trumpets. She had not been +a leper-white galleon then. The scroll-work on her prow had twinkled with +gilding; her belfry and stern-galleries and elaborate lanterns had +flashed in the sun with gold; and her fighting-tops and the war-pavesse +about her waist had been gay with painted coats and scutcheons. To her +sails had been stitched gaudy ramping lions of scarlet saye, and from her +mainyard, now dipping in the water, had hung the broad two-tailed pennant +with the Virgin and Child embroidered upon it.... + +Then suddenly a voice about him seemed to be saying, "_And a +half-seven--and a half-seven--_" and in a twink the picture in Abel +Keeling's brain changed again. He was at home again, instructing his son, +young Abel, in the casting of the lead from the skiff they had pulled out +of the harbour. + +"_And a half-seven!_" the boy seemed to be calling. + +Abel Keeling's blackened lips muttered: "Excellently well cast, Abel, +excellently well cast!" + +"_And a half-seven--and a half-seven--seven--seven--_" + +"Ah," Abel Keeling murmured, "that last was not a clear cast--give me the +line--thus it should go ... ay, so.... Soon you shall sail the seas with +me in the _Mary of the Tower_. You are already perfect in the stars and +the motions of the planets; to-morrow I will instruct you in the use of +the backstaff...." + +For a minute or two he continued to mutter; then he dozed. When again he +came to semi-consciousness it was once more to the sound of bells, at +first faint, then louder, and finally becoming a noisy clamour +immediately above his head. It was Bligh. Bligh, in a fresh attack of +delirium, had seized the bell-lanyard and was ringing the bell insanely. +The cord broke in his fingers, but he thrust at the bell with his hand, +and again called aloud. + +"Upon an harp and an instrument of ten strings ... let Heaven and Earth +praise Thy Name!..." + +He continued to call aloud, and to beat on the bronze-rusted bell. + +_"Ship ahoy! What ship's that?"_ + +One would have said that a veritable hail had come out of the mists; but +Abel Keeling knew those hails that came out of the mists. They came from +ships which were not there. "Ay, ay, keep a good look-out, and have a +care to your lodemanage," he muttered again to his son.... + +But, as sometimes a sleeper sits up in his dream, or rises from his couch +and walks, so all of a sudden Abel Keeling found himself on his hands and +knees on the deck, looking back over his shoulder. In some deep-seated +region of his consciousness he was dimly aware that the cant of the deck +had become more perilous, but his brain received the intelligence and +forgot it again. He was looking out into the bright and baffling mists. +The buckler of the sun was of a more ardent silver; the sea below it was +lost in brilliant evaporation; and between them, suspended in the haze, +no more substantial than the vague darknesses that float before dazzled +eyes, a pyramidal phantom-shape hung. Abel Keeling passed his hand over +his eyes, but when he removed it the shape was still there, gliding +slowly towards the _Mary's_ quarter. Its form changed as he watched it. +The spirit-grey shape that had been a pyramid seemed to dissolve into +four upright members, slightly graduated in tallness, that nearest the +_Mary's_ stern the tallest and that to the left the lowest. It might have +been the shadow of the gigantic set of reed-pipes on which that vacant +mournful note had been sounded. + +And as he looked, with fooled eyes, again his ears became fooled: + +_"Ahoy there! What ship's that? Are you a ship?... Here, give me that +trumpet--"_ Then a metallic barking. _"Ahoy there! What the devil are +you? Didn't you ring a bell? Ring it again, or blow a blast or something, +and go dead slow!"_ + +All this came, as it were, indistinctly, and through a sort of high +singing in Abel Keeling's own ears. Then he fancied a short bewildered +laugh, followed by a colloquy from somewhere between sea and sky. + +"Here, Ward, just pinch me, will you? Tell me what you see there. I want +to know if I'm awake." + +"See where?" + +"There, on the starboard bow. (Stop that ventilating fan; I can't +hear myself think.) See anything? Don't tell me it's that damned +Dutchman--don't pitch me that old Vanderdecken tale--give me an easy +one first, something about a sea-serpent.... You did hear that bell, +didn't you?" + +"Shut up a minute--listen--" + +Again Bligh's voice was lifted up. + +_"This is the cov'nant that I make: + From henceforth nevermore +Will I again the world destroy + With water, as before."_ + +Bligh's voice died away again in Abel Keeling's ears. + +"_Oh--my--fat--Aunt--Julia!_" the voice that seemed to come from between +sea and sky sounded again. Then it spoke more loudly. "_I say,_" it began +with careful politeness, "_if you are a ship, do you mind telling us +where the masquerade is to be? Our wireless is out of order, and we +hadn't heard of it.... Oh, you do see it, Ward, don't you?... Please, +please tell us what the hell you are!_" + +Again Abel Keeling had moved as a sleepwalker moves. He had raised +himself up by the belfry timbers, and Bligh had sunk in a heap on the +deck. Abel Keeling's movement overturned the pipkin, which raced the +little trickle of its contents down the deck and lodged where the still +and brimming sea made, as it were, a chain with the carved balustrade of +the quarter-deck--one link a still gleaming edge, then a dark baluster, +and then another gleaming link. For one moment only Abel Keeling found +himself noticing that that which had driven Bligh aft had been the +rising of the water in the waist as the galleon settled by the head--the +waist was now entirely submerged; then once more he was absorbed in +his dream, its voices, and its shape in the mist, which had again taken +the form of a pyramid before his eyeballs. + +"_Of course_," a voice seemed to be complaining anew, and still through +that confused dinning in Abel Keeling's ears, "_we can't turn a four-inch +on it.... And, of course, Ward, I don't believe in 'em. D'you hear, Ward? +I don't believe in 'em, I say.... Shall we call down to old A. B.? This +might interest His Scientific Skippership...._" + +"Oh, lower a boat and pull out to it--into it--over it--through it--" + +"Look at our chaps crowded on the barbette yonder. They've seen it. +Better not give an order you know won't be obeyed...." + +Abel Keeling, cramped against the antique belfry, had begun to find his +dream interesting. For, though he did not know her build, that mirage was +the shape of a ship. No doubt it was projected from his brooding on ships +of half an hour before; and that was odd.... But perhaps, after all, it +was not very odd. He knew that she did not really exist; only the +appearance of her existed; but things had to exist like that before they +really existed. Before the _Mary of the Tower_ had existed she had been a +shape in some man's imagination; before that, some dreamer had dreamed +the form of a ship with oars; and before that, far away in the dawn and +infancy of the world, some seer had seen in a vision the raft before man +had ventured to push out over the water on his two planks. And since this +shape that rode before Abel Keeling's eyes was a shape in his, Abel +Keeling's dream, he, Abel Keeling, was the master of it. His own brooding +brain had contrived her, and she was launched upon the illimitable ocean +of his own mind.... + +_"And I will not unmindful be + Of this, My covenant, passed +Twixt Me and you and every flesh + Whiles that the world should last,"_ + +sang Bligh, rapt.... + +But as a dreamer, even in his dream, will scratch upon the wall by his +couch some key or word to put him in mind of his vision on the morrow +when it has left him, so Abel Keeling found himself seeking some sign to +be a proof to those to whom no vision is vouchsafed. Even Bligh sought +that--could not be silent in his bliss, but lay on the deck there, +uttering great passionate Amens and praising his Maker, as he said, upon +an harp and an instrument of ten strings. So with Abel Keeling. It would +be the Amen of his life to have praised God, not upon a harp, but upon a +ship that should carry her own power, that should store wind or its +equivalent as she stored her victuals, that should be something wrested +from the chaos of uninvention and ordered and disciplined and +subordinated to Abel Keeling's will.... And there she was, that +ship-shaped thing of spirit-grey, with the four pipes that resembled a +phantom organ now broadside and of equal length. And the ghost-crew +of that ship were speaking again.... + +The interrupted silver chain by the quarterdeck balustrade had now become +continuous, and the balusters made a herring-bone over their own +motionless reflections. The spilt water from the pipkin had dried, and +the pipkin was not to be seen. Abel Keeling stood beside the mast, erect +as God made man to go. With his leathery hand he smote upon the bell. He +waited for the space of a minute, and then cried: + +"Ahoy!... Ship ahoy!... What ship's that?" + + +III + +We are not conscious in a dream that we are playing a game the beginning +and end of which are in ourselves. In this dream of Abel Keeling's a +voice replied: + +"_Hallo, it's found its tongue.... Ahoy there! What are you?_" + +Loudly and in a clear voice Abel Keeling called: "Are you a ship?" + +With a nervous giggle the answer came: + +"_We are a ship, aren't we, Ward? I hardly feel sure.... Yes, of course, +we're a ship. No question about us. The question is what the dickens +you are._" + +Not all the words these voices used were intelligible to Abel Keeling, +and he knew not what it was in the tone of these last words that reminded +him of the honour due to the _Mary of the Tower_. Blister-white and at +the end of her life as she was, Abel Keeling was still jealous of her +dignity; the voice had a youngish ring; and it was not fitting that young +chins should be wagged about his galleon. He spoke curtly. + +"You that spoke--are you the master of that ship?" + +"_Officer of the watch_," the words floated back; "_the captain's +below_." + +"Then send for him. It is with masters that masters hold speech," Abel +Keeling replied. + +He could see the two shapes, flat and without relief, standing on a high +narrow structure with rails. One of them gave a low whistle, and seemed +to be fanning his face; but the other rumbled something into a sort of +funnel. Presently the two shapes became three. There was a murmuring, +as of a consultation, and then suddenly a new voice spoke. At its thrill +and tone a sudden tremor ran through Abel Keeling's frame. He wondered +what response it was that that voice found in the forgotten recesses of +his memory.... + +"_Ahoy!_" seemed to call this new yet faintly remembered voice. "_What's +all this about? Listen. We're His Majesty's destroyer_ Seapink, _out of +Devonport last October, and nothing particular the matter with us. Now +who are you?_" + +"The _Mary of the Tower_, out of the Port of Rye on the day of Saint +Anne, and only two men--" + +A gasp interrupted him. + +"_Out of_ WHERE?" that voice that so strangely moved Abel Keeling said +unsteadily, while Bligh broke into groans of renewed rapture. + +"Out of the Port of Rye, in the County of Sussex ... nay, give ear, else +I cannot make you hear me while this man's spirit and flesh wrestle so +together!... Ahoy! Are you gone?" For the voices had become a low murmur, +and the ship-shape had faded before Abel Keeling's eyes. Again and again +he called. He wished to be informed of the disposition and economy of the +wind-chamber.... + +"The wind-chamber!" he called, in an agony lest the knowledge +almost within his grasp should be lost. "I would know about the +wind-chamber...." + +Like an echo, there came back the words, uncomprehendingly uttered, "_The +wind-chamber_?..." + +"... that driveth the vessel--perchance 'tis not wind--a steel bow that +is bent also conserveth force--the force you store, to move at will +through calm and storm...." + +"Can you make out what it's driving at?" + +"Oh, we shall all wake up in a minute...." + +"Quiet, I have it; the engines; it wants to know about our engines. +It'll be wanting to see our papers presently. Rye Port!... Well, no harm +in humouring it; let's see what it can make of this. Ahoy there!" came +the voice to Abel Keeling, a little more strongly, as if a shifting wind +carried it, and speaking faster and faster as it went on. "Not wind, but +steam; d'you hear? Steam, steam. Steam, in eight Yarrow water-tube +boilers. S-t-e-a-m, steam. Got it? And we've twin-screw triple expansion +engines, indicated horse-power four thousand, and we can do 430 +revolutions per minute; savvy? Is there anything your phantomhood would +like to know about our armament?..." + +Abel Keeling was muttering fretfully to himself. It annoyed him that +words in his own vision should have no meaning for him. How did words +come to him in a dream that he had no knowledge of when wide awake? The +_Seapink_--that was the name of this ship; but a pink was long and +narrow, low-carged and square-built aft.... + +"_And as for our armament,_" the voice with the tones that so profoundly +troubled Abel Keeling's memory continued, "_we've two revolving Whitehead +torpedo-tubes, three six-pounders on the upper deck, and that's a +twelve-pounder forward there by the conning-tower. I forgot to mention +that we're nickel steel, with a coal capacity of sixty tons in most +damnably placed bunkers, and that thirty and a quarter knots is about our +top. Care to come aboard?_" + +But the voice was speaking still more rapidly and feverishly, as if to +fill a silence with no matter what, and the shape that was uttering it +was straining forward anxiously over the rail. + +"_Ugh! But I'm glad this happened in the daylight,_" another voice was +muttering. + +"I wish I was sure it was happening at all.... Poor old spook!" + +"I suppose it would keep its feet if her deck was quite vertical. Think +she'll go down, or just melt?" + +"Kind of go down ... without wash...." + +"Listen--here's the other one now--" + +For Bligh was singing again: + +"For, Lord, Thou know'st our nature such + If we great things obtain, +And in the getting of the same + Do feel no grief or pain, + +"We little do esteem thereof; + But, hardly brought to pass, +A thousand times we do esteem + More than the other was." + +_"But oh, look--look--look at the other!... Oh, I say, wasn't he a grand +old boy! Look!"_ + +For, transfiguring Abel Reeling's form as a prophet's form is +transfigured in the instant of his rapture, flooding his brain with the +white eureka-light of perfect knowledge, that for which he and his dream +had been at a standstill had come. He knew her, this ship of the future, +as if God's Finger had bitten her lines into his brain. He knew her as +those already sinking into the grave know things, miraculously, +completely, accepting Life's impossibilities with a nodded "Of course." +From the ardent mouths of her eight furnaces to the last drip from her +lubricators, from her bed-plates to the breeches of her quick-firers, he +knew her--read her gauges, thumbed her bearings, gave the ranges from her +range-finders, and lived the life he lived who was in command of her. And +he would not forget on the morrow, as he had forgotten on many morrows, +for at last he had seen the water about his feet, and knew that there +would be no morrow for him in this world.... + +And even in that moment, with but a sand or two to run in his glass, +indomitable, insatiable, dreaming dream on dream, he could not die until +he knew more. He had two questions to ask, and a master-question; and but +a moment remained. Sharply his voice rang out. + +"Ho, there!... This ancient ship, the _Mary of the Tower_, cannot steam +thirty and a quarter knots, but yet she can sail the waters. What +more does your ship? Can she soar above them, as the fowls of the air +soar?" + +"_Lord, he thinks we're an aeroplane!... No, she can't...._" + +"And can you dive, even as the fishes of the deep?" + +"_No.... Those are submarines ... we aren't a submarine...._" + +But Abel Keeling waited for no more. He gave an exulting chuckle. + +"Oho, oho--thirty knots, and but on the face of the waters--no more than +that? Oho!... Now _my_ ship, the ship I see as a mother sees full-grown +the child she has but conceived--_my_ ship, I say--oho!--_my_ ship +shall.... Below there--trip that gun!" + +The cry came suddenly and alertly, as a muffled sound came from below and +an ominous tremor shook the galleon. + +"_By Jove, her guns are breaking loose below--that's her finish_--" + +"Trip that gun, and double-breech the others!" Abel Keeling's voice rang +out, as if there had been any to obey him. He had braced himself within +the belfry frame; and then in the middle of the next order his voice +suddenly failed him. His ship-shape, that for the moment he had +forgotten, rode once more before his eyes. This was the end, and his +master-question, apprehension for the answer to which was now torturing +his face and well-nigh bursting his heart, was still unasked. + +"Ho--he that spoke with me--the master," he cried in a voice that ran +high, "is he there?" + +"_Yes, yes!_" came the other voice across the water, sick with suspense. +"_Oh, be quick!_" + +There was a moment in which hoarse cries from many voices, a heavy thud +and rumble on wood, and a crash of timbers and a gurgle and a splash were +indescribably mingled; the gun under which Abel Keeling had lain had +snapped her rotten breechings and plunged down the deck, carrying Bligh's +unconscious form with it. The deck came up vertical, and for one instant +longer Abel Keeling clung to the belfry. + +"I cannot see your face," he screamed, "but meseems your voice is a voice +I know. _What is your name_?" + +In a torn sob the answer came across the water: + +"_Keeling--Abel Keeling.... Oh, my God!_" + +And Abel Keeling's cry of triumph, that mounted to a victorious "Huzza!" +was lost in the downward plunge of the _Mary of the Tower_, that left +the strait empty save for the sun's fiery blaze and the last smoke-like +evaporation of the mists. + + + + +ROOUM + + +For all I ever knew to the contrary, it was his own name; and something +about him, name or man or both, always put me in mind, I can't tell you +how, of negroes. As regards the name, I dare say it was something +huggermugger in the mere sound--something that I classed, for no +particular reason, with the dark and ignorant sort of words, such as +"Obi" and "Hoodoo." I only know that after I learned that his name was +Rooum, I couldn't for the life of me have thought of him as being called +anything else. + +The first impression that you got of his head was that it was a patchwork +of black and white--black bushy hair and short white beard, or else the +other way about. As a matter of fact, both hair and beard were piebald, +so that if you saw him in the gloom a dim patch of white showed down one +side of his head, and dark tufts cropped up here and there in his beard. +His eyebrows alone were entirely black, with a little sprouting of hair +almost joining them. And perhaps his skin helped to make me think of +negroes, for it was very dark, of the dark brown that always seems to +have more than a hint of green behind it. His forehead was low, and +scored across with deep horizontal furrows. + +We never knew when he was going to turn up on a job. We might not have +seen him for weeks, but his face was always as likely as not to appear +over the edge of a crane-platform just when that marvellous mechanical +intuition of his was badly needed. He wasn't certificated. He wasn't even +trained, as the rest of us understood training; and he scoffed at the +drawing-office, and laughed outright at logarithms and our laborious +methods of getting out quantities. But he could set sheers and tackle in +a way that made the rest of us look silly. I remember once how, through +the parting of a chain, a sixty-foot girder had come down and lay under +a ruck of other stuff, as the bottom chip lies under a pile of +spellikins--a hopeless-looking smash. Myself, I'm certificated twice or +three times over; but I can only assure you that I wanted to kick myself +when, after I'd spent a day and a sleepless night over the job, I saw the +game of tit-tat-toe that Rooum made of it in an hour or two. Certificated +or not, a man isn't a fool who can do that sort of thing. And he was +one of these fellows, too, who can "find water"--tell you where water is +and what amount of getting it is likely to take, by just walking over the +place. We aren't certificated up to that yet. + +He was offered good money to stick to us--to stick to our firm--but he +always shook his black-and-white piebald head. He'd never be able to keep +the bargain if he were to make it, he told us quite fairly. I know there +are these chaps who can't endure to be clocked to their work with a +patent time-clock in the morning and released of an evening with a +whistle--and it's one of the things no master can ever understand. So +Rooum came and went erratically, showing up maybe in Leeds or Liverpool, +perhaps next on Plymouth breakwater, and once he turned up in an +out-of-the-way place in Glamorganshire just when I was wondering what had +become of him. + +The way I got to know him (got to know him, I mean, more than just to +nod) was that he tacked himself on to me one night down Vauxhall way, +where we were setting up some small plant or other. We had knocked off +for the day, and I was walking in the direction of the bridge when he +came up. We walked along together; and we had not gone far before it +appeared that his reason for joining me was that he wanted to know "what +a molecule was." + +I stared at him a bit. + +"What do you want to know that for?" I said. "What does a chap like you, +who can do it all backwards, want with molecules?" + +Oh, he just wanted to know, he said. + +So, on the way across the bridge, I gave it him more or less from the +book--molecular theory and all the rest of it. But, from the childish +questions he put, it was plain that he hadn't got the hang of it at all. +"Did the molecular theory allow things to pass through one another?" he +wanted to know; "_Could_ things pass through one another?" and a lot of +ridiculous things like that. I gave it up. + +"You're a genius in your own way, Rooum," I said finally; "you know these +things without the books we plodders have to depend on. If I'd luck like +that, I think I should be content with it." + +But he didn't seem satisfied, though he dropped the matter for that time. +But I had his acquaintance, which was more than most of us had. He +asked me, rather timidly, if I'd lend him a book or two. I did so, but +they didn't seem to contain what he wanted to know, and he soon returned +them, without remark. + +Now you'd expect a fellow to be specially sensitive, one way or another, +who can tell when there's water a hundred feet beneath him; and as you +know, the big men are squabbling yet about this water-finding business. +But, somehow, the water-finding puzzled me less than it did that Rooum +should be extraordinarily sensitive to something far commoner and easier +to understand--ordinary echoes. He couldn't stand echoes. He'd go a +mile round rather than pass a place that he knew had an echo; and if he +came on one by chance, sometimes he'd hurry through as quick as he +could, and sometimes he'd loiter and listen very intently. I rather joked +about this at first, till I found it really distressed him; then, of +course, I pretended not to notice. We're all cranky somewhere, and for +that matter, I can't touch a spider myself. + +For the remarkable thing that overtook Rooum--(that, by the way, is an +odd way to put it, as you'll see presently; but the words came that +way into my head, so let them stand)--for the remarkable thing that +overtook Rooum, I don't think I can begin better than with the first +time, or very soon after the first time, that I noticed this peculiarity +about the echoes. + +It was early on a particularly dismal November evening, and this time we +were somewhere out south-east London way, just beyond what they are +pleased to call the building-line--you know these districts of wretched +trees and grimy fields and market-gardens that are about the same to real +country that a slum is to a town. It rained that night; rain was the most +appropriate weather for the brickfields and sewage-farms and yards of old +carts and railway-sleepers we were passing. The rain shone on the black +hand-bag that Rooum always carried; and I sucked at the dottle of a pipe +that it was too much trouble to fill and light again. We were walking in +the direction of Lewisham (I think it would be), and were still a little +way from that eruption of red-brick houses that ... but you've doubtless +seen them. + +You know how, when they're laying out new roads, they lay down the +narrow strip of kerb first, with neither setts on the one hand nor +flagstones on the other? We had come upon one of these. (I had noticed +how, as we had come a few minutes before under a tall hollow-ringing +railway arch, Rooum had all at once stopped talking--it was the echo, of +course, that bothered him.) The unmade road to which we had come had +headless lamp-standards at intervals, and ramparts of grey road-metal +ready for use; and save for the strip of kerb, it was a broth of mud +and stiff clay. A red light or two showed where the road-barriers +were--they were laying the mains; a green railway light showed on an +embankment; and the Lewisham lamps made a rusty glare through the rain. +Rooum went first, walking along the narrow strip of kerb. + +The lamp-standards were a little difficult to see, and when I heard Rooum +stop suddenly and draw in his breath sharply, I thought he had walked +into one of them. + +"Hurt yourself?" I said. + +He walked on without replying; but half a dozen yards farther on he +stopped again. He was listening again. He waited for me to come up. + +"I say," he said, in an odd sort of voice, "go a yard or two ahead, will +you?" + +"What's the matter?" I asked, as I passed ahead. He didn't answer. + +Well, I hadn't been leading for more than a minute before he wanted to +change again. He was breathing very quick and short. + +"Why, what ails you?" I demanded, stopping. + +"It's all right.... You're not playing any tricks, are you?..." + +I saw him pass his hand over his brow. + +"Come, get on," I said shortly; and we didn't speak again till we struck +the pavement with the lighted lamps. Then I happened to glance at him. + +"Here," I said brusquely, taking him by the sleeve, "you're not well. +We'll call somewhere and get a drink." + +"Yes," he said, again wiping his brow. "I say ... did you hear?" + +"Hear what?" + +"Ah, you didn't ... and, of course, you didn't feel anything...." + +"Come, you're shaking." + +When presently we came to a brightly lighted public-house or hotel, I saw +that he was shaking even worse than I had thought. The shirt-sleeved +barman noticed it too, and watched us curiously. I made Rooum sit down, +and got him some brandy. + +"What was the matter?" I asked, as I held the glass to his lips. + +But I could get nothing out of him except that it was "All right--all +right," with his head twitching over his shoulder almost as if he had +touch of the dance. He began to come round a little. He wasn't the kind +of man you'd press for explanations, and presently we set out again. +He walked with me as far as my lodgings, refused to come in, but for all +that lingered at the gate as if loath to leave. I watched him turn the +corner in the rain. + +We came home together again the next evening, but by a different way, +quite half a mile longer. He had waited for me a little pertinaciously. +It seemed he wanted to talk about molecules again. + +Well, when a man of his age--he'd be near fifty--begins to ask questions, +he's rather worse than a child who wants to know where Heaven is or some +such thing--for you can't put him off as you can the child. Somewhere or +other he'd picked up the word "osmosis," and seemed to have some +glimmering of its meaning. He dropped the molecules, and began to ask me +about osmosis. + +"It means, doesn't it," he demanded, "that liquids will work their way +into one another--through a bladder or something? Say a thick fluid and a +thin: you'll find some of the thick in the thin, and the thin in the +thick?" + +"Yes. The thick into the thin is ex-osmosis, and the other end-osmosis. +That takes place more quickly. But I don't know a deal about it." + +"Does it ever take place with solids?" he next asked. + +What was he driving at? I thought; but replied: "I believe that what is +commonly called 'adhesion' is something of the sort, under another name." + +"A good deal of this bookwork seems to be finding a dozen names for the +same thing," he grunted; and continued to ask his questions. + +But what it was he really wanted to know I couldn't for the life of me +make out. + +Well, he was due any time now to disappear again, having worked quite six +weeks in one place; and he disappeared. He disappeared for a good many +weeks. I think it would be about February before I saw or heard of him +again. + +It was February weather, anyway, and in an echoing enough place that I +found him--the subway of one of the Metropolitan stations. He'd probably +forgotten the echoes when he'd taken the train; but, of course, the +railway folk won't let a man who happens to dislike echoes go wandering +across the metals where he likes. + +He was twenty yards ahead when I saw him. I recognised him by his patched +head and black hand-bag. I ran along the subway after him. + +It was very curious. He'd been walking close to the white-tiled wall, +and I saw him suddenly stop; but he didn't turn. He didn't even turn +when I pulled up, close behind him; he put out one hand to the wall, as +if to steady himself. But, the moment I touched his shoulder, he just +dropped--just dropped, half on his knees against the white tiling. The +face he turned round and up to me was transfixed with fright. + +There were half a hundred people about--a train was just in--and it isn't +a difficult matter in London to get a crowd for much less than a man +crouching terrified against a wall, looking over his shoulder as Rooum +looked, at another man almost as terrified. I felt somebody's hand on +my own arm. Evidently somebody thought I'd knocked Rooum down. + +The terror went slowly from his face. He stumbled to his feet. I shook +myself free of the man who held me and stepped up to Rooum. + +"What the devil's all this about?" I demanded, roughly enough. + +"It's all right ... it's all right,..." he stammered. + +"Heavens, man, you shouldn't play tricks like that!" + +"No ... no ... but for the love of God don't do it again!..." + +"We'll not explain here," I said, still in a good deal of a huff; and +the small crowd melted away--disappointed, I dare say, that it wasn't +a fight. + +"Now," I said, when we were outside in the crowded street, "you might let +me know what all this is about, and what it is that for the love of +God I'm not to do again." + +He was half apologetic, but at the same time half blustering, as if I had +committed some sort of an outrage. + +"A senseless thing like that!" he mumbled to himself. "But there: you +didn't know.... You _don't_ know, do you?... I tell you, d'you hear, +_you're not to run at all when I'm about_! You're a nice fellow and all +that, and get your quantities somewhere near right, if you do go a long +way round to do it--but I'll not answer for myself if you run, d'you +hear?... Putting your hand on a man's shoulder like that, just when ..." + +"Certainly I might have spoken," I agreed, a little stiffly. + +"Of course, you ought to have spoken! Just you see you don't do it again. +It's monstrous!" + +I put a curt question. + +"Are you sure you're quite right in your head, Rooum?" + +"Ah," he cried, "don't you think I just fancy it, my lad! Nothing so +easy! I thought you guessed that other time, on the new road ... it's as +plain as a pikestaff... no, no, no! _I_ shall be telling _you_ something +about molecules one of these days!" + +We walked for a time in silence. + +Suddenly he asked: "What are you doing now?" + +"I myself, do you mean? Oh, the firm. A railway job, past Pinner. +But we've a big contract coming on in the West End soon they might +want you for. They call it 'alterations,' but it's one of these big +shop-rebuildings." + +"I'll come along." + +"Oh, it isn't for a month or two yet." + +"I don't mean that. I mean I'll come along to Pinner with you now, +to-night, or whenever you go." + +"Oh!" I said. + +I don't know that I specially wanted him. It's a little wearing, the +company of a chap like that. You never know what he's going to let you in +for next. But, as this didn't seem to occur to him, I didn't say +anything. If he really liked catching the last train down, a three-mile +walk, and then sharing a double-bedded room at a poor sort of alehouse +(which was my own programme), he was welcome. We walked a little farther; +then I told him the time of the train and left him. + +He turned up at Euston, a little after twelve. We went down together. It +was getting on for one when we left the station at the other end, and +then we began the tramp across the Weald to the inn. A little to my +surprise (for I had begun to expect unaccountable behaviour from him) we +reached the inn without Rooum having dodged about changing places with +me, or having fallen cowering under a gorse-bush, or anything of +that kind. Our talk, too, was about work, not molecules and osmosis. + +The inn was only a roadside beerhouse--I have forgotten its name--and all +its sleeping accomodation was the one double-bedded room. Over the head +of my own bed the ceiling was cut away, following the roof-line; and the +wallpaper was perfectly shocking--faded bouquets that made V's and A's, +interlacing everywhere. The other bed was made up, and lay across the +room. + +I think I only spoke once while we were making ready for bed, and that +was when Rooum took from his black hand-bag a brush and a torn nightgown. + +"That's what you always carry about, is it?" I remarked; and Rooum +grunted something: Yes ... never knew where you'd be next ... no harm, +was it? We tumbled into bed. + +But, for all the lateness of the hour, I wasn't sleepy; so from my own +bag I took a book, set the candle on the end of the mantel, and began +to read. Mark you, I don't say I was much better informed for the reading +I did, for I was watching the V's on the wallpaper mostly--that, and +wondering what was wrong with the man in the other bed who had fallen +down at a touch in the subway. He was already asleep. + +Now I don't know whether I can make the next clear to you. I'm quite +certain he was sound asleep, so that it wasn't just the fact that he +spoke. Even that is a little unpleasant, I always think, any sort of +sleep-talking; but it's a very queer sort of sensation when a man +actually answers a question that's put to him, knowing nothing whatever +about it in the morning. Perhaps I ought not to have put that question; +having put it, I did the next best thing afterwards, as you'll see in a +moment ... but let me tell you. + +He'd been asleep perhaps an hour, and I woolgathering about the +wallpaper, when suddenly, in a far more clear and loud voice than he ever +used when awake, he said: + +_"What the devil is it prevents me seeing him, then?"_ + +That startled me, rather, for the second time that evening; and I really +think I had spoken before I had fully realised what was happening. + +"From seeing whom?" I said, sitting up in bed. + +"Whom?... You're not attending. The fellow I'm telling you about, who +runs after me," he answered--answered perfectly plainly. + +I could see his head there on the pillow, black and white, and his +eyes were closed. He made a slight movement with his arm, but that did +not wake him. Then it came to me, with a sort of start, what was +happening. I slipped half out of bed. Would he--would he?--answer +another question?... I risked it, breathlessly: + +"Have you any idea who he is?" + +Well, that too he answered. + +"Who he is? The Runner?... Don't be silly. _Who else should it be?_" + +With every nerve in me tingling, I tried again. + +"What happens, then, when he catches you?" + +This time, I really don't know whether his words were an answer or not; +they were these: + +"To hear him catching you up ... and then padding away ahead again! All +right, all right ... but I guess it's weakening him a bit, too...." + +Without noticing it, I had got out of bed, and had advanced quite to the +middle of the floor. + +"What did you say his name was?" I breathed. + +But that was a dead failure. He muttered brokenly for a moment, gave a +deep troubled sigh, and then began to snore loudly and regularly. + +I made my way back to bed; but I assure you that before I did so I filled +my basin with water, dipped my face into it, and then set the candlestick +afloat in it, leaving the candle burning. I thought I'd like to have a +light.... It had burned down by morning. Rooum, I remember, remarked on +the silly practice of reading in bed. + +Well, it was a pretty kind of obsession for a man to have, wasn't it? +Somebody running after him all the time, and then ... running on ahead? +And, of course, on a broad pavement there would be plenty of room for +this running gentleman to run round; but on an eight- or nine-inch kerb, +such as that of the new road out Lewisham way ... but perhaps he was a +jumping gentleman too, and could jump over a man's head. You'd think he'd +have to get past some way, wouldn't you?... I remember vaguely wondering +whether the name of that Runner was not Conscience; but Conscience isn't +a matter of molecules and osmosis.... + +One thing, however, was clear; I'd got to tell Rooum what I'd learned: +for you can't get hold of a fellow's secrets in ways like that. I lost +no time about it. I told him, in fact, soon after we'd left the inn the +next morning--told him how he'd answered in his sleep. + +And--what do you think of this?--he seemed to think I ought to have +guessed it! _Guessed_ a monstrous thing like that! + +"You're less clever than I thought, with your books and that, if you +didn't," he grunted. + +"But ... Good God, man!" + +"Queer, isn't it? But you don't know the queerest ..." + +He pondered for a moment, and then suddenly put his lips to my ear. + +"I'll tell you," he whispered. "_It gets harder every time_!... At first, +he just slipped through: a bit of a catch at my heart, like when you nod +off to sleep in a chair and jerk up awake again; and away he went. But +now it's getting grinding, sluggish; and the pain.... You'd notice, that +night on the road, the little check it gave me; that's past long since; +and last night, when I'd just braced myself up stiff to meet it, and you +tapped me on the shoulder ..." He passed the back of his hand over his +brow. + +"I tell you," he continued, "it's an agony each time. I could scream at +the thought of it. It's oftener, too, now, and he's getting stronger. The +end-osmosis is getting to be ex-osmosis--is that right? Just let me tell +you one more thing--" + +But I'd had enough. I'd asked questions the night before, but now--well, +I knew quite as much as, and more than, I wanted. + +"Stop, please," I said. "You're either off your head, or worse. Let's +call it the first. Don't tell me any more, please." + +"Frightened, what? Well, I don't blame you. But what would _you_ do?" + +"I should see a doctor; I'm only an engineer," I replied. + +"Doctors?... Bah!" he said, and spat. + +I hope you see how the matter stood with Rooum. What do you make of it? +Could you have believed it--_do_ you believe it?... He'd made a nearish +guess when he'd said that much of our knowledge is giving names to things +we know nothing about; only rule-of-thumb Physics thinks everything's +explained in the Manual; and you've always got to remember one thing: +You can call it Force or what you like, but it's a certainty that things, +solid things of wood and iron and stone, would explode, just go off in a +puff into space, if it wasn't for something just as inexplicable as that +that Rooum said he felt in his own person. And if you can swallow that, +it's a relatively small matter whether Rooum's light-footed Familiar +slipped through him unperceived, or had to struggle through obstinately. +You see now why I said that "a queer thing overtook Rooum." + +More: I saw it. This thing, that outrages reason--I saw it happen. That +is to say, I saw its effects, and it was in broad daylight, on an +ordinary afternoon, in the middle of Oxford Street, of all places. There +wasn't a shadow of doubt about it. People were pressing and jostling +about him, and suddenly I saw him turn his head and listen, as I'd seen +him before. I tell you, an icy creeping ran all over my skin. I fancied I +felt it approaching too, nearer and nearer.... The next moment he had +made a sort of gathering of himself, as if against a gust. He stumbled +and thrust--thrust with his body. He swayed, physically, as a tree sways +in a wind; he clutched my arm and gave a loud scream. Then, after +seconds--minutes--I don't know how long--he was free again. + +And for the colour of his face when by-and-by I glanced at it ... well, I +once saw a swarthy Italian fall under a sunstroke, and _his_ face was +much the same colour that Rooum's negro face had gone; a cloudy, whitish +green. + +"Well--you've seen it--what do you think of it?" he gasped presently, +turning a ghastly grin on me. + +But it was night before the full horror of it had soaked into me. + +Soon after that he disappeared again. I wasn't sorry. + + * * * * * + +Our big contract in the West End came on. It was a time-contract, with +all manner of penalty clauses if we didn't get through; and I assure +you that we were busy. I myself was far too busy to think of Rooum. + +It's a shop now, the place we were working at, or rather one of these +huge weldings of fifty shops where you can buy anything; and if you'd +seen us there... but perhaps you did see us, for people stood up on the +tops of omnibuses as they passed, to look over the mud-splashed hoarding +into the great excavation we'd made. It was a sight. Staging rose on +staging, tier on tier, with interminable ladders all over the steel +structure. Three or four squat Otis lifts crouched like iron turtles on +top, and a lattice-crane on a towering three-cornered platform rose a +hundred and twenty feet into the air. At one end of the vast quarry +was a demolished house, showing flues and fireplaces and a score of +thicknesses of old wallpaper; and at night--they might well have stood up +on the tops of the buses! A dozen great spluttering violet arc-lights +half-blinded you; down below were the watchmen's fires; overhead, the +riveters had their fire-baskets; and in odd corners naphtha-lights +guttered and flared. And the steel rang with the riveters' hammers, and +the crane-chains rattled and clashed.... There's not much doubt in _my_ +mind, it's the engineers who are the architects nowadays. The chaps who +think they're the architects are only a sort of paperhangers, who hang +brick and terra-cotta on our work and clap a pinnacle or two on top--but +never mind that. There we were, sweating and clanging and navvying, till +the day shift came to relieve us. + +And I ought to say that fifty feet above our great gap, and from end to +end across it, there ran a travelling crane on a skeleton line, with +platform, engine, and wooden cab all compact in one. + +It happened that they had pitched in as one of the foremen some fellow or +other, a friend of the firm's, a rank duffer, who pestered me incessantly +with his questions. I did half his work and all my own, and it hadn't +improved my temper much. On this night that I'm telling about, he'd been +playing the fool with his questions as if a time-contract was a sort of +summer holiday; and he'd filled me up to that point that I really can't +say just when it was that Rooum put in an appearance again. I think I had +heard somebody mention his name, but I'd paid no attention. + +Well, our Johnnie Fresh came up to me for the twentieth time that night, +this time wanting to know something about the overhead crane. At that +I fairly lost my temper. + +"What ails the crane?" I cried. "It's doing its work, isn't it? Isn't +everybody doing their work except you? Why can't you ask Hopkins? Isn't +Hopkins there?" + +"I don't know," he said. + +"Then," I snapped, "in that particular I'm as ignorant as you, and I hope +it's the only one." + +But he grabbed my arm. + +"Look at it now!" he cried, pointing; and I looked up. + +Either Hopkins or somebody was dangerously exceeding the speed-limit. The +thing was flying along its thirty yards of rail as fast as a tram, and +the heavy fall-blocks swung like a ponderous kite-tail, thirty feet +below. As I watched, the engine brought up within a yard of the end of +the way, the blocks crashed like a ram into the broken house end, +fetching down plaster and brick, and then the mechanism was reversed. The +crane set off at a tear back. + +"Who in Hell ..." I began; but it wasn't a time to talk. "_Hi!_" I +yelled, and made a spring for a ladder. + +The others had noticed it, too, for there were shouts all over the place. +By that time I was halfway up the second stage. Again the crane tore +past, with the massive tackle sweeping behind it, and again I heard the +crash at the other end. Whoever had the handling of it was managing +it skilfully, for there was barely a foot to spare when it turned again. + +On the fourth platform, at the end of the way, I found Hopkins. He was +white, and seemed to be counting on his fingers. + +"What's the matter here?" I cried. + +"It's Rooum," he answered. "I hadn't stepped out of the cab, not a +minute, when I heard the lever go. He's running somebody down, he says; +he'll run the whole shoot down in a minute--look!..." + +The crane was coming back again. Half out of the cab I could see Rooum's +mottled hair and beard. His brow was ribbed like a gridiron, and as he +ripped past one of the arcs his face shone like porcelain with the sweat +that bathed it. + +"Now ... you!... Now, damn you!..." he was shouting. + +"Get ready to board him when he reverses!" I shouted to Hopkins. + +Just how we scrambled on I don't know. I got one arm over the +lifting-gear (which, of course, wasn't going), and heard Hopkins on +the other footplate. Rooum put the brakes down and reversed; again came +the thud of the fall-blocks; and we were speeding back again over the +gulf of misty orange light. The stagings were thronged with gaping men. + +"Ready? Now!" I cried to Hopkins; and we sprang into the cab. + +Hopkins hit Rooum's wrist with a spanner. Then he seized the lever, +jammed the brake down and tripped Rooum, all, as it seemed, in one +movement. I fell on top of Rooum. The crane came to a standstill +half-way down the line. I held Rooum panting. + +But either Rooum was stronger than I, or else he took me very much +unawares. All at once he twisted clear from my grasp and stumbled on his +knees to the rear door of the cab. He threw up one elbow, and staggered +to his feet as I made another clutch at him. + +"Keep still, you fool!" I bawled. "Hit him over the head, Hopkins!" + +Rooum screamed in a high voice. + +"Run him down--cut him up with the wheels--down, you!--down, I say!--Oh, +my God!... _Ha_!" + +He sprang clear out from the crane door, well-nigh taking me with him. + +I told you it was a skeleton line, two rails and a tie or two. He'd +actually jumped to the right-hand rail. And he was running along +it--running along that iron tightrope, out over that well of light and +watching men. Hopkins had started the travelling-gear, as if with some +insane idea of catching him; but there was only one possible end to it. +He'd gone fully a dozen yards, while I watched, horribly fascinated; and +then I saw the turn of his head.... + +He didn't meet it this time; he sprang to the other rail, as if to evade +it.... + +Even at the take-off he missed. As far as I could see, he made no attempt +to save himself with his hands. He just went down out of the field of +my vision. There was an awful silence; then, from far below ... + + * * * * * + +They weren't the men on the lower stages who moved first. The men above +went a little way down, and then they too stopped. Presently two of them +descended, but by a distant way. They returned, with two bottles of +brandy, and there was a hasty consultation. Two men drank the brandy off +there and then--getting on for a pint of brandy apiece; then they went +down, drunk. + +I, Hopkins tells me, had got down on my knees in the crane cab, and was +jabbering away cheerfully to myself. When I asked him what I said, +he hesitated, and then said: "Oh, you don't want to know that, sir," and +I haven't asked him since. + +What do _you_ make of it? + + + + +BENLIAN + + +I + +It would be different if you had known Benlian. It would be different if +you had had even that glimpse of him that I had the very first time I saw +him, standing on the little wooden landing at the top of the flight of +steps outside my studio door. I say "studio"; but really it was just a +sort of loft looking out over the timber-yard, and I used it as a studio. +The real studio, the big one, was at the other end of the yard, and that +was Benlian's. + +Scarcely anybody ever came there. I wondered many a time if the +timber-merchant was dead or had lost his memory and forgotten all about +his business; for his stacks of floorboards, set criss-crosswise to +season (you know how they pile them up) were grimy with soot, and nobody +ever disturbed the rows of scaffold-poles that stood like palisades along +the walls. The entrance was from the street, through a door in a +billposter's hoarding; and on the river not far away the steamboats +hooted, and, in windy weather, the floorboards hummed to keep them +company. + +I suppose some of these real, regular artists wouldn't have called me an +artist at all; for I only painted miniatures, and it was trade-work at +that, copied from photographs and so on. Not that I wasn't jolly good at +it, and punctual too (lots of these high-flown artists have simply no +idea of punctuality); and the loft was cheap, and suited me very well. +But, of course, a sculptor wants a big place on the ground floor; it's +slow work, that with blocks of stone and marble that cost you twenty +pounds every time you lift them; so Benlian had the studio. His name was +on a plate on the door, but I'd never seen him till this time I'm telling +you of. + +I was working that evening at one of the prettiest little things I'd ever +done: a girl's head on ivory, that I'd stippled up just like ... oh, +you'd never have thought it was done by hand at all. The daylight had +gone, but I knew that "Prussian" would be about the colour for the eyes +and the bunch of flowers at her breast, and I wanted to finish. + +I was working at my little table, with a shade over my eyes; and I jumped +a bit when somebody knocked at the door--not having heard anybody come up +the steps, and not having many visitors anyway. (Letters were always put +into the box in the yard door.) + +When I opened the door, there he stood on the platform; and I gave a bit +of a start, having come straight from my ivory, you see. He was one of +these very tall, gaunt chaps, that make us little fellows feel even +smaller than we are; and I wondered at first where his eyes were, they +were set so deep in the dark caves on either side of his nose. Like a +skull, his head was; I could fancy his teeth curving round inside his +cheeks; and his zygomatics stuck up under his skin like razorbacks (but +if you're not one of us artists you'll not understand that). A bit of +smoky, greenish sky showed behind him; and then, as his eyes moved in +their big pits, one of them caught the light of my lamp and flashed like +a well of lustre. + +He spoke abruptly, in a deep, shaky sort of voice. + +"I want you to photograph me in the morning," he said. I supposed he'd +seen my printing-frames out on the window-sash some time or other. + +"Come in," I said. "But I'm afraid, if it's a miniature you want, that +I'm retained--my firm retains me--you'd have to do it through them. But +come in, and I'll show you the kind of thing I do--though you ought to +have come in the daylight ..." + +He came in. He was wearing a long, grey dressing-gown that came right +down to his heels and made him look something like a Noah's-ark figure. +Seen in the light, his face seemed more ghastly bony still; and as he +glanced for a moment at my little ivory he made a sound of contempt--I +know it was contempt. I thought it rather cheek, coming into my place +and-- + +He turned his cavernous eyeholes on me. + +"I don't want anything of that sort. I want you to photograph me. I'll be +here at ten in the morning." + +So, just to show him that I wasn't to be treated that way, I said, quite +shortly, "I can't. I've an appointment at ten o'clock." + +"What's that?" he said--he'd one of these rich deep voices that always +sound consumptive. + +"Take that thing off your eyes, and look at me," he ordered. + +Well, I was awfully indignant. + +"If you think I'm going to be told to do things like this--" I began. + +"Take that thing off," he just ordered again. + +I've got to remember, of course, that you didn't know Benlian. _I_ didn't +then. And for a chap just to stalk into a fellow's place, and tell him to +photograph him, and order him about ... but you'll see in a minute. I +took the shade off my eyes, just to show him that _I_ could browbeat a +bit too. + +I used to have a tall strip of looking-glass leaning against my wall; for +though I didn't use models much, it's awfully useful to go to Nature for +odd bits now and then, and I've sketched myself in that glass, oh, +hundreds of times! We must have been standing in front of it, for all at +once I saw the eyes at the bottom of his pits looking rigidly over my +shoulder. Without moving his eyes from the glass, and scarcely moving his +lips, he muttered: + +"Get me a pair of gloves, get me a pair of gloves." + +It was a funny thing to ask for; but I got him a pair of my gloves from a +drawer. His hands were shaking so that he could hardly get them on, and +there was a little glistening of sweat on his face, that looked like the +salt that dries on you when you've been bathing in the sea. Then I +turned, to see what it was that he was looking so earnestly and +profoundly at in the mirror. I saw nothing except just the pair of us, he +with my gloves on. + +He stepped aside, and slowly drew the gloves off. I think _I_ could have +bullied _him_ just then. He turned to me. + +"Did that look all right to you?" he asked. + +"Why, my dear chap, whatever ails you?" I cried. + +"I suppose," he went on, "you couldn't photograph me to-night--now?" + +I could have done, with magnesium, but I hadn't a scrap in the place. I +told him so. He was looking round my studio. He saw my camera standing in +a corner. + +"Ah!" he said. + +He made a stride towards it. He unscrewed the lens, brought it to the +lamp, and peered attentively through it, now into the air, now at his +sleeve and hand, as if looking for a flaw in it. Then he replaced it, and +pulled up the collar of his dressing-gown as if he was cold. + +"Well, another night of it," he muttered; "but," he added, facing +suddenly round on me, "if your appointment was to meet your God Himself, +you must photograph me at ten to-morrow morning!" + +"All right," I said, giving in (for he seemed horribly ill). "Draw up to +the stove and have a drink of something and a smoke." + +"I neither drink nor smoke," he replied, moving towards the door. + +"Sit down and have a chat, then," I urged; for I always like to be decent +with fellows, and it was a lonely sort of place, that yard. + +He shook his head. + +"Be ready by ten o'clock in the morning," he said; and he passed down my +stairs and crossed the yard to his studio without even having said "Good +night." + +Well, he was at my door again at ten o'clock in the morning, and I +photographed him. I made three exposures; but the plates were some that +I'd had in the place for some time, and they'd gone off and fogged in the +developing. + +"I'm awfully sorry," I said; "but I'm going out this afternoon, and will +get some more, and we'll have another shot in the morning." + +One after the other, he was holding the negatives up to the light and +examining them. Presently he put them down quietly, leaning them +methodically up against the edge of the developing-bath. + +"Never mind. It doesn't matter. Thank you," he said; and left me. + +After that, I didn't see him for weeks; but at nights I could see the +light of his roof-window, shining through the wreathing river-mists, and +sometimes I heard him moving about, and the muffled knock-knocking of his +hammer on marble. + + +II + +Of course I did see him again, or I shouldn't be telling you all this. He +came to my door, just as he had done before, and at about the same time +in the evening. He hadn't come to be photographed this time, but for all +that it was something about a camera--something he wanted to know. He'd +brought two books with him, big books, printed in German. They were on +Light, he said, and Physics (or else it was Psychics--I always get those +two words wrong). They were full of diagrams and equations and figures; +and, of course, it was all miles above my head. + +He talked a lot about "hyper-space," whatever that is; and at first I +nodded, as if I knew all about it. But he very soon saw that I didn't, +and he came down to my level again. What he'd come to ask me was this: +Did I know anything, of my own experience, about things "photographing +through"? (You know the kind of thing: a name that's been painted out on +a board, say, comes up in the plate.) + +Well, as it happened, I _had_ once photographed a drawing for a fellow, +and the easel I had stood it on had come up through the picture; and I +knew by the way Benlian nodded that that was the kind of thing he meant. + +"More," he said. + +I told him I'd once seen a photograph of a man with a bowler hat on, and +the shape of his crown had showed through the hat. + +"Yes, yes," he said, musing; and then he asked: "Have you ever heard of +things not photographing at all?" + +But I couldn't tell him anything about that; and off he started again, +about Light and Physics and so on. Then, as soon as I could get a word +in, I said, "But, of course, the camera isn't Art." (Some of my +miniatures, you understand, were jolly nice little things.) + +"No--no," he murmured absently; and then abruptly he said: "Eh? What's +that? And what the devil do _you_ know about it?" + +"Well," said I, in a dignified sort of way, "considering that for ten +years I've been--" + +"Chut!... Hold your tongue," he said, turning away. + +There he was, talking to me again, just as if I'd asked him in to bully +me. But you've got to be decent to a fellow when he's in your own place; +and by-and-by I asked him, but in a cold, off-hand sort of way, how his +own work was going on. He turned to me again. + +"Would you like to see it?" he asked. + +"_Aha_!" thought I, "he's got to a sticking-point with his work! It's all +very well," I thought, "for you to sniff at my miniatures, my friend, but +we all get stale on our work sometimes, and the fresh eye, even of a +miniature-painter ..." + +"I shall be glad if I can be of any help to you," I answered, still a bit +huffish, but bearing no malice. + +"Then come," he said. + +We descended and crossed the timber-yard, and he held his door open for +me to pass in. + +It was an enormous great place, his studio, and all full of mist; and the +gallery that was his bedroom was up a little staircase at the farther +end. In the middle of the floor was a tall structure of scaffolding, with +a stage or two to stand on; and I could see the dim ghostly marble figure +in the gloom. It had been jacked up on a heavy base; and as it would have +taken three or four men to put it into position, and scarcely a stranger +had entered the yard since I had been there, I knew that the figure must +have stood for a long time. Sculpture's weary, slow work. + +Benlian was pottering about with a taper at the end of a long rod; and +suddenly the overhead gas-ring burst into light. I placed myself before +the statue--to criticise, you know. + +Well, it didn't seem to me that he needed to have turned up his nose at +my ivories, for I didn't think much of his statue--except that it was a +great, lumping, extraordinary piece of work. It had an outstretched arm +that, I remember thinking, was absolutely misshapen--disproportioned, +big enough for a giant, ridiculously out of drawing. And as I looked at +the thing this way and that, I knew that his eyes in their deep cellars +never left my face for a moment. + +"It's a god," he said by-and-by. + +Then I began to tell him about that monstrous arm; but he cut me very +short. + +"I say it's a god," he interrupted, looking at me as if he would have +eaten me. "Even you, child as you are, have seen the gods men have made +for themselves before this. Half-gods they've made, all good or all evil +(and then they've called them the Devil). This is _my_ god--the god of +good and of evil also." + +"Er--I see," I said, rather taken aback (but quite sure he was off his +head for all that). Then I looked at the arm again; a child could have +seen how wrong it was.... + +But suddenly, to my amazement, he took me by the shoulders and turned me +away. + +"That'll do," he said curtly. "I didn't ask you to come in here with a +view to learning anything from you. I wanted to see how it struck you. I +shall send for you again--and again--" + +Then he began to jabber, half to himself. + +"Bah!" he muttered. "'Is that all?' they ask before a stupendous thing. +Show them the ocean, the heavens, infinity, and they ask, 'Is that all?' +If they saw their God face to face they'd ask it!... There's only one +Cause, that works now in good and now in evil, but show It to them and +they put their heads on one side and begin to appraise and patronise +It!... I tell you, what's seen at a glance flies away at a glance. Gods +come slowly over you, but presently, ah! they begin to grip you, and at +the end there's no fleeing from them! You'll tell me more about my statue +by-and-by!... What was that you said?" he demanded, facing swiftly round +on me. "That arm? Ah, yes; but we'll see what you say about that arm six +months from now! Yes, the arm.... Now be off!" he ordered me. "I'll send +for you again when I want you!" + +He thrust me out. + +"An asylum, Mr. Benlian," I thought as I crossed the yard, "is the place +for you!" You see, I didn't know him then, and that he wasn't to be +judged as an ordinary man is. Just you wait till you see.... + +And straight away, I found myself vowing that I'd have nothing more to do +with him. I found myself resolving that, as if I were making up my mind +not to smoke or drink--and (I don't know why) with a similar sense that I +was depriving myself of something. But, somehow, I forgot, and within a +month he'd been in several times to see me, and once or twice had fetched +me in to see his statue. + +In two months I was in an extraordinary state of mind about him. I was +familiar with him in a way, but at the same time I didn't know one scrap +more about him. Because I'm a fool (oh, yes, I know quite well, now, what +I am) you'll think I'm talking folly if I even begin to tell you what +sort of a man he was. I don't mean just his knowledge (though I think he +knew everything--sciences, languages, and all that) for it was far more +than that. Somehow, when he was there, he had me all restless and uneasy; +and when he wasn't there I was (there's only the one word for it) +jealous--as jealous as if he'd been a girl! Even yet I can't make it +out.... + +And he knew how unsettled he'd got me; and I'll tell you how I found that +out. + +Straight out one night, when he was sitting up in my place, he asked me: +"Do you like me, Pudgie?" (I forgot to say that I'd told him they used to +call me Pudgie at home, because I was little and fat; it was odd, the +number of things I told him that I wouldn't have told anybody else.) + +"Do you like me, Pudgie?" he said. + +As for my answer, I don't know how it spurted out. I was much more +surprised than he was, for I really didn't intend it. It was for all the +world as if somebody else was talking with my mouth. + +"_I loathe and adore you!_" it came; and then I looked round, awfully +startled to hear myself saying that. + +But he didn't look at me. He only nodded. + +"Yes. Of good and evil too--" he muttered to himself. And then all of a +sudden he got up and went out. + +I didn't sleep for ever so long after that, thinking how odd it was I +should have said that. + +Well (to get on), after that something I couldn't account for began to +come over me sometimes as I worked. It began to come over me, without any +warning, that he was thinking of me down there across the yard. I used to +_know_ (this must sound awfully silly to you) that he was down yonder, +thinking of me and doing something to me. And one night I was so sure +that it wasn't fancy that I jumped straight up from my work, and I'm not +quite sure what happened then, until I found myself in his studio, just +as if I'd walked there in my sleep. + +And he seemed to be waiting for me, for there was a chair by his own, in +front of the statue. + +"What is it, Benlian?" I burst out. + +"Ah!" he said.... "Well, it's about that arm, Pudgie; I want you to tell +me about the arm. Does it look so strange as it did?" + +"No," I said. + +"I thought it wouldn't," he observed. "But I haven't touched it, +Pudgie--" + +So I stayed the evening there. + +But you must not think he was always doing that thing--whatever it +was--to me. On the other hand, I sometimes felt the oddest sort of +release (I don't know how else to put it) ... like when, on one of these +muggy, earthy-smelling days, when everything's melancholy, the wind +freshens up suddenly and you breathe again. And that (I'm trying to take +it in order, you see, so that it will be plain to you) brings me to the +time I found out that _he_ did that too, and knew when he was doing it. + +I'd gone into his place one night to have a look at his statue. It was +surprising what a lot I was finding out about that statue. It was still +all out of proportion (that is to say, I knew it must be--remembered I'd +thought so--though it didn't annoy me now quite so much. I suppose I'd +lost _my_ fresh eye by that time). Somehow, too, my own miniatures had +begun to look a bit kiddish; they made me impatient; and that's horrible, +to be discontented with things that once seemed jolly good to you. + +Well, he'd been looking at me in the hungriest sort of way, and I looking +at the statue, when all at once that feeling of release and lightness +came over me. The first I knew of it was that I found myself thinking of +some rather important letters my firm had written to me, wanting to know +when a job I was doing was going to be finished. I thought myself it was +time I got it finished; I thought I'd better set about it at once; and I +sat suddenly up in my chair, as if I'd just come out of a sleep. And, +looking at the statue, I saw it as it had seemed at first--all misshapen +and out of drawing. + +The very next moment, as I was rising, I sat down again as suddenly as if +somebody had pulled me back. + +Now a chap doesn't like to be changed about like that; so, without +looking at Benlian, I muttered a bit testily, "Don't, Benlian!" + +Then I heard him get up and knock his chair away. He was standing behind +me. + +"Pudgie," he said, in a moved sort of voice, "I'm no good to you. Get out +of this. Get out--" + +"No, no, Benlian!" I pleaded. + +"Get out, do you hear, and don't come again! Go and live somewhere +else--go away from London--don't let me know where you go--" + +"Oh, what have I done?" I asked unhappily; and he was muttering again. + +"Perhaps it would be better for me too," he muttered; and then he added, +"Come, bundle out!" + +So in home I went, and finished my ivory for the firm; but I can't tell +you how friendless and unhappy I felt. + +Now I used to know in those days a little girl--a nice, warm-hearted +little thing, just friendly you know, who used to come to me sometimes in +another place I lived at and mend for me and so on. It was an awful long +time since I'd seen her; but she found me out one night--came to that +yard, walked straight in, went straight to my linen-bag, and began to +look over my things to see what wanted mending, just as she used to. I +don't mind confessing that I was a bit sweet on her at one time; and it +made me feel awfully mean, the way she came in, without asking any +questions, and took up my mending. + +So she sat doing my things, and I sat at my work, glad of a bit of +company; and she chatted as she worked, just jolly and gentle and not at +all reproaching me. + +But as suddenly as a shot, right in the middle of it all, I found myself +wondering about Benlian again. And I wasn't only wondering; somehow I was +horribly uneasy about him. It came to me that he might be ill or +something. And all the fun of her having come to see me was gone. I found +myself doing all sorts of stupid things to my work, and glancing at my +watch that was lying on the table before me. + +At last I couldn't stand it any longer. I got up. + +"Daisy," I said, "I've got to go out now." + +She seemed surprised. + +"Oh, why didn't you tell me I'd been keeping you!" she said, getting up +at once. + +I muttered that I was awfully sorry.... + +I packed her off. I closed the door in the hoarding behind her. Then I +walked straight across the yard to Benlian's. + +He was lying on a couch, not doing anything. + +"I know I ought to have come sooner, Benlian," I said, "but I had +somebody with me." + +"Yes," he said, looking hard at me; and I got a bit red. + +"She's awfully nice," I stammered; "but you never bother with girls, and +you don't drink or smoke--" + +"No," he said. + +"Well," I continued, "you ought to have a little relaxation; you're +knocking yourself up." And, indeed, he looked awfully ill. + +But he shook his head. + +"A man's only a definite amount of force in him, Pudgie," he said, "and +if he spends it in one way he goes short in another. Mine goes--there." +He glanced at the statue. "I rarely sleep now," he added. + +"Then you ought to see a doctor," I said, a bit alarmed. (I'd felt sure +he was ill.) + +"No, no, Pudgie. My force is all going there--all but the minimum that +can't be helped, you know.... You've heard artists talk about 'putting +their soul into their work,' Pudgie?" + +"Don't rub it in about my rotten miniatures, Benlian," I asked him. + +"You've heard them say that; but they're charlatans, professional +artists, all, Pudgie. They haven't got any souls bigger than a sixpence +to put into it.... You know, Pudgie, that Force and Matter are the same +thing--that it's decided nowadays that you can't define matter otherwise +than as 'a point of Force'?" + +"Yes," I found myself saying eagerly, as if I'd heard it dozens of times +before. + +"So that if they could put their souls into it, it would be just as easy +for them to put their _bodies_ into it?..." + +I had drawn very close to him, and again--it was not fancy--I felt as if +somebody, not me, was using my mouth. A flash of comprehension seemed to +come into my brain. + +"_Not that, Benlian_?" I cried breathlessly. + +He nodded three or four times, and whispered. I really don't know why we +both whispered. + +"_Really that, Benlian_?" I whispered again. + +"Shall I show you?... I tried my hardest not to, you know,..." he still +whispered. + +"Yes, show me!" I replied in a suppressed voice. + +"Don't breathe a sound then! I keep them up there...." + +He put his finger to his lips as if we had been two conspirators; then he +tiptoed across the studio and went up to his bedroom in the gallery. +Presently he tiptoed down again, with some rolled-up papers in his hand. +They were photographs, and we stooped together over a little table. His +hand shook with excitement. + +"You remember this?" he whispered, showing me a rough print. + +It was one of the prints from the fogged plates that I'd taken after that +first night. + +"Come closer to me if you feel frightened, Pudgie," he said. "You said +they were old plates, Pudgie. No no; the plates were all right; it's _I_ +who am wrong!" + +"Of course," I said. It seemed so natural. + +"This one," he said, taking up one that was numbered "1," "is a plain +photograph, in the flesh, before it started; _you_ know! Now look at +this, and this--" + +He spread them before me, all in order. + +"2" was a little fogged, as if a novice had taken it; on "3" a sort of +cloudy veil partly obliterated the face; "4" was still further smudged +and lost; and "5" was a figure with gloved hands held up, as a man holds +his hands up when he is covered by a gun. The face of this one was +completely blotted out. + +And it didn't seem in the least horrible to me, for I kept on murmuring, +"Of course, of course." + +Then Benlian rubbed his hands and smiled at me. "I'm making good +progress, am I not?" he said. + +"Splendid!" I breathed. + +"Better than you know, too," he chuckled, "for you're not properly under +yet. But you will be, Pudgie, you will be--" + +"Yes, yes!... Will it be long, Benlian?" + +"No," he replied, "not if I can keep from eating and sleeping and +thinking of other things than the statue--and if you don't disturb me by +having girls about the place, Pudgie." + +"I'm awfully sorry," I said contritely. + +"All right, all right; ssh!... This, you know, Pudgie, is my own studio; +I bought it; I bought it purposely to make my statue, my god. I'm passing +nicely into it; and when I'm quite passed--_quite_ passed, Pudgie--you +can have the key and come in when you like." + +"Oh, thanks awfully," I murmured gratefully. + +He nudged me. + +"What would they think of it, Pudgie--those of the exhibitions and +academies, who say 'their souls are in their work'? What would the +cacklers think of it, Pudgie?" + +"Aren't they fools!" I chuckled. + +"And I shall have _one_ worshipper, shan't I, Pudgie?" + +"Rather!" I replied. "Isn't it splendid!... Oh, need I go back just yet?" + +"Yes, you must go now; but I'll send for you again very soon.... You know +I tried to do without you, Pudge; I tried for thirteen days, and it +nearly killed me! That's past. I shan't try again. Now off you trot, my +Pudgie--" + +I winked at him knowingly, and came skipping and dancing across the yard. + + +III + +It's just silly--that's what it is--to say that something of a man +doesn't go into his work. + +Why, even those wretched little ivories of mine, the thick-headed fellows +who paid for them knew my touch in them, and once spotted it instantly +when I tried to slip in another chap's who was hard up. Benlian used to +say that a man went about spreading himself over everything he came in +contact with--diffusing some sort of influence (as far as I could make it +out); and the mistake was, he said, that we went through the world just +wasting it instead of directing it. And if Benlian didn't understand all +about those things, I should jolly well like to know who does! A chap +with a great abounding will and brain like him, it's only natural he +should be able to pass himself on, to a statue or anything else, when he +really tried--did without food and talk and sleep in order to save +himself up for it! + +"A man can't both _do_ and _be_," I remember he said to me once. "He's so +much force, no more, and he can either make himself with it or something +else. If he tries to do both, he does both imperfectly. I'm going to do +_one_ perfect thing." Oh, he was a queer chap! Fancy, a fellow making a +thing like that statue, out of himself, and then wanting somebody to +adore him! + +And I hadn't the faintest conception of how much I did adore him till +yet again, as he had done before, he seemed to--you know--to take +himself away from me again, leaving me all alone, and so wretched!... And +I was angry at the same time, for he'd promised me he wouldn't do it +again.... (This was one night, I don't remember when.) + +I ran to my landing and shouted down into the yard. + +"Benlian! Benlian!" + +There was a light in his studio, and I heard a muffled shout come back. + +"Keep away--keep away--keep away!" + +He was struggling--I knew he was struggling as I stood there on my +landing--struggling to let me go. And I could only run and throw myself +on my bed and sob, while he tried to set me free, who didn't want to be +set free ... he was having a terrific struggle, all alone there.... + +(He told me afterwards that he _had_ to eat something now and then and to +sleep a little, and that weakened him--strengthened him--strengthened +his body and weakened the passing, you know.) + +But the next day it was all right again. I was Benlian's again. And I +wondered, when I remembered his struggle, whether a dying man had ever +fought for life as hard as Benlian was fighting to get away from it and +pass himself. + +The next time after that that he fetched me--called me--whatever you like +to name it--I burst into his studio like a bullet. He was sunk in a big +chair, gaunt as a mummy now, and all the life in him seemed to burn in +the bottom of his deep eye-sockets. At the sight of him I fiddled with +my knuckles and giggled. + +"You _are_ going it, Benlian!" I said. + +"Am I not?" he replied, in a voice that was scarcely a breath. + +"You _meant_ me to bring the camera and magnesium, didn't you?" (I had +snatched them up when I felt his call, and had brought them.) + +"Yes. Go ahead." + +So I placed the camera before him, made all ready, and took the magnesium +ribbon in a pair of pincers. + +"Are you ready?" I said; and lighted the ribbon. + +The studio seemed to leap with the blinding glare. The ribbon spat and +spluttered. I snapped the shutter, and the fumes drifted away and hung +in clouds in the roof. + +"You'll have to walk me about soon, Pudgie, and bang me with bladders, as +they do the opium-patients," he said sleepily. + +"Let me take one of the statue now," I said eagerly. + +But he put up his hand. + +"No, no. _That's_ too much like testing our god. Faith's the food they +feed gods on, Pudgie. We'll let the S.P.R. people photograph it when it's +all over," he said. "Now get it developed." + +I developed the plate. The obliteration now seemed complete. + +But Benlian seemed dissatisfied. + +"There's something wrong somewhere," he said. "It isn't so perfect as +that yet--I can feel within me it isn't. It's merely that your camera +isn't strong enough to find me, Pudgie." + +"I'll get another in the morning," I cried. + +"No," he answered. "I know something better than that. Have a cab here by +ten o'clock in the morning, and we'll go somewhere." + +By half-past ten the next morning we had driven to a large hospital, and +had gone down a lot of steps and along corridors to a basement room. +There was a stretcher couch in the middle of the room, and all manner of +queer appliances, frames of ground glass, tubes of glass blown into +extraordinary shapes, a dynamo, and a lot of other things all about. A +couple of doctors were there too, and Benlian was talking to them. + +"We'll try my hand first," Benlian said by-and-by. + +He advanced to the couch, and put his hand under one of the frames of +ground glass. One of the doctors did something in a corner. A harsh +crackling filled the room, and an unearthly, fluorescent light shot and +flooded across the frame where Benlian's hand was. The two doctors +looked, and then started back. One of them gave a cry. He was sickly +white. + +"Put me on the couch," said Benlian. + +I and the doctor who was not ill lifted him on the canvas stretcher. The +green-gleaming frame of fluctuating light was passed over the whole of +his body. Then the doctor ran to a telephone and called a colleague.... + +We spent the morning there, with dozens of doctors coming and going. Then +we left. All the way home in the cab Benlian chuckled to himself. + +"That scared 'em, Pudgie!" he chuckled. "A man they can't X-ray--that +scared 'em! We must put that down in the diary--" + +"Wasn't it ripping!" I chuckled back. + +He kept a sort of diary or record. He gave it to me afterwards, but +they've borrowed it. It was as big as a ledger, and immensely valuable, +I'm sure; they oughtn't to borrow valuable things like that and not +return them. The laughing that Benlian and I have had over that diary! +It fooled them all--the clever X-ray men, the artists of the academies, +everybody! Written on the fly-leaf was "_To My Pudgie_." I shall publish +it when I get it back again. + +Benlian had now got frightfully weak; it's awfully hard work, passing +yourself. And he had to take a little milk now and then or he'd have +died before he had quite finished. I didn't bother with miniatures any +longer, and when angry letters came from my employers we just put them +into the fire, Benlian and I, and we laughed--that is to say, I laughed, +but Benlian only smiled, being too weak to laugh really. He'd lots of +money, so that was all right; and I slept in his studio, to be there for +the passing. + +And that wouldn't be very long now, I thought; and I was always looking +at the statue. Things like that (in case you don't know) have to be done +gradually, and I supposed he was busy filling up the inside of it and +hadn't got to the outside yet--for the statue was much the same to look +at. But, reckoning off his sips of milk and snatches of sleep, he was +making splendid progress, and the figure must be getting very full now. +I was awfully excited, it was getting so near.... + +And then somebody came bothering and nearly spoiling all. It's odd, but I +really forget exactly what it was. I only know there was a funeral, and +people were sobbing and looking at me, and somebody said I was callous, +but somebody else said, "No, look at him," and that it was just the other +way about. And I think I remember, now, that it wasn't in London, for I +was in a train; but after the funeral I dodged them, and found myself +back at Euston again. They followed me, but I shook them off. I locked my +own studio up, and lay as quiet as a mouse in Benlian's place when they +came hammering at the door.... + + * * * * * + +And now I must come to what you'll called the finish--though it's awfully +stupid to call things like that "finishes." + +I'd slipped into my own studio one night--I forget what for; and I'd gone +quietly, for I knew they were following me, those people, and would catch +me if they could. It was a thick, misty night, and the light came +streaming up through Benlian's roof window, with the shadows of the +window-divisions losing themselves like dark rays in the fog. A lot of +hooting was going on down the river, steamers and barges.... Oh, I know +what I'd come into my studio for! It was for those negatives. Benlian +wanted them for the diary, so that it could be seen there wasn't any +fake about the prints. For he'd said he would make a final spurt that +evening and get the job finished. It had taken a long time, but I'll bet +_you_ couldn't have passed _yourself_ any quicker. + +When I got back he was sitting in the chair he'd hardly left for weeks, +and the diary was on the table by his side. I'd taken all the scaffolding +down from the statue, and he was ready to begin. He had to waste one last +bit of strength to explain to me, but I drew as close as I could, so that +he wouldn't lose much. + +"Now, Pudgie," I just heard him say, "you've behaved splendidly, and +you'll be quite still up to the finish, won't you?" + +I nodded. + +"And you mustn't expect the statue to come down and walk about, +or anything like that," he continued. "_Those_ aren't the really +wonderful things. And no doubt people will tell you it hasn't changed; +but you'll know better! It's much more wonderful that I should be there +than that they should be able to prove it, isn't it?... And, of course, +I don't know exactly how it will happen, for I've never done this +before.... You have the letter for the S.P.R.? They can photograph it if +they want.... By the way, you don't think the same of my statue as you +did at first, do you?" + +"Oh, it's wonderful!" I breathed. + +"And even if, like the God of the others, it doesn't vouchsafe a special +sign and wonder, it's Benlian, for all that?" + +"Oh, do be quick, Benlian! I can't bear another minute!" + +Then, for the last time, he turned his great eaten-out eyes on me. + +"_I seal you mine, Pudgie_!" he said. + +Then his eyes fastened themselves on the statue. + +I waited for a quarter of an hour, scarcely breathing. Benlian's breath +came in little flutters, many seconds apart. He had a little clock on the +table. Twenty minutes passed, and half an hour. I was a little +disappointed, really, that the statue wasn't going to move; but Benlian +knew best, and it was filling quietly up with him instead. Then I thought +of those zigzag bunches of lightning they draw on the electric-belt +advertisements, and I was rather glad after all that the statue _wasn't_ +going to move. It would have been a little cheap, that ... vulgar, in a +sense.... He was breathing a little more sharply now, as if in pain, but +his eyes never moved. A dog was howling somewhere, and I hoped that the +hooting of the tugs wouldn't disturb Benlian.... + +Nearly an hour had passed when, all of a sudden, I pushed my chair +farther away and cowered back, gnawing my fingers, very frightened. +Benlian had suddenly moved. He'd set himself forward in his chair, and he +seemed to be strangling. His mouth was wide open, and he began to make +long harsh "_Aaaaah-aaaah's_!" I shouldn't have thought passing yourself +was such agony.... + +And then I gave a scream--for he seemed to be thrusting himself back in +his chair again, as if he'd changed his mind and didn't want to pass +himself at all. But just you ask anybody: When you get yourself just over +half-way passed, the other's dragged out of you, and you can't help +yourself. His "_Aaaaahs_!" became so loud and horrid that I shut my eyes +and stopped my ears.... Minutes that lasted; and then there came a high +dinning that I couldn't shut out, and all at once the floor shook with a +heavy thump. When all was still again I opened my eyes. + +His chair had overturned, and he lay in a heap beside it. + +I called "Benlian!" but he didn't answer.... + +He'd passed beautifully; quite dead. I looked up at the statue. It was +just as Benlian had said--it didn't open its eyes, nor speak, nor +anything like that. Don't you believe chaps who tell you that statues +that have been passed into do that; they don't. + +But instead, in a blaze and flash and shock, I knew now for the first +time what a glorious thing that statue was! Have you ever seen anything +for the first time like that? If you have, you never see very much +afterwards, you know. The rest's all piffle after that. It was like +coming out of fog and darkness into a split in the open heavens, my +statue was so transfigured; and I'll bet if you'd been there you'd have +clapped your hands, as I did, and chucked the tablecloth over the Benlian +on the floor till they should come to cart that empty shell away, and +patted the statue's foot and cried: "_Is it all right, Benlian_?" + +I did this; and then I rushed excitedly out into the street, to call +somebody to see how glorious it was.... + + * * * * * + +They've brought me here for a holiday, and I'm to go back to the studio +in two or three days. But they've said that before, and I think it's +caddish of fellows not to keep their word--and not to return a valuable +diary too! But there isn't a peephole in my room, as there is in some of +them (the Emperor of Brazil told me that); and Benlian knows I haven't +forsaken him, for they take me a message every day to the studio, and +Benlian always answers that it's "_all right_, and I'm to stay where I am +for a bit." So as long as he knows, I don't mind so much. But it is a bit +rotten hanging on here, especially when the doctors themselves admit how +reasonable it all is.... Still, if Benlian says it's "_All right_ ..." + + + + +IO + + +As the young man put his hand to the uppermost of the four brass +bell-knobs to the right of the fanlighted door he paused, withdrew the +hand again, and then pulled at the lowest knob. The sawing of bell-wire +answered him, and he waited for a moment, uncertain whether the bell had +rung, before pulling again. Then there came from the basement a single +cracked stroke; the head of a maid appeared in the whitewashed area +below; and the head was withdrawn as apparently the maid recognised him. +Steps were heard along the hall; the door was opened; and the maid stood +aside to let him enter, the apron with which she had slipped the latch +still crumpled in her greasy hand. + +"Sorry, Daisy," the young man apologised, "but I didn't want to bring her +down all those stairs. How is she? Has she been out to-day?" + +The maid replied that the person spoken of had been out; and the young +man walked along the wide carpeted passage. + +It was cumbered like an antique-shop with alabaster busts on pedestals, +dusty palms in faience vases, and trophies of spears and shields and +assegais. At the foot of the stairs was a rustling portière of strung +beads, and beyond it the carpet was continued up the broad, easy flight, +secured at each step by a brass rod. Where the stairs made a turn, the +fading light of the December afternoon, made still dimmer by a window of +decalcomanied glass, shone on a cloudy green aquarium with sallow +goldfish, a number of cacti on a shabby console table, and a large and +dirty white sheepskin rug. Passing along a short landing, the young man +began the ascent of the second flight. This also was carpeted, but with a +carpet that had done duty in some dining- or bed-room before being cut up +into strips of the width of the narrow space between the wall and the +handrail. Then, as he still mounted, the young man's feet sounded loud on +oilcloth; and when he finally paused and knocked at a door it was on a +small landing of naked boards beneath the cold gleam of the skylight +above the well of the stairs. + +"Come in," a girl's voice called. + +The room he entered had a low sagging ceiling on which shone a low glow +of firelight, making colder still the patch of eastern sky beyond the +roofs and the cowls and hoods of chimneys framed by the square of the +single window. The glow on the ceiling was reflected dully in the old +dark mirror over the mantelpiece. An open door in the farther corner, +hampered with skirts and blouses, allowed a glimpse of the girl's +bedroom. + +The young man set the paper bag he carried down on the littered round +table and advanced to the girl who sat in an old wicker chair before +the fire. The girl did not turn her head as he kissed her cheek, and he +looked down at something that had muffled the sound of his steps as +he had approached her. + +"Hallo, that's new, isn't it, Bessie? Where did that come from?" he asked +cheerfully. + +The middle of the floor was covered with a common jute matting, but on +the hearth was a magnificent leopard-skin rug. + +"Mrs. Hepburn sent it up. There was a draught from under the door. It's +much warmer for my feet." + +"Very kind of Mrs. Hepburn. Well, how are you feeling to-day, old girl?" + +"Better, thanks, Ed." + +"That's the style. You'll be yourself again soon. Daisy says you've been +out to-day?" + +"Yes, I went for a walk. But not far; I went to the Museum and then sat +down. You're early, aren't you?" + +He turned away to get a chair, from which he had to move a mass of +tissue-paper patterns and buckram linings. He brought it to the rug. + +"Yes. I stopped last night late to cash up for Vedder, so he's staying +to-night. Turn and turn about. Well, tell us all about it, Bess." + +Their faces were red in the firelight. Hers had the prettiness that the +first glance almost exhausts, the prettiness, amazing in its quantity, +that one sees for a moment under the light of the street lamps when shops +and offices close for the day. She was short-nosed, pulpy-mouthed and +faunish-eyed, and only the rather remarkable smallness of the head on the +splendid thick throat saved her from ordinariness. He, too, might have +been seen in his thousands at the close of any day, hurrying home to +Catford or Walham Green or Tufnell Park to tea and an evening with a +girl or in a billiard-room, or else dining cheaply "up West" preparatory +to smoking cigarettes from yellow packets in the upper circle of a +music-hall. Four inches of white up-and-down collar encased his neck; and +as he lifted his trousers at the knee to clear his purple socks, the pair +of paper covers showed, that had protected his cuffs during the day at +the office. He removed them, crumpled them up and threw them on the fire; +and the momentary addition to the light of the upper chamber showed how +curd-white was that superb neck of hers and how moody and tired her eyes. + +From his face only one would have guessed, and guessed wrongly, that his +preferences were for billiard-rooms and music-halls. His conversation +showed them to be otherwise. It was of Polytechnic classes that he spoke, +and of the course of lectures in English literature that had just begun. +And, as if somebody had asserted that the pursuit of such studies was not +compatible with a certain measure of physical development also, he +announced that he was not sure that he should not devote, say, half an +evening a week, on Wednesdays, to training in the gymnasium. + +"_Mens sana in corpore sano_, Bessie," he said; "a sound mind in a sound +body, you know. That's tremendously important, especially when a fellow +spends the day in a stuffy office. Yes, I think I shall give it half +Wednesdays, from eight-thirty to nine-thirty; sends you home in a glow. +But I was going to tell you about the Literature Class. The second +lecture's to-night. The first was splendid, all about the languages of +Europe and Asia--what they call the Indo-Germanic languages, you know. +Aryans. I can't tell you exactly without my notes, but the Hindoos and +Persians, I think it was, they crossed the Himalaya Mountains and spread +westward somehow, as far as Europe. That was the way it all began. It +was splendid, the way the lecturer put it. English is a Germanic +language, you know. Then came the Celts. I wish I'd brought my notes. I +see you've been reading; let's look--" + +A book lay on her knees, its back warped by the heat of the fire. He took +it and opened it. + +"Ah, Keats! Glad you like Keats, Bessie. We needn't be great readers, but +it's important that what we do read should be all right. I don't know +him, not _really_ know him, that is. But he's quite all right--A1 in +fact. And he's an example of what I've always maintained, that knowledge +should be brought within the reach of all. It just shows. He was the son +of a livery-stable keeper, you know, so what he'd have been if he'd +really had chances, been to universities and so on, there's no knowing. +But, of course, it's more from the historical standpoint that I'm +studying these things. Let's have a look--" + +He opened the book where a hairpin between the leaves marked a place. +The firelight glowed on the page, and he read, monotonously and +inelastically: + +"_And as I sat, over the light blue hills +There came a noise of revellers; the rills +Into the wide stream came of purple hue-- + 'Twas Bacchus and his crew! +The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills +From kissing cymbals made a merry din-- + 'Twas Bacchus and his kin! +Like to a moving vintage down they came, +Crowned with green leaves, and faces all on flame +All madly dancing through the pleasant valley + To scare thee, Melancholy!"_ + +It was the wondrous passage from _Endymion_, of the descent of the wild +inspired rabble into India. Ed plucked for a moment at his lower lip, and +then, with a "Hm! What's it all about, Bessie?" continued: + +_"Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood, +Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood, + With sidelong laughing; +And little rills of crimson wine imbrued +His plump white arms and shoulders, enough white + For Venus' pearly bite; +And near him rode Silenus on his ass, +Pelted with flowers as he on did pass, + Tipsily quaffing."_ + +"Hm! I see. Mythology. That's made up of tales, and myths, you know. Like +Odin and Thor and those, only those were Scandinavian Mythology. So it +would be absurd to take it too seriously. But I think, in a way, things +like that do harm. You see," he explained, "the more beautiful they are +the more harm they might do. We ought always to show virtue and vice in +their true colours, and if you look at it from that point of view this is +just drunkenness. That's rotten; destroys your body and intellect; as I +heard a chap say once, it's an insult to the beasts to call it beastly. I +joined the Blue Ribbon when I was fourteen and I haven't been sorry for +it yet. No. Now there's Vedder; he 'went off on a bend,' as he calls it, +last night, and even he says this morning it wasn't worth it. But let's +read on." + +Again he read, with unresilient movement: + +"_I saw Osirian Egypt kneel adown +Before the vine wreath crown! + I saw parched Abyssinia rouse and sing + To the silver cymbals' ring! +I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce + Old Tartary the fierce! +Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans_ ..." + +"Hm! He was a Buddhist god, Brahma was; mythology again. As I say, if you +take it seriously, it's just glorifying intoxication.--But I say; I can +hardly see. Better light the lamp. We'll have tea first, then read. No, +you sit still; I'll get it ready; I know where things are--" + +He rose, crossed to a little cupboard with a sink in it, filled the +kettle at the tap, and brought it to the fire. Then he struck a match and +lighted the lamp. + +The cheap glass shade was of a foolish corolla shape, clear glass below, +shading to pink, and deepening to red at the crimped edge. It gave a +false warmth to the spaces of the room above the level of the +mantelpiece, and Ed's figure, as he turned the regulator, looked from the +waist upwards as if he stood within that portion of a spectrum screen +that deepens to the band of red. The bright concentric circles that +spread in rings of red on the ceiling were more dimly reduplicated in the +old mirror over the mantelpiece; and the wintry eastern light beyond the +chimney-hoods seemed suddenly almost to die out. + +Bessie, her white neck below the level of the lamp-shade, had taken up +the book again; but she was not reading. She was looking over it at the +upper part of the grate. Presently she spoke. "I was looking at some of +those things this afternoon, at the Museum." + +He was clearing from the table more buckram linings and patterns of +paper, numbers of Myra's Journal and The Delineator. Already on his way +to the cupboard he had put aside a red-bodiced dressmaker's "shape" of +wood and wire. "What things?" he asked. + +"Those you were reading about. Greek, aren't they?" + +"Oh, the Greek room!... But those people, Bacchus and those, weren't +people in the ordinary sense. Gods and goddesses, most of 'em; Bacchus +was a god. That's what mythology means. I wish sometimes our course took +in Greek literature, but it's a dead language after all. German's more +good in modern life. It would be nice to know everything, but one has to +select, you know. Hallo, I clean forgot; I brought you some grapes, +Bessie; here they are, in this bag; we'll have 'em after tea, what?" + +"But," she said again after a pause, still looking at the grate, "they +had their priests and priestesses, and followers and people, hadn't they? +It was their things I was looking at--combs and brooches and hairpins, +and things to cut their nails with. They're all in a glass case there. +And they had safety-pins, exactly like ours." + +"Oh, they were a civilised people," said Ed cheerfully. "It all gives you +an idea. I only hope you didn't tire yourself out. You'll soon be all +right, of course, but you have to be careful yet. We'll have a clean +tablecloth, shall we?" + +She had been seriously ill; her life had been despaired of; and somehow +the young Polytechnic student seemed anxious to assure her that she was +now all right again, or soon would be. They were to be married "as soon +as things brightened up a bit," and he was very much in love with her. He +watched her head and neck as he continued to lay the table, and then, as +he crossed once more to the cupboard, he put his hand lightly in passing +on her hair. + +She gave so quick a start that he too started. She must have been very +deep in her reverie to have been so taken by surprise. + +"I say, Bessie, don't jump like that!" he cried with involuntary +quickness. Indeed, had his hand been red-hot, or ice-cold, or taloned, +she could not have turned a more startled, even frightened, face to him. + +"It was your touching me," she muttered, resuming her gazing into the +grate. + +He stood looking anxiously down on her. It would have been better not to +discuss her state, and he knew it; but in his anxiety he forgot it. + +"That jumpiness is the effect of your illness, you know. I shall be glad +when it's all over. It's made you so odd." + +She was not pleased that he should speak of her "oddness." For that +matter, she, too, found him "odd"--at any rate, found it difficult to +realise that he was as he always had been. He had begun to irritate her a +little. His club-footed reading of the verses had irritated her, and she +had tried hard to hide from him that his cocksure opinions and the tone +in which they were pronounced jarred on her. It was not that she was +"better" than he, "knew" any more than he did, didn't (she supposed) love +him still the same; these moods, that dated from her illness, had nothing +to do with those things; she reproached herself sometimes that she was +subject to such doldrums. + +"It's all right, Ed, but please don't touch me just now," she said. + +He was in the act of leaning over her chair, but he saw her shrink, and +refrained. + +"Poor old girl!" he said sympathetically. "What's the matter?" + +"I don't know. It's awfully stupid of me to be like this, but I can't +help it. I shall be better soon if you leave me alone." + +"Nothing's happened, has it?" + +"Only those silly dreams I told you about." + +"Bother the dreams!" muttered the Polytechnic student. + +During her illness she had had dreams, and had come to herself at +intervals to find Ed or the doctor, Mrs. Hepburn or her aunt, bending +over her. These kind, solicitous faces had been no more than a glimpse, +and then she had gone off into the dreams again. The curious thing had +been that the dreams had seemed to be her vivid waking life, and the +other things--the anxious faces, the details of her dingy bedroom, the +thermometer under her tongue--had been the dream. And, though she had +come back to actuality, the dreams had never quite vanished. She could +remember no more of them than that they had seemed to hold a high singing +and jocundity, issuing from some region of haze and golden light; and +they seemed to hover, ever on the point of being recaptured, yet ever +eluding all her mental efforts. She was living now between reality and a +vision. + +She had fewer words than sensations, and it was a little pitiful to hear +her vainly striving to make clear what she meant. + +"It's so queer," she said. "It's like being on the edge of something--a +sort of tiptoe--I can't describe it. Sometimes I could almost touch it +with my hand, and then it goes away, but never quite away. It's like +something just past the corner of my eye, over my shoulder, and I sit +very still sometimes, trying to take it off its guard. But the moment I +move my head it moves too--like this--" + +Again he gave a quick start at the suddenness of her action. Very +stealthily her faunish eyes had stolen sideways, and then she had swiftly +turned her head. + +"Here, I say, don't, Bessie!" he cried nervously. "You look awfully +uncanny when you do that! You're brooding," he continued, "that's what +you're doing, brooding. You're getting into a low state. You want bucking +up. I don't think I shall go to the Polytec. to-night; I shall stay and +cheer you up. You know, I really don't think you're making an effort, +darling." + +His last words seemed to strike her. They seemed to fit in with something +of which she too was conscious. "Not making an effort ..." she wondered +how he knew that. She felt in some vague way that it was important that +she should make an effort. + +For, while her dream ever evaded her, and yet never ceased to call her +with such a voice as he who reads on a magic page of the calling of elves +hears stilly in his brain, yet somehow behind the seduction was another +and a sterner voice. There was warning as well as fascination. Beyond +that edge at which she strained on tiptoe, mingled with the jocund calls +to Hasten, Hasten, were deeper calls that bade her Beware. They puzzled +her. Beware of what? Of what danger? And to whom?... + +"How do you mean, I'm not making an effort, Ed?" she asked slowly, again +looking into the fire, where the kettle now made a gnat-like singing. + +"Why, an effort to get all right again. To be as you used to be--as, of +course, you will be soon." + +"As I used to be?" The words came with a little check in her breathing. + +"Yes, before all this. To be yourself, you know." + +"Myself?" + +"All jolly, and without these jerks and jumps. I wish you could get away. +A fortnight by the sea would do you all the good in the world." + +She knew not what it was in the words "the sea" that caused her suddenly +to breathe more deeply. The sea!... It was as if, by the mere uttering of +them, he had touched some secret spring, brought to fulfilment some +spell. What had he meant by speaking of the sea?... A fortnight before, +had somebody spoken to her of the sea it would have been the sea of +Margate, of Brighton, of Southend, that, supplying the image that a word +calls up as if by conjuration, she would have seen before her; and what +other image could she supply, could she possibly supply, now?... Yet she +did, or almost did, supply one. What new experience had she had, or what +old, old one had been released in her? With that confused, joyous dinning +just beyond the range of physical hearing there had suddenly mingled +a new illusion of sound--a vague, vast pash and rustle, silky and harsh +both at once, its tireless voice holding meanings of stillness and +solitude compared with which the silence that is mere absence of sound +was vacancy. It was part of her dream, invisible, intangible, inaudible, +yet there. As if he had been an enchanter, it had come into being at the +word upon his lips. Had he other such words? Had he the Master Word +that--(ah, she knew what the Master Word would do!)--would make the +Vision the Reality and the Reality the Vision? Deep within her she felt +something--her soul, herself, she knew not what--thrill and turn over and +settle again.... + +"The sea," she repeated in a low voice. + +"Yes, that's what you want to set you up--rather! Do you remember that +fortnight at Littlehampton, you and me and your Aunt? Jolly that was! I +like Littlehampton. It isn't flash like Brighton, and Margate's always so +beastly crowded. And do you remember that afternoon by the windmill? I +did love you that afternoon, Bessie!"... + +He continued to talk, but she was not listening. She was wondering why +the words "the sea" were somehow part of it all--the pins and brooches +of the Museum, the book on her knees, the dream. She remembered a game of +hide-and-seek she had played as a child, in which cries of "Warm, warm, +warmer!" had announced the approach to the hidden object. Oh, she was +getting warm--positively hot.... + +He had ceased to talk, and was watching her. Perhaps it was the thought +of how he had loved her that afternoon by the windmill that had brought +him close to her chair again. She was aware of his nearness, and closed +her eyes for a moment as if she dreaded something. Then she said quickly, +"Is tea nearly ready, Ed?" and, as he turned to the table, took up the +book again. + +She felt that even to touch that book brought her "warmer." It fell open +at a page. She did not hear the clatter Ed made at the table, nor yet the +babble his words had evoked, of the pierrots and banjos and minstrels of +Margate and Littlehampton. It was to hear a gladder, wilder tumult that +she sat once more so still, so achingly listening.... + +_"The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills +From kissing cymbals made a merry din--"_ + +The words seemed to move on the page. In her eyes another light than the +firelight seemed to play. Her breast rose, and in her thick white throat +a little inarticulate sound twanged. + +"Eh? Did you speak, Bessie?" Ed asked, stopping in his buttering of +bread. + +"Eh?... No." + +In answering, her head had turned for a moment, and she had seen him. +Suddenly it struck her with force: what a shaving of a man he was! +Desk-chested, weak-necked, conscious of his little "important" lip +and chin--yes, he needed a Polytechnic gymnastic course! Then she +remarked how once, at Margate, she had seen him in the distance, as +in a hired baggy bathing-dress he had bathed from a machine, in muddy +water, one of a hundred others, all rather cold, flinging a polo-ball +about and shouting stridently. "A sound mind in a sound body!"... He +was rather vain of his neat shoes, too, and doubtless stunted his +feet; and she had seen the little spot on his neck caused by the +chafing of his collar-stud.... No, she did not want him to touch her, +just now at any rate. His touch would be too like a betrayal of another +touch ... somewhere, sometime, somehow ... in that tantalising dream +that refused to allow itself either to be fully remembered or quite +forgotten. What was that dream? What was it?... + +She continued to gaze into the fire. + +Of a sudden she sprang to her feet with a choked cry of almost animal +fury. The fool had touched her. Carried away doubtless by the memory of +that afternoon by the windmill, he had, in passing once more to the +kettle, crept softly behind her and put a swift burning kiss on the side +of her neck. + +Then he had retreated before her, stumbling against the table and causing +the cups and saucers to jingle. + +The basket-chair tilted up, but righted itself again. + +"I told you--I told you--" she choked, her stockish figure shaking with +rage, "I told you--you--" + +He put up his elbow as if to ward off a blow. + +"_You_ touch me--_you!--you!_" the words broke from her. + +He had put himself farther round the table. He stammered. + +"Here--dash it all, Bessie--what is the matter?" + +"_You_ touch me!" + +"All right," he said sullenly. "I won't touch you again--no fear. I +didn't know you were such a firebrand. All right, drop it now. I won't +again. Good Lord!" + +Slowly the white fist she had drawn back sank to her side again. + +"All right now," he continued to grumble resentfully. "You needn't take +on so. It's said--I won't touch you again." Then, as if he remembered +that after all she was ill and must be humoured, he began, while her +bosom still rose and fell rapidly, to talk with an assumption that +nothing much had happened. "Come, sit down again, Bessie. The tea's in +the pot and I'll have it ready in a couple of jiffs. What a ridiculous +little girl you are, to take on like that!... And I say, listen! That's a +muffin-bell, and there's a grand fire for toast! You sit down while I run +out and get 'em. Give me your key, so I can let myself in again--" + +He took her key from her bag, caught up his hat, and hastened out. + +But she did not sit down again. She was no calmer for his quick +disappearance. In that moment when he had recoiled from her she had had +the expression of some handsome and angered snake, its hood puffed, ready +to strike. She stood dazed; one would have supposed that that ill-advised +kiss of his had indeed been the Master Word she sought, the Word she felt +approaching, the Word to which the objects of the Museum, the book, that +rustle of a sea she had never seen, had been but the ever "warming" +stages. Some merest trifle stood between her and those elfin cries, +between her and that thin golden mist in which faintly seen shapes seemed +to move--shapes almost of tossed arms, waving, brandishing objects +strangely all but familiar. That roaring of the sea was not the rushing +of her own blood in her ears, that rosy flush not the artificial glow of +the cheap red lampshade. The shapes were almost as plain as if she saw +them in some clear but black mirror, the sounds almost as audible as if +she heard them through some not very thick muffling.... + +"Quick--the book," she muttered. + +But even as she stretched out her hand for it, again came that solemn +sound of warning. As if something sought to stay it, she had deliberately +to thrust her hand forward. Again the high dinning calls of "Hasten! +Hasten!" were mingled with that deeper "Beware!" She knew in her soul +that, once over that terrible edge, the Dream would become the Reality +and the Reality the Dream. She knew nothing of the fluidity of the thing +called Personality--not a thing at all, but a state, a balance, a +relation, a resultant of forces so delicately in equilibrium that a +touch, and--pff!--the horror of Formlessness rushed over all. + +As she hesitated a new light appeared in the chamber. Within the frame of +the small square window, beyond the ragged line of the chimney-cowls, +an edge of orange brightness showed. She leaned forward. It was the full +moon, rusty and bloated and flattened by the earth-mist. + +The next moment her hand had clutched at the book. + +_"Whence came ye, merry Damsels! Whence came ye +So many, and so many, and such glee? +Why have ye left your bowers desolate, + Your lutes, and gentler fate? +'We follow Bacchus, Bacchus on the wing A-conquering! +Bacchus, young Bacchus! Good or ill betide +We dance before him thorough kingdoms wide! +Come hither, Lady fair, and joined be + To our wild minstrelsy!'"_ + +There was an instant in which darkness seemed to blot out all else; then +it rolled aside, and in a blaze of brightness was gone. It was gone, and +she stood face to face with her Dream, that for two thousand years had +slumbered in the blood of her and her line. She stood, with mouth agape +and eyes that hailed, her thick throat full of suppressed clamour. The +other was the Dream now, and these!... they came down, mad and noisy +and bright--Maenades, Thyades, satyrs, fauns--naked, in hides of beasts, +ungirded, dishevelled, wreathed and garlanded, dancing, singing, +shouting. The thudding of their hooves shook the ground, and the clash of +their timbrels and the rustling of their thyrsi filled the air. They +brandished frontal bones, the dismembered quarters of kids and goats; +they struck the bronze cantharus, they tossed the silver obba up aloft. +Down a cleft of rocks and woods they came, trooping to a wide seashore +with the red of the sunset behind them. She saw the evening light on the +sleek and dappled hides, the gilded ivory and rich brown of their legs +and shoulders, the white of inner arms held up on high, their wide red +mouths, the quivering of the twin flesh-gouts on the necks of the leaping +fauns. And, shutting out the glimpse of sky at the head of the deep +ravine, the god himself descended, with his car full of drunken girls who +slept with the serpents coiled about them. + +Shouting and moaning and frenzied, leaping upon one another with +libidinous laughter and beating one another with the half-stripped +thyrsi, they poured down to the yellow sands and the anemonied pools of +the shore. They raced to the water, that gleamed pale as nacre in the +deepening twilight in the eye of the evening star. They ran along its +edge over their images in the wet sands, calling their lost companion. + +"Hasten, hasten!" they cried; and one of them, a young man with a torso +noble as the dawn and shoulder-lines strong as those of the eternal +hills, ran here and there calling her name. + +"Louder, louder!" she called back in an ecstasy. + +Something dropped and tinkled against the fender. It was one of her +hairpins. One side of her hair was in a loose tumble; she threw up the +small head on the superb thick neck. + +"Louder!--I cannot hear! Once more--" + +The throwing up of her head that had brought down the rest of her hair +had given her a glimpse of herself in the glass over the mantelpiece. For +the last time that formidable "Beware!" sounded like thunder in her ears; +the next moment she had snapped with her fingers the ribbon that was +cutting into her throbbing throat. He with the torso and those shoulders +was seeking her ... how should he know her in that dreary garret, in +those joyless habiliments? He would as soon known his Own in that +crimson-bodiced, wire-framed dummy by the window yonder!... + +Her fingers clutched at the tawdry mercerised silk of her blouse. There +was a rip, and her arms and throat were free. She panted as she tugged +at something that gave with a short "click-click," as of steel +fastenings; something fell against the fender.... These also.... She tore +at them, and kicked them as they lay about her feet as leaves lie about +the trunk of a tree in autumn.... + +"Ah!" + +And as she stood there, as if within the screen of a spectrum that +deepened to the band of red, her eyes fell on the leopard-skin at her +feet. She caught it up, and in doing so saw purple grapes--purple +grapes that issued from the mouth of a paper bag on the table. With the +dappled pelt about her she sprang forward. The juice spurted through them +into the mass of her loosened hair. Down her body there was a spilth of +seeds and pulp. She cried hoarsely aloud. + +"Once more--oh, answer me! Tell me my name!" + +Ed's steps were heard on the oilclothed portion of the staircase. + +"My name--oh, my name!" she cried in an agony of suspense.... "Oh, they +will not wait for me! They have lighted the torches--they run up and down +the shore with torches--oh, cannot you see me?..." + +Suddenly she dashed to the chair on which the litter of linings and +tissue-paper lay. She caught up a double handful and crammed them on the +fire. They caught and flared. There was a call upon the stairs, and the +sound of somebody mounting in haste. + +"Once--once only--my name!" + +The soul of the Bacchante rioted, struggled to escape from her eyes. Then +as the door was flung open, she heard, and gave a terrifying shout of +recognition. + +"I hear--I almost hear--but once more.... IO! _Io, Io, Io!_" + +Ed, in the doorway, stood for one moment agape; the next, ignorant of the +full purport of his own words--ignorant that though man may come +westwards he may yet bring his worship with him--ignorant that to make +the Dream the Reality and the Reality the Dream is Heaven's dreadfullest +favour--and ignorant that, that Edge once crossed, there is no return to +the sanity and sweetness and light that are only seen clearly in the +moment when they are lost for ever--he had dashed down the stairs crying +in a voice hoarse and high with terror: + +"She's mad! She's mad!" + + + + +THE ACCIDENT + + +I + +The street had not changed so much but that, little by little, its +influence had come over Romarin again; and as the clock a street or two +away had struck seven he had stood, his hands folded on his stick, first +curious, then expectant, and finally, as the sound had died away, oddly +satisfied in his memory. The clock had a peculiar chime, a rather +elaborate one, ending inconclusively on the dominant and followed after +an unusually long interval by the stroke of the hour itself. Not until +its last vibration had become too subtle for his ear had Romarin resumed +the occupation that the pealing of the hour had interrupted. + +It was an occupation that especially tended to abstraction of mind--the +noting in detail of the little things of the street that he had forgotten +with such completeness that they awakened only tardy responses in his +memory now that his eyes rested on them again. The shape of a +doorknocker, the grouping of an old chimney-stack, the crack, still +there, in a flagstone--somewhere deep in the past these things had +associations; but they lay very deep, and the disturbing of them gave +Romarin a curious, desolate feeling, as of returning to things he had +long out-grown. + +But, as he continued to stare at the objects, the sluggish memories +roused more and more; and for each bit of the old that reasserted itself +scores of yards of the new seemed to disappear. New shop-frontages went; +a wall, brought up flush where formerly a recess had been, became the +recess once more; the intermittent electric sign at the street's end, +that wrote in green and crimson the name of a whiskey across a lamp-lit +façade, ceased to worry his eyes; and the unfamiliar new front of the +little restaurant he was passing and repassing took on its old and +well-known aspect again. + +Seven o'clock. He had thought, in dismissing his hansom, that it had been +later. His appointment was not until a quarter past. But he decided +against entering the restaurant and waiting inside; seeing who his guest +was, it would be better to wait at the door. By the light of the +restaurant window he corrected his watch, and then sauntered a few yards +along the street, to where men were moving flats of scenery from a back +door of the new theatre into a sort of tumbril. The theatre was twenty +years old, but to Romarin it was "the new theatre." There had been no +theatre there in his day. + +In his day!... His day had been twice twenty years before. Forty years +before, that street, that quarter, had been bound up in his life. He had +not, forty years ago, been the famous painter, honoured, decorated, taken +by the arm by monarchs; he had been a student, wild and raw as any, with +that tranquil and urbane philosophy that had made his success still in +abeyance within him. As his eyes had rested on the doorknocker next to +the restaurant a smile had crossed his face. How had _that_ door-knocker +come to be left by the old crowd that had wrenched off so many others? By +what accident had _that_ survived, to bring back all the old life now so +oddly? He stood, again smiling, his hands folded on his stick. A Crown +Prince had given him that stick, and had had it engraved, "To my Friend, +Romarin." + +"You oughtn't to be here, you know," he said to the door-knocker. "If I +didn't get you, Marsden ought to have done so...." + +It was Marsden whom Romarin had come to meet--Marsden, of whom he had +thought with such odd persistency lately. Marsden was the only man in the +world between whom and himself lay as much as the shadow of an enmity; +and even that faint shadow was now passing. One does not guard, for forty +years, animosities that take their rise in quick outbreaks of the young +blood; and, now that Romarin came to think of it, he hadn't really hated +Marsden for more than a few months. It had been within those very doors +(Romarin was passing the restaurant again) that there had been that quick +blow, about a girl, and the tables had been pushed hastily back, and he +and Marsden had fought, while the other fellows had kept the waiters +away.... And Romarin was now sixty-four, and Marsden must be a year +older, and the girl--who knew?--probably dead long ago ... Yes, time +heals these things, thank God; and Romarin had felt a genuine flush of +pleasure when Marsden had accepted his invitation to dinner. + +But--Romarin looked at his watch again--it was rather like Marsden to be +late. Marsden had always been like that--had come and gone pretty much as +he had pleased, regardless of inconvenience to others. But, doubtless, he +had had to walk. If all reports were true, Marsden had not made very much +of his life in the way of worldly success, and Romarin, sorry to hear it, +had wished he could give him a leg-up. Even a good man cannot do much +when the current of his life sets against him in a tide of persistent +ill-luck, and Romarin, honoured and successful, yet knew that he had been +one of the lucky ones.... + +But it was just like Marsden to be late, for all that. + +At first Romarin did not recognise him when he turned the corner of the +street and walked towards him. He hadn't made up his mind beforehand +exactly how he had expected Marsden to look, but he was conscious that he +didn't look it. It was not the short stubble of grey beard, so short that +it seemed to hesitate between beard and unshavenness; it was not the +figure nor carriage--clothes alter that, and the clothes of the man who +was advancing to meet Romarin were, to put it bluntly, shabby; nor was +it... but Romarin did not know what it was in the advancing figure that +for the moment found no response in his memory. He was already within +half a dozen yards of the men who were moving the scenery from the +theatre into the tumbril, and one of the workmen put up his hand as the +edge of a fresh "wing" appeared.... + +But at the sound of his voice the same thing happened that had happened +when the clock had struck seven. Romarin found himself suddenly +expectant, attentive, and then again curiously satisfied in his memory. +Marsden's voice at least had not changed; it was as in the old days--a +little envious, sarcastic, accepting lower interpretations somewhat +willingly, somewhat grudging of better ones. It completed the taking back +of Romarin that the chiming of the clock, the doorknocker, the grouping +of the chimney-stack and the crack in the flagstone had begun. + +"Well, my distinguished Academician, my--" + +Marsden's voice sounded across the group of scene-shifters... + +"_'Alf_ a mo, _if_ you please, guv'nor," said another voice... + +For a moment the painted "wing" shut them off from one another. + + * * * * * + +In that moment Romarin's accident befell him. If its essential nature is +related in arbitrary terms, it is that there are no other terms to relate +it in. It is a decoded cipher, which can be restored to its cryptic form +as Romarin subsequently restored it. + + * * * * * + +As the painter took Marsden's arm and entered the restaurant, he noticed +that while the outside of the place still retained traces of the old, its +inside was entirely new. Its cheap glittering wall-mirrors, that gave a +false impression of the actual size of the place, its Loves and +Shepherdesses painted in the style of the carts of the vendors of +ice-cream, its hat-racks and its four-bladed propeller that set the air +slowly in motion at the farther end of the room, might all have been +matched in a dozen similar establishments within hail of a cab-whistle. +Its gelatine-written menu-cards announced that one might dine there _à +la carte_ or _table d'hôte_ for two shillings. Neither the cooking nor +the service had influenced Romarin in his choice of a place to dine at. + +He made a gesture to the waiter who advanced to help him on with his coat +that Marsden was to be assisted first; but Marsden, with a grunted "All +right," had already helped himself. A glimpse of the interior of the coat +told Romarin why Marsden kept waiters at arm's-length. A little twinge of +compunction took him that his own overcoat should be fur-collared and +lined with silk. + +They sat down at a corner table not far from the slowly moving +four-bladed propeller. + +"Now we can talk," Romarin said. "I'm glad, glad to see you again, +Marsden." + +It was a peculiarly vicious face that he saw, corrugated about the brows, +and with stiff iron-grey hair untrimmed about the ears. It shocked +Romarin a little; he had hardly looked to see certain things so +accentuated by the passage of time. Romarin's own brow was high and bald +and benign, and his beard was like a broad shield of silver. + +"You're glad, are you?" said Marsden, as they sat down facing one +another. "Well, I'm glad--to be seen with you. It'll revive my credit a +bit. There's a fellow across there has recognised you already by your +photographs in the papers.... I assume I may...?" + +He made a little upward movement of his hand. It was a gin and +bitters Marsden assumed he might have. Romarin ordered it; he himself +did not take one. Marsden tossed down the _apéritif_ at one gulp; then +he reached for his roll, pulled it to pieces, and--Romarin remembered +how in the old days Marsden had always eaten bread like that--began to +throw bullets of bread into his mouth. Formerly this habit had irritated +Romarin intensely; now ... well, well, Life uses some of us better than +others. Small blame to these if they throw up the struggle. Marsden, poor +devil ... but the arrival of the soup interrupted Romarin's meditation. +He consulted the violet-written card, ordered the succeeding courses, and +the two men ate for some minutes in silence. + +"Well," said Romarin presently, pushing away his plate and wiping his +white moustache, "are you still a Romanticist, Marsden?" + +Marsden, who had tucked his napkin between two of the buttons of his +frayed waistcoat, looked suspiciously across the glass with the dregs of +the gin and bitters that he had half raised to his lips. + +"Eh?" he said. "I say, Romarin, don't let's go grave-digging among +memories merely for the sake of making conversation. Yours may be +pleasant, but I'm not in the habit of wasting much time over mine. +Might as well be making new ones ... I'll drink whiskey and soda." + +It was brought, a large one; and Marsden, nodding, took a deep gulp. + +"Health," he said. + +"Thanks," said Romarin--instantly noting that the monosyllable, which +matched the other's in curtness, was not at all the reply he had +intended. "Thank you--yours," he amended; and a short pause followed, in +which fish was brought. + +This was not what Romarin had hoped for. He had desired to be reconciled +with Marsden, not merely to be allowed to pay for his dinner. Yet if +Marsden did not wish to talk it was difficult not to defer to his wish. +It was true that he had asked if Marsden was still a Romanticist largely +for the sake of something to say; but Marsden's prompt pointing out of +this was not encouraging. Now that he came to think of it, he had never +known precisely what Marsden had meant by the word "Romance" he had so +frequently taken into his mouth; he only knew that this creed of +Romanticism, whatever it was, had been worn rather challengingly, a chip +on the shoulder, to be knocked off at some peril or other. And it had +seemed to Romarin a little futile in the violence with which it had been +maintained ... But that was neither here nor there. The point was, that +the conversation had begun not very happily, and must be mended at once +if at all. To mend it, Romarin leaned across the table. + +"Be as friendly as I am, Marsden," he said. "I think--pardon me--that if +our positions were reversed, and I saw in you the sincere desire to help +that I have, I'd take it in the right way." Again Marsden looked +suspiciously at him. "To help? How to help?" he demanded "That's what I +should like you to tell me. But I suppose (for example) you still work?" + +"Oh, my work!" Marsden made a little gesture of contempt. "Try again, +Romarin." + +"You don't do any?... Come, I'm no bad friend to my friends, and you'll +find me--especially so." + +But Marsden put up his hand. + +"Not quite so quickly," he said. "Let's see what you mean by help first. +Do you really mean that you want me to borrow money from you? That's help +as I understand it nowadays." + +"Then you've changed," said Romarin--wondering, however, in his secret +heart whether Marsden had changed very much in that respect after all. + +Marsden gave a short honk of a laugh. + +"You didn't suppose I hadn't changed, did you?" Then he leaned suddenly +forward. "This is rather a mistake, Romarin--rather a mistake," he said. + +"What is?" + +"This--our meeting again. Quite a mistake." + +Romarin sighed. "I had hoped not," he said. + +Marsden leaned forward again, with another gesture Romarin remembered +very well--dinner knife in hand, edge and palm upwards, punctuating +and expounding with the point. + +"I tell you, it's a mistake," he said, knife and hand balanced. "You +can't reopen things like this. You don't really _want_ to reopen them; +you only want to reopen certain of them; you want to pick and choose +among things, to approve and disapprove. There must have been somewhere +or other something in me you didn't altogether dislike--I can't for the +life of me think what it was, by the way; and you want to lay stress on +that and to sink the rest. Well, you can't. I won't let you. I'll not +submit my life to you like that. If you want to go into things, all +right; but it must be all or none. And I'd like another drink." + +He put the knife down with a little clap as Romarin beckoned to the +waiter. + +There was distress on Romarin's face. He was not conscious of having +adopted a superior attitude. But again he told himself that he must make +allowances. Men who don't come off in Life's struggle are apt to be +touchy, and he was; after all, the same old Marsden, the man with whom he +desired to be at peace. + +"Are you quite fair to me?" he asked presently, in a low voice. + +Again the knife was taken up and its point advanced. + +"Yes, I am," said Marsden in a slightly raised voice; and he indicated +with the knife the mirror at the end of the table. "You know you've done +well, and I, to all appearances, haven't; you can't look at that glass +and not know it. But I've followed the line of my development too, no +less logically than you. My life's been mine, and I'm not going to +apologise for it to a single breathing creature. More, I'm proud of it. +At least, there's been singleness of intention about it. So I think I'm +strictly fair in pointing that out when you talk about helping me." + +"Perhaps so, perhaps so," Romarin agreed a little sadly. "It's your tone +more than anything else that makes things a little difficult. Believe me, +I've no end in my mind except pure friendliness." + +"No-o-o," said Marsden--a long "no" that seemed to deliberate, to +examine, and finally to admit. "No. I believe that. And you usually get +what you set out for. Oh yes. I've watched your rise--I've made a point +of watching it. It's been a bit at a time, but you've got there. You're +that sort. It's on your forehead--your destiny." + +Romarin smiled. + +"Hallo, that's new, isn't it?" he said. "It wasn't your habit to talk +much about destiny, if I remember rightly. Let me see; wasn't this more +your style--'will, passion, laughs-at-impossibilities and says,' et +cetera--and so forth? Wasn't that it? With always the suspicion not far +away that you did things more from theoretical conviction than real +impulse after all?" + +A dispassionate observer would have judged that the words went somewhere +near home. Marsden was scraping together with the edge of his knife the +crumbs of his broken roll. He scraped them into a little square, and then +trimmed the corners. Not until the little pile was shaped to his liking +did he look surlily up. + +"Let it rest, Romarin," he said curtly. "Drop it," he added. "Let it +alone. If I begin to talk like that, too, we shall only cut one another +up. Clink glasses--there--and let it alone." + +Mechanically Romarin clinked; but his bald brow was perplexed. + +"'Cut one another up?'" he repeated. + +"Yes. Let it alone." + +"'Cut one another up?'" he repeated once more. "You puzzle me entirely." + +"Well, perhaps I'm altogether wrong. I only wanted to warn you that I've +dared a good many things in my time. Now drop it." + +Romarin had fine brown eyes, under Oriental arched brows. Again they +noted the singularly vicious look of the man opposite. They were full +of mistrust and curiosity, and he stroked his silver beard. + +"Drop it?" he said slowly ... "No, let's go on. I want to hear more of +this." + +"I'd much rather have another drink in peace and quietness.... Waiter!" + +Either leaned back in his chair, surveying the other. "You're a perverse +devil still," was Romarin's thought. Marsden's, apparently, was of +nothing but the whiskey and soda the waiter had gone to fetch. + + * * * * * + +Romarin was inclined to look askance at a man who could follow up a gin +and bitters with three or four whiskeys and soda without turning a hair. +It argued the seasoned cask. Marsden had bidden the waiter leave the +bottle and the syphon on the table, and was already mixing himself +another stiff peg. + +"Well," he said, "since you will have it so--to the old days." + +"To the old days," said Romarin, watching him gulp it down. + +"Queer, looking back across all that time at 'em, isn't it? How do you +feel about it?" + +"In a mixed kind of way, I think; the usual thing: pleasure and regret +mingled." + +"Oh, you have regrets, have you?" + +"For certain things, yes. Not, let me say, my turn-up with you, Marsden," +he laughed. "That's why I chose the old place--" he gave a glance +round at its glittering newness. "Do you happen to remember what all that +was about? I've only the vaguest idea." + +Marsden gave him a long look. "That all?" he asked. + +"Oh, I remember in a sort of way. That 'Romantic' soap-bubble of yours +was really at the bottom of it, I suspect. Tell me," he smiled, "did you +really suppose Life could be lived on those mad lines you used to lay +down?" + +"My life," said Marsden calmly, "has been." + +"Not literally." + +"Literally." + +"You mean to say that you haven't outgrown _that_?" + +"I hope not." + +Romarin had thrown up his handsome head. "Well, well!" he murmured +incredulously. + +"Why 'well, well'?" Marsden demanded.... "But, of course, you never did +and never will know what I meant." + +"By Romance? ... No, I can't say that I did; but as I conceived it, it +was something that began in appetite and ended in diabetes." + +"Not philosophic, eh?" Marsden inquired, picking up a chicken bone. + +"Highly unphilosophic," said Romarin, shaking his head. + +"Hm!" grunted Marsden, stripping the bone... "Well, I grant it pays in a +different way." + +"It does pay, then?" Romarin asked. + +"Oh yes, it pays." + +The restaurant had filled up. It was one frequented by young artists, +musicians, journalists and the clingers to the rather frayed fringes of +the Arts. From time to time heads were turned to look at Romarin's portly +and handsome figure, which the Press, the Regent Street photographic +establishments, and the Academy Supplements had made well known. The +plump young Frenchwoman within the glazed cash office near the door, +at whom Marsden had several times glanced in a way at which Romarin had +frowned, was aware of the honour done the restaurant; and several times +the blond-bearded proprietor had advanced and inquired with concern +whether the dinner and the service was to the liking of M'sieu. + +And the eyes that were turned to Romarin plainly wondered who the +scallawag dining with him might be. + +Since Romarin had chosen that their conversation should be of the old +days, and without picking and choosing, Marsden was quite willing that +it should be so. Again he was casting the bullets of bread into his +mouth, and again Romarin was conscious of irritation. Marsden, too, +noticed it; but in awaiting the _rôti_ he still continued to roll and +bolt the pellets, washing them down with gulps of whiskey and soda. + +"Oh yes, it paid," he resumed. "Not in that way, of course--" he +indicated the head, quickly turned away again, of an aureoled youngster +with a large bunch of black satin tie, "--not in admiration of that +sort, but in other ways--" + +"Tell me about it." + +"Certainly, if you want it. But you're my host. Won't you let me hear +your side of it all first?" + +"But I thought you said you knew that--had followed my career?" + +"So I have. It's not your list of honours and degrees; let me see, what +are you? R.A., D.C.L., Doctor of Literature, whatever that means, and +Professor of this, that, and the other, and not at the end of it yet. I +know all that. I don't say you haven't earned it; I admire your painting; +but it's not that. I want to know what it _feels_ like to be up there +where you are." + +It was a childish question, and Romarin felt foolish in trying to answer +it. Such things were the things the adoring aureoled youngster a table or +two away would have liked to ask. Romarin recognised in Marsden the old +craving for sensation; it was part of the theoretical creed Marsden had +made for himself, of doing things, not for their own sakes, but in order +that he might have done them. Of course, it had appeared to a fellow like +that, that Romarin himself had always had a calculated end in view; he +had not; Marsden merely measured Romarin's peck out of his own bushel. It +had been Marsden who, in self-consciously seeking his own life, had lost +it, and Romarin was more than a little inclined to suspect that the +vehemence with which he protested that he had not lost it was precisely +the measure of the loss. + +But he essayed it--essayed to give Marsden a _résumé_ of his career. He +told him of the stroke of sheer luck that had been the foundation of it +all, the falling ill of another painter who had turned over certain +commissions to him. He told him of his poor but happy marriage, and of +the windfall, not large, but timely, that had come to his wife. He told +him of fortunate acquaintanceships happily cultivated, of his first +important commission, of the fresco that had procured for him his +Associateship, of his sale to the Chantrey, and of his quietly +remunerative Visitorships and his work on Boards and Committees. + +And as he talked, Marsden drew his empty glass to him, moistened his +finger with a little spilt liquid, and began to run the finger round the +rim of the glass. They had done that formerly, a whole roomful of them, +producing, when each had found the note of his instrument, a high, thin, +intolerable singing. To this singing Romarin strove to tell his tale. + +But that thin and bat-like note silenced him. He ended lamely, with some +empty generalisation on success. + +"Ah, but success in what?" Marsden demanded, interrupting his playing on +the glass for a moment. + +"In your aim, whatever it may be." + +"Ah!" said Marsden, resuming his performance. + +Romarin had sought in his recital to minimise differences in +circumstances; but Marsden seemed bent on aggravating them. He had the +miserable advantage of the man who has nothing to lose. And bit by bit, +Romarin had begun to realise that he was going considerably more than +halfway to meet this old enemy of his, and that amity seemed as far on as +ever. In his heart he began to feel the foreknowledge that their meeting +could have no conclusion. He hated the man, the look of his face and the +sound of his voice, as much as ever. + +The proprietor approached with profoundest apology in his attitude. +M'sieu would pardon him, but the noise of the glass ... it was +annoying ... another M'sieu had made complaint.... + +"Eh?..." cried Marsden. "Oh, that! Certainly! It can be put to a much +better purpose." + +He refilled the glass. + +The liquor had begun to tell on him. A quarter of the quantity would have +made a clean-living man incapably drunk, but it had only made Marsden's +eyes bright. He gave a sarcastic laugh. + +"And is that all?" he asked. + +Romarin replied shortly that that was all. + +"You've missed out the R.A., and the D.C.L." + +"Then let me add that I'm a Doctor of Civil Law and a full Member of the +Royal Academy," said Romarin, almost at the end of his patience. "And +now, since you don't think much of it, may I hear your own account?" + +"Oh, by all means. I don't know, however, that--" he broke off to throw a +glance at a woman who had just entered the restaurant--a divesting glance +that caused Romarin to redden to his crown and drop his eyes. "I was +going to say that you may think as little of my history as I do of yours. +Supple woman that; when the rather scraggy blonde does take it into her +head to be a devil she's the worst kind there is...." + +Without apology Romarin looked at his watch. + +"All right," said Marsden, smiling, "for what _I've_ got out of life, +then. But I warn you, it's entirely discreditable." + +Romarin did not doubt it. + +"But it's mine, and I boast of it. I've done--barring receiving honours +and degrees--everything--everything! If there's anything I haven't done, +tell me and lend me a sovereign, and I'll go and do it." + +"You haven't told the story." + +"That's so. Here goes then ... Well, you know, unless you've forgotten, +how I began...." + +Fruit and nutshells and nutcrackers lay on the table between them, and at +the end of it, shielded from draughts by the menu cards, the coffee +apparatus simmered over its elusive blue flame. Romarin was taking the +rind from a pear with a table-knife, and Marsden had declined port in +favour of a small golden liqueur of brandy. Every seat in the restaurant +was now occupied, and the proprietor himself had brought his finest +cigarettes and cigars. The waiter poured out the coffee, and departed +with the apparatus in one hand and his napkin in the other. + +Marsden was already well into his tale... + +The frightful unction with which he told it appalled Romarin. It was as +he had said--there was nothing he had not done and did not exult in with +a sickening exultation. It had, indeed, ended in diabetes. In the pitiful +hunting down of sensation to the last inch he had been fiendishly +ingenious and utterly unimaginative. His unholy curiosity had spared +nothing, his unnatural appetite had known no truth. It was grinning sin. +The details of it simply cannot be told.... + +And his vanity in it all was prodigious. Romarin was pale as he listened. +What! In order that _this_ malignant growth in Society's breast should +be able to say "I know," had sanctities been profaned, sweet conventions +assailed, purity blackened, soundness infected, and all that was bright +and of the day been sunk in the quagmire that this creature of the night +had called--yes, stilled called--by the gentle name of Romance? Yes, +so it had been. Not only had men and women suffered dishonour, but +manhood and womanhood and the clean institutions by which alone the +creature was suffered to exist had been brought to shame. And what was he +to look at when it was all done?... + +"Romance--Beauty--the Beauty of things as they are!" he croaked. + +If faces in the restaurant were now turned to Romarin, it was the horror +on Romarin's own face that drew them. He drew out his handkerchief and +mopped his brow. + +"But," he stammered presently, "you are speaking of +generalities--horrible theories--things diabolically conceivable +to be done--" + +"What?" cried Marsden, checked for a moment in his horrible triumph. "No, +by God! I've done 'em, done 'em! Don't you understand? If you don't, +question me!..." + +"No, no!" cried Romarin. + +"But I say yes! You came for this, and you shall have it! I tried to stop +you, but you wanted it, and by God you shall have it! You think your +life's been full and mine empty? Ha ha!... Romance! I had the conviction +of it, and I've had the courage too! I haven't told you a tenth of it! +What would you like? Chamber-windows when Love was hot? The killing of a +man who stood in my way? (I've fought a duel, and killed.) The squeezing +of the juice out of life like _that_?" He pointed to Romarin's plate; +Romarin had been eating grapes. "Did you find me saying I'd do a thing +and then drawing back from it when we--" he made a quick gesture of both +hands towards the middle of the restaurant floor. + +"When we fought--?" + +"Yes, when we fought, here!... Oh no, oh no! I've lived, I tell you, +every moment! Not a title, not a degree, but I've lived such a life as +you never dreamed of--!" + +"Thank God--" + +But suddenly Marsden's voice, which had risen, dropped again. He began to +shake with interior chuckles. They were the old, old chuckles, and they +filled Romarin with a hatred hardly to be borne. The sound of the +animal's voice had begun it, and his every word, look, movement, +gesture, since they had entered the restaurant, had added to it. And he +was now chuckling, chuckling, shaking with chuckles, as if some +monstrous tit-bit still remained to be told. Already Romarin had tossed +aside his napkin, beckoned to the waiter, and said, "M'sieu dines +with me...." + +"Ho ho ho ho!" came the drunken sounds. "It's a long time since M'sieu +dined here with his old friend Romarin! Do you remember the last time? Do +you remember it? _Pif, pan_! Two smacks across the table, Romarin--oh, +you got it in very well!--and then, _brrrrr_! quick! Back with the +tables--all the fellows round--Farquharson for me and Smith for you, and +then to it, Romarin!... And you really don't remember what it was all +about?..." + +Romarin had remembered. His face was not the face of the philosophic +master of Life now. + +"You said she shouldn't--little Pattie Hines you know--you said she +shouldn't--" + +Romarin sprang half from his chair, and brought his fist down on the +table. + +"And by Heaven, she didn't! At least that's one thing you haven't done!" + +Marsden too had risen unsteadily. + +"Oho, oho? You think that?" + +A wild thought flashed across Romarin's brain. + +"You mean--?" + +"I mean?... Oho, oho! Yes, I mean! She did, Romarin...." + +The mirrors, mistily seen through the smoke of half a hundred cigars and +cigarettes, the Loves and Shepherdesses of the garish walls, the diners +starting up in their places, all suddenly seemed to swing round in a +great half-circle before Romarin's eyes. The next moment, feeling as if +he stood on something on which he found it difficult to keep his balance, +he had caught up the table-knife with which he had peeled the pear and +had struck at the side of Marsden's neck. The rounded blade snapped, but +he struck again with the broken edge, and left the knife where it +entered. The table appeared uptilted almost vertical; over it Marsden's +head disappeared; it was followed by a shower of glass, cigars, +artificial flowers and the tablecloth at which he clutched; and the +dirty American cloth of the table top was left bare. + + * * * * * + +But the edge behind which Marsden's face had disappeared remained +vertical. A group of scene-shifters were moving a flat of scenery from a +theatre into a tumbril-like cart... + +And Romarin knew that, past, present, and future, he had seen it all in +an instant, and that Marsden stood behind that painted wing. + +And he knew, too, that he had only to wait until that flat passed and to +take Marsden's arm and enter the restaurant, _and it would be so_. A +drowning man is said to see all in one unmeasurable instant of time; a +year-long dream is but, they say, an instantaneous arrangement in the +moment of waking of the molecules we associate with ideas; and the past +of history and the future of prophecy are folded up in the mystic moment +we call the present.... + +_It would come true_.... + +For one moment Romarin stood; the next, he had turned and run for his +life. + +At the corner of the street he collided with a loafer, and only the wall +saved them from going down. Feverishly Romarin plunged his hand into his +pocket and brought out a handful of silver. He crammed it into the +loafer's hand. + +"Here--quick--take it!" he gasped. "There's a man there, by that +restaurant door--he's waiting for Mr. Romarin--tell him--tell him--tell +him Mr. Romarin's had an accident--" + +And he dashed away, leaving the man looking at the silver in his palm. + + + + +THE CIGARETTE CASE + + +"A cigarette, Loder?" I said, offering my case. For the moment Loder was +not smoking; for long enough he had not been talking. + +"Thanks," he replied, taking not only the cigarette, but the case also. +The others went on talking; Loder became silent again; but I noticed +that he kept my cigarette case in his hand, and looked at it from time to +time with an interest that neither its design nor its costliness seemed +to explain. Presently I caught his eye. + +"A pretty case," he remarked, putting it down on the table. "I once had +one exactly like it." + +I answered that they were in every shop window. + +"Oh yes," he said, putting aside any question of rarity.... "I lost +mine." + +"Oh?..." + +He laughed. "Oh, that's all right--I got it back again--don't be afraid +I'm going to claim yours. But the way I lost it--found it--the whole +thing--was rather curious. I've never been able to explain it. I wonder +if you could?" + +I answered that I certainly couldn't till I'd heard it, whereupon Loder, +taking up the silver case again and holding it in his hand as he talked, +began: + +"This happened in Provence, when I was about as old as Marsham there--and +every bit as romantic. I was there with Carroll--you remember poor old +Carroll and what a blade of a boy he was--as romantic as four Marshams +rolled into one. (Excuse me, Marsham, won't you? It's a romantic tale, +you see, or at least the setting is.) ... We were in Provence, Carroll +and I; twenty-four or thereabouts; romantic, as I say; and--and this +happened. + +"And it happened on the top of a whole lot of other things, you must +understand, the things that do happen when you're twenty-four. If it +hadn't been Provence, it would have been somewhere else, I suppose, +nearly, if not quite as good; but this was Provence, that smells (as you +might say) of twenty-four as it smells of argelasse and wild lavender and +broom.... + +"We'd had the dickens of a walk of it, just with knapsacks--had started +somewhere in the Ardèche and tramped south through the vines and almonds +and olives--Montélimar, Orange, Avignon, and a fortnight at that blanched +skeleton of a town, Les Baux. We'd nothing to do, and had gone just where +we liked, or rather just where Carroll had liked; and Carroll had had the +_De Bello Gallico_ in his pocket, and had had a notion, I fancy, of +taking in the whole ground of the Roman conquest--I remember he lugged me +off to some place or other, Pourrières I believe its name was, because--I +forget how many thousands--were killed in a river-bed there, and they +stove in the water-casks so that if the men wanted water they'd have to +go forward and fight for it. And then we'd gone on to Arles, where +Carroll had fallen in love with everything that had a bow of black +velvet in her hair, and after that Tarascon, Nîmes, and so on, the usual +round--I won't bother you with that. In a word, we'd had two months of +it, eating almonds and apricots from the trees, watching the women at the +communal washing-fountains under the dark plane-trees, singing _Magali_ +and the _Qué Cantes_, and Carroll yarning away all the time about Caesar +and Vercingetorix and Dante, and trying to learn Provençal so that he +could read the stuff in the _Journal des Félibriges_ that he'd never have +looked at if it had been in English.... + +"Well, we got to Darbisson. We'd run across some young chap or +other--Rangon his name was--who was a vine-planter in those parts, and +Rangon had asked us to spend a couple of days with him, with him and his +mother, if we happened to be in the neighbourhood. So as we might as +well happen to be there as anywhere else, we sent him a postcard and +went. This would be in June or early in July. All day we walked across +a plain of vines, past hurdles of wattled _cannes_ and great wind-screens +of velvety cypresses, sixty feet high, all white with dust on the north +side of 'em, for the mistral was having its three-days' revel, and it +whistled and roared through the _cannes_ till scores of yards of 'em +at a time were bowed nearly to the earth. A roaring day it was, I +remember.... But the wind fell a little late in the afternoon, and we +were poring over what it had left of our Ordnance Survey--like fools, +we'd got the unmounted paper maps instead of the linen ones--when Rangon +himself found us, coming out to meet us in a very badly turned-out trap. +He drove us back himself, through Darbisson, to the house, a mile and a +half beyond it, where he lived with his mother. + +"He spoke no English, Rangon didn't, though, of course, both French and +Provençal; and as he drove us, there was Carroll, using him as a +Franco-Provençal dictionary, peppering him with questions about the names +of things in the patois--I beg its pardon, the language--though there's +a good deal of my eye and Betty Martin about that, and I fancy this +Félibrige business will be in a good many pieces when Frédéric Mistral +is under that Court-of-Love pavilion arrangement he's had put up for +himself in the graveyard at Maillanne. If the language has got to go, +well, it's got to go, I suppose; and while I personally don't want to +give it a kick, I rather sympathise with the Government. Those jaunts of +a Sunday out to Les Baux, for instance, with paper lanterns and Bengal +fire and a fellow spouting _O blanche Venus d'Arles_--they're well +enough, and compare favourably with our Bank Holidays and Sunday League +picnics, but ... but that's nothing to do with my tale after all.... So +he drove on, and by the time we got to Rangon's house Carroll had learned +the greater part of _Magali_.... + +"As you, no doubt, know, it's a restricted sort of life in some respects +that a young _vigneron_ lives in those parts, and it was as we reached +the house that Rangon remembered something--or he might have been trying +to tell us as we came along for all I know, and not been able to get a +word in edgeways for Carroll and his Provençal. It seemed that his mother +was away from home for some days--apologies of the most profound, of +course; our host was the soul of courtesy, though he did try to get at +us a bit later.... We expressed our polite regrets, naturally; but I +didn't quite see at first what difference it made. I only began to see +when Rangon, with more apologies, told us that we should have to go back +to Darbisson for dinner. It appeared that when Madame Rangon went away +for a few days she dispersed the whole of the female side of her +establishment also, and she'd left her son with nobody to look after +him except an old man we'd seen in the yard mending one of these +double-cylindered sulphur-sprinklers they clap across the horse's back +and drive between the rows of vines.... Rangon explained all this as we +stood in the hall drinking an _apéritif_--a hall crowded with oak +furniture and photographs and a cradle-like bread-crib and doors opening +to right and left to the other rooms of the ground floor. He had also, it +seemed, to ask us to be so infinitely obliging as to excuse him for one +hour after dinner--our postcard had come unexpectedly, he said, and +already he had made an appointment with his agent about the _vendange_ +for the coming autumn.... We, begged him, of course, not to allow us to +interfere with his business in the slightest degree. He thanked us a +thousand times. + +"'But though we dine in the village, we will take our own wine with us,' +he said, 'a wine _surfin_--one of my wines--you shall see--' + +"Then he showed us round his place--I forget how many hundreds of acres +of vines, and into the great building with the presses and pumps and +casks and the huge barrel they call the thunderbolt--and about seven +o'clock we walked back to Darbisson to dinner, carrying our wine with us. +I think the restaurant we dined in was the only one in the place, and our +gaillard of a host--he was a straight-backed, well-set-up chap, with +rather fine eyes--did us on the whole pretty well. His wine certainly was +good stuff, and set our tongues going.... + +"A moment ago I said a fellow like Rangon leads a restricted sort of life +in those parts. I saw this more clearly as dinner went on. We dined by an +open window, from which we could see the stream with the planks across it +where the women washed clothes during the day and assembled in the +evening for gossip. There were a dozen or so of them there as we dined, +laughing and chatting in low tones--they all seemed pretty--it was +quickly falling dusk--all the girls are pretty then, and are quite +conscious of it--_you_ know, Marsham. Behind them, at the end of the +street, one of these great cypress wind-screens showed black against the +sky, a ragged edge something like the line the needle draws on a rainfall +chart; and you could only tell whether they were men or women under the +plantains by their voices rippling and chattering and suddenly a deeper +note.... Once I heard a muffled scuffle and a sound like a kiss.... It +was then that Rangon's little trouble came out.... + +"It seemed that he didn't know any girls--wasn't allowed to know any +girls. The girls of the village were pretty enough, but you see how it +was--he'd a position to keep up--appearances to maintain--couldn't be +familiar during the year with the girls who gathered his grapes for him +in the autumn.... And as soon as Carroll gave him a chance, _he_ began to +ask _us_ questions, about England, English girls, the liberty they had, +and so on. + +"Of course, we couldn't tell him much he hadn't heard already, but that +made no difference; he could stand any amount of that, our strapping +young _vigneron_; and he asked us questions by the dozen, that we both +tried to answer at once. And his delight and envy!... What! In England +did the young men see the young women of their own class without +restraint--the sisters of their friends _même_--even at the house? Was it +permitted that they drank tea with them in the afternoon, or went without +invitation to pass the _soirée_?... He had all the later Prévosts in his +room, he told us (I don't doubt he had the earlier ones also); Prévost +and the Disestablishment between them must be playing the mischief +with the convent system of education for young girls; and our young man +was--what d'you call it?--'Co-ed'--co-educationalist--by Jove, yes!... He +seemed to marvel that we should have left a country so blessed as England +to visit his dusty, wild-lavender-smelling, girl-less Provence.... You +don't know half your luck, Marsham.... + +"Well, we talked after this fashion--we'd left the dining-room of the +restaurant and had planted ourselves on a bench outside with Rangon +between us--when Rangon suddenly looked at his watch and said it was time +he was off to see this agent of his. Would we take a walk, he asked us, +and meet him again there? he said.... But as his agent lived in the +direction of his own home, we said we'd meet him at the house in an hour +or so. Off he went, envying every Englishman who stepped, I don't +doubt.... I told you how old--how young--we were.... Heigho!... + +"Well, off goes Rangon, and Carroll and I got up, stretched ourselves, +and took a walk. We walked a mile or so, until it began to get pretty +dark, and then turned; and it was as we came into the blackness of one of +these cypress hedges that the thing I'm telling you of happened. The +hedge took a sharp turn at that point; as we came round the angle we saw +a couple of women's figures hardly more than twenty yards ahead--don't +know how they got there so suddenly, I'm sure; and that same moment I +found my foot on something small and white and glimmering on the grass. + +"I picked it up. It was a handkerchief--a woman's--embroidered-- + +"The two figures ahead of us were walking in our direction; there was +every probability that the handkerchief belonged to one of them; so we +stepped out.... + +"At my 'Pardon, madame,' and lifted hat one of the figures turned her +head; then, to my surprise, she spoke in English--cultivated English. +I held out the handkerchief. It belonged to the elder lady of the two, +the one who had spoken, a very gentle-voiced old lady, older by very many +years than her companion. She took the handkerchief and thanked me.... + +"Somebody--Sterne, isn't it?--says that Englishmen don't travel to see +Englishmen. I don't know whether he'd stand to that in the case of +Englishwomen; Carroll and I didn't.... We were walking rather slowly +along, four abreast across the road; we asked permission to introduce +ourselves, did so, and received some name in return which, strangely +enough, I've entirely forgotten--I only remember that the ladies were +aunt and niece, and lived at Darbisson. They shook their heads when I +mentioned M. Rangon's name and said we were visiting him. They didn't +know him.... + +"I'd never been in Darbisson before, and I haven't been since, so I don't +know the map of the village very well. But the place isn't very big, +and the house at which we stopped in twenty minutes or so is probably +there yet. It had a large double door--a double door in two senses, +for it was a big _porte-cochère_ with a smaller door inside it, and an +iron grille shutting in the whole. The gentle-voiced old lady had already +taken a key from her reticule and was thanking us again for the little +service of the handkerchief; then, with the little gesture one makes when +one has found oneself on the point of omitting a courtesy, she gave a +little musical laugh. + +"'But,' she said with a little movement of invitation, 'one sees so +few compatriots here--if you have the time to come in and smoke a +cigarette ... also the cigarette,' she added, with another rippling +laugh, 'for we have few callers, and live alone--' + +"Hastily as I was about to accept, Carroll was before me, professing a +nostalgia for the sound of the English tongue that made his recent +protestations about Provençal a shameless hypocrisy. Persuasive young +rascal, Carroll Was--poor chap ... So the elder lady opened the grille +and the wooden door beyond it, and we entered. + +"By the light of the candle which the younger lady took from a bracket +just within the door we saw that we were in a handsome hall or vestibule; +and my wonder that Rangon had made no mention of what was apparently a +considerable establishment was increased by the fact that its tenants +must be known to be English and could be seen to be entirely charming. I +couldn't understand it, and I'm afraid hypotheses rushed into my head +that cast doubts on the Rangons--you know--whether _they_ were all right. +We knew nothing about our young planter, you see.... + +"I looked about me. There were tubs here and there against the walls, +gaily painted, with glossy-leaved aloes and palms in them--one of the +aloes, I remember, was flowering; a little fountain in the middle made a +tinkling noise; we put our caps on a carved and gilt console table; and +before us rose a broad staircase with shallow steps of spotless stone and +a beautiful wrought-iron handrail. At the top of the staircase were more +palms and aloes, and double doors painted in a clear grey. + +"We followed our hostesses up the staircase. I can hear yet the sharp +clean click our boots made on that hard shiny stone--see the lights of +the candle gleaming on the handrail ... The young girl--she was not much +more than a girl--pushed at the doors, and we went in. + +"The room we entered was all of a piece with the rest for rather +old-fashioned fineness. It was large, lofty, beautifully kept. Carroll +went round for Miss ... whatever her name was ... lighting candles in +sconces; and as the flames crept up they glimmered on a beautifully +polished floor, which was bare except for an Eastern rug here and there. +The elder lady had sat down in a gilt chair, Louis Fourteenth I should +say, with a striped rep of the colour of a petunia; and I really don't +know--don't smile, Smith--what induced me to lead her to it by the +finger-tips, bending over her hand for a moment as she sat down. There +was an old tambour-frame behind her chair, I remember, and a vast oval +mirror with clustered candle-brackets filled the greater part of the +farther wall, the brightest and clearest glass I've ever seen...." + +He paused, looking at my cigarette case, which he had taken into his hand +again. He smiled at some recollection or other, and it was a minute or +so before he continued. + +"I must admit that I found it a little annoying, after what we'd +been talking about at dinner an hour before, that Rangon wasn't with +us. I still couldn't understand how he could have neighbours so +charming without knowing about them, but I didn't care to insist on +this to the old lady, who for all I knew might have her own reasons +for keeping to herself. And, after all, it was our place to return +Rangon's hospitality in London if he ever came there, not, so to speak, +on his own doorstep.... So presently I forgot all about Rangon, and I'm +pretty sure that Carroll, who was talking to his companion of some +Félibrige junketing or other and having the air of Gounod's _Mireille_ +hummed softly over to him, didn't waste a thought on him either. Soon +Carroll--you remember what a pretty crooning, humming voice he had--soon +Carroll was murmuring what they call 'seconds,' but so low that the sound +hardly came across the room; and I came in with a soft bass note from +time to time. No instrument, you know; just an unaccompanied murmur no +louder than an Aeolian harp; and it sounded infinitely sweet and +plaintive and--what shall I say?--weak--attenuated--faint--'pale' you +might almost say--in that formal, rather old-fashioned _salon_, with that +great clear oval mirror throwing back the still flames of the candles in +the sconces on the walls. Outside the wind had now fallen completely; all +was very quiet; and suddenly in a voice not much louder than a sigh, +Carroll's companion was singing _Oft in the Stilly Night_--you know +it...." + +He broke off again to murmur the beginning of the air. Then, with a +little laugh for which we saw no reason, he went on again: + +"Well, I'm not going to try to convince you of such a special and +delicate thing as the charm of that hour--it wasn't more than an +hour--it would be all about an hour we stayed. Things like that just +have to be said and left; you destroy them the moment you begin to +insist on them; we've every one of us had experiences like that, and +don't say much about them. I was as much in love with my old lady as +Carroll evidently was with his young one--I can't tell you why--being +in love has just to be taken for granted too, I suppose... Marsham +understands.... We smoked our cigarettes, and sang again, once more +filling that clear-painted, quiet apartment with a murmuring no louder +than if a light breeze found that the bells of a bed of flowers were +really bells and played on 'em. The old lady moved her fingers gently +on the round table by the side of her chair,.. oh, infinitely pretty it +was.... Then Carroll wandered off into the _Qué Cantes_--awfully +pretty--'It is not for myself I sing, but for my friend who is near +me'--and I can't tell you how like four old friends we were, those two +so oddly met ladies and Carroll and myself.... And so to _Oft in the +Stilly Night_ again.... + +"But for all the sweetness and the glamour of it, we couldn't stay on +indefinitely, and I wondered what time it was, but didn't ask--anything +to do with clocks and watches would have seemed a cold and mechanical +sort of thing just then.... And when presently we both got up neither +Carroll nor I asked to be allowed to call again in the morning to +thank them for a charming hour.... And they seemed to feel the same as +we did about it. There was no 'hoping that we should meet again in +London'--neither an au revoir nor a good-bye--just a tacit understanding +that that hour should remain isolated, accepted like a good gift without +looking the gift-horse in the mouth, single, unattached to any hours +before or after--I don't know whether you see what I mean.... Give me a +match somebody.... + +"And so we left, with no more than looks exchanged and finger-tips +resting between the back of our hands and our lips for a moment. We +found our way out by ourselves, down that shallow-stepped staircase with +the handsome handrail, and let ourselves out of the double door and +grille, closing it softly. We made for the village without speaking a +word.... Heigho!..." + +Loder had picked up the cigarette case again, but for all the way his +eyes rested on it I doubt whether he really saw it. I'm pretty sure he +didn't; I knew when he did by the glance he shot at me, as much as to say +"I see you're wondering where the cigarette case comes in."... He +resumed with another little laugh. + +"Well," he continued, "we got back to Rangon's house. I really don't +blame Rangon for the way he took it when we told him, you know--he +thought we were pulling his leg, of course, and he wasn't having any; not +he! There were no English ladies in Darbisson, he said.... We told him as +nearly as we could just where the house was--we weren't very precise, I'm +afraid, for the village had been in darkness as we had come through it, +and I had to admit that the cypress hedge I tried to describe where we'd +met our friends was a good deal like other cypress hedges--and, as I say, +Rangon wasn't taking any. I myself was rather annoyed that he should +think we were returning his hospitality by trying to get at him, and it +wasn't very easy either to explain in my French and Carroll's Provençal +that we were going to let the thing stand as it was and weren't going to +call on our charming friends again.... The end of it was that Rangon +just laughed and yawned.... + +"'I knew it was good, my wine,' he said, 'but--' a shrug said the rest. +'Not so good as all that,' he meant.... + +"Then he gave us our candles, showed us to our rooms, shook hands, and +marched off to his own room and the Prévosts. + +"I dreamed of my old lady half the night. + +"After coffee the next morning I put my hand into my pocket for my +cigarette case and didn't find it. I went through all my pockets, and +then I asked Carroll if he'd got it. + +"'No,' he replied.... 'Think you left it behind at that place last +night?' + +"'Yes; did you?' Rangon popped in with a twinkle. + +"I went through all my pockets again. No cigarette case.... + +"Of course, it was possible that I'd left it behind, and I was annoyed +again. I didn't want to go back, you see.... But, on the other hand, I +didn't want to lose the case--it was a present--and Rangon's smile +nettled me a good deal, too. It was both a challenge to our truthfulness +and a testimonial to that very good wine of his.... + +"'Might have done,' I grunted.... 'Well, in that case we'll go and get +it.' + +"'If one tried the restaurant first--?' Rangon suggested, smiling again. + +"'By all means,' said I stuffily, though I remembered having the case +after we'd left the restaurant. + +"We were round at the restaurant by half-past nine. The case wasn't +there. I'd known jolly well beforehand it wasn't, and I saw Rangon's +mouth twitching with amusement. + +"'So we now seek the abode of these English ladies, _hein_?' he said. + +"'Yes,' said I; and we left the restaurant and strode through the village +by the way we'd taken the evening before.... + +"That vigneron's smile became more and more irritating to me.... 'It is +then the next village?' he said presently, as we left the last house and +came out into the open plain. + +"We went back.... + +"I was irritated because we were two to one, you see, and Carroll backed +me up. 'A double door, with a grille in front of it,' he repeated for +the fiftieth time.... Rangon merely replied that it wasn't our good faith +he doubted. He didn't actually use the word 'drunk.'... + +"'_Mais tiens_,' he said suddenly, trying to conceal his mirth. '_Si +c'est possible... si c'est possible_... a double door with a grille? But +perhaps that I know it, the domicile of these so elusive ladies.... Come +this way.' + +"He took us back along a plantain-groved street, and suddenly turned up +an alley that was little more than two gutters and a crack of sky +overhead between two broken-tiled roofs. It was a dilapidated, deserted +_ruelle_, and I was positively angry when Rangon pointed to a blistered +old _porte-cochère_ with a half-unhinged railing in front of it. + +"'Is it that, your house?' he asked. + +"'No,' says I, and 'No,' says Carroll ... and off we started again.... + +"But another half-hour brought us back to the same place, and Carroll +scratched his head. + +"'Who lives there, anyway?' he said, glowering at the _porte-cochère_, +chin forward, hands in pockets. + +"'Nobody,' says Rangon, as much as to say 'look at it!' 'M'sieu then +meditates taking it?'... + +"Then I struck in, quite out of temper by this time. + +"'How much would the rent be?' I asked, as if I really thought of taking +the place just to get back at him. + +"He mentioned something ridiculously small in the way of francs. + +"'One might at least see the place,' says I. 'Can the key be got?' + +"He bowed. The key was at the baker's, not a hundred yards away, he +said.... + +"We got the key. It was the key of the inner wooden door--that grid of +rusty iron didn't need one--it came clean off its single hinge when +Carroll touched it. Carroll opened, and we stood for a moment motioning +to one another to step in. Then Rangon went in first, and I heard him +murmur 'Pardon, Mesdames.'... + +"Now this is the odd part. We passed into a sort of vestibule or hall, +with a burst lead pipe in the middle of a dry tank in the centre of it. +There was a broad staircase rising in front of us to the first floor, and +double doors just seen in the half-light at the head of the stairs. Old +tubs stood against the walls, but the palms and aloes in them were +dead--only a cabbage-stalk or two--and the rusty hoops lay on the ground +about them. One tub had come to pieces entirely and was no more than a +heap of staves on a pile of spilt earth. And everywhere, everywhere was +dust--the floor was an inch deep in dust and old plaster that muffled our +footsteps, cobwebs hung like old dusters on the walls, a regular goblin's +tatter of cobwebs draped the little bracket inside the door, and the +wrought-iron of the hand-rail was closed up with webs in which not even a +spider moved. The whole thing was preposterous.... + +"'It is possible that for even a less rental--' + +"Rangon murmured, dragging his forefinger across the hand-rail and +leaving an inch-deep furrow.... + +"'Come upstairs,' said I suddenly.... + +"Up we went. All was in the same state there. A clutter of stuff came +down as I pushed at the double doors of the _salon_, and I had to strike +a stinking French sulphur match to see into the room at all. Underfoot +was like walking on thicknesses of flannel, and except where we put +our feet the place was as printless as a snowfield--dust, dust, unbroken +grey dust. My match burned down.... + +"'Wait a minute--I've a _bougie_,' said Carroll, and struck the wax +match.... + +"There were the old sconces, with never a candle-end in them. There was +the large oval mirror, but hardly reflecting Carroll's match for the +dust on it. And the broken chairs were there, all gutless, and the +rickety old round table.... + +"But suddenly I darted forward. Something new and bright on the table +twinkled with the light of Carroll's match. The match went out, and by +the time Carroll had lighted another I had stopped. I wanted Rangon to +see what was on the table.... + +"'You'll see by my footprints how far from that table _I've_ been,' I +said. 'Will you pick it up?' + +"And Rangon, stepping forward, picked up from the middle of the table--my +cigarette case." + + * * * * * + +Loder had finished. Nobody spoke. For quite a minute nobody spoke, and +then Loder himself broke the silence, turning to me. + +"Make anything of it?" he said. + +I lifted my eyebrows. "Only your _vigneron's_ explanation--" I began, but +stopped again, seeing that wouldn't do. + +"_Any_body make anything of it?" said Loder, turning from one to another. + +I gathered from Smith's face that he thought one thing might be made of +it--namely, that Loder had invented the whole tale. But even Smith +didn't speak. + +"Were any English ladies ever found to have lived in the place--murdered, +you know--bodies found and all that?" young Marsham asked diffidently, +yearning for an obvious completeness. + +"Not that we could ever learn," Loder replied. "We made inquiries +too.... So you all give it up? Well, so do I...." + +And he rose. As he walked to the door, myself following him to get his +hat and stick, I heard him humming softly the lines--they are from +_Oft in the Stilly Night_-- + +"_I seem like one who treads alone + Some banquet-hall deserted, +Whose guests are fled, whose garlands dead, + And all but he--departed!_" + + + + +THE ROCKER + + +I + +There was little need for the swart gipsies to explain, as they stood +knee-deep in the snow round the bailiff of the Abbey Farm, what it +was that had sent them. The unbroken whiteness of the uplands told that, +and, even as they spoke, there came up the hill the dark figures of the +farm men with shovels, on their way to dig out the sheep. In the summer, +the bailiff would have been the first to call the gipsies vagabonds +and roost-robbers; now ... they had women with them too. + +"The hares and foxes were down four days ago, and the liquid-manure pumps +like a snow man," the bailiff said.... "Yes, you can lie in the laithes +and welcome--if you can find 'em. Maybe you'll help us find our sheep +too--" + +The gipsies had done so. Coming back again, they had had some ado to +discover the spot where their three caravans made a hummock of white +against a broken wall. + +The women--they had four women with them--began that afternoon to weave +the mats and baskets they hawked from door to door; and in the forenoon +of the following day one of them, the black-haired, soft-voiced quean +whom the bailiff had heard called Annabel, set her babe in the sling on +her back, tucked a bundle of long cane-loops under her oxter, and trudged +down between eight-foot walls of snow to the Abbey Farm. She stood in the +latticed porch, dark and handsome against the whiteness, and then, +advancing, put her head into the great hall-kitchen. + +"Has the lady any chairs for the gipsy woman to mend?" she asked in a +soft and insinuating voice.... + +They brought her the old chairs; she seated herself on a box in the +porch; and there she wove the strips of cane in and out, securing each +one with a little wooden peg and a tap of her hammer. The child remained +in the sling at her back, taking the breast from time to time over her +shoulder; and the silver wedding ring could be seen as she whipped the +cane, back and forth. + +As she worked, she cast curious glances into the old hall-kitchen. The +snow outside cast a pallid, upward light on the heavy ceiling-beams; this +was reflected in the polished stone floor; and the children, who at first +had shyly stopped their play, seeing the strange woman in the porch--the +nearest thing they had seen to gipsies before had been the old itinerant +glazier with his frame of glass on his back--resumed it, but still eyed +her from time to time. In the ancient walnut chair by the hearth sat the +old, old lady who had told them to bring the chairs. Her hair, almost +as white as the snow itself, was piled up on her head _à la Marquise_; +she was knitting; but now and then she allowed the needle in the little +wooden sheath at her waist to lie idle, closed her eyes, and rocked +softly in the old walnut chair. + +"Ask the woman who is mending the chairs whether she is warm enough +there," the old lady said to one of the children; and the child went +to the porch with the message. + +"Thank you, little missie--thank you, lady dear--Annabel is quite warm," +said the soft voice; and the child returned to the play. + +It was a childish game of funerals at which the children played. The hand +of Death, hovering over the dolls, had singled out Flora, the +articulations of whose sawdust body were seams and whose boots were +painted on her calves of fibrous plaster. For the greater solemnity, the +children had made themselves sweeping trains of the garments of their +elders, and those with cropped curls had draped their heads with shawls, +the fringes of which they had combed out with their fingers to simulate +hair--long hair, such as Sabrina, the eldest, had hanging so low down +her back that she could almost sit on it. A cylindrical-bodied horse, +convertible (when his flat head came out of its socket) into a +locomotive, headed the sad _cortège_; then came the defunct Flora; then +came Jack, the raffish sailor doll, with other dolls; and the children +followed with hushed whisperings. + +The youngest of the children passed the high-backed walnut chair in which +the old lady sat. She stopped. + +"Aunt Rachel--" she whispered, slowly and gravely opening very wide and +closing very tight her eyes. + +"Yes, dear?" + +"Flora's dead!" + +The old lady, when she smiled, did so less with her lips than with her +faded cheeks. So sweet was her face that you could not help wondering, +when you looked on it, how many men had also looked upon it and loved it. +Somehow, you never wondered how many of them had been loved in return. + +"I'm so sorry, dear," Aunt Rachel, who in reality was a great-aunt, said. +"What did she die of this time?" + +"She died of ... Brown Titus ... 'n now she's going to be buried in a +grave as little as her bed." + +"In a what, dear?" + +"As little ... dread ... as little as my bed ... you say it, Sabrina." + +"She means, Aunt Rachel, + +"_Teach me to live that I may dread +The Grave as little as my bed,_" + +Sabrina, the eldest, interpreted. + +"Ah!... But won't you play at cheerful things, dears?" + +"Yes, we will, presently, Aunt Rachel; gee up, horse!... Shall we go and +ask the chair-woman if she's warm enough?" + +"Do, dears." + +Again the message was taken, and this time it seemed as if Annabel, the +gipsy, was not warm enough, for she gathered up her loops of cane and +brought the chair she was mending a little way into the hall-kitchen +itself. She sat down on the square box they used to cover the sewing +machine. + +"Thank you, lady dear," she murmured, lifting her handsome almond eyes to +Aunt Rachel. Aunt Rachel did not see the long, furtive, curious glance. +Her own eyes were closed, as if she was tired; her cheeks were smiling; +one of them had dropped a little to one shoulder, as it might have +dropped had she held in her arms a babe; and she was rocking, softly, +slowly, the rocker of the chair making a little regular noise on the +polished floor. + +The gipsy woman beckoned to one of the children. + +"Tell the lady, when she wakes, that I will tack a strip of felt to the +rocker, and then it will make no noise at all," said the low and +wheedling voice; and the child retired again. + +The interment of Flora proceeded.... + +An hour later Flora had taken up the burden of Life again. It was as +Angela, the youngest, was chastising her for some offence, that Sabrina, +the eldest, looked with wondering eyes on the babe in the gipsy's sling. +She approached on tiptoe. + +"May I look at it, please?" she asked timidly. + +The gipsy set one shoulder forward, and Sabrina put the shawl gently +aside, peering at the dusky brown morsel within. + +"Sometime, perhaps--if I'm very careful--" + +Sabrina ventured diffidently, "--if I'm _very_ careful--may I hold it?" + +Before replying, the gipsy once more turned her almond eyes towards Aunt +Rachel's chair. Aunt Rachel had been awakened for the conclusion of +Flora's funeral, but her eyes were closed again now, and once more her +cheek was dropped in that tender suggestive little gesture, and she +rocked. But you could see that she was not properly asleep.... It was, +somehow, less to Sabrina, still peering at the babe in the sling, than to +Aunt Rachel, apparently asleep, that the gipsy seemed to reply. + +"You'll know some day, little missis, that a wean knows its own pair of +arms," her seductive voice came. + +And Aunt Rachel heard. She opened her eyes with a start. The little +regular noise of the rocker ceased. She turned her head quickly; +tremulously she began to knit again; and, as her eyes rested on the +sidelong eyes of the gipsy woman, there was an expression in them that +almost resembled fright. + + +II + +They began to deck the great hall-kitchen for Christmas, but the snow +still lay thick over hill and valley, and the gipsies' caravans remained +by the broken wall where the drifts had overtaken them. Though all the +chairs were mended, Annabel still came daily to the farm, sat on the box +they used to cover the sewing machine, and wove mats. As she wove them, +Aunt Rachel knitted, and from time to time fragments of talk passed +between the two women. It was always the white-haired lady who spoke +first, and Annabel made all sorts of salutes and obeisances with her eyes +before replying. + +"I have not seen your husband," Aunt Rachel said to Annabel one day. (The +children at the other end of the apartment had converted a chest into an +altar, and were solemnising the nuptials of the resurrected Flora and +Jack, the raffish sailor-doll.) + +Annabel made roving play with her eyes. "He is up at the caravans, lady +dear," she replied. "Is there anything Annabel can bid him do?" + +"Nothing, thank you," said Aunt Rachel. + +For a minute the gipsy watched Aunt Rachel, and then she got up from the +sewing machine box and crossed the floor. She leaned so close towards her +that she had to put up a hand to steady the babe at her back. + +"Lady dear," she murmured with irresistible softness, "your husband died, +didn't he?" + +On Aunt Rachel's finger was a ring, but it was not a wedding ring. It was +a hoop of pearls. + +"I have never had a husband," she said. + +The gipsy glanced at the ring. "Then that is--?" + +"That is a betrothal ring," Aunt Rachel replied. + +"Ah!..." said Annabel. + +Then, after a minute, she drew still closer. Her eyes were fixed on Aunt +Rachel's, and the insinuating voice was very low. + +"Ah!... And did _it_ die too, lady dear?" + +Again came that quick, half-affrighted look into Aunt Rachel's face. Her +eyes avoided those of the gipsy, sought them, and avoided them again. + +"Did what die?" she asked slowly and guardedly.... + +The child at the gipsy's back did not need suck; nevertheless, Annabel's +fingers worked at her bosom, and she moved the sling. As the child +settled, Annabel gave Aunt Rachel a long look. + +"Why do you rock?" she asked slowly. + +Aunt Rachel was trembling. She did not reply. In a voice soft as sliding +water the gipsy continued: + +"Lady dear, we are a strange folk to you, and even among us there are +those who shuffle the pack of cards and read the palm when silver has +been put upon it, knowing nothing... But some of us _see_--some of us +_see_." + +It was more than a minute before Aunt Rachel spoke. + +"You are a woman, and you have your babe at your breast now.... Every +woman sees the thing you speak of." + +But the gipsy shook her head. "You speak of seeing with the heart. I +speak of eyes--these eyes." + +Again came a long pause. Aunt Rachel had given a little start, but had +become quiet again. When at last she spoke it was in a voice scarcely +audible. + +"That cannot be. I know what you mean, but it cannot be.... He died +on the eve of his wedding. For my bridal clothes they made me black +garments instead. It is long ago, and now I wear neither black nor white, +but--" her hands made a gesture. Aunt Rachel always dressed as if to suit +a sorrow that Time had deprived of bitterness, in such a tender and +fleecy grey as one sees in the mists that lie like lawn over hedgerow +and copse early of a midsummer's morning. "Therefore," she resumed, "your +heart may see, but your eyes cannot see that which never was." + +But there came a sudden note of masterfulness into the gipsy's voice. + +"With my eyes--_these_ eyes," she repeated, pointing to them. + +Aunt Rachel kept her own eyes obstinately on her knitting needles. "None +except I have seen it. It is not to be seen," she said. + +The gipsy sat suddenly erect. + +"It is not so. Keep still in your chair," she ordered, "and I will tell +you when--" + +It was a curious thing that followed. As if all the will went out of +her, Aunt Rachel sat very still; and presently her hands fluttered and +dropped. The gipsy sat with her own hands folded over the mat on her +knees. Several minutes passed; then, slowly, once more that sweetest of +smiles stole over Aunt Rachel's cheeks. Once more her head dropped. Her +hands moved. Noiselessly on the rockers that the gipsy had padded with +felt the chair began to rock. Annabel lifted one hand. + +"_Dovo se li_" she said. "It is there." + +Aunt Rachel did not appear to hear her. With that ineffable smile still +on her face, she rocked.... + +Then, after some minutes, there crossed her face such a look as visits +the face of one who, waking from sleep, strains his faculties to +recapture some blissful and vanishing vision.... + +"_Jal_--it is gone," said the gipsy woman. + +Aunt Rachel opened her eyes again. She repeated dully after Annabel: + +"It is gone." + +"Ghosts," the gipsy whispered presently, "are of the dead. Therefore it +must have lived." + +But again Aunt Rachel shook her head. "It never lived." + +"You were young, and beautiful?..." + +Still the shake of the head. "He died on the eve of his wedding. They +took my white garments away and gave me black ones. How then could +it have lived?" + +"Without the kiss, no.... But sometimes a woman will lie through her +life, and at the graveside still will lie.... Tell me the truth." + +But they were the same words that Aunt Rachel repeated: "He died on the +eve of his wedding; they took away my wedding garments...." From her lips +a lie could hardly issue. The gipsy's face became grave.... + +She broke another long silence. + +"I believe," she said at last. "It is a new kind--but no more wonderful +than the other. The other I have seen, now I have seen this also. Tell +me, does it come to any other chair?" + +"It was his chair; he died in it," said Aunt Rachel. + +"And you--shall you die in it?" + +"As God wills." + +"Has ... _other life_ ... visited it long?" + +"Many years; but it is always small; it never grows." + +"To their mothers babes never grow. They remain ever babes.... None other +has ever seen it?" + +"Except yourself, none. I sit here; presently it creeps into my arms; it +is small and warm; I rock, and then... it goes." + +"Would it come to another chair?" + +"I cannot tell. I think not. It was his chair." + +Annabel mused. At the other end of the room Flora was now bestowed on +Jack, the disreputable sailor. The gipsy's eyes rested on the bridal +party.... + +"Yet another might see it--" + +"None has." + +"No; but yet.... The door does not always shut behind us suddenly. +Perhaps one who has toddled but a step or two over the threshold might, +by looking back, catch a glimpse.... What is the name of the smallest +one?" + +"Angela." + +"That means 'angel'... Look, the doll who died yesterday is now being +married.... It may be that Life has not yet sealed the little one's eyes. +Will you let Annabel ask her if she sees what it is you hold in your +arms?" + +Again the voice was soft and wheedling.... + +"No, Annabel," said Aunt Rachel faintly. + +"Will you rock again?" + +Aunt Rachel made no reply. + +"Rock..." urged the cajoling voice. + +But Aunt Rachel only turned the betrothal ring on her finger. Over at the +altar Jack was leering at his new-made bride, past decency; and little +Angela held the wooden horse's head, which had parted from its body. + +"Rock, and comfort yourself--" tempted the voice. + +Then slowly Aunt Rachel rose from her chair. + +"No, Annabel," she said gently. "You should not have spoken. When the +snow melts you will go, and come no more; why then did you speak? It was +mine. It was not meant to be seen by another. I no longer want it. Please +go." + +The swarthy woman turned her almond eyes on her once more. + +"You cannot live without it," she said as she also rose.... + +And as Jack and his bride left the church on the reheaded horse, Aunt +Rachel walked with hanging head from the apartment. + + +III + +Thenceforward, as day followed day, Aunt Rachel rocked no more; and with +the packing and partial melting of the snow the gipsies up at the +caravans judged it time to be off about their business. It was on the +morning of Christmas Eve that they came down in a body to the Abbey +Farm to express their thanks to those who had befriended them; but the +bailiff was not there. He and the farm men had ceased work, and were +down at the church, practising the carols. Only Aunt Rachel sat, still +and knitting, in the black walnut chair; and the children played on the +floor. + +A night in the toy-box had apparently bred discontent between Jack +and Flora--or perhaps they sought to keep their countenances before +the world; at any rate, they sat on opposite sides of the room, Jack +keeping boon company with the lead soldiers, his spouse reposing, her +lead-balanced eyes closed, in the broken clockwork motor-car. With the +air of performing some vaguely momentous ritual, the children were +kissing one another beneath the bunch of mistletoe that hung from the +centre beam. In the intervals of kissing they told one another in +whispers that Aunt Rachel was not very well, and Angela woke Flora to +tell her that Aunt Rachel had Brown Titus also. + +"Stay you here; I will give the lady dear our thanks," said Annabel to +the group of gipsies gathered about the porch; and she entered the +great hall-kitchen. She approached the chair in which Aunt Rachel sat. + +There was obeisance in the bend of her body, but command in her long +almond eyes, as she spoke. + +"Lady dear, you must rock or you cannot live." + +Aunt Rachel did not look up from her work. + +"Rocking, I should not live long," she replied. + +"We are leaving you." + +"All leave me." + +"Annabel fears she has taken away your comfort." + +"Only for a little while. The door closes behind us, but it opens again." + +"But for that little time, rock--" + +Aunt Rachel shook her head. + +"No. It is finished. Another has seen.... Say good-bye to your +companions; they are very welcome to what they have had; and God speed +you." + +"They thank you, lady dear.... Will you not forget that Annabel saw, and +rock?" + +"No more." + +Annabel stooped and kissed the hand that bore the betrothal hoop of +pearls. The other hand Aunt Rachel placed for a moment upon the smoky +head of the babe in the sling. It trembled as it rested there, but the +tremor passed, and Annabel, turning once at the porch, gave her a last +look. Then she departed with her companions. + +That afternoon, Jack and Flora had shaken down to wedlock as married +folk should, and sat together before the board spread with the dolls' +tea-things. The pallid light in the great hall-kitchen faded; the candles +were lighted; and then the children, first borrowing the stockings of +their elders to hang at the bed's foot, were packed off early--for it was +the custom to bring them down again at midnight for the carols. Aunt +Rachel had their good-night kisses, not as she had them every night, but +with the special ceremony of the mistletoe. + +Other folk, grown folk, sat with Aunt Rachel that evening; but the old +walnut chair did not move upon its rockers. There was merry talk, but +Aunt Rachel took no part in it. The board was spread with ale and cheese +and spiced loaf for the carol-singers; and the time drew near for their +coming. + +When at midnight, faintly on the air from the church below, there came +the chiming of Christmas morning, all bestirred themselves. + +"They'll be here in a few minutes," they said; "somebody go and bring the +children down;" and within a very little while subdued noises were heard +outside, and the lifting of the latch of the yard gate. The children were +in their nightgowns, hardly fully awake; a low voice outside was heard +giving orders; and then there arose on the night the carol. + +"Hush!" they said to the wondering children; "listen!..." + +It was the Cherry Tree Carol that rose outside, of how sweet Mary, the +Queen of Galilee, besought Joseph to pluck the cherries for her Babe, and +Joseph refused; and the voices of the singers, that had begun +hesitatingly, grew strong and loud and free. + +"... and Joseph wouldn't pluck the cherries," somebody was whispering to +the tiny Angela.... + +"_Mary said to Cherry Tree, + 'Bow down to my knee, +That I may pluck cherries + For my Babe and me._'" + +the carollers sang; and "Now listen, darling," the one who held Angela +murmured.... + +"_The uppermost spray then + Bowed down to her knee; +'Thus you may see, Joseph, + These cherries are for me.' + +"'O, eat your cherries, Mary, + Give them your Babe now; +O, eat your cherries, Mary, + That grew upon the bough._'" + +The little Angela, within the arms that held her, murmured, "It's the +gipsies, isn't it, mother?" + +"No, darling. The gipsies have gone. It's the carol-singers, singing +because Jesus was born." + +"But, mother ... it _is_ the gipsies, isn't it?... 'Cos look..." + +"Look where?" + +"At Aunt Rachel, mother ... The gipsy woman wouldn't go without her +little baby, would she?" + +"No, she wouldn't do that." + +"Then has she _lent_ it to Aunt Rachel, like I lend my new toys +sometimes?" + +The mother glanced across at Aunt Rachel, and then gathered the +night-gowned figure more closely. + +"The darling's only half awake," she murmured.... "Poor Aunt Rachel's +sleepy too...." + +Aunt Rachel, her head dropped, her hands lightly folded as if about some +shape that none saw but herself, her face again ineffable with that +sweet and peaceful smile, was once more rocking softly in her chair. + + + + +HIC JACET + +A TALE OF ARTISTIC CONSCIENCE + +INTRODUCTION + + +As I lighted my guests down the stairs of my Chelsea lodgings, turned up +the hall gas that they might see the steps at the front door, and shook +hands with them, I bade them good night the more heartily that I was glad +to see their backs. Lest this should seem but an inhospitable confession, +let me state, first, that they had invited themselves, dropping in in +ones and twos until seven or eight of them had assembled in my garret, +and, secondly, that I was rather extraordinarily curious to know why, at +close on midnight, the one I knew least well of all had seen fit to +remain after the others had taken their departure. To these two +considerations I must add a third, namely, that I had become tardily +conscious that, if Andriaovsky had not lingered of himself, I should +certainly have asked him to do so. + +It was to nothing more than a glance, swift and momentary, directed by +Andriaovsky to myself while the others had talked, that I traced this +desire to see more of the little Polish painter; but a glance derives its +import from the circumstance under which it is given. That rapid turning +of his eyes in my direction an hour before had held a hundred questions, +implications, criticisms, incredulities, condemnations. It had been one +of those uncovenanted gestures that hold the promise of the treasures of +an eternal friendship. I wondered as I turned down the gas again and +remounted the stairs what personal message and reproach in it had lumped +me in with the others; and by the time I had reached my own door again a +phrase had fitted itself in my mind to that quick, ironical turning of +Andriaovsky's eyes: _"Et tu, Brute!..."_ + +He was standing where I had left him, his small shabby figure in the +attitude of a diminutive colossus on my hearthrug. About him were the +recently vacated chairs, solemnly and ridiculously suggestive of still +continuing the high and choice conversation that had lately finished. The +same fancy had evidently taken Andriaovsky, for he was turning from chair +to chair, his head a little on one side, mischievously and aggravatingly +smiling. As one of them, the deep wicker chair that Jamison had occupied, +suddenly gave a little creak of itself, as wicker will when released from +a strain, his smile broadened to a grin. I had been on the point of +sitting down in that chair, but I changed my mind and took another. + +"That's right," said Andriaovsky, in that wonderful English which he had +picked up in less than three years, "don't sit in the wisdom-seat; you +might profane it." + +I knew what he meant. I felt for my pipe and slowly filled it, not +replying. Then, slowly wagging his head from side to side, with his eyes +humorously and banteringly on mine, he uttered the very words I had +mentally associated with that glance of his. + +_"Et tu, Brute!"_ he said, wagging away, so that with each wag the lenses +of his spectacles caught the light of the lamp on the table. + +I too smiled as I felt for a match. + +"It _was_ rather much, wasn't it?" I said. + +But he suddenly stopped his wagging, and held up a not very clean +forefinger. His whole face was altogether too confoundedly intelligent. + +"Oh no, you don't!" he said peremptorily. "No getting out of it like +that the moment they've turned their backs! No running--what is it?--no +running with the hare and hunting with the hounds! _You_ helped, you +know!" + +I confess I fidgeted a little. + +"But hang it all, what could I do? They were in my place," I broke out. + +He chuckled, enjoying my discomfiture. Then his eyes fell on those absurd +and solemn chairs again. + +"Look at 'em--the Art Shades in conference!" he chuckled. "That +rush-seated one, it was talking half an hour ago about 'Scherzos in +Silver and Grey!' ... Nice, fresh green stuff!" + +To shut him up I told him that he would find cigarettes and tobacco on +the table. + +"'Scherzos in Silver and Grey'!" he chuckled again as he took a +cigarette.... + +All this, perhaps, needs some explanation. It had been the usual thing, +usual in those days, twenty years ago--smarming about Art and the Arts +and so forth. They--"we," as apparently Andriaovsky had lingered behind +for the purpose of reminding me--had perhaps talked a little more +soaringly than the ordinary, that was all. There had been Jamison in the +wicker chair, full to the lips and running over with the Colour +Suggestions of the late Edward Calvert; Gibbs, in a pulpy state of +adoration of the less legitimate side of the painting of Watts; and +Magnani, who had advanced that an Essential Oneness underlies all the +Arts, and had triumphantly proved his thesis by analogy with the Law of +the Co-relation of Forces. A book called Music and Morals had appeared +about that time, and on it they--we--had risen to regions of kite-high +lunacy about Colour Symphonies, orgies of formless colour thrown on a +magic-lantern screen--vieux jeu enough at this time of day. A young +newspaper man, too, had made mental notes of our adjectives, for use in +his weekly (I nearly spelt it "weakly") half-column of Art Criticism; +and--and here was Andriaovsky, grinning at the chairs, and mimicking +it all with diabolical glee. + +"'Scherzos in Silver and Grey'--'Word Pastels'--' Lyrics in Stone!'" +he chuckled. "And what was it the fat fellow said?' A Siren Song in +Marble!' Phew!... Well, I'll get along. I shall just be in time to get +a pint of bitter to wash it all down if I'm quick... Bah!" he broke out +suddenly. "Good men build up Form and Forms--keep the Arts each after +its kind--raise up the dikes so that we shan't all be swept away by night +and nothingness--and these rats come nosing and burrowing and undermining +it all!... _Et tu, Brute!_" + +"Well, when you've finished rubbing it in--" I grunted. + +"As if _you_ didn't know better!... Is that your way of getting back on +'em, now that you've chucked drawing and gone in for writing books? +Phew I... Well, I'll go and get my pint of beer--" + +But he didn't go for his pint of beer. Instead, he began to prowl about +my room, pryingly, nosingly, touching things here and there. I watched +him as he passed from one thing to another. He was very little, and very, +very shabby. His trousers were frayed, and the sole of one of his boots +flapped distressingly. His old bowler hat--he had not thought it +necessary to wait until he got outside before thrusting it on the back of +his head--was so limp in substance that I verily believed that had he run +incautiously downstairs he would have found when he got to the bottom +that its crown had sunk in of its own weight. In spite of his remark +about the pint of beer, I doubt if he had the price of one in his pocket. + +"What's this, Brutus--a concertina?" he suddenly asked, stopping before +the collapsible case in which I kept my rather old dress suit. + +I told him what it was, and he hoisted up his shoulders. + +"And these things?" he asked, moving to something else. + +They were a pair of boot-trees of which I had permitted myself the +economy. I remember they cost me four shillings in the old Brompton +Road. + +"And that's your bath, I suppose.... Dumb-bells too.... And--_oh, good +Lord!_..." + +He had picked up, and dropped again as if it had been hot, somebody or +other's card with the date of a "day" written across the corner of it.... + +As I helped him on with his overcoat he made no secret of the condition +of its armholes and lining. I don't for one moment suppose that the +garment was his. I took a candle to light him down as soon as it should +please him to depart. + +"Well, so long, and joy to you on the high road to success," he said with +another grin for which I could have bundled him down the stairs.... + +In later days I never looked to Andriaovsky for tact; but I stared at him +for his lack of it that night. And as I stared I noticed for the first +time the broad and low pylon of his forehead, his handsome mouth and +chin, and the fire and wit and scorn that smouldered behind his cheap +spectacles. I looked again; and his smallness, his malice, his pathetic +little braggings about his poverty, seemed all to disappear. He had +strolled back to my hearthrug, wishing, I have no doubt now, to be able +to exclaim suddenly that it was too late for the pint of beer for which +he hadn't the money, and to curse his luck; and the pigmy quality of his +colossusship had somehow gone. + +As I watched him, a neighbouring clock struck the half-hour, and he +did even as I had surmised--cursed the closing time of the English +public-houses.... + +I lighted him down. For one moment, under the hall gas, he almost dropped +his jesting manner. + +"You _do_ know better, Harrison, you know," he said. "But, of course, +you're going to be a famous author in almost no time. Oh, _ca se +voit_! No garrets for _you_! It was a treat,' the way you handled those +fellows--really ... Well don't forget us others when you're up there--I +may want you to write my 'Life' some day...." + +I heard the slapping of the loose sole as he shuffled down the path. At +the gate he turned for a moment. + +"Good night, Brutus," he called. + +When I had mounted to my garret again my eyes fell once more on that +ridiculous assemblage of empty chairs, all solemnly talking to one +another. I burst out into a laugh. Then I undressed, put my jacket on the +hanger, took the morrow's boots from the trees and treed those I had +removed, changed the pair of trousers under my mattress, and went, still +laughing at the chairs, to bed. + +This was Michael Andriaovsky, the Polish painter, who died four weeks +ago. + + +I + +I knew the reason of Maschka's visit the moment she was announced. Even +in the stressful moments of the funeral she had found time to whisper to +me that she hoped to call upon me at an early date. I dismissed the +amanuensis to whom I was dictating the last story of the fourth series of +_Martin Renard_, gave a few hasty instructions to my secretary, and told +the servant to show Miss Andriaovsky into the drawing-room, to ask her +to be so good as to excuse me for five minutes, to order tea at once, and +then to bring my visitor up to the library. + +A few minutes later she was shown into the room. + +She was dressed in the same plainly cut costume of dead black she +had worn at the funeral, and had pushed up her heavy veil over the +close-fitting cap of black fur that accentuated her Sclavonic appearance. +I noticed again with distress the pallor of her face and the bistred +rings that weeks of nursing had put under her dark eyes. I noticed also +her resemblance, in feature and stature, to her brother. I placed a chair +for her; the tea-tray followed her in; and without more than a murmured +greeting she peeled off her gloves and prepared to preside at the tray. + +She had filled the cups, and I had handed her toast, before she spoke. +Then: + +"I suppose you know what I've come about," she said. + +I nodded. + +"Long, long ago you promised it. Nobody else can do it. The only question +is 'when.'" + +"That's the only question," I agreed. + +"We, naturally," she continued, after a glance in which her eyes mutely +thanked me for my implied promise, "are anxious that it should be as soon +as possible; but, of course--I shall quite understand--" + +She gave a momentary glance round my library. I helped her out. + +"You mean that I'm a very important person nowadays, and that you're +afraid to trespass on my time. Never mind that. I shall find time +for this. But tell me before we go any further exactly how you stand and +precisely what it is you expect." + +Briefly she did so. It did not in the least surprise me to learn that her +brother had died penniless. + +"And if you hadn't undertaken the 'Life,'" she said, "he might just as +well not have worked in poverty all these years. You can, at least, see +to his fame." + +I nodded again gravely, and ruminated for a moment. Then I spoke. + +"I can write it, fully and in detail, up to five years ago," I said. "You +know what happened then. I tried my best to help him, but he never would +let me. Tell me, Maschka, why he wouldn't sell me that portrait." + +I knew instantly, from her quick confusion, that her brother had spoken +to her about the portrait he had refused to sell me, and had probably +told her the reason for his refusal. I watched her as she evaded the +question as well as she could. + +"You know how--queer--he was about who he sold his things to. And as for +those five years in which you saw less of him, Schofield will tell you +all you want to know." + +I relinquished the point. "Who's Schofield?" I asked instead. + +"He was a very good friend of Michael's--of both of us. You can talk +quite freely to him. I want to say at the beginning that I should like +him to be associated with you in this." + +I don't know how I divined on the spot her relation to Schofield, whoever +he was. She told me that he too was a painter. + +"Michael thought very highly of his things," she said. + +"I don't know them," I replied. + +"You probably wouldn't," she returned.... + +But I caught the quick drop of her eyes from their brief excursion round +my library, and I felt something within me stiffen a little. It did not +need Maschka Andriaovsky to remind me that I had not attained my position +without--let us say--splitting certain differences; the looseness of +the expression can be corrected hereafter. Life consists very largely of +compromises. You doubtless know my name, whichever country or hemisphere +you happen to live in, as that of the creator of Martin Renard, the +famous and popular detective; and I was not at that moment disposed to +apologise, either to Maschka or Schofield or anybody else, for having +written the stories at the bidding of a gaping public. The moment the +public showed that it wanted something better I was prepared to give it. +In the meantime, I sat in my very comfortable library, securely shielded +from distress by my balance at my banker's. + +"Well," I said after a moment, "let's see how we stand. And first +as to what you're likely to get out of this. It goes without saying, +of course, that by writing the 'Life' I can get you any amount of +'fame'--advertisement, newspaper talk, and all the things that, it struck +me, Michael always treated with especial scorn. My name alone, I say, +will do that. But for anything else I'm by no means so sure. You see," I +explained, "it doesn't follow that because I can sell hundreds of +thousands of... you know what... that I can sell anything I've a mind to +sign." I said it, confident that she had not lived all those years with +her brother without having learned the axiomatic nature of it. To my +discomfiture, she began to talk like a callow student. + +"I should have thought that it followed that if you could sell +something--" she hesitated only for a moment, then courageously gave the +other stuff its proper adjective, "--something rotten, you could have +sold something good when you had the chance." + +"Then if you thought that you were wrong," I replied briefly and +concisely. + +"_Michael_ couldn't, of course," she said, putting Michael out of the +question with a little wave of her hand, "because Michael was--I mean, +Michael wasn't a business man. You are." + +"I'm speaking as one," I replied. "I don't waste time in giving people +what they don't want. That is business. I don't undertake your brother's +'Life' as a matter of business, but as an inestimable privilege. I +repeat, it doesn't follow that the public will buy it." + +"But--but--" she stammered, "the public will buy a _Pill_ if they see +your name on the testimonial!" + +"A Pill--yes," I said sadly.... Genius and a Pill were, alas, different +things. "But," I added more cheerfully, "you can never tell what the +public will do. They _might_ buy it--there's no telling except by +trying--" + +"Well, Schofield thinks they will," she informed me with decision. + +"I dare say he does, if he's an artist. They mostly do," I replied. + +"He doesn't think Michael will ever be popular," she emphasised the +adjective slightly, "but he does think he has a considerable following if +they could only be discovered." + +I sighed. All artists think that. They will accept any compromise except +the one that is offered to them.... I tried to explain to Maschka that in +this world we have to stand to the chances of all or nothing. + +"You've got to be one thing or the other--I don't know that it matters +very much which," I said. "There's Michael's way, and there's... mine. +That's all. However, we'll try it. All you can say to me, and more, I'll +say to a publisher for you. But he'll probably wink at me." + +For a moment she was silent. Then she said: "Schofield rather fancies one +publisher." + +"Oh? Who's he?" I asked. + +She mentioned a name. If I knew anything at all of business she might as +well have offered _The Life of Michael Andriaovsky_ to The Religious +Tract Society at once.... + +"Hm!... And has Mr. Schofield any other suggestions?" I inquired. + +He had. Several. I saw that Schofield's position would have to be defined +before we went any further. + +"Hm!" I said again. "Well, I shall have to rely on Schofield for those +five years in which I saw little of Michael; but unless Schofield knows +more of publishing than I do, and can enforce a better contract and a +larger sum on account than I can, I really think, Maschka, that you'll do +better to leave things to me. For one thing, it's only fair to me. My +name hasn't much of an artistic value nowadays, but it has a very +considerable commercial one, and my worth to publishers isn't as a writer +of the Lives of Geniuses." + +I could see she didn't like it; but that couldn't be helped. It had to be +so. Then, as we sat for a time in silence over the fire, I noticed again +how like her brother she was. She was not, it was true, much like him as +he had been on that last visit of mine to him ... and I sighed as I +remembered that visit. The dreadful scene had come back to me.... + +On account, I suppose, of the divergence of our paths, I had not even +heard of his illness until almost the finish. Immediately I had hastened +to the Hampstead "Home," only to find him already in the agony. He had +not been too far gone to recognise me, however, for he had muttered +something brokenly about "knowing better," that a spasm had interrupted. +Besides myself, only Maschka had been there; and I had been thankful for +the summons that had called her for a moment out of the room. I had still +retained his already cold hand; his brow had worked with that dreadful +struggle; and his eyes had been closed. + +But suddenly he had opened them, and the next moment had sat up on his +pillow. He had striven to draw his hand from mine. + +"Who are you?" he had suddenly demanded, not knowing me. + +I had come close to him. "You know me, Andriaovsky--Harrison?" I had +asked sorrowfully. + +I had been on the point of repeating my name but suddenly, after holding +my eyes for a moment with a look the profundity and familiarity of which +I cannot express, he had broken into the most ghastly haunting laugh I +have ever heard. + +"_Harrison?_" the words had broken throatily from him.... "_Oh yes; I +know you!... You shall very soon know that I know you if... if..._" + +The cough and rattle had come as Maschka had rushed into the room. In ten +seconds Andriaovsky had fallen back, dead. + + +II + +That same evening I began to make notes for Andriaovsky's "Life." On the +following day, the last of the fourth series of the _Martin Renards_ +occupied me until I was thankful to get to bed. But thereafter I could +call rather more of my time my own, and I began in good earnest to devote +myself to the "Life." + +Maschka had spoken no more than the truth when she had said that of all +men living none but I could write that "Life." His remaining behind in my +Chelsea garret that evening after the others had left had been the +beginning of a friendship that, barring that lapse of five years at the +end, had been for twenty years one of completest intimacy. Whatever money +there might or might not be in the book, I had seen _my_ opportunity in +it--the opportunity to make it the vehicle for all the aspirations, +faiths, enthusiasms, and exaltations we had shared; and I myself did not +realise until I began to note them down one tithe of the subtle links and +associations that had welded our souls together. + +Even the outward and visible signs of these had been wonderful. Setting +out from one or other of the score of garrets and cheap lodgings we had +in our time inhabited, we had wandered together, day after day, night +after night, far down East, where, as we had threaded our way among the +barrels of soused herrings and the stalls and barrows of unleavened +bread, he had taught me scraps of Hebrew and Polish and Yiddish; up into +the bright West, where he could never walk a quarter of a mile without +meeting one of his extraordinary acquaintances--furred music-hall +managers, hawkers of bootlaces, commercial magnates of his own Faith, +touts, crossing-sweepers, painted women; into Soho, where he had names +for the very horses on the cab-ranks and the dogs who slumbered under the +counters of the sellers of French literature; out to the naphtha-lights +and cries of the Saturday night street markets of Islington and the North +End Road; into City churches on wintry afternoons, into the studios of +famous artists full of handsomely dressed women, into the studios of +artists not famous, at the ends of dark and break-neck corridors; to tea +at the suburban homes of barmaids and chorus girls, to dinner in the +stables of a cavalry-barracks, to supper in cabmen's shelters. He was +possessed in some mysterious way of the passwords to doors in hoardings +behind which excavations were in progress; he knew by name the butchers +of the Deptford yards, the men in the blood-caked clothes, so inured to +blood that they may not with safety to their lives swear at one another; +he took me into an opium-cellar within a stone's-throw of Oxford Street, +and into a roof-chamber to call upon certain friends of his ... well, +they _said_ they were fire extinguishers, so I'd better not say they +were bombs. Up, down; here, there; good report, but more frequently +evil ... we had known this side of our London as well as two men may. And +our other adventures and peregrinations, not of the body, but of the +spirit ... but these must be spoken of in their proper place. + +I had arranged with Maschka that Schofield should bring me the whole of +the work Andriaovsky had left behind him; and he arrived late one +afternoon in a fourwheeler, with four great packages done up in brown +paper. I found him to be a big, shaggy-browed, red-haired, raw-boned +Lancashire man of five-and-thirty, given to confidential demonstrations +at the length of a button-shank, quite unconscious of the gulf between +his words and his right to employ them, and bent on asserting an equality +that I did not dispute by a rather aggressive use of my surname. +Andriaovsky had appointed him his executor, and he had ever the air of +suspecting that the appointment was going to be challenged. + +"A'm glad to be associated with ye in this melancholy duty, Harrison," he +said. "Now we won't waste words. Miss Andriaovsky has told me precisely +how matters stand. I had, as ye know, the honour to be poor Michael's +close friend for a period of five years, and my knowledge of him is +entirely at your disposal." + +I answered that I should be seriously handicapped without it. + +"Just so. It is Miss Andriaovsky's desire that we should pull together. +Now, in the firrst place, what is your idea about the forrm the book +should take?" + +"In the first place, if you don't mind," I replied, "perhaps we'd better +run over together the things you've brought. The daylight will be gone +soon." + +"Just as ye like, Harrison," he said, "just as ye like. It's all the same +to me...." + +I cleared a space about my writing-table at the window, and we turned to +the artistic remains of Michael Andriaovsky. + +I was astonished, first, at the enormous quantity of the stuff, and next +at its utter and complete revelation of the man. In a flash I realised +how superb that portion at least of the book was going to be. And +Schofield explained that the work he had brought represented but a +fraction of the whole that was at our disposal. + +"Ye'll know with what foolish generosity poor Michael always gave his +things away," he said. "Hallard has a grand set; so has Connolly; and +from time to time he behaved varry handsomely to myself. Artists of varry +considerable talents both Hallard and Connolly are; Michael thought +varry highly of their abilities. They express the deepest interest in the +shape your worrk will take; and that reminds me. I myself have drafted a +rough scenario of the forrm it appeared to me the 'Life' might with +advantage be cast in. A purely private opinion, ye'll understand, +Harrison, which ye'll be entirely at liberty to disregard...." + +"Well, let's finish with the work first," I said. + +With boards, loose sheets, scraps of paper, notes, studies, canvases +stretched and stripped from their stretchers, we paved half the library +floor, Schofield keeping up all the time a running fire of "Grand, +grand! A masterpiece! A gem, that, Harrison!" They were all that he said, +and presently I ceased to hear his voice. The splendour of the work +issued undimmed even from the severe test of Schofield's praise; and I +thought again with pride how I, I, was the only man living who could +adequately write that "Life.".... + +"Aren't they grand? Aren't they great?" Schofield chanted monotonously. + +"They are," I replied, coming to a consciousness of his presence again. +"But what's that?" + +Secretively he had kept one package until the last. He now removed its +wrappings and set it against a chair. + +_"There!"_ he cried. "I'll thank ye, Harrison, for your opinion of +_that!"_ + +It was the portrait Andriaovsky had refused to sell me--a portrait of +himself. + +The portrait was the climax of the display. The Lancastrian still talked; +but I, profoundly moved, mechanically gathered up the drawings from the +floor and returned them to their proper packages and folios. I was dining +at home, alone, that evening, and for form's sake I asked this faithful +dog of Andriaovsky's to share my meal; but he excused himself--he was +dining with Hallard and Connolly. When the drawings were all put away, +all save that portrait, he gave an inquisitive glance round my library. +It was the same glance as Maschka had given when she had feared to +intrude on my time; but Schofield did these things with a much more heavy +hand. He departed, but not before telling me that even my mansion +contained such treasures as it had never held before. + +That evening, after glancing at Schofield's "scenario," I carefully +folded it up again for return to him, lest when the book should appear +he should miss the pleasure of saying that I had had his guidance but +had disregarded it; then I sat down at my writing-table and took out +the loose notes I had made. I made other jottings, each on a blank sheet +for subsequent amplification; and the sheets overspread the large +leather-topped table and thrust one another up the standard of the +incandescent with the pearly silk shade. The firelight shone low and +richly in the dusky spaces of the large apartment; and the thick carpet +and the double doors made the place so quiet that I could hear my watch +ticking in my pocket. + +I worked for an hour; and then, for the purpose of making yet other +notes, I rose, crossed the room, and took down the three or four +illustrated books to which, in the earlier part of his career, +Andriaovsky had put his name. I carried them to the table, and twinkled +as I opened the first of them. It was a book of poems, and in making the +designs for them Andriaovsky had certainly _not_ found for himself. +Almost any one of the "Art Shades," as he had called them, could have +done the thing equally well, and I twinkled again. I did not propose to +have much mercy on _that_. Already Schofield's words had given birth to a +suspicion in my mind--that Andriaovsky, in permitting these fellows, +Hallard, Connolly, and the rest, to suppose that he "thought highly" of +them and their work, had been giving play to that malicious humour of +his; and they naturally did not see the joke. That joke, too, was between +himself, dead, and me, preparing to write his "Life." As if he had been +there to hear me, I chuckled, and spoke in a low voice. + +"You were pulling their legs, Michael, you know. A little rough on them +you were. But there's a book here of yours that I'm going to tell the +truth about. You and I won't pretend to one another. It's a rotten book, +and both you and I know it...." + +I don't know what it was that caused me suddenly to see just then +something that I had been looking at long enough without seeing--that +portrait of himself that I had set leaning against the back of a chair at +the end of my writing-table. It stood there, just within the soft +penumbra of shadow cast by the silk-shaded light. The canvas had been +enlarged, the seam of it clumsily sewn by Andriaovsky's own hand; but in +that half-light the rough ridge of paint did not show, and I confess that +the position and effect of the thing startled me for a moment. Had I +cared to play a trick with my fancy I could have imagined the head +wagging from side to side, with such rage and fire was it painted. He had +had the temerity to dash a reflection across one of the glasses of his +spectacles, concealing the eye behind it. The next moment I had given a +short laugh. + +"So you're there, are you?... Well, I know you agree very heartily about +that book of poems. Heigho! If I remember rightly, you made more money +out of that book than out of the others put together. But I'm going +to tell the truth about it. _I_ know better, you know...." + +Chancing, before I turned in that night, to reopen one of his folios, I +came across a drawing, there by accident, I don't doubt, that confirmed +me in my suspicion that Andriaovsky had had his quiet joke with +Schofield, Hallard, Connolly and Co. It was a sketch of Schofield's, +imitative, deplorable, a dreadful show-up of incapacity. Well enough +"drawn," in a sense, it was ... and I remembered how Andriaovsky had ever +urged that "drawing," of itself, did not exist. I winked at the portrait. +I saw his point. He himself had no peer, and, rather than invite +comparison with stars of the second magnitude, he chose his intimates +from among the peddlers of the wares that had the least possible +connection with his Art. He, too, had understood that the Compromise +must be entirely accepted or totally refused; and while, in the +divergence of our paths, he had done the one thing and I the other, we +had each done it thoroughly, with vigour, and with persistence, and each +could esteem the other, if not as a co-worker, at least as an honourable +and out-and-out opposite. + + +III + +Within a fortnight I was so deep in my task that, in the realest sense, +the greater part of my life was in the past. The significance of those +extraordinary peregrinations of ours had been in the opportunity they had +afforded for a communion of brain and spirit of unusual rarity; and all +this determined to my work with the accumulated force of its long +penning-up. I have spoken of Andriaovsky's contempt for such as had the +conception of their work that it was something they "did" as distinct +from something they "were"; and unless I succeed in making it plain that, +not as a mere figure of speech and loose hyperbole, but starkly and +literally, Andriaovsky _was_ everything he did, my tale will be +pointless. + +There was not one of the basic facts of life--of Faith, Honour, +Truth-speaking, Falsehood, Betrayal, Sin--that he did not turn, not to +moral interpretations, as others do, but to the holy purposes of his +noble and passionate Art. For any man, Sin is only mortal when it is Sin +against that which he knows to be immortally true; and the things +Andriaovsky knew to be immortally true were the things that he had gone +down into the depths in order to bring forth and place upon his paper or +canvas. These things are not for the perusal of many. Unless you love the +things that he loved with a fervour comparable in kind, if not in degree, +with his own, you may not come near them. "Truth, 'the highest thing a +man may keep,'" he said, "cannot be brought down; a man only attains it +by proving his right to it"; and I think I need not further state his +views on the democratisation of Art. Of any result from the elaborate +processes of Art-education he held out no hope whatever. "It is in a man, +or it isn't," he ever declared; "if it is, he must bring it out for +himself; if it isn't, let him turn to something useful and have done with +it." I need not press the point that in these things he was almost a +solitary. + +He made of these general despotic principles the fiercest personal +applications. I have heard his passionate outbreak of "Thief! Liar! +Fool!" over a drawing when it has seemed to him that a man has not +vouched with the safety of his immortal soul for the shapes and lines he +has committed to it. I have seen him get into such a rage with the eyes +of the artist upon him. I have heard the ice and vinegar of his words +when a good man, for money, has consented to modify and emasculate +his work; and there lingers in my memory his side of a telephone +conversation in which he told a publisher who had suggested that he +should do the same thing precisely what he thought of him. And on the +other hand, he once walked from Aldgate to Putney Hill, with a loose heel +on one of his boots, to see a man of whom he had seen but a single +drawing. See him he did, too, in spite of the man's footman, his liveried +parlourmaid, and the daunting effect of the electric brougham at the +door. + +"He's a good man," he said to me afterwards, ruefully looking at the +place where his boot-heel had been. "You've got to take your good where +you find it. I don't care whether he's a rich amateur or skin-and-grief +in a garret as long as he's got the stuff in him. Nobody else could have +fetched me up from the East End this afternoon.... So long; see you in a +week or so--" + +This was the only time I ever knew him break that sacred time in which he +celebrated each year the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles. I doubt +whether this observance of the ritual of his Faith was of more essential +importance to him than that other philosophical religion towards which he +sometimes leaned. I have said what his real religion was. + +But to the "Life." + +With these things, and others, as a beginning, I began to add page to +page, phase to phase; and, in a time the shortness of which astonished +myself, I had pretty well covered the whole of the first ten years of our +friendship. Maschka called rather less, and Schofield rather more +frequently, than I could have wished; and my surmise that he, at least, +was in love with her, quickly became a certainty. This was to be seen +when they called together. + +It was when they came together that something else also became apparent. +This was their slightly derisive attitude towards the means by which I +had attained my success. It was not the less noticeable that it took the +form of compliments on the outward and visible results. Singly I could +manage them; together they were inclined to get a little out of hand. + +I would have taxed them fairly and squarely with this, singly or +together, but for one thing--the beautiful ease with which the "Life" was +proceeding. Never had I felt so completely _en rapport_ with my subject. +So beautifully was the thing running that I had had the idle fancy of +some actual urge from Andriaovsky himself; and each night, before sitting +down to work, I set his portrait at my desk's end, as if it had been some +kind of an observance. The most beautiful result of all was, that I felt +what I had not felt for five years--that I too was not "doing" my work, +but actually living and being it. At times I took up the sheets I had +written as ignorant of their contents as if they had proceeded from +another pen--so freshly they came to me. And once, I vow, I found, in my +own handwriting, a Polish name, that I might (it is true) have +subconsciously heard at some time or other, but that stirred no chord in +my memory even when I saw it written. Maschka checked and confirmed it +afterwards; and I did not tell her by what odd circumstance it had issued +from my pen. + +The day did come, however, when I found I must have it out with Schofield +about this superciliousness I have mentioned. The _Falchion_ had just +begun to print the third series of my _Martin Renard_; and this had been +made the occasion of another of Schofield's ponderous compliments. I +acknowledged it with none too much graciousness; and then he said: + +"I've na doubt, Harrison, that by this time the famous sleuth-hound of +crime has become quite a creature of flesh and blood to ye." + +It was the tone as much as the words that riled me; and I replied that +his doubts or the lack of them were a privacy with which I did not wish +to meddle. From being merely a bore the fellow was rapidly becoming +insolent. + +"But I opine he'll get wearisome now and then, and in that case poor +Michael's 'Life' will come as a grand relaxation," he next observed. + +If I meant to have it out, here was my opportunity. + +"I should have thought you'd have traced a closer connection than that +between the two things," I remarked. + +He shot a quick glance at me from beneath his shaggy russet brows. + +"How so? I see varry little connection," he said suspiciously. + +"There's this connection--that while you speak with some freedom of what +I do, you are quite willing to take advantage of it when it serves +your turn." + +"'Advantage,' Harrison?" he said slowly. + +"Of the advertisement _Martin Renard_ gives you. I must point out that +you condone a thing when you accept the benefit of it. Either you +shouldn't have come to me at all, or you should deny yourself the +gratification of these slurs." + +"Slurrrrs?" he repeated loweringly. + +"Both of you--you and Miss Andriaovsky, or Maschka as I call her, _tout +court_. Don't suppose I don't know as well as you do the exact worth of +my 'sleuth-hound,' as you call him. You didn't come to me solely because +I knew Andriaovsky well; you came because I've got the ear of the +public also; and I tell you plainly that, however much you dislike it, +Michael's fame as far as I'm of any use to him, depends on the +popularity of _Martin Renard."_ + +He shook his big head. "This is what I feared," he said. + +"More," I continued, "you can depend upon it that Michael, wherever he +is, knows all about that." + +"Ay, ay," he said sagely, "I misdoubt your own artistic soul's only to be +saved by the writing of poor Michael's 'Life,' Harrison." + +"Leave that to me and Michael; we'll settle that. In the meantime, if you +don't like it, write and publish the 'Life' yourself." + +He bent his brows on me. + +"It's precisely what I wanted to do from the varry first," he said. "If +you'd cared to accept my symposium in the spirit in which it was offered, +I cannot see that the 'Life' would have suffered. But now, when you're +next in need of my services, ye'll mebbe send for me." + +He took up his hat. I assured him, and let him take it in what sense he +liked, that I would do so; and he left me. + +Not for one single moment did I intend that they should bounce me like +that. With or without their sanction and countenance, I intended to write +and publish that "Life." Schofield--in my own house too--had had the +advantage that a poor and ill-dressed man has over one who is not poor +and ill-dressed; but my duty first of all was neither to him nor to +Maschka, but to my friend. + +The worst of it was, however, that I had begun dimly to suspect that +the Lancastrian had hit at least one nail on the head. "Your artistic +soul's only to be saved by writing poor Michael's 'Life,'" he had +informed me... and it was truer than I found it pleasant to believe. +Perhaps, after all, my first duty was not to Andriaovsky, but to myself. +I could have kicked myself that the fool had been perspicacious enough to +see it, but that did not alter the fact. I saw that in the sense in which +Andriaovsky understood Sin, I had sinned.... + +My only defence lay in the magnitude of my sin. I had sinned +thoroughly, out-and-out, and with a will. It had been the only +respectable way--Andriaovsky's own way when he had cut the company +of an Academician to hobnob with a vagabond. I had at least instituted +no comparison, lowered no ideal, was innocent of the accursed attitude +of facing-both-ways that degrades all lovely and moving things. I was, by +a paradox, too black a sinner not to hope for redemption.... + +I fell into a long musing on these things.... + +Had any of the admirers of _Martin Renard_ entered the library of his +author that night he would have seen an interesting thing. He would +have seen the creator of that idol of clerks and messenger-lads and +fourth-form boys frankly putting the case before a portrait propped up on +a chair. He would have heard that popular author haranguing, pleading, +curiously on his defence, turning the thing this way and that. + +"If _you'd_ gone over, Michael," that author argued, "you'd have done +precisely the same thing. If I'd stuck it out, we were, after all, of a +kind; We've got to be one thing or the other--isn't that so, Andriaovsky? +Since I made up my mind, I've faced only one way--only one way. I've kept +your ideal and theirs entirely separate and distinct. Not one single +beautiful phrase will you find in the _Martin Renards;_ I've cut 'em +out, every one. I may have ceased to worship, but I've profaned no +temple.... And think what I _might_ have done--what they all do! They +deal out the slush, but with an apologetic glance at the Art Shades; +_you_ know the style!--'Oh, Harrison; he does that detective rubbish, but +that's not Harrison; if Harrison liked to drop that he could be a fine +artist!'--I _haven't_ done that. I _haven't_ run with the hare and hunted +with the hounds. I _am_ just Harrison, who does that detective +rubbish!... These other chaps, Schofield and Connolly, _they're_ the real +sinners, Michael--the fellows who can't make up their minds to be one +thing or the other ('artists of considerable abilities'--ha! ha!).... Of +course you know Maschka's going to marry that chap? What'll _they_ do, do +you think? He'll scrape up a few pounds out of the stew where I find +thousands, marry her, and they'll set up a salon and talk the stuff the +chairs talked that night, you remember!... But you wait until I finish +your 'Life.'..." + +I laid it all before him, almost as if I sought to propitiate him. I +might have been courting his patronage for his own "Life." Then, with a +start, I came to, to find myself talking nonsense to the portrait that +years before Andriaovsky had refused to sell me. + + +IV + +The first check I experienced in the hitherto so easy flow of the "Life" +came at the chapter that dealt with Andriaovsky's attitude towards +"professionalism" in Art. He was inflexible on this point; there ought +not to be professional artists. When it was pointed out that his position +involved a premium upon the rich amateur, he merely replied that riches +had nothing to do with the question, and that the starver in the garret +was not excused for his poverty's sake from the observance of the +implacable conditions. He spoke literally of the "need" to create, +usually in the French term, _besogne_; and he was inclined to regard the +imposition of this need on a man rather as a curse laid upon him than as +a privilege and a pleasure. But I must not enlarge upon this further than +to observe that this portion of his "Life" which I was approaching +coincided in point of time with that period of my own life at which I had +been confronted with the alternative of starving for Art's sake or +becoming rich by supplying a clamorous trade demand. + +It came, this check I have spoken of, one night, as I was in the very +middle of a sentence; and though I have cudgelled my brains in seeking +how best I can describe it, I am reduced to the simple statement that it +was as arresting, as sharp, actual and impossible to resist, as if my +hand had been seized and pinned down in its passage across the paper. I +can even see again the fragment of the sentence I had written: "... _and +the mere contemplation of a betrayal so essential--_" Then came that +abrupt and remarkable stop. It was such an experience as I had formerly +known only in nightmare. + +I sat there looking blankly and stupidly at my own hand. And not only was +my hand arrested, but my brain also had completely ceased to work. For +the life of me I could not recall the conclusion of the sentence I had +planned a moment before. + +I looked at my hand, and looked again; and as I looked I remembered +something I had been reading only a few days before--a profoundly +unsettling description of an experiment in auto-suggestion. The +experiment had consisted of the placing of a hand upon a table, and the +laying upon it the conjuration that, the Will notwithstanding, it should +not move. And as I watched my own hand, pale on the paper in the pearly +light, I knew that, by some consent to the nullification of the Will that +did not proceed from, the Self I was accustomed to regard as my own, that +injunction was already placed upon it. My conscious and deliberate Will +was powerless. I could only sit there and wait until whatever inhibition +had arrested my writing hand should permit it to move forward again. + +It must have been several minutes before such a tingling of the nerves as +announces that the blood is once more returning to a cramped member +warned me that I was about to be released. Warily I awaited my moment; +then I plucked my hand to myself again with a suddenness that caused a +little blot of ink to spurt from my fountain-pen on to the surface of the +paper. I drew a deep breath. I was free again. And with the freedom came +a resolve--that whatever portion of myself had been responsible for this +prank should not repeat it if I could possibly prevent it. + +But scarcely had I come, as I may say (and not without a little gush of +alarm now that it was over), to myself, when I was struck by a thought. +It was a queer wild sort of thought. It fetched me out of my chair and +set me striding across the library to a lower shelf in the farthest +corner. This shelf was the shelf on which I kept my letter-files. I +stooped and ran my fingers along the backs of the dusty row. I drew out +the file for 1900, and brought it back to my writing-table. My contracts, +I ought to say, reposed in a deed-box at my agent's office; but my files +contained, in the form of my agent's letters, a sufficient record of my +business transactions. + +I opened the file concertina-wise, and turned to the section lettered +"R." I drew out the correspondence that related to the sale of the first +series of the _Martin Renards_. As I did so I glanced at the movable +calendar on my table. The date was January 20th. + +The file contained no letters for January of any significance whatever. + +The thought that had half formed in my brain immediately became nonsense. +I replaced the letters in their compartment, and took the file back to +its shelf again. For some minutes I paced the library irresolutely; then +I decided I would work no more that night. When I gathered together my +papers I was careful to place that with the half-finished sentence on the +top, so that with the first resting of my eyes upon it on the morrow my +memory might haply be refreshed. + +I tried again to finish that sentence on the morrow. With certain +modifications that I need not particularise here, my experience was the +same as on the previous night. + +It was the same when I made the attempt on the day after that. + +At ten o'clock of the night of the fourth day I completed the sentence +without difficulty. I just sat down in my chair and wrote it. + +With equal ease I finished the chapter on professional artists. + +It was not likely that Schofield would have refrained from telling +Maschka of our little difference on our last meeting; and within a week +of the date I have just mentioned I learned that she knew all about it. +And, as the circumstances of my learning this were in a high degree +unusual, I will relate them with such clearness as I am able. + +I ought first to say, however, that the selection of the drawings that +were to illustrate the book having been made (the drawings for which my +own text was to serve as commentary would be the better expression), the +superintendence of their production had been left to Schofield. He, +Maschka, and I passed the proofs in consultation. The blocks were almost +ready; and the reason for their call that evening was to consider the +possibility of having all ready for production in the early spring--a +possibility which was contingent on the state of advancement of my own +share of the book. + +That evening I had experienced my second check. (I omit those that had +immediately succeeded the first one, as resembling that one so closely in +the manner of their coming.) It had not come by any means so completely +and definitively as the former one, but it had sufficed to make my +progress, both mentally and mechanically, so sluggish and struggling +a performance that for the time being I had given up the attempt, and was +once more regarding with a sort of perturbed stupor my hand that held the +pen. Andriaovsky's portrait stood in its usual place, on the chair at the +end of my writing-table; but I had eyes for nothing but that refractory +hand of mine. + +Now it is true that during the past weeks I had studied Andriaovsky's +portrait thoroughly enough to be able to call up the vivid mental image +of it at will; but that did not entirely account for the changed aspect +with which it now presented itself to that uncomprehended sense within +us that makes of these shadows such startling realities. Flashing and +life-like as was the presentation on the canvas (mind you, I was not +looking at it, but all the time at my own hand), it was dead paint by +comparison with that _mental image_ which I saw (if I may so use a term +of which custom has restricted the meaning to one kind of seeing) as +plainly as I ever saw Andriaovsky in his life. I know now that it was +by virtue of that essential essence that bound us heart and brain and +soul together that I so saw him, eyes glittering, head sardonically +wagging, fine mouth shaping phrases of insight and irony. And the strange +thing was, that I could not have located this so living image by +confining it to any portion of the space within the four walls of my +library. It was before me, behind me, within my head, about me, _was me_, +invading and possessing the "me" that sat at the table. At one moment +the eyes mockingly invited me to go on with my work; the next, a frown +had seated itself on that massive pylon of his forehead; and then +suddenly his countenance changed entirely.... A wave of horror broke +over me. He was suddenly as I had seen him that last time in the +Hampstead "Home"--sitting up on his pillow, looking into my eyes with +that terrible look of profundity and familiarity, and asking me who I +was.... _"Harrison--ha ha!... You shall very soon know that I know you, +if ..."_ + +It is but by the accidence of our limited experience that sounds are loud +or soft to that inner ear of us; these words were at one and the same +time a dreadful thunder and a voice interstellarly inaccessible and +withdrawn. They, too, were before, behind, without, and within. And +incorporated (I know not how else to express it) with these words were +other words, in the English I knew, in the Hebrew in which he had quoted +them from the sacred Books of his People, in all languages, in no +language save that essential communication of which languages are but the +inessential husk and medium--words that told me that though I took the +Wings of the Morning and fled into the uttermost parts of the earth, yea, +though I made my bed in Hell, I could not escape him.... + +He had kept his word. I _did_ know that he knew who and what I was.... + +I cannot tell whether my lips actually shaped the question that even in +that moment burst from me. + +"But Form--and Forms? It _is_ then true that all things are but aspects +of One thing?..." + +"Yes--in death," the voice seemed to reply. + +My next words, I know, were actually spoken aloud. + +"Then tell me--tell me--_do you not wish me to write it?"_ + +Suddenly I leapt out of my chair with a gulping cry. A voice _had_ +spoken.... + +"Of course we wish you to write it...." + +For one instant of time my vision seemed to fold on itself like smoke; +then it was gone. The face into which I was wildly staring was Maschka's, +and behind her stood Schofield. They had been announced, but I had heard +nothing of it. + +"Were you thinking of _not_ writing it?" she demanded, while Schofield +scowled at me. + +"No--no--," I stammered, as I got up and tardily placed them chairs. + +Schofield did not speak, but he did not remove his eyes from me. Somehow +I could not meet them. + +"Well," she said, "Jack had already told me that you seemed in two minds +about it. That's what we've called about--to know definitely what it is +you propose to do." + +I saw that she had also called, if necessary, to quarrel. I began to +recover a little. + +"Did you tell her that?" I demanded of Schofield. "If you did, +you--misinterpreted me." + +In my house, he ignored the fact that I was in the room. He replied to +Maschka. + +"I understood Mr. Harrison to say definitely, and in those words, that if +I didn't like the way in which he was writing Michael's 'Life,' I might +write and publish one myself," he said. + +"I did say that," I admitted; "but I never said that whatever _you_ did I +should not go on with mine." + +"Yours!" cried Maschka. "What right have _you_ in my brother's 'Life'?" + +I quickly told her. + +"I have the right to write my recollections of him, and, subject to +certain provisions of the Law, to base anything on them I think fit," I +replied. + +"But," she cried aghast, "there can't be _two_ 'Lives'!..." + +"It's news to me that two were contemplated," I returned. "The point is, +that I can get mine published, and you can't." + +Schofield's harsh voice sounded suddenly--but again to Maschka, not to +me. + +"Ye might remind Mr. Harrison that others have capabilities in business +besides himself. Beyond a doubt our sales will be comparatively small, +but they'll be to such as have not made the great refusal." + +Think of it!... I almost laughed. + +"Oh!... Been trying it?" I inquired. + +He made no reply. + +"Well, those who have made the refusal have at least had something to +refuse," I said mildly. Then, realising that this was mere quarrelling, I +returned to the point. "Anyhow, there's no question of refusing to write +the 'Life.' I admit that during the last fortnight I've met with certain +difficulties; but the task isn't so easy as perhaps it looks.... I'm +making progress." + +"I suppose," she said hesitatingly, after a pause, "that you don't care +to show it as far as it is written?" + +For a moment I also hesitated. I thought I saw where she was. Thanks to +that Lancashire jackanapes, there was division between us; and I had +pretty well made up my mind, not only that he thought himself quite +capable of writing Andriaovsky's "Life," himself, but that he had +actually made an attempt in that direction. They had come in the +suspicion that I was throwing them over, and, though that suspicion was +removed, Maschka wished, if there was any throwing over to be done, to do +it herself. In a word, she wanted to compare me with Schofield. + +"To see it as far as it is written," I repeated slowly.... "Well, you +may. That is, you, Michael's sister, may. But on the condition that +you neither show it to anybody else nor speak of it to anybody else." + +"Ah!" she said.... "And only on those conditions?" + +"Only on those conditions." + +I saw a quick glance between them. "Shall we tell him?" it seemed to +say.... + +"Including the man Michael's sister is going to marry?" she said +abruptly. + +My attitude was deeply apologetic, but, "Including anybody whomsoever," I +answered. + +"Then," she said, rising, "we won't bother. But will you at least let us +know, soon, when we may expect your text?" + +"I will let you know," I replied slowly, "one week from to-day." + +On that assurance they left; and when they had gone I crossed once more +to the lower shelf that contained my letter-files. I turned up the file +for 1900 once more. During their visit I had had an idea. + +I ran through the letters, and then replaced them.... + +Yes, I ought to be able to let them know within the week. + + +V + +Against the day when I myself shall come to die, there are in the +pigeon-holes of the newspaper libraries certain biographical records +that deal roughly with the outward facts of my life; and these, +supplemented by documents I shall place in the hands of my executors, +will tell the story of how I leaped at a bound into wealth and fame with +the publication of _The Cases of Martin Renard_. I will set down as much +of that story as has its bearing on my present tale. + +_Martin Renard_ was not immediately accepted by the first editor to whom +it was offered. It does not suffice that in order to be popular a thing +shall be merely good--or bad; it must be bad--or good--in a particular +way. For taking the responsibility when they happen to miss that +particular way editors are paid their salaries. When they happen to hit +it they grow fat on circulation-money: Since it becomes me ill to quarrel +with the way in which any man earns his money, I content myself with +merely stating the fact. + +By the time the fourth editor had refused my series I was about at my +last gasp. To write the things at all I had had to sink four months in +time; and debts, writs and pawnshops were my familiars. I was little +better off than Andriaovsky at his very worst. I had read the first of +the _Martin Renards_ to him, by the way; the gigantic outburst of mirth +with which he had received it had not encouraged me to read him a second. +I wrote the others in secret. + +I wrote the things in the spring and summer of 1900; and by the last day +of September I was confident that I had at last sold them. Except by a +flagrant breach of faith, the editor in whose desk they reposed could +hardly decline them. As it subsequently happened, I have now nothing but +gratitude for him that he did, after all, decline them; for I had a +duplicate copy "on offer" in another quarter. + +He declined them, I say; and I was free to possess my soul again among my +writs, debts and pawnshops. + +But four days later I received the alternative offer. It was from the +_Falchion_. The _Falchion_, as you may remember, has since run no less +than five complete series of _Martin Renards_. It bought "both sides," +that is to say, both British and American serial rights. Of the twelve +_Martin Renards_ I had written, my wise agent had offered the _Falchion_ +six only. On his advice I accepted the offer. + +Instantaneously with the publication of those six stories came my +success. In two continents I was "home"--home in the hearts of the +public. I had my small cheque--it was not much more than a hundred +pounds--but "Wait," said my agent; "let's see what we can do with the +other six...." + +Precisely what he did with them only he and I know; but I don't mind +saying that £3000 did not buy my first serial rights. Then came second +and third rights, and after them the book rights, British, American, and +Colonial. Then came the translation rights. In French, my creation is, of +course, as in English, _Martin Renard_; in German he is Martin Fuchs; and +by a similar process you can put him--my translators have put him--into +Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian, and three-fourths of the tongues of +Europe. And this was the first series only. It was only with the second +series that the full splendour of my success appeared. My very imitators +grew rich; my agent's income from his comparatively small percentage on +my royalties was handsome; and he chuckled and bade me wait for the +dramatic rights and the day when the touring companies should get to +business.... + +I had "got there." + +And I remember, sadly enough now, my first resolution when the day came +when I was able to survey the situation with anything approaching calm. +It was, "Enough." For the rest of my days I need not know poverty again. +Thenceforward I need not, unless I chose, do any but worthy work. _Martin +Renard_ had served his purpose handsomely, and I intended to have nothing +more to do with him. + +Then came that dazzling offer for the second series.... + +I accepted it. + +I accepted the third likewise; and I have told you about the fourth.... + +I have tried to kill _Martin Renard_. He was killing me. I have, in +the pages of the _Falchion_, actually killed him; but I have had to +resuscitate him. I cannot escape from him.... + +I am not setting down one word more of this than bears directly on my +tale of Andriaovsky's "Life." For those days, when my whole future had +hung in the balance, _were the very days covered by that portion of +Andriaovsky's life at which I had now arrived_. I had reached, and was +hesitating at, our point of divergence. Those checks and releases which I +had at first found so unaccountable corresponded with the vicissitudes of +the _Martin Renard_ negotiations. + +The actual dates did not, of course, coincide--I had quickly discovered +the falsity of that scent. Neither did the intervals between them, with +the exception of those few days in which I had been unable to complete +that half-written sentence--the few days immediately prior to my +(parallel) acceptance by the _Falchion_. But, by that other reckoning +of time, of mental and spiritual experience, _they tallied exactly_. +The gambling chances of five years ago meant present stumblings and +haltings; the breach of faith of an editor long since meant a present +respite; and another week should bring me to that point of my so +strangely reduplicated experience that, allowing for the furious mental +rate at which I was now living, would make another node with that other +point in the more slowly lived past that had marked my acceptance of the +offer for the second half-dozen of the _Martin Renards_. + +It had been on this hazardous calculation that I had made my promise to +Maschka. + +I passed that week in a state of constantly increasing apprehension. +True, I worked at the "Life," even assiduously; but it was plain sailing, +mere cataloguing of certain of Andriaovsky's works, a chapter I had +deliberately planned _pour mieux sauter_--to enhance the value of the +penultimate and final chapters. These were the real crux of the "Life." +These were what I was reserving myself for. These were to show that only +his body was dead, and that his spirit still lived and his work was +still being done wherever a man could be found whose soul burned within +him with the same divine ardour. + +But I was now realising, day by day, hour by hour more clearly, what I +was incurring. I was penning nothing less than my own artistic damnation. +Self-condemned, indeed, I had been this long time; but I was now making +the world a party to the sentence. The crowning of Andriaovsky involved +my own annihilation; his "Life" would be my "Hic Jacet." And yet I was +prepared, nay, resolved, to write it. I had started, and I would go +forward. I would not be spewed with the lukewarm out of the mouth of that +Spirit from which proceeds all that is bright and pure and true. The +vehemence with which I had rejected its divine bidding should at least be +correspondent with my adoration of it. The snivelling claims of the +Schofields I spurned. If, as they urged, "an artist must live," he must +live royally or starve with a tight mouth. No complaining.... + +And one other claim I urged in the teeth of this Spirit, which, if it +was a human Spirit at all, it could not disregard. Those pigeon-holed +obituaries of mine will proclaim to the world, one and all, the virtues +of my public life. In spite of my royal earnings, I am not a rich man. I +have not accepted wealth without accepting the personal responsibility +for it. Sick men and women in more than one hospital lie in wards +provided by _Martin Renard_ and myself; and I am not dishonoured in my +Institution at Poplar. Those vagrant wanderings with Andriaovsky have +enabled me to know the poor and those who help the poor. My personal +labours in the administration of the Institute are great, for outside +the necessary routine I leave little to subordinates. I have declined +honours offered to me for my "services to Literature," and I have never +encouraged a youth, of parts or lacking them, to make of Literature a +profession. And so on and so forth. All this, and more, you will read +when the day comes; and I don't doubt the _Falchion_ will publish my +memoir in mourning borders... + +But to resume. + +I finished the chapter I have mentioned. Maschka and her fiancé kept +punctiliously away. Then, before sitting down to the penultimate +chapter, I permitted myself the relaxation of a day in the country. + +I can't tell you precisely where I went; I only know it was somewhere in +Buckinghamshire, and that, ordering the car to await me a dozen miles +farther on, I set out to walk. Nor can I tell you what I saw during that +walk; I don't think I saw anything. There was a red wintry disc of a sun, +I remember, and a land grey with rime; and that is all. I was entirely +occupied with the attempt I was about to make. I think that even then +I had the sense of doom, for I know not how otherwise I should have +found myself several times making little husbandings of my force, as if +conscious that I should need it all. For I was determined, as never in my +life have I been determined, to write that "Life." And I intended, not to +wait to be challenged, but to challenge.... I met the car, returning in +search of me; and I dined at a restaurant, went home to bed, and slept +dreamlessly. + +On the morrow I deliberately refrained from work until the evening. My +challenge to Andriaovsky and the Powers he represented should be boldly +delivered at the very gates of their own Hour. Not until half-past eight, +with the curtains drawn, the doors locked, and orders given that on no +account whatever was I to be disturbed, did I switch on the pearly light, +place Andriaovsky's portrait in its now accustomed place, and draw my +chair up to my writing-table. + + +VI + +But before I could resume the "Life" at the point at which I had left it, +I felt that there were certain preliminaries to be settled. It was not +that I wished to sound a parley with any view of coming to terms; I had +determined what the terms were to be. As a boxer who leaps from his +corner the moment the signal is given, astounding with suddenness his +less prompt antagonist, so I should be ready when the moment came. But I +wished the issue to be defined. I did not propose to submit the whole of +my manhood to the trial. I was merely asserting my right to speak of +certain things which, if one chose to exaggerate their importance by a +too narrow and exclusive consideration of them, I might conceivably be +thought to have betrayed. + +I drew a sheet of paper towards me, and formally made out my claim. It +occupied not more than a dozen lines, and its nature has already been +sufficiently indicated. I put my pen down again, leaned back in my chair, +and waited. + +I waited, but nothing happened. It seemed that if this was my attempt to +justify myself, the plea was certainly not disallowed. But neither had I +any sign that it was allowed; and presently it occurred to me that +possibly I had couched it in terms too general. Perhaps a more particular +claim would meet with a different reception. + +During the earlier stages of the book's progress I had many times +deliberated on the desirability of a Preface that should state succinctly +what I considered to be my qualifications for the task. Though I had +finally decided against any such statement, the form of the Preface might +nevertheless serve for the present occasion. I took another sheet of +paper, headed it "Preface," and began once more to write. + +I covered the page; I covered a second; and half-way down the third I +judged my statement to be sufficient. Again I laid down my pen, leaned +back, and waited. + +The Preface also produced no result whatever. + +Again I considered; and then I saw more clearly. It came to me that, both +in the first statement and in the Preface, I was merely talking to +myself. I was convincing myself, and losing both time and strength in +doing so. The Power with which I sought to come to grips was treating my +vapourings with high disregard. To be snubbed thus by Headquarters +would never, never do.... + +Then I saw more clearly still. It seemed that my _right to challenge_ +was denied. I was not an adversary, with the rights and honours of an +adversary, but a trangressor, whose trangression had already several +times been sharply visited, and would be visited once more the moment it +was repeated. I might, in a sense, please myself whether I brought myself +into Court; but, once there, I was not the arraigner in the box, but the +arraigned in the dock. + +And I rebelled hotly. Did I sit there, ready for the struggle, only to be +told that there could be no struggle? Did that vengeful Angel of the Arts +ignore my very existence?... By Yea and Nay I swore that he should take +notice of me! Once before, a mortal had wrestled a whole night with an +angel, and though he had been worsted, it had not been before he had +compelled the Angel to reveal himself! And so would I... + +Challenge, title to challenge, tentatives, preliminaries, I suddenly cast +them all aside. We would have it in deeds, not in further words. I opened +a drawer, took out the whole of the "Life" so far written, and began to +read. I wanted to grasp once more the plan of it in its entirety. + +Page after page, I read on, with deepening attention. Quickly I ran +through half of it. Then I began to concentrate myself still more +closely. There would come a point at which I should be flush with the +stream of it again, again feel the force of its current; I felt myself +drawing nearer to that point; when I should reach it I would go ahead +without a pause... + +I read to the end of Chapter Fifteen, the last completed chapter. Then +instantly I took my pen and wrote, "Chapter Sixteen...." + +I felt the change at the very first word. + + * * * * * + +I will not retraverse any ground I have covered before. If I have not +already made clear my former sensations of the petrefaction of hand and +brain, I despair of being able to do so any better now. Suffice it that +once more I felt that inhibition, and that once more I was aware of the +ubiquitous presence of the image of the dead artist. Once more I heard +those voices, near as thunder and yet interstellarly remote, crying that +solemn warning, that though I took the Wings of the Morning, made my bed +in Hell, or cried aloud upon the darkness to cover me, there was one +Spirit from which I could not hope to escape. I felt the slight crawling +of my flesh on my bones as I listened. + +But there was now a difference. On the former occasion, to hear again +those last horrible words of his, "_You shall very soon know I know who +you are if_..." had been the signal for the total unnerving of me and for +that uncontrollable cry, "_Don't you then want me to write it_?" But now +I intended to write it if I could. In order that I might tell him so I +was now seeking him out, in what heights or depths I knew not, at what +peril to myself I cared not. I cared not, since I now felt that I could +not continue to live unless I pressed to the uttermost attempt. And I +must repeat, and repeat again, and yet repeat, that in that hour +Andriaovsky was immanent about me, in the whole of me, in the last fibre +and cell of me, in all my thoughts, from my consciousness that I was +sitting there at my own writing-table to my conception of God Himself. + +It may seem strange--whether it does so or not will depend on the kind + of man you yourself are--that as long as I was content to recognise this +immanence of Andriaovsky's enlarged and liberated spirit, _and not to +dispute with it_, I found nothing but mildness and benignity in my +hazardous experience. More, I felt that, in that clear region to which +in my intensified state of consciousness I was lifted, I was able to move +(I must trust you to understand the word aright) without restraint, nay, +with an amplitude and freedom of movement past setting down, as long as +I was satisfied to possess my soul in quiescence. The state itself was +inimical neither to my safety nor to my sanity. I was conscious of it +as a transposition into another register of the scale of life. And, as +in this life we move in ignorance and safety only by accepting the +hair-balance of stupendous forces, so now I felt that my safety depended +on my observation of the conditions that governed that region of light +and clarity and Law. + +Of clarity and Law; save in the terms of the great abstractions I may not +speak of it. And that is well-nigh equal to saying that I may not speak +of it at all. The hand that would have written of it lay (I never for one +moment ceased to be conscious) heavy as stone on a writing-table in some +spot quite accidental in my new sense of locality; the tongue that would +have spoken of it seemed to slumber in my mouth. And I knew that both +dumbness and stillness were proper. Their opposites would have convicted +me (the flat and earthly comparison must be allowed) of intrusion into +some Place of beauty and serenity for which the soilure of my birth +disqualified me. + +For beauty and serenity, austerity and benignity and peace, were the +conditions of that Place. To other Places belonged the wingy and robed +and starry and golden things that made the heavens of other lives than +that which I had shared with Andriaovsky; here, white and shapely Truth +alone reigned. None questioned, for all knew; none sinned, for sin was +already judged and punished in its committal; none demonstrated, for +all things were evident; and those eager to justify themselves were +permitted no farther than the threshold.... + +And it was to justify, to challenge, to maintain a right, that I was +there. I was there to wrestle, if needs be, with the Angel of that Place, +to vanquish him or to compel him to reveal himself. I had not been +summoned; I had thrust myself there unbidden. There was a moment in which +I noticed that my writing-table was a little more than ordinarily removed +from me, but very little, not more than if I had been looking over the +shoulder of another writer at it; and I saw my chapter heading. At the +sight of it something of the egotism that had prompted me to write it +stirred in me again; everywhere was Andriaovsky's calm face, priest and +Angel himself; and I became conscious that I was trying to write a +phrase. I also became conscious that I was being pitifully warned not to +do so... + +Suddenly my whole being was flooded with a frightful pang of pain. + +It was not local. It was no more to be located than the other immanences +of which I have spoken. It was Pain, pure, essential, dissociated; and +with the coming of it that fair Place had grown suddenly horrible and +black. + +And I knew that the shock came _of my own resistance_, and that it would +cease to afflict me the moment I ceased to resist. + +I did cease. Instantly the pain passed. But as when a knife is plucked +from a wound, so only with its passing did I shriek aloud.... + +For I know not how many minutes I sat in stupefaction. Then, as with +earthly pains, that are assuaged with the passing of accidental time, the +memory of it softened a little. Blunderingly and only half consciously, I +cast about to collect my dispersed force. + +For--already I was conscious of it--there still remained one claim that +even in thought I had not advanced. I would, were I permitted, still +write that "Life," but, since it was decreed so, I would no longer urge +that in writing it I justified myself. So I might but write it, I would +embrace my own portion, the portion of doom; yea, though it should be a +pressing of the searing-iron to my lips, I would embrace it; my name +should not appear. For the mere sake of the man I had loved I would write +it, in self-scorn and abasement, humbly craving not to be denied.... + +_"Oh, let me but do for Love of you what a sinful man can!"_ I +groaned.... + +A moment later I had again striven to do so. So do we all, when we +think that out of a poor human Love we can alter the Laws by which our +state exists. And with such a hideous anguish as was again mine are we +visited.... + +And I knew now what that anguish was. It was the twining of body from +spirit that is called the bitterness of Death; for not all of the body +are the pangs of that severance. With that terrible sword of impersonal +Pain the God of Peace makes sorrowful war that Peace may come again. With +its flame He ringed the bastions of Heaven when Satan made assault. Only +on the Gorgon-image of that Pain in the shield may weak man look; and +its blaze and ire had permeated with deadly nearness the "everywhere" +where I was... + +"_Oh, not for Love? Not even for Love?_" broke the agonised question from +me.... + +The next moment I had ceased, and ceased for ever, to resist. +Instantaneously the terrible flashing of that sword became no more +than the play of lightning one sees far away in the wide cloudfields +on a peaceful summer's twilight. I felt a gentle and overpowering +sleep coming over me; and as it folded me about I saw, with the last +look of my eyes, my own figure, busily writing at the table. + +Had I, then, prevailed? Had Pain so purged me that I was permitted to +finish my task? And had my tortured cry, "Oh, not even for Love?" +been heard? + +I did not know. + + * * * * * + +I came to myself to find that my head had fallen on my desk. The light +still shone within its pearly shade, and in the penumbra of its shadow +the portrait of Andriaovsky occupied its accustomed place. About me were +my papers, and my pen lay where it had fallen from my hand. + +At first I did not look at my papers. I merely saw that the uppermost of +them was written on. But presently I took it up, and looked at it +stupidly. Then, with no memory at all of how I had come to write what was +upon it, I put it down again. + +It was indeed a completion. + +But it was not of Andriaovsky's "Life" that it was the completion. As you +may or may not know, Andriaovsky's "Life" is written by "his friend John +Schofield." I had been allowed to write, but it was my own condemnation +that, in sadness and obedience, in the absence of wrath but also in the +absence of mercy, I had written. By the Law I had broken I was broken in +my turn. It was the draft for the fifth series of _The Cases of Martin +Renard_. + +No, not for Love--not even for Love.... + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIDDERSHINS*** + + +******* This file should be named 14168-8.txt or 14168-8.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/6/14168 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/14168-8.zip b/old/14168-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cbc3bc4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14168-8.zip diff --git a/old/14168.txt b/old/14168.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c8c088b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/14168.txt @@ -0,0 +1,9359 @@ +The Project Gutenberg eBook, Widdershins, by Oliver Onions + + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + + + + +Title: Widdershins + +Author: Oliver Onions + +Release Date: November 26, 2004 [eBook #14168] +[Most recently updated: October 24, 2006] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-646-US (US-ASCII) + + +***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIDDERSHINS*** + + +E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Mary Meehan, and the Project Gutenberg +Online Distributed Proofreading Team + + + +WIDDERSHINS + +by + +OLIVER ONIONS + +1911 + + + + + + + + "From Ghaisttes, Ghoulies and long-leggity + Beasties and Things that go + Bump in the night-- + + "Good Lord, deliver us!" + + + + +NOTE + +I have pleasure in acknowledging the courtesy of the proprietors of +"Shurey's Publications" by whose permission "The Cigarette Case" is +included in the present volume. Also it has been suggested that a +definition should be given of the word that forms the volume's title. +That word means "contrary to the course of the Sun." + +O.O. + + + + +CONTENTS + + + I. THE BECKONING FAIR ONE + II. PHANTAS + III. ROOUM + IV. BENLIAN + V. IO + VI. THE ACCIDENT + VII. THE CIGARETTE CASE +VIII. THE ROCKER + IX. HIC JACET + + + + +THE BECKONING FAIR ONE + + + + +I + +The three or four "To Let" boards had stood within the low paling as +long as the inhabitants of the little triangular "Square" could remember, +and if they had ever been vertical it was a very long time ago. They now +overhung the palings each at its own angle, and resembled nothing so +much as a row of wooden choppers, ever in the act of falling upon some +passer-by, yet never cutting off a tenant for the old house from the +stream of his fellows. Not that there was ever any great "stream" through +the square; the stream passed a furlong and more away, beyond the +intricacy of tenements and alleys and byways that had sprung up since the +old house had been built, hemming it in completely; and probably the +house itself was only suffered to stand pending the falling-in of a lease +or two, when doubtless a clearance would be made of the whole +neighbourhood. + +It was of bloomy old red brick, and built into its walls were the crowns +and clasped hands and other insignia of insurance companies long since +defunct. The children of the secluded square had swung upon the low gate +at the end of the entrance-alley until little more than the solid top bar +of it remained, and the alley itself ran past boarded basement windows on +which tramps had chalked their cryptic marks. The path was washed and +worn uneven by the spilling of water from the eaves of the encroaching +next house, and cats and dogs had made the approach their own. The +chances of a tenant did not seem such as to warrant the keeping of the +"To Let" boards in a state of legibility and repair, and as a matter of +fact they were not so kept. + +For six months Oleron had passed the old place twice a day or oftener, on +his way from his lodgings to the room, ten minutes' walk away, he had +taken to work in; and for six months no hatchet-like notice-board had +fallen across his path. This might have been due to the fact that he +usually took the other side of the square. But he chanced one morning to +take the side that ran past the broken gate and the rain-worn entrance +alley, and to pause before one of the inclined boards. The board bore, +besides the agent's name, the announcement, written apparently about the +time of Oleron's own early youth, that the key was to be had at Number +Six. + +Now Oleron was already paying, for his separate bedroom and workroom, +more than an author who, without private means, habitually disregards his +public, can afford; and he was paying in addition a small rent for the +storage of the greater part of his grandmother's furniture. Moreover, it +invariably happened that the book he wished to read in bed was at his +working-quarters half a mile and more away, while the note or letter he +had sudden need of during the day was as likely as not to be in the +pocket of another coat hanging behind his bedroom door. And there were +other inconveniences in having a divided domicile. Therefore Oleron, +brought suddenly up by the hatchet-like notice-board, looked first down +through some scanty privet-bushes at the boarded basement windows, then +up at the blank and grimy windows of the first floor, and so up to the +second floor and the flat stone coping of the leads. He stood for a +minute thumbing his lean and shaven jaw; then, with another glance at the +board, he walked slowly across the square to Number Six. + +He knocked, and waited for two or three minutes, but, although the door +stood open, received no answer. He was knocking again when a long-nosed +man in shirt-sleeves appeared. + +"I was arsking a blessing on our food," he said in severe explanation. + +Oleron asked if he might have the key of the old house; and the +long-nosed man withdrew again. + +Oleron waited for another five minutes on the step; then the man, +appearing again and masticating some of the food of which he had spoken, +announced that the key was lost. + +"But you won't want it," he said. "The entrance door isn't closed, and a +push'll open any of the others. I'm a agent for it, if you're thinking of +taking it--" + +Oleron recrossed the square, descended the two steps at the broken gate, +passed along the alley, and turned in at the old wide doorway. To the +right, immediately within the door, steps descended to the roomy cellars, +and the staircase before him had a carved rail, and was broad and +handsome and filthy. Oleron ascended it, avoiding contact with the rail +and wall, and stopped at the first landing. A door facing him had been +boarded up, but he pushed at that on his right hand, and an insecure bolt +or staple yielded. He entered the empty first floor. + +He spent a quarter of an hour in the place, and then came out again. +Without mounting higher, he descended and recrossed the square to the +house of the man who had lost the key. + +"Can you tell me how much the rent is?" he asked. + +The man mentioned a figure, the comparative lowness of which seemed +accounted for by the character of the neighbourhood and the abominable +state of unrepair of the place. + +"Would it be possible to rent a single floor?" + +The long-nosed man did not know; they might.... + +"Who are they?" + +The man gave Oleron the name of a firm of lawyers in Lincoln's Inn. + +"You might mention my name--Barrett," he added. + +Pressure of work prevented Oleron from going down to Lincoln's Inn that +afternoon, but he went on the morrow, and was instantly offered the +whole house as a purchase for fifty pounds down, the remainder of the +purchase-money to remain on mortgage. It took him half an hour to +disabuse the lawyer's mind of the idea that he wished anything more of +the place than to rent a single floor of it. This made certain hums and +haws of a difference, and the lawyer was by no means certain that it lay +within his power to do as Oleron suggested; but it was finally extracted +from him that, provided the notice-boards were allowed to remain up, and +that, provided it was agreed that in the event of the whole house +letting, the arrangement should terminate automatically without further +notice, something might be done. That the old place should suddenly let +over his head seemed to Oleron the slightest of risks to take, and he +promised a decision within a week. On the morrow he visited the house +again, went through it from top to bottom, and then went home to his +lodgings to take a bath. + +He was immensely taken with that portion of the house he had already +determined should be his own. Scraped clean and repainted, and with +that old furniture of Oleron's grandmother's, it ought to be entirely +charming. He went to the storage warehouse to refresh his memory of his +half-forgotten belongings, and to take measurements; and thence he went +to a decorator's. He was very busy with his regular work, and could have +wished that the notice-board had caught his attention either a few months +earlier or else later in the year; but the quickest way would be to +suspend work entirely until after his removal.... + +A fortnight later his first floor was painted throughout in a tender, +elder-flower white, the paint was dry, and Oleron was in the middle of +his installation. He was animated, delighted; and he rubbed his hands as +he polished and made disposals of his grandmother's effects--the tall +lattice-paned china cupboard with its Derby and Mason and Spode, the +large folding Sheraton table, the long, low bookshelves (he had had two +of them "copied"), the chairs, the Sheffield candlesticks, the riveted +rose-bowls. These things he set against his newly painted elder-white +walls--walls of wood panelled in the happiest proportions, and moulded +and coffered to the low-seated window-recesses in a mood of gaiety and +rest that the builders of rooms no longer know. The ceilings were lofty, +and faintly painted with an old pattern of stars; even the tapering +mouldings of his iron fireplace were as delicately designed as jewellery; +and Oleron walked about rubbing his hands, frequently stopping for the +mere pleasure of the glimpses from white room to white room.... + +"Charming, charming!" he said to himself. "I wonder what Elsie Bengough +will think of this!" + +He bought a bolt and a Yale lock for his door, and shut off his quarters +from the rest of the house. If he now wanted to read in bed, his book +could be had for stepping into the next room. All the time, he thought +how exceedingly lucky he was to get the place. He put up a hat-rack in +the little square hall, and hung up his hats and caps and coats; and +passers through the small triangular square late at night, looking up +over the little serried row of wooden "To Let" hatchets, could see the +light within Oleron's red blinds, or else the sudden darkening of one +blind and the illumination of another, as Oleron, candlestick in hand, +passed from room to room, making final settlings of his furniture, or +preparing to resume the work that his removal had interrupted. + + +II + +As far as the chief business of his life--his writing--was concerned, +Paul Oleron treated the world a good deal better than he was treated by +it; but he seldom took the trouble to strike a balance, or to compute how +far, at forty-four years of age, he was behind his points on the +handicap. To have done so wouldn't have altered matters, and it might +have depressed Oleron. He had chosen his path, and was committed to it +beyond possibility of withdrawal. Perhaps he had chosen it in the days +when he had been easily swayed by something a little disinterested, a +little generous, a little noble; and had he ever thought of questioning +himself he would still have held to it that a life without nobility and +generosity and disinterestedness was no life for him. Only quite +recently, and rarely, had he even vaguely suspected that there was more +in it than this; but it was no good anticipating the day when, he +supposed, he would reach that maximum point of his powers beyond which he +must inevitably decline, and be left face to face with the question +whether it would not have profited him better to have ruled his life +by less exigent ideals. + +In the meantime, his removal into the old house with the insurance marks +built into its brick merely interrupted _Romilly Bishop_ at the fifteenth +chapter. + +As this tall man with the lean, ascetic face moved about his new abode, +arranging, changing, altering, hardly yet into his working-stride again, +he gave the impression of almost spinster-like precision and nicety. For +twenty years past, in a score of lodgings, garrets, flats, and rooms +furnished and unfurnished, he had been accustomed to do many things for +himself, and he had discovered that it saves time and temper to be +methodical. He had arranged with the wife of the long-nosed Barrett, a +stout Welsh woman with a falsetto voice, the Merionethshire accent of +which long residence in London had not perceptibly modified, to come +across the square each morning to prepare his breakfast, and also to +"turn the place out" on Saturday mornings; and for the rest, he even +welcomed a little housework as a relaxation from the strain of writing. + +His kitchen, together with the adjoining strip of an apartment into +which a modern bath had been fitted, overlooked the alley at the side of +the house; and at one end of it was a large closet with a door, and a +square sliding hatch in the upper part of the door. This had been a +powder-closet, and through the hatch the elaborately dressed head had +been thrust to receive the click and puff of the powder-pistol. Oleron +puzzled a little over this closet; then, as its use occurred to him, he +smiled faintly, a little moved, he knew not by what.... He would have to +put it to a very different purpose from its original one; it would +probably have to serve as his larder.... It was in this closet that +he made a discovery. The back of it was shelved, and, rummaging on an +upper shelf that ran deeply into the wall, Oleron found a couple of +mushroom-shaped old wooden wig-stands. He did not know how they had come +to be there. Doubtless the painters had turned them up somewhere or +other, and had put them there. But his five rooms, as a whole, were +short of cupboard and closet-room; and it was only by the exercise of +some ingenuity that he was able to find places for the bestowal of his +household linen, his boxes, and his seldom-used but not-to-be-destroyed +accumulations of papers. + +It was in early spring that Oleron entered on his tenancy, and he was +anxious to have _Romilly_ ready for publication in the coming autumn. +Nevertheless, he did not intend to force its production. Should it demand +longer in the doing, so much the worse; he realised its importance, its +crucial importance, in his artistic development, and it must have its own +length and time. In the workroom he had recently left he had been making +excellent progress; _Romilly_ had begun, as the saying is, to speak and +act of herself; and he did not doubt she would continue to do so the +moment the distraction of his removal was over. This distraction was +almost over; he told himself it was time he pulled himself together +again; and on a March morning he went out, returned again with two great +bunches of yellow daffodils, placed one bunch on his mantelpiece between +the Sheffield sticks and the other on the table before him, and took out +the half-completed manuscript of _Romilly Bishop_. + +But before beginning work he went to a small rosewood cabinet and took +from a drawer his cheque-book and pass-book. He totted them up, and his +monk-like face grew thoughtful. His installation had cost him more than +he had intended it should, and his balance was rather less than fifty +pounds, with no immediate prospect of more. + +"Hm! I'd forgotten rugs and chintz curtains and so forth mounted up so," +said Oleron. "But it would have been a pity to spoil the place for the +want of ten pounds or so.... Well, _Romilly_ simply _must_ be out for the +autumn, that's all. So here goes--" + +He drew his papers towards him. + +But he worked badly; or, rather, he did not work at all. The square +outside had its own noises, frequent and new, and Oleron could only hope +that he would speedily become accustomed to these. First came hawkers, +with their carts and cries; at midday the children, returning from +school, trooped into the square and swung on Oleron's gate; and when the +children had departed again for afternoon school, an itinerant musician +with a mandolin posted himself beneath Oleron's window and began to +strum. This was a not unpleasant distraction, and Oleron, pushing up his +window, threw the man a penny. Then he returned to his table again.... + +But it was no good. He came to himself, at long intervals, to find that +he had been looking about his room and wondering how it had formerly +been furnished--whether a settee in buttercup or petunia satin had stood +under the farther window, whether from the centre moulding of the light +lofty ceiling had depended a glimmering crystal chandelier, or where the +tambour-frame or the picquet-table had stood.... No, it was no good; he +had far better be frankly doing nothing than getting fruitlessly tired; +and he decided that he would take a walk, but, chancing to sit down for a +moment, dozed in his chair instead. + +"This won't do," he yawned when he awoke at half-past four in the +afternoon; "I must do better than this to-morrow--" + +And he felt so deliciously lazy that for some minutes he even +contemplated the breach of an appointment he had for the evening. + +The next morning he sat down to work without even permitting himself to +answer one of his three letters--two of them tradesmen's accounts, the +third a note from Miss Bengough, forwarded from his old address. It was a +jolly day of white and blue, with a gay noisy wind and a subtle turn in +the colour of growing things; and over and over again, once or twice a +minute, his room became suddenly light and then subdued again, as the +shining white clouds rolled north-eastwards over the square. The soft +fitful illumination was reflected in the polished surface of the table +and even in the footworn old floor; and the morning noises had begun +again. + +Oleron made a pattern of dots on the paper before him, and then broke off +to move the jar of daffodils exactly opposite the centre of a creamy +panel. Then he wrote a sentence that ran continuously for a couple of +lines, after which it broke on into notes and jottings. For a time he +succeeded in persuading himself that in making these memoranda he was +really working; then he rose and began to pace his room. As he did so, he +was struck by an idea. It was that the place might possibly be a little +better for more positive colour. It was, perhaps, a thought _too_ +pale--mild and sweet as a kind old face, but a little devitalised, even +wan.... Yes, decidedly it would bear a robuster note--more and richer +flowers, and possibly some warm and gay stuff for cushions for the +window-seats.... + +"Of course, I really can't afford it," he muttered, as he went for a +two-foot and began to measure the width of the window recesses.... + +In stooping to measure a recess, his attitude suddenly changed to one of +interest and attention. Presently he rose again, rubbing his hands with +gentle glee. + +"Oho, oho!" he said. "These look to me very much like window-boxes, +nailed up. We must look into this! Yes, those are boxes, or +I'm ... oho, this is an adventure!" + +On that wall of his sitting-room there were two windows (the third was in +another corner), and, beyond the open bedroom door, on the same wall, was +another. The seats of all had been painted, repainted, and painted again; +and Oleron's investigating finger had barely detected the old nailheads +beneath the paint. Under the ledge over which he stooped an old keyhole +also had been puttied up. Oleron took out his penknife. + +He worked carefully for five minutes, and then went into the kitchen for +a hammer and chisel. Driving the chisel cautiously under the seat, he +started the whole lid slightly. Again using the penknife, he cut along +the hinged edge and outward along the ends; and then he fetched a +wedge and a wooden mallet. + +"Now for our little mystery--" he said. + +The sound of the mallet on the wedge seemed, in that sweet and pale +apartment, somehow a little brutal--nay, even shocking. The panelling +rang and rattled and vibrated to the blows like a sounding-board. The +whole house seemed to echo; from the roomy cellarage to the garrets +above a flock of echoes seemed to awake; and the sound got a little on +Oleron's nerves. All at once he paused, fetched a duster, and muffled the +mallet.... When the edge was sufficiently raised he put his fingers under +it and lifted. The paint flaked and starred a little; the rusty old +nails squeaked and grunted; and the lid came up, laying open the box +beneath. Oleron looked into it. Save for a couple of inches of scurf and +mould and old cobwebs it was empty. + +"No treasure there," said Oleron, a little amused that he should have +fancied there might have been. "_Romilly_ will still have to be out by +the autumn. Let's have a look at the others." + +He turned to the second window. + +The raising of the two remaining seats occupied him until well into the +afternoon. That of the bedroom, like the first, was empty; but from the +second seat of his sitting-room he drew out something yielding and folded +and furred over an inch thick with dust. He carried the object into the +kitchen, and having swept it over a bucket, took a duster to it. + +It was some sort of a large bag, of an ancient frieze-like material, and +when unfolded it occupied the greater part of the small kitchen floor. In +shape it was an irregular, a very irregular, triangle, and it had a +couple of wide flaps, with the remains of straps and buckles. The patch +that had been uppermost in the folding was of a faded yellowish brown; +but the rest of it was of shades of crimson that varied according to the +exposure of the parts of it. + +"Now whatever can that have been?" Oleron mused as he stood surveying +it.... "I give it up. Whatever it is, it's settled my work for today, +I'm afraid--" + +He folded the object up carelessly and thrust it into a corner of the +kitchen; then, taking pans and brushes and an old knife, he returned to +the sitting-room and began to scrape and to wash and to line with paper +his newly discovered receptacles. When he had finished, he put his spare +boots and books and papers into them; and he closed the lids again, +amused with his little adventure, but also a little anxious for the hour +to come when he should settle fairly down to his work again. + + +III + +It piqued Oleron a little that his friend, Miss Bengough, should dismiss +with a glance the place he himself had found so singularly winning. +Indeed she scarcely lifted her eyes to it. But then she had always been +more or less like that--a little indifferent to the graces of life, +careless of appearances, and perhaps a shade more herself when she ate +biscuits from a paper bag than when she dined with greater observance of +the convenances. She was an unattached journalist of thirty-four, large, +showy, fair as butter, pink as a dog-rose, reminding one of a florist's +picked specimen bloom, and given to sudden and ample movements and moist +and explosive utterances. She "pulled a better living out of the pool" +(as she expressed it) than Oleron did; and by cunningly disguised puffs +of drapers and haberdashers she "pulled" also the greater part of her +very varied wardrobe. She left small whirlwinds of air behind her when +she moved, in which her veils and scarves fluttered and spun. + +Oleron heard the flurry of her skirts on his staircase and her single +loud knock at his door when he had been a month in his new abode. Her +garments brought in the outer air, and she flung a bundle of ladies' +journals down on a chair. + +"Don't knock off for me," she said across a mouthful of large-headed +hatpins as she removed her hat and veil. "I didn't know whether you were +straight yet, so I've brought some sandwiches for lunch. You've got +coffee, I suppose?--No, don't get up--I'll find the kitchen--" + +"Oh, that's all right, I'll clear these things away. To tell the truth, +I'm rather glad to be interrupted," said Oleron. + +He gathered his work together and put it away. She was already in the +kitchen; he heard the running of water into the kettle. He joined her, +and ten minutes later followed her back to the sitting-room with the +coffee and sandwiches on a tray. They sat down, with the tray on a small +table between them. + +"Well, what do you think of the new place?" Oleron asked as she poured +out coffee. + +"Hm!... Anybody'd think you were going to get married, Paul." + +He laughed. + +"Oh no. But it's an improvement on some of them, isn't it?" + +"Is it? I suppose it is; I don't know. I liked the last place, in spite +of the black ceiling and no watertap. How's _Romilly_?" + +Oleron thumbed his chin. + +"Hm! I'm rather ashamed to tell you. The fact is, I've not got on very +well with it. But it will be all right on the night, as you used to say." + +"Stuck?" + +"Rather stuck." + +"Got any of it you care to read to me?..." + +Oleron had long been in the habit of reading portions of his work to Miss +Bengough occasionally. Her comments were always quick and practical, +sometimes directly useful, sometimes indirectly suggestive. She, in +return for his confidence, always kept all mention of her own work +sedulously from him. His, she said, was "real work"; hers merely filled +space, not always even grammatically. + +"I'm afraid there isn't," Oleron replied, still meditatively dry-shaving +his chin. Then he added, with a little burst of candour, "The fact +is, Elsie, I've not written--not actually written--very much more of +it--_any_ more of it, in fact. But, of course, that doesn't mean I +haven't progressed. I've progressed, in one sense, rather alarmingly. +I'm now thinking of reconstructing the whole thing." + +Miss Bengough gave a gasp. "Reconstructing!" + +"Making Romilly herself a different type of woman. Somehow, I've begun to +feel that I'm not getting the most out of her. As she stands, I've +certainly lost interest in her to some extent." + +"But--but--" Miss Bengough protested, "you had her so real, so _living_, +Paul!" + +Oleron smiled faintly. He had been quite prepared for Miss Bengough's +disapproval. He wasn't surprised that she liked Romilly as she at present +existed; she would. Whether she realised it or not, there was much of +herself in his fictitious creation. Naturally Romilly would seem "real," +"living," to her.... + +"But are you really serious, Paul?" Miss Bengough asked presently, with a +round-eyed stare. + +"Quite serious." + +"You're really going to scrap those fifteen chapters?" + +"I didn't exactly say that." + +"That fine, rich love-scene?" + +"I should only do it reluctantly, and for the sake of something I thought +better." + +"And that beautiful, _beau_tiful description of Romilly on the shore?" + +"It wouldn't necessarily be wasted," he said a little uneasily. + +But Miss Bengough made a large and windy gesture, and then let him have +it. + +"Really, you are _too_ trying!" she broke out. "I do wish sometimes you'd +remember you're human, and live in a world! You know I'd be the _last_ to +wish you to lower your standard one inch, but it wouldn't be lowering it +to bring it within human comprehension. Oh, you're sometimes altogether +too godlike!... Why, it would be a wicked, criminal waste of your powers +to destroy those fifteen chapters! Look at it reasonably, now. You've +been working for nearly twenty years; you've now got what you've been +working for almost within your grasp; your affairs are at a most critical +stage (oh, don't tell me; I know you're about at the end of your money); +and here you are, deliberately proposing to withdraw a thing that will +probably make your name, and to substitute for it something that ten to +one nobody on earth will ever want to read--and small blame to them! +Really, you try my patience!" + +Oleron had shaken his head slowly as she had talked. It was an old story +between them. The noisy, able, practical journalist was an admirable +friend--up to a certain point; beyond that ... well, each of us knows +that point beyond which we stand alone. Elsie Bengough sometimes said +that had she had one-tenth part of Oleron's genius there were few things +she could not have done--thus making that genius a quantitatively +divisible thing, a sort of ingredient, to be added to or subtracted +from in the admixture of his work. That it was a qualitative thing, +essential, indivisible, informing, passed her comprehension. Their +spirits parted company at that point. Oleron knew it. She did not appear +to know it. + +"Yes, yes, yes," he said a little wearily, by-and-by, "practically you're +quite right, entirely right, and I haven't a word to say. If I could only +turn _Romilly_ over to you you'd make an enormous success of her. But +that can't be, and I, for my part, am seriously doubting whether she's +worth my while. You know what that means." + +"What does it mean?" she demanded bluntly. + +"Well," he said, smiling wanly, "what _does_ it mean when you're +convinced a thing isn't worth doing? You simply don't do it." + +Miss Bengough's eyes swept the ceiling for assistance against this +impossible man. + +"What utter rubbish!" she broke out at last. "Why, when I saw you last +you were simply oozing _Romilly_; you were turning her off at the rate of +four chapters a week; if you hadn't moved you'd have had her three-parts +done by now. What on earth possessed you to move right in the middle of +your most important work?" + +Oleron tried to put her off with a recital of inconveniences, but she +wouldn't have it. Perhaps in her heart she partly suspected the reason. +He was simply mortally weary of the narrow circumstances of his life. He +had had twenty years of it--twenty years of garrets and roof-chambers +and dingy flats and shabby lodgings, and he was tired of dinginess and +shabbiness. The reward was as far off as ever--or if it was not, he no +longer cared as once he would have cared to put out his hand and take it. +It is all very well to tell a man who is at the point of exhaustion that +only another effort is required of him; if he cannot make it he is as far +off as ever.... + +"Anyway," Oleron summed up, "I'm happier here than I've been for a long +time. That's some sort of a justification." + +"And doing no work," said Miss Bengough pointedly. + +At that a trifling petulance that had been gathering in Oleron came to a +head. + +"And why should I do nothing but work?" he demanded. "How much happier am +I for it? I don't say I don't love my work--when it's done; but I hate +doing it. Sometimes it's an intolerable burden that I simply long to be +rid of. Once in many weeks it has a moment, one moment, of glow and +thrill for me; I remember the days when it was all glow and thrill; and +now I'm forty-four, and it's becoming drudgery. Nobody wants it; I'm +ceasing to want it myself; and if any ordinary sensible man were to ask +me whether I didn't think I was a fool to go on, I think I should agree +that I was." + +Miss Bengough's comely pink face was serious. + +"But you knew all that, many, many years ago, Paul--and still you chose +it," she said in a low voice. + +"Well, and how should I have known?" he demanded. "I didn't know. I was +told so. My heart, if you like, told me so, and I thought I knew. Youth +always thinks it knows; then one day it discovers that it is nearly +fifty--" + +"Forty-four, Paul--" + +"--forty-four, then--and it finds that the glamour isn't in front, +but behind. Yes, I knew and chose, if _that's_ knowing and +choosing ... but it's a costly choice we're called on to make when +we're young!" + +Miss Bengough's eyes were on the floor. Without moving them she said, +"You're not regretting it, Paul?" + +"Am I not?" he took her up. "Upon my word, I've lately thought I am! What +_do_ I get in return for it all?" + +"You know what you get," she replied. + +He might have known from her tone what else he could have had for the +holding up of a finger--herself. She knew, but could not tell him, that +he could have done no better thing for himself. Had he, any time these +ten years, asked her to marry him, she would have replied quietly, +"Very well; when?" He had never thought of it.... + +"Yours is the real work," she continued quietly. "Without you we jackals +couldn't exist. You and a few like you hold everything upon your +shoulders." + +For a minute there was a silence. Then it occurred to Oleron that this +was common vulgar grumbling. It was not his habit. Suddenly he rose and +began to stack cups and plates on the tray. + +"Sorry you catch me like this, Elsie," he said, with a little +laugh.... "No, I'll take them out; then we'll go for a walk, if you +like...." + +He carried out the tray, and then began to show Miss Bengough round his +flat. She made few comments. In the kitchen she asked what an old faded +square of reddish frieze was, that Mrs. Barrett used as a cushion for her +wooden chair. + +"That? I should be glad if you could tell _me_ what it is," Oleron +replied as he unfolded the bag and related the story of its finding in +the window-seat. + +"I think I know what it is," said Miss Bengough. "It's been used to wrap +up a harp before putting it into its case." + +"By Jove, that's probably just what it was," said Oleron. "I could make +neither head nor tail of it...." + +They finished the tour of the flat, and returned to the sitting-room. + +"And who lives in the rest of the house?" Miss Bengough asked. + +"I dare say a tramp sleeps in the cellar occasionally. Nobody else." + +"Hm!... Well, I'll tell you what I think about it, if you like." + +"I should like." + +"You'll never work here." + +"Oh?" said Oleron quickly. "Why not?" + +"You'll never finish _Romilly_ here. Why, I don't know, but you won't. +I know it. You'll have to leave before you get on with that book." + +He mused for a moment, and then said: + +"Isn't that a little--prejudiced, Elsie?" + +"Perfectly ridiculous. As an argument it hasn't a leg to stand on. But +there it is," she replied, her mouth once more full of the large-headed +hat pins. + +Oleron was reaching down his hat and coat. He laughed. + +"I can only hope you're entirely wrong," he said, "for I shall be in a +serious mess if _Romilly_ isn't out in the autumn." + + +IV + +As Oleron sat by his fire that evening, pondering Miss Bengough's +prognostication that difficulties awaited him in his work, he came to the +conclusion that it would have been far better had she kept her beliefs to +herself. No man does a thing better for having his confidence damped at +the outset, and to speak of difficulties is in a sense to make them. +Speech itself becomes a deterrent act, to which other discouragements +accrete until the very event of which warning is given is as likely as +not to come to pass. He heartily confounded her. An influence hostile +to the completion of _Romilly_ had been born. + +And in some illogical, dogmatic way women seem to have, she had attached +this antagonistic influence to his new abode. Was ever anything so +absurd! "You'll never finish _Romilly_ here." ... Why not? Was this her +idea of the luxury that saps the springs of action and brings a man down +to indolence and dropping out of the race? The place was well enough--it +was entirely charming, for that matter--but it was not so demoralising as +all that! No; Elsie had missed the mark that time.... + +He moved his chair to look round the room that smiled, positively +smiled, in the firelight. He too smiled, as if pity was to be +entertained for a maligned apartment. Even that slight lack of robust +colour he had remarked was not noticeable in the soft glow. The drawn +chintz curtains--they had a flowered and trellised pattern, with baskets +and oaten pipes--fell in long quiet folds to the window-seats; the rows +of bindings in old bookcases took the light richly; the last trace of +sallowness had gone with the daylight; and, if the truth must be told, +it had been Elsie herself who had seemed a little out of the picture. + +That reflection struck him a little, and presently he returned to it. +Yes, the room had, quite accidentally, done Miss Bengough a disservice +that afternoon. It had, in some subtle but unmistakable way, placed her, +marked a contrast of qualities. Assuming for the sake of argument the +slightly ridiculous proposition that the room in which Oleron sat _was_ +characterised by a certain sparsity and lack of vigour; so much the worse +for Miss Bengough; she certainly erred on the side of redundancy and +general muchness. And if one must contrast abstract qualities, Oleron +inclined to the austere in taste.... + +Yes, here Oleron had made a distinct discovery; he wondered he had not +made it before. He pictured Miss Bengough again as she had appeared +that afternoon--large, showy, moistly pink, with that quality of the +prize bloom exuding, as it were, from her; and instantly she suffered in +his thought. He even recognised now that he had noticed something odd at +the time, and that unconsciously his attitude, even while she had been +there, had been one of criticism. The mechanism of her was a little +obvious; her melting humidity was the result of analysable processes; and +behind her there had seemed to lurk some dim shape emblematic of +mortality. He had never, during the ten years of their intimacy, dreamed +for a moment of asking her to marry him; none the less, he now felt for +the first time a thankfulness that he had not done so.... + +Then, suddenly and swiftly, his face flamed that he should be thinking +thus of his friend. What! Elsie Bengough, with whom he had spent weeks +and weeks of afternoons--she, the good chum, on whose help he would have +counted had all the rest of the world failed him--she, whose loyalty to +him would not, he knew, swerve as long as there was breath in her--Elsie +to be even in thought dissected thus! He was an ingrate and a cad.... + +Had she been there in that moment he would have abased himself before +her. + +For ten minutes and more he sat, still gazing into the fire, with that +humiliating red fading slowly from his cheeks. All was still within and +without, save for a tiny musical tinkling that came from his kitchen--the +dripping of water from an imperfectly turned-off tap into the vessel +beneath it. Mechanically he began to beat with his finger to the faintly +heard falling of the drops; the tiny regular movement seemed to hasten +that shameful withdrawal from his face. He grew cool once more; and when +he resumed his meditation he was all unconscious that he took it up again +at the same point.... + +It was not only her florid superfluity of build that he had approached in +the attitude of criticism; he was conscious also of the wide differences +between her mind and his own. He felt no thankfulness that up to a +certain point their natures had ever run companionably side by side; he +was now full of questions beyond that point. Their intellects diverged; +there was no denying it; and, looking back, he was inclined to doubt +whether there had been any real coincidence. True, he had read his +writings to her and she had appeared to speak comprehendingly and to the +point; but what can a man do who, having assumed that another sees as he +does, is suddenly brought up sharp by something that falsifies and +discredits all that has gone before? He doubted all now.... It did for a +moment occur to him that the man who demands of a friend more than can be +given to him is in danger of losing that friend, but he put the thought +aside. + +Again he ceased to think, and again moved his finger to the distant +dripping of the tap.... + +And now (he resumed by-and-by), if these things were true of Elsie +Bengough, they were also true of the creation of which she was the +prototype--Romilly Bishop. And since he could say of Romilly what for +very shame he could not say of Elsie, he gave his thoughts rein. He did +so in that smiling, fire-lighted room, to the accompaniment of the +faintly heard tap. + +There was no longer any doubt about it; he hated the central character +of his novel. Even as he had described her physically she overpowered +the senses; she was coarse-fibred, over-coloured, rank. It became true +the moment he formulated his thought; Gulliver had described the +Brobdingnagian maids-of-honour thus: and mentally and spiritually she +corresponded--was unsensitive, limited, common. The model (he closed his +eyes for a moment)--the model stuck out through fifteen vulgar and +blatant chapters to such a pitch that, without seeing the reason, he had +been unable to begin the sixteenth. He marvelled that it had only just +dawned upon him. + +And _this_ was to have been his Beatrice, his vision! As Elsie she was to +have gone into the furnace of his art, and she was to have come out the +Woman all men desire! Her thoughts were to have been culled from his own +finest, her form from his dearest dreams, and her setting wherever he +could find one fit for her worth. He had brooded long before making the +attempt; then one day he had felt her stir within him as a mother feels +a quickening, and he had begun to write; and so he had added chapter to +chapter.... + +And those fifteen sodden chapters were what he had produced! + +Again he sat, softly moving his finger.... + +Then he bestirred himself. + +She must go, all fifteen chapters of her. That was settled. For what was +to take her place his mind was a blank; but one thing at a time; a man +is not excused from taking the wrong course because the right one is not +immediately revealed to him. Better would come if it was to come; +in the meantime-- + +He rose, fetched the fifteen chapters, and read them over before he +should drop them into the fire. + +But instead of putting them into the fire he let them fall from his hand. +He became conscious of the dripping of the tap again. It had a tinkling +gamut of four or five notes, on which it rang irregular changes, and it +was foolishly sweet and dulcimer-like. In his mind Oleron could see the +gathering of each drop, its little tremble on the lip of the tap, and the +tiny percussion of its fall, "Plink--plunk," minimised almost to +inaudibility. Following the lowest note there seemed to be a brief +phrase, irregularly repeated; and presently Oleron found himself waiting +for the recurrence of this phrase. It was quite pretty.... + +But it did not conduce to wakefulness, and Oleron dozed over his fire. + +When he awoke again the fire had burned low and the flames of the candles +were licking the rims of the Sheffield sticks. Sluggishly he rose, +yawned, went his nightly round of door-locks and window-fastenings, and +passed into his bedroom. Soon he slept soundly. + +But a curious little sequel followed on the morrow. Mrs. Barrett usually +tapped, not at his door, but at the wooden wall beyond which lay Oleron's +bed; and then Oleron rose, put on his dressing-gown, and admitted her. He +was not conscious that as he did so that morning he hummed an air; but +Mrs. Barrett lingered with her hand on the door-knob and her face a +little averted and smiling. + +"De-ar me!" her soft falsetto rose. "But that will be a very o-ald tune, +Mr. Oleron! I will not have heard it this for-ty years!" + +"What tune?" Oleron asked. + +"The tune, indeed, that you was humming, sir." + +Oleron had his thumb in the flap of a letter. It remained there. + +"_I_ was humming?... Sing it, Mrs. Barrett." + +Mrs. Barrett prut-prutted. + +"I have no voice for singing, Mr. Oleron; it was Ann Pugh was the singer +of our family; but the tune will be very o-ald, and it is called 'The +Beckoning Fair One.'" + +"Try to sing it," said Oleron, his thumb still in the envelope; and Mrs. +Barrett, with much dimpling and confusion, hummed the air. + +"They do say it was sung to a harp, Mr. Oleron, and it will be very +o-ald," she concluded. + +"And _I_ was singing that?" + +"Indeed you wass. I would not be likely to tell you lies." + +With a "Very well--let me have breakfast," Oleron opened his letter; but +the trifling circumstance struck him as more odd than he would have +admitted to himself. The phrase he had hummed had been that which he had +associated with the falling from the tap on the evening before. + + +V + +Even more curious than that the commonplace dripping of an ordinary +water-tap should have tallied so closely with an actually existing air +was another result it had, namely, that it awakened, or seemed to awaken, +in Oleron an abnormal sensitiveness to other noises of the old house. It +has been remarked that silence obtains its fullest and most impressive +quality when it is broken by some minute sound; and, truth to tell, the +place was never still. Perhaps the mildness of the spring air operated on +its torpid old timbers; perhaps Oleron's fires caused it to stretch its +old anatomy; and certainly a whole world of insect life bored and +burrowed in its baulks and joists. At any rate, Oleron had only to sit +quiet in his chair and to wait for a minute or two in order to become +aware of such a change in the auditory scale as comes upon a man who, +conceiving the midsummer woods to be motionless and still, all at once +finds his ear sharpened to the crepitation of a myriad insects. + +And he smiled to think of man's arbitrary distinction between that which +has life and that which has not. Here, quite apart from such recognisable +sounds as the scampering of mice, the falling of plaster behind his +panelling, and the popping of purses or coffins from his fire, was a +whole house talking to him had he but known its language. Beams settled +with a tired sigh into their old mortices; creatures ticked in the walls; +joints cracked, boards complained; with no palpable stirring of the air +window-sashes changed their positions with a soft knock in their frames. +And whether the place had life in this sense or not, it had at all events +a winsome personality. It needed but an hour of musing for Oleron to +conceive the idea that, as his own body stood in friendly relation to his +soul, so, by an extension and an attenuation, his habitation might +fantastically be supposed to stand in some relation to himself. He even +amused himself with the far-fetched fancy that he might so identify +himself with the place that some future tenant, taking possession, might +regard it as in a sense haunted. It would be rather a joke if he, a +perfectly harmless author, with nothing on his mind worse than a novel he +had discovered he must begin again, should turn out to be laying the +foundation of a future ghost!... + +In proportion, however, as he felt this growing attachment to the fabric +of his abode, Elsie Bengough, from being merely unattracted, began to +show a dislike of the place that was more and more marked. And she did +not scruple to speak of her aversion. + +"It doesn't belong to to-day at all, and for you especially it's bad," +she said with decision. "You're only too ready to let go your hold on +actual things and to slip into apathy; _you_ ought to be in a place +with concrete floors and a patent gas-meter and a tradesmen's lift. And +it would do you all the good in the world if you had a job that made you +scramble and rub elbows with your fellow-men. Now, if I could get you a +job, for, say, two or three days a week, one that would allow you heaps +of time for your proper work--would you take it?" + +Somehow, Oleron resented a little being diagnosed like this. He thanked +Miss Bengough, but without a smile. + +"Thank you, but I don't think so. After all each of us has his own life +to live," he could not refrain from adding. + +"His own life to live!... How long is it since you were out, Paul?" + +"About two hours." + +"I don't mean to buy stamps or to post a letter. How long is it since you +had anything like a stretch?" + +"Oh, some little time perhaps. I don't know." + +"Since I was here last?" + +"I haven't been out much." + +"And has _Romilly_ progressed much better for your being cooped up?" + +"I think she has. I'm laying the foundations of her. I shall begin the +actual writing presently." + +It seemed as if Miss Bengough had forgotten their tussle about the first +_Romilly_. She frowned, turned half away, and then quickly turned again. + +"Ah!... So you've still got that ridiculous idea in your head?" + +"If you mean," said Oleron slowly, "that I've discarded the old +_Romilly_, and am at work on a new one, you're right. I have still got +that idea in my head." + +Something uncordial in his tone struck her; but she was a fighter. His +own absurd sensitiveness hardened her. She gave a "Pshaw!" of impatience. + +"Where is the old one?" she demanded abruptly. + +"Why?" asked Oleron. + +"I want to see it. I want to show some of it to you. I want, if you're +not wool-gathering entirely, to bring you back to your senses." + +This time it was he who turned his back. But when he turned round again +he spoke more gently. + +"It's no good, Elsie. I'm responsible for the way I go, and you must +allow me to go it--even if it should seem wrong to you. Believe me, I +am giving thought to it.... The manuscript? I was on the point of burning +it, but I didn't. It's in that window-seat, if you must see it." + +Miss Bengough crossed quickly to the window-seat, and lifted the lid. +Suddenly she gave a little exclamation, and put the back of her hand +to her mouth. She spoke over her shoulder: + +"You ought to knock those nails in, Paul," she said. + +He strode to her side. + +"What? What is it? What's the matter?" he asked. "I did knock them +in--or, rather, pulled them out." + +"You left enough to scratch with," she replied, showing her hand. From +the upper wrist to the knuckle of the little finger a welling red wound +showed. + +"Good--Gracious!" Oleron ejaculated.... "Here, come to the bathroom and +bathe it quickly--" + +He hurried her to the bathroom, turned on warm water, and bathed and +cleansed the bad gash. Then, still holding the hand, he turned cold water +on it, uttering broken phrases of astonishment and concern. + +"Good Lord, how did that happen! As far as I knew I'd ... is this water +too cold? Does that hurt? I can't imagine how on earth ... there; that'll +do--" + +"No--one moment longer--I can bear it," she murmured, her eyes closed.... + +Presently he led her back to the sitting-room and bound the hand in one +of his handkerchiefs; but his face did not lose its expression of +perplexity. He had spent half a day in opening and making serviceable the +three window-boxes, and he could not conceive how he had come to leave an +inch and a half of rusty nail standing in the wood. He himself had opened +the lids of each of them a dozen times and had not noticed any nail; but +there it was.... + +"It shall come out now, at all events," he muttered, as he went for a +pair of pincers. And he made no mistake about it that time. + +Elsie Bengough had sunk into a chair, and her face was rather white; but +in her hand was the manuscript of _Romilly_. She had not finished with +_Romilly_ yet. Presently she returned to the charge. + +"Oh, Paul, it will be the greatest mistake you ever, _ever_ made if you +do not publish this!" she said. + +He hung his head, genuinely distressed. He couldn't get that incident of +the nail out of his head, and _Romilly_ occupied a second place in his +thoughts for the moment. But still she insisted; and when presently he +spoke it was almost as if he asked her pardon for something. + +"What can I say, Elsie? I can only hope that when you see the new +version, you'll see how right I am. And if in spite of all you _don't_ +like her, well ..." he made a hopeless gesture. "Don't you see that I +_must_ be guided by my own lights?" + +She was silent. + +"Come, Elsie," he said gently. "We've got along well so far; don't let us +split on this." + +The last words had hardly passed his lips before he regretted them. She +had been nursing her injured hand, with her eyes once more closed; but +her lips and lids quivered simultaneously. Her voice shook as she spoke. + +"I can't help saying it, Paul, but you are so greatly changed." + +"Hush, Elsie," he murmured soothingly; "you've had a shock; rest for a +while. How could I change?" + +"I don't know, but you are. You've not been yourself ever since you came +here. I wish you'd never seen the place. It's stopped your work, it's +making you into a person I hardly know, and it's made me horribly anxious +about you.... Oh, how my hand is beginning to throb!" + +"Poor child!" he murmured. "Will you let me take you to a doctor and have +it properly dressed?" + +"No--I shall be all right presently--I'll keep it raised----" + +She put her elbow on the back of her chair, and the bandaged hand rested +lightly on his shoulder. + +At that touch an entirely new anxiety stirred suddenly within him. +Hundreds of times previously, on their jaunts and excursions, she had +slipped her hand within his arm as she might have slipped it into the arm +of a brother, and he had accepted the little affectionate gesture as a +brother might have accepted it. But now, for the first time, there rushed +into his mind a hundred startling questions. Her eyes were still closed, +and her head had fallen pathetically back; and there was a lost and +ineffable smile on her parted lips. The truth broke in upon him. Good +God!... And he had never divined it! + +And stranger than all was that, now that he did see that she was lost in +love of him, there came to him, not sorrow and humility and abasement, +but something else that he struggled in vain against--something entirely +strange and new, that, had he analysed it, he would have found to be +petulance and irritation and resentment and ungentleness. The sudden +selfish prompting mastered him before he was aware. He all but gave it +words. What was she doing there at all? Why was she not getting on with +her own work? Why was she here interfering with his? Who had given her +this guardianship over him that lately she had put forward so +assertively?--"Changed?" It was she, not himself, who had changed.... + +But by the time she had opened her eyes again he had overcome his +resentment sufficiently to speak gently, albeit with reserve. + +"I wish you would let me take you to a doctor." + +She rose. + +"No, thank you, Paul," she said. "I'll go now. If I need a dressing I'll +get one; take the other hand, please. Good-bye--" + +He did not attempt to detain her. He walked with her to the foot of the +stairs. Half-way along the narrow alley she turned. + +"It would be a long way to come if you happened not to be in," she said; +"I'll send you a postcard the next time." + +At the gate she turned again. + +"Leave here, Paul," she said, with a mournful look. "Everything's wrong +with this house." + +Then she was gone. + +Oleron returned to his room. He crossed straight to the window-box. He +opened the lid and stood long looking at it. Then he closed it again and +turned away. + +"That's rather frightening," he muttered. "It's simply not possible that +I should not have removed that nail...." + + +VI + +Oleron knew very well what Elsie had meant when she had said that her +next visit would be preceded by a postcard. She, too, had realised that +at last, at last he knew--knew, and didn't want her. It gave him a +miserable, pitiful pang, therefore, when she came again within a week, +knocking at the door unannounced. She spoke from the landing; she did not +intend to stay, she said; and he had to press her before she would so +much as enter. + +Her excuse for calling was that she had heard of an inquiry for short +stories that he might be wise to follow up. He thanked her. Then, her +business over, she seemed anxious to get away again. Oleron did not seek +to detain her; even he saw through the pretext of the stories; and he +accompanied her down the stairs. + +But Elsie Bengough had no luck whatever in that house. A second accident +befell her. Half-way down the staircase there was the sharp sound of +splintering wood, and she checked a loud cry. Oleron knew the woodwork to +be old, but he himself had ascended and descended frequently enough +without mishap.... + +Elsie had put her foot through one of the stairs. + +He sprang to her side in alarm. + +"Oh, I say! My poor girl!" + +She laughed hysterically. + +"It's my weight--I know I'm getting fat--" + +"Keep still--let me clear these splinters away," he muttered between his +teeth. + +She continued to laugh and sob that it was her weight--she was getting +fat-- + +He thrust downwards at the broken boards. The extrication was no easy +matter, and her torn boot showed him how badly the foot and ankle +within it must be abraded. + +"Good God--good God!" he muttered over and over again. + +"I shall be too heavy for anything soon," she sobbed and laughed. + +But she refused to reascend and to examine her hurt. + +"No, let me go quickly--let me go quickly," she repeated. + +"But it's a frightful gash!" + +"No--not so bad--let me get away quickly--I'm--I'm not wanted." + +At her words, that she was not wanted, his head dropped as if she had +given him a buffet. + +"Elsie!" he choked, brokenly and shocked. + +But she too made a quick gesture, as if she put something violently +aside. + +"Oh, Paul, not _that_--not _you_--of course I do mean that too in a +sense--oh, you know what I mean!... But if the other can't be, spare +me this now! I--I wouldn't have come, but--but--oh, I did, I _did_ try to +keep away!" + +It was intolerable, heartbreaking; but what could he do--what could he +say? He did not love her... + +"Let me go--I'm not wanted--let me take away what's left of me--" + +"Dear Elsie--you are very dear to me--" + +But again she made the gesture, as of putting something violently aside. + +"No, not that--not anything less--don't offer me anything less--leave me +a little pride--" + +"Let me get my hat and coat--let me take you to a doctor," he muttered. + +But she refused. She refused even the support of his arm. She gave +another unsteady laugh. + +"I'm sorry I broke your stairs, Paul.... You will go and see about the +short stories, won't you?" + +He groaned. + +"Then if you won't see a doctor, will you go across the square and let +Mrs. Barrett look at you? Look, there's Barrett passing now--" + +The long-nosed Barrett was looking curiously down the alley, but as +Oleron was about to call him he made off without a word. Elsie seemed +anxious for nothing so much as to be clear of the place, and finally +promised to go straight to a doctor, but insisted on going alone. + +"Good-bye," she said. + +And Oleron watched her until she was past the hatchet-like "To Let" +boards, as if he feared that even they might fall upon her and maim her. + +That night Oleron did not dine. He had far too much on his mind. He +walked from room to room of his flat, as if he could have walked away +from Elsie Bengough's haunting cry that still rang in his ears. "I'm +not wanted--don't offer me anything less--let me take away what's left +of me--" + +Oh, if he could only have persuaded himself that he loved her! + +He walked until twilight fell, then, without lighting candles, he stirred +up the fire and flung himself into a chair. + +Poor, poor Elsie!... + +But even while his heart ached for her, it was out of the question. +If only he had known! If only he had used common observation! But +those walks, those sisterly takings of the arm--what a fool he had +been!... Well, it was too late now. It was she, not he, who must now +act--act by keeping away. He would help her all he could. He himself +would not sit in her presence. If she came, he would hurry her out again +as fast as he could.... Poor, poor Elsie! + +His room grew dark; the fire burned dead; and he continued to sit, +wincing from time to time as a fresh tortured phrase rang again in his +ears. + +Then suddenly, he knew not why, he found himself anxious for her in a new +sense--uneasy about her personal safety. A horrible fancy that even then +she might be looking over an embankment down into dark water, that she +might even now be glancing up at the hook on the door, took him. Women +had been known to do those things.... Then there would be an inquest, and +he himself would be called upon to identify her, and would be asked how +she had come by an ill-healed wound on the hand and a bad abrasion of the +ankle. Barrett would say that he had seen her leaving his house.... + +Then he recognised that his thoughts were morbid. By an effort of will he +put them aside, and sat for a while listening to the faint creakings +and tickings and rappings within his panelling.... If only he could have +married her!... But he couldn't. Her face had risen before him again +as he had seen it on the stairs, drawn with pain and ugly and swollen +with tears. Ugly--yes, positively blubbered; if tears were women's +weapons, as they were said to be, such tears were weapons turned against +themselves ... suicide again.... + +Then all at once he found himself attentively considering her two +accidents. + +Extraordinary they had been, both of them. He _could not_ have left that +old nail standing in the wood; why, he had fetched tools specially from +the kitchen; and he was convinced that that step that had broken beneath +her weight had been as sound as the others. It was inexplicable. If these +things could happen, anything could happen. There was not a beam nor a +jamb in the place that might not fall without warning, not a plank that +might not crash inwards, not a nail that might not become a dagger. The +whole place was full of life even now; as he sat there in the dark he +heard its crowds of noises as if the house had been one great +microphone.... + +Only half conscious that he did so, he had been sitting for some time +identifying these noises, attributing to each crack or creak or knock its +material cause; but there was one noise which, again not fully conscious +of the omission, he had not sought to account for. It had last come some +minutes ago; it came again now--a sort of soft sweeping rustle that +seemed to hold an almost inaudibly minute crackling. For half a minute or +so it had Oleron's attention; then his heavy thoughts were of Elsie +Bengough again. + +He was nearer to loving her in that moment than he had ever been. He +thought how to some men their loved ones were but the dearer for those +poor mortal blemishes that tell us we are but sojourners on earth, with a +common fate not far distant that makes it hardly worth while to do +anything but love for the time remaining. Strangling sobs, blearing +tears, bodies buffeted by sickness, hearts and mind callous and hard with +the rubs of the world--how little love there would be were these things a +barrier to love! In that sense he did love Elsie Bengough. What her +happiness had never moved in him her sorrow almost awoke.... + +Suddenly his meditation went. His ear had once more become conscious +of that soft and repeated noise--the long sweep with the almost +inaudible crackle in it. Again and again it came, with a curious +insistence and urgency. It quickened a little as he became increasingly +attentive ... it seemed to Oleron that it grew louder.... + +All at once he started bolt upright in his chair, tense and listening. +The silky rustle came again; he was trying to attach it to something.... + +The next moment he had leapt to his feet, unnerved and terrified. His +chair hung poised for a moment, and then went over, setting the +fire-irons clattering as it fell. There was only one noise in the world +like that which had caused him to spring thus to his feet.... + +The next time it came Oleron felt behind him at the empty air with his +hand, and backed slowly until he found himself against the wall. + +"God in Heaven!" The ejaculation broke from Oleron's lips. The sound had +ceased. + +The next moment he had given a high cry. + +"What is it? What's there? _Who's_ there?" + +A sound of scuttling caused his knees to bend under him for a moment; but +that, he knew, was a mouse. That was not something that his stomach +turned sick and his mind reeled to entertain. That other sound, the like +of which was not in the world, had now entirely ceased; and again he +called.... + +He called and continued to call; and then another terror, a terror of the +sound of his own voice, seized him. He did not dare to call again. His +shaking hand went to his pocket for a match, but found none. He thought +there might be matches on the mantelpiece-- + +He worked his way to the mantelpiece round a little recess, without for a +moment leaving the wall. Then his hand encountered the mantelpiece, and +groped along it. A box of matches fell to the hearth. He could just see +them in the firelight, but his hand could not pick them up until he had +cornered them inside the fender. + +Then he rose and struck a light. + +The room was as usual. He struck a second match. A candle stood on the +table. He lighted it, and the flame sank for a moment and then burned up +clear. Again he looked round. + +There was nothing. + +There was nothing; but there had been something, and might still be +something. Formerly, Oleron had smiled at the fantastic thought that, +by a merging and interplay of identities between himself and his +beautiful room, he might be preparing a ghost for the future; it had not +occurred to him _that there might have been a similar merging and +coalescence in the past_. Yet with this staggering impossibility he was +now face to face. Something did persist in the house; it had a tenant +other than himself; and that tenant, whatsoever or whosoever, had +appalled Oleron's soul by producing the sound of a woman brushing her +hair. + + +VII + +Without quite knowing how he came to be there Oleron found himself +striding over the loose board he had temporarily placed on the step +broken by Miss Bengough. He was hatless, and descending the stairs. Not +until later did there return to him a hazy memory that he had left the +candle burning on the table, had opened the door no wider than was +necessary to allow the passage of his body, and had sidled out, closing +the door softly behind him. At the foot of the stairs another shock +awaited him. Something dashed with a flurry up from the disused cellars +and disappeared out of the door. It was only a cat, but Oleron gave a +childish sob. + +He passed out of the gate, and stood for a moment under the "To Let" +boards, plucking foolishly at his lip and looking up at the glimmer +of light behind one of his red blinds. Then, still looking over his +shoulder, he moved stumblingly up the square. There was a small +public-house round the corner; Oleron had never entered it; but he +entered it now, and put down a shilling that missed the counter by +inches. + +"B--b--bran--brandy," he said, and then stooped to look for the shilling. + +He had the little sawdusted bar to himself; what company there +was--carters and labourers and the small tradesmen of the +neighbourhood--was gathered in the farther compartment, beyond the space +where the white-haired landlady moved among her taps and bottles. Oleron +sat down on a hardwood settee with a perforated seat, drank half his +brandy, and then, thinking he might as well drink it as spill it, +finished it. + +Then he fell to wondering which of the men whose voices he heard across +the public-house would undertake the removal of his effects on the +morrow. + +In the meantime he ordered more brandy. + +For he did not intend to go back to that room where he had left the +candle burning. Oh no! He couldn't have faced even the entry and the +staircase with the broken step--certainly not that pith-white, +fascinating room. He would go back for the present to his old +arrangement, of workroom and separate sleeping-quarters; he would +go to his old landlady at once--presently--when he had finished his +brandy--and see if she could put him up for the night. His glass was +empty now.... + +He rose, had it refilled, and sat down again. + +And if anybody asked his reason for removing again? Oh, he had reason +enough--reason enough! Nails that put themselves back into wood again +and gashed people's hands, steps that broke when you trod on them, and +women who came into a man's place and brushed their hair in the dark, +were reasons enough! He was querulous and injured about it all. He had +taken the place for himself, not for invisible women to brush their +hair in; that lawyer fellow in Lincoln's Inn should be told so, too, +before many hours were out; it was outrageous, letting people in for +agreements like that! + +A cut-glass partition divided the compartment where Oleron sat from the +space where the white-haired landlady moved; but it stopped seven or +eight inches above the level of the counter. There was no partition at +the farther bar. Presently Oleron, raising his eyes, saw that faces were +watching him through the aperture. The faces disappeared when he looked +at them. + +He moved to a corner where he could not be seen from the other bar; but +this brought him into line with the white-haired landlady. + +She knew him by sight--had doubtless seen him passing and repassing; and +presently she made a remark on the weather. Oleron did not know what he +replied, but it sufficed to call forth the further remark that the winter +had been a bad one for influenza, but that the spring weather seemed to +be coming at last.... Even this slight contact with the commonplace +steadied Oleron a little; an idle, nascent wonder whether the landlady +brushed her hair every night, and, if so, whether it gave out those +little electric cracklings, was shut down with a snap; and Oleron was +better.... + +With his next glass of brandy he was all for going back to his flat. Not +go back? Indeed, he would go back! They should very soon see whether he +was to be turned out of his place like that! He began to wonder why he +was doing the rather unusual thing he was doing at that moment, unusual +for him--sitting hatless, drinking brandy, in a public-house. Suppose he +were to tell the white-haired landlady all about it--to tell her that a +caller had scratched her hand on a nail, had later had the bad luck to +put her foot through a rotten stair, and that he himself, in an old house +full of squeaks and creaks and whispers, had heard a minute noise and had +bolted from it in fright--what would she think of him? That he was mad, +of course.... Pshaw! The real truth of the matter was that he hadn't been +doing enough work to occupy him. He had been dreaming his days away, +filling his head with a lot of moonshine about a new _Romilly_ (as if the +old one was not good enough), and now he was surprised that the devil +should enter an empty head! + +Yes, he would go back. He would take a walk in the air first--he hadn't +walked enough lately--and then he would take himself in hand, settle +the hash of that sixteenth chapter of _Romilly_ (fancy, he had actually +been fool enough to think of destroying fifteen chapters!) and +thenceforward he would remember that he had obligations to his fellow-men +and work to do in the world. There was the matter in a nutshell. + +He finished his brandy and went out. + +He had walked for some time before any other bearing of the matter than +that on himself occurred to him. At first, the fresh air had increased +the heady effect of the brandy he had drunk; but afterwards his mind grew +clearer than it had been since morning. And the clearer it grew, the less +final did his boastful self-assurances become, and the firmer his +conviction that, when all explanations had been made, there remained +something that could not be explained. His hysteria of an hour before had +passed; he grew steadily calmer; but the disquieting conviction remained. +A deep fear took possession of him. It was a fear for Elsie. + +For something in his place was inimical to her safety. Of themselves, her +two accidents might not have persuaded him of this; but she herself had +said it. "_I'm not wanted here_..." And she had declared that there was +something wrong with the place. She had seen it before he had. Well and +good. One thing stood out clearly: namely, that if this was so, she must +be kept away for quite another reason than that which had so confounded +and humiliated Oleron. Luckily she had expressed her intention of staying +away; she must be held to that intention. He must see to it. + +And he must see to it all the more that he now saw his first impulse, +never to set foot in the place again, was absurd. People did not do that +kind of thing. With Elsie made secure, he could not with any respect to +himself suffer himself to be turned out by a shadow, nor even by a danger +merely because it was a danger. He had to live somewhere, and he would +live there. He must return. + +He mastered the faint chill of fear that came with the decision, and +turned in his walk abruptly. Should fear grow on him again he would, +perhaps, take one more glass of brandy.... + +But by the time he reached the short street that led to the square he was +too late for more brandy. The little public-house was still lighted, but +closed, and one or two men were standing talking on the kerb. Oleron +noticed that a sudden silence fell on them as he passed, and he noticed +further that the long-nosed Barrett, whom he passed a little lower down, +did not return his good-night. He turned in at the broken gate, hesitated +merely an instant in the alley, and then mounted his stairs again. + +Only an inch of candle remained in the Sheffield stick, and Oleron did +not light another one. Deliberately he forced himself to take it up and +to make the tour of his five rooms before retiring. It was as he returned +from the kitchen across his little hall that he noticed that a letter lay +on the floor. He carried it into his sitting-room, and glanced at the +envelope before opening it. + +It was unstamped, and had been put into the door by hand. Its handwriting +was clumsy, and it ran from beginning to end without comma or period. +Oleron read the first line, turned to the signature, and then finished +the letter. + +It was from the man Barrett, and it informed Oleron that he, Barrett, +would be obliged if Mr. Oleron would make other arrangements for the +preparing of his breakfasts and the cleaning-out of his place. The sting +lay in the tail, that is to say, the postscript. This consisted of a text +of Scripture. It embodied an allusion that could only be to Elsie +Bengough.... + +A seldom-seen frown had cut deeply into Oleron's brow. So! That was it! +Very well; they would see about that on the morrow.... For the rest, this +seemed merely another reason why Elsie should keep away.... + +Then his suppressed rage broke out.... + +The foul-minded lot! The devil himself could not have given a leer at +anything that had ever passed between Paul Oleron and Elsie Bengough, +yet this nosing rascal must be prying and talking!... + +Oleron crumpled the paper up, held it in the candle flame, and then +ground the ashes under his heel. + +One useful purpose, however, the letter had served: it had created in +Oleron a wrathful blaze that effectually banished pale shadows. +Nevertheless, one other puzzling circumstance was to close the day. As he +undressed, he chanced to glance at his bed. The coverlets bore an impress +as if somebody had lain on them. Oleron could not remember that he +himself had lain down during the day--off-hand, he would have said that +certainly he had not; but after all he could not be positive. His +indignation for Elsie, acting possibly with the residue of the brandy in +him, excluded all other considerations; and he put out his candle, lay +down, and passed immediately into a deep and dreamless sleep, which, in +the absence of Mrs. Barrett's morning call, lasted almost once round the +clock. + + +VIII + +To the man who pays heed to that voice within him which warns him that +twilight and danger are settling over his soul, terror is apt to appear +an absolute thing, against which his heart must be safeguarded in a twink +unless there is to take place an alteration in the whole range and scale +of his nature. Mercifully, he has never far to look for safeguards. Of +the immediate and small and common and momentary things of life, of +usages and observances and modes and conventions, he builds up +fortifications against the powers of darkness. He is even content that, +not terror only, but joy also, should for working purposes be placed in +the category of the absolute things; and the last treason he will commit +will be that breaking down of terms and limits that strikes, not at one +man, but at the welfare of the souls of all. + +In his own person, Oleron began to commit this treason. He began to +commit it by admitting the inexplicable and horrible to an increasing +familiarity. He did it insensibly, unconsciously, by a neglect of the +things that he now regarded it as an impertinence in Elsie Bengough to +have prescribed. Two months before, the words "a haunted house," applied +to his lovely bemusing dwelling, would have chilled his marrow; now, +his scale of sensation becoming depressed, he could ask "Haunted by +what?" and remain unconscious that horror, when it can be proved to be +relative, by so much loses its proper quality. He was setting aside the +landmarks. Mists and confusion had begun to enwrap him. + +And he was conscious of nothing so much as of a voracious +inquisitiveness. He wanted _to know_. He was resolved to know. Nothing +but the knowledge would satisfy him; and craftily he cast about for means +whereby he might attain it. + +He might have spared his craft. The matter was the easiest imaginable. As +in time past he had known, in his writing, moments when his thoughts +had seemed to rise of themselves and to embody themselves in words not to +be altered afterwards, so now the questions he put himself seemed to be +answered even in the moment of their asking. There was exhilaration in +the swift, easy processes. He had known no so such joy in his own power +since the days when his writing had been a daily freshness and a delight +to him. It was almost as if the course he must pursue was being dictated +to him. + +And the first thing he must do, of course, was to define the problem. He +defined it in terms of mathematics. Granted that he had not the place to +himself; granted that the old house had inexpressibly caught and engaged +his spirit; granted that, by virtue of the common denominator of the +place, this unknown co-tenant stood in some relation to himself: what +next? Clearly, the nature of the other numerator must be ascertained. + +And how? Ordinarily this would not have seemed simple, but to Oleron it +was now pellucidly clear. The key, _of course_, lay in his half-written +novel--or rather, in both _Romillys_, the old and the proposed new one. + +A little while before Oleron would have thought himself mad to have +embraced such an opinion; now he accepted the dizzying hypothesis without +a quiver. + +He began to examine the first and second _Romillys_. + +From the moment of his doing so the thing advanced by leaps and bounds. +Swiftly he reviewed the history of the _Romilly_ of the fifteen chapters. +He remembered clearly now that he had found her insufficient on the very +first morning on which he had sat down to work in his new place. Other +instances of his aversion leaped up to confirm his obscure investigation. +There had come the night when he had hardly forborne to throw the whole +thing into the fire; and the next morning he had begun the planning of +the new _Romilly_. It had been on that morning that Mrs. Barrett, +overhearing him humming a brief phrase that the dripping of a tap the +night before had suggested, had informed him that he was singing some air +he had never in his life heard before, called "The Beckoning Fair +One."... + +The Beckoning Fair One!... + +With scarcely a pause in thought he continued: + +The first _Romilly_ having been definitely thrown over, the second had +instantly fastened herself upon him, clamouring for birth in his brain. +He even fancied now, looking back, that there had been something like +passion, hate almost, in the supplanting, and that more than once a stray +thought given to his discarded creation had--(it was astonishing how +credible Oleron found the almost unthinkable idea)--had offended the +supplanter. + +Yet that a malignancy almost homicidal should be extended to his +fiction's poor mortal prototype.... + +In spite of his inuring to a scale in which the horrible was now a thing +to be fingered and turned this way and that, a "Good God!" broke from +Oleron. + +This intrusion of the first _Romilly's_ prototype into his thought +again was a factor that for the moment brought his inquiry into the +nature of his problem to a termination; the mere thought of Elsie was +fatal to anything abstract. For another thing, he could not yet think of +that letter of Barrett's, nor of a little scene that had followed it, +without a mounting of colour and a quick contraction of the brow. For, +wisely or not, he had had that argument out at once. Striding across the +square on the following morning, he had bearded Barrett on his own +doorstep. Coming back again a few minutes later, he had been strongly of +opinion that he had only made matters worse. The man had been vagueness +itself. He had not been to be either challenged or browbeaten into +anything more definite than a muttered farrago in which the words +"Certain things ... Mrs. Barrett ... respectable house ... if the cap +fits ... proceedings that shall be nameless," had been constantly +repeated. + +"Not that I make any charge--" he had concluded. + +"Charge!" Oleron had cried. + +"I 'ave my idears of things, as I don't doubt you 'ave yours--" + +"Ideas--mine!" Oleron had cried wrathfully, immediately dropping his +voice as heads had appeared at windows of the square. "Look you here, my +man; you've an unwholesome mind, which probably you can't help, but a +tongue which you can help, and shall! If there is a breath of this +repeated ..." + +"I'll not be talked to on my own doorstep like this by anybody,..." +Barrett had blustered.... + +"You shall, and I'm doing it ..." + +"Don't you forget there's a Gawd above all, Who 'as said..." + +"You're a low scandalmonger!..." + +And so forth, continuing badly what was already badly begun. Oleron had +returned wrathfully to his own house, and thenceforward, looking out +of his windows, had seen Barrett's face at odd times, lifting blinds or +peering round curtains, as if he sought to put himself in possession of +Heaven knew what evidence, in case it should be required of him. + +The unfortunate occurrence made certain minor differences in Oleron's +domestic arrangements. Barrett's tongue, he gathered, had already been +busy; he was looked at askance by the dwellers of the square; and he +judged it better, until he should be able to obtain other help, to make +his purchases of provisions a little farther afield rather than at the +small shops of the immediate neighbourhood. For the rest, housekeeping +was no new thing to him, and he would resume his old bachelor habits.... + +Besides, he was deep in certain rather abstruse investigations, in which +it was better that he should not be disturbed. + +He was looking out of his window one midday rather tired, not very well, +and glad that it was not very likely he would have to stir out of doors, +when he saw Elsie Bengough crossing the square towards his house. The +weather had broken; it was a raw and gusty day; and she had to force +her way against the wind that set her ample skirts bellying about her +opulent figure and her veil spinning and streaming behind her. + +Oleron acted swiftly and instinctively. Seizing his hat, he sprang to the +door and descended the stairs at a run. A sort of panic had seized him. +She must be prevented from setting foot in the place. As he ran along the +alley he was conscious that his eyes went up to the eaves as if something +drew them. He did not know that a slate might not accidentally fall.... + +He met her at the gate, and spoke with curious volubleness. + +"This is really too bad, Elsie! Just as I'm urgently called away! I'm +afraid it can't be helped though, and that you'll have to think me an +inhospitable beast." He poured it out just as it came into his head. + +She asked if he was going to town. + +"Yes, yes--to town," he replied. "I've got to call on--on Chambers. You +know Chambers, don't you? No, I remember you don't; a big man you once +saw me with.... I ought to have gone yesterday, and--" this he felt to be +a brilliant effort--"and he's going out of town this afternoon. To +Brighton. I had a letter from him this morning." + +He took her arm and led her up the square. She had to remind him that his +way to town lay in the other direction. + +"Of course--how stupid of me!" he said, with a little loud laugh. "I'm so +used to going the other way with you--of course; it's the other way to +the bus. Will you come along with me? I am so awfully sorry it's happened +like this...." + +They took the street to the bus terminus. + +This time Elsie bore no signs of having gone through interior struggles. +If she detected anything unusual in his manner she made no comment, and +he, seeing her calm, began to talk less recklessly through silences. By +the time they reached the bus terminus, nobody, seeing the pallid-faced +man without an overcoat and the large ample-skirted girl at his side, +would have supposed that one of them was ready to sink on his knees for +thankfulness that he had, as he believed, saved the other from a wildly +unthinkable danger. + +They mounted to the top of the bus, Oleron protesting that he should not +miss his overcoat, and that he found the day, if anything, rather +oppressively hot. They sat down on a front seat. + +Now that this meeting was forced upon him, he had something else to say +that would make demands upon his tact. It had been on his mind for some +time, and was, indeed, peculiarly difficult to put. He revolved it for +some minutes, and then, remembering the success of his story of a sudden +call to town, cut the knot of his difficulty with another lie. + +"I'm thinking of going away for a little while, Elsie," he said. + +She merely said, "Oh?" + +"Somewhere for a change. I need a change. I think I shall go to-morrow, +or the day after. Yes, to-morrow, I think." + +"Yes," she replied. + +"I don't quite know how long I shall be," he continued. "I shall have to +let you know when I am back." + +"Yes, let me know," she replied in an even tone. + +The tone was, for her, suspiciously even. He was a little uneasy. + +"You don't ask me where I'm going," he said, with a little cumbrous +effort to rally her. + +She was looking straight before her, past the bus-driver. + +"I know," she said. + +He was startled. "How, you know?" + +"You're not going anywhere," she replied. + +He found not a word to say. It was a minute or so before she continued, +in the same controlled voice she had employed from the start. + +"You're not going anywhere. You weren't going out this morning. You only +came out because I appeared; don't behave as if we were strangers, Paul." + +A flush of pink had mounted to his cheeks. He noticed that the wind had +given her the pink of early rhubarb. Still he found nothing to say. + +"Of course, you ought to go away," she continued. "I don't know whether +you look at yourself often in the glass, but you're rather noticeable. +Several people have turned to look at you this morning. So, of course, +you ought to go away. But you won't, and I know why." + +He shivered, coughed a little, and then broke silence. + +"Then if you know, there's no use in continuing this discussion," he said +curtly. + +"Not for me, perhaps, but there is for you," she replied. "Shall I tell +you what I know?" + +"No," he said in a voice slightly raised. + +"No?" she asked, her round eyes earnestly on him. + +"No." + +Again he was getting out of patience with her; again he was conscious of +the strain. Her devotion and fidelity and love plagued him; she was only +humiliating both herself and him. It would have been bad enough had he +ever, by word or deed, given her cause for thus fastening herself on +him ... but there; that was the worst of that kind of life for a woman. +Women such as she, business women, in and out of offices all the time, +always, whether they realised it or not, made comradeship a cover for +something else. They accepted the unconventional status, came and +went freely, as men did, were honestly taken by men at their own +valuation--and then it turned out to be the other thing after all, and +they went and fell in love. No wonder there was gossip in shops and +squares and public houses! In a sense the gossipers were in the right of +it. Independent, yet not efficient; with some of womanhood's graces +forgone, and yet with all the woman's hunger and need; half +sophisticated, yet not wise; Oleron was tired of it all.... + +And it was time he told her so. + +"I suppose," he said tremblingly, looking down between his knees, "I +suppose the real trouble is in the life women who earn their own living +are obliged to lead." + +He could not tell in what sense she took the lame generality; she merely +replied, "I suppose so." + +"It can't be helped," he continued, "but you do sacrifice a good deal." + +She agreed: a good deal; and then she added after a moment, "What, for +instance?" + +"You may or may not be gradually attaining a new status, but you're in a +false position to-day." + +It was very likely, she said; she hadn't thought of it much in that +light-- + +"And," he continued desperately, "you're bound to suffer. Your most +innocent acts are misunderstood; motives you never dreamed of are +attributed to you; and in the end it comes to--" he hesitated a moment +and then took the plunge, "--to the sidelong look and the leer." + +She took his meaning with perfect ease. She merely shivered a little as +she pronounced the name. + +"Barrett?" + +His silence told her the rest. + +Anything further that was to be said must come from her. It came as the +bus stopped at a stage and fresh passengers mounted the stairs. + +"You'd better get down here and go back, Paul," she said. "I understand +perfectly--perfectly. It isn't Barrett. You'd be able to deal with +Barrett. It's merely convenient for you to say it's Barrett. I know what +it is ... but you said I wasn't to tell you that. Very well. But before +you go let me tell you why I came up this morning." + +In a dull tone he asked her why. Again she looked straight before her as +she replied: + +"I came to force your hand. Things couldn't go on as they have been +going, you know; and now that's all over." + +"All over," he repeated stupidly. + +"All over. I want you now to consider yourself, as far as I'm concerned, +perfectly free. I make only one reservation." + +He hardly had the spirit to ask her what that was. + +"If _I_ merely need _you_," she said, "please don't give that a thought; +that's nothing; I shan't come near for that. But," she dropped her voice, +"if _you're_ in need of _me_, Paul--I shall know if you are, _and you +will be_--then I shall come at no matter what cost. You understand that?" + +He could only groan. + +"So that's understood," she concluded. "And I think that's all. Now go +back. I should advise you to walk back, for you're shivering--good-bye--" + +She gave him a cold hand, and he descended. He turned on the edge of the +kerb as the bus started again. For the first time in all the years he had +known her she parted from him with no smile and no wave of her long arm. + + +IX + +He stood on the kerb plunged in misery, looking after her as long as she +remained in sight; but almost instantly with her disappearance he felt +the heaviness lift a little from his spirit. She had given him his +liberty; true, there was a sense in which he had never parted with it, +but now was no time for splitting hairs; he was free to act, and all was +clear ahead. Swiftly the sense of lightness grew on him: it became a +positive rejoicing in his liberty; and before he was halfway home he had +decided what must be done next. + +The vicar of the parish in which his dwelling was situated lived within +ten minutes of the square. To his house Oleron turned his steps. It was +necessary that he should have all the information he could get about this +old house with the insurance marks and the sloping "To Let" boards, and +the vicar was the person most likely to be able to furnish it. This last +preliminary out of the way, and--aha! Oleron chuckled--things might be +expected to happen! + +But he gained less information than he had hoped for. The house, the +vicar said, was old--but there needed no vicar to tell Oleron that; it +was reputed (Oleron pricked up his ears) to be haunted--but there were +few old houses about which some such rumour did not circulate among the +ignorant; and the deplorable lack of Faith of the modern world, the vicar +thought, did not tend to dissipate these superstitions. For the rest, +his manner was the soothing manner of one who prefers not to make +statements without knowing how they will be taken by his hearer. Oleron +smiled as he perceived this. + +"You may leave my nerves out of the question," he said. "How long has the +place been empty?" + +"A dozen years, I should say," the vicar replied. + +"And the last tenant--did you know him--or her?" Oleron was conscious of +a tingling of his nerves as he offered the vicar the alternative of sex. + +"Him," said the vicar. "A man. If I remember rightly, his name was +Madley; an artist. He was a great recluse; seldom went out of the place, +and--" the vicar hesitated and then broke into a little gush of candour +"--and since you appear to have come for this information, and since it +is better that the truth should be told than that garbled versions should +get about, I don't mind saying that this man Madley died there, under +somewhat unusual circumstances. It was ascertained at the post-mortem +that there was not a particle of food in his stomach, although he was +found to be not without money. And his frame was simply worn out. Suicide +was spoken of, but you'll agree with me that deliberate starvation is, to +say the least, an uncommon form of suicide. An open verdict was +returned." + +"Ah!" said Oleron.... "Does there happen to be any comprehensive history +of this parish?" + +"No; partial ones only. I myself am not guiltless of having made a number +of notes on its purely ecclesiastical history, its registers and so +forth, which I shall be happy to show you if you would care to see them; +but it is a large parish, I have only one curate, and my leisure, as you +will readily understand ..." + +The extent of the parish and the scantiness of the vicar's leisure +occupied the remainder of the interview, and Oleron thanked the vicar, +took his leave, and walked slowly home. + +He walked slowly for a reason, twice turning away from the house within a +stone's-throw of the gate and taking another turn of twenty minutes or +so. He had a very ticklish piece of work now before him; it required the +greatest mental concentration; it was nothing less than to bring his +mind, if he might, into such a state of unpreoccupation and receptivity +that he should see the place as he had seen it on that morning when, +his removal accomplished, he had sat down to begin the sixteenth chapter +of the first _Romilly_. + +For, could he recapture that first impression, he now hoped for far more +from it. Formerly, he had carried no end of mental lumber. Before the +influence of the place had been able to find him out at all, it had had +the inertia of those dreary chapters to overcome. No results had shown. +The process had been one of slow saturation, charging, filling up to a +brim. But now he was light, unburdened, rid at last both of that +_Romilly_ and of her prototype. Now for the new unknown, coy, jealous, +bewitching, Beckoning Fair!... + +At half-past two of the afternoon he put his key into the Yale lock, +entered, and closed the door behind him.... + +His fantastic attempt was instantly and astonishingly successful. He +could have shouted with triumph as he entered the room; it was as if he +had _escaped_ into it. Once more, as in the days when his writing had had +a daily freshness and wonder and promise for him, he was conscious of +that new ease and mastery and exhilaration and release. The air of the +place seemed to hold more oxygen; as if his own specific gravity had +changed, his very tread seemed less ponderable. The flowers in the bowls, +the fair proportions of the meadowsweet-coloured panels and mouldings, +the polished floor, and the lofty and faintly starred ceiling, fairly +laughed their welcome. Oleron actually laughed back, and spoke aloud. + +"Oh, you're pretty, pretty!" he flattered it. + +Then he lay down on his couch. + +He spent that afternoon as a convalescent who expected a dear visitor +might have spent it--in a delicious vacancy, smiling now and then as +if in his sleep, and ever lifting drowsy and contented eyes to his +alluring surroundings. He lay thus until darkness came, and, with +darkness, the nocturnal noises of the old house.... + +But if he waited for any specific happening, he waited in vain. + +He waited similarly in vain on the morrow, maintaining, though with less +ease, that sensitised-plate-like condition of his mind. Nothing occurred +to give it an impression. Whatever it was which he so patiently wooed, it +seemed to be both shy and exacting. + +Then on the third day he thought he understood. A look of gentle drollery +and cunning came into his eyes, and he chuckled. + +"Oho, oho!... Well, if the wind sits in _that_ quarter we must see what +else there is to be done. What is there, now?... No, I won't send for +Elsie; we don't need a wheel to break the butterfly on; we won't go to +those lengths, my butterfly...." + +He was standing musing, thumbing his lean jaw, looking aslant; suddenly +he crossed to his hall, took down his hat, and went out. + +"My lady is coquettish, is she? Well, we'll see what a little neglect +will do," he chuckled as he went down the stairs. + +He sought a railway station, got into a train, and spent the rest of the +day in the country. Oh, yes: Oleron thought _he_ was the man to deal with +Fair Ones who beckoned, and invited, and then took refuge in shyness and +hanging back! + +He did not return until after eleven that night. + +"_Now_, my Fair Beckoner!" he murmured as he walked along the alley and +felt in his pocket for his keys.... + +Inside his flat, he was perfectly composed, perfectly deliberate, +exceedingly careful not to give himself away. As if to intimate that he +intended to retire immediately, he lighted only a single candle; and as +he set out with it on his nightly round he affected to yawn. He went +first into his kitchen. There was a full moon, and a lozenge of +moonlight, almost peacock-blue by contrast with his candle-frame, lay on +the floor. The window was uncurtained, and he could see the reflection of +the candle, and, faintly, that of his own face, as he moved about. The +door of the powder-closet stood a little ajar, and he closed it before +sitting down to remove his boots on the chair with the cushion made of +the folded harp-bag. From the kitchen he passed to the bathroom. There, +another slant of blue moonlight cut the windowsill and lay across the +pipes on the wall. He visited his seldom-used study, and stood for a +moment gazing at the silvered roofs across the square. Then, walking +straight through his sitting-room, his stockinged feet making no noise, +he entered his bedroom and put the candle on the chest of drawers. His +face all this time wore no expression save that of tiredness. He had +never been wilier nor more alert. + +His small bedroom fireplace was opposite the chest of drawers on which +the mirror stood, and his bed and the window occupied the remaining +sides of the room. Oleron drew down his blind, took off his coat, and +then stooped to get his slippers from under the bed. + +He could have given no reason for the conviction, but that the +manifestation that for two days had been withheld was close at hand he +never for an instant doubted. Nor, though he could not form the faintest +guess of the shape it might take, did he experience fear. Startling or +surprising it might be; he was prepared for that; but that was all; his +scale of sensation had become depressed. His hand moved this way and that +under the bed in search of his slippers.... + +But for all his caution and method and preparedness, his heart all at +once gave a leap and a pause that was almost horrid. His hand had found +the slippers, but he was still on his knees; save for this circumstance +he would have fallen. The bed was a low one; the groping for the slippers +accounted for the turn of his head to one side; and he was careful to +keep the attitude until he had partly recovered his self-possession. When +presently he rose there was a drop of blood on his lower lip where he had +caught at it with his teeth, and his watch had jerked out of the pocket +of his waistcoat and was dangling at the end of its short leather +guard.... + +Then, before the watch had ceased its little oscillation, he was himself +again. + +In the middle of his mantelpiece there stood a picture, a portrait of his +grandmother; he placed himself before this picture, so that he could see +in the glass of it the steady flame of the candle that burned behind him +on the chest of drawers. He could see also in the picture-glass the +little glancings of light from the bevels and facets of the objects about +the mirror and candle. But he could see more. These twinklings and +reflections and re-reflections did not change their position; but there +was one gleam that had motion. It was fainter than the rest, and it moved +up and down through the air. It was the reflection of the candle on +Oleron's black vulcanite comb, and each of its downward movements was +accompanied by a silky and crackling rustle. + +Oleron, watching what went on in the glass of his grandmother's portrait, +continued to play his part. He felt for his dangling watch and began +slowly to wind it up. Then, for a moment ceasing to watch, he began to +empty his trousers pockets and to place methodically in a little row on +the mantelpiece the pennies and halfpennies he took from them. The +sweeping, minutely electric noise filled the whole bedroom, and had +Oleron altered his point of observation he could have brought the dim +gleam of the moving comb so into position that it would almost have +outlined his grandmother's head. + +Any other head of which it might have been following the outline was +invisible. + +Oleron finished the emptying of his pockets; then, under cover of another +simulated yawn, not so much summoning his resolution as overmastered by +an exhorbitant curiosity, he swung suddenly round. That which was being +combed was still not to be seen, but the comb did not stop. It had +altered its angle a little, and had moved a little to the left. It was +passing, in fairly regular sweeps, from a point rather more than five +feet from the ground, in a direction roughly vertical, to another point a +few inches below the level of the chest of drawers. + +Oleron continued to act to admiration. He walked to his little washstand +in the corner, poured out water, and began to wash his hands. He removed +his waistcoat, and continued his preparations for bed. The combing did +not cease, and he stood for a moment in thought. Again his eyes twinkled. +The next was very cunning-- + +"Hm!... _I think I'll read for a quarter of an hour_," he said aloud.... + +He passed out of the room. + +He was away a couple of minutes; when he returned again the room was +suddenly quiet. He glanced at the chest of drawers; the comb lay still, +between the collar he had removed and a pair of gloves. Without +hesitation Oleron put out his hand and picked it up. It was an ordinary +eighteenpenny comb, taken from a card in a chemist's shop, of a substance +of a definite specific gravity, and no more capable of rebellion against +the Laws by which it existed than are the worlds that keep their orbits +through the void. Oleron put it down again; then he glanced at the bundle +of papers he held in his hand. What he had gone to fetch had been the +fifteen chapters of the original _Romilly_. + +"Hm!" he muttered as he threw the manuscript into a chair.... "As I +thought.... She's just blindly, ragingly, murderously jealous." + + * * * * * + +On the night after that, and on the following night, and for many nights +and days, so many that he began to be uncertain about the count of them, +Oleron, courting, cajoling, neglecting, threatening, beseeching, eaten +out with unappeased curiosity and regardless that his life was becoming +one consuming passion and desire, continued his search for the unknown +co-numerator of his abode. + + +X + +As time went on, it came to pass that few except the postman mounted +Oleron's stairs; and since men who do not write letters receive few, even +the postman's tread became so infrequent that it was not heard more than +once or twice a week. There came a letter from Oleron's publishers, +asking when they might expect to receive the manuscript of his new book; +he delayed for some days to answer it, and finally forgot it. A second +letter came, which also he failed to answer. He received no third. + +The weather grew bright and warm. The privet bushes among the +chopper-like notice-boards flowered, and in the streets where Oleron did +his shopping the baskets of flower-women lined the kerbs. Oleron +purchased flowers daily; his room clamoured for flowers, fresh and +continually renewed; and Oleron did not stint its demands. Nevertheless, +the necessity for going out to buy them began to irk him more and more, +and it was with a greater and ever greater sense of relief that he +returned home again. He began to be conscious that again his scale of +sensation had suffered a subtle change--a change that was not restoration +to its former capacity, but an extension and enlarging that once more +included terror. It admitted it in an entirely new form. _Lux orco, +tenebrae Jovi_. The name of this terror was agoraphobia. Oleron had begun +to dread air and space and the horror that might pounce upon the +unguarded back. + +Presently he so contrived it that his food and flowers were delivered +daily at his door. He rubbed his hands when he had hit upon this +expedient. That was better! Now he could please himself whether he went +out or not.... + +Quickly he was confirmed in his choice. It became his pleasure to remain +immured. + +But he was not happy--or, if he was, his happiness took an extraordinary +turn. He fretted discontentedly, could sometimes have wept for mere +weakness and misery; and yet he was dimly conscious that he would not +have exchanged his sadness for all the noisy mirth of the world outside. +And speaking of noise: noise, much noise, now caused him the acutest +discomfort. It was hardly more to be endured than that new-born fear that +kept him, on the increasingly rare occasions when he did go out, sidling +close to walls and feeling friendly railings with his hand. He moved from +room to room softly and in slippers, and sometimes stood for many seconds +closing a door so gently that not a sound broke the stillness that was in +itself a delight. Sunday now became an intolerable day to him, for, since +the coming of the fine weather, there had begun to assemble in the square +under his windows each Sunday morning certain members of the sect to +which the long-nosed Barrett adhered. These came with a great drum and +large brass-bellied instruments; men and women uplifted anguished voices, +struggling with their God; and Barrett himself, with upraised face and +closed eyes and working brows, prayed that the sound of his voice might +penetrate the ears of all unbelievers--as it certainly did Oleron's. One +day, in the middle of one of these rhapsodies, Oleron sprang to his blind +and pulled it down, and heard as he did so his own name made the subject +of a fresh torrent of outpouring. + +And sometimes, but not as expecting a reply, Oleron stood still and +called softly. Once or twice he called "Romilly!" and then waited; but +more often his whispering did not take the shape of a name. + +There was one spot in particular of his abode that he began to haunt with +increasing persistency. This was just within the opening of his bedroom +door. He had discovered one day that by opening every door in his place +(always excepting the outer one, which he only opened unwillingly) and by +placing himself on this particular spot, he could actually see to a +greater or less extent into each of his five rooms without changing his +position. He could see the whole of his sitting-room, all of his bedroom +except the part hidden by the open door, and glimpses of his kitchen, +bathroom, and of his rarely used study. He was often in this place, +breathless and with his finger on his lip. One day, as he stood there, he +suddenly found himself wondering whether this Madley, of whom the vicar +had spoken, had ever discovered the strategic importance of the bedroom +entry. + +Light, moreover, now caused him greater disquietude than did darkness. +Direct sunlight, of which, as the sun passed daily round the house, each +of his rooms had now its share, was like a flame in his brain; and even +diffused light was a dull and numbing ache. He began, at successive hours +of the day, one after another, to lower his crimson blinds. He made short +and daring excursions in order to do this; but he was ever careful to +leave his retreat open, in case he should have sudden need of it. +Presently this lowering of the blinds had become a daily methodical +exercise, and his rooms, when he had been his round, had the blood-red +half-light of a photographer's darkroom. + +One day, as he drew down the blind of his little study and backed in good +order out of the room again, he broke into a soft laugh. + +"_That_ bilks Mr. Barrett!" he said; and the baffling of Barrett +continued to afford him mirth for an hour. + +But on another day, soon after, he had a fright that left him trembling +also for an hour. He had seized the cord to darken the window over the +seat in which he had found the harp-bag, and was standing with his back +well protected in the embrasure, when he thought he saw the tail of a +black-and-white check skirt disappear round the corner of the house. He +could not be sure--had he run to the window of the other wall, which was +blinded, the skirt must have been already past--but he was _almost_ sure +that it was Elsie. He listened in an agony of suspense for her tread on +the stairs.... + +But no tread came, and after three or four minutes he drew a long breath +of relief. + +"By Jove, but that would have compromised me horribly!" he muttered.... + +And he continued to mutter from time to time, "Horribly +compromising ... _no_ woman would stand that ... not _any_ kind of +woman ... oh, compromising in the extreme!" + +Yet he was not happy. He could not have assigned the cause of the fits of +quiet weeping which took him sometimes; they came and went, like the +fitful illumination of the clouds that travelled over the square; and +perhaps, after all, if he was not happy, he was not unhappy. Before +he could be unhappy something must have been withdrawn, and nothing had +yet been withdrawn from him, for nothing had been granted. He was waiting +for that granting, in that flower-laden, frightfully enticing apartment +of his, with the pith-white walls tinged and subdued by the crimson +blinds to a blood-like gloom. + +He paid no heed to it that his stock of money was running perilously low, +nor that he had ceased to work. Ceased to work? He had not ceased to +work. They knew very little about it who supposed that Oleron had ceased +to work! He was in truth only now beginning to work. He was preparing +such a work ... such a work ... such a Mistress was a-making in the +gestation of his Art ... let him but get this period of probation and +poignant waiting over and men should see.... How _should_ men know her, +this Fair One of Oleron's, until Oleron himself knew her? Lovely radiant +creations are not thrown off like How-d'ye-do's. The men to whom it is +committed to father them must weep wretched tears, as Oleron did, must +swell with vain presumptuous hopes, as Oleron did, must pursue, as Oleron +pursued, the capricious, fair, mocking, slippery, eager Spirit that, ever +eluding, ever sees to it that the chase does not slacken. Let Oleron but +hunt this Huntress a little longer... he would have her sparkling +and panting in his arms yet.... Oh no: they were very far from the truth +who supposed that Oleron had ceased to work! + +And if all else was falling away from Oleron, gladly he was letting it +go. So do we all when our Fair Ones beckon. Quite at the beginning we +wink, and promise ourselves that we will put Her Ladyship through her +paces, neglect her for a day, turn her own jealous wiles against her, +flout and ignore her when she comes wheedling; perhaps there lurks within +us all the time a heartless sprite who is never fooled; but in the end +all falls away. She beckons, beckons, and all goes.... + +And so Oleron kept his strategic post within the frame of his bedroom +door, and watched, and waited, and smiled, with his finger on his +lips.... It was his duteous service, his worship, his troth-plighting, +all that he had ever known of Love. And when he found himself, as he now +and then did, hating the dead man Madley, and wishing that he had never +lived, he felt that that, too, was an acceptable service.... + +But, as he thus prepared himself, as it were, for a Marriage, and moped +and chafed more and more that the Bride made no sign, he made a discovery +that he ought to have made weeks before. + +It was through a thought of the dead Madley that he made it. Since that +night when he had thought in his greenness that a little studied neglect +would bring the lovely Beckoner to her knees, and had made use of her own +jealousy to banish her, he had not set eyes on those fifteen discarded +chapters of _Romilly_. He had thrown them back into the window-seat, +forgotten their very existence. But his own jealousy of Madley put him in +mind of hers of her jilted rival of flesh and blood, and he remembered +them.... Fool that he had been! Had he, then, expected his Desire to +manifest herself while there still existed the evidence of his divided +allegiance? What, and she with a passion so fierce and centred that it +had not hesitated at the destruction, twice attempted, of her rival? Fool +that he had been!... + +But if _that_ was all the pledge and sacrifice she required she should +have it--ah, yes, and quickly! + +He took the manuscript from the window-seat, and brought it to the fire. + +He kept his fire always burning now; the warmth brought out the last +vestige of odour of the flowers with which his room was banked. He did +not know what time it was; long since he had allowed his clock to run +down--it had seemed a foolish measurer of time in regard to the +stupendous things that were happening to Oleron; but he knew it was late. +He took the _Romilly_ manuscript and knelt before the fire. + +But he had not finished removing the fastening that held the sheets +together before he suddenly gave a start, turned his head over his +shoulder, and listened intently. The sound he had heard had not been +loud--it had been, indeed, no more than a tap, twice or thrice +repeated--but it had filled Oleron with alarm. His face grew dark as +it came again. + +He heard a voice outside on his landing. + +"Paul!... Paul!..." + +It was Elsie's voice. + +"Paul!... I know you're in... I want to see you...." + +He cursed her under his breath, but kept perfectly still. He did not +intend to admit her. + +"Paul!... You're in trouble.... I believe you're in danger... at least +come to the door!..." + +Oleron smothered a low laugh. It somehow amused him that she, in such +danger herself, should talk to him of _his_ danger!... Well, if she was, +serve her right; she knew, or said she knew, all about it.... + +"Paul!... Paul!..." + +"_Paul!... Paul!_..." He mimicked her under his breath. + +"Oh, Paul, it's _horrible_!..." + +Horrible, was it? thought Oleron. Then let her get away.... + +"I only want to help you, Paul.... I didn't promise not to come if you +needed me...." + +He was impervious to the pitiful sob that interrupted the low cry. The +devil take the woman! Should he shout to her to go away and not come +back? No: let her call and knock and sob. She had a gift for sobbing; she +mustn't think her sobs would move him. They irritated him, so that he set +his teeth and shook his fist at her, but that was all. Let her sob. + +"_Paul!... Paul!_..." + +With his teeth hard set, he dropped the first page of _Romilly_ into the +fire. Then he began to drop the rest in, sheet by sheet. + +For many minutes the calling behind his door continued; then suddenly it +ceased. He heard the sound of feet slowly descending the stairs. He +listened for the noise of a fall or a cry or the crash of a piece of the +handrail of the upper landing; but none of these things came. She was +spared. Apparently her rival suffered her to crawl abject and beaten +away. Oleron heard the passing of her steps under his window; then she +was gone. + +He dropped the last page into the fire, and then, with a low laugh rose. +He looked fondly round his room. + +"Lucky to get away like that," he remarked. "She wouldn't have got away +if I'd given her as much as a word or a look! What devils these women +are!... But no; I oughtn't to say that; one of 'em showed +forbearance...." + +Who showed forbearance? And what was forborne? Ah, Oleron +knew!... Contempt, no doubt, had been at the bottom of it, but that +didn't matter: the pestering creature had been allowed to go unharmed. +Yes, she was lucky; Oleron hoped she knew it.... + +And now, now, now for his reward! + +Oleron crossed the room. All his doors were open; his eyes shone as he +placed himself within that of his bedroom. + +Fool that he had been, not to think of destroying the manuscript +sooner!... + + * * * * * + +How, in a houseful of shadows, should he know his own Shadow? How, in a +houseful of noises, distinguish the summons he felt to be at hand? Ah, +trust him! He would know! The place was full of a jugglery of dim lights. +The blind at his elbow that allowed the light of a street lamp to +struggle vaguely through--the glimpse of greeny blue moonlight seen +through the distant kitchen door--the sulky glow of the fire under the +black ashes of the burnt manuscript--the glimmering of the tulips and the +moon-daisies and narcissi in the bowls and jugs and jars--these did not +so trick and bewilder his eyes that he would not know his Own! It was he, +not she, who had been delaying the shadowy Bridal; he hung his head for a +moment in mute acknowledgment; then he bent his eyes on the deceiving, +puzzling gloom again. He would have called her name had he known it--but +now he would not ask her to share even a name with the other.... + +His own face, within the frame of the door, glimmered white as the +narcissi in the darkness.... + +A shadow, light as fleece, seemed to take shape in the kitchen (the time +had been when Oleron would have said that a cloud had passed over the +unseen moon). The low illumination on the blind at his elbow grew dimmer +(the time had been when Oleron would have concluded that the lamplighter +going his rounds had turned low the flame of the lamp). The fire settled, +letting down the black and charred papers; a flower fell from a bowl, +and lay indistinct upon the floor; all was still; and then a stray +draught moved through the old house, passing before Oleron's face.... + +Suddenly, inclining his head, he withdrew a little from the door-jamb. +The wandering draught caused the door to move a little on its hinges. +Oleron trembled violently, stood for a moment longer, and then, putting +his hand out to the knob, softly drew the door to, sat down on the +nearest chair, and waited, as a man might await the calling of his name +that should summon him to some weighty, high and privy Audience.... + + +XI + +One knows not whether there can be human compassion for anemia of the +soul. When the pitch of Life is dropped, and the spirit is so put over +and reversed that that only is horrible which before was sweet and +worldly and of the day, the human relation disappears. The sane soul +turns appalled away, lest not merely itself, but sanity should suffer. +We are not gods. We cannot drive out devils. We must see selfishly +to it that devils do not enter into ourselves. + +And this we must do even though Love so transfuse us that we may well +deem our nature to be half divine. We shall but speak of honour and duty +in vain. The letter dropped within the dark door will lie unregarded, or, +if regarded for a brief instant between two unspeakable lapses, left and +forgotten again. The telegram will be undelivered, nor will the whistling +messenger (wiselier guided than he knows to whistle) be conscious as he +walks away of the drawn blind that is pushed aside an inch by a finger +and then fearfully replaced again. No: let the miserable wrestle with his +own shadows; let him, if indeed he be so mad, clip and strain and enfold +and couch the succubus; but let him do so in a house into which not an +air of Heaven penetrates, nor a bright finger of the sun pierces the +filthy twilight. The lost must remain lost. Humanity has other business +to attend to. + +For the handwriting of the two letters that Oleron, stealing noiselessly +one June day into his kitchen to rid his sitting-room of an armful of +fetid and decaying flowers, had seen on the floor within his door, had +had no more meaning for him than if it had belonged to some dim and +faraway dream. And at the beating of the telegraph-boy upon the door, +within a few feet of the bed where he lay, he had gnashed his teeth and +stopped his ears. He had pictured the lad standing there, just beyond his +partition, among packets of provisions and bundles of dead and dying +flowers. For his outer landing was littered with these. Oleron had feared +to open his door to take them in. After a week, the errand lads had +reported that there must be some mistake about the order, and had left no +more. Inside, in the red twilight, the old flowers turned brown and fell +and decayed where they lay. + +Gradually his power was draining away. The Abomination fastened on +Oleron's power. The steady sapping sometimes left him for many hours +of prostration gazing vacantly up at his red-tinged ceiling, idly +suffering such fancies as came of themselves to have their way with him. +Even the strongest of his memories had no more than a precarious hold +upon his attention. Sometimes a flitting half-memory, of a novel to be +written, a novel it was important that he should write, tantalised him +for a space before vanishing again; and sometimes whole novels, perfect, +splendid, established to endure, rose magically before him. And sometimes +the memories were absurdly remote and trivial, of garrets he had +inhabited and lodgings that had sheltered him, and so forth. Oleron had +known a good deal about such things in his time, but all that was now +past. He had at last found a place which he did not intend to leave until +they fetched him out--a place that some might have thought a little on +the green-sick side, that others might have considered to be a little too +redolent of long-dead and morbid things for a living man to be mewed up +in, but ah, so irresistible, with such an authority of its own, with such +an associate of its own, and a place of such delights when once a man had +ceased to struggle against its inexorable will! A novel? Somebody ought +to write a novel about a place like that! There must be lots to write +about in a place like that if one could but get to the bottom of it! It +had probably already been painted, by a man called Madley who had lived +there ... but Oleron had not known this Madley--had a strong feeling +that he wouldn't have liked him--would rather he had lived somewhere +else--really couldn't stand the fellow--hated him, Madley, in fact. (Aha! +That was a joke!). He seriously doubted whether the man had led the life +he ought; Oleron was in two minds sometimes whether he wouldn't tell that +long-nosed guardian of the public morals across the way about him; but +probably he knew, and had made his praying hullabaloos for him also. +That was his line. Why, Oleron himself had had a dust-up with him about +something or other ... some girl or other ... Elsie Bengough her name +was, he remembered.... + +Oleron had moments of deep uneasiness about this Elsie Bengough. Or +rather, he was not so much uneasy about her as restless about the things +she did. Chief of these was the way in which she persisted in thrusting +herself into his thoughts; and, whenever he was quick enough, he sent her +packing the moment she made her appearance there. The truth was that she +was not merely a bore; she had always been that; it had now come to the +pitch when her very presence in his fancy was inimical to the full +enjoyment of certain experiences.... She had no tact; really ought to +have known that people are not at home to the thoughts of everybody all +the time; ought in mere politeness to have allowed him certain seasons +quite to himself; and was monstrously ignorant of things if she did not +know, as she appeared not to know, that there were certain special hours +when a man's veins ran with fire and daring and power, in which ... well, +in which he had a reasonable right to treat folk as he had treated that +prying Barrett--to shut them out completely.... But no: up she popped, +the thought of her, and ruined all. Bright towering fabrics, by the side +of which even those perfect, magical novels of which he dreamed were dun +and grey, vanished utterly at her intrusion. It was as if a fog should +suddenly quench some fair-beaming star, as if at the threshold of some +golden portal prepared for Oleron a pit should suddenly gape, as if a +bat-like shadow should turn the growing dawn to mirk and darkness +again.... Therefore, Oleron strove to stifle even the nascent thought +of her. + +Nevertheless, there came an occasion on which this woman Bengough +absolutely refused to be suppressed. Oleron could not have told exactly +when this happened; he only knew by the glimmer of the street lamp on his +blind that it was some time during the night, and that for some time she +had not presented herself. + +He had no warning, none, of her coming; she just came--was there. Strive +as he would, he could not shake off the thought of her nor the image of +her face. She haunted him. + +But for her to come at that moment of all moments!... Really, it was past +belief! How she could endure it, Oleron could not conceive! Actually, to +look on, as it were, at the triumph of a Rival.... Good God! It was +monstrous! tact--reticence--he had never credited her with an +overwhelming amount of either: but he had never attributed mere--oh, +there was no word for it! Monstrous--monstrous! Did she intend +thenceforward.... Good God! To look on!... + +Oleron felt the blood rush up to the roots of his hair with anger against +her. + +"Damnation take her!" he choked.... + +But the next moment his heat and resentment had changed to a cold sweat +of cowering fear. Panic-stricken, he strove to comprehend what he had +done. For though he knew not what, he knew he had done something, +something fatal, irreparable, blasting. Anger he had felt, but not _this_ +blaze of ire that suddenly flooded the twilight of his consciousness with +a white infernal light. _That_ appalling flash was not his--not his +_that_ open rift of bright and searing Hell--not his, not his! His had +been the hand of a child, preparing a puny blow; but what was _this +other_ horrific hand that was drawn back to strike in the same place? Had +_he_ set that in motion? Had _he_ provided the spark that had touched off +the whole accumulated power of that formidable and relentless place? He +did not know. He only knew that that poor igniting particle in himself +was blown out, that--Oh, impossible!--a clinging kiss (how else to +express it?) had changed on his very lips to a gnashing and a removal, +and that for very pity of the awful odds he must cry out to her against +whom he had lately raged to guard herself ... guard herself.... + +"_Look out!_" he shrieked aloud.... + + * * * * * + +The revulsion was instant. As if a cold slow billow had broken over him, +he came to to find that he was lying in his bed, that the mist and horror +that had for so long enwrapped him had departed, that he was Paul Oleron, +and that he was sick, naked, helpless, and unutterably abandoned and +alone. His faculties, though weak, answered at last to his calls upon +them; and he knew that it must have been a hideous nightmare that had +left him sweating and shaking thus. + +Yes, he was himself, Paul Oleron, a tired novelist, already past the +summit of his best work, and slipping downhill again empty-handed from it +all. He had struck short in his life's aim. He had tried too much, had +over-estimated his strength, and was a failure, a failure.... + +It all came to him in the single word, enwrapped and complete; it needed +no sequential thought; he was a failure. He had missed.... + +And he had missed not one happiness, but two. He had missed the ease of +this world, which men love, and he had missed also that other shining +prize for which men forgo ease, the snatching and holding and triumphant +bearing up aloft of which is the only justification of the mad adventurer +who hazards the enterprise. And there was no second attempt. Fate has no +morrow. Oleron's morrow must be to sit down to profitless, ill-done, +unrequired work again, and so on the morrow after that, and the morrow +after that, and as many morrows as there might be.... + +He lay there, weakly yet sanely considering it.... + +And since the whole attempt had failed, it was hardly worth while to +consider whether a little might not be saved from the general wreck. No +good would ever come of that half-finished novel. He had intended that it +should appear in the autumn; was under contract that it should appear; no +matter; it was better to pay forfeit to his publishers than to waste what +days were left. He was spent; age was not far off; and paths of wisdom +and sadness were the properest for the remainder of the journey.... + +If only he had chosen the wife, the child the faithful friend at the +fireside, and let them follow an _ignis fatuus_ that list!... + +In the meantime it began to puzzle him exceedingly what he should be so +weak, that his room should smell so overpoweringly of decaying vegetable +matter, and that his hand, chancing to stray to his face in the darkness, +should encounter a beard. + +"Most extraordinary!" he began to mutter to himself. "Have I been ill? Am +I ill now? And if so, why have they left me alone?... Extraordinary!..." + +He thought he heard a sound from the kitchen or bathroom. He rose a +little on his pillow, and listened.... Ah! He was not alone, then! It +certainly would have been extraordinary if they had left him ill and +alone--Alone? Oh no. He would be looked after. He wouldn't be left, ill, +to shift for himself. If everybody else had forsaken him, he could trust +Elsie Bengough, the dearest chum he had, for that ... bless her faithful +heart! + +But suddenly a short, stifled, spluttering cry rang sharply out: + +"_Paul!_" + +It came from the kitchen. + +And in the same moment it flashed upon Oleron, he knew not how, that two, +three, five, he knew not how many minutes before, another sound, unmarked +at the time but suddenly transfixing his attention now, had striven to +reach his intelligence. This sound had been the slight touch of metal on +metal--just such a sound as Oleron made when he put his key into the +lock. + +"Hallo!... Who's that?" he called sharply from his bed. + +He had no answer. + +He called again. "Hallo!... Who's there?... Who is it?" + +This time he was sure he heard noises, soft and heavy, in the kitchen. + +"This is a queer thing altogether," he muttered. "By Jove, I'm as weak as +a kitten too.... Hallo, there! Somebody called, didn't they?... Elsie! Is +that you?..." + +Then he began to knock with his hand on the wall at the side of his bed. + +"Elsie!... Elsie!... You called, didn't you?... Please come here, whoever +it is!..." + +There was a sound as of a closing door, and then silence. Oleron began to +get rather alarmed. + +"It may be a nurse," he muttered; "Elsie'd have to get me a nurse, of +course. She'd sit with me as long as she could spare the time, brave +lass, and she'd get a nurse for the rest.... But it was awfully like her +voice.... Elsie, or whoever it is!... I can't make this out at all. I +must go and see what's the matter...." + +He put one leg out of bed. Feeling its feebleness, he reached with his +hand for the additional support of the wall.... + + * * * * * + +But before putting out the other leg he stopped and considered, picking +at his new-found beard. He was suddenly wondering whether he _dared_ go +into the kitchen. It was such a frightfully long way; no man knew what +horror might not leap and huddle on his shoulders if he went so far; +when a man has an overmastering impulse to get back into bed he ought to +take heed of the warning and obey it. Besides, why should he go? What +was there to go for? If it was that Bengough creature again, let her look +after herself; Oleron was not going to have things cramp themselves on +his defenceless back for the sake of such a spoilsport as _she_!... If +she was in, let her let herself out again, and the sooner the better for +her! Oleron simply couldn't be bothered. He had his work to do. On the +morrow, he must set about the writing of a novel with a heroine so +winsome, capricious, adorable, jealous, wicked, beautiful, inflaming, and +altogether evil, that men should stand amazed. She was coming over him +now; he knew by the alteration of the very air of the room when she was +near him; and that soft thrill of bliss that had begun to stir in him +never came unless she was beckoning, beckoning.... + +He let go the wall and fell back into bed again as--oh, unthinkable!--the +other half of that kiss that a gnash had interrupted was placed (how else +convey it?) on his lips, robbing him of very breath.... + + +XII + +In the bright June sunlight a crowd filled the square, and looked up at +the windows of the old house with the antique insurance marks in its +walls of red brick and the agents' notice-boards hanging like wooden +choppers over the paling. Two constables stood at the broken gate of the +narrow entrance-alley, keeping folk back. The women kept to the outskirts +of the throng, moving now and then as if to see the drawn red blinds of +the old house from a new angle, and talking in whispers. The children +were in the houses, behind closed doors. + +A long-nosed man had a little group about him, and he was telling some +story over and over again; and another man, little and fat and wide-eyed, +sought to capture the long-nosed man's audience with some relation in +which a key figured. + +"... and it was revealed to me that there'd been something that very +afternoon," the long-nosed man was saying. "I was standing there, where +Constable Saunders is--or rather, I was passing about my business, when +they came out. There was no deceiving me, oh, no deceiving _me! I_ saw +her face...." + +"What was it like, Mr. Barrett?" a man asked. + +"It was like hers whom our Lord said to, 'Woman, doth any man accuse +thee?'--white as paper, and no mistake! Don't tell _me_!... And so I +walks straight across to Mrs. Barrett, and 'Jane,' I says, 'this must +stop, and stop at once; we are commanded to avoid evil,' I says, 'and it +must come to an end now; let him get help elsewhere.' + +"And she says to me, 'John,' she says, 'it's four-and-sixpence a +week'--them was her words. + +"'Jane,' I says, 'if it was forty-six thousand pounds it should +stop'... and from that day to this she hasn't set foot inside that gate." + +There was a short silence: then, + +"Did Mrs. Barrett ever..._ see_ anythink, like?" somebody vaguely +inquired. + +Barrett turned austerely on the speaker. + +"What Mrs. Barrett saw and Mrs. Barrett didn't see shall not pass these +lips; even as it is written, keep thy tongue from speaking evil," he +said. + +Another man spoke. + +"He was pretty near canned up in the _Waggon and Horses_ that night, +weren't he, Jim?" + +"Yes, 'e 'adn't 'alf copped it...." + +"Not standing treat much, neither; he was in the bar, all on his own...." + +"So 'e was; we talked about it...." + +The fat, scared-eyed man made another attempt. + +"She got the key off of me--she 'ad the number of it--she come into my +shop of a Tuesday evening...." + +Nobody heeded him. + +"Shut your heads," a heavy labourer commented gruffly, "she hasn't been +found yet. 'Ere's the inspectors; we shall know more in a bit." + +Two inspectors had come up and were talking to the constables who guarded +the gate. The little fat man ran eagerly forward, saying that she had +bought the key of him. "I remember the number, because of it's being +three one's and three three's--111333!" he exclaimed excitedly. + +An inspector put him aside. + +"Nobody's been in?" he asked of one of the constables. + +"No, sir." + +"Then you, Brackley, come with us; you, Smith, keep the gate. There's a +squad on its way." + +The two inspectors and the constable passed down the alley and entered +the house. They mounted the wide carved staircase. + +"This don't look as if he'd been out much lately," one of the inspectors +muttered as he kicked aside a litter of dead leaves and paper that lay +outside Oleron's door. "I don't think we need knock--break a pane, +Brackley." + +The door had two glazed panels; there was a sound of shattered glass; and +Brackley put his hand through the hole his elbow had made and drew back +the latch. + +"Faugh!"... choked one of the inspectors as they entered. "Let some light +and air in, quick. It stinks like a hearse--" + +The assembly out in the square saw the red blinds go up and the windows +of the old house flung open. + +"That's better," said one of the inspectors, putting his head out of a +window and drawing a deep breath.... "That seems to be the bedroom in +there; will you go in, Simms, while I go over the rest?..." + +They had drawn up the bedroom blind also, and the waxy-white, emaciated +man on the bed had made a blinker of his hand against the torturing +flood of brightness. Nor could he believe that his hearing was not +playing tricks with him, for there were two policemen in his room, +bending over him and asking where "she" was. He shook his head. + +"This woman Bengough... goes by the name of Miss Elsie Bengough... d'ye +hear? Where is she?... No good, Brackley; get him up; be careful with +him; I'll just shove _my_ head out of the window, I think...." + +The other inspector had been through Oleron's study and had found +nothing, and was now in the kitchen, kicking aside an ankle-deep mass of +vegetable refuse that cumbered the floor. The kitchen window had no +blind, and was over-shadowed by the blank end of the house across the +alley. The kitchen appeared to be empty. + +But the inspector, kicking aside the dead flowers, noticed that a +shuffling track that was not of his making had been swept to a cupboard +in the corner. In the upper part of the door of the cupboard was a square +panel that looked as if it slid on runners. The door itself was closed. + +The inspector advanced, put out his hand to the little knob, and slid the +hatch along its groove. + +Then he took an involuntary step back again. + +Framed in the aperture, and falling forward a little before it jammed +again in its frame, was something that resembled a large lumpy pudding, +done up in a pudding-bag of faded browny red frieze. + +"Ah!" said the inspector. + +To close the hatch again he would have had to thrust that pudding back +with his hand; and somehow he did not quite like the idea of touching +it. Instead, he turned the handle of the cupboard itself. There was +weight behind it, so much weight that, after opening the door three or +four inches and peering inside, he had to put his shoulder to it in order +to close it again. In closing it he left sticking out, a few inches from +the floor, a triangle of black and white check skirt. + +He went into the small hall. + +"All right!" he called. + +They had got Oleron into his clothes. He still used his hands as +blinkers, and his brain was very confused. A number of things were +happening that he couldn't understand. He couldn't understand the +extraordinary mess of dead flowers there seemed to be everywhere; he +couldn't understand why there should be police officers in his room; he +couldn't understand why one of these should be sent for a four-wheeler +and a stretcher; and he couldn't understand what heavy article they +seemed to be moving about in the kitchen--his kitchen.... + +"What's the matter?" he muttered sleepily.... + +Then he heard a murmur in the square, and the stopping of a four-wheeler +outside. A police officer was at his elbow again, and Oleron wondered +why, when he whispered something to him, he should run off a string of +words--something about "used in evidence against you." They had lifted +him to his feet, and were assisting him towards the door.... + +No, Oleron couldn't understand it at all. + +They got him down the stairs and along the alley. Oleron was aware of +confused angry shoutings; he gathered that a number of people wanted to +lynch somebody or other. Then his attention became fixed on a little fat +frightened-eyed man who appeared to be making a statement that an officer +was taking down in a notebook. + +"I'd seen her with him ... they was often together ... she came into my +shop and said it was for him ... I thought it was all right ... 111333 +the number was," the man was saying. + +The people seemed to be very angry; many police were keeping them back; +but one of the inspectors had a voice that Oleron thought quite kind and +friendly. He was telling somebody to get somebody else into the cab +before something or other was brought out; and Oleron noticed that a +four-wheeler was drawn up at the gate. It appeared that it was himself +who was to be put into it; and as they lifted him up he saw that the +inspector tried to stand between him and something that stood behind the +cab, but was not quick enough to prevent Oleron seeing that this +something was a hooded stretcher. The angry voices sounded like a sea; +something hard, like a stone, hit the back of the cab; and the inspector +followed Oleron in and stood with his back to the window nearer the side +where the people were. The door they had put Oleron in at remained open, +apparently till the other inspector should come; and through the opening +Oleron had a glimpse of the hatchet-like "To Let" boards among the +privet-trees. One of them said that the key was at Number Six.... + +Suddenly the raging of voices was hushed. Along the entrance-alley +shuffling steps were heard, and the other inspector appeared at the +cab door. + +"Right away," he said to the driver. + +He entered, fastened the door after him, and blocked up the second window +with his back. Between the two inspectors Oleron slept peacefully. The +cab moved down the square, the other vehicle went up the hill. The +mortuary lay that way. + + + + +PHANTAS + + + _"For, barring all pother, + With this, or the other, +Still Britons are Lords of the Main._" + + +THE CHAPTER OF ADMIRALS + + +I + +As Abel Keeling lay on the galleon's deck, held from rolling down it only +by his own weight and the sun-blackened hand that lay outstretched upon +the planks, his gaze wandered, but ever returned to the bell that hung, +jammed with the dangerous heel-over of the vessel, in the small +ornamental belfry immediately abaft the mainmast. The bell was of cast +bronze, with half-obliterated bosses upon it that had been the heads of +cherubs; but wind and salt spray had given it a thick incrustation of +bright, beautiful, lichenous green. It was this colour that Abel +Keeling's eyes liked. + +For wherever else on the galleon his eyes rested they found only +whiteness--the whiteness of extreme eld. There were slightly varying +degrees in her whiteness; here she was of a white that glistened like +salt-granules, there of a greyish chalky white, and again her whiteness +had the yellowish cast of decay; but everywhere it was the mild, +disquieting whiteness of materials out of which the life had departed. +Her cordage was bleached as old straw is bleached, and half her ropes +kept their shape little more firmly than the ash of a string keeps its +shape after the fire has passed; her pallid timbers were white and clean +as bones found in sand; and even the wild frankincense with which (for +lack of tar, at her last touching of land) she had been pitched, had +dried to a pale hard gum that sparkled like quartz in her open seams. The +sun was yet so pale a buckler of silver through the still white mists +that not a cord or timber cast a shadow; and only Abel Keeling's face and +hands were black, carked and cinder-black from exposure to his pitiless +rays. + +The galleon was the _Mary of the Tower_, and she had a frightful list to +starboard. So canted was she that her mainyard dipped one of its steel +sickles into the glassy water, and, had her foremast remained, or more +than the broken stump of her bonaventure mizzen, she must have turned +over completely. Many days ago they had stripped the mainyard of its +course, and had passed the sail under the Mary's bottom, in the hope that +it would stop the leak. This it had partly done as long as the galleon +had continued to glide one way; then, without coming about, she had begun +to glide the other, the ropes had parted, and she had dragged the sail +after her, leaving a broad tarnish on the silver sea. + +For it was broadside that the galleon glided, almost imperceptibly, ever +sucking down. She glided as if a loadstone drew her, and, at first, Abel +Keeling had thought it was a loadstone, pulling at her iron, drawing her +through the pearly mists that lay like face-cloths to the water and hid +at a short distance the tarnish left by the sail. But later he had known +that it was no loadstone drawing at her iron. The motion was due--must +be due--to the absolute deadness of the calm in that silent, sinister, +three-miles-broad waterway. With the eye of his mind he saw that +loadstone now as he lay against a gun-truck, all but toppling down the +deck. Soon that would happen again which had happened for five days past. +He would hear again the chattering of monkeys and the screaming of +parrots, the mat of green and yellow weeds would creep in towards the +Mary over the quicksilver sea, once more the sheer wall of rock would +rise, and the men would run.... + +But no; the men would not run this time to drop the fenders. There were +no men left to do so, unless Bligh was still alive. Perhaps Bligh was +still alive. He had walked half-way down the quarter-deck steps a little +before the sudden nightfall of the day before, had then fallen and lain +for a minute (dead, Abel Keeling had supposed, watching him from his +place by the gun-truck), and had then got up again and tottered forward +to the forecastle, his tall figure swaying and his long arms waving. Abel +Keeling had not seen him since. Most likely, he had died in the +forecastle during the night. If he had not been dead he would have come +aft again for water.... + +At the remembrance of the water Abel Keeling lifted his head. The strands +of lean muscle about his emaciated mouth worked, and he made a little +pressure of his sun-blackened hand on the deck, as if to verify its +steepness and his own balance. The mainmast was some seven or eight yards +away.... He put one stiff leg under him and began, seated as he was, to +make shuffling movements down the slope. + +To the mainmast, near the belfry, was affixed his contrivance for +catching water. It consisted of a collar of rope set lower at one side +than at the other (but that had been before the mast had steeved so many +degrees away from the zenith), and tallowed beneath. The mists lingered +later in that gully of a strait than they did on the open ocean, and the +collar of rope served as a collector for the dews that condensed on the +mast. The drops fell into a small earthen pipkin placed on the deck +beneath it. + +Abel Keeling reached the pipkin and looked into it. It was nearly a third +full of fresh water. Good. If Bligh, the mate, was dead, so much the more +water for Abel Keeling, master of the _Mary of the Tower_. He dipped two +fingers into the pipkin and put them into his mouth. This he did several +times. He did not dare to raise the pipkin to his black and broken lips +for dread of a remembered agony, he could not have told how many days +ago, when a devil had whispered to him, and he had gulped down the +contents of the pipkin in the morning, and for the rest of the day had +gone waterless.... Again he moistened his fingers and sucked them; then +he lay sprawling against the mast, idly watching the drops of water +as they fell. + +It was odd how the drops formed. Slowly they collected at the edge of the +tallowed collar, trembled in their fullness for an instant, and fell, +another beginning the process instantly. It amused Abel Keeling to watch +them. Why (he wondered) were all the drops the same size? What cause and +compulsion did they obey that they never varied, and what frail tenuity +held the little globules intact? It must be due to some Cause.... He +remembered that the aromatic gum of the wild frankincense with which they +had parcelled the seams had hung on the buckets in great sluggish gouts, +obedient to a different compulsion; oil was different again, and so were +juices and balsams. Only quicksilver (perhaps the heavy and motionless +sea put him in mind of quicksilver) seemed obedient to no law.... Why was +it so? + +Bligh, of course, would have had his explanation: it was the Hand of God. +That sufficed for Bligh, who had gone forward the evening before, and +whom Abel Keeling now seemed vaguely and as at a distance to remember as +the deep-voiced fanatic who had sung his hymns as, man by man, he had +committed the bodies of the ship's company to the deep. Bligh was that +sort of man; accepted things without question; was content to take things +as they were and be ready with the fenders when the wall of rock rose out +of the opalescent mists. Bligh, too, like the waterdrops, had his Law, +that was his and nobody else's.... + +There floated down from some rotten rope up aloft a flake of scurf, that +settled in the pipkin. Abel Keeling watched it dully as it settled +towards the pipkin's rim. When presently he again dipped his fingers into +the vessel the water ran into a little vortex, drawing the flake with it. +The water settled again; and again the minute flake determined towards +the rim and adhered there, as if the rim had power to draw it.... + +It was exactly so that the galleon was gliding towards the wall of rock, +the yellow and green weeds, and the monkeys and parrots. Put out into +mid-water again (while there had been men to put her out) she had glided +to the other wall. One force drew the chip in the pipkin and the ship +over the tranced sea. It was the Hand of God, said Bligh.... + +Abel Keeling, his mind now noting minute things and now clouded with +torpor, did not at first hear a voice that was quakingly lifted up +over by the forecastle--a voice that drew nearer, to an accompaniment of +swirling water. + +_"O Thou, that Jonas in the fish + Three days didst keep from pain, +Which was a figure of Thy death + And rising up again--"_ + +It was Bligh, singing one of his hymns: + +_"O Thou, that Noah keptst from flood + And Abram, day by day, +As he along through Egypt passed + Didst guide him in the way--"_ + +The voice ceased, leaving the pious period uncompleted. Bligh was alive, +at any rate.... Abel Keeling resumed his fitful musing. + +Yes, that was the Law of Bligh's life, to call things the Hand of God; +but Abel Keeling's Law was different; no better, no worse, only +different. The Hand of God, that drew chips and galleons, must work by +some method; and Abel Keeling's eyes were dully on the pipkin again as if +he sought the method there.... + +Then conscious thought left him for a space, and when he resumed it was +without obvious connection. + +Oars, of course, were the thing. With oars, men could laugh at calms. +Oars, that only pinnaces and galliasses now used, had had their +advantages. But oars (which was to say a method, for you could say if you +liked that the Hand of God grasped the oar-loom, as the Breath of God +filled the sail)--oars were antiquated, belonged to the past, and meant a +throwing-over of all that was good and new and a return to fine lines, a +battle-formation abreast to give effect to the shock of the ram, and a +day or two at sea and then to port again for provisions. Oars ... no. +Abel Keeling was one of the new men, the men who swore by the line-ahead, +the broadside fire of sakers and demi-cannon, and weeks and months +without a landfall. Perhaps one day the wits of such men as he would +devise a craft, not oar-driven (because oars could not penetrate into the +remote seas of the world)--not sail-driven (because men who trusted to +sails found themselves in an airless, three-mile strait, suspended +motionless between cloud and water, ever gliding to a wall of rock)--but +a ship ... a ship ... + +"_To Noah and his sons with him + God spake, and thus said He: +A covenant set I up with you + And your posterity_--" + +It was Bligh again, wandering somewhere in the waist. Abel Keeling's mind +was once more a blank. Then slowly, slowly, as the water drops collected +on the collar of rope, his thought took shape again. + +A galliasse? No, not a galliasse. The galliasse made shift to be two +things, and was neither. This ship, that the hand of man should one day +make for the Hand of God to manage, should be a ship that should take and +conserve the force of the wind, take it and store it as she stored her +victuals; at rest when she wished, going ahead when she wished; turning +the forces both of calm and storm against themselves. For, of course, her +force must be wind--stored wind--a bag of the winds, as the children's +tale had it--wind probably directed upon the water astern, driving it +away and urging forward the ship, acting by reaction. She would have a +wind-chamber, into which wind would be pumped with pumps.... Bligh would +call that equally the Hand of God, this driving-force of the ship of the +future that Abel Keeling dimly foreshadowed as he lay between the +mainmast and the belfry, turning his eyes now and then from ashy white +timbers to the vivid green bronze-rust of the bell above him.... + +Bligh's face, liver-coloured with the sun and ravaged from inwards by the +faith that consumed him, appeared at the head of the quarter-deck steps. +His voice beat uncontrolledly out. + +_"And in the earth here is no place + Of refuge to be found, +Nor in the deep and water-course + That passeth under ground--"_ + + +II + +Bligh's eyes were lidded, as if in contemplation of his inner ecstasy. +His head was thrown back, and his brows worked up and down tormentedly. +His wide mouth remained open as his hymn was suddenly interrupted on the +long-drawn note. From somewhere in the shimmering mists the note was +taken up, and there drummed and rang and reverberated through the strait +a windy, hoarse, and dismal bellow, alarming and sustained. A tremor rang +through Bligh. Moving like a sightless man, he stumbled forward from the +head of the quarter-deck steps, and Abel Keeling was aware of his gaunt +figure behind him, taller for the steepness of the deck. As that vast +empty sound died away, Bligh laughed in his mania. + +"Lord, hath the grave's wide mouth a tongue to praise Thee? Lo, again--" + +Again the cavernous sound possessed the air, louder and nearer. Through +it came another sound, a slow throb, throb--throb, throb--Again the +sounds ceased. + +"Even Leviathan lifteth up his voice in praise!" Bligh sobbed. + +Abel Keeling did not raise his head. There had returned to him the memory +of that day when, before the morning mists had lifted from the strait, he +had emptied the pipkin of the water that was the allowance until night +should fall again. During that agony of thirst he had seen shapes and +heard sounds with other than his mortal eyes and ears, and even in the +moments that had alternated with his lightness, when he had known these +to be hallucinations, they had come again. He had heard the bells on a +Sunday in his own Kentish home, the calling of children at play, the +unconcerned singing of men at their daily labour, and the laughter and +gossip of the women as they had spread the linen on the hedge or +distributed bread upon the platters. These voices had rung in his brain, +interrupted now and then by the groans of Bligh and of two other men who +had been alive then. Some of the voices he had heard had been silent on +earth this many a long year, but Abel Keeling, thirst-tortured, had heard +them, even as he was now hearing that vacant moaning with the +intermittent throbbing that filled the strait with alarm.... + +"Praise Him, praise Him, praise Him!" Bligh was calling deliriously. + +Then a bell seemed to sound in Abel Keeling's ears, and, as if something +in the mechanism of his brain had slipped, another picture rose in his +fancy--the scene when the _Mary of the Tower_ had put out, to a bravery +of swinging bells and shrill fifes and valiant trumpets. She had not been +a leper-white galleon then. The scroll-work on her prow had twinkled with +gilding; her belfry and stern-galleries and elaborate lanterns had +flashed in the sun with gold; and her fighting-tops and the war-pavesse +about her waist had been gay with painted coats and scutcheons. To her +sails had been stitched gaudy ramping lions of scarlet saye, and from her +mainyard, now dipping in the water, had hung the broad two-tailed pennant +with the Virgin and Child embroidered upon it.... + +Then suddenly a voice about him seemed to be saying, "_And a +half-seven--and a half-seven--_" and in a twink the picture in Abel +Keeling's brain changed again. He was at home again, instructing his son, +young Abel, in the casting of the lead from the skiff they had pulled out +of the harbour. + +"_And a half-seven!_" the boy seemed to be calling. + +Abel Keeling's blackened lips muttered: "Excellently well cast, Abel, +excellently well cast!" + +"_And a half-seven--and a half-seven--seven--seven--_" + +"Ah," Abel Keeling murmured, "that last was not a clear cast--give me the +line--thus it should go ... ay, so.... Soon you shall sail the seas with +me in the _Mary of the Tower_. You are already perfect in the stars and +the motions of the planets; to-morrow I will instruct you in the use of +the backstaff...." + +For a minute or two he continued to mutter; then he dozed. When again he +came to semi-consciousness it was once more to the sound of bells, at +first faint, then louder, and finally becoming a noisy clamour +immediately above his head. It was Bligh. Bligh, in a fresh attack of +delirium, had seized the bell-lanyard and was ringing the bell insanely. +The cord broke in his fingers, but he thrust at the bell with his hand, +and again called aloud. + +"Upon an harp and an instrument of ten strings ... let Heaven and Earth +praise Thy Name!..." + +He continued to call aloud, and to beat on the bronze-rusted bell. + +_"Ship ahoy! What ship's that?"_ + +One would have said that a veritable hail had come out of the mists; but +Abel Keeling knew those hails that came out of the mists. They came from +ships which were not there. "Ay, ay, keep a good look-out, and have a +care to your lodemanage," he muttered again to his son.... + +But, as sometimes a sleeper sits up in his dream, or rises from his couch +and walks, so all of a sudden Abel Keeling found himself on his hands and +knees on the deck, looking back over his shoulder. In some deep-seated +region of his consciousness he was dimly aware that the cant of the deck +had become more perilous, but his brain received the intelligence and +forgot it again. He was looking out into the bright and baffling mists. +The buckler of the sun was of a more ardent silver; the sea below it was +lost in brilliant evaporation; and between them, suspended in the haze, +no more substantial than the vague darknesses that float before dazzled +eyes, a pyramidal phantom-shape hung. Abel Keeling passed his hand over +his eyes, but when he removed it the shape was still there, gliding +slowly towards the _Mary's_ quarter. Its form changed as he watched it. +The spirit-grey shape that had been a pyramid seemed to dissolve into +four upright members, slightly graduated in tallness, that nearest the +_Mary's_ stern the tallest and that to the left the lowest. It might have +been the shadow of the gigantic set of reed-pipes on which that vacant +mournful note had been sounded. + +And as he looked, with fooled eyes, again his ears became fooled: + +_"Ahoy there! What ship's that? Are you a ship?... Here, give me that +trumpet--"_ Then a metallic barking. _"Ahoy there! What the devil are +you? Didn't you ring a bell? Ring it again, or blow a blast or something, +and go dead slow!"_ + +All this came, as it were, indistinctly, and through a sort of high +singing in Abel Keeling's own ears. Then he fancied a short bewildered +laugh, followed by a colloquy from somewhere between sea and sky. + +"Here, Ward, just pinch me, will you? Tell me what you see there. I want +to know if I'm awake." + +"See where?" + +"There, on the starboard bow. (Stop that ventilating fan; I can't +hear myself think.) See anything? Don't tell me it's that damned +Dutchman--don't pitch me that old Vanderdecken tale--give me an easy +one first, something about a sea-serpent.... You did hear that bell, +didn't you?" + +"Shut up a minute--listen--" + +Again Bligh's voice was lifted up. + +_"This is the cov'nant that I make: + From henceforth nevermore +Will I again the world destroy + With water, as before."_ + +Bligh's voice died away again in Abel Keeling's ears. + +"_Oh--my--fat--Aunt--Julia!_" the voice that seemed to come from between +sea and sky sounded again. Then it spoke more loudly. "_I say,_" it began +with careful politeness, "_if you are a ship, do you mind telling us +where the masquerade is to be? Our wireless is out of order, and we +hadn't heard of it.... Oh, you do see it, Ward, don't you?... Please, +please tell us what the hell you are!_" + +Again Abel Keeling had moved as a sleepwalker moves. He had raised +himself up by the belfry timbers, and Bligh had sunk in a heap on the +deck. Abel Keeling's movement overturned the pipkin, which raced the +little trickle of its contents down the deck and lodged where the still +and brimming sea made, as it were, a chain with the carved balustrade of +the quarter-deck--one link a still gleaming edge, then a dark baluster, +and then another gleaming link. For one moment only Abel Keeling found +himself noticing that that which had driven Bligh aft had been the +rising of the water in the waist as the galleon settled by the head--the +waist was now entirely submerged; then once more he was absorbed in +his dream, its voices, and its shape in the mist, which had again taken +the form of a pyramid before his eyeballs. + +"_Of course_," a voice seemed to be complaining anew, and still through +that confused dinning in Abel Keeling's ears, "_we can't turn a four-inch +on it.... And, of course, Ward, I don't believe in 'em. D'you hear, Ward? +I don't believe in 'em, I say.... Shall we call down to old A. B.? This +might interest His Scientific Skippership...._" + +"Oh, lower a boat and pull out to it--into it--over it--through it--" + +"Look at our chaps crowded on the barbette yonder. They've seen it. +Better not give an order you know won't be obeyed...." + +Abel Keeling, cramped against the antique belfry, had begun to find his +dream interesting. For, though he did not know her build, that mirage was +the shape of a ship. No doubt it was projected from his brooding on ships +of half an hour before; and that was odd.... But perhaps, after all, it +was not very odd. He knew that she did not really exist; only the +appearance of her existed; but things had to exist like that before they +really existed. Before the _Mary of the Tower_ had existed she had been a +shape in some man's imagination; before that, some dreamer had dreamed +the form of a ship with oars; and before that, far away in the dawn and +infancy of the world, some seer had seen in a vision the raft before man +had ventured to push out over the water on his two planks. And since this +shape that rode before Abel Keeling's eyes was a shape in his, Abel +Keeling's dream, he, Abel Keeling, was the master of it. His own brooding +brain had contrived her, and she was launched upon the illimitable ocean +of his own mind.... + +_"And I will not unmindful be + Of this, My covenant, passed +Twixt Me and you and every flesh + Whiles that the world should last,"_ + +sang Bligh, rapt.... + +But as a dreamer, even in his dream, will scratch upon the wall by his +couch some key or word to put him in mind of his vision on the morrow +when it has left him, so Abel Keeling found himself seeking some sign to +be a proof to those to whom no vision is vouchsafed. Even Bligh sought +that--could not be silent in his bliss, but lay on the deck there, +uttering great passionate Amens and praising his Maker, as he said, upon +an harp and an instrument of ten strings. So with Abel Keeling. It would +be the Amen of his life to have praised God, not upon a harp, but upon a +ship that should carry her own power, that should store wind or its +equivalent as she stored her victuals, that should be something wrested +from the chaos of uninvention and ordered and disciplined and +subordinated to Abel Keeling's will.... And there she was, that +ship-shaped thing of spirit-grey, with the four pipes that resembled a +phantom organ now broadside and of equal length. And the ghost-crew +of that ship were speaking again.... + +The interrupted silver chain by the quarterdeck balustrade had now become +continuous, and the balusters made a herring-bone over their own +motionless reflections. The spilt water from the pipkin had dried, and +the pipkin was not to be seen. Abel Keeling stood beside the mast, erect +as God made man to go. With his leathery hand he smote upon the bell. He +waited for the space of a minute, and then cried: + +"Ahoy!... Ship ahoy!... What ship's that?" + + +III + +We are not conscious in a dream that we are playing a game the beginning +and end of which are in ourselves. In this dream of Abel Keeling's a +voice replied: + +"_Hallo, it's found its tongue.... Ahoy there! What are you?_" + +Loudly and in a clear voice Abel Keeling called: "Are you a ship?" + +With a nervous giggle the answer came: + +"_We are a ship, aren't we, Ward? I hardly feel sure.... Yes, of course, +we're a ship. No question about us. The question is what the dickens +you are._" + +Not all the words these voices used were intelligible to Abel Keeling, +and he knew not what it was in the tone of these last words that reminded +him of the honour due to the _Mary of the Tower_. Blister-white and at +the end of her life as she was, Abel Keeling was still jealous of her +dignity; the voice had a youngish ring; and it was not fitting that young +chins should be wagged about his galleon. He spoke curtly. + +"You that spoke--are you the master of that ship?" + +"_Officer of the watch_," the words floated back; "_the captain's +below_." + +"Then send for him. It is with masters that masters hold speech," Abel +Keeling replied. + +He could see the two shapes, flat and without relief, standing on a high +narrow structure with rails. One of them gave a low whistle, and seemed +to be fanning his face; but the other rumbled something into a sort of +funnel. Presently the two shapes became three. There was a murmuring, +as of a consultation, and then suddenly a new voice spoke. At its thrill +and tone a sudden tremor ran through Abel Keeling's frame. He wondered +what response it was that that voice found in the forgotten recesses of +his memory.... + +"_Ahoy!_" seemed to call this new yet faintly remembered voice. "_What's +all this about? Listen. We're His Majesty's destroyer_ Seapink, _out of +Devonport last October, and nothing particular the matter with us. Now +who are you?_" + +"The _Mary of the Tower_, out of the Port of Rye on the day of Saint +Anne, and only two men--" + +A gasp interrupted him. + +"_Out of_ WHERE?" that voice that so strangely moved Abel Keeling said +unsteadily, while Bligh broke into groans of renewed rapture. + +"Out of the Port of Rye, in the County of Sussex ... nay, give ear, else +I cannot make you hear me while this man's spirit and flesh wrestle so +together!... Ahoy! Are you gone?" For the voices had become a low murmur, +and the ship-shape had faded before Abel Keeling's eyes. Again and again +he called. He wished to be informed of the disposition and economy of the +wind-chamber.... + +"The wind-chamber!" he called, in an agony lest the knowledge +almost within his grasp should be lost. "I would know about the +wind-chamber...." + +Like an echo, there came back the words, uncomprehendingly uttered, "_The +wind-chamber_?..." + +"... that driveth the vessel--perchance 'tis not wind--a steel bow that +is bent also conserveth force--the force you store, to move at will +through calm and storm...." + +"Can you make out what it's driving at?" + +"Oh, we shall all wake up in a minute...." + +"Quiet, I have it; the engines; it wants to know about our engines. +It'll be wanting to see our papers presently. Rye Port!... Well, no harm +in humouring it; let's see what it can make of this. Ahoy there!" came +the voice to Abel Keeling, a little more strongly, as if a shifting wind +carried it, and speaking faster and faster as it went on. "Not wind, but +steam; d'you hear? Steam, steam. Steam, in eight Yarrow water-tube +boilers. S-t-e-a-m, steam. Got it? And we've twin-screw triple expansion +engines, indicated horse-power four thousand, and we can do 430 +revolutions per minute; savvy? Is there anything your phantomhood would +like to know about our armament?..." + +Abel Keeling was muttering fretfully to himself. It annoyed him that +words in his own vision should have no meaning for him. How did words +come to him in a dream that he had no knowledge of when wide awake? The +_Seapink_--that was the name of this ship; but a pink was long and +narrow, low-carged and square-built aft.... + +"_And as for our armament,_" the voice with the tones that so profoundly +troubled Abel Keeling's memory continued, "_we've two revolving Whitehead +torpedo-tubes, three six-pounders on the upper deck, and that's a +twelve-pounder forward there by the conning-tower. I forgot to mention +that we're nickel steel, with a coal capacity of sixty tons in most +damnably placed bunkers, and that thirty and a quarter knots is about our +top. Care to come aboard?_" + +But the voice was speaking still more rapidly and feverishly, as if to +fill a silence with no matter what, and the shape that was uttering it +was straining forward anxiously over the rail. + +"_Ugh! But I'm glad this happened in the daylight,_" another voice was +muttering. + +"I wish I was sure it was happening at all.... Poor old spook!" + +"I suppose it would keep its feet if her deck was quite vertical. Think +she'll go down, or just melt?" + +"Kind of go down ... without wash...." + +"Listen--here's the other one now--" + +For Bligh was singing again: + +"For, Lord, Thou know'st our nature such + If we great things obtain, +And in the getting of the same + Do feel no grief or pain, + +"We little do esteem thereof; + But, hardly brought to pass, +A thousand times we do esteem + More than the other was." + +_"But oh, look--look--look at the other!... Oh, I say, wasn't he a grand +old boy! Look!"_ + +For, transfiguring Abel Reeling's form as a prophet's form is +transfigured in the instant of his rapture, flooding his brain with the +white eureka-light of perfect knowledge, that for which he and his dream +had been at a standstill had come. He knew her, this ship of the future, +as if God's Finger had bitten her lines into his brain. He knew her as +those already sinking into the grave know things, miraculously, +completely, accepting Life's impossibilities with a nodded "Of course." +From the ardent mouths of her eight furnaces to the last drip from her +lubricators, from her bed-plates to the breeches of her quick-firers, he +knew her--read her gauges, thumbed her bearings, gave the ranges from her +range-finders, and lived the life he lived who was in command of her. And +he would not forget on the morrow, as he had forgotten on many morrows, +for at last he had seen the water about his feet, and knew that there +would be no morrow for him in this world.... + +And even in that moment, with but a sand or two to run in his glass, +indomitable, insatiable, dreaming dream on dream, he could not die until +he knew more. He had two questions to ask, and a master-question; and but +a moment remained. Sharply his voice rang out. + +"Ho, there!... This ancient ship, the _Mary of the Tower_, cannot steam +thirty and a quarter knots, but yet she can sail the waters. What +more does your ship? Can she soar above them, as the fowls of the air +soar?" + +"_Lord, he thinks we're an aeroplane!... No, she can't...._" + +"And can you dive, even as the fishes of the deep?" + +"_No.... Those are submarines ... we aren't a submarine...._" + +But Abel Keeling waited for no more. He gave an exulting chuckle. + +"Oho, oho--thirty knots, and but on the face of the waters--no more than +that? Oho!... Now _my_ ship, the ship I see as a mother sees full-grown +the child she has but conceived--_my_ ship, I say--oho!--_my_ ship +shall.... Below there--trip that gun!" + +The cry came suddenly and alertly, as a muffled sound came from below and +an ominous tremor shook the galleon. + +"_By Jove, her guns are breaking loose below--that's her finish_--" + +"Trip that gun, and double-breech the others!" Abel Keeling's voice rang +out, as if there had been any to obey him. He had braced himself within +the belfry frame; and then in the middle of the next order his voice +suddenly failed him. His ship-shape, that for the moment he had +forgotten, rode once more before his eyes. This was the end, and his +master-question, apprehension for the answer to which was now torturing +his face and well-nigh bursting his heart, was still unasked. + +"Ho--he that spoke with me--the master," he cried in a voice that ran +high, "is he there?" + +"_Yes, yes!_" came the other voice across the water, sick with suspense. +"_Oh, be quick!_" + +There was a moment in which hoarse cries from many voices, a heavy thud +and rumble on wood, and a crash of timbers and a gurgle and a splash were +indescribably mingled; the gun under which Abel Keeling had lain had +snapped her rotten breechings and plunged down the deck, carrying Bligh's +unconscious form with it. The deck came up vertical, and for one instant +longer Abel Keeling clung to the belfry. + +"I cannot see your face," he screamed, "but meseems your voice is a voice +I know. _What is your name_?" + +In a torn sob the answer came across the water: + +"_Keeling--Abel Keeling.... Oh, my God!_" + +And Abel Keeling's cry of triumph, that mounted to a victorious "Huzza!" +was lost in the downward plunge of the _Mary of the Tower_, that left +the strait empty save for the sun's fiery blaze and the last smoke-like +evaporation of the mists. + + + + +ROOUM + + +For all I ever knew to the contrary, it was his own name; and something +about him, name or man or both, always put me in mind, I can't tell you +how, of negroes. As regards the name, I dare say it was something +huggermugger in the mere sound--something that I classed, for no +particular reason, with the dark and ignorant sort of words, such as +"Obi" and "Hoodoo." I only know that after I learned that his name was +Rooum, I couldn't for the life of me have thought of him as being called +anything else. + +The first impression that you got of his head was that it was a patchwork +of black and white--black bushy hair and short white beard, or else the +other way about. As a matter of fact, both hair and beard were piebald, +so that if you saw him in the gloom a dim patch of white showed down one +side of his head, and dark tufts cropped up here and there in his beard. +His eyebrows alone were entirely black, with a little sprouting of hair +almost joining them. And perhaps his skin helped to make me think of +negroes, for it was very dark, of the dark brown that always seems to +have more than a hint of green behind it. His forehead was low, and +scored across with deep horizontal furrows. + +We never knew when he was going to turn up on a job. We might not have +seen him for weeks, but his face was always as likely as not to appear +over the edge of a crane-platform just when that marvellous mechanical +intuition of his was badly needed. He wasn't certificated. He wasn't even +trained, as the rest of us understood training; and he scoffed at the +drawing-office, and laughed outright at logarithms and our laborious +methods of getting out quantities. But he could set sheers and tackle in +a way that made the rest of us look silly. I remember once how, through +the parting of a chain, a sixty-foot girder had come down and lay under +a ruck of other stuff, as the bottom chip lies under a pile of +spellikins--a hopeless-looking smash. Myself, I'm certificated twice or +three times over; but I can only assure you that I wanted to kick myself +when, after I'd spent a day and a sleepless night over the job, I saw the +game of tit-tat-toe that Rooum made of it in an hour or two. Certificated +or not, a man isn't a fool who can do that sort of thing. And he was +one of these fellows, too, who can "find water"--tell you where water is +and what amount of getting it is likely to take, by just walking over the +place. We aren't certificated up to that yet. + +He was offered good money to stick to us--to stick to our firm--but he +always shook his black-and-white piebald head. He'd never be able to keep +the bargain if he were to make it, he told us quite fairly. I know there +are these chaps who can't endure to be clocked to their work with a +patent time-clock in the morning and released of an evening with a +whistle--and it's one of the things no master can ever understand. So +Rooum came and went erratically, showing up maybe in Leeds or Liverpool, +perhaps next on Plymouth breakwater, and once he turned up in an +out-of-the-way place in Glamorganshire just when I was wondering what had +become of him. + +The way I got to know him (got to know him, I mean, more than just to +nod) was that he tacked himself on to me one night down Vauxhall way, +where we were setting up some small plant or other. We had knocked off +for the day, and I was walking in the direction of the bridge when he +came up. We walked along together; and we had not gone far before it +appeared that his reason for joining me was that he wanted to know "what +a molecule was." + +I stared at him a bit. + +"What do you want to know that for?" I said. "What does a chap like you, +who can do it all backwards, want with molecules?" + +Oh, he just wanted to know, he said. + +So, on the way across the bridge, I gave it him more or less from the +book--molecular theory and all the rest of it. But, from the childish +questions he put, it was plain that he hadn't got the hang of it at all. +"Did the molecular theory allow things to pass through one another?" he +wanted to know; "_Could_ things pass through one another?" and a lot of +ridiculous things like that. I gave it up. + +"You're a genius in your own way, Rooum," I said finally; "you know these +things without the books we plodders have to depend on. If I'd luck like +that, I think I should be content with it." + +But he didn't seem satisfied, though he dropped the matter for that time. +But I had his acquaintance, which was more than most of us had. He +asked me, rather timidly, if I'd lend him a book or two. I did so, but +they didn't seem to contain what he wanted to know, and he soon returned +them, without remark. + +Now you'd expect a fellow to be specially sensitive, one way or another, +who can tell when there's water a hundred feet beneath him; and as you +know, the big men are squabbling yet about this water-finding business. +But, somehow, the water-finding puzzled me less than it did that Rooum +should be extraordinarily sensitive to something far commoner and easier +to understand--ordinary echoes. He couldn't stand echoes. He'd go a +mile round rather than pass a place that he knew had an echo; and if he +came on one by chance, sometimes he'd hurry through as quick as he +could, and sometimes he'd loiter and listen very intently. I rather joked +about this at first, till I found it really distressed him; then, of +course, I pretended not to notice. We're all cranky somewhere, and for +that matter, I can't touch a spider myself. + +For the remarkable thing that overtook Rooum--(that, by the way, is an +odd way to put it, as you'll see presently; but the words came that +way into my head, so let them stand)--for the remarkable thing that +overtook Rooum, I don't think I can begin better than with the first +time, or very soon after the first time, that I noticed this peculiarity +about the echoes. + +It was early on a particularly dismal November evening, and this time we +were somewhere out south-east London way, just beyond what they are +pleased to call the building-line--you know these districts of wretched +trees and grimy fields and market-gardens that are about the same to real +country that a slum is to a town. It rained that night; rain was the most +appropriate weather for the brickfields and sewage-farms and yards of old +carts and railway-sleepers we were passing. The rain shone on the black +hand-bag that Rooum always carried; and I sucked at the dottle of a pipe +that it was too much trouble to fill and light again. We were walking in +the direction of Lewisham (I think it would be), and were still a little +way from that eruption of red-brick houses that ... but you've doubtless +seen them. + +You know how, when they're laying out new roads, they lay down the +narrow strip of kerb first, with neither setts on the one hand nor +flagstones on the other? We had come upon one of these. (I had noticed +how, as we had come a few minutes before under a tall hollow-ringing +railway arch, Rooum had all at once stopped talking--it was the echo, of +course, that bothered him.) The unmade road to which we had come had +headless lamp-standards at intervals, and ramparts of grey road-metal +ready for use; and save for the strip of kerb, it was a broth of mud +and stiff clay. A red light or two showed where the road-barriers +were--they were laying the mains; a green railway light showed on an +embankment; and the Lewisham lamps made a rusty glare through the rain. +Rooum went first, walking along the narrow strip of kerb. + +The lamp-standards were a little difficult to see, and when I heard Rooum +stop suddenly and draw in his breath sharply, I thought he had walked +into one of them. + +"Hurt yourself?" I said. + +He walked on without replying; but half a dozen yards farther on he +stopped again. He was listening again. He waited for me to come up. + +"I say," he said, in an odd sort of voice, "go a yard or two ahead, will +you?" + +"What's the matter?" I asked, as I passed ahead. He didn't answer. + +Well, I hadn't been leading for more than a minute before he wanted to +change again. He was breathing very quick and short. + +"Why, what ails you?" I demanded, stopping. + +"It's all right.... You're not playing any tricks, are you?..." + +I saw him pass his hand over his brow. + +"Come, get on," I said shortly; and we didn't speak again till we struck +the pavement with the lighted lamps. Then I happened to glance at him. + +"Here," I said brusquely, taking him by the sleeve, "you're not well. +We'll call somewhere and get a drink." + +"Yes," he said, again wiping his brow. "I say ... did you hear?" + +"Hear what?" + +"Ah, you didn't ... and, of course, you didn't feel anything...." + +"Come, you're shaking." + +When presently we came to a brightly lighted public-house or hotel, I saw +that he was shaking even worse than I had thought. The shirt-sleeved +barman noticed it too, and watched us curiously. I made Rooum sit down, +and got him some brandy. + +"What was the matter?" I asked, as I held the glass to his lips. + +But I could get nothing out of him except that it was "All right--all +right," with his head twitching over his shoulder almost as if he had +touch of the dance. He began to come round a little. He wasn't the kind +of man you'd press for explanations, and presently we set out again. +He walked with me as far as my lodgings, refused to come in, but for all +that lingered at the gate as if loath to leave. I watched him turn the +corner in the rain. + +We came home together again the next evening, but by a different way, +quite half a mile longer. He had waited for me a little pertinaciously. +It seemed he wanted to talk about molecules again. + +Well, when a man of his age--he'd be near fifty--begins to ask questions, +he's rather worse than a child who wants to know where Heaven is or some +such thing--for you can't put him off as you can the child. Somewhere or +other he'd picked up the word "osmosis," and seemed to have some +glimmering of its meaning. He dropped the molecules, and began to ask me +about osmosis. + +"It means, doesn't it," he demanded, "that liquids will work their way +into one another--through a bladder or something? Say a thick fluid and a +thin: you'll find some of the thick in the thin, and the thin in the +thick?" + +"Yes. The thick into the thin is ex-osmosis, and the other end-osmosis. +That takes place more quickly. But I don't know a deal about it." + +"Does it ever take place with solids?" he next asked. + +What was he driving at? I thought; but replied: "I believe that what is +commonly called 'adhesion' is something of the sort, under another name." + +"A good deal of this bookwork seems to be finding a dozen names for the +same thing," he grunted; and continued to ask his questions. + +But what it was he really wanted to know I couldn't for the life of me +make out. + +Well, he was due any time now to disappear again, having worked quite six +weeks in one place; and he disappeared. He disappeared for a good many +weeks. I think it would be about February before I saw or heard of him +again. + +It was February weather, anyway, and in an echoing enough place that I +found him--the subway of one of the Metropolitan stations. He'd probably +forgotten the echoes when he'd taken the train; but, of course, the +railway folk won't let a man who happens to dislike echoes go wandering +across the metals where he likes. + +He was twenty yards ahead when I saw him. I recognised him by his patched +head and black hand-bag. I ran along the subway after him. + +It was very curious. He'd been walking close to the white-tiled wall, +and I saw him suddenly stop; but he didn't turn. He didn't even turn +when I pulled up, close behind him; he put out one hand to the wall, as +if to steady himself. But, the moment I touched his shoulder, he just +dropped--just dropped, half on his knees against the white tiling. The +face he turned round and up to me was transfixed with fright. + +There were half a hundred people about--a train was just in--and it isn't +a difficult matter in London to get a crowd for much less than a man +crouching terrified against a wall, looking over his shoulder as Rooum +looked, at another man almost as terrified. I felt somebody's hand on +my own arm. Evidently somebody thought I'd knocked Rooum down. + +The terror went slowly from his face. He stumbled to his feet. I shook +myself free of the man who held me and stepped up to Rooum. + +"What the devil's all this about?" I demanded, roughly enough. + +"It's all right ... it's all right,..." he stammered. + +"Heavens, man, you shouldn't play tricks like that!" + +"No ... no ... but for the love of God don't do it again!..." + +"We'll not explain here," I said, still in a good deal of a huff; and +the small crowd melted away--disappointed, I dare say, that it wasn't +a fight. + +"Now," I said, when we were outside in the crowded street, "you might let +me know what all this is about, and what it is that for the love of +God I'm not to do again." + +He was half apologetic, but at the same time half blustering, as if I had +committed some sort of an outrage. + +"A senseless thing like that!" he mumbled to himself. "But there: you +didn't know.... You _don't_ know, do you?... I tell you, d'you hear, +_you're not to run at all when I'm about_! You're a nice fellow and all +that, and get your quantities somewhere near right, if you do go a long +way round to do it--but I'll not answer for myself if you run, d'you +hear?... Putting your hand on a man's shoulder like that, just when ..." + +"Certainly I might have spoken," I agreed, a little stiffly. + +"Of course, you ought to have spoken! Just you see you don't do it again. +It's monstrous!" + +I put a curt question. + +"Are you sure you're quite right in your head, Rooum?" + +"Ah," he cried, "don't you think I just fancy it, my lad! Nothing so +easy! I thought you guessed that other time, on the new road ... it's as +plain as a pikestaff... no, no, no! _I_ shall be telling _you_ something +about molecules one of these days!" + +We walked for a time in silence. + +Suddenly he asked: "What are you doing now?" + +"I myself, do you mean? Oh, the firm. A railway job, past Pinner. +But we've a big contract coming on in the West End soon they might +want you for. They call it 'alterations,' but it's one of these big +shop-rebuildings." + +"I'll come along." + +"Oh, it isn't for a month or two yet." + +"I don't mean that. I mean I'll come along to Pinner with you now, +to-night, or whenever you go." + +"Oh!" I said. + +I don't know that I specially wanted him. It's a little wearing, the +company of a chap like that. You never know what he's going to let you in +for next. But, as this didn't seem to occur to him, I didn't say +anything. If he really liked catching the last train down, a three-mile +walk, and then sharing a double-bedded room at a poor sort of alehouse +(which was my own programme), he was welcome. We walked a little farther; +then I told him the time of the train and left him. + +He turned up at Euston, a little after twelve. We went down together. It +was getting on for one when we left the station at the other end, and +then we began the tramp across the Weald to the inn. A little to my +surprise (for I had begun to expect unaccountable behaviour from him) we +reached the inn without Rooum having dodged about changing places with +me, or having fallen cowering under a gorse-bush, or anything of +that kind. Our talk, too, was about work, not molecules and osmosis. + +The inn was only a roadside beerhouse--I have forgotten its name--and all +its sleeping accomodation was the one double-bedded room. Over the head +of my own bed the ceiling was cut away, following the roof-line; and the +wallpaper was perfectly shocking--faded bouquets that made V's and A's, +interlacing everywhere. The other bed was made up, and lay across the +room. + +I think I only spoke once while we were making ready for bed, and that +was when Rooum took from his black hand-bag a brush and a torn nightgown. + +"That's what you always carry about, is it?" I remarked; and Rooum +grunted something: Yes ... never knew where you'd be next ... no harm, +was it? We tumbled into bed. + +But, for all the lateness of the hour, I wasn't sleepy; so from my own +bag I took a book, set the candle on the end of the mantel, and began +to read. Mark you, I don't say I was much better informed for the reading +I did, for I was watching the V's on the wallpaper mostly--that, and +wondering what was wrong with the man in the other bed who had fallen +down at a touch in the subway. He was already asleep. + +Now I don't know whether I can make the next clear to you. I'm quite +certain he was sound asleep, so that it wasn't just the fact that he +spoke. Even that is a little unpleasant, I always think, any sort of +sleep-talking; but it's a very queer sort of sensation when a man +actually answers a question that's put to him, knowing nothing whatever +about it in the morning. Perhaps I ought not to have put that question; +having put it, I did the next best thing afterwards, as you'll see in a +moment ... but let me tell you. + +He'd been asleep perhaps an hour, and I woolgathering about the +wallpaper, when suddenly, in a far more clear and loud voice than he ever +used when awake, he said: + +_"What the devil is it prevents me seeing him, then?"_ + +That startled me, rather, for the second time that evening; and I really +think I had spoken before I had fully realised what was happening. + +"From seeing whom?" I said, sitting up in bed. + +"Whom?... You're not attending. The fellow I'm telling you about, who +runs after me," he answered--answered perfectly plainly. + +I could see his head there on the pillow, black and white, and his +eyes were closed. He made a slight movement with his arm, but that did +not wake him. Then it came to me, with a sort of start, what was +happening. I slipped half out of bed. Would he--would he?--answer +another question?... I risked it, breathlessly: + +"Have you any idea who he is?" + +Well, that too he answered. + +"Who he is? The Runner?... Don't be silly. _Who else should it be?_" + +With every nerve in me tingling, I tried again. + +"What happens, then, when he catches you?" + +This time, I really don't know whether his words were an answer or not; +they were these: + +"To hear him catching you up ... and then padding away ahead again! All +right, all right ... but I guess it's weakening him a bit, too...." + +Without noticing it, I had got out of bed, and had advanced quite to the +middle of the floor. + +"What did you say his name was?" I breathed. + +But that was a dead failure. He muttered brokenly for a moment, gave a +deep troubled sigh, and then began to snore loudly and regularly. + +I made my way back to bed; but I assure you that before I did so I filled +my basin with water, dipped my face into it, and then set the candlestick +afloat in it, leaving the candle burning. I thought I'd like to have a +light.... It had burned down by morning. Rooum, I remember, remarked on +the silly practice of reading in bed. + +Well, it was a pretty kind of obsession for a man to have, wasn't it? +Somebody running after him all the time, and then ... running on ahead? +And, of course, on a broad pavement there would be plenty of room for +this running gentleman to run round; but on an eight- or nine-inch kerb, +such as that of the new road out Lewisham way ... but perhaps he was a +jumping gentleman too, and could jump over a man's head. You'd think he'd +have to get past some way, wouldn't you?... I remember vaguely wondering +whether the name of that Runner was not Conscience; but Conscience isn't +a matter of molecules and osmosis.... + +One thing, however, was clear; I'd got to tell Rooum what I'd learned: +for you can't get hold of a fellow's secrets in ways like that. I lost +no time about it. I told him, in fact, soon after we'd left the inn the +next morning--told him how he'd answered in his sleep. + +And--what do you think of this?--he seemed to think I ought to have +guessed it! _Guessed_ a monstrous thing like that! + +"You're less clever than I thought, with your books and that, if you +didn't," he grunted. + +"But ... Good God, man!" + +"Queer, isn't it? But you don't know the queerest ..." + +He pondered for a moment, and then suddenly put his lips to my ear. + +"I'll tell you," he whispered. "_It gets harder every time_!... At first, +he just slipped through: a bit of a catch at my heart, like when you nod +off to sleep in a chair and jerk up awake again; and away he went. But +now it's getting grinding, sluggish; and the pain.... You'd notice, that +night on the road, the little check it gave me; that's past long since; +and last night, when I'd just braced myself up stiff to meet it, and you +tapped me on the shoulder ..." He passed the back of his hand over his +brow. + +"I tell you," he continued, "it's an agony each time. I could scream at +the thought of it. It's oftener, too, now, and he's getting stronger. The +end-osmosis is getting to be ex-osmosis--is that right? Just let me tell +you one more thing--" + +But I'd had enough. I'd asked questions the night before, but now--well, +I knew quite as much as, and more than, I wanted. + +"Stop, please," I said. "You're either off your head, or worse. Let's +call it the first. Don't tell me any more, please." + +"Frightened, what? Well, I don't blame you. But what would _you_ do?" + +"I should see a doctor; I'm only an engineer," I replied. + +"Doctors?... Bah!" he said, and spat. + +I hope you see how the matter stood with Rooum. What do you make of it? +Could you have believed it--_do_ you believe it?... He'd made a nearish +guess when he'd said that much of our knowledge is giving names to things +we know nothing about; only rule-of-thumb Physics thinks everything's +explained in the Manual; and you've always got to remember one thing: +You can call it Force or what you like, but it's a certainty that things, +solid things of wood and iron and stone, would explode, just go off in a +puff into space, if it wasn't for something just as inexplicable as that +that Rooum said he felt in his own person. And if you can swallow that, +it's a relatively small matter whether Rooum's light-footed Familiar +slipped through him unperceived, or had to struggle through obstinately. +You see now why I said that "a queer thing overtook Rooum." + +More: I saw it. This thing, that outrages reason--I saw it happen. That +is to say, I saw its effects, and it was in broad daylight, on an +ordinary afternoon, in the middle of Oxford Street, of all places. There +wasn't a shadow of doubt about it. People were pressing and jostling +about him, and suddenly I saw him turn his head and listen, as I'd seen +him before. I tell you, an icy creeping ran all over my skin. I fancied I +felt it approaching too, nearer and nearer.... The next moment he had +made a sort of gathering of himself, as if against a gust. He stumbled +and thrust--thrust with his body. He swayed, physically, as a tree sways +in a wind; he clutched my arm and gave a loud scream. Then, after +seconds--minutes--I don't know how long--he was free again. + +And for the colour of his face when by-and-by I glanced at it ... well, I +once saw a swarthy Italian fall under a sunstroke, and _his_ face was +much the same colour that Rooum's negro face had gone; a cloudy, whitish +green. + +"Well--you've seen it--what do you think of it?" he gasped presently, +turning a ghastly grin on me. + +But it was night before the full horror of it had soaked into me. + +Soon after that he disappeared again. I wasn't sorry. + + * * * * * + +Our big contract in the West End came on. It was a time-contract, with +all manner of penalty clauses if we didn't get through; and I assure +you that we were busy. I myself was far too busy to think of Rooum. + +It's a shop now, the place we were working at, or rather one of these +huge weldings of fifty shops where you can buy anything; and if you'd +seen us there... but perhaps you did see us, for people stood up on the +tops of omnibuses as they passed, to look over the mud-splashed hoarding +into the great excavation we'd made. It was a sight. Staging rose on +staging, tier on tier, with interminable ladders all over the steel +structure. Three or four squat Otis lifts crouched like iron turtles on +top, and a lattice-crane on a towering three-cornered platform rose a +hundred and twenty feet into the air. At one end of the vast quarry +was a demolished house, showing flues and fireplaces and a score of +thicknesses of old wallpaper; and at night--they might well have stood up +on the tops of the buses! A dozen great spluttering violet arc-lights +half-blinded you; down below were the watchmen's fires; overhead, the +riveters had their fire-baskets; and in odd corners naphtha-lights +guttered and flared. And the steel rang with the riveters' hammers, and +the crane-chains rattled and clashed.... There's not much doubt in _my_ +mind, it's the engineers who are the architects nowadays. The chaps who +think they're the architects are only a sort of paperhangers, who hang +brick and terra-cotta on our work and clap a pinnacle or two on top--but +never mind that. There we were, sweating and clanging and navvying, till +the day shift came to relieve us. + +And I ought to say that fifty feet above our great gap, and from end to +end across it, there ran a travelling crane on a skeleton line, with +platform, engine, and wooden cab all compact in one. + +It happened that they had pitched in as one of the foremen some fellow or +other, a friend of the firm's, a rank duffer, who pestered me incessantly +with his questions. I did half his work and all my own, and it hadn't +improved my temper much. On this night that I'm telling about, he'd been +playing the fool with his questions as if a time-contract was a sort of +summer holiday; and he'd filled me up to that point that I really can't +say just when it was that Rooum put in an appearance again. I think I had +heard somebody mention his name, but I'd paid no attention. + +Well, our Johnnie Fresh came up to me for the twentieth time that night, +this time wanting to know something about the overhead crane. At that +I fairly lost my temper. + +"What ails the crane?" I cried. "It's doing its work, isn't it? Isn't +everybody doing their work except you? Why can't you ask Hopkins? Isn't +Hopkins there?" + +"I don't know," he said. + +"Then," I snapped, "in that particular I'm as ignorant as you, and I hope +it's the only one." + +But he grabbed my arm. + +"Look at it now!" he cried, pointing; and I looked up. + +Either Hopkins or somebody was dangerously exceeding the speed-limit. The +thing was flying along its thirty yards of rail as fast as a tram, and +the heavy fall-blocks swung like a ponderous kite-tail, thirty feet +below. As I watched, the engine brought up within a yard of the end of +the way, the blocks crashed like a ram into the broken house end, +fetching down plaster and brick, and then the mechanism was reversed. The +crane set off at a tear back. + +"Who in Hell ..." I began; but it wasn't a time to talk. "_Hi!_" I +yelled, and made a spring for a ladder. + +The others had noticed it, too, for there were shouts all over the place. +By that time I was halfway up the second stage. Again the crane tore +past, with the massive tackle sweeping behind it, and again I heard the +crash at the other end. Whoever had the handling of it was managing +it skilfully, for there was barely a foot to spare when it turned again. + +On the fourth platform, at the end of the way, I found Hopkins. He was +white, and seemed to be counting on his fingers. + +"What's the matter here?" I cried. + +"It's Rooum," he answered. "I hadn't stepped out of the cab, not a +minute, when I heard the lever go. He's running somebody down, he says; +he'll run the whole shoot down in a minute--look!..." + +The crane was coming back again. Half out of the cab I could see Rooum's +mottled hair and beard. His brow was ribbed like a gridiron, and as he +ripped past one of the arcs his face shone like porcelain with the sweat +that bathed it. + +"Now ... you!... Now, damn you!..." he was shouting. + +"Get ready to board him when he reverses!" I shouted to Hopkins. + +Just how we scrambled on I don't know. I got one arm over the +lifting-gear (which, of course, wasn't going), and heard Hopkins on +the other footplate. Rooum put the brakes down and reversed; again came +the thud of the fall-blocks; and we were speeding back again over the +gulf of misty orange light. The stagings were thronged with gaping men. + +"Ready? Now!" I cried to Hopkins; and we sprang into the cab. + +Hopkins hit Rooum's wrist with a spanner. Then he seized the lever, +jammed the brake down and tripped Rooum, all, as it seemed, in one +movement. I fell on top of Rooum. The crane came to a standstill +half-way down the line. I held Rooum panting. + +But either Rooum was stronger than I, or else he took me very much +unawares. All at once he twisted clear from my grasp and stumbled on his +knees to the rear door of the cab. He threw up one elbow, and staggered +to his feet as I made another clutch at him. + +"Keep still, you fool!" I bawled. "Hit him over the head, Hopkins!" + +Rooum screamed in a high voice. + +"Run him down--cut him up with the wheels--down, you!--down, I say!--Oh, +my God!... _Ha_!" + +He sprang clear out from the crane door, well-nigh taking me with him. + +I told you it was a skeleton line, two rails and a tie or two. He'd +actually jumped to the right-hand rail. And he was running along +it--running along that iron tightrope, out over that well of light and +watching men. Hopkins had started the travelling-gear, as if with some +insane idea of catching him; but there was only one possible end to it. +He'd gone fully a dozen yards, while I watched, horribly fascinated; and +then I saw the turn of his head.... + +He didn't meet it this time; he sprang to the other rail, as if to evade +it.... + +Even at the take-off he missed. As far as I could see, he made no attempt +to save himself with his hands. He just went down out of the field of +my vision. There was an awful silence; then, from far below ... + + * * * * * + +They weren't the men on the lower stages who moved first. The men above +went a little way down, and then they too stopped. Presently two of them +descended, but by a distant way. They returned, with two bottles of +brandy, and there was a hasty consultation. Two men drank the brandy off +there and then--getting on for a pint of brandy apiece; then they went +down, drunk. + +I, Hopkins tells me, had got down on my knees in the crane cab, and was +jabbering away cheerfully to myself. When I asked him what I said, +he hesitated, and then said: "Oh, you don't want to know that, sir," and +I haven't asked him since. + +What do _you_ make of it? + + + + +BENLIAN + + +I + +It would be different if you had known Benlian. It would be different if +you had had even that glimpse of him that I had the very first time I saw +him, standing on the little wooden landing at the top of the flight of +steps outside my studio door. I say "studio"; but really it was just a +sort of loft looking out over the timber-yard, and I used it as a studio. +The real studio, the big one, was at the other end of the yard, and that +was Benlian's. + +Scarcely anybody ever came there. I wondered many a time if the +timber-merchant was dead or had lost his memory and forgotten all about +his business; for his stacks of floorboards, set criss-crosswise to +season (you know how they pile them up) were grimy with soot, and nobody +ever disturbed the rows of scaffold-poles that stood like palisades along +the walls. The entrance was from the street, through a door in a +billposter's hoarding; and on the river not far away the steamboats +hooted, and, in windy weather, the floorboards hummed to keep them +company. + +I suppose some of these real, regular artists wouldn't have called me an +artist at all; for I only painted miniatures, and it was trade-work at +that, copied from photographs and so on. Not that I wasn't jolly good at +it, and punctual too (lots of these high-flown artists have simply no +idea of punctuality); and the loft was cheap, and suited me very well. +But, of course, a sculptor wants a big place on the ground floor; it's +slow work, that with blocks of stone and marble that cost you twenty +pounds every time you lift them; so Benlian had the studio. His name was +on a plate on the door, but I'd never seen him till this time I'm telling +you of. + +I was working that evening at one of the prettiest little things I'd ever +done: a girl's head on ivory, that I'd stippled up just like ... oh, +you'd never have thought it was done by hand at all. The daylight had +gone, but I knew that "Prussian" would be about the colour for the eyes +and the bunch of flowers at her breast, and I wanted to finish. + +I was working at my little table, with a shade over my eyes; and I jumped +a bit when somebody knocked at the door--not having heard anybody come up +the steps, and not having many visitors anyway. (Letters were always put +into the box in the yard door.) + +When I opened the door, there he stood on the platform; and I gave a bit +of a start, having come straight from my ivory, you see. He was one of +these very tall, gaunt chaps, that make us little fellows feel even +smaller than we are; and I wondered at first where his eyes were, they +were set so deep in the dark caves on either side of his nose. Like a +skull, his head was; I could fancy his teeth curving round inside his +cheeks; and his zygomatics stuck up under his skin like razorbacks (but +if you're not one of us artists you'll not understand that). A bit of +smoky, greenish sky showed behind him; and then, as his eyes moved in +their big pits, one of them caught the light of my lamp and flashed like +a well of lustre. + +He spoke abruptly, in a deep, shaky sort of voice. + +"I want you to photograph me in the morning," he said. I supposed he'd +seen my printing-frames out on the window-sash some time or other. + +"Come in," I said. "But I'm afraid, if it's a miniature you want, that +I'm retained--my firm retains me--you'd have to do it through them. But +come in, and I'll show you the kind of thing I do--though you ought to +have come in the daylight ..." + +He came in. He was wearing a long, grey dressing-gown that came right +down to his heels and made him look something like a Noah's-ark figure. +Seen in the light, his face seemed more ghastly bony still; and as he +glanced for a moment at my little ivory he made a sound of contempt--I +know it was contempt. I thought it rather cheek, coming into my place +and-- + +He turned his cavernous eyeholes on me. + +"I don't want anything of that sort. I want you to photograph me. I'll be +here at ten in the morning." + +So, just to show him that I wasn't to be treated that way, I said, quite +shortly, "I can't. I've an appointment at ten o'clock." + +"What's that?" he said--he'd one of these rich deep voices that always +sound consumptive. + +"Take that thing off your eyes, and look at me," he ordered. + +Well, I was awfully indignant. + +"If you think I'm going to be told to do things like this--" I began. + +"Take that thing off," he just ordered again. + +I've got to remember, of course, that you didn't know Benlian. _I_ didn't +then. And for a chap just to stalk into a fellow's place, and tell him to +photograph him, and order him about ... but you'll see in a minute. I +took the shade off my eyes, just to show him that _I_ could browbeat a +bit too. + +I used to have a tall strip of looking-glass leaning against my wall; for +though I didn't use models much, it's awfully useful to go to Nature for +odd bits now and then, and I've sketched myself in that glass, oh, +hundreds of times! We must have been standing in front of it, for all at +once I saw the eyes at the bottom of his pits looking rigidly over my +shoulder. Without moving his eyes from the glass, and scarcely moving his +lips, he muttered: + +"Get me a pair of gloves, get me a pair of gloves." + +It was a funny thing to ask for; but I got him a pair of my gloves from a +drawer. His hands were shaking so that he could hardly get them on, and +there was a little glistening of sweat on his face, that looked like the +salt that dries on you when you've been bathing in the sea. Then I +turned, to see what it was that he was looking so earnestly and +profoundly at in the mirror. I saw nothing except just the pair of us, he +with my gloves on. + +He stepped aside, and slowly drew the gloves off. I think _I_ could have +bullied _him_ just then. He turned to me. + +"Did that look all right to you?" he asked. + +"Why, my dear chap, whatever ails you?" I cried. + +"I suppose," he went on, "you couldn't photograph me to-night--now?" + +I could have done, with magnesium, but I hadn't a scrap in the place. I +told him so. He was looking round my studio. He saw my camera standing in +a corner. + +"Ah!" he said. + +He made a stride towards it. He unscrewed the lens, brought it to the +lamp, and peered attentively through it, now into the air, now at his +sleeve and hand, as if looking for a flaw in it. Then he replaced it, and +pulled up the collar of his dressing-gown as if he was cold. + +"Well, another night of it," he muttered; "but," he added, facing +suddenly round on me, "if your appointment was to meet your God Himself, +you must photograph me at ten to-morrow morning!" + +"All right," I said, giving in (for he seemed horribly ill). "Draw up to +the stove and have a drink of something and a smoke." + +"I neither drink nor smoke," he replied, moving towards the door. + +"Sit down and have a chat, then," I urged; for I always like to be decent +with fellows, and it was a lonely sort of place, that yard. + +He shook his head. + +"Be ready by ten o'clock in the morning," he said; and he passed down my +stairs and crossed the yard to his studio without even having said "Good +night." + +Well, he was at my door again at ten o'clock in the morning, and I +photographed him. I made three exposures; but the plates were some that +I'd had in the place for some time, and they'd gone off and fogged in the +developing. + +"I'm awfully sorry," I said; "but I'm going out this afternoon, and will +get some more, and we'll have another shot in the morning." + +One after the other, he was holding the negatives up to the light and +examining them. Presently he put them down quietly, leaning them +methodically up against the edge of the developing-bath. + +"Never mind. It doesn't matter. Thank you," he said; and left me. + +After that, I didn't see him for weeks; but at nights I could see the +light of his roof-window, shining through the wreathing river-mists, and +sometimes I heard him moving about, and the muffled knock-knocking of his +hammer on marble. + + +II + +Of course I did see him again, or I shouldn't be telling you all this. He +came to my door, just as he had done before, and at about the same time +in the evening. He hadn't come to be photographed this time, but for all +that it was something about a camera--something he wanted to know. He'd +brought two books with him, big books, printed in German. They were on +Light, he said, and Physics (or else it was Psychics--I always get those +two words wrong). They were full of diagrams and equations and figures; +and, of course, it was all miles above my head. + +He talked a lot about "hyper-space," whatever that is; and at first I +nodded, as if I knew all about it. But he very soon saw that I didn't, +and he came down to my level again. What he'd come to ask me was this: +Did I know anything, of my own experience, about things "photographing +through"? (You know the kind of thing: a name that's been painted out on +a board, say, comes up in the plate.) + +Well, as it happened, I _had_ once photographed a drawing for a fellow, +and the easel I had stood it on had come up through the picture; and I +knew by the way Benlian nodded that that was the kind of thing he meant. + +"More," he said. + +I told him I'd once seen a photograph of a man with a bowler hat on, and +the shape of his crown had showed through the hat. + +"Yes, yes," he said, musing; and then he asked: "Have you ever heard of +things not photographing at all?" + +But I couldn't tell him anything about that; and off he started again, +about Light and Physics and so on. Then, as soon as I could get a word +in, I said, "But, of course, the camera isn't Art." (Some of my +miniatures, you understand, were jolly nice little things.) + +"No--no," he murmured absently; and then abruptly he said: "Eh? What's +that? And what the devil do _you_ know about it?" + +"Well," said I, in a dignified sort of way, "considering that for ten +years I've been--" + +"Chut!... Hold your tongue," he said, turning away. + +There he was, talking to me again, just as if I'd asked him in to bully +me. But you've got to be decent to a fellow when he's in your own place; +and by-and-by I asked him, but in a cold, off-hand sort of way, how his +own work was going on. He turned to me again. + +"Would you like to see it?" he asked. + +"_Aha_!" thought I, "he's got to a sticking-point with his work! It's all +very well," I thought, "for you to sniff at my miniatures, my friend, but +we all get stale on our work sometimes, and the fresh eye, even of a +miniature-painter ..." + +"I shall be glad if I can be of any help to you," I answered, still a bit +huffish, but bearing no malice. + +"Then come," he said. + +We descended and crossed the timber-yard, and he held his door open for +me to pass in. + +It was an enormous great place, his studio, and all full of mist; and the +gallery that was his bedroom was up a little staircase at the farther +end. In the middle of the floor was a tall structure of scaffolding, with +a stage or two to stand on; and I could see the dim ghostly marble figure +in the gloom. It had been jacked up on a heavy base; and as it would have +taken three or four men to put it into position, and scarcely a stranger +had entered the yard since I had been there, I knew that the figure must +have stood for a long time. Sculpture's weary, slow work. + +Benlian was pottering about with a taper at the end of a long rod; and +suddenly the overhead gas-ring burst into light. I placed myself before +the statue--to criticise, you know. + +Well, it didn't seem to me that he needed to have turned up his nose at +my ivories, for I didn't think much of his statue--except that it was a +great, lumping, extraordinary piece of work. It had an outstretched arm +that, I remember thinking, was absolutely misshapen--disproportioned, +big enough for a giant, ridiculously out of drawing. And as I looked at +the thing this way and that, I knew that his eyes in their deep cellars +never left my face for a moment. + +"It's a god," he said by-and-by. + +Then I began to tell him about that monstrous arm; but he cut me very +short. + +"I say it's a god," he interrupted, looking at me as if he would have +eaten me. "Even you, child as you are, have seen the gods men have made +for themselves before this. Half-gods they've made, all good or all evil +(and then they've called them the Devil). This is _my_ god--the god of +good and of evil also." + +"Er--I see," I said, rather taken aback (but quite sure he was off his +head for all that). Then I looked at the arm again; a child could have +seen how wrong it was.... + +But suddenly, to my amazement, he took me by the shoulders and turned me +away. + +"That'll do," he said curtly. "I didn't ask you to come in here with a +view to learning anything from you. I wanted to see how it struck you. I +shall send for you again--and again--" + +Then he began to jabber, half to himself. + +"Bah!" he muttered. "'Is that all?' they ask before a stupendous thing. +Show them the ocean, the heavens, infinity, and they ask, 'Is that all?' +If they saw their God face to face they'd ask it!... There's only one +Cause, that works now in good and now in evil, but show It to them and +they put their heads on one side and begin to appraise and patronise +It!... I tell you, what's seen at a glance flies away at a glance. Gods +come slowly over you, but presently, ah! they begin to grip you, and at +the end there's no fleeing from them! You'll tell me more about my statue +by-and-by!... What was that you said?" he demanded, facing swiftly round +on me. "That arm? Ah, yes; but we'll see what you say about that arm six +months from now! Yes, the arm.... Now be off!" he ordered me. "I'll send +for you again when I want you!" + +He thrust me out. + +"An asylum, Mr. Benlian," I thought as I crossed the yard, "is the place +for you!" You see, I didn't know him then, and that he wasn't to be +judged as an ordinary man is. Just you wait till you see.... + +And straight away, I found myself vowing that I'd have nothing more to do +with him. I found myself resolving that, as if I were making up my mind +not to smoke or drink--and (I don't know why) with a similar sense that I +was depriving myself of something. But, somehow, I forgot, and within a +month he'd been in several times to see me, and once or twice had fetched +me in to see his statue. + +In two months I was in an extraordinary state of mind about him. I was +familiar with him in a way, but at the same time I didn't know one scrap +more about him. Because I'm a fool (oh, yes, I know quite well, now, what +I am) you'll think I'm talking folly if I even begin to tell you what +sort of a man he was. I don't mean just his knowledge (though I think he +knew everything--sciences, languages, and all that) for it was far more +than that. Somehow, when he was there, he had me all restless and uneasy; +and when he wasn't there I was (there's only the one word for it) +jealous--as jealous as if he'd been a girl! Even yet I can't make it +out.... + +And he knew how unsettled he'd got me; and I'll tell you how I found that +out. + +Straight out one night, when he was sitting up in my place, he asked me: +"Do you like me, Pudgie?" (I forgot to say that I'd told him they used to +call me Pudgie at home, because I was little and fat; it was odd, the +number of things I told him that I wouldn't have told anybody else.) + +"Do you like me, Pudgie?" he said. + +As for my answer, I don't know how it spurted out. I was much more +surprised than he was, for I really didn't intend it. It was for all the +world as if somebody else was talking with my mouth. + +"_I loathe and adore you!_" it came; and then I looked round, awfully +startled to hear myself saying that. + +But he didn't look at me. He only nodded. + +"Yes. Of good and evil too--" he muttered to himself. And then all of a +sudden he got up and went out. + +I didn't sleep for ever so long after that, thinking how odd it was I +should have said that. + +Well (to get on), after that something I couldn't account for began to +come over me sometimes as I worked. It began to come over me, without any +warning, that he was thinking of me down there across the yard. I used to +_know_ (this must sound awfully silly to you) that he was down yonder, +thinking of me and doing something to me. And one night I was so sure +that it wasn't fancy that I jumped straight up from my work, and I'm not +quite sure what happened then, until I found myself in his studio, just +as if I'd walked there in my sleep. + +And he seemed to be waiting for me, for there was a chair by his own, in +front of the statue. + +"What is it, Benlian?" I burst out. + +"Ah!" he said.... "Well, it's about that arm, Pudgie; I want you to tell +me about the arm. Does it look so strange as it did?" + +"No," I said. + +"I thought it wouldn't," he observed. "But I haven't touched it, +Pudgie--" + +So I stayed the evening there. + +But you must not think he was always doing that thing--whatever it +was--to me. On the other hand, I sometimes felt the oddest sort of +release (I don't know how else to put it) ... like when, on one of these +muggy, earthy-smelling days, when everything's melancholy, the wind +freshens up suddenly and you breathe again. And that (I'm trying to take +it in order, you see, so that it will be plain to you) brings me to the +time I found out that _he_ did that too, and knew when he was doing it. + +I'd gone into his place one night to have a look at his statue. It was +surprising what a lot I was finding out about that statue. It was still +all out of proportion (that is to say, I knew it must be--remembered I'd +thought so--though it didn't annoy me now quite so much. I suppose I'd +lost _my_ fresh eye by that time). Somehow, too, my own miniatures had +begun to look a bit kiddish; they made me impatient; and that's horrible, +to be discontented with things that once seemed jolly good to you. + +Well, he'd been looking at me in the hungriest sort of way, and I looking +at the statue, when all at once that feeling of release and lightness +came over me. The first I knew of it was that I found myself thinking of +some rather important letters my firm had written to me, wanting to know +when a job I was doing was going to be finished. I thought myself it was +time I got it finished; I thought I'd better set about it at once; and I +sat suddenly up in my chair, as if I'd just come out of a sleep. And, +looking at the statue, I saw it as it had seemed at first--all misshapen +and out of drawing. + +The very next moment, as I was rising, I sat down again as suddenly as if +somebody had pulled me back. + +Now a chap doesn't like to be changed about like that; so, without +looking at Benlian, I muttered a bit testily, "Don't, Benlian!" + +Then I heard him get up and knock his chair away. He was standing behind +me. + +"Pudgie," he said, in a moved sort of voice, "I'm no good to you. Get out +of this. Get out--" + +"No, no, Benlian!" I pleaded. + +"Get out, do you hear, and don't come again! Go and live somewhere +else--go away from London--don't let me know where you go--" + +"Oh, what have I done?" I asked unhappily; and he was muttering again. + +"Perhaps it would be better for me too," he muttered; and then he added, +"Come, bundle out!" + +So in home I went, and finished my ivory for the firm; but I can't tell +you how friendless and unhappy I felt. + +Now I used to know in those days a little girl--a nice, warm-hearted +little thing, just friendly you know, who used to come to me sometimes in +another place I lived at and mend for me and so on. It was an awful long +time since I'd seen her; but she found me out one night--came to that +yard, walked straight in, went straight to my linen-bag, and began to +look over my things to see what wanted mending, just as she used to. I +don't mind confessing that I was a bit sweet on her at one time; and it +made me feel awfully mean, the way she came in, without asking any +questions, and took up my mending. + +So she sat doing my things, and I sat at my work, glad of a bit of +company; and she chatted as she worked, just jolly and gentle and not at +all reproaching me. + +But as suddenly as a shot, right in the middle of it all, I found myself +wondering about Benlian again. And I wasn't only wondering; somehow I was +horribly uneasy about him. It came to me that he might be ill or +something. And all the fun of her having come to see me was gone. I found +myself doing all sorts of stupid things to my work, and glancing at my +watch that was lying on the table before me. + +At last I couldn't stand it any longer. I got up. + +"Daisy," I said, "I've got to go out now." + +She seemed surprised. + +"Oh, why didn't you tell me I'd been keeping you!" she said, getting up +at once. + +I muttered that I was awfully sorry.... + +I packed her off. I closed the door in the hoarding behind her. Then I +walked straight across the yard to Benlian's. + +He was lying on a couch, not doing anything. + +"I know I ought to have come sooner, Benlian," I said, "but I had +somebody with me." + +"Yes," he said, looking hard at me; and I got a bit red. + +"She's awfully nice," I stammered; "but you never bother with girls, and +you don't drink or smoke--" + +"No," he said. + +"Well," I continued, "you ought to have a little relaxation; you're +knocking yourself up." And, indeed, he looked awfully ill. + +But he shook his head. + +"A man's only a definite amount of force in him, Pudgie," he said, "and +if he spends it in one way he goes short in another. Mine goes--there." +He glanced at the statue. "I rarely sleep now," he added. + +"Then you ought to see a doctor," I said, a bit alarmed. (I'd felt sure +he was ill.) + +"No, no, Pudgie. My force is all going there--all but the minimum that +can't be helped, you know.... You've heard artists talk about 'putting +their soul into their work,' Pudgie?" + +"Don't rub it in about my rotten miniatures, Benlian," I asked him. + +"You've heard them say that; but they're charlatans, professional +artists, all, Pudgie. They haven't got any souls bigger than a sixpence +to put into it.... You know, Pudgie, that Force and Matter are the same +thing--that it's decided nowadays that you can't define matter otherwise +than as 'a point of Force'?" + +"Yes," I found myself saying eagerly, as if I'd heard it dozens of times +before. + +"So that if they could put their souls into it, it would be just as easy +for them to put their _bodies_ into it?..." + +I had drawn very close to him, and again--it was not fancy--I felt as if +somebody, not me, was using my mouth. A flash of comprehension seemed to +come into my brain. + +"_Not that, Benlian_?" I cried breathlessly. + +He nodded three or four times, and whispered. I really don't know why we +both whispered. + +"_Really that, Benlian_?" I whispered again. + +"Shall I show you?... I tried my hardest not to, you know,..." he still +whispered. + +"Yes, show me!" I replied in a suppressed voice. + +"Don't breathe a sound then! I keep them up there...." + +He put his finger to his lips as if we had been two conspirators; then he +tiptoed across the studio and went up to his bedroom in the gallery. +Presently he tiptoed down again, with some rolled-up papers in his hand. +They were photographs, and we stooped together over a little table. His +hand shook with excitement. + +"You remember this?" he whispered, showing me a rough print. + +It was one of the prints from the fogged plates that I'd taken after that +first night. + +"Come closer to me if you feel frightened, Pudgie," he said. "You said +they were old plates, Pudgie. No no; the plates were all right; it's _I_ +who am wrong!" + +"Of course," I said. It seemed so natural. + +"This one," he said, taking up one that was numbered "1," "is a plain +photograph, in the flesh, before it started; _you_ know! Now look at +this, and this--" + +He spread them before me, all in order. + +"2" was a little fogged, as if a novice had taken it; on "3" a sort of +cloudy veil partly obliterated the face; "4" was still further smudged +and lost; and "5" was a figure with gloved hands held up, as a man holds +his hands up when he is covered by a gun. The face of this one was +completely blotted out. + +And it didn't seem in the least horrible to me, for I kept on murmuring, +"Of course, of course." + +Then Benlian rubbed his hands and smiled at me. "I'm making good +progress, am I not?" he said. + +"Splendid!" I breathed. + +"Better than you know, too," he chuckled, "for you're not properly under +yet. But you will be, Pudgie, you will be--" + +"Yes, yes!... Will it be long, Benlian?" + +"No," he replied, "not if I can keep from eating and sleeping and +thinking of other things than the statue--and if you don't disturb me by +having girls about the place, Pudgie." + +"I'm awfully sorry," I said contritely. + +"All right, all right; ssh!... This, you know, Pudgie, is my own studio; +I bought it; I bought it purposely to make my statue, my god. I'm passing +nicely into it; and when I'm quite passed--_quite_ passed, Pudgie--you +can have the key and come in when you like." + +"Oh, thanks awfully," I murmured gratefully. + +He nudged me. + +"What would they think of it, Pudgie--those of the exhibitions and +academies, who say 'their souls are in their work'? What would the +cacklers think of it, Pudgie?" + +"Aren't they fools!" I chuckled. + +"And I shall have _one_ worshipper, shan't I, Pudgie?" + +"Rather!" I replied. "Isn't it splendid!... Oh, need I go back just yet?" + +"Yes, you must go now; but I'll send for you again very soon.... You know +I tried to do without you, Pudge; I tried for thirteen days, and it +nearly killed me! That's past. I shan't try again. Now off you trot, my +Pudgie--" + +I winked at him knowingly, and came skipping and dancing across the yard. + + +III + +It's just silly--that's what it is--to say that something of a man +doesn't go into his work. + +Why, even those wretched little ivories of mine, the thick-headed fellows +who paid for them knew my touch in them, and once spotted it instantly +when I tried to slip in another chap's who was hard up. Benlian used to +say that a man went about spreading himself over everything he came in +contact with--diffusing some sort of influence (as far as I could make it +out); and the mistake was, he said, that we went through the world just +wasting it instead of directing it. And if Benlian didn't understand all +about those things, I should jolly well like to know who does! A chap +with a great abounding will and brain like him, it's only natural he +should be able to pass himself on, to a statue or anything else, when he +really tried--did without food and talk and sleep in order to save +himself up for it! + +"A man can't both _do_ and _be_," I remember he said to me once. "He's so +much force, no more, and he can either make himself with it or something +else. If he tries to do both, he does both imperfectly. I'm going to do +_one_ perfect thing." Oh, he was a queer chap! Fancy, a fellow making a +thing like that statue, out of himself, and then wanting somebody to +adore him! + +And I hadn't the faintest conception of how much I did adore him till +yet again, as he had done before, he seemed to--you know--to take +himself away from me again, leaving me all alone, and so wretched!... And +I was angry at the same time, for he'd promised me he wouldn't do it +again.... (This was one night, I don't remember when.) + +I ran to my landing and shouted down into the yard. + +"Benlian! Benlian!" + +There was a light in his studio, and I heard a muffled shout come back. + +"Keep away--keep away--keep away!" + +He was struggling--I knew he was struggling as I stood there on my +landing--struggling to let me go. And I could only run and throw myself +on my bed and sob, while he tried to set me free, who didn't want to be +set free ... he was having a terrific struggle, all alone there.... + +(He told me afterwards that he _had_ to eat something now and then and to +sleep a little, and that weakened him--strengthened him--strengthened +his body and weakened the passing, you know.) + +But the next day it was all right again. I was Benlian's again. And I +wondered, when I remembered his struggle, whether a dying man had ever +fought for life as hard as Benlian was fighting to get away from it and +pass himself. + +The next time after that that he fetched me--called me--whatever you like +to name it--I burst into his studio like a bullet. He was sunk in a big +chair, gaunt as a mummy now, and all the life in him seemed to burn in +the bottom of his deep eye-sockets. At the sight of him I fiddled with +my knuckles and giggled. + +"You _are_ going it, Benlian!" I said. + +"Am I not?" he replied, in a voice that was scarcely a breath. + +"You _meant_ me to bring the camera and magnesium, didn't you?" (I had +snatched them up when I felt his call, and had brought them.) + +"Yes. Go ahead." + +So I placed the camera before him, made all ready, and took the magnesium +ribbon in a pair of pincers. + +"Are you ready?" I said; and lighted the ribbon. + +The studio seemed to leap with the blinding glare. The ribbon spat and +spluttered. I snapped the shutter, and the fumes drifted away and hung +in clouds in the roof. + +"You'll have to walk me about soon, Pudgie, and bang me with bladders, as +they do the opium-patients," he said sleepily. + +"Let me take one of the statue now," I said eagerly. + +But he put up his hand. + +"No, no. _That's_ too much like testing our god. Faith's the food they +feed gods on, Pudgie. We'll let the S.P.R. people photograph it when it's +all over," he said. "Now get it developed." + +I developed the plate. The obliteration now seemed complete. + +But Benlian seemed dissatisfied. + +"There's something wrong somewhere," he said. "It isn't so perfect as +that yet--I can feel within me it isn't. It's merely that your camera +isn't strong enough to find me, Pudgie." + +"I'll get another in the morning," I cried. + +"No," he answered. "I know something better than that. Have a cab here by +ten o'clock in the morning, and we'll go somewhere." + +By half-past ten the next morning we had driven to a large hospital, and +had gone down a lot of steps and along corridors to a basement room. +There was a stretcher couch in the middle of the room, and all manner of +queer appliances, frames of ground glass, tubes of glass blown into +extraordinary shapes, a dynamo, and a lot of other things all about. A +couple of doctors were there too, and Benlian was talking to them. + +"We'll try my hand first," Benlian said by-and-by. + +He advanced to the couch, and put his hand under one of the frames of +ground glass. One of the doctors did something in a corner. A harsh +crackling filled the room, and an unearthly, fluorescent light shot and +flooded across the frame where Benlian's hand was. The two doctors +looked, and then started back. One of them gave a cry. He was sickly +white. + +"Put me on the couch," said Benlian. + +I and the doctor who was not ill lifted him on the canvas stretcher. The +green-gleaming frame of fluctuating light was passed over the whole of +his body. Then the doctor ran to a telephone and called a colleague.... + +We spent the morning there, with dozens of doctors coming and going. Then +we left. All the way home in the cab Benlian chuckled to himself. + +"That scared 'em, Pudgie!" he chuckled. "A man they can't X-ray--that +scared 'em! We must put that down in the diary--" + +"Wasn't it ripping!" I chuckled back. + +He kept a sort of diary or record. He gave it to me afterwards, but +they've borrowed it. It was as big as a ledger, and immensely valuable, +I'm sure; they oughtn't to borrow valuable things like that and not +return them. The laughing that Benlian and I have had over that diary! +It fooled them all--the clever X-ray men, the artists of the academies, +everybody! Written on the fly-leaf was "_To My Pudgie_." I shall publish +it when I get it back again. + +Benlian had now got frightfully weak; it's awfully hard work, passing +yourself. And he had to take a little milk now and then or he'd have +died before he had quite finished. I didn't bother with miniatures any +longer, and when angry letters came from my employers we just put them +into the fire, Benlian and I, and we laughed--that is to say, I laughed, +but Benlian only smiled, being too weak to laugh really. He'd lots of +money, so that was all right; and I slept in his studio, to be there for +the passing. + +And that wouldn't be very long now, I thought; and I was always looking +at the statue. Things like that (in case you don't know) have to be done +gradually, and I supposed he was busy filling up the inside of it and +hadn't got to the outside yet--for the statue was much the same to look +at. But, reckoning off his sips of milk and snatches of sleep, he was +making splendid progress, and the figure must be getting very full now. +I was awfully excited, it was getting so near.... + +And then somebody came bothering and nearly spoiling all. It's odd, but I +really forget exactly what it was. I only know there was a funeral, and +people were sobbing and looking at me, and somebody said I was callous, +but somebody else said, "No, look at him," and that it was just the other +way about. And I think I remember, now, that it wasn't in London, for I +was in a train; but after the funeral I dodged them, and found myself +back at Euston again. They followed me, but I shook them off. I locked my +own studio up, and lay as quiet as a mouse in Benlian's place when they +came hammering at the door.... + + * * * * * + +And now I must come to what you'll called the finish--though it's awfully +stupid to call things like that "finishes." + +I'd slipped into my own studio one night--I forget what for; and I'd gone +quietly, for I knew they were following me, those people, and would catch +me if they could. It was a thick, misty night, and the light came +streaming up through Benlian's roof window, with the shadows of the +window-divisions losing themselves like dark rays in the fog. A lot of +hooting was going on down the river, steamers and barges.... Oh, I know +what I'd come into my studio for! It was for those negatives. Benlian +wanted them for the diary, so that it could be seen there wasn't any +fake about the prints. For he'd said he would make a final spurt that +evening and get the job finished. It had taken a long time, but I'll bet +_you_ couldn't have passed _yourself_ any quicker. + +When I got back he was sitting in the chair he'd hardly left for weeks, +and the diary was on the table by his side. I'd taken all the scaffolding +down from the statue, and he was ready to begin. He had to waste one last +bit of strength to explain to me, but I drew as close as I could, so that +he wouldn't lose much. + +"Now, Pudgie," I just heard him say, "you've behaved splendidly, and +you'll be quite still up to the finish, won't you?" + +I nodded. + +"And you mustn't expect the statue to come down and walk about, +or anything like that," he continued. "_Those_ aren't the really +wonderful things. And no doubt people will tell you it hasn't changed; +but you'll know better! It's much more wonderful that I should be there +than that they should be able to prove it, isn't it?... And, of course, +I don't know exactly how it will happen, for I've never done this +before.... You have the letter for the S.P.R.? They can photograph it if +they want.... By the way, you don't think the same of my statue as you +did at first, do you?" + +"Oh, it's wonderful!" I breathed. + +"And even if, like the God of the others, it doesn't vouchsafe a special +sign and wonder, it's Benlian, for all that?" + +"Oh, do be quick, Benlian! I can't bear another minute!" + +Then, for the last time, he turned his great eaten-out eyes on me. + +"_I seal you mine, Pudgie_!" he said. + +Then his eyes fastened themselves on the statue. + +I waited for a quarter of an hour, scarcely breathing. Benlian's breath +came in little flutters, many seconds apart. He had a little clock on the +table. Twenty minutes passed, and half an hour. I was a little +disappointed, really, that the statue wasn't going to move; but Benlian +knew best, and it was filling quietly up with him instead. Then I thought +of those zigzag bunches of lightning they draw on the electric-belt +advertisements, and I was rather glad after all that the statue _wasn't_ +going to move. It would have been a little cheap, that ... vulgar, in a +sense.... He was breathing a little more sharply now, as if in pain, but +his eyes never moved. A dog was howling somewhere, and I hoped that the +hooting of the tugs wouldn't disturb Benlian.... + +Nearly an hour had passed when, all of a sudden, I pushed my chair +farther away and cowered back, gnawing my fingers, very frightened. +Benlian had suddenly moved. He'd set himself forward in his chair, and he +seemed to be strangling. His mouth was wide open, and he began to make +long harsh "_Aaaaah-aaaah's_!" I shouldn't have thought passing yourself +was such agony.... + +And then I gave a scream--for he seemed to be thrusting himself back in +his chair again, as if he'd changed his mind and didn't want to pass +himself at all. But just you ask anybody: When you get yourself just over +half-way passed, the other's dragged out of you, and you can't help +yourself. His "_Aaaaahs_!" became so loud and horrid that I shut my eyes +and stopped my ears.... Minutes that lasted; and then there came a high +dinning that I couldn't shut out, and all at once the floor shook with a +heavy thump. When all was still again I opened my eyes. + +His chair had overturned, and he lay in a heap beside it. + +I called "Benlian!" but he didn't answer.... + +He'd passed beautifully; quite dead. I looked up at the statue. It was +just as Benlian had said--it didn't open its eyes, nor speak, nor +anything like that. Don't you believe chaps who tell you that statues +that have been passed into do that; they don't. + +But instead, in a blaze and flash and shock, I knew now for the first +time what a glorious thing that statue was! Have you ever seen anything +for the first time like that? If you have, you never see very much +afterwards, you know. The rest's all piffle after that. It was like +coming out of fog and darkness into a split in the open heavens, my +statue was so transfigured; and I'll bet if you'd been there you'd have +clapped your hands, as I did, and chucked the tablecloth over the Benlian +on the floor till they should come to cart that empty shell away, and +patted the statue's foot and cried: "_Is it all right, Benlian_?" + +I did this; and then I rushed excitedly out into the street, to call +somebody to see how glorious it was.... + + * * * * * + +They've brought me here for a holiday, and I'm to go back to the studio +in two or three days. But they've said that before, and I think it's +caddish of fellows not to keep their word--and not to return a valuable +diary too! But there isn't a peephole in my room, as there is in some of +them (the Emperor of Brazil told me that); and Benlian knows I haven't +forsaken him, for they take me a message every day to the studio, and +Benlian always answers that it's "_all right_, and I'm to stay where I am +for a bit." So as long as he knows, I don't mind so much. But it is a bit +rotten hanging on here, especially when the doctors themselves admit how +reasonable it all is.... Still, if Benlian says it's "_All right_ ..." + + + + +IO + + +As the young man put his hand to the uppermost of the four brass +bell-knobs to the right of the fanlighted door he paused, withdrew the +hand again, and then pulled at the lowest knob. The sawing of bell-wire +answered him, and he waited for a moment, uncertain whether the bell had +rung, before pulling again. Then there came from the basement a single +cracked stroke; the head of a maid appeared in the whitewashed area +below; and the head was withdrawn as apparently the maid recognised him. +Steps were heard along the hall; the door was opened; and the maid stood +aside to let him enter, the apron with which she had slipped the latch +still crumpled in her greasy hand. + +"Sorry, Daisy," the young man apologised, "but I didn't want to bring her +down all those stairs. How is she? Has she been out to-day?" + +The maid replied that the person spoken of had been out; and the young +man walked along the wide carpeted passage. + +It was cumbered like an antique-shop with alabaster busts on pedestals, +dusty palms in faience vases, and trophies of spears and shields and +assegais. At the foot of the stairs was a rustling portiere of strung +beads, and beyond it the carpet was continued up the broad, easy flight, +secured at each step by a brass rod. Where the stairs made a turn, the +fading light of the December afternoon, made still dimmer by a window of +decalcomanied glass, shone on a cloudy green aquarium with sallow +goldfish, a number of cacti on a shabby console table, and a large and +dirty white sheepskin rug. Passing along a short landing, the young man +began the ascent of the second flight. This also was carpeted, but with a +carpet that had done duty in some dining- or bed-room before being cut up +into strips of the width of the narrow space between the wall and the +handrail. Then, as he still mounted, the young man's feet sounded loud on +oilcloth; and when he finally paused and knocked at a door it was on a +small landing of naked boards beneath the cold gleam of the skylight +above the well of the stairs. + +"Come in," a girl's voice called. + +The room he entered had a low sagging ceiling on which shone a low glow +of firelight, making colder still the patch of eastern sky beyond the +roofs and the cowls and hoods of chimneys framed by the square of the +single window. The glow on the ceiling was reflected dully in the old +dark mirror over the mantelpiece. An open door in the farther corner, +hampered with skirts and blouses, allowed a glimpse of the girl's +bedroom. + +The young man set the paper bag he carried down on the littered round +table and advanced to the girl who sat in an old wicker chair before +the fire. The girl did not turn her head as he kissed her cheek, and he +looked down at something that had muffled the sound of his steps as +he had approached her. + +"Hallo, that's new, isn't it, Bessie? Where did that come from?" he asked +cheerfully. + +The middle of the floor was covered with a common jute matting, but on +the hearth was a magnificent leopard-skin rug. + +"Mrs. Hepburn sent it up. There was a draught from under the door. It's +much warmer for my feet." + +"Very kind of Mrs. Hepburn. Well, how are you feeling to-day, old girl?" + +"Better, thanks, Ed." + +"That's the style. You'll be yourself again soon. Daisy says you've been +out to-day?" + +"Yes, I went for a walk. But not far; I went to the Museum and then sat +down. You're early, aren't you?" + +He turned away to get a chair, from which he had to move a mass of +tissue-paper patterns and buckram linings. He brought it to the rug. + +"Yes. I stopped last night late to cash up for Vedder, so he's staying +to-night. Turn and turn about. Well, tell us all about it, Bess." + +Their faces were red in the firelight. Hers had the prettiness that the +first glance almost exhausts, the prettiness, amazing in its quantity, +that one sees for a moment under the light of the street lamps when shops +and offices close for the day. She was short-nosed, pulpy-mouthed and +faunish-eyed, and only the rather remarkable smallness of the head on the +splendid thick throat saved her from ordinariness. He, too, might have +been seen in his thousands at the close of any day, hurrying home to +Catford or Walham Green or Tufnell Park to tea and an evening with a +girl or in a billiard-room, or else dining cheaply "up West" preparatory +to smoking cigarettes from yellow packets in the upper circle of a +music-hall. Four inches of white up-and-down collar encased his neck; and +as he lifted his trousers at the knee to clear his purple socks, the pair +of paper covers showed, that had protected his cuffs during the day at +the office. He removed them, crumpled them up and threw them on the fire; +and the momentary addition to the light of the upper chamber showed how +curd-white was that superb neck of hers and how moody and tired her eyes. + +From his face only one would have guessed, and guessed wrongly, that his +preferences were for billiard-rooms and music-halls. His conversation +showed them to be otherwise. It was of Polytechnic classes that he spoke, +and of the course of lectures in English literature that had just begun. +And, as if somebody had asserted that the pursuit of such studies was not +compatible with a certain measure of physical development also, he +announced that he was not sure that he should not devote, say, half an +evening a week, on Wednesdays, to training in the gymnasium. + +"_Mens sana in corpore sano_, Bessie," he said; "a sound mind in a sound +body, you know. That's tremendously important, especially when a fellow +spends the day in a stuffy office. Yes, I think I shall give it half +Wednesdays, from eight-thirty to nine-thirty; sends you home in a glow. +But I was going to tell you about the Literature Class. The second +lecture's to-night. The first was splendid, all about the languages of +Europe and Asia--what they call the Indo-Germanic languages, you know. +Aryans. I can't tell you exactly without my notes, but the Hindoos and +Persians, I think it was, they crossed the Himalaya Mountains and spread +westward somehow, as far as Europe. That was the way it all began. It +was splendid, the way the lecturer put it. English is a Germanic +language, you know. Then came the Celts. I wish I'd brought my notes. I +see you've been reading; let's look--" + +A book lay on her knees, its back warped by the heat of the fire. He took +it and opened it. + +"Ah, Keats! Glad you like Keats, Bessie. We needn't be great readers, but +it's important that what we do read should be all right. I don't know +him, not _really_ know him, that is. But he's quite all right--A1 in +fact. And he's an example of what I've always maintained, that knowledge +should be brought within the reach of all. It just shows. He was the son +of a livery-stable keeper, you know, so what he'd have been if he'd +really had chances, been to universities and so on, there's no knowing. +But, of course, it's more from the historical standpoint that I'm +studying these things. Let's have a look--" + +He opened the book where a hairpin between the leaves marked a place. +The firelight glowed on the page, and he read, monotonously and +inelastically: + +"_And as I sat, over the light blue hills +There came a noise of revellers; the rills +Into the wide stream came of purple hue-- + 'Twas Bacchus and his crew! +The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills +From kissing cymbals made a merry din-- + 'Twas Bacchus and his kin! +Like to a moving vintage down they came, +Crowned with green leaves, and faces all on flame +All madly dancing through the pleasant valley + To scare thee, Melancholy!"_ + +It was the wondrous passage from _Endymion_, of the descent of the wild +inspired rabble into India. Ed plucked for a moment at his lower lip, and +then, with a "Hm! What's it all about, Bessie?" continued: + +_"Within his car, aloft, young Bacchus stood, +Trifling his ivy-dart, in dancing mood, + With sidelong laughing; +And little rills of crimson wine imbrued +His plump white arms and shoulders, enough white + For Venus' pearly bite; +And near him rode Silenus on his ass, +Pelted with flowers as he on did pass, + Tipsily quaffing."_ + +"Hm! I see. Mythology. That's made up of tales, and myths, you know. Like +Odin and Thor and those, only those were Scandinavian Mythology. So it +would be absurd to take it too seriously. But I think, in a way, things +like that do harm. You see," he explained, "the more beautiful they are +the more harm they might do. We ought always to show virtue and vice in +their true colours, and if you look at it from that point of view this is +just drunkenness. That's rotten; destroys your body and intellect; as I +heard a chap say once, it's an insult to the beasts to call it beastly. I +joined the Blue Ribbon when I was fourteen and I haven't been sorry for +it yet. No. Now there's Vedder; he 'went off on a bend,' as he calls it, +last night, and even he says this morning it wasn't worth it. But let's +read on." + +Again he read, with unresilient movement: + +"_I saw Osirian Egypt kneel adown +Before the vine wreath crown! + I saw parched Abyssinia rouse and sing + To the silver cymbals' ring! +I saw the whelming vintage hotly pierce + Old Tartary the fierce! +Great Brahma from his mystic heaven groans_ ..." + +"Hm! He was a Buddhist god, Brahma was; mythology again. As I say, if you +take it seriously, it's just glorifying intoxication.--But I say; I can +hardly see. Better light the lamp. We'll have tea first, then read. No, +you sit still; I'll get it ready; I know where things are--" + +He rose, crossed to a little cupboard with a sink in it, filled the +kettle at the tap, and brought it to the fire. Then he struck a match and +lighted the lamp. + +The cheap glass shade was of a foolish corolla shape, clear glass below, +shading to pink, and deepening to red at the crimped edge. It gave a +false warmth to the spaces of the room above the level of the +mantelpiece, and Ed's figure, as he turned the regulator, looked from the +waist upwards as if he stood within that portion of a spectrum screen +that deepens to the band of red. The bright concentric circles that +spread in rings of red on the ceiling were more dimly reduplicated in the +old mirror over the mantelpiece; and the wintry eastern light beyond the +chimney-hoods seemed suddenly almost to die out. + +Bessie, her white neck below the level of the lamp-shade, had taken up +the book again; but she was not reading. She was looking over it at the +upper part of the grate. Presently she spoke. "I was looking at some of +those things this afternoon, at the Museum." + +He was clearing from the table more buckram linings and patterns of +paper, numbers of Myra's Journal and The Delineator. Already on his way +to the cupboard he had put aside a red-bodiced dressmaker's "shape" of +wood and wire. "What things?" he asked. + +"Those you were reading about. Greek, aren't they?" + +"Oh, the Greek room!... But those people, Bacchus and those, weren't +people in the ordinary sense. Gods and goddesses, most of 'em; Bacchus +was a god. That's what mythology means. I wish sometimes our course took +in Greek literature, but it's a dead language after all. German's more +good in modern life. It would be nice to know everything, but one has to +select, you know. Hallo, I clean forgot; I brought you some grapes, +Bessie; here they are, in this bag; we'll have 'em after tea, what?" + +"But," she said again after a pause, still looking at the grate, "they +had their priests and priestesses, and followers and people, hadn't they? +It was their things I was looking at--combs and brooches and hairpins, +and things to cut their nails with. They're all in a glass case there. +And they had safety-pins, exactly like ours." + +"Oh, they were a civilised people," said Ed cheerfully. "It all gives you +an idea. I only hope you didn't tire yourself out. You'll soon be all +right, of course, but you have to be careful yet. We'll have a clean +tablecloth, shall we?" + +She had been seriously ill; her life had been despaired of; and somehow +the young Polytechnic student seemed anxious to assure her that she was +now all right again, or soon would be. They were to be married "as soon +as things brightened up a bit," and he was very much in love with her. He +watched her head and neck as he continued to lay the table, and then, as +he crossed once more to the cupboard, he put his hand lightly in passing +on her hair. + +She gave so quick a start that he too started. She must have been very +deep in her reverie to have been so taken by surprise. + +"I say, Bessie, don't jump like that!" he cried with involuntary +quickness. Indeed, had his hand been red-hot, or ice-cold, or taloned, +she could not have turned a more startled, even frightened, face to him. + +"It was your touching me," she muttered, resuming her gazing into the +grate. + +He stood looking anxiously down on her. It would have been better not to +discuss her state, and he knew it; but in his anxiety he forgot it. + +"That jumpiness is the effect of your illness, you know. I shall be glad +when it's all over. It's made you so odd." + +She was not pleased that he should speak of her "oddness." For that +matter, she, too, found him "odd"--at any rate, found it difficult to +realise that he was as he always had been. He had begun to irritate her a +little. His club-footed reading of the verses had irritated her, and she +had tried hard to hide from him that his cocksure opinions and the tone +in which they were pronounced jarred on her. It was not that she was +"better" than he, "knew" any more than he did, didn't (she supposed) love +him still the same; these moods, that dated from her illness, had nothing +to do with those things; she reproached herself sometimes that she was +subject to such doldrums. + +"It's all right, Ed, but please don't touch me just now," she said. + +He was in the act of leaning over her chair, but he saw her shrink, and +refrained. + +"Poor old girl!" he said sympathetically. "What's the matter?" + +"I don't know. It's awfully stupid of me to be like this, but I can't +help it. I shall be better soon if you leave me alone." + +"Nothing's happened, has it?" + +"Only those silly dreams I told you about." + +"Bother the dreams!" muttered the Polytechnic student. + +During her illness she had had dreams, and had come to herself at +intervals to find Ed or the doctor, Mrs. Hepburn or her aunt, bending +over her. These kind, solicitous faces had been no more than a glimpse, +and then she had gone off into the dreams again. The curious thing had +been that the dreams had seemed to be her vivid waking life, and the +other things--the anxious faces, the details of her dingy bedroom, the +thermometer under her tongue--had been the dream. And, though she had +come back to actuality, the dreams had never quite vanished. She could +remember no more of them than that they had seemed to hold a high singing +and jocundity, issuing from some region of haze and golden light; and +they seemed to hover, ever on the point of being recaptured, yet ever +eluding all her mental efforts. She was living now between reality and a +vision. + +She had fewer words than sensations, and it was a little pitiful to hear +her vainly striving to make clear what she meant. + +"It's so queer," she said. "It's like being on the edge of something--a +sort of tiptoe--I can't describe it. Sometimes I could almost touch it +with my hand, and then it goes away, but never quite away. It's like +something just past the corner of my eye, over my shoulder, and I sit +very still sometimes, trying to take it off its guard. But the moment I +move my head it moves too--like this--" + +Again he gave a quick start at the suddenness of her action. Very +stealthily her faunish eyes had stolen sideways, and then she had swiftly +turned her head. + +"Here, I say, don't, Bessie!" he cried nervously. "You look awfully +uncanny when you do that! You're brooding," he continued, "that's what +you're doing, brooding. You're getting into a low state. You want bucking +up. I don't think I shall go to the Polytec. to-night; I shall stay and +cheer you up. You know, I really don't think you're making an effort, +darling." + +His last words seemed to strike her. They seemed to fit in with something +of which she too was conscious. "Not making an effort ..." she wondered +how he knew that. She felt in some vague way that it was important that +she should make an effort. + +For, while her dream ever evaded her, and yet never ceased to call her +with such a voice as he who reads on a magic page of the calling of elves +hears stilly in his brain, yet somehow behind the seduction was another +and a sterner voice. There was warning as well as fascination. Beyond +that edge at which she strained on tiptoe, mingled with the jocund calls +to Hasten, Hasten, were deeper calls that bade her Beware. They puzzled +her. Beware of what? Of what danger? And to whom?... + +"How do you mean, I'm not making an effort, Ed?" she asked slowly, again +looking into the fire, where the kettle now made a gnat-like singing. + +"Why, an effort to get all right again. To be as you used to be--as, of +course, you will be soon." + +"As I used to be?" The words came with a little check in her breathing. + +"Yes, before all this. To be yourself, you know." + +"Myself?" + +"All jolly, and without these jerks and jumps. I wish you could get away. +A fortnight by the sea would do you all the good in the world." + +She knew not what it was in the words "the sea" that caused her suddenly +to breathe more deeply. The sea!... It was as if, by the mere uttering of +them, he had touched some secret spring, brought to fulfilment some +spell. What had he meant by speaking of the sea?... A fortnight before, +had somebody spoken to her of the sea it would have been the sea of +Margate, of Brighton, of Southend, that, supplying the image that a word +calls up as if by conjuration, she would have seen before her; and what +other image could she supply, could she possibly supply, now?... Yet she +did, or almost did, supply one. What new experience had she had, or what +old, old one had been released in her? With that confused, joyous dinning +just beyond the range of physical hearing there had suddenly mingled +a new illusion of sound--a vague, vast pash and rustle, silky and harsh +both at once, its tireless voice holding meanings of stillness and +solitude compared with which the silence that is mere absence of sound +was vacancy. It was part of her dream, invisible, intangible, inaudible, +yet there. As if he had been an enchanter, it had come into being at the +word upon his lips. Had he other such words? Had he the Master Word +that--(ah, she knew what the Master Word would do!)--would make the +Vision the Reality and the Reality the Vision? Deep within her she felt +something--her soul, herself, she knew not what--thrill and turn over and +settle again.... + +"The sea," she repeated in a low voice. + +"Yes, that's what you want to set you up--rather! Do you remember that +fortnight at Littlehampton, you and me and your Aunt? Jolly that was! I +like Littlehampton. It isn't flash like Brighton, and Margate's always so +beastly crowded. And do you remember that afternoon by the windmill? I +did love you that afternoon, Bessie!"... + +He continued to talk, but she was not listening. She was wondering why +the words "the sea" were somehow part of it all--the pins and brooches +of the Museum, the book on her knees, the dream. She remembered a game of +hide-and-seek she had played as a child, in which cries of "Warm, warm, +warmer!" had announced the approach to the hidden object. Oh, she was +getting warm--positively hot.... + +He had ceased to talk, and was watching her. Perhaps it was the thought +of how he had loved her that afternoon by the windmill that had brought +him close to her chair again. She was aware of his nearness, and closed +her eyes for a moment as if she dreaded something. Then she said quickly, +"Is tea nearly ready, Ed?" and, as he turned to the table, took up the +book again. + +She felt that even to touch that book brought her "warmer." It fell open +at a page. She did not hear the clatter Ed made at the table, nor yet the +babble his words had evoked, of the pierrots and banjos and minstrels of +Margate and Littlehampton. It was to hear a gladder, wilder tumult that +she sat once more so still, so achingly listening.... + +_"The earnest trumpet spake, and silver thrills +From kissing cymbals made a merry din--"_ + +The words seemed to move on the page. In her eyes another light than the +firelight seemed to play. Her breast rose, and in her thick white throat +a little inarticulate sound twanged. + +"Eh? Did you speak, Bessie?" Ed asked, stopping in his buttering of +bread. + +"Eh?... No." + +In answering, her head had turned for a moment, and she had seen him. +Suddenly it struck her with force: what a shaving of a man he was! +Desk-chested, weak-necked, conscious of his little "important" lip +and chin--yes, he needed a Polytechnic gymnastic course! Then she +remarked how once, at Margate, she had seen him in the distance, as +in a hired baggy bathing-dress he had bathed from a machine, in muddy +water, one of a hundred others, all rather cold, flinging a polo-ball +about and shouting stridently. "A sound mind in a sound body!"... He +was rather vain of his neat shoes, too, and doubtless stunted his +feet; and she had seen the little spot on his neck caused by the +chafing of his collar-stud.... No, she did not want him to touch her, +just now at any rate. His touch would be too like a betrayal of another +touch ... somewhere, sometime, somehow ... in that tantalising dream +that refused to allow itself either to be fully remembered or quite +forgotten. What was that dream? What was it?... + +She continued to gaze into the fire. + +Of a sudden she sprang to her feet with a choked cry of almost animal +fury. The fool had touched her. Carried away doubtless by the memory of +that afternoon by the windmill, he had, in passing once more to the +kettle, crept softly behind her and put a swift burning kiss on the side +of her neck. + +Then he had retreated before her, stumbling against the table and causing +the cups and saucers to jingle. + +The basket-chair tilted up, but righted itself again. + +"I told you--I told you--" she choked, her stockish figure shaking with +rage, "I told you--you--" + +He put up his elbow as if to ward off a blow. + +"_You_ touch me--_you!--you!_" the words broke from her. + +He had put himself farther round the table. He stammered. + +"Here--dash it all, Bessie--what is the matter?" + +"_You_ touch me!" + +"All right," he said sullenly. "I won't touch you again--no fear. I +didn't know you were such a firebrand. All right, drop it now. I won't +again. Good Lord!" + +Slowly the white fist she had drawn back sank to her side again. + +"All right now," he continued to grumble resentfully. "You needn't take +on so. It's said--I won't touch you again." Then, as if he remembered +that after all she was ill and must be humoured, he began, while her +bosom still rose and fell rapidly, to talk with an assumption that +nothing much had happened. "Come, sit down again, Bessie. The tea's in +the pot and I'll have it ready in a couple of jiffs. What a ridiculous +little girl you are, to take on like that!... And I say, listen! That's a +muffin-bell, and there's a grand fire for toast! You sit down while I run +out and get 'em. Give me your key, so I can let myself in again--" + +He took her key from her bag, caught up his hat, and hastened out. + +But she did not sit down again. She was no calmer for his quick +disappearance. In that moment when he had recoiled from her she had had +the expression of some handsome and angered snake, its hood puffed, ready +to strike. She stood dazed; one would have supposed that that ill-advised +kiss of his had indeed been the Master Word she sought, the Word she felt +approaching, the Word to which the objects of the Museum, the book, that +rustle of a sea she had never seen, had been but the ever "warming" +stages. Some merest trifle stood between her and those elfin cries, +between her and that thin golden mist in which faintly seen shapes seemed +to move--shapes almost of tossed arms, waving, brandishing objects +strangely all but familiar. That roaring of the sea was not the rushing +of her own blood in her ears, that rosy flush not the artificial glow of +the cheap red lampshade. The shapes were almost as plain as if she saw +them in some clear but black mirror, the sounds almost as audible as if +she heard them through some not very thick muffling.... + +"Quick--the book," she muttered. + +But even as she stretched out her hand for it, again came that solemn +sound of warning. As if something sought to stay it, she had deliberately +to thrust her hand forward. Again the high dinning calls of "Hasten! +Hasten!" were mingled with that deeper "Beware!" She knew in her soul +that, once over that terrible edge, the Dream would become the Reality +and the Reality the Dream. She knew nothing of the fluidity of the thing +called Personality--not a thing at all, but a state, a balance, a +relation, a resultant of forces so delicately in equilibrium that a +touch, and--pff!--the horror of Formlessness rushed over all. + +As she hesitated a new light appeared in the chamber. Within the frame of +the small square window, beyond the ragged line of the chimney-cowls, +an edge of orange brightness showed. She leaned forward. It was the full +moon, rusty and bloated and flattened by the earth-mist. + +The next moment her hand had clutched at the book. + +_"Whence came ye, merry Damsels! Whence came ye +So many, and so many, and such glee? +Why have ye left your bowers desolate, + Your lutes, and gentler fate? +'We follow Bacchus, Bacchus on the wing A-conquering! +Bacchus, young Bacchus! Good or ill betide +We dance before him thorough kingdoms wide! +Come hither, Lady fair, and joined be + To our wild minstrelsy!'"_ + +There was an instant in which darkness seemed to blot out all else; then +it rolled aside, and in a blaze of brightness was gone. It was gone, and +she stood face to face with her Dream, that for two thousand years had +slumbered in the blood of her and her line. She stood, with mouth agape +and eyes that hailed, her thick throat full of suppressed clamour. The +other was the Dream now, and these!... they came down, mad and noisy +and bright--Maenades, Thyades, satyrs, fauns--naked, in hides of beasts, +ungirded, dishevelled, wreathed and garlanded, dancing, singing, +shouting. The thudding of their hooves shook the ground, and the clash of +their timbrels and the rustling of their thyrsi filled the air. They +brandished frontal bones, the dismembered quarters of kids and goats; +they struck the bronze cantharus, they tossed the silver obba up aloft. +Down a cleft of rocks and woods they came, trooping to a wide seashore +with the red of the sunset behind them. She saw the evening light on the +sleek and dappled hides, the gilded ivory and rich brown of their legs +and shoulders, the white of inner arms held up on high, their wide red +mouths, the quivering of the twin flesh-gouts on the necks of the leaping +fauns. And, shutting out the glimpse of sky at the head of the deep +ravine, the god himself descended, with his car full of drunken girls who +slept with the serpents coiled about them. + +Shouting and moaning and frenzied, leaping upon one another with +libidinous laughter and beating one another with the half-stripped +thyrsi, they poured down to the yellow sands and the anemonied pools of +the shore. They raced to the water, that gleamed pale as nacre in the +deepening twilight in the eye of the evening star. They ran along its +edge over their images in the wet sands, calling their lost companion. + +"Hasten, hasten!" they cried; and one of them, a young man with a torso +noble as the dawn and shoulder-lines strong as those of the eternal +hills, ran here and there calling her name. + +"Louder, louder!" she called back in an ecstasy. + +Something dropped and tinkled against the fender. It was one of her +hairpins. One side of her hair was in a loose tumble; she threw up the +small head on the superb thick neck. + +"Louder!--I cannot hear! Once more--" + +The throwing up of her head that had brought down the rest of her hair +had given her a glimpse of herself in the glass over the mantelpiece. For +the last time that formidable "Beware!" sounded like thunder in her ears; +the next moment she had snapped with her fingers the ribbon that was +cutting into her throbbing throat. He with the torso and those shoulders +was seeking her ... how should he know her in that dreary garret, in +those joyless habiliments? He would as soon known his Own in that +crimson-bodiced, wire-framed dummy by the window yonder!... + +Her fingers clutched at the tawdry mercerised silk of her blouse. There +was a rip, and her arms and throat were free. She panted as she tugged +at something that gave with a short "click-click," as of steel +fastenings; something fell against the fender.... These also.... She tore +at them, and kicked them as they lay about her feet as leaves lie about +the trunk of a tree in autumn.... + +"Ah!" + +And as she stood there, as if within the screen of a spectrum that +deepened to the band of red, her eyes fell on the leopard-skin at her +feet. She caught it up, and in doing so saw purple grapes--purple +grapes that issued from the mouth of a paper bag on the table. With the +dappled pelt about her she sprang forward. The juice spurted through them +into the mass of her loosened hair. Down her body there was a spilth of +seeds and pulp. She cried hoarsely aloud. + +"Once more--oh, answer me! Tell me my name!" + +Ed's steps were heard on the oilclothed portion of the staircase. + +"My name--oh, my name!" she cried in an agony of suspense.... "Oh, they +will not wait for me! They have lighted the torches--they run up and down +the shore with torches--oh, cannot you see me?..." + +Suddenly she dashed to the chair on which the litter of linings and +tissue-paper lay. She caught up a double handful and crammed them on the +fire. They caught and flared. There was a call upon the stairs, and the +sound of somebody mounting in haste. + +"Once--once only--my name!" + +The soul of the Bacchante rioted, struggled to escape from her eyes. Then +as the door was flung open, she heard, and gave a terrifying shout of +recognition. + +"I hear--I almost hear--but once more.... IO! _Io, Io, Io!_" + +Ed, in the doorway, stood for one moment agape; the next, ignorant of the +full purport of his own words--ignorant that though man may come +westwards he may yet bring his worship with him--ignorant that to make +the Dream the Reality and the Reality the Dream is Heaven's dreadfullest +favour--and ignorant that, that Edge once crossed, there is no return to +the sanity and sweetness and light that are only seen clearly in the +moment when they are lost for ever--he had dashed down the stairs crying +in a voice hoarse and high with terror: + +"She's mad! She's mad!" + + + + +THE ACCIDENT + + +I + +The street had not changed so much but that, little by little, its +influence had come over Romarin again; and as the clock a street or two +away had struck seven he had stood, his hands folded on his stick, first +curious, then expectant, and finally, as the sound had died away, oddly +satisfied in his memory. The clock had a peculiar chime, a rather +elaborate one, ending inconclusively on the dominant and followed after +an unusually long interval by the stroke of the hour itself. Not until +its last vibration had become too subtle for his ear had Romarin resumed +the occupation that the pealing of the hour had interrupted. + +It was an occupation that especially tended to abstraction of mind--the +noting in detail of the little things of the street that he had forgotten +with such completeness that they awakened only tardy responses in his +memory now that his eyes rested on them again. The shape of a +doorknocker, the grouping of an old chimney-stack, the crack, still +there, in a flagstone--somewhere deep in the past these things had +associations; but they lay very deep, and the disturbing of them gave +Romarin a curious, desolate feeling, as of returning to things he had +long out-grown. + +But, as he continued to stare at the objects, the sluggish memories +roused more and more; and for each bit of the old that reasserted itself +scores of yards of the new seemed to disappear. New shop-frontages went; +a wall, brought up flush where formerly a recess had been, became the +recess once more; the intermittent electric sign at the street's end, +that wrote in green and crimson the name of a whiskey across a lamp-lit +facade, ceased to worry his eyes; and the unfamiliar new front of the +little restaurant he was passing and repassing took on its old and +well-known aspect again. + +Seven o'clock. He had thought, in dismissing his hansom, that it had been +later. His appointment was not until a quarter past. But he decided +against entering the restaurant and waiting inside; seeing who his guest +was, it would be better to wait at the door. By the light of the +restaurant window he corrected his watch, and then sauntered a few yards +along the street, to where men were moving flats of scenery from a back +door of the new theatre into a sort of tumbril. The theatre was twenty +years old, but to Romarin it was "the new theatre." There had been no +theatre there in his day. + +In his day!... His day had been twice twenty years before. Forty years +before, that street, that quarter, had been bound up in his life. He had +not, forty years ago, been the famous painter, honoured, decorated, taken +by the arm by monarchs; he had been a student, wild and raw as any, with +that tranquil and urbane philosophy that had made his success still in +abeyance within him. As his eyes had rested on the doorknocker next to +the restaurant a smile had crossed his face. How had _that_ door-knocker +come to be left by the old crowd that had wrenched off so many others? By +what accident had _that_ survived, to bring back all the old life now so +oddly? He stood, again smiling, his hands folded on his stick. A Crown +Prince had given him that stick, and had had it engraved, "To my Friend, +Romarin." + +"You oughtn't to be here, you know," he said to the door-knocker. "If I +didn't get you, Marsden ought to have done so...." + +It was Marsden whom Romarin had come to meet--Marsden, of whom he had +thought with such odd persistency lately. Marsden was the only man in the +world between whom and himself lay as much as the shadow of an enmity; +and even that faint shadow was now passing. One does not guard, for forty +years, animosities that take their rise in quick outbreaks of the young +blood; and, now that Romarin came to think of it, he hadn't really hated +Marsden for more than a few months. It had been within those very doors +(Romarin was passing the restaurant again) that there had been that quick +blow, about a girl, and the tables had been pushed hastily back, and he +and Marsden had fought, while the other fellows had kept the waiters +away.... And Romarin was now sixty-four, and Marsden must be a year +older, and the girl--who knew?--probably dead long ago ... Yes, time +heals these things, thank God; and Romarin had felt a genuine flush of +pleasure when Marsden had accepted his invitation to dinner. + +But--Romarin looked at his watch again--it was rather like Marsden to be +late. Marsden had always been like that--had come and gone pretty much as +he had pleased, regardless of inconvenience to others. But, doubtless, he +had had to walk. If all reports were true, Marsden had not made very much +of his life in the way of worldly success, and Romarin, sorry to hear it, +had wished he could give him a leg-up. Even a good man cannot do much +when the current of his life sets against him in a tide of persistent +ill-luck, and Romarin, honoured and successful, yet knew that he had been +one of the lucky ones.... + +But it was just like Marsden to be late, for all that. + +At first Romarin did not recognise him when he turned the corner of the +street and walked towards him. He hadn't made up his mind beforehand +exactly how he had expected Marsden to look, but he was conscious that he +didn't look it. It was not the short stubble of grey beard, so short that +it seemed to hesitate between beard and unshavenness; it was not the +figure nor carriage--clothes alter that, and the clothes of the man who +was advancing to meet Romarin were, to put it bluntly, shabby; nor was +it... but Romarin did not know what it was in the advancing figure that +for the moment found no response in his memory. He was already within +half a dozen yards of the men who were moving the scenery from the +theatre into the tumbril, and one of the workmen put up his hand as the +edge of a fresh "wing" appeared.... + +But at the sound of his voice the same thing happened that had happened +when the clock had struck seven. Romarin found himself suddenly +expectant, attentive, and then again curiously satisfied in his memory. +Marsden's voice at least had not changed; it was as in the old days--a +little envious, sarcastic, accepting lower interpretations somewhat +willingly, somewhat grudging of better ones. It completed the taking back +of Romarin that the chiming of the clock, the doorknocker, the grouping +of the chimney-stack and the crack in the flagstone had begun. + +"Well, my distinguished Academician, my--" + +Marsden's voice sounded across the group of scene-shifters... + +"_'Alf_ a mo, _if_ you please, guv'nor," said another voice... + +For a moment the painted "wing" shut them off from one another. + + * * * * * + +In that moment Romarin's accident befell him. If its essential nature is +related in arbitrary terms, it is that there are no other terms to relate +it in. It is a decoded cipher, which can be restored to its cryptic form +as Romarin subsequently restored it. + + * * * * * + +As the painter took Marsden's arm and entered the restaurant, he noticed +that while the outside of the place still retained traces of the old, its +inside was entirely new. Its cheap glittering wall-mirrors, that gave a +false impression of the actual size of the place, its Loves and +Shepherdesses painted in the style of the carts of the vendors of +ice-cream, its hat-racks and its four-bladed propeller that set the air +slowly in motion at the farther end of the room, might all have been +matched in a dozen similar establishments within hail of a cab-whistle. +Its gelatine-written menu-cards announced that one might dine there _a +la carte_ or _table d'hote_ for two shillings. Neither the cooking nor +the service had influenced Romarin in his choice of a place to dine at. + +He made a gesture to the waiter who advanced to help him on with his coat +that Marsden was to be assisted first; but Marsden, with a grunted "All +right," had already helped himself. A glimpse of the interior of the coat +told Romarin why Marsden kept waiters at arm's-length. A little twinge of +compunction took him that his own overcoat should be fur-collared and +lined with silk. + +They sat down at a corner table not far from the slowly moving +four-bladed propeller. + +"Now we can talk," Romarin said. "I'm glad, glad to see you again, +Marsden." + +It was a peculiarly vicious face that he saw, corrugated about the brows, +and with stiff iron-grey hair untrimmed about the ears. It shocked +Romarin a little; he had hardly looked to see certain things so +accentuated by the passage of time. Romarin's own brow was high and bald +and benign, and his beard was like a broad shield of silver. + +"You're glad, are you?" said Marsden, as they sat down facing one +another. "Well, I'm glad--to be seen with you. It'll revive my credit a +bit. There's a fellow across there has recognised you already by your +photographs in the papers.... I assume I may...?" + +He made a little upward movement of his hand. It was a gin and +bitters Marsden assumed he might have. Romarin ordered it; he himself +did not take one. Marsden tossed down the _aperitif_ at one gulp; then +he reached for his roll, pulled it to pieces, and--Romarin remembered +how in the old days Marsden had always eaten bread like that--began to +throw bullets of bread into his mouth. Formerly this habit had irritated +Romarin intensely; now ... well, well, Life uses some of us better than +others. Small blame to these if they throw up the struggle. Marsden, poor +devil ... but the arrival of the soup interrupted Romarin's meditation. +He consulted the violet-written card, ordered the succeeding courses, and +the two men ate for some minutes in silence. + +"Well," said Romarin presently, pushing away his plate and wiping his +white moustache, "are you still a Romanticist, Marsden?" + +Marsden, who had tucked his napkin between two of the buttons of his +frayed waistcoat, looked suspiciously across the glass with the dregs of +the gin and bitters that he had half raised to his lips. + +"Eh?" he said. "I say, Romarin, don't let's go grave-digging among +memories merely for the sake of making conversation. Yours may be +pleasant, but I'm not in the habit of wasting much time over mine. +Might as well be making new ones ... I'll drink whiskey and soda." + +It was brought, a large one; and Marsden, nodding, took a deep gulp. + +"Health," he said. + +"Thanks," said Romarin--instantly noting that the monosyllable, which +matched the other's in curtness, was not at all the reply he had +intended. "Thank you--yours," he amended; and a short pause followed, in +which fish was brought. + +This was not what Romarin had hoped for. He had desired to be reconciled +with Marsden, not merely to be allowed to pay for his dinner. Yet if +Marsden did not wish to talk it was difficult not to defer to his wish. +It was true that he had asked if Marsden was still a Romanticist largely +for the sake of something to say; but Marsden's prompt pointing out of +this was not encouraging. Now that he came to think of it, he had never +known precisely what Marsden had meant by the word "Romance" he had so +frequently taken into his mouth; he only knew that this creed of +Romanticism, whatever it was, had been worn rather challengingly, a chip +on the shoulder, to be knocked off at some peril or other. And it had +seemed to Romarin a little futile in the violence with which it had been +maintained ... But that was neither here nor there. The point was, that +the conversation had begun not very happily, and must be mended at once +if at all. To mend it, Romarin leaned across the table. + +"Be as friendly as I am, Marsden," he said. "I think--pardon me--that if +our positions were reversed, and I saw in you the sincere desire to help +that I have, I'd take it in the right way." Again Marsden looked +suspiciously at him. "To help? How to help?" he demanded "That's what I +should like you to tell me. But I suppose (for example) you still work?" + +"Oh, my work!" Marsden made a little gesture of contempt. "Try again, +Romarin." + +"You don't do any?... Come, I'm no bad friend to my friends, and you'll +find me--especially so." + +But Marsden put up his hand. + +"Not quite so quickly," he said. "Let's see what you mean by help first. +Do you really mean that you want me to borrow money from you? That's help +as I understand it nowadays." + +"Then you've changed," said Romarin--wondering, however, in his secret +heart whether Marsden had changed very much in that respect after all. + +Marsden gave a short honk of a laugh. + +"You didn't suppose I hadn't changed, did you?" Then he leaned suddenly +forward. "This is rather a mistake, Romarin--rather a mistake," he said. + +"What is?" + +"This--our meeting again. Quite a mistake." + +Romarin sighed. "I had hoped not," he said. + +Marsden leaned forward again, with another gesture Romarin remembered +very well--dinner knife in hand, edge and palm upwards, punctuating +and expounding with the point. + +"I tell you, it's a mistake," he said, knife and hand balanced. "You +can't reopen things like this. You don't really _want_ to reopen them; +you only want to reopen certain of them; you want to pick and choose +among things, to approve and disapprove. There must have been somewhere +or other something in me you didn't altogether dislike--I can't for the +life of me think what it was, by the way; and you want to lay stress on +that and to sink the rest. Well, you can't. I won't let you. I'll not +submit my life to you like that. If you want to go into things, all +right; but it must be all or none. And I'd like another drink." + +He put the knife down with a little clap as Romarin beckoned to the +waiter. + +There was distress on Romarin's face. He was not conscious of having +adopted a superior attitude. But again he told himself that he must make +allowances. Men who don't come off in Life's struggle are apt to be +touchy, and he was; after all, the same old Marsden, the man with whom he +desired to be at peace. + +"Are you quite fair to me?" he asked presently, in a low voice. + +Again the knife was taken up and its point advanced. + +"Yes, I am," said Marsden in a slightly raised voice; and he indicated +with the knife the mirror at the end of the table. "You know you've done +well, and I, to all appearances, haven't; you can't look at that glass +and not know it. But I've followed the line of my development too, no +less logically than you. My life's been mine, and I'm not going to +apologise for it to a single breathing creature. More, I'm proud of it. +At least, there's been singleness of intention about it. So I think I'm +strictly fair in pointing that out when you talk about helping me." + +"Perhaps so, perhaps so," Romarin agreed a little sadly. "It's your tone +more than anything else that makes things a little difficult. Believe me, +I've no end in my mind except pure friendliness." + +"No-o-o," said Marsden--a long "no" that seemed to deliberate, to +examine, and finally to admit. "No. I believe that. And you usually get +what you set out for. Oh yes. I've watched your rise--I've made a point +of watching it. It's been a bit at a time, but you've got there. You're +that sort. It's on your forehead--your destiny." + +Romarin smiled. + +"Hallo, that's new, isn't it?" he said. "It wasn't your habit to talk +much about destiny, if I remember rightly. Let me see; wasn't this more +your style--'will, passion, laughs-at-impossibilities and says,' et +cetera--and so forth? Wasn't that it? With always the suspicion not far +away that you did things more from theoretical conviction than real +impulse after all?" + +A dispassionate observer would have judged that the words went somewhere +near home. Marsden was scraping together with the edge of his knife the +crumbs of his broken roll. He scraped them into a little square, and then +trimmed the corners. Not until the little pile was shaped to his liking +did he look surlily up. + +"Let it rest, Romarin," he said curtly. "Drop it," he added. "Let it +alone. If I begin to talk like that, too, we shall only cut one another +up. Clink glasses--there--and let it alone." + +Mechanically Romarin clinked; but his bald brow was perplexed. + +"'Cut one another up?'" he repeated. + +"Yes. Let it alone." + +"'Cut one another up?'" he repeated once more. "You puzzle me entirely." + +"Well, perhaps I'm altogether wrong. I only wanted to warn you that I've +dared a good many things in my time. Now drop it." + +Romarin had fine brown eyes, under Oriental arched brows. Again they +noted the singularly vicious look of the man opposite. They were full +of mistrust and curiosity, and he stroked his silver beard. + +"Drop it?" he said slowly ... "No, let's go on. I want to hear more of +this." + +"I'd much rather have another drink in peace and quietness.... Waiter!" + +Either leaned back in his chair, surveying the other. "You're a perverse +devil still," was Romarin's thought. Marsden's, apparently, was of +nothing but the whiskey and soda the waiter had gone to fetch. + + * * * * * + +Romarin was inclined to look askance at a man who could follow up a gin +and bitters with three or four whiskeys and soda without turning a hair. +It argued the seasoned cask. Marsden had bidden the waiter leave the +bottle and the syphon on the table, and was already mixing himself +another stiff peg. + +"Well," he said, "since you will have it so--to the old days." + +"To the old days," said Romarin, watching him gulp it down. + +"Queer, looking back across all that time at 'em, isn't it? How do you +feel about it?" + +"In a mixed kind of way, I think; the usual thing: pleasure and regret +mingled." + +"Oh, you have regrets, have you?" + +"For certain things, yes. Not, let me say, my turn-up with you, Marsden," +he laughed. "That's why I chose the old place--" he gave a glance +round at its glittering newness. "Do you happen to remember what all that +was about? I've only the vaguest idea." + +Marsden gave him a long look. "That all?" he asked. + +"Oh, I remember in a sort of way. That 'Romantic' soap-bubble of yours +was really at the bottom of it, I suspect. Tell me," he smiled, "did you +really suppose Life could be lived on those mad lines you used to lay +down?" + +"My life," said Marsden calmly, "has been." + +"Not literally." + +"Literally." + +"You mean to say that you haven't outgrown _that_?" + +"I hope not." + +Romarin had thrown up his handsome head. "Well, well!" he murmured +incredulously. + +"Why 'well, well'?" Marsden demanded.... "But, of course, you never did +and never will know what I meant." + +"By Romance? ... No, I can't say that I did; but as I conceived it, it +was something that began in appetite and ended in diabetes." + +"Not philosophic, eh?" Marsden inquired, picking up a chicken bone. + +"Highly unphilosophic," said Romarin, shaking his head. + +"Hm!" grunted Marsden, stripping the bone... "Well, I grant it pays in a +different way." + +"It does pay, then?" Romarin asked. + +"Oh yes, it pays." + +The restaurant had filled up. It was one frequented by young artists, +musicians, journalists and the clingers to the rather frayed fringes of +the Arts. From time to time heads were turned to look at Romarin's portly +and handsome figure, which the Press, the Regent Street photographic +establishments, and the Academy Supplements had made well known. The +plump young Frenchwoman within the glazed cash office near the door, +at whom Marsden had several times glanced in a way at which Romarin had +frowned, was aware of the honour done the restaurant; and several times +the blond-bearded proprietor had advanced and inquired with concern +whether the dinner and the service was to the liking of M'sieu. + +And the eyes that were turned to Romarin plainly wondered who the +scallawag dining with him might be. + +Since Romarin had chosen that their conversation should be of the old +days, and without picking and choosing, Marsden was quite willing that +it should be so. Again he was casting the bullets of bread into his +mouth, and again Romarin was conscious of irritation. Marsden, too, +noticed it; but in awaiting the _roti_ he still continued to roll and +bolt the pellets, washing them down with gulps of whiskey and soda. + +"Oh yes, it paid," he resumed. "Not in that way, of course--" he +indicated the head, quickly turned away again, of an aureoled youngster +with a large bunch of black satin tie, "--not in admiration of that +sort, but in other ways--" + +"Tell me about it." + +"Certainly, if you want it. But you're my host. Won't you let me hear +your side of it all first?" + +"But I thought you said you knew that--had followed my career?" + +"So I have. It's not your list of honours and degrees; let me see, what +are you? R.A., D.C.L., Doctor of Literature, whatever that means, and +Professor of this, that, and the other, and not at the end of it yet. I +know all that. I don't say you haven't earned it; I admire your painting; +but it's not that. I want to know what it _feels_ like to be up there +where you are." + +It was a childish question, and Romarin felt foolish in trying to answer +it. Such things were the things the adoring aureoled youngster a table or +two away would have liked to ask. Romarin recognised in Marsden the old +craving for sensation; it was part of the theoretical creed Marsden had +made for himself, of doing things, not for their own sakes, but in order +that he might have done them. Of course, it had appeared to a fellow like +that, that Romarin himself had always had a calculated end in view; he +had not; Marsden merely measured Romarin's peck out of his own bushel. It +had been Marsden who, in self-consciously seeking his own life, had lost +it, and Romarin was more than a little inclined to suspect that the +vehemence with which he protested that he had not lost it was precisely +the measure of the loss. + +But he essayed it--essayed to give Marsden a _resume_ of his career. He +told him of the stroke of sheer luck that had been the foundation of it +all, the falling ill of another painter who had turned over certain +commissions to him. He told him of his poor but happy marriage, and of +the windfall, not large, but timely, that had come to his wife. He told +him of fortunate acquaintanceships happily cultivated, of his first +important commission, of the fresco that had procured for him his +Associateship, of his sale to the Chantrey, and of his quietly +remunerative Visitorships and his work on Boards and Committees. + +And as he talked, Marsden drew his empty glass to him, moistened his +finger with a little spilt liquid, and began to run the finger round the +rim of the glass. They had done that formerly, a whole roomful of them, +producing, when each had found the note of his instrument, a high, thin, +intolerable singing. To this singing Romarin strove to tell his tale. + +But that thin and bat-like note silenced him. He ended lamely, with some +empty generalisation on success. + +"Ah, but success in what?" Marsden demanded, interrupting his playing on +the glass for a moment. + +"In your aim, whatever it may be." + +"Ah!" said Marsden, resuming his performance. + +Romarin had sought in his recital to minimise differences in +circumstances; but Marsden seemed bent on aggravating them. He had the +miserable advantage of the man who has nothing to lose. And bit by bit, +Romarin had begun to realise that he was going considerably more than +halfway to meet this old enemy of his, and that amity seemed as far on as +ever. In his heart he began to feel the foreknowledge that their meeting +could have no conclusion. He hated the man, the look of his face and the +sound of his voice, as much as ever. + +The proprietor approached with profoundest apology in his attitude. +M'sieu would pardon him, but the noise of the glass ... it was +annoying ... another M'sieu had made complaint.... + +"Eh?..." cried Marsden. "Oh, that! Certainly! It can be put to a much +better purpose." + +He refilled the glass. + +The liquor had begun to tell on him. A quarter of the quantity would have +made a clean-living man incapably drunk, but it had only made Marsden's +eyes bright. He gave a sarcastic laugh. + +"And is that all?" he asked. + +Romarin replied shortly that that was all. + +"You've missed out the R.A., and the D.C.L." + +"Then let me add that I'm a Doctor of Civil Law and a full Member of the +Royal Academy," said Romarin, almost at the end of his patience. "And +now, since you don't think much of it, may I hear your own account?" + +"Oh, by all means. I don't know, however, that--" he broke off to throw a +glance at a woman who had just entered the restaurant--a divesting glance +that caused Romarin to redden to his crown and drop his eyes. "I was +going to say that you may think as little of my history as I do of yours. +Supple woman that; when the rather scraggy blonde does take it into her +head to be a devil she's the worst kind there is...." + +Without apology Romarin looked at his watch. + +"All right," said Marsden, smiling, "for what _I've_ got out of life, +then. But I warn you, it's entirely discreditable." + +Romarin did not doubt it. + +"But it's mine, and I boast of it. I've done--barring receiving honours +and degrees--everything--everything! If there's anything I haven't done, +tell me and lend me a sovereign, and I'll go and do it." + +"You haven't told the story." + +"That's so. Here goes then ... Well, you know, unless you've forgotten, +how I began...." + +Fruit and nutshells and nutcrackers lay on the table between them, and at +the end of it, shielded from draughts by the menu cards, the coffee +apparatus simmered over its elusive blue flame. Romarin was taking the +rind from a pear with a table-knife, and Marsden had declined port in +favour of a small golden liqueur of brandy. Every seat in the restaurant +was now occupied, and the proprietor himself had brought his finest +cigarettes and cigars. The waiter poured out the coffee, and departed +with the apparatus in one hand and his napkin in the other. + +Marsden was already well into his tale... + +The frightful unction with which he told it appalled Romarin. It was as +he had said--there was nothing he had not done and did not exult in with +a sickening exultation. It had, indeed, ended in diabetes. In the pitiful +hunting down of sensation to the last inch he had been fiendishly +ingenious and utterly unimaginative. His unholy curiosity had spared +nothing, his unnatural appetite had known no truth. It was grinning sin. +The details of it simply cannot be told.... + +And his vanity in it all was prodigious. Romarin was pale as he listened. +What! In order that _this_ malignant growth in Society's breast should +be able to say "I know," had sanctities been profaned, sweet conventions +assailed, purity blackened, soundness infected, and all that was bright +and of the day been sunk in the quagmire that this creature of the night +had called--yes, stilled called--by the gentle name of Romance? Yes, +so it had been. Not only had men and women suffered dishonour, but +manhood and womanhood and the clean institutions by which alone the +creature was suffered to exist had been brought to shame. And what was he +to look at when it was all done?... + +"Romance--Beauty--the Beauty of things as they are!" he croaked. + +If faces in the restaurant were now turned to Romarin, it was the horror +on Romarin's own face that drew them. He drew out his handkerchief and +mopped his brow. + +"But," he stammered presently, "you are speaking of +generalities--horrible theories--things diabolically conceivable +to be done--" + +"What?" cried Marsden, checked for a moment in his horrible triumph. "No, +by God! I've done 'em, done 'em! Don't you understand? If you don't, +question me!..." + +"No, no!" cried Romarin. + +"But I say yes! You came for this, and you shall have it! I tried to stop +you, but you wanted it, and by God you shall have it! You think your +life's been full and mine empty? Ha ha!... Romance! I had the conviction +of it, and I've had the courage too! I haven't told you a tenth of it! +What would you like? Chamber-windows when Love was hot? The killing of a +man who stood in my way? (I've fought a duel, and killed.) The squeezing +of the juice out of life like _that_?" He pointed to Romarin's plate; +Romarin had been eating grapes. "Did you find me saying I'd do a thing +and then drawing back from it when we--" he made a quick gesture of both +hands towards the middle of the restaurant floor. + +"When we fought--?" + +"Yes, when we fought, here!... Oh no, oh no! I've lived, I tell you, +every moment! Not a title, not a degree, but I've lived such a life as +you never dreamed of--!" + +"Thank God--" + +But suddenly Marsden's voice, which had risen, dropped again. He began to +shake with interior chuckles. They were the old, old chuckles, and they +filled Romarin with a hatred hardly to be borne. The sound of the +animal's voice had begun it, and his every word, look, movement, +gesture, since they had entered the restaurant, had added to it. And he +was now chuckling, chuckling, shaking with chuckles, as if some +monstrous tit-bit still remained to be told. Already Romarin had tossed +aside his napkin, beckoned to the waiter, and said, "M'sieu dines +with me...." + +"Ho ho ho ho!" came the drunken sounds. "It's a long time since M'sieu +dined here with his old friend Romarin! Do you remember the last time? Do +you remember it? _Pif, pan_! Two smacks across the table, Romarin--oh, +you got it in very well!--and then, _brrrrr_! quick! Back with the +tables--all the fellows round--Farquharson for me and Smith for you, and +then to it, Romarin!... And you really don't remember what it was all +about?..." + +Romarin had remembered. His face was not the face of the philosophic +master of Life now. + +"You said she shouldn't--little Pattie Hines you know--you said she +shouldn't--" + +Romarin sprang half from his chair, and brought his fist down on the +table. + +"And by Heaven, she didn't! At least that's one thing you haven't done!" + +Marsden too had risen unsteadily. + +"Oho, oho? You think that?" + +A wild thought flashed across Romarin's brain. + +"You mean--?" + +"I mean?... Oho, oho! Yes, I mean! She did, Romarin...." + +The mirrors, mistily seen through the smoke of half a hundred cigars and +cigarettes, the Loves and Shepherdesses of the garish walls, the diners +starting up in their places, all suddenly seemed to swing round in a +great half-circle before Romarin's eyes. The next moment, feeling as if +he stood on something on which he found it difficult to keep his balance, +he had caught up the table-knife with which he had peeled the pear and +had struck at the side of Marsden's neck. The rounded blade snapped, but +he struck again with the broken edge, and left the knife where it +entered. The table appeared uptilted almost vertical; over it Marsden's +head disappeared; it was followed by a shower of glass, cigars, +artificial flowers and the tablecloth at which he clutched; and the +dirty American cloth of the table top was left bare. + + * * * * * + +But the edge behind which Marsden's face had disappeared remained +vertical. A group of scene-shifters were moving a flat of scenery from a +theatre into a tumbril-like cart... + +And Romarin knew that, past, present, and future, he had seen it all in +an instant, and that Marsden stood behind that painted wing. + +And he knew, too, that he had only to wait until that flat passed and to +take Marsden's arm and enter the restaurant, _and it would be so_. A +drowning man is said to see all in one unmeasurable instant of time; a +year-long dream is but, they say, an instantaneous arrangement in the +moment of waking of the molecules we associate with ideas; and the past +of history and the future of prophecy are folded up in the mystic moment +we call the present.... + +_It would come true_.... + +For one moment Romarin stood; the next, he had turned and run for his +life. + +At the corner of the street he collided with a loafer, and only the wall +saved them from going down. Feverishly Romarin plunged his hand into his +pocket and brought out a handful of silver. He crammed it into the +loafer's hand. + +"Here--quick--take it!" he gasped. "There's a man there, by that +restaurant door--he's waiting for Mr. Romarin--tell him--tell him--tell +him Mr. Romarin's had an accident--" + +And he dashed away, leaving the man looking at the silver in his palm. + + + + +THE CIGARETTE CASE + + +"A cigarette, Loder?" I said, offering my case. For the moment Loder was +not smoking; for long enough he had not been talking. + +"Thanks," he replied, taking not only the cigarette, but the case also. +The others went on talking; Loder became silent again; but I noticed +that he kept my cigarette case in his hand, and looked at it from time to +time with an interest that neither its design nor its costliness seemed +to explain. Presently I caught his eye. + +"A pretty case," he remarked, putting it down on the table. "I once had +one exactly like it." + +I answered that they were in every shop window. + +"Oh yes," he said, putting aside any question of rarity.... "I lost +mine." + +"Oh?..." + +He laughed. "Oh, that's all right--I got it back again--don't be afraid +I'm going to claim yours. But the way I lost it--found it--the whole +thing--was rather curious. I've never been able to explain it. I wonder +if you could?" + +I answered that I certainly couldn't till I'd heard it, whereupon Loder, +taking up the silver case again and holding it in his hand as he talked, +began: + +"This happened in Provence, when I was about as old as Marsham there--and +every bit as romantic. I was there with Carroll--you remember poor old +Carroll and what a blade of a boy he was--as romantic as four Marshams +rolled into one. (Excuse me, Marsham, won't you? It's a romantic tale, +you see, or at least the setting is.) ... We were in Provence, Carroll +and I; twenty-four or thereabouts; romantic, as I say; and--and this +happened. + +"And it happened on the top of a whole lot of other things, you must +understand, the things that do happen when you're twenty-four. If it +hadn't been Provence, it would have been somewhere else, I suppose, +nearly, if not quite as good; but this was Provence, that smells (as you +might say) of twenty-four as it smells of argelasse and wild lavender and +broom.... + +"We'd had the dickens of a walk of it, just with knapsacks--had started +somewhere in the Ardeche and tramped south through the vines and almonds +and olives--Montelimar, Orange, Avignon, and a fortnight at that blanched +skeleton of a town, Les Baux. We'd nothing to do, and had gone just where +we liked, or rather just where Carroll had liked; and Carroll had had the +_De Bello Gallico_ in his pocket, and had had a notion, I fancy, of +taking in the whole ground of the Roman conquest--I remember he lugged me +off to some place or other, Pourrieres I believe its name was, because--I +forget how many thousands--were killed in a river-bed there, and they +stove in the water-casks so that if the men wanted water they'd have to +go forward and fight for it. And then we'd gone on to Arles, where +Carroll had fallen in love with everything that had a bow of black +velvet in her hair, and after that Tarascon, Nimes, and so on, the usual +round--I won't bother you with that. In a word, we'd had two months of +it, eating almonds and apricots from the trees, watching the women at the +communal washing-fountains under the dark plane-trees, singing _Magali_ +and the _Que Cantes_, and Carroll yarning away all the time about Caesar +and Vercingetorix and Dante, and trying to learn Provencal so that he +could read the stuff in the _Journal des Felibriges_ that he'd never have +looked at if it had been in English.... + +"Well, we got to Darbisson. We'd run across some young chap or +other--Rangon his name was--who was a vine-planter in those parts, and +Rangon had asked us to spend a couple of days with him, with him and his +mother, if we happened to be in the neighbourhood. So as we might as +well happen to be there as anywhere else, we sent him a postcard and +went. This would be in June or early in July. All day we walked across +a plain of vines, past hurdles of wattled _cannes_ and great wind-screens +of velvety cypresses, sixty feet high, all white with dust on the north +side of 'em, for the mistral was having its three-days' revel, and it +whistled and roared through the _cannes_ till scores of yards of 'em +at a time were bowed nearly to the earth. A roaring day it was, I +remember.... But the wind fell a little late in the afternoon, and we +were poring over what it had left of our Ordnance Survey--like fools, +we'd got the unmounted paper maps instead of the linen ones--when Rangon +himself found us, coming out to meet us in a very badly turned-out trap. +He drove us back himself, through Darbisson, to the house, a mile and a +half beyond it, where he lived with his mother. + +"He spoke no English, Rangon didn't, though, of course, both French and +Provencal; and as he drove us, there was Carroll, using him as a +Franco-Provencal dictionary, peppering him with questions about the names +of things in the patois--I beg its pardon, the language--though there's +a good deal of my eye and Betty Martin about that, and I fancy this +Felibrige business will be in a good many pieces when Frederic Mistral +is under that Court-of-Love pavilion arrangement he's had put up for +himself in the graveyard at Maillanne. If the language has got to go, +well, it's got to go, I suppose; and while I personally don't want to +give it a kick, I rather sympathise with the Government. Those jaunts of +a Sunday out to Les Baux, for instance, with paper lanterns and Bengal +fire and a fellow spouting _O blanche Venus d'Arles_--they're well +enough, and compare favourably with our Bank Holidays and Sunday League +picnics, but ... but that's nothing to do with my tale after all.... So +he drove on, and by the time we got to Rangon's house Carroll had learned +the greater part of _Magali_.... + +"As you, no doubt, know, it's a restricted sort of life in some respects +that a young _vigneron_ lives in those parts, and it was as we reached +the house that Rangon remembered something--or he might have been trying +to tell us as we came along for all I know, and not been able to get a +word in edgeways for Carroll and his Provencal. It seemed that his mother +was away from home for some days--apologies of the most profound, of +course; our host was the soul of courtesy, though he did try to get at +us a bit later.... We expressed our polite regrets, naturally; but I +didn't quite see at first what difference it made. I only began to see +when Rangon, with more apologies, told us that we should have to go back +to Darbisson for dinner. It appeared that when Madame Rangon went away +for a few days she dispersed the whole of the female side of her +establishment also, and she'd left her son with nobody to look after +him except an old man we'd seen in the yard mending one of these +double-cylindered sulphur-sprinklers they clap across the horse's back +and drive between the rows of vines.... Rangon explained all this as we +stood in the hall drinking an _aperitif_--a hall crowded with oak +furniture and photographs and a cradle-like bread-crib and doors opening +to right and left to the other rooms of the ground floor. He had also, it +seemed, to ask us to be so infinitely obliging as to excuse him for one +hour after dinner--our postcard had come unexpectedly, he said, and +already he had made an appointment with his agent about the _vendange_ +for the coming autumn.... We, begged him, of course, not to allow us to +interfere with his business in the slightest degree. He thanked us a +thousand times. + +"'But though we dine in the village, we will take our own wine with us,' +he said, 'a wine _surfin_--one of my wines--you shall see--' + +"Then he showed us round his place--I forget how many hundreds of acres +of vines, and into the great building with the presses and pumps and +casks and the huge barrel they call the thunderbolt--and about seven +o'clock we walked back to Darbisson to dinner, carrying our wine with us. +I think the restaurant we dined in was the only one in the place, and our +gaillard of a host--he was a straight-backed, well-set-up chap, with +rather fine eyes--did us on the whole pretty well. His wine certainly was +good stuff, and set our tongues going.... + +"A moment ago I said a fellow like Rangon leads a restricted sort of life +in those parts. I saw this more clearly as dinner went on. We dined by an +open window, from which we could see the stream with the planks across it +where the women washed clothes during the day and assembled in the +evening for gossip. There were a dozen or so of them there as we dined, +laughing and chatting in low tones--they all seemed pretty--it was +quickly falling dusk--all the girls are pretty then, and are quite +conscious of it--_you_ know, Marsham. Behind them, at the end of the +street, one of these great cypress wind-screens showed black against the +sky, a ragged edge something like the line the needle draws on a rainfall +chart; and you could only tell whether they were men or women under the +plantains by their voices rippling and chattering and suddenly a deeper +note.... Once I heard a muffled scuffle and a sound like a kiss.... It +was then that Rangon's little trouble came out.... + +"It seemed that he didn't know any girls--wasn't allowed to know any +girls. The girls of the village were pretty enough, but you see how it +was--he'd a position to keep up--appearances to maintain--couldn't be +familiar during the year with the girls who gathered his grapes for him +in the autumn.... And as soon as Carroll gave him a chance, _he_ began to +ask _us_ questions, about England, English girls, the liberty they had, +and so on. + +"Of course, we couldn't tell him much he hadn't heard already, but that +made no difference; he could stand any amount of that, our strapping +young _vigneron_; and he asked us questions by the dozen, that we both +tried to answer at once. And his delight and envy!... What! In England +did the young men see the young women of their own class without +restraint--the sisters of their friends _meme_--even at the house? Was it +permitted that they drank tea with them in the afternoon, or went without +invitation to pass the _soiree_?... He had all the later Prevosts in his +room, he told us (I don't doubt he had the earlier ones also); Prevost +and the Disestablishment between them must be playing the mischief +with the convent system of education for young girls; and our young man +was--what d'you call it?--'Co-ed'--co-educationalist--by Jove, yes!... He +seemed to marvel that we should have left a country so blessed as England +to visit his dusty, wild-lavender-smelling, girl-less Provence.... You +don't know half your luck, Marsham.... + +"Well, we talked after this fashion--we'd left the dining-room of the +restaurant and had planted ourselves on a bench outside with Rangon +between us--when Rangon suddenly looked at his watch and said it was time +he was off to see this agent of his. Would we take a walk, he asked us, +and meet him again there? he said.... But as his agent lived in the +direction of his own home, we said we'd meet him at the house in an hour +or so. Off he went, envying every Englishman who stepped, I don't +doubt.... I told you how old--how young--we were.... Heigho!... + +"Well, off goes Rangon, and Carroll and I got up, stretched ourselves, +and took a walk. We walked a mile or so, until it began to get pretty +dark, and then turned; and it was as we came into the blackness of one of +these cypress hedges that the thing I'm telling you of happened. The +hedge took a sharp turn at that point; as we came round the angle we saw +a couple of women's figures hardly more than twenty yards ahead--don't +know how they got there so suddenly, I'm sure; and that same moment I +found my foot on something small and white and glimmering on the grass. + +"I picked it up. It was a handkerchief--a woman's--embroidered-- + +"The two figures ahead of us were walking in our direction; there was +every probability that the handkerchief belonged to one of them; so we +stepped out.... + +"At my 'Pardon, madame,' and lifted hat one of the figures turned her +head; then, to my surprise, she spoke in English--cultivated English. +I held out the handkerchief. It belonged to the elder lady of the two, +the one who had spoken, a very gentle-voiced old lady, older by very many +years than her companion. She took the handkerchief and thanked me.... + +"Somebody--Sterne, isn't it?--says that Englishmen don't travel to see +Englishmen. I don't know whether he'd stand to that in the case of +Englishwomen; Carroll and I didn't.... We were walking rather slowly +along, four abreast across the road; we asked permission to introduce +ourselves, did so, and received some name in return which, strangely +enough, I've entirely forgotten--I only remember that the ladies were +aunt and niece, and lived at Darbisson. They shook their heads when I +mentioned M. Rangon's name and said we were visiting him. They didn't +know him.... + +"I'd never been in Darbisson before, and I haven't been since, so I don't +know the map of the village very well. But the place isn't very big, +and the house at which we stopped in twenty minutes or so is probably +there yet. It had a large double door--a double door in two senses, +for it was a big _porte-cochere_ with a smaller door inside it, and an +iron grille shutting in the whole. The gentle-voiced old lady had already +taken a key from her reticule and was thanking us again for the little +service of the handkerchief; then, with the little gesture one makes when +one has found oneself on the point of omitting a courtesy, she gave a +little musical laugh. + +"'But,' she said with a little movement of invitation, 'one sees so +few compatriots here--if you have the time to come in and smoke a +cigarette ... also the cigarette,' she added, with another rippling +laugh, 'for we have few callers, and live alone--' + +"Hastily as I was about to accept, Carroll was before me, professing a +nostalgia for the sound of the English tongue that made his recent +protestations about Provencal a shameless hypocrisy. Persuasive young +rascal, Carroll Was--poor chap ... So the elder lady opened the grille +and the wooden door beyond it, and we entered. + +"By the light of the candle which the younger lady took from a bracket +just within the door we saw that we were in a handsome hall or vestibule; +and my wonder that Rangon had made no mention of what was apparently a +considerable establishment was increased by the fact that its tenants +must be known to be English and could be seen to be entirely charming. I +couldn't understand it, and I'm afraid hypotheses rushed into my head +that cast doubts on the Rangons--you know--whether _they_ were all right. +We knew nothing about our young planter, you see.... + +"I looked about me. There were tubs here and there against the walls, +gaily painted, with glossy-leaved aloes and palms in them--one of the +aloes, I remember, was flowering; a little fountain in the middle made a +tinkling noise; we put our caps on a carved and gilt console table; and +before us rose a broad staircase with shallow steps of spotless stone and +a beautiful wrought-iron handrail. At the top of the staircase were more +palms and aloes, and double doors painted in a clear grey. + +"We followed our hostesses up the staircase. I can hear yet the sharp +clean click our boots made on that hard shiny stone--see the lights of +the candle gleaming on the handrail ... The young girl--she was not much +more than a girl--pushed at the doors, and we went in. + +"The room we entered was all of a piece with the rest for rather +old-fashioned fineness. It was large, lofty, beautifully kept. Carroll +went round for Miss ... whatever her name was ... lighting candles in +sconces; and as the flames crept up they glimmered on a beautifully +polished floor, which was bare except for an Eastern rug here and there. +The elder lady had sat down in a gilt chair, Louis Fourteenth I should +say, with a striped rep of the colour of a petunia; and I really don't +know--don't smile, Smith--what induced me to lead her to it by the +finger-tips, bending over her hand for a moment as she sat down. There +was an old tambour-frame behind her chair, I remember, and a vast oval +mirror with clustered candle-brackets filled the greater part of the +farther wall, the brightest and clearest glass I've ever seen...." + +He paused, looking at my cigarette case, which he had taken into his hand +again. He smiled at some recollection or other, and it was a minute or +so before he continued. + +"I must admit that I found it a little annoying, after what we'd +been talking about at dinner an hour before, that Rangon wasn't with +us. I still couldn't understand how he could have neighbours so +charming without knowing about them, but I didn't care to insist on +this to the old lady, who for all I knew might have her own reasons +for keeping to herself. And, after all, it was our place to return +Rangon's hospitality in London if he ever came there, not, so to speak, +on his own doorstep.... So presently I forgot all about Rangon, and I'm +pretty sure that Carroll, who was talking to his companion of some +Felibrige junketing or other and having the air of Gounod's _Mireille_ +hummed softly over to him, didn't waste a thought on him either. Soon +Carroll--you remember what a pretty crooning, humming voice he had--soon +Carroll was murmuring what they call 'seconds,' but so low that the sound +hardly came across the room; and I came in with a soft bass note from +time to time. No instrument, you know; just an unaccompanied murmur no +louder than an Aeolian harp; and it sounded infinitely sweet and +plaintive and--what shall I say?--weak--attenuated--faint--'pale' you +might almost say--in that formal, rather old-fashioned _salon_, with that +great clear oval mirror throwing back the still flames of the candles in +the sconces on the walls. Outside the wind had now fallen completely; all +was very quiet; and suddenly in a voice not much louder than a sigh, +Carroll's companion was singing _Oft in the Stilly Night_--you know +it...." + +He broke off again to murmur the beginning of the air. Then, with a +little laugh for which we saw no reason, he went on again: + +"Well, I'm not going to try to convince you of such a special and +delicate thing as the charm of that hour--it wasn't more than an +hour--it would be all about an hour we stayed. Things like that just +have to be said and left; you destroy them the moment you begin to +insist on them; we've every one of us had experiences like that, and +don't say much about them. I was as much in love with my old lady as +Carroll evidently was with his young one--I can't tell you why--being +in love has just to be taken for granted too, I suppose... Marsham +understands.... We smoked our cigarettes, and sang again, once more +filling that clear-painted, quiet apartment with a murmuring no louder +than if a light breeze found that the bells of a bed of flowers were +really bells and played on 'em. The old lady moved her fingers gently +on the round table by the side of her chair,.. oh, infinitely pretty it +was.... Then Carroll wandered off into the _Que Cantes_--awfully +pretty--'It is not for myself I sing, but for my friend who is near +me'--and I can't tell you how like four old friends we were, those two +so oddly met ladies and Carroll and myself.... And so to _Oft in the +Stilly Night_ again.... + +"But for all the sweetness and the glamour of it, we couldn't stay on +indefinitely, and I wondered what time it was, but didn't ask--anything +to do with clocks and watches would have seemed a cold and mechanical +sort of thing just then.... And when presently we both got up neither +Carroll nor I asked to be allowed to call again in the morning to +thank them for a charming hour.... And they seemed to feel the same as +we did about it. There was no 'hoping that we should meet again in +London'--neither an au revoir nor a good-bye--just a tacit understanding +that that hour should remain isolated, accepted like a good gift without +looking the gift-horse in the mouth, single, unattached to any hours +before or after--I don't know whether you see what I mean.... Give me a +match somebody.... + +"And so we left, with no more than looks exchanged and finger-tips +resting between the back of our hands and our lips for a moment. We +found our way out by ourselves, down that shallow-stepped staircase with +the handsome handrail, and let ourselves out of the double door and +grille, closing it softly. We made for the village without speaking a +word.... Heigho!..." + +Loder had picked up the cigarette case again, but for all the way his +eyes rested on it I doubt whether he really saw it. I'm pretty sure he +didn't; I knew when he did by the glance he shot at me, as much as to say +"I see you're wondering where the cigarette case comes in."... He +resumed with another little laugh. + +"Well," he continued, "we got back to Rangon's house. I really don't +blame Rangon for the way he took it when we told him, you know--he +thought we were pulling his leg, of course, and he wasn't having any; not +he! There were no English ladies in Darbisson, he said.... We told him as +nearly as we could just where the house was--we weren't very precise, I'm +afraid, for the village had been in darkness as we had come through it, +and I had to admit that the cypress hedge I tried to describe where we'd +met our friends was a good deal like other cypress hedges--and, as I say, +Rangon wasn't taking any. I myself was rather annoyed that he should +think we were returning his hospitality by trying to get at him, and it +wasn't very easy either to explain in my French and Carroll's Provencal +that we were going to let the thing stand as it was and weren't going to +call on our charming friends again.... The end of it was that Rangon +just laughed and yawned.... + +"'I knew it was good, my wine,' he said, 'but--' a shrug said the rest. +'Not so good as all that,' he meant.... + +"Then he gave us our candles, showed us to our rooms, shook hands, and +marched off to his own room and the Prevosts. + +"I dreamed of my old lady half the night. + +"After coffee the next morning I put my hand into my pocket for my +cigarette case and didn't find it. I went through all my pockets, and +then I asked Carroll if he'd got it. + +"'No,' he replied.... 'Think you left it behind at that place last +night?' + +"'Yes; did you?' Rangon popped in with a twinkle. + +"I went through all my pockets again. No cigarette case.... + +"Of course, it was possible that I'd left it behind, and I was annoyed +again. I didn't want to go back, you see.... But, on the other hand, I +didn't want to lose the case--it was a present--and Rangon's smile +nettled me a good deal, too. It was both a challenge to our truthfulness +and a testimonial to that very good wine of his.... + +"'Might have done,' I grunted.... 'Well, in that case we'll go and get +it.' + +"'If one tried the restaurant first--?' Rangon suggested, smiling again. + +"'By all means,' said I stuffily, though I remembered having the case +after we'd left the restaurant. + +"We were round at the restaurant by half-past nine. The case wasn't +there. I'd known jolly well beforehand it wasn't, and I saw Rangon's +mouth twitching with amusement. + +"'So we now seek the abode of these English ladies, _hein_?' he said. + +"'Yes,' said I; and we left the restaurant and strode through the village +by the way we'd taken the evening before.... + +"That vigneron's smile became more and more irritating to me.... 'It is +then the next village?' he said presently, as we left the last house and +came out into the open plain. + +"We went back.... + +"I was irritated because we were two to one, you see, and Carroll backed +me up. 'A double door, with a grille in front of it,' he repeated for +the fiftieth time.... Rangon merely replied that it wasn't our good faith +he doubted. He didn't actually use the word 'drunk.'... + +"'_Mais tiens_,' he said suddenly, trying to conceal his mirth. '_Si +c'est possible... si c'est possible_... a double door with a grille? But +perhaps that I know it, the domicile of these so elusive ladies.... Come +this way.' + +"He took us back along a plantain-groved street, and suddenly turned up +an alley that was little more than two gutters and a crack of sky +overhead between two broken-tiled roofs. It was a dilapidated, deserted +_ruelle_, and I was positively angry when Rangon pointed to a blistered +old _porte-cochere_ with a half-unhinged railing in front of it. + +"'Is it that, your house?' he asked. + +"'No,' says I, and 'No,' says Carroll ... and off we started again.... + +"But another half-hour brought us back to the same place, and Carroll +scratched his head. + +"'Who lives there, anyway?' he said, glowering at the _porte-cochere_, +chin forward, hands in pockets. + +"'Nobody,' says Rangon, as much as to say 'look at it!' 'M'sieu then +meditates taking it?'... + +"Then I struck in, quite out of temper by this time. + +"'How much would the rent be?' I asked, as if I really thought of taking +the place just to get back at him. + +"He mentioned something ridiculously small in the way of francs. + +"'One might at least see the place,' says I. 'Can the key be got?' + +"He bowed. The key was at the baker's, not a hundred yards away, he +said.... + +"We got the key. It was the key of the inner wooden door--that grid of +rusty iron didn't need one--it came clean off its single hinge when +Carroll touched it. Carroll opened, and we stood for a moment motioning +to one another to step in. Then Rangon went in first, and I heard him +murmur 'Pardon, Mesdames.'... + +"Now this is the odd part. We passed into a sort of vestibule or hall, +with a burst lead pipe in the middle of a dry tank in the centre of it. +There was a broad staircase rising in front of us to the first floor, and +double doors just seen in the half-light at the head of the stairs. Old +tubs stood against the walls, but the palms and aloes in them were +dead--only a cabbage-stalk or two--and the rusty hoops lay on the ground +about them. One tub had come to pieces entirely and was no more than a +heap of staves on a pile of spilt earth. And everywhere, everywhere was +dust--the floor was an inch deep in dust and old plaster that muffled our +footsteps, cobwebs hung like old dusters on the walls, a regular goblin's +tatter of cobwebs draped the little bracket inside the door, and the +wrought-iron of the hand-rail was closed up with webs in which not even a +spider moved. The whole thing was preposterous.... + +"'It is possible that for even a less rental--' + +"Rangon murmured, dragging his forefinger across the hand-rail and +leaving an inch-deep furrow.... + +"'Come upstairs,' said I suddenly.... + +"Up we went. All was in the same state there. A clutter of stuff came +down as I pushed at the double doors of the _salon_, and I had to strike +a stinking French sulphur match to see into the room at all. Underfoot +was like walking on thicknesses of flannel, and except where we put +our feet the place was as printless as a snowfield--dust, dust, unbroken +grey dust. My match burned down.... + +"'Wait a minute--I've a _bougie_,' said Carroll, and struck the wax +match.... + +"There were the old sconces, with never a candle-end in them. There was +the large oval mirror, but hardly reflecting Carroll's match for the +dust on it. And the broken chairs were there, all gutless, and the +rickety old round table.... + +"But suddenly I darted forward. Something new and bright on the table +twinkled with the light of Carroll's match. The match went out, and by +the time Carroll had lighted another I had stopped. I wanted Rangon to +see what was on the table.... + +"'You'll see by my footprints how far from that table _I've_ been,' I +said. 'Will you pick it up?' + +"And Rangon, stepping forward, picked up from the middle of the table--my +cigarette case." + + * * * * * + +Loder had finished. Nobody spoke. For quite a minute nobody spoke, and +then Loder himself broke the silence, turning to me. + +"Make anything of it?" he said. + +I lifted my eyebrows. "Only your _vigneron's_ explanation--" I began, but +stopped again, seeing that wouldn't do. + +"_Any_body make anything of it?" said Loder, turning from one to another. + +I gathered from Smith's face that he thought one thing might be made of +it--namely, that Loder had invented the whole tale. But even Smith +didn't speak. + +"Were any English ladies ever found to have lived in the place--murdered, +you know--bodies found and all that?" young Marsham asked diffidently, +yearning for an obvious completeness. + +"Not that we could ever learn," Loder replied. "We made inquiries +too.... So you all give it up? Well, so do I...." + +And he rose. As he walked to the door, myself following him to get his +hat and stick, I heard him humming softly the lines--they are from +_Oft in the Stilly Night_-- + +"_I seem like one who treads alone + Some banquet-hall deserted, +Whose guests are fled, whose garlands dead, + And all but he--departed!_" + + + + +THE ROCKER + + +I + +There was little need for the swart gipsies to explain, as they stood +knee-deep in the snow round the bailiff of the Abbey Farm, what it +was that had sent them. The unbroken whiteness of the uplands told that, +and, even as they spoke, there came up the hill the dark figures of the +farm men with shovels, on their way to dig out the sheep. In the summer, +the bailiff would have been the first to call the gipsies vagabonds +and roost-robbers; now ... they had women with them too. + +"The hares and foxes were down four days ago, and the liquid-manure pumps +like a snow man," the bailiff said.... "Yes, you can lie in the laithes +and welcome--if you can find 'em. Maybe you'll help us find our sheep +too--" + +The gipsies had done so. Coming back again, they had had some ado to +discover the spot where their three caravans made a hummock of white +against a broken wall. + +The women--they had four women with them--began that afternoon to weave +the mats and baskets they hawked from door to door; and in the forenoon +of the following day one of them, the black-haired, soft-voiced quean +whom the bailiff had heard called Annabel, set her babe in the sling on +her back, tucked a bundle of long cane-loops under her oxter, and trudged +down between eight-foot walls of snow to the Abbey Farm. She stood in the +latticed porch, dark and handsome against the whiteness, and then, +advancing, put her head into the great hall-kitchen. + +"Has the lady any chairs for the gipsy woman to mend?" she asked in a +soft and insinuating voice.... + +They brought her the old chairs; she seated herself on a box in the +porch; and there she wove the strips of cane in and out, securing each +one with a little wooden peg and a tap of her hammer. The child remained +in the sling at her back, taking the breast from time to time over her +shoulder; and the silver wedding ring could be seen as she whipped the +cane, back and forth. + +As she worked, she cast curious glances into the old hall-kitchen. The +snow outside cast a pallid, upward light on the heavy ceiling-beams; this +was reflected in the polished stone floor; and the children, who at first +had shyly stopped their play, seeing the strange woman in the porch--the +nearest thing they had seen to gipsies before had been the old itinerant +glazier with his frame of glass on his back--resumed it, but still eyed +her from time to time. In the ancient walnut chair by the hearth sat the +old, old lady who had told them to bring the chairs. Her hair, almost +as white as the snow itself, was piled up on her head _a la Marquise_; +she was knitting; but now and then she allowed the needle in the little +wooden sheath at her waist to lie idle, closed her eyes, and rocked +softly in the old walnut chair. + +"Ask the woman who is mending the chairs whether she is warm enough +there," the old lady said to one of the children; and the child went +to the porch with the message. + +"Thank you, little missie--thank you, lady dear--Annabel is quite warm," +said the soft voice; and the child returned to the play. + +It was a childish game of funerals at which the children played. The hand +of Death, hovering over the dolls, had singled out Flora, the +articulations of whose sawdust body were seams and whose boots were +painted on her calves of fibrous plaster. For the greater solemnity, the +children had made themselves sweeping trains of the garments of their +elders, and those with cropped curls had draped their heads with shawls, +the fringes of which they had combed out with their fingers to simulate +hair--long hair, such as Sabrina, the eldest, had hanging so low down +her back that she could almost sit on it. A cylindrical-bodied horse, +convertible (when his flat head came out of its socket) into a +locomotive, headed the sad _cortege_; then came the defunct Flora; then +came Jack, the raffish sailor doll, with other dolls; and the children +followed with hushed whisperings. + +The youngest of the children passed the high-backed walnut chair in which +the old lady sat. She stopped. + +"Aunt Rachel--" she whispered, slowly and gravely opening very wide and +closing very tight her eyes. + +"Yes, dear?" + +"Flora's dead!" + +The old lady, when she smiled, did so less with her lips than with her +faded cheeks. So sweet was her face that you could not help wondering, +when you looked on it, how many men had also looked upon it and loved it. +Somehow, you never wondered how many of them had been loved in return. + +"I'm so sorry, dear," Aunt Rachel, who in reality was a great-aunt, said. +"What did she die of this time?" + +"She died of ... Brown Titus ... 'n now she's going to be buried in a +grave as little as her bed." + +"In a what, dear?" + +"As little ... dread ... as little as my bed ... you say it, Sabrina." + +"She means, Aunt Rachel, + +"_Teach me to live that I may dread +The Grave as little as my bed,_" + +Sabrina, the eldest, interpreted. + +"Ah!... But won't you play at cheerful things, dears?" + +"Yes, we will, presently, Aunt Rachel; gee up, horse!... Shall we go and +ask the chair-woman if she's warm enough?" + +"Do, dears." + +Again the message was taken, and this time it seemed as if Annabel, the +gipsy, was not warm enough, for she gathered up her loops of cane and +brought the chair she was mending a little way into the hall-kitchen +itself. She sat down on the square box they used to cover the sewing +machine. + +"Thank you, lady dear," she murmured, lifting her handsome almond eyes to +Aunt Rachel. Aunt Rachel did not see the long, furtive, curious glance. +Her own eyes were closed, as if she was tired; her cheeks were smiling; +one of them had dropped a little to one shoulder, as it might have +dropped had she held in her arms a babe; and she was rocking, softly, +slowly, the rocker of the chair making a little regular noise on the +polished floor. + +The gipsy woman beckoned to one of the children. + +"Tell the lady, when she wakes, that I will tack a strip of felt to the +rocker, and then it will make no noise at all," said the low and +wheedling voice; and the child retired again. + +The interment of Flora proceeded.... + +An hour later Flora had taken up the burden of Life again. It was as +Angela, the youngest, was chastising her for some offence, that Sabrina, +the eldest, looked with wondering eyes on the babe in the gipsy's sling. +She approached on tiptoe. + +"May I look at it, please?" she asked timidly. + +The gipsy set one shoulder forward, and Sabrina put the shawl gently +aside, peering at the dusky brown morsel within. + +"Sometime, perhaps--if I'm very careful--" + +Sabrina ventured diffidently, "--if I'm _very_ careful--may I hold it?" + +Before replying, the gipsy once more turned her almond eyes towards Aunt +Rachel's chair. Aunt Rachel had been awakened for the conclusion of +Flora's funeral, but her eyes were closed again now, and once more her +cheek was dropped in that tender suggestive little gesture, and she +rocked. But you could see that she was not properly asleep.... It was, +somehow, less to Sabrina, still peering at the babe in the sling, than to +Aunt Rachel, apparently asleep, that the gipsy seemed to reply. + +"You'll know some day, little missis, that a wean knows its own pair of +arms," her seductive voice came. + +And Aunt Rachel heard. She opened her eyes with a start. The little +regular noise of the rocker ceased. She turned her head quickly; +tremulously she began to knit again; and, as her eyes rested on the +sidelong eyes of the gipsy woman, there was an expression in them that +almost resembled fright. + + +II + +They began to deck the great hall-kitchen for Christmas, but the snow +still lay thick over hill and valley, and the gipsies' caravans remained +by the broken wall where the drifts had overtaken them. Though all the +chairs were mended, Annabel still came daily to the farm, sat on the box +they used to cover the sewing machine, and wove mats. As she wove them, +Aunt Rachel knitted, and from time to time fragments of talk passed +between the two women. It was always the white-haired lady who spoke +first, and Annabel made all sorts of salutes and obeisances with her eyes +before replying. + +"I have not seen your husband," Aunt Rachel said to Annabel one day. (The +children at the other end of the apartment had converted a chest into an +altar, and were solemnising the nuptials of the resurrected Flora and +Jack, the raffish sailor-doll.) + +Annabel made roving play with her eyes. "He is up at the caravans, lady +dear," she replied. "Is there anything Annabel can bid him do?" + +"Nothing, thank you," said Aunt Rachel. + +For a minute the gipsy watched Aunt Rachel, and then she got up from the +sewing machine box and crossed the floor. She leaned so close towards her +that she had to put up a hand to steady the babe at her back. + +"Lady dear," she murmured with irresistible softness, "your husband died, +didn't he?" + +On Aunt Rachel's finger was a ring, but it was not a wedding ring. It was +a hoop of pearls. + +"I have never had a husband," she said. + +The gipsy glanced at the ring. "Then that is--?" + +"That is a betrothal ring," Aunt Rachel replied. + +"Ah!..." said Annabel. + +Then, after a minute, she drew still closer. Her eyes were fixed on Aunt +Rachel's, and the insinuating voice was very low. + +"Ah!... And did _it_ die too, lady dear?" + +Again came that quick, half-affrighted look into Aunt Rachel's face. Her +eyes avoided those of the gipsy, sought them, and avoided them again. + +"Did what die?" she asked slowly and guardedly.... + +The child at the gipsy's back did not need suck; nevertheless, Annabel's +fingers worked at her bosom, and she moved the sling. As the child +settled, Annabel gave Aunt Rachel a long look. + +"Why do you rock?" she asked slowly. + +Aunt Rachel was trembling. She did not reply. In a voice soft as sliding +water the gipsy continued: + +"Lady dear, we are a strange folk to you, and even among us there are +those who shuffle the pack of cards and read the palm when silver has +been put upon it, knowing nothing... But some of us _see_--some of us +_see_." + +It was more than a minute before Aunt Rachel spoke. + +"You are a woman, and you have your babe at your breast now.... Every +woman sees the thing you speak of." + +But the gipsy shook her head. "You speak of seeing with the heart. I +speak of eyes--these eyes." + +Again came a long pause. Aunt Rachel had given a little start, but had +become quiet again. When at last she spoke it was in a voice scarcely +audible. + +"That cannot be. I know what you mean, but it cannot be.... He died +on the eve of his wedding. For my bridal clothes they made me black +garments instead. It is long ago, and now I wear neither black nor white, +but--" her hands made a gesture. Aunt Rachel always dressed as if to suit +a sorrow that Time had deprived of bitterness, in such a tender and +fleecy grey as one sees in the mists that lie like lawn over hedgerow +and copse early of a midsummer's morning. "Therefore," she resumed, "your +heart may see, but your eyes cannot see that which never was." + +But there came a sudden note of masterfulness into the gipsy's voice. + +"With my eyes--_these_ eyes," she repeated, pointing to them. + +Aunt Rachel kept her own eyes obstinately on her knitting needles. "None +except I have seen it. It is not to be seen," she said. + +The gipsy sat suddenly erect. + +"It is not so. Keep still in your chair," she ordered, "and I will tell +you when--" + +It was a curious thing that followed. As if all the will went out of +her, Aunt Rachel sat very still; and presently her hands fluttered and +dropped. The gipsy sat with her own hands folded over the mat on her +knees. Several minutes passed; then, slowly, once more that sweetest of +smiles stole over Aunt Rachel's cheeks. Once more her head dropped. Her +hands moved. Noiselessly on the rockers that the gipsy had padded with +felt the chair began to rock. Annabel lifted one hand. + +"_Dovo se li_" she said. "It is there." + +Aunt Rachel did not appear to hear her. With that ineffable smile still +on her face, she rocked.... + +Then, after some minutes, there crossed her face such a look as visits +the face of one who, waking from sleep, strains his faculties to +recapture some blissful and vanishing vision.... + +"_Jal_--it is gone," said the gipsy woman. + +Aunt Rachel opened her eyes again. She repeated dully after Annabel: + +"It is gone." + +"Ghosts," the gipsy whispered presently, "are of the dead. Therefore it +must have lived." + +But again Aunt Rachel shook her head. "It never lived." + +"You were young, and beautiful?..." + +Still the shake of the head. "He died on the eve of his wedding. They +took my white garments away and gave me black ones. How then could +it have lived?" + +"Without the kiss, no.... But sometimes a woman will lie through her +life, and at the graveside still will lie.... Tell me the truth." + +But they were the same words that Aunt Rachel repeated: "He died on the +eve of his wedding; they took away my wedding garments...." From her lips +a lie could hardly issue. The gipsy's face became grave.... + +She broke another long silence. + +"I believe," she said at last. "It is a new kind--but no more wonderful +than the other. The other I have seen, now I have seen this also. Tell +me, does it come to any other chair?" + +"It was his chair; he died in it," said Aunt Rachel. + +"And you--shall you die in it?" + +"As God wills." + +"Has ... _other life_ ... visited it long?" + +"Many years; but it is always small; it never grows." + +"To their mothers babes never grow. They remain ever babes.... None other +has ever seen it?" + +"Except yourself, none. I sit here; presently it creeps into my arms; it +is small and warm; I rock, and then... it goes." + +"Would it come to another chair?" + +"I cannot tell. I think not. It was his chair." + +Annabel mused. At the other end of the room Flora was now bestowed on +Jack, the disreputable sailor. The gipsy's eyes rested on the bridal +party.... + +"Yet another might see it--" + +"None has." + +"No; but yet.... The door does not always shut behind us suddenly. +Perhaps one who has toddled but a step or two over the threshold might, +by looking back, catch a glimpse.... What is the name of the smallest +one?" + +"Angela." + +"That means 'angel'... Look, the doll who died yesterday is now being +married.... It may be that Life has not yet sealed the little one's eyes. +Will you let Annabel ask her if she sees what it is you hold in your +arms?" + +Again the voice was soft and wheedling.... + +"No, Annabel," said Aunt Rachel faintly. + +"Will you rock again?" + +Aunt Rachel made no reply. + +"Rock..." urged the cajoling voice. + +But Aunt Rachel only turned the betrothal ring on her finger. Over at the +altar Jack was leering at his new-made bride, past decency; and little +Angela held the wooden horse's head, which had parted from its body. + +"Rock, and comfort yourself--" tempted the voice. + +Then slowly Aunt Rachel rose from her chair. + +"No, Annabel," she said gently. "You should not have spoken. When the +snow melts you will go, and come no more; why then did you speak? It was +mine. It was not meant to be seen by another. I no longer want it. Please +go." + +The swarthy woman turned her almond eyes on her once more. + +"You cannot live without it," she said as she also rose.... + +And as Jack and his bride left the church on the reheaded horse, Aunt +Rachel walked with hanging head from the apartment. + + +III + +Thenceforward, as day followed day, Aunt Rachel rocked no more; and with +the packing and partial melting of the snow the gipsies up at the +caravans judged it time to be off about their business. It was on the +morning of Christmas Eve that they came down in a body to the Abbey +Farm to express their thanks to those who had befriended them; but the +bailiff was not there. He and the farm men had ceased work, and were +down at the church, practising the carols. Only Aunt Rachel sat, still +and knitting, in the black walnut chair; and the children played on the +floor. + +A night in the toy-box had apparently bred discontent between Jack +and Flora--or perhaps they sought to keep their countenances before +the world; at any rate, they sat on opposite sides of the room, Jack +keeping boon company with the lead soldiers, his spouse reposing, her +lead-balanced eyes closed, in the broken clockwork motor-car. With the +air of performing some vaguely momentous ritual, the children were +kissing one another beneath the bunch of mistletoe that hung from the +centre beam. In the intervals of kissing they told one another in +whispers that Aunt Rachel was not very well, and Angela woke Flora to +tell her that Aunt Rachel had Brown Titus also. + +"Stay you here; I will give the lady dear our thanks," said Annabel to +the group of gipsies gathered about the porch; and she entered the +great hall-kitchen. She approached the chair in which Aunt Rachel sat. + +There was obeisance in the bend of her body, but command in her long +almond eyes, as she spoke. + +"Lady dear, you must rock or you cannot live." + +Aunt Rachel did not look up from her work. + +"Rocking, I should not live long," she replied. + +"We are leaving you." + +"All leave me." + +"Annabel fears she has taken away your comfort." + +"Only for a little while. The door closes behind us, but it opens again." + +"But for that little time, rock--" + +Aunt Rachel shook her head. + +"No. It is finished. Another has seen.... Say good-bye to your +companions; they are very welcome to what they have had; and God speed +you." + +"They thank you, lady dear.... Will you not forget that Annabel saw, and +rock?" + +"No more." + +Annabel stooped and kissed the hand that bore the betrothal hoop of +pearls. The other hand Aunt Rachel placed for a moment upon the smoky +head of the babe in the sling. It trembled as it rested there, but the +tremor passed, and Annabel, turning once at the porch, gave her a last +look. Then she departed with her companions. + +That afternoon, Jack and Flora had shaken down to wedlock as married +folk should, and sat together before the board spread with the dolls' +tea-things. The pallid light in the great hall-kitchen faded; the candles +were lighted; and then the children, first borrowing the stockings of +their elders to hang at the bed's foot, were packed off early--for it was +the custom to bring them down again at midnight for the carols. Aunt +Rachel had their good-night kisses, not as she had them every night, but +with the special ceremony of the mistletoe. + +Other folk, grown folk, sat with Aunt Rachel that evening; but the old +walnut chair did not move upon its rockers. There was merry talk, but +Aunt Rachel took no part in it. The board was spread with ale and cheese +and spiced loaf for the carol-singers; and the time drew near for their +coming. + +When at midnight, faintly on the air from the church below, there came +the chiming of Christmas morning, all bestirred themselves. + +"They'll be here in a few minutes," they said; "somebody go and bring the +children down;" and within a very little while subdued noises were heard +outside, and the lifting of the latch of the yard gate. The children were +in their nightgowns, hardly fully awake; a low voice outside was heard +giving orders; and then there arose on the night the carol. + +"Hush!" they said to the wondering children; "listen!..." + +It was the Cherry Tree Carol that rose outside, of how sweet Mary, the +Queen of Galilee, besought Joseph to pluck the cherries for her Babe, and +Joseph refused; and the voices of the singers, that had begun +hesitatingly, grew strong and loud and free. + +"... and Joseph wouldn't pluck the cherries," somebody was whispering to +the tiny Angela.... + +"_Mary said to Cherry Tree, + 'Bow down to my knee, +That I may pluck cherries + For my Babe and me._'" + +the carollers sang; and "Now listen, darling," the one who held Angela +murmured.... + +"_The uppermost spray then + Bowed down to her knee; +'Thus you may see, Joseph, + These cherries are for me.' + +"'O, eat your cherries, Mary, + Give them your Babe now; +O, eat your cherries, Mary, + That grew upon the bough._'" + +The little Angela, within the arms that held her, murmured, "It's the +gipsies, isn't it, mother?" + +"No, darling. The gipsies have gone. It's the carol-singers, singing +because Jesus was born." + +"But, mother ... it _is_ the gipsies, isn't it?... 'Cos look..." + +"Look where?" + +"At Aunt Rachel, mother ... The gipsy woman wouldn't go without her +little baby, would she?" + +"No, she wouldn't do that." + +"Then has she _lent_ it to Aunt Rachel, like I lend my new toys +sometimes?" + +The mother glanced across at Aunt Rachel, and then gathered the +night-gowned figure more closely. + +"The darling's only half awake," she murmured.... "Poor Aunt Rachel's +sleepy too...." + +Aunt Rachel, her head dropped, her hands lightly folded as if about some +shape that none saw but herself, her face again ineffable with that +sweet and peaceful smile, was once more rocking softly in her chair. + + + + +HIC JACET + +A TALE OF ARTISTIC CONSCIENCE + +INTRODUCTION + + +As I lighted my guests down the stairs of my Chelsea lodgings, turned up +the hall gas that they might see the steps at the front door, and shook +hands with them, I bade them good night the more heartily that I was glad +to see their backs. Lest this should seem but an inhospitable confession, +let me state, first, that they had invited themselves, dropping in in +ones and twos until seven or eight of them had assembled in my garret, +and, secondly, that I was rather extraordinarily curious to know why, at +close on midnight, the one I knew least well of all had seen fit to +remain after the others had taken their departure. To these two +considerations I must add a third, namely, that I had become tardily +conscious that, if Andriaovsky had not lingered of himself, I should +certainly have asked him to do so. + +It was to nothing more than a glance, swift and momentary, directed by +Andriaovsky to myself while the others had talked, that I traced this +desire to see more of the little Polish painter; but a glance derives its +import from the circumstance under which it is given. That rapid turning +of his eyes in my direction an hour before had held a hundred questions, +implications, criticisms, incredulities, condemnations. It had been one +of those uncovenanted gestures that hold the promise of the treasures of +an eternal friendship. I wondered as I turned down the gas again and +remounted the stairs what personal message and reproach in it had lumped +me in with the others; and by the time I had reached my own door again a +phrase had fitted itself in my mind to that quick, ironical turning of +Andriaovsky's eyes: _"Et tu, Brute!..."_ + +He was standing where I had left him, his small shabby figure in the +attitude of a diminutive colossus on my hearthrug. About him were the +recently vacated chairs, solemnly and ridiculously suggestive of still +continuing the high and choice conversation that had lately finished. The +same fancy had evidently taken Andriaovsky, for he was turning from chair +to chair, his head a little on one side, mischievously and aggravatingly +smiling. As one of them, the deep wicker chair that Jamison had occupied, +suddenly gave a little creak of itself, as wicker will when released from +a strain, his smile broadened to a grin. I had been on the point of +sitting down in that chair, but I changed my mind and took another. + +"That's right," said Andriaovsky, in that wonderful English which he had +picked up in less than three years, "don't sit in the wisdom-seat; you +might profane it." + +I knew what he meant. I felt for my pipe and slowly filled it, not +replying. Then, slowly wagging his head from side to side, with his eyes +humorously and banteringly on mine, he uttered the very words I had +mentally associated with that glance of his. + +_"Et tu, Brute!"_ he said, wagging away, so that with each wag the lenses +of his spectacles caught the light of the lamp on the table. + +I too smiled as I felt for a match. + +"It _was_ rather much, wasn't it?" I said. + +But he suddenly stopped his wagging, and held up a not very clean +forefinger. His whole face was altogether too confoundedly intelligent. + +"Oh no, you don't!" he said peremptorily. "No getting out of it like +that the moment they've turned their backs! No running--what is it?--no +running with the hare and hunting with the hounds! _You_ helped, you +know!" + +I confess I fidgeted a little. + +"But hang it all, what could I do? They were in my place," I broke out. + +He chuckled, enjoying my discomfiture. Then his eyes fell on those absurd +and solemn chairs again. + +"Look at 'em--the Art Shades in conference!" he chuckled. "That +rush-seated one, it was talking half an hour ago about 'Scherzos in +Silver and Grey!' ... Nice, fresh green stuff!" + +To shut him up I told him that he would find cigarettes and tobacco on +the table. + +"'Scherzos in Silver and Grey'!" he chuckled again as he took a +cigarette.... + +All this, perhaps, needs some explanation. It had been the usual thing, +usual in those days, twenty years ago--smarming about Art and the Arts +and so forth. They--"we," as apparently Andriaovsky had lingered behind +for the purpose of reminding me--had perhaps talked a little more +soaringly than the ordinary, that was all. There had been Jamison in the +wicker chair, full to the lips and running over with the Colour +Suggestions of the late Edward Calvert; Gibbs, in a pulpy state of +adoration of the less legitimate side of the painting of Watts; and +Magnani, who had advanced that an Essential Oneness underlies all the +Arts, and had triumphantly proved his thesis by analogy with the Law of +the Co-relation of Forces. A book called Music and Morals had appeared +about that time, and on it they--we--had risen to regions of kite-high +lunacy about Colour Symphonies, orgies of formless colour thrown on a +magic-lantern screen--vieux jeu enough at this time of day. A young +newspaper man, too, had made mental notes of our adjectives, for use in +his weekly (I nearly spelt it "weakly") half-column of Art Criticism; +and--and here was Andriaovsky, grinning at the chairs, and mimicking +it all with diabolical glee. + +"'Scherzos in Silver and Grey'--'Word Pastels'--' Lyrics in Stone!'" +he chuckled. "And what was it the fat fellow said?' A Siren Song in +Marble!' Phew!... Well, I'll get along. I shall just be in time to get +a pint of bitter to wash it all down if I'm quick... Bah!" he broke out +suddenly. "Good men build up Form and Forms--keep the Arts each after +its kind--raise up the dikes so that we shan't all be swept away by night +and nothingness--and these rats come nosing and burrowing and undermining +it all!... _Et tu, Brute!_" + +"Well, when you've finished rubbing it in--" I grunted. + +"As if _you_ didn't know better!... Is that your way of getting back on +'em, now that you've chucked drawing and gone in for writing books? +Phew I... Well, I'll go and get my pint of beer--" + +But he didn't go for his pint of beer. Instead, he began to prowl about +my room, pryingly, nosingly, touching things here and there. I watched +him as he passed from one thing to another. He was very little, and very, +very shabby. His trousers were frayed, and the sole of one of his boots +flapped distressingly. His old bowler hat--he had not thought it +necessary to wait until he got outside before thrusting it on the back of +his head--was so limp in substance that I verily believed that had he run +incautiously downstairs he would have found when he got to the bottom +that its crown had sunk in of its own weight. In spite of his remark +about the pint of beer, I doubt if he had the price of one in his pocket. + +"What's this, Brutus--a concertina?" he suddenly asked, stopping before +the collapsible case in which I kept my rather old dress suit. + +I told him what it was, and he hoisted up his shoulders. + +"And these things?" he asked, moving to something else. + +They were a pair of boot-trees of which I had permitted myself the +economy. I remember they cost me four shillings in the old Brompton +Road. + +"And that's your bath, I suppose.... Dumb-bells too.... And--_oh, good +Lord!_..." + +He had picked up, and dropped again as if it had been hot, somebody or +other's card with the date of a "day" written across the corner of it.... + +As I helped him on with his overcoat he made no secret of the condition +of its armholes and lining. I don't for one moment suppose that the +garment was his. I took a candle to light him down as soon as it should +please him to depart. + +"Well, so long, and joy to you on the high road to success," he said with +another grin for which I could have bundled him down the stairs.... + +In later days I never looked to Andriaovsky for tact; but I stared at him +for his lack of it that night. And as I stared I noticed for the first +time the broad and low pylon of his forehead, his handsome mouth and +chin, and the fire and wit and scorn that smouldered behind his cheap +spectacles. I looked again; and his smallness, his malice, his pathetic +little braggings about his poverty, seemed all to disappear. He had +strolled back to my hearthrug, wishing, I have no doubt now, to be able +to exclaim suddenly that it was too late for the pint of beer for which +he hadn't the money, and to curse his luck; and the pigmy quality of his +colossusship had somehow gone. + +As I watched him, a neighbouring clock struck the half-hour, and he +did even as I had surmised--cursed the closing time of the English +public-houses.... + +I lighted him down. For one moment, under the hall gas, he almost dropped +his jesting manner. + +"You _do_ know better, Harrison, you know," he said. "But, of course, +you're going to be a famous author in almost no time. Oh, _ca se +voit_! No garrets for _you_! It was a treat,' the way you handled those +fellows--really ... Well don't forget us others when you're up there--I +may want you to write my 'Life' some day...." + +I heard the slapping of the loose sole as he shuffled down the path. At +the gate he turned for a moment. + +"Good night, Brutus," he called. + +When I had mounted to my garret again my eyes fell once more on that +ridiculous assemblage of empty chairs, all solemnly talking to one +another. I burst out into a laugh. Then I undressed, put my jacket on the +hanger, took the morrow's boots from the trees and treed those I had +removed, changed the pair of trousers under my mattress, and went, still +laughing at the chairs, to bed. + +This was Michael Andriaovsky, the Polish painter, who died four weeks +ago. + + +I + +I knew the reason of Maschka's visit the moment she was announced. Even +in the stressful moments of the funeral she had found time to whisper to +me that she hoped to call upon me at an early date. I dismissed the +amanuensis to whom I was dictating the last story of the fourth series of +_Martin Renard_, gave a few hasty instructions to my secretary, and told +the servant to show Miss Andriaovsky into the drawing-room, to ask her +to be so good as to excuse me for five minutes, to order tea at once, and +then to bring my visitor up to the library. + +A few minutes later she was shown into the room. + +She was dressed in the same plainly cut costume of dead black she +had worn at the funeral, and had pushed up her heavy veil over the +close-fitting cap of black fur that accentuated her Sclavonic appearance. +I noticed again with distress the pallor of her face and the bistred +rings that weeks of nursing had put under her dark eyes. I noticed also +her resemblance, in feature and stature, to her brother. I placed a chair +for her; the tea-tray followed her in; and without more than a murmured +greeting she peeled off her gloves and prepared to preside at the tray. + +She had filled the cups, and I had handed her toast, before she spoke. +Then: + +"I suppose you know what I've come about," she said. + +I nodded. + +"Long, long ago you promised it. Nobody else can do it. The only question +is 'when.'" + +"That's the only question," I agreed. + +"We, naturally," she continued, after a glance in which her eyes mutely +thanked me for my implied promise, "are anxious that it should be as soon +as possible; but, of course--I shall quite understand--" + +She gave a momentary glance round my library. I helped her out. + +"You mean that I'm a very important person nowadays, and that you're +afraid to trespass on my time. Never mind that. I shall find time +for this. But tell me before we go any further exactly how you stand and +precisely what it is you expect." + +Briefly she did so. It did not in the least surprise me to learn that her +brother had died penniless. + +"And if you hadn't undertaken the 'Life,'" she said, "he might just as +well not have worked in poverty all these years. You can, at least, see +to his fame." + +I nodded again gravely, and ruminated for a moment. Then I spoke. + +"I can write it, fully and in detail, up to five years ago," I said. "You +know what happened then. I tried my best to help him, but he never would +let me. Tell me, Maschka, why he wouldn't sell me that portrait." + +I knew instantly, from her quick confusion, that her brother had spoken +to her about the portrait he had refused to sell me, and had probably +told her the reason for his refusal. I watched her as she evaded the +question as well as she could. + +"You know how--queer--he was about who he sold his things to. And as for +those five years in which you saw less of him, Schofield will tell you +all you want to know." + +I relinquished the point. "Who's Schofield?" I asked instead. + +"He was a very good friend of Michael's--of both of us. You can talk +quite freely to him. I want to say at the beginning that I should like +him to be associated with you in this." + +I don't know how I divined on the spot her relation to Schofield, whoever +he was. She told me that he too was a painter. + +"Michael thought very highly of his things," she said. + +"I don't know them," I replied. + +"You probably wouldn't," she returned.... + +But I caught the quick drop of her eyes from their brief excursion round +my library, and I felt something within me stiffen a little. It did not +need Maschka Andriaovsky to remind me that I had not attained my position +without--let us say--splitting certain differences; the looseness of +the expression can be corrected hereafter. Life consists very largely of +compromises. You doubtless know my name, whichever country or hemisphere +you happen to live in, as that of the creator of Martin Renard, the +famous and popular detective; and I was not at that moment disposed to +apologise, either to Maschka or Schofield or anybody else, for having +written the stories at the bidding of a gaping public. The moment the +public showed that it wanted something better I was prepared to give it. +In the meantime, I sat in my very comfortable library, securely shielded +from distress by my balance at my banker's. + +"Well," I said after a moment, "let's see how we stand. And first +as to what you're likely to get out of this. It goes without saying, +of course, that by writing the 'Life' I can get you any amount of +'fame'--advertisement, newspaper talk, and all the things that, it struck +me, Michael always treated with especial scorn. My name alone, I say, +will do that. But for anything else I'm by no means so sure. You see," I +explained, "it doesn't follow that because I can sell hundreds of +thousands of... you know what... that I can sell anything I've a mind to +sign." I said it, confident that she had not lived all those years with +her brother without having learned the axiomatic nature of it. To my +discomfiture, she began to talk like a callow student. + +"I should have thought that it followed that if you could sell +something--" she hesitated only for a moment, then courageously gave the +other stuff its proper adjective, "--something rotten, you could have +sold something good when you had the chance." + +"Then if you thought that you were wrong," I replied briefly and +concisely. + +"_Michael_ couldn't, of course," she said, putting Michael out of the +question with a little wave of her hand, "because Michael was--I mean, +Michael wasn't a business man. You are." + +"I'm speaking as one," I replied. "I don't waste time in giving people +what they don't want. That is business. I don't undertake your brother's +'Life' as a matter of business, but as an inestimable privilege. I +repeat, it doesn't follow that the public will buy it." + +"But--but--" she stammered, "the public will buy a _Pill_ if they see +your name on the testimonial!" + +"A Pill--yes," I said sadly.... Genius and a Pill were, alas, different +things. "But," I added more cheerfully, "you can never tell what the +public will do. They _might_ buy it--there's no telling except by +trying--" + +"Well, Schofield thinks they will," she informed me with decision. + +"I dare say he does, if he's an artist. They mostly do," I replied. + +"He doesn't think Michael will ever be popular," she emphasised the +adjective slightly, "but he does think he has a considerable following if +they could only be discovered." + +I sighed. All artists think that. They will accept any compromise except +the one that is offered to them.... I tried to explain to Maschka that in +this world we have to stand to the chances of all or nothing. + +"You've got to be one thing or the other--I don't know that it matters +very much which," I said. "There's Michael's way, and there's... mine. +That's all. However, we'll try it. All you can say to me, and more, I'll +say to a publisher for you. But he'll probably wink at me." + +For a moment she was silent. Then she said: "Schofield rather fancies one +publisher." + +"Oh? Who's he?" I asked. + +She mentioned a name. If I knew anything at all of business she might as +well have offered _The Life of Michael Andriaovsky_ to The Religious +Tract Society at once.... + +"Hm!... And has Mr. Schofield any other suggestions?" I inquired. + +He had. Several. I saw that Schofield's position would have to be defined +before we went any further. + +"Hm!" I said again. "Well, I shall have to rely on Schofield for those +five years in which I saw little of Michael; but unless Schofield knows +more of publishing than I do, and can enforce a better contract and a +larger sum on account than I can, I really think, Maschka, that you'll do +better to leave things to me. For one thing, it's only fair to me. My +name hasn't much of an artistic value nowadays, but it has a very +considerable commercial one, and my worth to publishers isn't as a writer +of the Lives of Geniuses." + +I could see she didn't like it; but that couldn't be helped. It had to be +so. Then, as we sat for a time in silence over the fire, I noticed again +how like her brother she was. She was not, it was true, much like him as +he had been on that last visit of mine to him ... and I sighed as I +remembered that visit. The dreadful scene had come back to me.... + +On account, I suppose, of the divergence of our paths, I had not even +heard of his illness until almost the finish. Immediately I had hastened +to the Hampstead "Home," only to find him already in the agony. He had +not been too far gone to recognise me, however, for he had muttered +something brokenly about "knowing better," that a spasm had interrupted. +Besides myself, only Maschka had been there; and I had been thankful for +the summons that had called her for a moment out of the room. I had still +retained his already cold hand; his brow had worked with that dreadful +struggle; and his eyes had been closed. + +But suddenly he had opened them, and the next moment had sat up on his +pillow. He had striven to draw his hand from mine. + +"Who are you?" he had suddenly demanded, not knowing me. + +I had come close to him. "You know me, Andriaovsky--Harrison?" I had +asked sorrowfully. + +I had been on the point of repeating my name but suddenly, after holding +my eyes for a moment with a look the profundity and familiarity of which +I cannot express, he had broken into the most ghastly haunting laugh I +have ever heard. + +"_Harrison?_" the words had broken throatily from him.... "_Oh yes; I +know you!... You shall very soon know that I know you if... if..._" + +The cough and rattle had come as Maschka had rushed into the room. In ten +seconds Andriaovsky had fallen back, dead. + + +II + +That same evening I began to make notes for Andriaovsky's "Life." On the +following day, the last of the fourth series of the _Martin Renards_ +occupied me until I was thankful to get to bed. But thereafter I could +call rather more of my time my own, and I began in good earnest to devote +myself to the "Life." + +Maschka had spoken no more than the truth when she had said that of all +men living none but I could write that "Life." His remaining behind in my +Chelsea garret that evening after the others had left had been the +beginning of a friendship that, barring that lapse of five years at the +end, had been for twenty years one of completest intimacy. Whatever money +there might or might not be in the book, I had seen _my_ opportunity in +it--the opportunity to make it the vehicle for all the aspirations, +faiths, enthusiasms, and exaltations we had shared; and I myself did not +realise until I began to note them down one tithe of the subtle links and +associations that had welded our souls together. + +Even the outward and visible signs of these had been wonderful. Setting +out from one or other of the score of garrets and cheap lodgings we had +in our time inhabited, we had wandered together, day after day, night +after night, far down East, where, as we had threaded our way among the +barrels of soused herrings and the stalls and barrows of unleavened +bread, he had taught me scraps of Hebrew and Polish and Yiddish; up into +the bright West, where he could never walk a quarter of a mile without +meeting one of his extraordinary acquaintances--furred music-hall +managers, hawkers of bootlaces, commercial magnates of his own Faith, +touts, crossing-sweepers, painted women; into Soho, where he had names +for the very horses on the cab-ranks and the dogs who slumbered under the +counters of the sellers of French literature; out to the naphtha-lights +and cries of the Saturday night street markets of Islington and the North +End Road; into City churches on wintry afternoons, into the studios of +famous artists full of handsomely dressed women, into the studios of +artists not famous, at the ends of dark and break-neck corridors; to tea +at the suburban homes of barmaids and chorus girls, to dinner in the +stables of a cavalry-barracks, to supper in cabmen's shelters. He was +possessed in some mysterious way of the passwords to doors in hoardings +behind which excavations were in progress; he knew by name the butchers +of the Deptford yards, the men in the blood-caked clothes, so inured to +blood that they may not with safety to their lives swear at one another; +he took me into an opium-cellar within a stone's-throw of Oxford Street, +and into a roof-chamber to call upon certain friends of his ... well, +they _said_ they were fire extinguishers, so I'd better not say they +were bombs. Up, down; here, there; good report, but more frequently +evil ... we had known this side of our London as well as two men may. And +our other adventures and peregrinations, not of the body, but of the +spirit ... but these must be spoken of in their proper place. + +I had arranged with Maschka that Schofield should bring me the whole of +the work Andriaovsky had left behind him; and he arrived late one +afternoon in a fourwheeler, with four great packages done up in brown +paper. I found him to be a big, shaggy-browed, red-haired, raw-boned +Lancashire man of five-and-thirty, given to confidential demonstrations +at the length of a button-shank, quite unconscious of the gulf between +his words and his right to employ them, and bent on asserting an equality +that I did not dispute by a rather aggressive use of my surname. +Andriaovsky had appointed him his executor, and he had ever the air of +suspecting that the appointment was going to be challenged. + +"A'm glad to be associated with ye in this melancholy duty, Harrison," he +said. "Now we won't waste words. Miss Andriaovsky has told me precisely +how matters stand. I had, as ye know, the honour to be poor Michael's +close friend for a period of five years, and my knowledge of him is +entirely at your disposal." + +I answered that I should be seriously handicapped without it. + +"Just so. It is Miss Andriaovsky's desire that we should pull together. +Now, in the firrst place, what is your idea about the forrm the book +should take?" + +"In the first place, if you don't mind," I replied, "perhaps we'd better +run over together the things you've brought. The daylight will be gone +soon." + +"Just as ye like, Harrison," he said, "just as ye like. It's all the same +to me...." + +I cleared a space about my writing-table at the window, and we turned to +the artistic remains of Michael Andriaovsky. + +I was astonished, first, at the enormous quantity of the stuff, and next +at its utter and complete revelation of the man. In a flash I realised +how superb that portion at least of the book was going to be. And +Schofield explained that the work he had brought represented but a +fraction of the whole that was at our disposal. + +"Ye'll know with what foolish generosity poor Michael always gave his +things away," he said. "Hallard has a grand set; so has Connolly; and +from time to time he behaved varry handsomely to myself. Artists of varry +considerable talents both Hallard and Connolly are; Michael thought +varry highly of their abilities. They express the deepest interest in the +shape your worrk will take; and that reminds me. I myself have drafted a +rough scenario of the forrm it appeared to me the 'Life' might with +advantage be cast in. A purely private opinion, ye'll understand, +Harrison, which ye'll be entirely at liberty to disregard...." + +"Well, let's finish with the work first," I said. + +With boards, loose sheets, scraps of paper, notes, studies, canvases +stretched and stripped from their stretchers, we paved half the library +floor, Schofield keeping up all the time a running fire of "Grand, +grand! A masterpiece! A gem, that, Harrison!" They were all that he said, +and presently I ceased to hear his voice. The splendour of the work +issued undimmed even from the severe test of Schofield's praise; and I +thought again with pride how I, I, was the only man living who could +adequately write that "Life.".... + +"Aren't they grand? Aren't they great?" Schofield chanted monotonously. + +"They are," I replied, coming to a consciousness of his presence again. +"But what's that?" + +Secretively he had kept one package until the last. He now removed its +wrappings and set it against a chair. + +_"There!"_ he cried. "I'll thank ye, Harrison, for your opinion of +_that!"_ + +It was the portrait Andriaovsky had refused to sell me--a portrait of +himself. + +The portrait was the climax of the display. The Lancastrian still talked; +but I, profoundly moved, mechanically gathered up the drawings from the +floor and returned them to their proper packages and folios. I was dining +at home, alone, that evening, and for form's sake I asked this faithful +dog of Andriaovsky's to share my meal; but he excused himself--he was +dining with Hallard and Connolly. When the drawings were all put away, +all save that portrait, he gave an inquisitive glance round my library. +It was the same glance as Maschka had given when she had feared to +intrude on my time; but Schofield did these things with a much more heavy +hand. He departed, but not before telling me that even my mansion +contained such treasures as it had never held before. + +That evening, after glancing at Schofield's "scenario," I carefully +folded it up again for return to him, lest when the book should appear +he should miss the pleasure of saying that I had had his guidance but +had disregarded it; then I sat down at my writing-table and took out +the loose notes I had made. I made other jottings, each on a blank sheet +for subsequent amplification; and the sheets overspread the large +leather-topped table and thrust one another up the standard of the +incandescent with the pearly silk shade. The firelight shone low and +richly in the dusky spaces of the large apartment; and the thick carpet +and the double doors made the place so quiet that I could hear my watch +ticking in my pocket. + +I worked for an hour; and then, for the purpose of making yet other +notes, I rose, crossed the room, and took down the three or four +illustrated books to which, in the earlier part of his career, +Andriaovsky had put his name. I carried them to the table, and twinkled +as I opened the first of them. It was a book of poems, and in making the +designs for them Andriaovsky had certainly _not_ found for himself. +Almost any one of the "Art Shades," as he had called them, could have +done the thing equally well, and I twinkled again. I did not propose to +have much mercy on _that_. Already Schofield's words had given birth to a +suspicion in my mind--that Andriaovsky, in permitting these fellows, +Hallard, Connolly, and the rest, to suppose that he "thought highly" of +them and their work, had been giving play to that malicious humour of +his; and they naturally did not see the joke. That joke, too, was between +himself, dead, and me, preparing to write his "Life." As if he had been +there to hear me, I chuckled, and spoke in a low voice. + +"You were pulling their legs, Michael, you know. A little rough on them +you were. But there's a book here of yours that I'm going to tell the +truth about. You and I won't pretend to one another. It's a rotten book, +and both you and I know it...." + +I don't know what it was that caused me suddenly to see just then +something that I had been looking at long enough without seeing--that +portrait of himself that I had set leaning against the back of a chair at +the end of my writing-table. It stood there, just within the soft +penumbra of shadow cast by the silk-shaded light. The canvas had been +enlarged, the seam of it clumsily sewn by Andriaovsky's own hand; but in +that half-light the rough ridge of paint did not show, and I confess that +the position and effect of the thing startled me for a moment. Had I +cared to play a trick with my fancy I could have imagined the head +wagging from side to side, with such rage and fire was it painted. He had +had the temerity to dash a reflection across one of the glasses of his +spectacles, concealing the eye behind it. The next moment I had given a +short laugh. + +"So you're there, are you?... Well, I know you agree very heartily about +that book of poems. Heigho! If I remember rightly, you made more money +out of that book than out of the others put together. But I'm going +to tell the truth about it. _I_ know better, you know...." + +Chancing, before I turned in that night, to reopen one of his folios, I +came across a drawing, there by accident, I don't doubt, that confirmed +me in my suspicion that Andriaovsky had had his quiet joke with +Schofield, Hallard, Connolly and Co. It was a sketch of Schofield's, +imitative, deplorable, a dreadful show-up of incapacity. Well enough +"drawn," in a sense, it was ... and I remembered how Andriaovsky had ever +urged that "drawing," of itself, did not exist. I winked at the portrait. +I saw his point. He himself had no peer, and, rather than invite +comparison with stars of the second magnitude, he chose his intimates +from among the peddlers of the wares that had the least possible +connection with his Art. He, too, had understood that the Compromise +must be entirely accepted or totally refused; and while, in the +divergence of our paths, he had done the one thing and I the other, we +had each done it thoroughly, with vigour, and with persistence, and each +could esteem the other, if not as a co-worker, at least as an honourable +and out-and-out opposite. + + +III + +Within a fortnight I was so deep in my task that, in the realest sense, +the greater part of my life was in the past. The significance of those +extraordinary peregrinations of ours had been in the opportunity they had +afforded for a communion of brain and spirit of unusual rarity; and all +this determined to my work with the accumulated force of its long +penning-up. I have spoken of Andriaovsky's contempt for such as had the +conception of their work that it was something they "did" as distinct +from something they "were"; and unless I succeed in making it plain that, +not as a mere figure of speech and loose hyperbole, but starkly and +literally, Andriaovsky _was_ everything he did, my tale will be +pointless. + +There was not one of the basic facts of life--of Faith, Honour, +Truth-speaking, Falsehood, Betrayal, Sin--that he did not turn, not to +moral interpretations, as others do, but to the holy purposes of his +noble and passionate Art. For any man, Sin is only mortal when it is Sin +against that which he knows to be immortally true; and the things +Andriaovsky knew to be immortally true were the things that he had gone +down into the depths in order to bring forth and place upon his paper or +canvas. These things are not for the perusal of many. Unless you love the +things that he loved with a fervour comparable in kind, if not in degree, +with his own, you may not come near them. "Truth, 'the highest thing a +man may keep,'" he said, "cannot be brought down; a man only attains it +by proving his right to it"; and I think I need not further state his +views on the democratisation of Art. Of any result from the elaborate +processes of Art-education he held out no hope whatever. "It is in a man, +or it isn't," he ever declared; "if it is, he must bring it out for +himself; if it isn't, let him turn to something useful and have done with +it." I need not press the point that in these things he was almost a +solitary. + +He made of these general despotic principles the fiercest personal +applications. I have heard his passionate outbreak of "Thief! Liar! +Fool!" over a drawing when it has seemed to him that a man has not +vouched with the safety of his immortal soul for the shapes and lines he +has committed to it. I have seen him get into such a rage with the eyes +of the artist upon him. I have heard the ice and vinegar of his words +when a good man, for money, has consented to modify and emasculate +his work; and there lingers in my memory his side of a telephone +conversation in which he told a publisher who had suggested that he +should do the same thing precisely what he thought of him. And on the +other hand, he once walked from Aldgate to Putney Hill, with a loose heel +on one of his boots, to see a man of whom he had seen but a single +drawing. See him he did, too, in spite of the man's footman, his liveried +parlourmaid, and the daunting effect of the electric brougham at the +door. + +"He's a good man," he said to me afterwards, ruefully looking at the +place where his boot-heel had been. "You've got to take your good where +you find it. I don't care whether he's a rich amateur or skin-and-grief +in a garret as long as he's got the stuff in him. Nobody else could have +fetched me up from the East End this afternoon.... So long; see you in a +week or so--" + +This was the only time I ever knew him break that sacred time in which he +celebrated each year the Passover and the Feast of Tabernacles. I doubt +whether this observance of the ritual of his Faith was of more essential +importance to him than that other philosophical religion towards which he +sometimes leaned. I have said what his real religion was. + +But to the "Life." + +With these things, and others, as a beginning, I began to add page to +page, phase to phase; and, in a time the shortness of which astonished +myself, I had pretty well covered the whole of the first ten years of our +friendship. Maschka called rather less, and Schofield rather more +frequently, than I could have wished; and my surmise that he, at least, +was in love with her, quickly became a certainty. This was to be seen +when they called together. + +It was when they came together that something else also became apparent. +This was their slightly derisive attitude towards the means by which I +had attained my success. It was not the less noticeable that it took the +form of compliments on the outward and visible results. Singly I could +manage them; together they were inclined to get a little out of hand. + +I would have taxed them fairly and squarely with this, singly or +together, but for one thing--the beautiful ease with which the "Life" was +proceeding. Never had I felt so completely _en rapport_ with my subject. +So beautifully was the thing running that I had had the idle fancy of +some actual urge from Andriaovsky himself; and each night, before sitting +down to work, I set his portrait at my desk's end, as if it had been some +kind of an observance. The most beautiful result of all was, that I felt +what I had not felt for five years--that I too was not "doing" my work, +but actually living and being it. At times I took up the sheets I had +written as ignorant of their contents as if they had proceeded from +another pen--so freshly they came to me. And once, I vow, I found, in my +own handwriting, a Polish name, that I might (it is true) have +subconsciously heard at some time or other, but that stirred no chord in +my memory even when I saw it written. Maschka checked and confirmed it +afterwards; and I did not tell her by what odd circumstance it had issued +from my pen. + +The day did come, however, when I found I must have it out with Schofield +about this superciliousness I have mentioned. The _Falchion_ had just +begun to print the third series of my _Martin Renard_; and this had been +made the occasion of another of Schofield's ponderous compliments. I +acknowledged it with none too much graciousness; and then he said: + +"I've na doubt, Harrison, that by this time the famous sleuth-hound of +crime has become quite a creature of flesh and blood to ye." + +It was the tone as much as the words that riled me; and I replied that +his doubts or the lack of them were a privacy with which I did not wish +to meddle. From being merely a bore the fellow was rapidly becoming +insolent. + +"But I opine he'll get wearisome now and then, and in that case poor +Michael's 'Life' will come as a grand relaxation," he next observed. + +If I meant to have it out, here was my opportunity. + +"I should have thought you'd have traced a closer connection than that +between the two things," I remarked. + +He shot a quick glance at me from beneath his shaggy russet brows. + +"How so? I see varry little connection," he said suspiciously. + +"There's this connection--that while you speak with some freedom of what +I do, you are quite willing to take advantage of it when it serves +your turn." + +"'Advantage,' Harrison?" he said slowly. + +"Of the advertisement _Martin Renard_ gives you. I must point out that +you condone a thing when you accept the benefit of it. Either you +shouldn't have come to me at all, or you should deny yourself the +gratification of these slurs." + +"Slurrrrs?" he repeated loweringly. + +"Both of you--you and Miss Andriaovsky, or Maschka as I call her, _tout +court_. Don't suppose I don't know as well as you do the exact worth of +my 'sleuth-hound,' as you call him. You didn't come to me solely because +I knew Andriaovsky well; you came because I've got the ear of the +public also; and I tell you plainly that, however much you dislike it, +Michael's fame as far as I'm of any use to him, depends on the +popularity of _Martin Renard."_ + +He shook his big head. "This is what I feared," he said. + +"More," I continued, "you can depend upon it that Michael, wherever he +is, knows all about that." + +"Ay, ay," he said sagely, "I misdoubt your own artistic soul's only to be +saved by the writing of poor Michael's 'Life,' Harrison." + +"Leave that to me and Michael; we'll settle that. In the meantime, if you +don't like it, write and publish the 'Life' yourself." + +He bent his brows on me. + +"It's precisely what I wanted to do from the varry first," he said. "If +you'd cared to accept my symposium in the spirit in which it was offered, +I cannot see that the 'Life' would have suffered. But now, when you're +next in need of my services, ye'll mebbe send for me." + +He took up his hat. I assured him, and let him take it in what sense he +liked, that I would do so; and he left me. + +Not for one single moment did I intend that they should bounce me like +that. With or without their sanction and countenance, I intended to write +and publish that "Life." Schofield--in my own house too--had had the +advantage that a poor and ill-dressed man has over one who is not poor +and ill-dressed; but my duty first of all was neither to him nor to +Maschka, but to my friend. + +The worst of it was, however, that I had begun dimly to suspect that +the Lancastrian had hit at least one nail on the head. "Your artistic +soul's only to be saved by writing poor Michael's 'Life,'" he had +informed me... and it was truer than I found it pleasant to believe. +Perhaps, after all, my first duty was not to Andriaovsky, but to myself. +I could have kicked myself that the fool had been perspicacious enough to +see it, but that did not alter the fact. I saw that in the sense in which +Andriaovsky understood Sin, I had sinned.... + +My only defence lay in the magnitude of my sin. I had sinned +thoroughly, out-and-out, and with a will. It had been the only +respectable way--Andriaovsky's own way when he had cut the company +of an Academician to hobnob with a vagabond. I had at least instituted +no comparison, lowered no ideal, was innocent of the accursed attitude +of facing-both-ways that degrades all lovely and moving things. I was, by +a paradox, too black a sinner not to hope for redemption.... + +I fell into a long musing on these things.... + +Had any of the admirers of _Martin Renard_ entered the library of his +author that night he would have seen an interesting thing. He would +have seen the creator of that idol of clerks and messenger-lads and +fourth-form boys frankly putting the case before a portrait propped up on +a chair. He would have heard that popular author haranguing, pleading, +curiously on his defence, turning the thing this way and that. + +"If _you'd_ gone over, Michael," that author argued, "you'd have done +precisely the same thing. If I'd stuck it out, we were, after all, of a +kind; We've got to be one thing or the other--isn't that so, Andriaovsky? +Since I made up my mind, I've faced only one way--only one way. I've kept +your ideal and theirs entirely separate and distinct. Not one single +beautiful phrase will you find in the _Martin Renards;_ I've cut 'em +out, every one. I may have ceased to worship, but I've profaned no +temple.... And think what I _might_ have done--what they all do! They +deal out the slush, but with an apologetic glance at the Art Shades; +_you_ know the style!--'Oh, Harrison; he does that detective rubbish, but +that's not Harrison; if Harrison liked to drop that he could be a fine +artist!'--I _haven't_ done that. I _haven't_ run with the hare and hunted +with the hounds. I _am_ just Harrison, who does that detective +rubbish!... These other chaps, Schofield and Connolly, _they're_ the real +sinners, Michael--the fellows who can't make up their minds to be one +thing or the other ('artists of considerable abilities'--ha! ha!).... Of +course you know Maschka's going to marry that chap? What'll _they_ do, do +you think? He'll scrape up a few pounds out of the stew where I find +thousands, marry her, and they'll set up a salon and talk the stuff the +chairs talked that night, you remember!... But you wait until I finish +your 'Life.'..." + +I laid it all before him, almost as if I sought to propitiate him. I +might have been courting his patronage for his own "Life." Then, with a +start, I came to, to find myself talking nonsense to the portrait that +years before Andriaovsky had refused to sell me. + + +IV + +The first check I experienced in the hitherto so easy flow of the "Life" +came at the chapter that dealt with Andriaovsky's attitude towards +"professionalism" in Art. He was inflexible on this point; there ought +not to be professional artists. When it was pointed out that his position +involved a premium upon the rich amateur, he merely replied that riches +had nothing to do with the question, and that the starver in the garret +was not excused for his poverty's sake from the observance of the +implacable conditions. He spoke literally of the "need" to create, +usually in the French term, _besogne_; and he was inclined to regard the +imposition of this need on a man rather as a curse laid upon him than as +a privilege and a pleasure. But I must not enlarge upon this further than +to observe that this portion of his "Life" which I was approaching +coincided in point of time with that period of my own life at which I had +been confronted with the alternative of starving for Art's sake or +becoming rich by supplying a clamorous trade demand. + +It came, this check I have spoken of, one night, as I was in the very +middle of a sentence; and though I have cudgelled my brains in seeking +how best I can describe it, I am reduced to the simple statement that it +was as arresting, as sharp, actual and impossible to resist, as if my +hand had been seized and pinned down in its passage across the paper. I +can even see again the fragment of the sentence I had written: "... _and +the mere contemplation of a betrayal so essential--_" Then came that +abrupt and remarkable stop. It was such an experience as I had formerly +known only in nightmare. + +I sat there looking blankly and stupidly at my own hand. And not only was +my hand arrested, but my brain also had completely ceased to work. For +the life of me I could not recall the conclusion of the sentence I had +planned a moment before. + +I looked at my hand, and looked again; and as I looked I remembered +something I had been reading only a few days before--a profoundly +unsettling description of an experiment in auto-suggestion. The +experiment had consisted of the placing of a hand upon a table, and the +laying upon it the conjuration that, the Will notwithstanding, it should +not move. And as I watched my own hand, pale on the paper in the pearly +light, I knew that, by some consent to the nullification of the Will that +did not proceed from, the Self I was accustomed to regard as my own, that +injunction was already placed upon it. My conscious and deliberate Will +was powerless. I could only sit there and wait until whatever inhibition +had arrested my writing hand should permit it to move forward again. + +It must have been several minutes before such a tingling of the nerves as +announces that the blood is once more returning to a cramped member +warned me that I was about to be released. Warily I awaited my moment; +then I plucked my hand to myself again with a suddenness that caused a +little blot of ink to spurt from my fountain-pen on to the surface of the +paper. I drew a deep breath. I was free again. And with the freedom came +a resolve--that whatever portion of myself had been responsible for this +prank should not repeat it if I could possibly prevent it. + +But scarcely had I come, as I may say (and not without a little gush of +alarm now that it was over), to myself, when I was struck by a thought. +It was a queer wild sort of thought. It fetched me out of my chair and +set me striding across the library to a lower shelf in the farthest +corner. This shelf was the shelf on which I kept my letter-files. I +stooped and ran my fingers along the backs of the dusty row. I drew out +the file for 1900, and brought it back to my writing-table. My contracts, +I ought to say, reposed in a deed-box at my agent's office; but my files +contained, in the form of my agent's letters, a sufficient record of my +business transactions. + +I opened the file concertina-wise, and turned to the section lettered +"R." I drew out the correspondence that related to the sale of the first +series of the _Martin Renards_. As I did so I glanced at the movable +calendar on my table. The date was January 20th. + +The file contained no letters for January of any significance whatever. + +The thought that had half formed in my brain immediately became nonsense. +I replaced the letters in their compartment, and took the file back to +its shelf again. For some minutes I paced the library irresolutely; then +I decided I would work no more that night. When I gathered together my +papers I was careful to place that with the half-finished sentence on the +top, so that with the first resting of my eyes upon it on the morrow my +memory might haply be refreshed. + +I tried again to finish that sentence on the morrow. With certain +modifications that I need not particularise here, my experience was the +same as on the previous night. + +It was the same when I made the attempt on the day after that. + +At ten o'clock of the night of the fourth day I completed the sentence +without difficulty. I just sat down in my chair and wrote it. + +With equal ease I finished the chapter on professional artists. + +It was not likely that Schofield would have refrained from telling +Maschka of our little difference on our last meeting; and within a week +of the date I have just mentioned I learned that she knew all about it. +And, as the circumstances of my learning this were in a high degree +unusual, I will relate them with such clearness as I am able. + +I ought first to say, however, that the selection of the drawings that +were to illustrate the book having been made (the drawings for which my +own text was to serve as commentary would be the better expression), the +superintendence of their production had been left to Schofield. He, +Maschka, and I passed the proofs in consultation. The blocks were almost +ready; and the reason for their call that evening was to consider the +possibility of having all ready for production in the early spring--a +possibility which was contingent on the state of advancement of my own +share of the book. + +That evening I had experienced my second check. (I omit those that had +immediately succeeded the first one, as resembling that one so closely in +the manner of their coming.) It had not come by any means so completely +and definitively as the former one, but it had sufficed to make my +progress, both mentally and mechanically, so sluggish and struggling +a performance that for the time being I had given up the attempt, and was +once more regarding with a sort of perturbed stupor my hand that held the +pen. Andriaovsky's portrait stood in its usual place, on the chair at the +end of my writing-table; but I had eyes for nothing but that refractory +hand of mine. + +Now it is true that during the past weeks I had studied Andriaovsky's +portrait thoroughly enough to be able to call up the vivid mental image +of it at will; but that did not entirely account for the changed aspect +with which it now presented itself to that uncomprehended sense within +us that makes of these shadows such startling realities. Flashing and +life-like as was the presentation on the canvas (mind you, I was not +looking at it, but all the time at my own hand), it was dead paint by +comparison with that _mental image_ which I saw (if I may so use a term +of which custom has restricted the meaning to one kind of seeing) as +plainly as I ever saw Andriaovsky in his life. I know now that it was +by virtue of that essential essence that bound us heart and brain and +soul together that I so saw him, eyes glittering, head sardonically +wagging, fine mouth shaping phrases of insight and irony. And the strange +thing was, that I could not have located this so living image by +confining it to any portion of the space within the four walls of my +library. It was before me, behind me, within my head, about me, _was me_, +invading and possessing the "me" that sat at the table. At one moment +the eyes mockingly invited me to go on with my work; the next, a frown +had seated itself on that massive pylon of his forehead; and then +suddenly his countenance changed entirely.... A wave of horror broke +over me. He was suddenly as I had seen him that last time in the +Hampstead "Home"--sitting up on his pillow, looking into my eyes with +that terrible look of profundity and familiarity, and asking me who I +was.... _"Harrison--ha ha!... You shall very soon know that I know you, +if ..."_ + +It is but by the accidence of our limited experience that sounds are loud +or soft to that inner ear of us; these words were at one and the same +time a dreadful thunder and a voice interstellarly inaccessible and +withdrawn. They, too, were before, behind, without, and within. And +incorporated (I know not how else to express it) with these words were +other words, in the English I knew, in the Hebrew in which he had quoted +them from the sacred Books of his People, in all languages, in no +language save that essential communication of which languages are but the +inessential husk and medium--words that told me that though I took the +Wings of the Morning and fled into the uttermost parts of the earth, yea, +though I made my bed in Hell, I could not escape him.... + +He had kept his word. I _did_ know that he knew who and what I was.... + +I cannot tell whether my lips actually shaped the question that even in +that moment burst from me. + +"But Form--and Forms? It _is_ then true that all things are but aspects +of One thing?..." + +"Yes--in death," the voice seemed to reply. + +My next words, I know, were actually spoken aloud. + +"Then tell me--tell me--_do you not wish me to write it?"_ + +Suddenly I leapt out of my chair with a gulping cry. A voice _had_ +spoken.... + +"Of course we wish you to write it...." + +For one instant of time my vision seemed to fold on itself like smoke; +then it was gone. The face into which I was wildly staring was Maschka's, +and behind her stood Schofield. They had been announced, but I had heard +nothing of it. + +"Were you thinking of _not_ writing it?" she demanded, while Schofield +scowled at me. + +"No--no--," I stammered, as I got up and tardily placed them chairs. + +Schofield did not speak, but he did not remove his eyes from me. Somehow +I could not meet them. + +"Well," she said, "Jack had already told me that you seemed in two minds +about it. That's what we've called about--to know definitely what it is +you propose to do." + +I saw that she had also called, if necessary, to quarrel. I began to +recover a little. + +"Did you tell her that?" I demanded of Schofield. "If you did, +you--misinterpreted me." + +In my house, he ignored the fact that I was in the room. He replied to +Maschka. + +"I understood Mr. Harrison to say definitely, and in those words, that if +I didn't like the way in which he was writing Michael's 'Life,' I might +write and publish one myself," he said. + +"I did say that," I admitted; "but I never said that whatever _you_ did I +should not go on with mine." + +"Yours!" cried Maschka. "What right have _you_ in my brother's 'Life'?" + +I quickly told her. + +"I have the right to write my recollections of him, and, subject to +certain provisions of the Law, to base anything on them I think fit," I +replied. + +"But," she cried aghast, "there can't be _two_ 'Lives'!..." + +"It's news to me that two were contemplated," I returned. "The point is, +that I can get mine published, and you can't." + +Schofield's harsh voice sounded suddenly--but again to Maschka, not to +me. + +"Ye might remind Mr. Harrison that others have capabilities in business +besides himself. Beyond a doubt our sales will be comparatively small, +but they'll be to such as have not made the great refusal." + +Think of it!... I almost laughed. + +"Oh!... Been trying it?" I inquired. + +He made no reply. + +"Well, those who have made the refusal have at least had something to +refuse," I said mildly. Then, realising that this was mere quarrelling, I +returned to the point. "Anyhow, there's no question of refusing to write +the 'Life.' I admit that during the last fortnight I've met with certain +difficulties; but the task isn't so easy as perhaps it looks.... I'm +making progress." + +"I suppose," she said hesitatingly, after a pause, "that you don't care +to show it as far as it is written?" + +For a moment I also hesitated. I thought I saw where she was. Thanks to +that Lancashire jackanapes, there was division between us; and I had +pretty well made up my mind, not only that he thought himself quite +capable of writing Andriaovsky's "Life," himself, but that he had +actually made an attempt in that direction. They had come in the +suspicion that I was throwing them over, and, though that suspicion was +removed, Maschka wished, if there was any throwing over to be done, to do +it herself. In a word, she wanted to compare me with Schofield. + +"To see it as far as it is written," I repeated slowly.... "Well, you +may. That is, you, Michael's sister, may. But on the condition that +you neither show it to anybody else nor speak of it to anybody else." + +"Ah!" she said.... "And only on those conditions?" + +"Only on those conditions." + +I saw a quick glance between them. "Shall we tell him?" it seemed to +say.... + +"Including the man Michael's sister is going to marry?" she said +abruptly. + +My attitude was deeply apologetic, but, "Including anybody whomsoever," I +answered. + +"Then," she said, rising, "we won't bother. But will you at least let us +know, soon, when we may expect your text?" + +"I will let you know," I replied slowly, "one week from to-day." + +On that assurance they left; and when they had gone I crossed once more +to the lower shelf that contained my letter-files. I turned up the file +for 1900 once more. During their visit I had had an idea. + +I ran through the letters, and then replaced them.... + +Yes, I ought to be able to let them know within the week. + + +V + +Against the day when I myself shall come to die, there are in the +pigeon-holes of the newspaper libraries certain biographical records +that deal roughly with the outward facts of my life; and these, +supplemented by documents I shall place in the hands of my executors, +will tell the story of how I leaped at a bound into wealth and fame with +the publication of _The Cases of Martin Renard_. I will set down as much +of that story as has its bearing on my present tale. + +_Martin Renard_ was not immediately accepted by the first editor to whom +it was offered. It does not suffice that in order to be popular a thing +shall be merely good--or bad; it must be bad--or good--in a particular +way. For taking the responsibility when they happen to miss that +particular way editors are paid their salaries. When they happen to hit +it they grow fat on circulation-money: Since it becomes me ill to quarrel +with the way in which any man earns his money, I content myself with +merely stating the fact. + +By the time the fourth editor had refused my series I was about at my +last gasp. To write the things at all I had had to sink four months in +time; and debts, writs and pawnshops were my familiars. I was little +better off than Andriaovsky at his very worst. I had read the first of +the _Martin Renards_ to him, by the way; the gigantic outburst of mirth +with which he had received it had not encouraged me to read him a second. +I wrote the others in secret. + +I wrote the things in the spring and summer of 1900; and by the last day +of September I was confident that I had at last sold them. Except by a +flagrant breach of faith, the editor in whose desk they reposed could +hardly decline them. As it subsequently happened, I have now nothing but +gratitude for him that he did, after all, decline them; for I had a +duplicate copy "on offer" in another quarter. + +He declined them, I say; and I was free to possess my soul again among my +writs, debts and pawnshops. + +But four days later I received the alternative offer. It was from the +_Falchion_. The _Falchion_, as you may remember, has since run no less +than five complete series of _Martin Renards_. It bought "both sides," +that is to say, both British and American serial rights. Of the twelve +_Martin Renards_ I had written, my wise agent had offered the _Falchion_ +six only. On his advice I accepted the offer. + +Instantaneously with the publication of those six stories came my +success. In two continents I was "home"--home in the hearts of the +public. I had my small cheque--it was not much more than a hundred +pounds--but "Wait," said my agent; "let's see what we can do with the +other six...." + +Precisely what he did with them only he and I know; but I don't mind +saying that L3000 did not buy my first serial rights. Then came second +and third rights, and after them the book rights, British, American, and +Colonial. Then came the translation rights. In French, my creation is, of +course, as in English, _Martin Renard_; in German he is Martin Fuchs; and +by a similar process you can put him--my translators have put him--into +Italian, Swedish, Norwegian, Russian, and three-fourths of the tongues of +Europe. And this was the first series only. It was only with the second +series that the full splendour of my success appeared. My very imitators +grew rich; my agent's income from his comparatively small percentage on +my royalties was handsome; and he chuckled and bade me wait for the +dramatic rights and the day when the touring companies should get to +business.... + +I had "got there." + +And I remember, sadly enough now, my first resolution when the day came +when I was able to survey the situation with anything approaching calm. +It was, "Enough." For the rest of my days I need not know poverty again. +Thenceforward I need not, unless I chose, do any but worthy work. _Martin +Renard_ had served his purpose handsomely, and I intended to have nothing +more to do with him. + +Then came that dazzling offer for the second series.... + +I accepted it. + +I accepted the third likewise; and I have told you about the fourth.... + +I have tried to kill _Martin Renard_. He was killing me. I have, in +the pages of the _Falchion_, actually killed him; but I have had to +resuscitate him. I cannot escape from him.... + +I am not setting down one word more of this than bears directly on my +tale of Andriaovsky's "Life." For those days, when my whole future had +hung in the balance, _were the very days covered by that portion of +Andriaovsky's life at which I had now arrived_. I had reached, and was +hesitating at, our point of divergence. Those checks and releases which I +had at first found so unaccountable corresponded with the vicissitudes of +the _Martin Renard_ negotiations. + +The actual dates did not, of course, coincide--I had quickly discovered +the falsity of that scent. Neither did the intervals between them, with +the exception of those few days in which I had been unable to complete +that half-written sentence--the few days immediately prior to my +(parallel) acceptance by the _Falchion_. But, by that other reckoning +of time, of mental and spiritual experience, _they tallied exactly_. +The gambling chances of five years ago meant present stumblings and +haltings; the breach of faith of an editor long since meant a present +respite; and another week should bring me to that point of my so +strangely reduplicated experience that, allowing for the furious mental +rate at which I was now living, would make another node with that other +point in the more slowly lived past that had marked my acceptance of the +offer for the second half-dozen of the _Martin Renards_. + +It had been on this hazardous calculation that I had made my promise to +Maschka. + +I passed that week in a state of constantly increasing apprehension. +True, I worked at the "Life," even assiduously; but it was plain sailing, +mere cataloguing of certain of Andriaovsky's works, a chapter I had +deliberately planned _pour mieux sauter_--to enhance the value of the +penultimate and final chapters. These were the real crux of the "Life." +These were what I was reserving myself for. These were to show that only +his body was dead, and that his spirit still lived and his work was +still being done wherever a man could be found whose soul burned within +him with the same divine ardour. + +But I was now realising, day by day, hour by hour more clearly, what I +was incurring. I was penning nothing less than my own artistic damnation. +Self-condemned, indeed, I had been this long time; but I was now making +the world a party to the sentence. The crowning of Andriaovsky involved +my own annihilation; his "Life" would be my "Hic Jacet." And yet I was +prepared, nay, resolved, to write it. I had started, and I would go +forward. I would not be spewed with the lukewarm out of the mouth of that +Spirit from which proceeds all that is bright and pure and true. The +vehemence with which I had rejected its divine bidding should at least be +correspondent with my adoration of it. The snivelling claims of the +Schofields I spurned. If, as they urged, "an artist must live," he must +live royally or starve with a tight mouth. No complaining.... + +And one other claim I urged in the teeth of this Spirit, which, if it +was a human Spirit at all, it could not disregard. Those pigeon-holed +obituaries of mine will proclaim to the world, one and all, the virtues +of my public life. In spite of my royal earnings, I am not a rich man. I +have not accepted wealth without accepting the personal responsibility +for it. Sick men and women in more than one hospital lie in wards +provided by _Martin Renard_ and myself; and I am not dishonoured in my +Institution at Poplar. Those vagrant wanderings with Andriaovsky have +enabled me to know the poor and those who help the poor. My personal +labours in the administration of the Institute are great, for outside +the necessary routine I leave little to subordinates. I have declined +honours offered to me for my "services to Literature," and I have never +encouraged a youth, of parts or lacking them, to make of Literature a +profession. And so on and so forth. All this, and more, you will read +when the day comes; and I don't doubt the _Falchion_ will publish my +memoir in mourning borders... + +But to resume. + +I finished the chapter I have mentioned. Maschka and her fiance kept +punctiliously away. Then, before sitting down to the penultimate +chapter, I permitted myself the relaxation of a day in the country. + +I can't tell you precisely where I went; I only know it was somewhere in +Buckinghamshire, and that, ordering the car to await me a dozen miles +farther on, I set out to walk. Nor can I tell you what I saw during that +walk; I don't think I saw anything. There was a red wintry disc of a sun, +I remember, and a land grey with rime; and that is all. I was entirely +occupied with the attempt I was about to make. I think that even then +I had the sense of doom, for I know not how otherwise I should have +found myself several times making little husbandings of my force, as if +conscious that I should need it all. For I was determined, as never in my +life have I been determined, to write that "Life." And I intended, not to +wait to be challenged, but to challenge.... I met the car, returning in +search of me; and I dined at a restaurant, went home to bed, and slept +dreamlessly. + +On the morrow I deliberately refrained from work until the evening. My +challenge to Andriaovsky and the Powers he represented should be boldly +delivered at the very gates of their own Hour. Not until half-past eight, +with the curtains drawn, the doors locked, and orders given that on no +account whatever was I to be disturbed, did I switch on the pearly light, +place Andriaovsky's portrait in its now accustomed place, and draw my +chair up to my writing-table. + + +VI + +But before I could resume the "Life" at the point at which I had left it, +I felt that there were certain preliminaries to be settled. It was not +that I wished to sound a parley with any view of coming to terms; I had +determined what the terms were to be. As a boxer who leaps from his +corner the moment the signal is given, astounding with suddenness his +less prompt antagonist, so I should be ready when the moment came. But I +wished the issue to be defined. I did not propose to submit the whole of +my manhood to the trial. I was merely asserting my right to speak of +certain things which, if one chose to exaggerate their importance by a +too narrow and exclusive consideration of them, I might conceivably be +thought to have betrayed. + +I drew a sheet of paper towards me, and formally made out my claim. It +occupied not more than a dozen lines, and its nature has already been +sufficiently indicated. I put my pen down again, leaned back in my chair, +and waited. + +I waited, but nothing happened. It seemed that if this was my attempt to +justify myself, the plea was certainly not disallowed. But neither had I +any sign that it was allowed; and presently it occurred to me that +possibly I had couched it in terms too general. Perhaps a more particular +claim would meet with a different reception. + +During the earlier stages of the book's progress I had many times +deliberated on the desirability of a Preface that should state succinctly +what I considered to be my qualifications for the task. Though I had +finally decided against any such statement, the form of the Preface might +nevertheless serve for the present occasion. I took another sheet of +paper, headed it "Preface," and began once more to write. + +I covered the page; I covered a second; and half-way down the third I +judged my statement to be sufficient. Again I laid down my pen, leaned +back, and waited. + +The Preface also produced no result whatever. + +Again I considered; and then I saw more clearly. It came to me that, both +in the first statement and in the Preface, I was merely talking to +myself. I was convincing myself, and losing both time and strength in +doing so. The Power with which I sought to come to grips was treating my +vapourings with high disregard. To be snubbed thus by Headquarters +would never, never do.... + +Then I saw more clearly still. It seemed that my _right to challenge_ +was denied. I was not an adversary, with the rights and honours of an +adversary, but a trangressor, whose trangression had already several +times been sharply visited, and would be visited once more the moment it +was repeated. I might, in a sense, please myself whether I brought myself +into Court; but, once there, I was not the arraigner in the box, but the +arraigned in the dock. + +And I rebelled hotly. Did I sit there, ready for the struggle, only to be +told that there could be no struggle? Did that vengeful Angel of the Arts +ignore my very existence?... By Yea and Nay I swore that he should take +notice of me! Once before, a mortal had wrestled a whole night with an +angel, and though he had been worsted, it had not been before he had +compelled the Angel to reveal himself! And so would I... + +Challenge, title to challenge, tentatives, preliminaries, I suddenly cast +them all aside. We would have it in deeds, not in further words. I opened +a drawer, took out the whole of the "Life" so far written, and began to +read. I wanted to grasp once more the plan of it in its entirety. + +Page after page, I read on, with deepening attention. Quickly I ran +through half of it. Then I began to concentrate myself still more +closely. There would come a point at which I should be flush with the +stream of it again, again feel the force of its current; I felt myself +drawing nearer to that point; when I should reach it I would go ahead +without a pause... + +I read to the end of Chapter Fifteen, the last completed chapter. Then +instantly I took my pen and wrote, "Chapter Sixteen...." + +I felt the change at the very first word. + + * * * * * + +I will not retraverse any ground I have covered before. If I have not +already made clear my former sensations of the petrefaction of hand and +brain, I despair of being able to do so any better now. Suffice it that +once more I felt that inhibition, and that once more I was aware of the +ubiquitous presence of the image of the dead artist. Once more I heard +those voices, near as thunder and yet interstellarly remote, crying that +solemn warning, that though I took the Wings of the Morning, made my bed +in Hell, or cried aloud upon the darkness to cover me, there was one +Spirit from which I could not hope to escape. I felt the slight crawling +of my flesh on my bones as I listened. + +But there was now a difference. On the former occasion, to hear again +those last horrible words of his, "_You shall very soon know I know who +you are if_..." had been the signal for the total unnerving of me and for +that uncontrollable cry, "_Don't you then want me to write it_?" But now +I intended to write it if I could. In order that I might tell him so I +was now seeking him out, in what heights or depths I knew not, at what +peril to myself I cared not. I cared not, since I now felt that I could +not continue to live unless I pressed to the uttermost attempt. And I +must repeat, and repeat again, and yet repeat, that in that hour +Andriaovsky was immanent about me, in the whole of me, in the last fibre +and cell of me, in all my thoughts, from my consciousness that I was +sitting there at my own writing-table to my conception of God Himself. + +It may seem strange--whether it does so or not will depend on the kind + of man you yourself are--that as long as I was content to recognise this +immanence of Andriaovsky's enlarged and liberated spirit, _and not to +dispute with it_, I found nothing but mildness and benignity in my +hazardous experience. More, I felt that, in that clear region to which +in my intensified state of consciousness I was lifted, I was able to move +(I must trust you to understand the word aright) without restraint, nay, +with an amplitude and freedom of movement past setting down, as long as +I was satisfied to possess my soul in quiescence. The state itself was +inimical neither to my safety nor to my sanity. I was conscious of it +as a transposition into another register of the scale of life. And, as +in this life we move in ignorance and safety only by accepting the +hair-balance of stupendous forces, so now I felt that my safety depended +on my observation of the conditions that governed that region of light +and clarity and Law. + +Of clarity and Law; save in the terms of the great abstractions I may not +speak of it. And that is well-nigh equal to saying that I may not speak +of it at all. The hand that would have written of it lay (I never for one +moment ceased to be conscious) heavy as stone on a writing-table in some +spot quite accidental in my new sense of locality; the tongue that would +have spoken of it seemed to slumber in my mouth. And I knew that both +dumbness and stillness were proper. Their opposites would have convicted +me (the flat and earthly comparison must be allowed) of intrusion into +some Place of beauty and serenity for which the soilure of my birth +disqualified me. + +For beauty and serenity, austerity and benignity and peace, were the +conditions of that Place. To other Places belonged the wingy and robed +and starry and golden things that made the heavens of other lives than +that which I had shared with Andriaovsky; here, white and shapely Truth +alone reigned. None questioned, for all knew; none sinned, for sin was +already judged and punished in its committal; none demonstrated, for +all things were evident; and those eager to justify themselves were +permitted no farther than the threshold.... + +And it was to justify, to challenge, to maintain a right, that I was +there. I was there to wrestle, if needs be, with the Angel of that Place, +to vanquish him or to compel him to reveal himself. I had not been +summoned; I had thrust myself there unbidden. There was a moment in which +I noticed that my writing-table was a little more than ordinarily removed +from me, but very little, not more than if I had been looking over the +shoulder of another writer at it; and I saw my chapter heading. At the +sight of it something of the egotism that had prompted me to write it +stirred in me again; everywhere was Andriaovsky's calm face, priest and +Angel himself; and I became conscious that I was trying to write a +phrase. I also became conscious that I was being pitifully warned not to +do so... + +Suddenly my whole being was flooded with a frightful pang of pain. + +It was not local. It was no more to be located than the other immanences +of which I have spoken. It was Pain, pure, essential, dissociated; and +with the coming of it that fair Place had grown suddenly horrible and +black. + +And I knew that the shock came _of my own resistance_, and that it would +cease to afflict me the moment I ceased to resist. + +I did cease. Instantly the pain passed. But as when a knife is plucked +from a wound, so only with its passing did I shriek aloud.... + +For I know not how many minutes I sat in stupefaction. Then, as with +earthly pains, that are assuaged with the passing of accidental time, the +memory of it softened a little. Blunderingly and only half consciously, I +cast about to collect my dispersed force. + +For--already I was conscious of it--there still remained one claim that +even in thought I had not advanced. I would, were I permitted, still +write that "Life," but, since it was decreed so, I would no longer urge +that in writing it I justified myself. So I might but write it, I would +embrace my own portion, the portion of doom; yea, though it should be a +pressing of the searing-iron to my lips, I would embrace it; my name +should not appear. For the mere sake of the man I had loved I would write +it, in self-scorn and abasement, humbly craving not to be denied.... + +_"Oh, let me but do for Love of you what a sinful man can!"_ I +groaned.... + +A moment later I had again striven to do so. So do we all, when we +think that out of a poor human Love we can alter the Laws by which our +state exists. And with such a hideous anguish as was again mine are we +visited.... + +And I knew now what that anguish was. It was the twining of body from +spirit that is called the bitterness of Death; for not all of the body +are the pangs of that severance. With that terrible sword of impersonal +Pain the God of Peace makes sorrowful war that Peace may come again. With +its flame He ringed the bastions of Heaven when Satan made assault. Only +on the Gorgon-image of that Pain in the shield may weak man look; and +its blaze and ire had permeated with deadly nearness the "everywhere" +where I was... + +"_Oh, not for Love? Not even for Love?_" broke the agonised question from +me.... + +The next moment I had ceased, and ceased for ever, to resist. +Instantaneously the terrible flashing of that sword became no more +than the play of lightning one sees far away in the wide cloudfields +on a peaceful summer's twilight. I felt a gentle and overpowering +sleep coming over me; and as it folded me about I saw, with the last +look of my eyes, my own figure, busily writing at the table. + +Had I, then, prevailed? Had Pain so purged me that I was permitted to +finish my task? And had my tortured cry, "Oh, not even for Love?" +been heard? + +I did not know. + + * * * * * + +I came to myself to find that my head had fallen on my desk. The light +still shone within its pearly shade, and in the penumbra of its shadow +the portrait of Andriaovsky occupied its accustomed place. About me were +my papers, and my pen lay where it had fallen from my hand. + +At first I did not look at my papers. I merely saw that the uppermost of +them was written on. But presently I took it up, and looked at it +stupidly. Then, with no memory at all of how I had come to write what was +upon it, I put it down again. + +It was indeed a completion. + +But it was not of Andriaovsky's "Life" that it was the completion. As you +may or may not know, Andriaovsky's "Life" is written by "his friend John +Schofield." I had been allowed to write, but it was my own condemnation +that, in sadness and obedience, in the absence of wrath but also in the +absence of mercy, I had written. By the Law I had broken I was broken in +my turn. It was the draft for the fifth series of _The Cases of Martin +Renard_. + +No, not for Love--not even for Love.... + + + +***END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WIDDERSHINS*** + + +******* This file should be named 14168.txt or 14168.zip ******* + + +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: +https://www.gutenberg.org/dirs/1/4/1/6/14168 + + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. 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